Splitting Some of the Categories? December 17, 2008 6:40 PM Subscribe
Just wanted to float an idea about Ask Mefi categories.
I was looking at the categories and some of them are quite large.
I figured perhaps it might be worth it to float a proposal to split up a few of the "megacategories."
My own suggestions would be as follows:
I was looking at the categories and some of them are quite large.
I figured perhaps it might be worth it to float a proposal to split up a few of the "megacategories."
My own suggestions would be as follows:
- computers & internet (into) windows, mac, linux, internet
- media & arts (into) visual arts, music (maybe split latter into separate categories for music-as-a-player and music-as-a-listener, except I can't figure out short ways of saying that)
- work & money (into) work, money
- travel & transportation (into) travel, autos, bikes
- food & drink (into) food, spirits
- computers & internet = 426
- media & arts = 229
- human relations = 173
- work & money = 166
- health & fitness = 157
- travel & transportation = 153
- technology = 150
- food & drink = 123
- home & garden = 113
- shopping = 94
- grab bag = 91
- writing & language = 83
- sports, hobbies, & recreation = 72
- clothing, beauty, & fashion = 68
- education = 65
- society & culture = 64
- law & government = 63
- science & nature = 44
- pets & animals = 40
- religion & philosophy = 22
This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- loup
I think what we need instead is a better search mechanism. Really if we split categories now we have to deal with all the questions up until now that are in the merged category and what to do with them? Not that that's an impossible task but really the catgories are supposed to be big buckets to split up all the types of questions and tags are really what we expect people to use to see if there are similar questions etc. The categories are going to get big eventually no matter how many times we split them.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:59 PM on December 17, 2008
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:59 PM on December 17, 2008
There's been a lot I've written before about the categories. There are barely more than a dozen and they are broad specifically so that they could cover as much ground as possible while still being simple to understand. The last thing we want people to do is feel like adding details about their questions is too much work.
There's another aspect to picking the specificity of categories and that's creating more specific or more numerous (in general) categories says that those niches are not only welcome but here's a permanent home for them, please leave more. For computer questions, I think everyone kind of understands the need to have them (even I've asked my share of a few) and they are definitely the most numerous, but they're almost like background noise. "My wifi doesn't work, here's the model number." followed by "Did you try resetting it?" and ending with "wow, thanks!" doesn't really create the most broadly useful nor interesting questions and answers. I tend to think splitting the general computer category in 4-5 sub-categories would just encourage more computer questions and I don't think we gain much from that.
I don't know if we gain much of anything from the suggestions above. What problem do you see it solving besides having an equal number of questions in every category (which you admittedly just made up as a metric for this question)?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:00 PM on December 17, 2008
There's another aspect to picking the specificity of categories and that's creating more specific or more numerous (in general) categories says that those niches are not only welcome but here's a permanent home for them, please leave more. For computer questions, I think everyone kind of understands the need to have them (even I've asked my share of a few) and they are definitely the most numerous, but they're almost like background noise. "My wifi doesn't work, here's the model number." followed by "Did you try resetting it?" and ending with "wow, thanks!" doesn't really create the most broadly useful nor interesting questions and answers. I tend to think splitting the general computer category in 4-5 sub-categories would just encourage more computer questions and I don't think we gain much from that.
I don't know if we gain much of anything from the suggestions above. What problem do you see it solving besides having an equal number of questions in every category (which you admittedly just made up as a metric for this question)?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:00 PM on December 17, 2008
What's wrong with subscribing to the MyAsk feed?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:15 PM on December 17, 2008
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:15 PM on December 17, 2008
Even with the categories as broad as they currently are, I've had trouble a couple times deciding which category to put my question in. It would be even harder to choose a category if they became more specific. If we did end up having more categories like this, I would request/suggest that an asker be able to check boxes for all the categories their question fits into, rather than forcing them to choose one. That way a question about "What are some excellent mixed-drink/appetizer pairings?" (to coin a simplistic example) would be seen by people who are watching the food category as well as by people who are watching the spirits category. Of course that messes up the display of the questions on the front of AskMe, and would probably require an extra table in the database...
posted by vytae at 7:18 PM on December 17, 2008
posted by vytae at 7:18 PM on December 17, 2008
No, I do subscribe to the RSS feed ..
jessamyn was saying the MyAsk feed, not the main general one. The "MyAsk" version is customizable, to exclude categories you don't want to see.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:37 PM on December 17, 2008
jessamyn was saying the MyAsk feed, not the main general one. The "MyAsk" version is customizable, to exclude categories you don't want to see.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:37 PM on December 17, 2008
Dude. Just follow the money tag in MyAsk and your problem is solved. Sorry about Joe User. And no, we're not adding any more categories.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:00 PM on December 17, 2008
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:00 PM on December 17, 2008
And I think our point is that messing with the categories -- which has a lot of brokenness that comes along with it particularly what to do with all the pre-split posts -- is a Big Deal and we're actually okay if maybe someone who can't keep up with the site misses a post or two in AskMe because someone's not tagging well. We don't have problems with questions going unanswered because people can't find them We don't have people getting crappy answers because people aren't seeing questions in their subject areas.
I'm sure there's an open question whether people would be getting better answers, potentially, if there were more specificity in category splits, but I think that the downsides -- massive mess with all the old categories -- is a much bigger deal than the potential upsides -- more people can find more questions in their interest areas to answer.
Put another way, even though we're thrilled at how useful and popular AskMe is, it's primarily there to help people get answers to questions, not to provide an outlet for people who really really want to answer questions.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:30 PM on December 17, 2008
I'm sure there's an open question whether people would be getting better answers, potentially, if there were more specificity in category splits, but I think that the downsides -- massive mess with all the old categories -- is a much bigger deal than the potential upsides -- more people can find more questions in their interest areas to answer.
Put another way, even though we're thrilled at how useful and popular AskMe is, it's primarily there to help people get answers to questions, not to provide an outlet for people who really really want to answer questions.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:30 PM on December 17, 2008
mathowie: Just follow the money tag in MyAsk and your problem is solved.
I've probably been reading too much Dashiell Hammett, but this is precisely the sort of thing I'd expect to find scribbled hastily on a smudged note that's shoved hastily under the door of my fifth-floor tenement just after a mysterious scream rings out and just before I hear a shot from down the hall.
posted by koeselitz at 8:37 PM on December 17, 2008 [3 favorites]
I've probably been reading too much Dashiell Hammett, but this is precisely the sort of thing I'd expect to find scribbled hastily on a smudged note that's shoved hastily under the door of my fifth-floor tenement just after a mysterious scream rings out and just before I hear a shot from down the hall.
posted by koeselitz at 8:37 PM on December 17, 2008 [3 favorites]
*casts Hastega on koeselitz*
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:23 PM on December 17, 2008 [2 favorites]
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:23 PM on December 17, 2008 [2 favorites]
ah think they shuld be less catergorees an it shuld be: questions what i no tha ansirs to, questions i aint no tha ansirs to an dont care none, an questions what i wants to no tha ansirs to but duzint
posted by Eideteker at 9:48 PM on December 17, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by Eideteker at 9:48 PM on December 17, 2008 [1 favorite]
Tags work great for finding stuff you might be interested in. They suck for finding everything you might be interested in.
posted by kindall at 10:12 PM on December 17, 2008
posted by kindall at 10:12 PM on December 17, 2008
WCityMike, you might want to check out Yahoo Pipes. It is sometimes easier to start excluding tags you are not interested in than including all of the ones you are interested in.
posted by grouse at 10:58 PM on December 17, 2008
posted by grouse at 10:58 PM on December 17, 2008
I'm interested in cooking computerized pets as a hobby.
WHAT DO I DO?!?!?
posted by blue_beetle at 11:30 PM on December 17, 2008
WHAT DO I DO?!?!?
posted by blue_beetle at 11:30 PM on December 17, 2008
The problem restated is that the top level categories are too broad to aid in searching, and the bottom-up tags are too idiosyncratic. How does one solve the "bank", "loan" and "payments" tag problem, for example? This is very amenable to something like clustering or factor analysis. Searches could pull up suggested or related tags (precomputed) if the searcher doesn't know the term to look for.
It wouldn't need to be exact, nor I wouldn't expect tag structures to change very quickly either. Running the computation for cluster weights weekly would probably be overkill. Crudely, then you could pull the weighting factors out of the tag matrix and chop off at some predetermined neighbour distance.
Eg: user puts "banking" in a box and hits the "look for related tags" button. Up comes questions tagged with "bank", "loan", "interest", etc.., but not "shoes", "shopping", or "macbook". Should the "money" tag be included? That's a question of how far up the cluster tree you think it's wise to climb. This would take some fiddling.
posted by bonehead at 8:16 AM on December 18, 2008 [1 favorite]
It wouldn't need to be exact, nor I wouldn't expect tag structures to change very quickly either. Running the computation for cluster weights weekly would probably be overkill. Crudely, then you could pull the weighting factors out of the tag matrix and chop off at some predetermined neighbour distance.
Eg: user puts "banking" in a box and hits the "look for related tags" button. Up comes questions tagged with "bank", "loan", "interest", etc.., but not "shoes", "shopping", or "macbook". Should the "money" tag be included? That's a question of how far up the cluster tree you think it's wise to climb. This would take some fiddling.
posted by bonehead at 8:16 AM on December 18, 2008 [1 favorite]
What, you people don't read every single question? I need another hobby.
posted by desjardins at 8:26 AM on December 18, 2008
posted by desjardins at 8:26 AM on December 18, 2008
You should try cooking computerized pets.
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:30 PM on December 18, 2008
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:30 PM on December 18, 2008
Interesting idea, bonehead. I would love to see the network of tag interconnections. A graph in which each tag that occurs at least n times (start with 2) is a node, and every tag it co-occurs with gets an edge.
posted by grouse at 1:42 PM on December 18, 2008
posted by grouse at 1:42 PM on December 18, 2008
Perhaps a simpler way to encourage people to use useful tags would be to list the most common tags used in a category, after the asker selects a category. Or possibly an admin-chosen set of tags which are chosen to cleanly subdivide the category.
posted by hattifattener at 2:53 PM on December 18, 2008
posted by hattifattener at 2:53 PM on December 18, 2008
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
I think the broad categories work just fine.
posted by necessitas at 6:57 PM on December 17, 2008