The Beat is On

by Ambivalenthysteria

Arts
Arts has continued rapid growth, and although it has been surpassed by Sports, remains one of our largest top-level categories. The majority of this activity has, as in the past, been in Music. That category underwent a significant burst of growth, due to the efforts of trystan, sounddude and others. This saw us, among other things, gain a full discography of the Beatles at more than 1000 sections! However, since trystan has dropped off and as other editors have moved on to different editing projects, growth has slowed there.

Since the last newsletter, Project Stub has moved through Arts, and as a result, each second-level category now has some content. An attempt at setting up a catbuster project in Television largely floundered, but thanks to icurite, the category was built up anyway, and it now boasts 1479 sections. This period also saw us gain our first content on actors and actresses, thanks to the efforts of devans with a healthy 225 sections there.

Business
Business underwent a major reorganization at the hands of jordancpeterson and myself several months ago, which seemed to encourage some new editors to apply. Growth of content has remained slow, although Project Stub has seen some improvement in several major subcategories. The other notable exceptions here are in Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals, where trystan made an effort to get things off the ground some months ago, and in Terminology, where a number of explanations have been added.

Computers
Computers has always been one of the slower-growing top-levels of Open-Site, and this has continued since the last update. However, editor roschler joined the project in this area some months ago, and has significantly expanded the Programming section. Project Stub was instegated by roschler in the computer category, leaving almost every second-level category with some content.

Games
Since the last newsletter, Games has undergone a rapid expansion at the hands of lufiaguy, assisted by several other editors. As a result, we now have categories on many video games. Another new addition in this area is the Reviews and Previews subcategories, which were suggested and added by lufiaguy some months back, and are now a feature of most of our game categories. As with many of the others, Project Stub has moved through the Games second-level categories.

Health
Devans and berk has created over 200 sections to this category since the last newsletter. Major contributions to 'condition and diseases', informatics, and 'project stub' helped to expand the category.

Home
There have been few new additions here, with the exception of those in Project Stub.

Recreation
Home has seen several small bursts of activity, resulting in some growth in Autos, Extreme Aircraft and Pets, with the latter nearing 200 sections, plus the additions of Project Stub.

Regional
Regional has seen major ontological discussions in recent months, resulting in agreement to create Publications and Media subcategories where necessary, and much standardization of other topical subcategories. Regional has also begun to branch out down to state and local level for the first time, with the efforts of devans and icurite in Australia and New Zealand creating a potential precedent for country categories elsewhere.

Science
Science has seen some growth, although as in the past, this has been slow. Mathematics saw a short burst of activity, thanks to the efforts of two short-lived editors. It also saw one of our first disputes over content. Astronomy has also grown somewhat since the last newsletter.

Society
Progress on Society categories has almost dropped to a standstill, with the exception of Project Stub works. The one notable exception is the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress categorization systems, which have been growing rapidly thanks to the efforts of icurite.

Sports
Over the last year, Sports has undergone a huge expansion, thanks largely to the efforts of batboy. It has now become the largest top-level, finally surpassing Arts - which had been the largest almost since the project's inception. This has resulted in our branching out into a much wider variety of sports, such as Track and Field and Baseball, and the development of a strong Olympics category. Several editors have contributed to the Hockey category, which now consists of several thousand sections. In other areas, curcio has continued to update the Soccer category, and I have overseen the creation of a Netball category.

International
Over the past year, growth in our International categories has, on the whole, been limited to Italiano, where chirone continues to add content regularly, and Deutsch, which has been built up out of nothing since the last newsletter, and now consists of more than a thousand sections, thanks to the efforts of several editors. The regional section of Deutsch has grown particularly strongly, largely due to the efforts of now-catmod fema. However, our other languages have largely been dormant, except for an effort (led by trystan) to ensure that each language had a full set of top-level categories.

Kids
When Reference, Shopping and News were removed in 2003, discussions began concerning potential replacements for these. However, little action was taken as a result, until early 2004, when several editors, led by lufiaguy, began building a Kids category in Test. It has begun to take shape in recent months, and now consists of over 250 sections. It is likely to be moved live by the end of the year.