Week 13 - Blogs about 'Wikipedia:Categories' (Kim Jong Min)

1. Summary

To be honest, this was the first time I really looked into Wikipedia's categorization system, and it's much more complex and organized than I thought it would be. It's basically a system that organizes millions of articles by topic, and it's like a giant library. It's a tree structure that goes down from the top categories to the bottom, and interestingly, an article can be in multiple categories at the same time. When editors write new articles or edit existing ones, they have to add the appropriate category, which I think is really helpful when searching, and it's not just for finding information, but also for organizational purposes.


2. New discoveries

What I found most interesting is that this system is completely different from the usual library categorization we know.

I thought it was really innovative that an article can be in multiple categories at the same time, for example, if it's about Marie Curie, it can be categorized in 'French scientists', 'Nobel Prize winners', 'female physicists', and so on. Oh, and I didn't realize that the categories themselves are also hierarchical, with ‘physicist’ being a subcategory of ‘scientist’. I think it's much more flexible and realistic than traditional book taxonomies. We don't really think in terms of just one category when we're looking for information, do we?


3. critical review and discussion questions

But I also saw some problems.

The biggest problem: taxonomies are inevitably subjective. Even if you have guidelines, it's still human judgment, so bias is inevitable.

Things to discuss:

How do we neutrally categorize controversial topics? For example, is it right to put a politician in both the 'reformer' and 'dictator' categories at the same time? Who decides in such cases?

Do categories created by Western-centric thinking adequately capture concepts from other cultures? I question whether it's appropriate to categorize things like Eastern philosophy or African traditional culture into Western taxonomies.

If you break down the categories too much, they become harder to find, and if you break them down too loosely, they don't help... How do we find this balance, especially as new fields continue to emerge?

Comments

  1. Jo HyeonSeongMay 22, 2025 at 10:07 PM

    I read the article well. I was impressed by the part where you emphasized that Wikipedia's classification system, unlike traditional library classification systems, allows a single article to belong to multiple categories. I think this flexible structure allows for a realistic approach to information exploration.

    However, since the category classification relies on human judgment, there may be controversy over how to classify a specific person or topic. For example, what are the criteria for judging whether it is appropriate to classify a politician as both a 'reformer' and a 'dictator'? I wonder what you think about such cases.

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