Category talk:Economic statistics

Infographics vs Statistics

Note. The first post was moved from user talk page to allow more open discussion.

Hello,

I don't agree with your revert of my edit to Category:Economic statistics. The article that you point to w:Infographic says that on the right "Part of a series on Statistics", which implies that it's part of statistics, not the other way around. There are many aspects of statistics that have nothing to do with infographics, sampling theory for example. Also Category:Statistics isn't a subcategory of Category:Infographics and within the subject area of economics the hierarchy shouldn't change. I'd consider making Information graphics a subcategory of Statistics, but the way that it has been set up, to include Bumper stickers and Signage and Timelines etc., means it doesn't fit within Statistics either. --ghouston (talk) 21:59, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Possibly Category:Infographics should be cleaned up so that it better matches the meaning in w:infographic, instead of just being a synonym for Category:Graphics. Then it could be made a subcategory of statistics, and Economic infographics could be a subcategory of Economic statistics. --ghouston (talk) 22:10, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

By definition images concerning economic statistics are infographics. Because they are graphics containing abstract info. The Commons is an image repository for the most part. The topic of economic statistics is far broader than infographics of course, but we on the commons are dealing with the infographics. Wikipedia covers the whole field of economic statistics in depth, which is a vast area of study.

I think discussion of the parent categories should be taken to Category:Information graphics. Maps are infographics, but are not always statistics-focused. Same for diagrams, signage, labels, posters, history timelines, illustrations, etc.. Data may be involved at times, but not always. There are no perfect, or clean, hierarchies of categories, in many cases for this stuff. There are many overlaps and subtleties. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:49, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, so it seems that neither Category:Information graphics nor Category:Statistics is a subset of the other. Most or all of the intersection seems to be covered by Category:Statistical charts. If all of the contents of Category:Economic statistics are actually charts, then I think the best thing would be to rename the categories to make it clear, e.g., Category:Electricity prices to "Electricity price charts", and possibly Category:Economic statistics would end up renamed as "Economic statistics charts" or "Charts of economic statistics". --ghouston (talk) 21:45, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

"Economic statistics" avoids the past problems we had trying to separate charts from graphs. Also, the linguistic confusion at times over the meaning of "tables" and "charts". See w:Table (information), and its example table: File:Table-sample-appearance-default-params-values-01.gif. See also:

Showing Complex Data:Trees, Tables, and Other Information Graphics - Designing Interfaces.

Overall, for most topics, not just economics, we decided to phase out Category:Graphs in most cases. It redirects to Category:Information graphics in case anybody or any page linked to it. There are still separate chart and graph categories in many topic areas inside and outside of economics. But less than before. And the chart categories that exist often contain graphs too, as more and more people use the broader meaning of "charts". See: w:chart. "Economic statistics" avoids that craziness altogether and functions as a good wrapper category for them all.

When we jump up to the overall parent category of information graphics, the overlaps get really complex, and should be discussed on its talk page. For example; see w:Template:Visualization. Nearly all the images produced by the fields listed in that template could be called infographics. But the fields themselves are vast areas of study and practice that go well beyond infographics. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:42, 19 February 2015 (UTC)