Category talk:Business

Categorization

In Wikipedia this category is categorized in the:

• Category:Applied sciences
• Category:Society
• Category:Professional studies

Since none of those categories yet exist in Wikiquote, this category is categorized under the Category:Science and the Category:Organizations. -- Mdd (talk) 13:20, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

In a way this makes sense. All items related to the practise of business, specifically lemma's about companies, are categorized in the category:Organizations. The subjects here are in fact about the theory of business. The initiation of this category is also intended in this way: as a more general field beside the existing categories on economics and commerce. -- Mdd (talk) 13:25, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

I disagree with these categorizations. To facilitate discussion, I will address them individually in separate posts. ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:44, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Not only Wikipedia is mirrored here, In filling up this category, the index of Bill Ridgers's Book of Business Quotations is used as (first) guidance. I would expect that you would appreciate such a thing, since you more often mention Bartlett's Familiar quotations, (1876) as ideal. -- Mdd (talk) 18:16, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

The contents filling up this category are not what is at issue here. We were talking about whether it should be a subcategory of Science and of Organizations, as discussed above and in the subsections below. (The index of the above mentioned book is an author index, which has no bearing on where the book should be shelved in a bookstore.) ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:33, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Categorizing Business under Organizations

Heretofore, Category:Organizations has been used as a container for articles about particular organizations, not for articles about the "science" of being organized, nor other themes relating to things with which some organizations may be engaged. I would prefer to keep it that way.

It may also be noted that not all businesses are organizations: a very large proportion are sole proprietorships. ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:44, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Linking these kinds of categories together is no exact science. The Category:Organizations is linked here just to make a connection. I also think the Category:Organizations should be used as a container for articles about particular organizations, and added an extra message, see here. -- Mdd (talk) 17:51, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Since you have agreed that Category:Organizations should be used as a container for articles about particular organizations, and have added an introduction defining this to be the scope of the category, I do not see why you still think it is appropriate to include a category of articles about business in general under this scope. This is exactly like including things such as Mankind or Psychology under Category:People – the container category for articles about individual persons.

If you just want to draw a connection then it might be more appropriate to include a See also link than to introduce a category/subcategory relationship. However, there are very few areas of human endeavor that are not undertaken by organized groups, so a list of such See also links could become unwieldy. ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:36, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Y Resolved. Thank you for removing this categorization. ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:34, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Categorizing Business under Science

While there is indeed an applied science of business studies, I do not think this categorization is useful:  not every subject to which scientific methods may be applied should be categorized as a science. Would you also categorize Politics and its container category under Science because there is a field of Political science applicable to it?

My point is that generally speaking, and particularly in the social and applied sciences, the areas of interest or endeavor to which scientific methods may be applied are typically much broader than the application of scientific perspectives to them. Many people who are engaged in these interests and endeavors do not take a scientific approach to them. I believe that very few people who are looking for a few particularly witty, pithy, wise, eloquent, or poignant quotes about Business would think to search under the top level Category:Science.

More broadly speaking, virtually everything that can be conceived in the minds of men can be subjected to scientific inquiry, and much of it has been. It would not be useful, as a consequence, to include everything under Category:Science. Similarly, virtually everything that can be conceived in the minds of men can be scrutinized from a religious perspective, and much of it has been – including business! It would not be useful, as a consequence, to include everything under Category:Religion. Such inclusiveness would signify nothing because it fails to distinguish anything. ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:44, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

In Wikipedia there is the Category:Business as top category in the meaning of "applied science of business studies" for ten years now. That is now mirrored here. I do think it is useful to have a top category here for topics related to the "applied science of business studies." -- Mdd (talk) 17:45, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Point of information: Wikipeia's Category:Business was added to Category:Applied sciences just four months ago in this edit, not ten years ago as indicated above. (It was added by an editor with an extensive history of inappropriate contributions, and I have questioned it on Wikipedia's category talk page.) ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:39, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I am sorry if this was not clear: by a top level theme category I meant one that is categorized directly under Category:Themes (which is where I tried to place Category:Business). You have been arguing that is should be subordinate to Category:Science. I can certainly agree that applying scientific principles to running a business is a good idea, but this does not define what type of thing Business is.

Science and "applied science" are not the same thing. An "applied science" is a discipline that applies existing scientific knowledge to practical applications in some field of endeavor. In my perspective it is the discipline, not the field of endeavor, that is a science. In our compendium of quotations, I would very much like to see quotations about business that cover the whole field of endeavor, which is often markedly unscientific, not only about the scientifically based discipline. The topic of Business is much broader than the "applied science" of trade school studies.

(I can appreciate why Wikipedia treats Business as an applied science, but even there it is a bit inconsistent. Note, e.g., that it includes "Sports science" in Category:Applied sciences but it rightly does not include Category:Sports under that heading. The field of endeavor is a broader category than the science of it, and they might do well to recognize this in the topic of business also.)

I note you have subsequently added an introduction limiting the scope of this category to just the applied science of business studies, rather than the general topic. Since you have chosen to make this tendentious edit, adding your point of view to the content page rather than responding to my argument above that the topic should be much broader than the application of scientific perspectives, it looks like discussion has failed. I will post a request at the Village Pump for other opinions, and initiate a new section below to discuss the introduction. ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:43, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree that it is wrong to categorize business under science. Science is the use of rigorous scientific methodologies in the search for facts about the world. Business is the use of any methodology, scientific or not, in the search for higher profit margins. These are two different fields of endeavor. BD2412 T 17:45, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Where did you get those definitions? They're very bad. ~ DanielTom (talk) 17:15, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

I know we run the risk of having too many similar conversations happening at once, but I believe the categorizing of theme pages under the umbrella of Science continues to spread. See Talk:Higher education. Thanks. ~ UDScott (talk) 19:47, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

If this is spreading to affect multiple articles and categories then perhaps we need to have a more general discussion at the talk page of Category:Science, concerning which meaning of the word is to be denoted therein.

The disagreements here appear to be semantic in nature. Wikipedia's article on Science is instructive:  The meanings and senses of "science" used or advocated by myself, and apparently by BD2412 and UDScott, denote the primary topic of that article; while the meaning and sense apparently advocated by others, Mdd above and DanielTom elsewhere[1], is mentioned in the fourth paragraph, where use of the word "science" in a different, broader sense is disambiguated.

If this disagreement persists and spreads, leading to inconsistent semantics in multiple locations, then a definitive decision may be needed at the root location: Category:Science. ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:48, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Categorizing Business under Applied sciences

I have reverted this edit as premature: the question of how to categorize this category is under active discussion, and the edit appears to be contrary to views expressed by multiple editors in ongoing discussion on page.

On the merits of Categorizing Business under Applied sciences, I do not think it is useful for Wikiquote's purposes to try to distinguish between vocational pursuits that are "applied sciences" and and those that are ... something else. I can see why an encyclopedia like Wikipedia would cover the topic from the point of view of business education, and focus on the "science" of it. Wikiquote's mission is distinctly different. I would submit that the majority of high quality quotes, in terms of Quotability, in the Business article itself are not about the science of it or the application of science to it. Business is a very broad area of human interest and endeavour, and the subject of these broad theme articles should not be categorized using such a narrow perspective.

If one wants to create a category of Business studies, narowly focused on the applied science as a field of study, that would be a horse of a different color (though I am not sure it would be a good idea). Consider that Cosmetology is an applied science (requiring coursework and certification for its lawful practice, at least where I live, in the application of Hygenics and Chemisrty) but its objects, Beauty and Fashion, should not therefore be categorized as "applied sciences". Like Business, these are broad areas of human interest and activity having much greater scope than the application of putative sciences to them. ~ Ningauble (talk) 18:46, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

A modest proposal: categorizing Business under Occupations

What would people think about categorizing Category:Business under Category:Occupations rather than vice versa as is presently done? ~ Ningauble (talk) 18:50, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Businesspeople are already categorized under Category:Occupations, but I believe this would be the wrong categorization for the field of study itself ('twould make it too narrow/self-limiting). ~ DanielTom (talk) 19:13, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

It was just a thought. I was happy treating Business as a top level theme category, but there seems to be strong objection.

It is contested here that this should be categorized as a field of study. The thing itself is a broad field of endeavour which is incidentally, for very understandable reasons, subject to study. ~ Ningauble (talk) 19:47, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

That's why it would be wrong to restrict/make the quotes to be only about Business as an occupation. ~ DanielTom (talk) 20:08, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Introduction defining scope

I strongly object to the following narrow definition of the scope of this category, recently added as an introduction in the current version:

"This category is for subjects related to the applied science of business studies"

Business is a very broad subject area of general interest, and articles in this category should not be limited to those that relate to academic studies adopting a scientific point of view. Nor should quotations about business and business topics in general be segregated into articles about the academic study thereof, separate from articles in some different category about business topics from other points of view.

Many of the most famously quotable quotes about business and business related topics are not about the academic study of business from a scientific point of view; but they should definitely be included under Category:Business. To the extent that some materials suitable for trade school studies also have a degree of quotability, though often to a lesser degree, they should be presented together with other quotations about business topics, not given a category exclusively devoted to "the applied science of business studies".

This is fundamentally a matter of Neutral point of view, neither excluding nor segregating quotations that do not conform to an academic point of view. ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:46, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

My opinion is that Ningauble is correct in his views both here and in the previous section (Categorizing Business under Science). I do not believe that this category should be limited in scope such that it can be shoehorned into the larger category of Category:Science. I support removal of the intro that limits the scope of this category, and further I support the removal of this category from Category:Science. I do not believe either instance is the correct application for this category. ~ UDScott (talk) 15:12, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

This one line for explanation was just added inline with the line just added to the Category:Organizations, which Ningauble approved on. Now after the objection here the line is (temporarily) removed, but I still would like some sort of explanation, Could one of you both propose a better alternative? -- Mdd (talk) 08:52, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to categorize under Category:Applied sciences and Category:Society

This initial (alternative) categorisation (see #Categorization), under Category:Science and Category:Organizations raised some serious concerns, and therefore I would like to propose to categorize this category under Category:Applied sciences and Category:Society. -- Mdd (talk) 08:40, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

#Categorizing Business under Applied sciences has its own section above. Please keep the discussion together.

Categorizing Business under Society is a separate question, about which I will comment later. ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:58, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I have no objection to placing Category:Business under Category:Society. I notice that at Wikipedia it has been removed from Category:Society and placed in Category:Economics[2] (where Business ⊂ Economics ⊂ Social sciences ⊂ Society); but I don't think that sort taxonomy is necessary or useful for Wikiquote.

Wikipedia also places Category:Business under Category:Professional studies, which (along with Category:Society) is one of their Main topic classifications; but I don't see any benefit in attempting to profess a view on the question of which vocations are professional and which are non-professional, as the distinction is interpreted very differently in various contexts. ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:29, 4 October 2014 (UTC)