P2P Foundation Wiki Taxonomy

The P2P Foundation Wiki Taxonomy

This page serves as general overview for the P2P Foundation Wiki Taxonomy.

• The top level of the site-wide taxonomy is Category:P2P Foundation. All categories are actually subcategories of this top-level category.
• End User documentation is here: Help:Using Categories.
• Planned, wide scale changes and requests for changes to the Taxonomy are kept in P2P Foundation Wiki Taxonomy Maintenance.

Theory of the P2P Foundation Wiki Taxonomy and Category System

The P2P Foundation Wiki Taxonomy is a structured taxonomy in the sense that we attempt to apply more and more specificity to articles through the use of subcategories. Subcategories are also used to classify areas of emphasis, the media type of an article, the authoring process for articles, and groups of individuals, and even the typologies of groups of individuals.

Subcategories may have more than one parent category. For example, the Standards category can and is be applied to a number of different emphasis areas like Peer Governance or Peer Production and so is a subcategory of each of these areas. In the case of "Standards in Peer Production" a page exists to show the intersection of articles that are have been placed into the Standards and Peer Production categories. It is possible to create an intersection like this for any two or more categories.

Core Categories

Most articles on the site fall into the "Trifecta" as outlined in Category:P2P Theory. These three core categories are: Category:Peer Governance, Category:Peer Property, and Category:Peer Production. There are other popular categories, and some wide ranging subcategories.

Taxonomy as the Default, Sub-optimal Linking System on the Wiki

Wikis are the most useful when an effort is made to link the core concepts in an article to related articles within the wiki and the wider web. Linking between pages creates a rich web of relationships and context for articles. The taxonomy categories are used as a sort of backup system. It is currently rare for users to refer to article categories to find related content. As such, while categories are easy to use, they are only of limited value when compared to linking key concepts within articles together through the use of highlighted links.

Please Review Current Categories Before Adding New Ones

Users are actively encouraged to research and review current categories before creating new categories. You can see visit Help:Search for Duplicates and Related Articles to find out more about doing a power search for your desired category. Empty categories aren't helpful to site visitors. Time has shown that collaborating on the expansion and specificity of the category system is beneficial because it informs other editors of new categories and helps uncover current, under-utilized categories. Categories are no substitute for linking between articles, and adding them actually complicates things more than it helps because site visitors will run into a category page that lists only one link and leave the site frustrated.

If you have a recommendation for a subcategory you should feel free to start a discussion on one of the already existing core category pages about your idea. This is a good way to get the ball rolling.