Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 February 13

February 13

Conservative organisations AND Conservative organizations in the United States

Propose deleting:

• Category:Conservative organisations - Template:Lc1
  

Propose merging

• Category:Conservative organizations in the United States to Category:Political organizations in the United States

Nominator's rationale: Delete per the long-standing consensus expressed in WP:OC#SUBJECTIVE: "Adjectives which imply a subjective inclusion criterion should not be used in naming/defining a category".
This category was created on 5 February 2010, but the analogous category for people, Category:Conservatives, was deleted at CFD 2008 December 30. There may be a bit less of a BLP hazard when categorising organisations, but otherwise the subjectivity issues raised by these categories are very similar to those raised at the Category:Conservatives CFD, including

1. The definition of "Conservative" has changed over time. On economic policy, many of those who currently categorise themselves as "Conservative" would have been labelled in the 19th-century as "Liberals"
2. Definitions of "Conservative" depend on the political perspective of the commentator. An organisation which appears "Conservative" from a left-wing perspective may be decidedly-non-conservative from a far right perspective.
3. The common use of the word in one country may be very different from that in another: for example, the notion of a tax-funded free-at-point-of-use healthcare system for all citizens is strongly defended by the Conservative Party (UK), but even a small step in that direction is vociferously opposed by even by the center-ground in United States politics. Wikipedia is a global project with a global readership, so the use of a term whose meaning varies so widely between different countries misleads readers and creates disputes between editors
4. Conservatism in one sphere in may not extend to conservatism in another. For example, a person may be "socially conservative" but "economically liberal", or vice versa. Even concepts such as "economically conservative" need further qualification, because it is not uncommon to advocate economic redistribution (a non-conservative idea) whilst at the same time being a "fiscal conservative" (i.e. opposed to deficits).

For other related discussions, see

• CfD 2010 February 1 American liberal organizations (still open)
• CfD 2010 January 22 American progressive organizations (closed as delete)

Note that I have not included in this nomination the sub-category Category:Conservative think tanks based in the United States. I think that the issues raised there are similar, but in case there are some subtle differences, it seems better to leave them aside until the completion of this discussion. If these categories are deleted, I will nominate the think-tank category for deletion.

Finally, for the record, I also support deleting Category:Socialists and similar categories, which are also too vague and subjective to provide stable and objective categorisation. In general political ideologies are too amorphous and changeable to make for NPOV categories. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:08, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

• Keep for the reasons being discussed concurrently, and at remarkable length, in the context of liberal organizations.[1]TVC 15 (talk) 23:50, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

• Canvassing alert. TVC 15 (talk · contribs) has now begun canvassing selected editors who have shared his/her position in similar discussions: [2], [3]. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:05, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

  Emphasis on "begun," and although I was in full compliance with WP:CANVASS, prudence requires me to stop to avoid the risk of being blocked by User:BrownHairedGirl, who nominated this category without notifying any of the participants in the discussions of the other related categories. They should all be notified. I started doing that, and User:BrownHairedGirl's ordering me to stop is an abuse of admin authority.TVC 15 (talk) 00:16, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

  If you think I am abusing admin authority, please rush along to WP:ANI and report it in the proper place. Meanwhile, please stop your votestacking efforts. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:27, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

We can take this to WP:ANI if you want, but a simpler solution would be to notify the participants in the relevant discussions, which you should have done when you nominated this category, and which I started to do. Instead of making accusations against me, you would do better simply to ensure all participants get the same notice, which you could do simply by copying and pasting.TVC 15 (talk) 00:36, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Posting notices to all the many participants in the other discussions would amount to excessive cross-posting, which is a form of WP:CANVASSING. I do not intend yto do that, and nor should you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:53, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

• NoteYou had already intimated that you intended to delete other ideological categories so I find the canvassing alert null as I had already intended to discuss on this matter.--Sparrowhawk64 (talk) 00:42, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

• Strong keep Politically orientated organisations are divided into conservative, democratic, progressive, etc. Based on their names and/or reliable sources, inclusion in an appropriate Wikipedia category does not imply any POV, while not categorising these as such is withholding information. It is about time we stop being afraid of calling things by their names on Wikipedia. Debresser (talk) 00:10, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

  Reply. The articles on organisations in this list are indeed called by their names (e.g. the American Center for Law & Justice has a wikipedia article named American Center for Law & Justice), and this nomination does not seek to change that. The issue here is a different one, viz. whether it is appropriate to use vague and subjective terminology to categorise them. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:21, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) That may be the case, but adjectives such as "conservative", "democratic", and "progressive" do not have the same meaning in all contexts. The values of an organization that is considered to be conservative in the United States could be ultra-liberal in a Saudi Arabian context, just as the values of an organization that is "liberal" in a Saudi Arabian could be considered ultra-conservative in an American context.

  The problem is even more severe with "progressive": every politician and political party claims to be progressive when people are unhappy with the status quo. "Democratic", a term whose meaning has been expanded to the extent that it has lost almost all value except in propaganda (where it is essentially used as a synonym of "good") and narrowly-defined academic discussion, is perhaps the worst of all: the term is applied generously to multiple forms of government, various sets of social and political values, schemes of social organization and interaction, and so on. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 00:34, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

  Of course they don't have the same meaning in each context that's why it's American conservative organizations. Additionally you will find that in the American context progressive is on the left. While all parties like and talk about "progress" you will never find libertarians, Republicans or conservatives defining themselves as "progressive."--Sparrowhawk64 (talk) 00:40, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

  Yes, but Wikipedia is a global project and should reflect a global perspective, not an American one (and I say this as an American editor). As for the point about self-identification as "progressive", you're right, of course, but "if there is no agreement on a definition of 'progressive', then self-identification does not lead to an objective fact". -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 00:55, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Delete and merge per BrownHairedGirl's well-reasoned nomination. Conservatism, like liberalism, is not defined by even a vaguely-formed set of ideological principles; it is a "political attitude" (see Conservatism) that can be shared by individuals and organizations of a thousand different beliefs and ideologies, and which can and does have a different meaning for each one. If any editor can offer a definition of conservatism that is objective, non-original, and valid across time and space, then I would gladly change my mind. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 00:18, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

  Per MS Encarta, conservative means "in favor of preserving the status quo and traditional values and customs, and against abrupt change;"[4] liberal means "favoring gradual reform, especially political reforms that extend democracy, distribute wealth more evenly, and protect the personal freedom of the individual."[5] As noted by Sparrowhawk64, we are talking about conservative organizations in the United States, so we don't need to concern ourselves with Chinese Confucians of the Ming Dynasty.TVC 15 (talk) 00:51, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

  Yes, and those are extremely broadly-defined attitudes that "can be shared by individuals and organizations of a thousand different beliefs and ideologies, and which can and do have a different meaning for each one". And as noted by BHG, Wikipedia is a global project and must concern itself with a global perspective, not just the American one. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 00:58, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

• Keep I agree with Debresser and TVC 15. Your rationale for deleting is sketchy at best. First of all I agree that the definition of conservatives changes but if you follow that logic you should remove conservative from all pages. If you truly want to solve the problem you could rename the category modern conservative organizations. Just because a word changes its meaning over time (as a huge amount of English words do) does not mean the word becomes useless. On your second point, that may be true but that's why we use reliable and/or academic sources and not original research. On your next point, while conservatism varies from country to country and indeed Wikipedia is a global encyclopedia, that is why this organization is named "American conservative organizations." As for your claim that it will confuse readers, if the reader has common sense they might read the pages in the category to realize American conservatism may be different from other strains or they might possibly read the page Conservatism in the United States to learn the difference. Additionally your claim that even the center-ground in American politics is against even a slight move in that direction is odd seeing as how earlier you claimed that the center ground is relative and fairly indefinable but not that only but it's also original research. As for your last point, American conservatism is conservative on all fronts. If you're economically liberal and socially conservative you may be a Southern Democrat or more authoritarian, if the opposite is true then that is American libertarianism. It is understood that these organizations espouse conservatism in most of its forms: economically, fiscally, socially, and culturally. While each organizations ideas and policies will vary slightly (otherwise if they all agreed there would be little point in having multiple identical organizations), that does not mean we need to drop this category completely.--Sparrowhawk64 (talk) 00:42, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Reply. Please read WP:NPOV#A_simple_formulation: "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves". Labelling a organisation or person as "conservative" or "liberal" or "progressive" is an opinion, and it's perfectly fine to include in article a referenced assertion that the organisation was described as "conservative" (or whatever). However, a category is an unqualified, unattributed and uncontextualised editorial statement, which is why there is a long-standing consensus not to use the subjective and inconsistent terms as the basis for categorisation. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:03, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Football (soccer) by year

Propose renaming

Nominator's rationale: For consistency within the category tree (see Category:Association football by year and Category:Association football) and with mainspace article titles (e.g., 2010 in association football). -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 20:08, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

• Rename all per nominator, and congrats on completing the the huge nomination. We probably still have thousands more categories to do, including the sub-categories of Category:Football (soccer) templates; the template category was included in the group nomination on Feb 5, but the sub-categories were not. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:14, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Category:Football (soccer) clubs by year of establishment

Propose renaming

Nominator's rationale: For consistency within the category tree (see Category:Association football clubs and Category:Association football) and with mainspace article titles (see Association football and List of association football clubs). -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 20:03, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

• 'Rename all per nominator and for consistency with the outcome of Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 February 5#Category:Association_football. Congrats on completing this big nomination. --23:11, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Category:Moldovan football competitions

Propose renaming Category:Moldovan football competitions to Category:Football competitions in Moldova

Category:Cape Verdean football competitions to Category:Football competitions in Cape Verde

Category:Nicaraguan football competitions to Category:Football competitions in Nicaragua

Nominator's rationale: These three are the "Brad is an idiot" completion of the umbrella nomination of 29 January. For some reason, these three fell through the cracks. Propose rename to match the parent cat's system, and to complete the decision of 29 January. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 15:33, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support. Seems non-controversial. Pcap ping 15:39, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• Speedy rename per outcome of that discussion. Debresser (talk) 20:22, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• Speedy rename per outcome of previous discussion, but not per nominator. Bradjamesbrown did a brilliant job of the huge task of nominating and tagging about seventeen squillion football competition categories for the previous group nomination, and I completely reject his clam that he is an idiot. Missing three categories out of that long list is just evidence that he is a human with an impressively-low error rate, rather than a bot. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:08, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Category:Films with a pedophile theme

Category:Films with a pedophile theme - Template:Lc1

Nominator's rationale: The list serving as article for this category has been deleted: List of films portraying paedophilia or sexual abuse of minors. It's unclear if the category is any different. See also Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 February 13#Category:Pederastic films, where Category:Pederastic films was speedily deleted because its own list, List of films depicting pederasty, had been first turned into a redirect to the paedophilia list and then speedily deleted when the AfD closed. Pcap ping 13:41, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Category:Deportivo Morón

Propose renaming

• Category:Deportivo Morón to Category:Club Deportivo Morón
• Category:CD Morón footballers to Category:Club Deportivo Morón footballers
• Category:AC Sarmiento players to Category:Club Atlético Sarmiento footballers

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Discussion from Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy

• Category:CD Morón footballers to Category:Deportivo Morón footballers, categories for footballers should use the common name for the club rather than an unusual abbreviation. King of the North East 20:11, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
• Category:AC Sarmiento players to Category:Club Atlético Sarmiento footballers, to avoid using an irregular ind incorrect abbreviation of the club name and to match the contents of the parent category King of the North East 19:52, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

  I'm afraid these two don't exactly fit any speedy criterion, so they'll need to be nominated at a full CfD. Jafeluv (talk) 09:13, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

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Nominator's rationale: Listing from WP:CFD/S, with some modifications, including an added category. For consistency with the main articles (Club Deportivo Morón and Club Atlético Sarmiento) and per the convention of Category:Footballers in Argentina by club. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 08:08, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support per nom. It only serves to confuse the reader if the team name is written differently in the category title than the article title. Also, the term used in this category tree is "footballers", not "players". Jafeluv (talk) 11:29, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support, the categories should use the common or full name of the club, not unusual abbreviations of the club names. The categories should use the word footballers as most Argentine football teams also have other affiliated sports clubs such as Deportivo Morón's basketball and gymnastics clubs and Sarmiento's basketball team. King of the North East 14:49, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Category:QI panellists

Category:QI panellists - Template:Lc1

Nominator's rationale: Delete. Overcategorization of a type of "performer by performance". Appearing as a guest panellist on a TV programme is not a defining feature of the individual. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 07:32, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

• Delete Per nom. Although putting all that info into a table (number of apperences, wins, high/low score) could be Quite Interesting... Lugnuts (talk) 10:19, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Category:LGBT producers

Propose renaming Category:LGBT producers to Category:LGBT record producers

Nominator's rationale: To clarify that the category is about record producers, as it might cause confusion with film producers, radio producers, video game producers and so on. — ξ^xplicit 06:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

• Comment. Actually, I just realized this includes all types of producers... Would anyone be against a split? Having these all jumbled up into one category confused the hell out of me. — ξ^xplicit 20:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Alt-country

Propose renaming:

• Category:American alt-country groups to Category:American alternative country groups
• Category:Finnish alt-country groups to Category:Finnish alternative country groups

Nominator's rationale. To expand abbreviation and match parent article, alternative country. See similar nomination from November 2009. — ξ^xplicit 03:39, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

• Rename all per nominator. Debresser (talk) 20:19, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Category:North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball coaches

Suggest merging Category:North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball head coaches to Category:North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball coaches

Nominator's rationale: Two overlapping categories, a couple of pages in both. Mm40 (talk) 01:11, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support, conditionally. I agree that the "head coaches" distinction is unnecessary; I think grouping everyone who coached at a school is fine. But while I would like to see this occur, Category:College men's basketball head coaches has 99 subcategories. This nomination is probably not broad enough to attract everyone who would have an opinion on the entire scheme.--Mike Selinker (talk) 11:33, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Category:Jewish Community Center

Propose renaming Category:Jewish Community Center to Category:Jewish community centers

Nominator's rationale: Rename per naming conventions. Gilliam (talk) 00:51, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

• The category was probably meant to be for articles about various Jewish Community Centers. JCC is an organization. Mm40 (talk) 01:17, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• Rename per nominator. Debresser (talk) 20:19, 13 February 2010 (UTC)