User:Theleekycauldron/Category intersection

I first came across the proposal Wikipedia:Category intersection months ago, and my first thought was "this is obviously how the category system should be ran". So, I'd like to start strongly pushing for its implementation, because it's a common-sense measure that I think will greatly improve our awkward and haphazard category system.

How it works

The broad-strokes idea is this: Instead of having to put an American actor into the category "American actor", we should be putting the article into the categories "American people" and "Actors". This sounds more complicated; after all, you're putting the article into two categories instead of one. But in the long run, not only does it make everything simpler, it actually saves a huge number of categories.

Here's an example. Currently, if we wanted to categorize a sixteen-year-old, asexual, jewish, biromantic, non-binary Wikpiedian, singer-songwriter, guitarist, pianist, and violinist from Los Angeles, California, United States, under our category system, we might ostensibly use all of these categories:

1. Non-binary Wikipedians
2. Asexual Wikipedians
3. Biromantic Wikipedians
4. Child Wikipedians
5. Wikipedians from Los Angeles
6. California Wikipedians
7. Jewish American Wikipedians
8. American Wikipedians
9. Non-binary violinists
10. Asexual violinists
11. Biromantic violinists
12. Child violinists
13. California violinists
14. American Wikipedians
15. Jewish American violinists
16. 21st-century violinists
17. American violinists
18. Non-binary guitarists
19. Asexual guitarists
20. Child guitarists
21. Biromantic guitarists
22. 21st-century guitarists
23. California guitarists
24. American guitarists
25. Jewish American guitarists
26. American guitarists
27. Non-binary pianists
28. Asexual pianists
29. Child pianists
30. Biromantic pianists
31. California pianists
32. 21st-century pianists
33. American pianists
34. Jewish American pianists
35. American pianists
36. Non-binary singer-songwriters
37. Asexual singer-songwriters
38. 21st-century singer-songwriters
39. Child singer-songwriters
40. Biromantic singer-songwriters
41. California singer-songwriters
42. American singer-songwriters
43. Jewish American singer-songwriters
44. American singer-songwriters
45. Non-binary musicians
46. Asexual musicians
47. Child musicians
48. Biromantic musicians
49. California musicians
50. 21st-century musicians
51. American musicians
52. Jewish American musicians
53. American musicians
54. 2005–6 births

Obviously, that's way too many, and there'd probably be more given that 1. i can't keep all of these straight and 2. there'd probably be more specifics, such as what college this person went to, the category "Living people", etc. What should be pretty obvious is that we really only need these:

1. Wikipedians
2. Non-binary people
3. Asexual people
4. Children
5. People from Los Angeles
6. Violinists
7. Guitarists
8. Singer-songwriters
9. 2005–6 births
10. Living people

Then, if you want a list of Los Angeles Wikipedians, you could put in a simple formula, and it would give you everyone who appears in both "People from Los Angeles" and "Wikipedians". Just like that, we've saved the need for 44 superficial categories!

That's about all you need to know for the bare-bones of the proposal. But if you happen to be so inclined, stick around, because overhauling the entire category system is... complicated.

What categories do we keep?

There are two kinds of categories that I'm considering important: primary categories and secondary categories. Primary categories are the building blocks of the system: they can't be derived from anything else. Secondary categories, on the other hand, are constructs of primary category. For example, every American actor is both an American and an actor. No exceptions. Therefore, the category "American actor" is secondary category,

So what exactly do we do?

Well, I propose that all secondary categories should

Notes