Category:Categories requiring diffusion

to be continued from Commons:Categories for discussion/2010/12/Category:Categories requiring permanent diffusion. We have four related categories:

It is quite obvious that there is the mess. Categories above are related to different templates so it is not easy to solve problem(s). At the beginning, probably rational is to keep only parent one: Category:Categories requiring diffusion. In general all our categories should be there :)

Good ideas can be found here (Commons:Categories requiring diffusion). Estopedist1 (talk) 18:40, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A few notes:

  1. I rolled in similar CfDs at Commons:Categories for discussion/2020/01/Category:Categories of Portugal requiring diffusion and Commons:Categories for discussion/2020/01/Category:Categories about aviation requiring diffusion. Josh (talk) 22:27, 22 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Category:Categories requiring diffusion should be populated automatically (e.g. by template) when the number of files in a category exceeds the limit set in {{Diffuseat}}. In this way editors can see categories that require diffusion attention. Subcats for specific topics (e.g. aviation) are fine if it assists editors focused on that topic in locating categories they can best apply their efforts to. Again, these would be populated automatically, and once sufficiently diffused, they would likewise be removed automatically.
  3. Category:Categories requiring permanent diffusion also should be populated automatically, but the conditions are different. Its contents should remain permanently members of this category as they have been identified as categories that routinely require diffusion (i.e. categories into which users are regularly adding new files without further diffusion). I do not think this is as valuable as the first, but it may make sense for some types of maintenance work.
  4. Category:Categories requiring permanent diffusion to zero should have the same inclusion criteria as number 3 above but should also be set to be automatically added to #2 above whenever there are any files in them. I am not sure what the value is to a category containing categories that should not have files even when those categories have no files (and thus do not require attention). To my mind, maintenance categories should be there for pages that need attention. Pages that need no attention should not be in maintenance categories, I think.
  5. Category:Categories requiring temporary diffusion is currently populated by {{CatDiffuse}}, but I'm not sure that this category and template do anything that isn't better done with {{Diffuseat}} and Category:Categories requiring diffusion. Let's presume we have a category which should contain no more than 100 files without needing diffusion. If I see it has 200 files, I can add {{CatDiffuse}} or {{Diffuseat}} to it:
    1. Using {{CatDiffuse}}, I would add the template and this would add it to the Category:Categories requiring temporary diffusion workflow. Once diffusion is done (below 100 files), an editor needs to manually remone {{CatDiffuse}} to remove it from this category. In the future, when more files are added and it is back above 100 files, no flag will be raised until a user manually restarts this process from the beginning.
    2. Using {{Diffuseat}}, I would add the template and set the threshold to 100. It would then be placed in Category:Categories requiring diffusion until the file count was below the threshold, when it would automatically be removed from the maintenance category without requiring the additional manual edit. In the future, when more files are added, it would automatically be placed back in maintenance as soon as the threshold is reached, avoiding the need for an experienced editor to notice the buildup and manually re-add the template.

I would recommend replacing the {{CatDiffuse}}/Category:Categories requiring temporary diffusion workflow with {{Diffuseat}}/Category:Categories requiring diffusion since both aim to do the same thing (attract diffusion for overcrowded categories) but the later does it more seamlessly, and maintaining two separate flows to do the same thing makes no sense. I would also delete Category:Categories requiring permanent diffusion to zero with the contents having a template set to add them to Category:Categories requiring diffusion whenever they have more than 0 files. I would keep Category:Categories requiring permanent diffusion for now but look at it again after the rest of the maintenance category scheme is rationalized. I would of course keep Category:Categories requiring diffusion and allow topic-based subcats for major topics where there is enough maintenance load to warrant it. Josh (talk) 22:27, 22 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

one older conversation: Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2009/10#Categorize_and_CatDiffuse--Estopedist1 (talk) 15:17, 23 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Estopedist1: Good reasearch. We have evolved a lot over the last decade but this is some good insight still. Are there any particular points from that discussion that you think should be hilighted in this one? Josh (talk) 20:55, 23 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Joshbaumgartner: and others. There is a lot to read. But initially I am suggesting so: we retain to categories:
(A) Category:Categories requiring diffusion (consisting of categories where are 100+ files)
(B) Category:Categories requiring diffusion to zero (currently: Category:Categories requiring permanent diffusion to zero; consisting of categories where are at least 1 file but should be 0). But because also (B) will be probably overpopulated (10 000+ categories) and hence quite useless for humans, except with PetScan etc. So for humans the better may be structured Category:User:Estopedist1/Categories requiring diffusion (extended list) (manually created).
Overlapping exists. Both are, of course, automatically created via templates. And none of the cases we manually remove the diffusion templates once added to the category--Estopedist1 (talk) 06:53, 24 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
the solution Category:User:Estopedist1/Categories requiring diffusion (extended list) doesn't work because {{PAGESINCATEGORY}} is expensive parser function (see (en:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Pages_with_too_many_expensive_parser_function_calls))--Estopedist1 (talk) 19:18, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Estopedist1 and Evrik: I kind of like the solution above. It sounds like a move towards eliminating the dubious distinction between 'permanent' and 'temporary' diffusion needs. A category at any given time either has too many contents and requires diffusion and should be listed somewhere in this tree, or it does not have too many contents and is therefore not in need of maintenance and should not be listed here since no work is required on it. I get that there are some categories who need diffusion more often, and I think the distinction was made prior to developing a good tool to only list those that actively have too much content. Now that we have that, listing categories which are compliant with their listed threshold seems like clutter in the maintenance bin. Josh (talk) 04:05, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]