Custom Taxonomies vs Categories on Custom Post Types - what makes sense for my site?

[Travis Hill]

I've read quite a few articles about WordPress's support of custom taxonomies. They seem like a great feature, but I'm not entirely certain they are suitable for my site.

In short, this is what I'm doing: I have a site that is intended to host two debates each day. I will have "My Debates" and "Sponsored Debates." For both of these debates, I will need to use a custom template (They will have the same layout and should be able to both use the same template). In order to create these debates, I will need to create a Custom Post Type.

So, My Debates and Sponsored debates both utilize a Custom Post Type that has its own Custom Template.

What I have gathered is that taxonomies typically describe the Post type. For example. if I have a post type called "Movies" I can add taxonomies like actors, directors, producers, etc.

In my case, it makes sense to have a post type called "Debates," but using custom taxonomies doesn't seem to make sense .. or does it? I basically have two sub-categories of Debates - My Debates and Sponsored Debates.

Also, when using custom post types, I'm unable to assign categories to that post type. It seems like the only option with custom post types is to use taxonomies.


Ok, that was a lot of info. Does that make sense? Can someone provide insight?

Thanks!