Categories versus free space pages

Question

I tagged this 'Canadian History' but it may apply to a wider audience ...

We have several Canadian History sub-projects aimed at the provinces and famous/well known folks from each.  I added a few actors/actresses from New Brunswick and put them in a Free Space page.  Now I'm wondering, should I have used a Category instead?  Or maybe I should have both ... is there a policy for when to use what format?

As an aside, I'm not a big fan of the category format because, it seems, I don't have much control over the format ... it's always a page of links in alphabetical order, right?  I like the Free Space stuff because I do have control ... I like a nice table, with columns I can define, so that I can easily compare and see all the entries.

Answer 1

Bob,

Catagory pages do not have the limitations you suggest.  Perhaps my experimental category page [[http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Chronicles_of_New_France |Chronicles of New France]] will provide you and others with inspiration on category usage.

Comments

Thanks, George!  Looks like I need to play around with category pages a bit more.

Answer 2

I like both: The category to make it easy to link profiles together, and the free space page to add context. Besides, having both improves the profile's Google search ranking. The more things that link to it, the more importance Google places on it. (If the page wasn't interesting or useful, less things would link to it, right?)

Comments

Thanks Erin,  Didn't think about that searching stuff.  From what George provided it looks like I might be able to put my dear tables onto the category page as well ... I think I'll do both types of pages.

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So, as an initial foray into categories, I put a table atop the Prime Ministers category page: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Canadian_Prime_Ministers ... comments?

So, now it looks a lot like the old Free Space page ... no new information added from what was on the Free Space page.  Just seems a bit redundant.

I do like the category page in that it uses the full screen (left to right) whereas the FS page has that profile stuff down the right taking up space.