[WikiEN-l] Types of categories

Tue Jun 6 21:36:10 UTC 2006

On Tue, 06 Jun 2006 22:09:28 +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> "salient" how about "concrete"? The fact that it's a ship is concrete
> and essential. The fact that it shipwrecked is ancillary.

That is POV. My POV is that Titanic is remembered as a tragic disaster. Now
the Titanic _is_ of course a ship and not a disaster, but that has nothing
to do with significant, salient, or concrete.

> (why do I feel like I'm getting talked into trying to reinvent the
> field of semantics from scratch)

Alternatively, you can read the pertinent literature and come back with a
solid proposal :-P.

> > And what is more salient about Halle Berry, being a women (or actress, for
> > all I care) _or_ having won a "Worst Actress Razzie"? Well?
> 
> I didn't know she had. Woman.

POV. There are billions of women. Only a few people got a Razzie. It's much
more remarkable. In my opinion, anyhow.

> > I'm afraid your "I know it when it see it" approach to identifying
> > taxonomic categories is hopelessly POV.
> 
> Not many people are going to deny that Halle is a women, or that
> Titanic was a ship.

Not many will deny either that the Titanic disaster was one of the most
remarkable shipwrecks in history, nor that Halle Berry won a Razzie. What's
your point?

What I'm trying to show here is that I don't think I could spot with some
certainty what you consider taxonomy in articles we haven't talked about.
It seems you really mean everything of type "is a"; "Winners of Golden
Raspberries" should really be "won a Golden Raspberry".

The basic "is a" categories I see on Berry's article: actor (including Bond
girls, etc., maybe Worst Actress Razzie), model (including Beauty pageant
contestants, Versace models, etc.), African-American(?). Of course you
could say that occupations are "works as" relationships and everything
falls apart.

> Halle Berry is primarily an actress. Einstein was primarily a
> physicist. Ellington was primarily a jazz musician. But I see your
> point, maybe the taxonomies should stop at "person", and the rest can
> be attributes.

What does "stopping" entail? I mean, how would WP be different if we did,
or didn't stop at person?

Roger