category

Sometimes I use the word “category” to mean what it normally means in English, but sometimes I use it to mean something more specific.

When I talk about the pages on this site, sometimes I lump them all together and call them essays, but other times I like to separate them into essays and categories. If a page contains text and has no children, it's an essay; and if a page has children but contains no text, it's a category. (Children are child nodes in the page tree, remember? See Navigation.)

What if a page contains text and has children? Well, it could be a category that has explanatory text, but it could also be an essay that has subessays; there's no simple rule. The best advice I have is to look at the primary function of the page. If the primary function is to contain text, it's an essay; and if the primary function is to organize children, it's a category. The discussion in the second half of Threads might also be helpful.

(To read about a technicality I glossed over and also see an example of how I lump essays and categories together, please see Content.)

See Also

Essay Status

@ August (2010)