Subject talk:Chemistry

The subjects system is working strongly against newcomers to wikibooks. I found OCR Advanced GCE in Chemistry buried in a subcategory under Subject:Chemistry. How many other visitors would?

• Firstly - If Subject:Mathematics deserves to be a top level category, then surely Subject:Chemistry does too? Can we make that change?
• Secondly - In Subject_talk:Mathematics#Finding the top Maths Books the discussion as I understood it pointed the way forward as to always put books in the leaf subject categories, not mixing books and subcategories at the same level. Can we do that for Subject:Chemistry too? To start the ball rolling I've suggested sub-categories for the chemistry books in the next section. JamesCrook (talk) 22:06, 11 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

The point I made was that top-level categories should not mix books and subcategories. The subject system does not consist simply of two levels, with root and one subcategory. There are several layers under each. See Subject:Books by subject, which only shows the top-level categories and their immediate children. It's intended that there will be some drilling down necessary, otherwise everyone gets in a fight over what gets to be at the top level. Your example follows this path: the top level Subject:Science which itself has not been cleared of books, with Subject:Physical sciences below it, Subject:Chemistry below that, and Subject:Chemistry study guides below that. Of course you pick the longest chain to try to make your point. However, my position is that I don't want 100 books in each subject. Our size in comparison to the other language Wikibooks projects is equivalent in proportion to the size of Wikipedia to us. If Chemistry is a top-level category, then Astronomy, Earth sciences, Environmental sciences, and Physics will all want to be top-level as well. Since those are in Subject:Physical sciences and at the same level as Subject:Life sciences, then we'd have to make everything in that subject top-level too. It's a hierarchical structure and not a flat one, with the advantages and disadvantages that come with. – Adrignola talk 22:27, 11 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

• "Of course you pick the longest chain to try to make your point." Is it the longest chain? I hadn't checked. I'm exploring the chemistry subject classification because two chemistry teachers on the CESI list expressed interest in working on an OER resource in wikibooks. I hadn't visited Subject:Books by subject before. Having now seen it, it looks to me that mathematics now has too much at the second level - at least relative to what other topics do - and I will suggest how to move some to third level on Subject:Mathematics. Thanks for your feedback. JamesCrook (talk) 23:25, 11 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

Well, that's why I was concerned about subjects with just a single book in them—it might spread things too thin. This discussion reminds me of comments other established users have made about wondering how people find books, the people who will never let you know because they never edit a page. I'd like to think if someone were really interested in the above book, they'd type "ocr chemistry" in the search box and get the book as the first result (try it and see). It would be nice if the search suggestions would ignore subpages of books and only show root book pages, but Wikimedia's never really been interested in improving the technical aspects of the MediaWiki software for Wikibooks' use. – Adrignola talk

As I see it the main thing is that each book needs to be in at least one leaf category. To make that easier to achieve we can have three catch-all (or nearly catch-all) categories that are by level, WikiJunior Chemistry, K-12 Chemistry and Advanced Chemistry (or equivalent titles). Ideally we also have sub area classification too, but with the catch-all it is then not essential to have them. My observation is that most teachers will be happy to search by level. The rare books that span levels should be in more than one level category. JamesCrook (talk) 22:06, 11 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

• General Chemistry - Chemistry Collections
• Structural Biochemistry - Biochemistry
• Chemical Principles - Chemistry Collections
• Computational Chemistry - Advanced Chemistry
• Introductory Chemistry Online - K-12 Chemistry
• Organic Chemistry - Biochemistry
• Biochemistry - Biochemistry
• Half-Life Computation - Nuclear Chemistry
• Inorganic Chemistry - K-12 Chemistry
• Mathematics for Chemistry - Chemistry Collections
• Carbon Nanotube Cookbook - Advanced Chemistry
• Chemistry 101 - Chemistry Collections
• Chemistry for Idiots, Humans and Rebels - Chemistry Collections
• Cold Fusion - Advanced Chemistry | Nuclear Chemistry
• Crystallography - Advanced Chemistry
• High School Chemistry - K-12 Chemistry | Chemistry Collections
• Introduction to Organic Chemistry - K-12 Chemistry | Biochemistry
• Making a Blood Urea Nitrogen Test - Biochemistry
• Physical Chemistry - Advanced Chemistry
• Problems In Highschool Chemistry - K-12 Chemistry | Chemistry Collections

I certainly have no problems with subcategories to Chemistry being created. I'm afraid I may come across as a bit testy at times regarding the subjects, but understand that it's because they were a mess when I came across Wikibooks and I was pretty much alone in trying to clean them up and create a semblance of order. I'd keep in mind Thenub's comments regarding mathematics when looking at chemistry, in that breaking up by academic level may not always meet with agreement. Additionally, there are templates already used to indicate difficulty levels (see Wikibooks:Reading Levels) with their own category that they add when using Wikibooks:Card Catalog Office to browse by level. But on a more precise note, I personally don't see how a "chemistry collections" is different from our collection of chemistry books currently shown on the content page for this talk page. Biochemistry sounds like a good division. If we could come up with ones like that that are nice and concrete, that'd be great. – Adrignola talk 23:38, 11 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

Ya I'm not a fan of dividing by academic levels either. Teachers searching by level are likely to have different preconceived ideas of which levels books should be expected to be found depending on where in the world they work. I think subdivisions are good though, like Biochemistry, Nuclear Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, Radiochemistry, Crystallography, etc. I also think subdivisions shouldn't be done until there are about maybe 5 books that could fit a classification. I think there isn't a problem with having books listed in the "top"/"major" subjects too. --darklama 01:56, 12 November 2010 (UTC)Reply