Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion

See also: WT:CFD/W, WT:CAT, and WT:CATP

See also: Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/User and WT:CFD/W/M

XFD backlog

V	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Total
CfD	0	0	10	0	10
TfD	0	0	0	0	0
MfD	0	0	8	0	8
FfD	0	1	4	2	7
RfD	0	0	12	4	16
AfD	0	0	0	0	0

Article and template that could be a category (gardens)

List of garden features and the entirely nonhierarchical template at the bottom of it both look like they might be better as categories. Eyecatchers might also benefit. Of course, subcats in the template and additional information or index images in the list article would also be good, but at the moment both are flat category-like lists. I'm really not fashed about what structure is used, whatever works for the person doing it. I'm posting this here in hopes someone might have a clever (perhaps semi-automated) way to do this sort of thing, as I don't think I'll be doing it. HLHJ (talk) 18:36, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

HLHJ, it might be better to bring up this concern at Talk:List of garden features. You might want to start an AFD discussion. See also WP:LISTOUTCOMES. —⁠andrybak (talk) 09:14, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, andrybak, I've done that now. I was mostly hoping for advice on semi-automating the task, and thought my best bet for finding an expert might be here. HLHJ (talk) 00:09, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Plurals under C2A

Under C2A, the sentence "This does not include changing the plurality of a noun when such the distinction between topic and set categories is uncertain" is awkward. The word "such" seems out of place, and "when the distinction between topic and set categories is uncertain" seems badly phrased. We know what the distinction is. The issue arises when it might be debatable which of those a particular category is. I propose replacing the sentence with "This includes pluralizing a noun in the name of a set category, but not when disagreement might reasonably be anticipated as to whether the category is a topic or set category". Largoplazo (talk) 23:30, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Good catch –  Done. – Fayenatic London 08:10, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Closing to "rename" a WP:BADNAC???

Just checking ... since me, a non-admin, cannot edit Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working, closing discussion to "rename/move" is considered a WP:BADNAC??? If so, dang ... no wonder WP:CFD has such a massive backlog. Also, technically, non-admins listing their closes on Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/Working is a WP:BADNAC since administrators have to respond to the requests on the talk page for their closes to be listed on Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working. Steel1943 (talk) 01:51, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

• ...Seriously, imma bout to start a discussion requesting the protection of Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working be reduced to template protection since that level seems to make sense. Steel1943 (talk) 01:55, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

  This is fine, if you close any discussion which require editing this page, just post here the links. There are several topic above by other closers, they are typically addressed quickly. Ymblanter (talk) 15:45, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

• @Steel1943: if you have page move rights you do not need Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working to close a discussion as rename. Category pages are moved the same way as articles. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:39, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
  • @Marcocapelle: Given that I'm aware of your level of participation at CfD, I'm sure you know that isn't the only task that needs to occur for categories that have members, especially categories that have thousands of members; each page which is a member needs to, in turn, have its category updated. That's one huge AWB-ish task for one editor to perform. In regards to the "BADNAC" concern, common practice seems to be to delete the old name of the category after the old category is emptied, which requires an administrator. Steel1943 (talk) 17:24, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Bot requests § Bot to preserve categories about to be deleted

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Bot requests § Bot to preserve categories about to be deleted. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:39, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

ANSI and redir cat names?

Some time ago the "ANSI standards" cat was speedied to "American National Standards Institute standards", a name which is used by precisely zero people on the planet earth. Unfortunately, the speedy page has no search function, so I cannot find the discussion of why this occurred.

In any event, to avoid having everyone solve this problem the hard way (a deletion warning on page create), is it reasonable to have a redir for this cat? Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:34, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Probably because ANSI is a redirect and the main article is at American National Standards Institute. Gonnym (talk) 12:45, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

But that is not what the standards are called. Even ANSI doesn't call them that. The standards are called "ANSI standard X". Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:26, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

But as a descriptive group they are the "American National Standards Institute standards". Looking at the site, almost anytime the name of the organization is used, their full name is used first. Seems the category is in the correct location. Gonnym (talk) 15:08, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Are you sure? about that? Or to save time, one can simply examine the list here, where ANSI and WWW are the only two of many dozens of standards that are spelled out. Maury Markowitz (talk) 13:43, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

The original rename request can be found here, and was proposed by Armbrust * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:18, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Can I speedy it back? Or do I have to start a discussion? Maury Markowitz (talk) 17:31, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Given the situation, it is probably safer to start a full discussion. Ymblanter (talk) 05:27, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

The question is how to make a redir. Maury Markowitz (talk) 17:52, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Please try using {{Category redirect}} to create a soft redirect. - Eureka Lott 20:04, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Done. Still need to fix the original though. Maury Markowitz (talk) 13:43, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Admin backlog

Do we still need the message on top "This page has a backlog that requires the attention of one or more administrators."? I think the table with number of open discussions per month should suffice. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:34, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Backlog reduction

{{admin backlog}} I've noticed that CFD tends to move way slower than the other CFD proposals, and items often fail to get relisted. Take for instance this nomination. It was relisted on the 18th and has clearly gone stale, as no one else has even looked at it in 15 days. This one has been open since the 15th and should clearly be closed as there is no opposition. It seems like every time I file a CFD, it tends to progress far slower than any other XFD. Does anyone know why they tend to run slower, and what could be done to speed them up? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 19:32, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

• @TenPoundHammer: I fully share your concern and unfortunately I do not have a remedy. Since a few weeks the situation has stabilized at around 150 discussions eligible for closing, which I am relatively happy with. In the medium long term it goes with ups and downs between 50 to (once) close to 300. Simple fact is that not enough editors are interested in closing CfD discussions, and I have no idea how we can change that. Many thanks to editors who do close lots of these discussions such as User:Fayenatic london and User:Qwerfjkl. Marcocapelle (talk) 21:05, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Some editors and admins find the guidance at WP:CFDAI daunting, and therefore steer clear of CFD. I must take some responsibility for that, having expanded it over the years, intending it to be useful for reference. User:Pppery therefore took the initiative earlier this year to insert a "Simple version" at the top. However, the XFDcloser tool, which he recommended there, is only partly useful for CFDs (see comments here). I must have another go at simplifying that page. – Fayenatic London 08:39, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
    • Context for that "Simple version" is Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 16#NPOV disputes categories where Liz said I think there needs to be a "Dummies Guide" to closing CfD discussions because I've read over the instructions several times over the past few years and found them intimidating enough that I never started doing closings, which I was trying to comply with. I note that she later promised that It's on [her] "To Do" list to try to take on some more simple closures next month and never followed through (next month refers to February)
      Poorly-written instructions aside, CfD closing is necessarily more complicated that most other types of discussion closure because implementing the result isn't just making one edit or admin action. TfD, the only other forum with that property, is really only staying above water because most nominations are entirely uncontroversial. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 13:10, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't know about your "To do" lists but I have some items on mine for several years that I haven't gotten to yet! I see my words as an aspiration, not a promise. And when the project is full of other, more straight-forward work that can keep me very, very busy, taking on an area of the project that I don't understand as well is, well, it is not appealing. But I see from this discussion that new instructions have been attempted and I have also seen some very good closures by non-admins recently so I should probably do my part as well and try to digest the "simpler" instructions. Note: That, too, is an aspiration and hope, not a "promise"! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:44, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

• @Fayenatic london and Pppery: I made an attempt to simplify here: User:Marcocapelle/sandbox2. I haven't really removed a lot of text, but primarily removed/simplified a lot of bulleting, because I think the amount and depth of bullets on the current page is the most intimidating bit of it. Marcocapelle (talk) 09:17, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

• I have also left a notification at Wikipedia talk:Deletion process#Attempt to make instructions for closing CfD discussions better readable. Marcocapelle (talk) 08:58, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

• WP:CFD/W has a backlog issue as well, and isn't linked from a highly visible part of the page. It receives about 1/4 of the pageviews of the main CfD page, and the manual subpage WP:CFD/W/M far less than that; WP:CFD/W/L (CfD closures affecting more than 5000 articles) is not linked from the parent, and has a vast backlog of unchecked, likely completed CfD's. There are two very large categories in Category:Categories needing manual work before deletion, Category:BBC Television shows and Category:Songs written for films, tagged in response to two CfD's from 2020 and 2016, respectively. I would recommend creating a new, highly visible section on the main CfD page which links to pages requiring manual or bot cleanup, like the one at the bottom of WP:TFD; and cleaning up WP:CFD/W and its subpages in a manner that is more accessible. In particular, WP:CFD/W/L should be linked from the main page.
  Aside from that, I do not see why WP:CFD/W and its subpages (except for WP:CFD/W/M) should be fully protected, since non-admin closures are technically feasible for most CfD's — even delete ones, because a closer could empty the contents before using the {{db-xfd}} tag, as is done at WP:TFD — and most operations at WP:CFD/W/L can also be verified by non-administrators.
  @Marcocapelle: Do you think we should discuss the proposals advanced in this thread further at WP:VPI, or advertise this discussion there to attract comments? (I don't think it's matured enough to start an RfC or use WP:CENT.) –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 20:13, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

  @LaundryPizza03: the reason why WP:CFD/W and its subpages are fully protected is to prevent vandalism.

  CFDW issues instructions to a powerful bot, by which anyone bent on mischief could wreak widespread havoc on the category system. This vulnerability was successfully exploited back in June 2007, as documented at WT:Categories for discussion/Working/Archive 1#Time to protect this page, after which I protected the page.

  This history is publicly summarised in CFDW's logs at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Wikipedia%3ACategories+for+discussion%2FWorking and I am disappointed that an editor would propose lowering the protection on any page without checking the history.

  It seems to me that the vulnerability is greater now than it was then, because 15 years later there are a lot more categories and many fewer admins watching CFD. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:40, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

• @Marcocapelle, @Fayenatic london, @Pppery, @Liz, @LaundryPizza03, @BrownHairedGirl, @TenPoundHammer, I've written a script, User:Qwerfjkl/scripts/CFDlister.js (doc), for non admins to list CFD closures at WT:CFDW. It's not perfect, but I hope it goes some way in helping editors close discussions. ― Qwerfjkltalk 21:08, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
• I've closed most of the discussions, so the backlog is fairly low (for now). ― Qwerfjkltalk 13:51, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Template

User:LaundryPizza03 reverted my bold edit and while it is not a big deal to me I will explain the two underlying reasons anyway:

1. The template is really big (it takes the whole screen on my mobile) and it is annoying you have to scroll a lot before getting to even the most basic information what the page is about.
2. The table below the template already provides the most important links of the template and it is a more natural order to show the most important links in full first and a link to anything else thereafter. Marcocapelle (talk) 19:43, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

@Marcocappelle: You will have to discuss this further at Wikipedia talk:Deletion process, since this change would logically affect all the XfD pages. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 20:18, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Malformed speedy CfR request?

Category:Lists of Disney television series episodes was nominated for speedy renaming to Category:Disney Channel related-lists by MegaSmike46 (talk · contribs) on July 15, but it doesn't appear that they ever added the entry to WP:CFD as required. Is it appropriate to remove the CFR tag on the category at this point, or can the request be completed by updating the CFD page? Note that I intend to oppose this request as I feel the proposal changes the meaning of the category. DonIago (talk) 02:21, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes. I'm a little new to this. My initial goal was to change the meaning of the category. I'm explaining further within that article. MegaSmike46 (talk) 02:42, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Did you discuss this with anyone prior to trying to implement this change? As someone a little new to this, one would think you might want to check with other editors first? Additionally, you added several articles to this category that are not even lists. DonIago (talk) 05:16, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

I've de-tagged the category listed above as I saw no evidence that the CfR request was completed and did not receive a response here. By my reckoning it would no longer be a "speedy" request. Cheers. DonIago (talk) 15:01, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Categorization#RfC: should templates and template categories roll up into related content categories

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Categorization § RfC: should templates and template categories roll up into related content categories. —⁠andrybak (talk) 21:37, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Category:Books by publisher has an RFC

Category:Books by publisher has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you.

Posting notice here for open, undiscussed RfC —Wingedserif (talk) 20:38, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Mass nomination needed

At Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2022_August_18#Category:Basketball_players_at_the_2022_NCAA_Division_I_Men's_Final_Four user:Namiba nominated from 2022 back to 2006, but IIUC Category:NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament Final Four players by year and the rest of its sub-cats should also now be nominated for deletion, and so should Category:NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Tournament Final Four players by year. – Fayenatic London 21:39, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: as you have been renaming a sibling set, you might possibly be willing! – Fayenatic London 11:42, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

No, I'm already overly busy finishing up some case fixes. It would seem OK for an admin to see the consensus there and go ahead and delete the rest, no? Dicklyon (talk) 15:41, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't think this case would fit any criteria for speedy deletion, nor does it justify using WP:IAR, bearing in mind some of the arduous mass nominations that others have done recently. – Fayenatic London 21:32, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

 Done Now listed at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2022_September_20#Final_Four_basketball_players_by_year. It took less than 15 mins using WP:JWB. – Fayenatic London 15:30, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

C2A and pluralization.

Does C2A cover renamings due to incorrect pluralization? For example, if there was a category "Attorney Generals of Missouri" which *should* be "Attorneys General of Missouri" (the one that I've found is actually for an Inspector General)Naraht (talk) 18:36, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

@Naraht: Yes, certainly. – Fayenatic London 22:33, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Brief break

@Marcocapelle, @Fayenatic london, I won't be on Wikipedia for a few days, from Friday to Sunday or Monday, so I won't be able to close CfDs for the next few days. Just a heads up. — Qwerfjkltalk 18:07, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

• If it is for vacation, enjoy the days! Marcocapelle (talk) 19:01, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the notice. I'm very glad you are still here most of the time. Best wishes! – Fayenatic London 22:31, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
    • @Fayenatic london, @Marcocapelle, I'm back a lot earlier than I expected, due to some unfortunate circumstances. — Qwerfjkltalk 11:08, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
      • Take care, and thanks for the update. Marcocapelle (talk) 13:05, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

shipbuilding

Category:Shipbuilding companies of the United States

Category:Shipyards of the United States

Category:Shipyards in California

Category:Shipbuilding companies of California

the left hand categorically does not know what the right hand does?

Then there is another problem. Sorting by state is not best. Portland and Vancouver shipyards on the Columbia and Willamette River are in spitting distance, but the Vancouver yards would end up in the same category as yards in Seattle.

Same for certain Shipyards in New York Harbor that get mixed together with yards on the Delaware River, because the state of New Jersey touches both.

Nowakki (talk) 22:50, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

consensus?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2022_November_16#Category:Builder_of_major_World_War_II_warships

i don't see a consensus there. also somebody was "not thrilled" by the word major. also, there was not even a reply to arguments i made.

nothing happened and somebody just renamed it anyway? is this how it works?

i am not thrilled by the word "major" not being included. that's the whole point of the category. Nowakki (talk) 15:46, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl: * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:45, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

@Nowakki, all three other contributers in the discussion opposed "major", so there was definite concensus against that. Marcocapelle suggested deletion but there was no consensus for that, so it was renamed instead, to help with the issues mentioned by the nom. The other !votes were implicitly agains your comment, especially the need for "major", without explicitly replying to you (at least, that's my view). — Qwerfjkltalk 20:00, 29 November 2022 (UTC)