Many thanks for the feedback received thus far. I've taken the comments posted and added them to this wiki page below, so we benefit from wiki versioning and roll back.

I have this morning gone ahead and removed the ten categories which don't sit well with the way TRP has evolved.

I've also created a new category "Test-Category" which contains several sub categories so we can experiment with how this feature works. Experimental Wiki Pages ZZZ-MRB-Test025 and ZZZ-MRB-Test005 show the type of listing based on categories which might be possible.

Links to these experimental pages removed 31 October 2011, freeing the pages for future re-use.
MartinB 31 Oct 2011

You are welcome to experiment with these test categories and any additional feedback would be welcomed.

Posted Monday 17 Jan 2011 by MartinB.

The War of 1812 should be included.

Posted Saturday 8 Jan by Beverly

Bev,

Happy to included that if its needed now. I suggest we only add conflicts once there is a clearly identified need to categories its participants. I see no advantage in creating a comprehensive list of conflicts and belligerent parties in advance, only for the majority of these categories then to remain unused and for their presence to make using categories unwieldy.

Posted Monday 17 Jan 2011 by MartinB.

It is important to be able to distinguish the Continental Army from Colonial Militias where possible. I didn't realize this until I read a book about George Washington recently.

Posted on Sunday 9 Jan 2011 by Carolyn in AR

Carolyn,

Again, I'm happy to include additional sub categories, in this case an additional belligerent party in the American Revolutionary War, if there is real value to our genealogical study and there will be a meaningful number of individuals to include within that sub-category.

As a Brit, I'm not best placed to make that judgement.

Mathematically, I'd suggest meaningful would be (a) at least 1 in 5 of the total size of that overall "army" and (b) likely to apply to 10 or more individuals in our wiki.

From memory, the frequency that Reeves surname occurs is around 450 times per million, or about 1 in 2000 individuals. So to have a sub-category which might have of ten or more members, we're looking at an overall population of at least 20,000 individuals for the sub-category. Clearly several members of the same family fighting side by side will mean the threshold of 10 that I suggest might be reached based on a smaller overall group size.

In general, if we choose not to create a specific sub-category for a potentially small number of individuals, the specific affiliation can (and should) always be reflected within the Narrative section of the individual's page.

As above, I'm mindful of the need to strike the right balance between sufficient sub-categories which provide meaningful added value to TRP and swamping ourselves with too many under utilised categories, which devalue the categories feature.

Posted Monday 17 Jan 2011 by MartinB.

Yesterday (Monday 24 Jan) I went ahead and posted the new category Military Service along with an FAQ suggesting how it might be best used. See FAQ_Category_Military_Service

The two key points to note are:-

• All nested categories automatically cascade upwards, so only the lowest level categories should be selected.
• Categorisation is a separate finding aid to search. If a page is categorised as, say, "Confederate Forces" but that phrase does not appear within the text of the narrative section, then the page will not be returned as part of a search for "Confederate Forces".

Posted Tuesday 25 Jan 2011 by MartinB.

I've been remiss in not noting that the new Census Categories have been live for some time and that an FAQ suggesting how it might also be best used was posted on 2 February 2011. See FAQ_Category_Census_Records.

Posted Saturday 26 March 2011 by MartinB.