WordPress, like much blog software, allows the author to define a number of categories, and to assign each post into one or more of them.<\/p>\n
I am not entirely happy with the choices of categories on OddThinking, which has lead me to ask the obvious question: “What is the problem that that categories are expected to solve?”<\/p>\n
I have argued before<\/a> that the difference between newsgroups and blogs is that in a newsgroup your subscribe by topic, and in a blog you subscribe by person.<\/p>\n Killfiles in news-readers somewhat blur that distinction, allowing you to avoid reading posts from known plonkers.<\/p>\n Similarly, categories allow you to blur the distinction by allowing you to restrict yourself to look at all the posts on a certain topic. If a blogger has two hobbies: discussing astro-physics and taking cute photographs of kittens, they can elect to categorise each article, and readers can be sure to read all of the articles that interest them, while not bothering to read the ones that don’t.<\/p>\n At least, that is what I think categories are meant for, and what I think categories currently fail to achieve.<\/p>\n There are two flaws, but I think both are surmountable.<\/p>\n A key aspect of the blog is support for RSS feeds (I’m using RSS in the generic sense of including. ATOM and the like.) Yet, typically blogs have no ability to subscribe by category. Until categories become “first-class citizens”, by allowing subscription, I believe that they will never have much weight on the blog.<\/p>\n This has an easy technical fix<\/a>. I will be considering adding such a patch to OddThinking, as a low-priority. I’d be interested if blog authors who have tried this have found it to be popular. If so, I’d like to see it appear in some of the default and more popular themes, so that the idea becomes familiar with the blog-reading public.<\/p>\n The second flaw is more substantial. Personal blogs tend to be fairly eclectic, and category-tagging tends to be unreliable. In such an environment, categories are better used as filters<\/em> rather than as additive<\/em>. Using the example above, an unemotive, but avid, astro-physicist would be be better off subscribing to all<\/em> posts except<\/em> kitten photos, rather than just<\/em> subscribing to astro-physics discussions. This is analogous to kill-files, which reject posts that fit recognised patterns, rather than accepting only posts that fit recognised patterns.<\/p>\n After discussing this with Richard A, we imagined a subscription page which provided a list of categories, and allowed you select “all articles with these category tags, except never any articles with these category tags”. The result would be a URL of an RSS feed ready for your aggregator.<\/p>\n I haven’t done much research to find out if such a technology already exists. It doesn’t appear to be available on many of the blogs that I wish had a higher signal-to-noise ratio.<\/p>\n Am I using categories in a way that helps my readers? I am not sure, which is what prompted this consideration.<\/p>\n Most of my categories are not<\/em> about the topic of discussion. I don’t have a category about Editing Documents (despite several posts on or near the topic). I do, inexplicably, have one about hula-hooping<\/a> though.<\/p>\n I think the reason for this is that I am not attempting to have a blog about a small handful of subjects (e.g. contrast it that to Gluk<\/a>, which only contains news for jugglers.) Most of my categories are<\/em> about the style<\/em> of the writing, e.g. whether it is a rant<\/a> or geeky<\/a> or humourous<\/a>.<\/p>\n I guess categorising by style serves the same purpose as categorising by topics – people can elect to read items based on their format as much as their content.<\/p>\n However, I am using the categories for an ulterior motive. To help me see the overall direction of the blog, what sort of stories are preferred<\/a>, and to make sure I don’t stray too far.<\/p>\nWhy aren’t they good for it?<\/h2>\n
OddThinking and Categories<\/h2>\n