WP Categories of people

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I am mostly thinking about PPR, and the categories of thinkers people think exist on PPR, but this can apply to WP in general. Have people here noticed categorizable clumpings of people, such as ideologies or schools of thought represented, or even personality types, or has WP avoided that for a greater uniformity or even extreme levels of interpersonal difference? Is it legitimate to categorize people? Is it possible for these categories to make sense?

GO WP! Label each other!! ! (or not, as you wish)

Btw, if anyone has a set of labels, can they please share? Just make sure that nobody gets personally offended by this set of labels, as my intent is not to lead to psychological harm.

Yes there's only two kinds of people in PPR.

Mockers and Scorners.

Believers.

To an extent..it's reasonable or logical to clump people into a categories, othewise we wouldn't know what we were talking about that makes us different from one another.

Problem is, people may not fit into some of the extreme stereotypes of clumps members make here on the WP forum.

Sometimes one group that dominates or overrules over another can make it pretty hard for any minority to express or debate an opinion as it's been shown throughout history.

Then again, the PPR forum is probably not a good place for those who are sensative to stereotypes.

Well, categories aren't absolute, and there tends to be bleeding over at the edges, but there are definitely different little sub-communities at least in the different forums. Over in Computer, Math, Science, and Technology, you have the Linux gang (seems to be a majority), Gamefreak as the sole outspoken Windows zealot, and a number of Mac fanboys (gramirez and others). PPR of course has its own crowd: there is the venerable AG, here since the dawn of time, myself, our Marxist DentArthurDent, Fnord the Intractable Sceptic (haven't seen him in a while though), Sand the anti-theist, and of course many others, but I'm not making a comprehensive list right now.

I'm sure the other subforums each have their own regulars as well, so you could categorize WP members by which subforum(s) they are regulars on. For example, AG would be straight PPR, I am mostly PPR with a fair amount of Comp/math/sci/tech mixed in and the occasional expedition to other subforums.

BTW, I didn't put a check in the poll except for results since I agree but disagree to an extent. Some people have their own reasons for not being a "regular" or fitting into the concept of what makes them the way they are all the time.

I don't seem to fit into any category, well, perhaps within the delusionals, that might be.

Would PPR be best divided into the people that Orwell notices, and the ones he does not? Or shall we have individual categories? If a category is purely individual, then is it really a category?

It's not that I don't notice the other posters here, it's just that I didn't list them.

If you want some rough categories

Christians: Slowmutant, myself, ToadOfSteel (though he's mostly moved to zOMGAspies), formerly Iamnotaparakeet and Ragtime, a few others who do not discuss their faith very often.

Atheists: Sand, DentArthurDent, Fnord, and AG would be the most outspoken ones, though you (AG) argue for theistic ideas often enough.

Other breakdowns can be made; you could divide PPR up into people who are more or less in favor of civil libertarian ideas (as demonstrated in the periodic censorship threads) or degree to which someone is in favor of interventionist government (AG and Dent being opposite ends of this spectrum). Or you could have people in categories based on, as I said before, which parts of WP they gravitate to- Computers draws a different crowd than PPR draws a different crowd than Autism Politics, Activism, and Media Representation.

It is possible to categorize people or things in a number of ways. I haven't consciously
done this before, but here goes some examples of possible categorization schemes.

By belief system.

A simple way to do this is to divide people by those who share your views and who do not:

I am Christian, so for me this would be:

Set A: Christians
Set B: non-Christians.

A more exhaustive system would be:

Set A: Christian
Set B: Jewish
Set C: Muslim
Set D: Asian/Indian batch
Set E: African batch
Set F: South Pacific batch
Set G: North/South American Indian batch
Set H: Atheists
Set I: Agnostics
Set I1: Open Agnostics
Set I2: Closed Agnostics (i.e.: Atheists who like the title Agnostic)
... Et cetera.

Another way to divide groups into sets would be by their manners/friendliness:

Set A: Friendly
Set A1: friendly in general
Set A2: friendly in specific
Set B: Hostile
Set B1 hostile in general
Set B2 hostile in specific
Set C: Neutral

And so on, there are many potential classification schemes if one wanted to employ one.

I'd go along with Orwell's categorizations on WP as well as on the PPR.

Examples of categories I would think of existing in the PPR forum depending on the people that have contributed to the forum, and which the discussions would belong to them, would be something like this unless there is another way to categorize:

Religion:
Pro-science skepticism
Philosophical skepticism
Spirititualism
Hinduism
Atheism
Agnosticism
Theism:
-Catholics
-Protestants
-Muslims (though a minority)
-Jews (minority it seems)
-Pagans (minority)

Philosophy:
Epistemology:
-Philosophical skepticism
-Fallibilism
-Pro-science epistemology
-Reliabilism

Morality:
-Relativism
-Skepticism
-Absolutism
-Nihilism
Uncertainty
Determinism
Libertarianism (free will)

Politics:
Political/social/economical conservativism
Political/social liberalism
Political/social centrism
Libertarianism
Pro-socialism
Pro-democratic socialism
Anarchism
Minarchism
Monarchism
Totalitarianism (or Facism?) recently

...etc.

And of course we can't forget the Conspiracy Theorists.

Last edited by greenblue on 18 Feb 2009, 6:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

To fit into Greenblue's categories, I'd see myself as:

Religon: Theist, [Christian,] Protestant.

Philosophy:
Subclass 1(free will): Compatibilism.
Subclass 2(morality): Absolute, rules defined by Creator.

Politics: Political/social/economical conservativism is what I vote for. I'd prefer it to be easier to find a job, but I don't know the best way to have more jobs created.

Hmm..I never really thought of categorizing people here. It seems like this whole place is its own category. If I had to categorize people...I guess it would be...people I like, people I envy, people I find intimidating, the ones who creep me out, the ones who crack me up, and the others who I am slowly working into my memory. I am just the loser, out smoking cigarettes on the stoop and reading a creepy ass book. I voted I do not know.

This.

Some people are harder to categorize than others.

Claire333 is the innocent bystander.

There are the bad boys. These people mock others and can be a bit intimidating.

Those who fall under the bad boy list are:

AG is the funny intellectual who makes obscure references
twoshots the mathematician
Sand the Atheist
Der Gegner the satirist
haliphron the yeller

Then there are the rational intellectuals:
Greenblue the Theist
Orwell the historian

The nice philosophers:
Anna Banana
ToadofSteel

The delusionals (Mystics):
Myself
Averick the taoist
Bunny-in-the-moon
alba

Then there is Fnord the skeptic and slowmutant the Christian

That's it off the top of my head for now...

I think there's too much favoritism on here.

^What he said.