Category talk:Wikipedians by interest

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Category name? (was Wikipedians by fields of interest)[edit]

Is there any particular reason not to simply move thos page to Category:Wikipedians by interest? Wouldn't that be a much more concise and easy-to-find way to summarize this category? More people will look for this under "I" (for "interest") then under "F" (for "field"), where it's currently listed, anyway. -Silence 15:59, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As the original creator of this category, I can only claim that I mindlessly copied the term from the lists, such as: Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by fields of interest A-B. (I then half-jokingly created the category "attention deficits" for those users, like me, who can't seem to concentrate on a field of interest for very long.) I presume those who set up the old lists could better explain the use of the term. But it seems to me this category is for those who have interest in working on encyclopedia articles in a certain field, rather than as a simple statement of personal interests. For example, someone may like to watch reality TV, but have no desire to work on Wikipedia articles related to such programs. — Eoghanacht ^talk 16:53, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But then we have nowhere to put Wikipedians who are interested in things that are significant and noteworthy to them in their views and time, but that they don't necessarily work much on Wikipedia articles for. And I don't think that distinction is clear enough to be useful anyway, since I doubt that most people who use the "interest" fields are so careful with whether which interests they add themselves to. I think simpler is best. We can easily leave the names of the articles as "by field of interest" and just rename the category to simply "interests". -Silence 18:05, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First off, IMHO, the name change after a mere 2 hours of discussion is way too aggressive. Second, as I just realized, the text of the "fields of interests" category clearly stated "by encyclopedic topics that they are knowledgeable..." Perhaps a better solution would have been to rename the Category:Wikipedians by fields of interest something like Category:Wikipedians by encyclopedic fields of interest, with a new separate Category:Wikipedians by interest for personal interest categories. — Eoghanacht ^talk 19:15, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Aggressive"? I prefer "bold". :)

Anyway, the problem with that (aside from the obvious problem that its the complete opposite of my advice that "simplest is best") is that it's next to impossible to actually draw a line between what's "encyclopedic" and what's not. There's no sharp red line between casual interests and encyclopedic subject matters, least of all on Wikipedia. I'm sure that just as there are people in the "fans of Sailor Moon" category who are just casual fans of it and added themselves because they like the cartoon or comic, there are also people in that category who have spent hours working on the Sailr Moon articles on Wikipedia. It's hard to get much more personal and fan-ish than "Sailor Moon", but if that topic wasn't encyclopedic, why would we have articles on it? The beauty of Wikipedia is that even the most silly and trivial of interests, the most personal and unacademic of skills, can be of huge benefit to the. We aren't Britannica—which isn't to say that our standards are low, just that they're broad.

The simplest, clearest, and most useful way to organize this category is to simply group many different types of interests into this category and let users add themselves to it who want to. Even if we dictate that only people who like a topic in a certain way or who spend time working on the Wikipedia articles or whatever are allowed to add themselves to the categories, most people will ignore our advice and add themselves to whatever they want to anyway, so why waste time establishing unnecessary rules? Besides, this is most consistent with other, related Wikipedia interests pages, like Wikipedia:Userboxes/Interests (not "Fields of interest"). -Silence 19:55, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Adding one's username[edit]

I would like to add my username (ACEO 19:06, 28 July 2006 (UTC)) to the list of Wikipedians interested in Psychology, but was not sure how to do this. ACEO 19:06, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List redundancy[edit]

I do not know why there are separate lists which make finding a user interested in, say, Psychology confusing. Would Wikipedia not be easier to use if we only had one such list? ACEO 15:19, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

there are many redudnent lists that need to be merged. the following catagorys should be merged. one list and set of subcatagories rather then meny. in martial arts there should be a Clear defineing line of who is a martial artist and who is just interested in martial arts with the Category:Wikipedians_interested_in_martial_arts and either the Category:Wikipedian martial artists or Category:Wikipedians by martial art rather then both Category:Wikipedian martial artists and Category:Wikipedians by martial art photodude 06:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New userbox[edit]

I think it would be right to have a user box dedicated to either the 3 olympic class liners or one for shipwrecks. --Philippe Auguste 22:00, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Animal sub category[edit]

Is there an animal sub category? --EvanS ^{{talk} {email me}} 18:12, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Collaboration?[edit]

How do these categories facilitate collaboration? Hyacinth (talk) 00:24, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If I want to find people interested in a topic, it's possible I'll find them listed in a category here. If they are interested in a topic they are likely open to collaboration or might know of some helpful information, such as books that can be used, etc. -- Ned Scott 02:50, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So the guidelines for using user categories would then need to clearly explain that you are expected to be willing to collaborate on your interest? Hyacinth (talk) 03:03, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I guess so, but generally it's assumed. If people didn't want to talk about or be bothered about things they were interested in, they wouldn't mention those things. -- Ned Scott 05:47, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

lack of categories[edit]

/ like , id want add on profile (this user crossdress) or (this user is for life , anti aborts birthcontrol) or some other about hobbies other (plant tech sci music whatever) , iran lang name users, other.

Zafer14ur8 (talk) 08:11, 29 August 2015 (UTC) sapphire[reply]