Template talk:Topic by country/data

Parent categories for infrastructure

I propose to change the list of parent categories for infrastructure:

• Government of ... doesn't really fit because infrastructure is not a part of the government, and in many cases infrastructure isn't even maintained by the government, but instead it is private.
• Economy of ... isn't a good fit IMHO either, because infrastructure doesn't only serve the economy, but it also serves the people.
• Structures in ... is wrong IMHO as well, because there are many elements of infrastructure which are not structures („Bauwerke“ in German), think of underground power lines or street cabinets.

Instead I suggest that the Infrastructure in <place> categories should be sorted directly under the <place> category. --Reinhard Müller (talk) 08:27, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

@Joshbaumgartner: Did you see this? --Reinhard Müller (talk) 05:49, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

@Reinhard Müller: , thanks for pinging me. My watchlist is hopeless, so I don't see things unless they are extremely recent. So just for background, here is the basis for the current structure:

1. Infrastructure is a subcategory of Structures, so therefore Infrastructure in France is placed under Structures in France, for example.
2. Infrastructure is a subcategory of Public sector, but that parent is not currently sorted by country, so instead we look at the next level up, and Public sector is a subcategory of Government and (through more steps up) Economy. Therefore, Infrastructure in France is under Government of France and Economy of France.

I'm not trying to shoot down any of your points, but if we accept them, then really we have Infrastructure poorly categorized and so the problem really lies at the Category:Infrastructure. I think that needs to be discussed (COM:CFD) and if needed modified. In that case it would follow that those changes would be applied to 'infrastructure by location' structure as well. A couple of notes though:

1. You might be right about structures, but there are such things as underground structures, for example. As for smaller things such as a street cabinet, those are really a component of the infrastructure, so while maybe not a structure in and of themselves, their inclusion in the infrastructure tree should not preclude infrastructure from being in structures.
2. You are correct that infrastructure is not solely a part of government. However, nearly all infrastructure does have some input from government in the form of guidance, funding, sanction, regulation, or any number of other ways. It is also one the major functions of a lot of government, so I do think that while you are correct that it is not 100% exclusive to government, it still is appropriate to exist within the government category tree.
3. Infrastructure is primarily built to serve economic needs, though you are right, it can serve other ancillary purposes as well, and there are particular works of infrastructure that are not even intended to serve strictly economic roles at all. The definition of what is and is not economic activity can vary, but again, the fact that a topic is not exclusively relevant to another relevant does not prohibit the two from being linked in categorization. So long as their is a significant derivative relationship between two topics, such categorization can be very useful in fact.

The last two are derived from Infrastructure being under Public sector.

In any case, I think those comments apply equally to 'by location' categories as well as the main category, but if we change the main category, I certainly agree with changing the 'by location' categories as well. Josh (talk) 20:26, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

@Joshbaumgartner: I can see your point of deriving the infrastructure-by-location categories from the parent Infrastructure category. Unfortunately, it looks like the higher up in the category hierarchy we get, the more arbitary and sometimes nearly esotheric the parent category assignments get. Infrastructure was added to Public sector without any visible discussion or consensual decision, and actually the parent cateogry Structures was added and removed multiple times, actually last time it was added by you.

I will probably move this discussion to the (still empty!) Infrastructure discussion page, but first I'll be offline for some vacation :-)

Thanks, --Reinhard Müller (talk) 21:03, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

@Reinhard Müller: Sounds good, enjoy your vacation! Josh (talk) 21:20, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

About parent Category:Tools in country X in the template of Category:Research institutes in country X

@Joshbaumgartner: Why should Category:Tools in country X be a parent of Category:Research institutes in country X? That does not make sense to me. A research institute is not a tool, is it? The main category Category:Research institutes does not have Category:Tools either, so why should the subcategories have it?
Now this parent is automatically generated by this template. (I did not figure this out my self, see Commons:Village pump#How can I get rid of parent Category:Tools in country X in the template of Category:Research institutes in country X?.)
Request: Can the template be adjusted so that we can get rid of this parent in all Category:Research institutes in country X? JopkeB (talk) 05:16, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure why research institutes would be under tools, so I have simply removed tools from that entry (could have been there by mistake). Anyway, it is fixed now. If someone has a reason to add it back in future, I'd be happy to understand why. Josh (talk) 18:09, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! JopkeB (talk) 04:42, 27 November 2023 (UTC)