Jump to content

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by RedWolf (talk | contribs) at 03:57, 18 February 2005 (→[[:Category:Italian movie producers]]: resolved -> deleted). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Shortcut

See Wikipedia:Categories for deletion policies for the official rules of this page, and how to do cleanup.

Deletion tools
Policy (log)
Articles (howto · log)
Templates (howto · log)
Categories (howto · log)
Mergers
Page moves
Speedy
All speedy templates
Unfree files
Transwiki (howto · log)
All transwiki templates

How to use this page

  1. Know if the category you are looking at needs deleting (or being created). If it is a "red link" and has no articles or subcategories, then it is already deleted (more likely, it was never really created in the first place), and does not need to be listed here.
  2. Read and understand Wikipedia:Categorization before using this page. Nominate categories that violate policies there, or are misspelled, mis-capitalized, redundant/need to be merged, not NPOV, small without potential for growth, or are generally bad ideas. (See also Wikipedia:Manual of Style.)
  3. Please read the Wikipedia:Categorization of people policy if nominating or voting on a people-related category.
  4. Unless the category to be deleted is non-controversial – vandalism or a duplicate, for example – please do not depopulate the category (remove the tags from articles) before the community has made a decision.
  5. Add the name of the new category and {{cfd}} to the category page for deletion. This will add a message to it, and also put the page you are nominating into Category:Categories for deletion. It's important to do this to help alert people who are watching or browsing the category.
    Alternately, use the rename template like this: {{cfr|newname}}
  6. Add new deletion candidates under the appropriate day near the top of this page.
  7. Make sure you add a colon (:) in the link to the category being listed, like [[:Category:Foo]]. This makes the category link a hard link which can be seen on the page (and avoids putting this page into the category you are nominating).
  8. Sign any listing or vote you make by typing ~~~~ after your text.
  9. Link both categories to delete and categories to merge into. Failure to do this will delay consideration of your suggestion.

Special notes

Some categories may be listed in Category:Categories for deletion but accidently not listed here.

Old discussions from this page have been archived to:

In light of various new policies, some /unresolved disputes will be re-listed here in the near future.

See also meta-discussion going on at Wikipedia talk:Categories for deletion phrases regarding the content of the {{cfd}} template, and about advisory/non-advisory phrases to be used on this "Categories for deletion" page.

February 18

Category:Fievel's American Tails characters

Articles that were here have been combined into main article; creator attempted to blank by changing to "#REDIRECT None". —tregoweth 02:02, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

Category:An American Tail characters

Articles that were here have been combined into main article; creator attempted to blank by changing to "#REDIRECT None". —tregoweth 02:02, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

February 17

Category:Terrorist organizations

This is the third nomination for this category. Previous discussion is here. The WP definition of terrorism is the use of violence for the purpose of achieving a political, religious, or ideological goal., which appears to include every war or conflict ever. <sarcasm> Strangely, every government page isn't in the category.</sarcasm> I'm sick of removing this category when people stick in on the rebel group articles that I work on. It tells you nothing besides that somebody dislikes them and is about as useful as Category:People who suck. I would have no problem with Category:Organizations designated as terrorist by X government, Category:Organizations referred to the ICC or to an ICT or even Category:Organizations that define themselves as terrorist, but this category is a big "Let's start an edit war!" sign. - — BanyanTree 21:38, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Delete. A perfect example of the problem with this category is that it has been applied to the Mau Mau, who killed 32 white settlers and about 2,000 Kikuyu, but not to any white group active in Kenya at that time, even though altogether they killed 10 times as many. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:43, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
Delete. Too hard to define terrorism... inherently POV. – flamurai (t) 21:55, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
Delete, inherently POV. -Sean Curtin 23:20, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
Delete, bigtime POV.--Hooperbloob 23:24, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Delete, same reasons as everyone else above. Ngb 23:30, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Comment Will this delete all the sub-categories as well? Jayjg (talk) 23:26, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Keep: Last three votes were to keep. Why are we re-nominating a category that failed the vote last time? (it was 14-14 if I counted right.) --ssd 23:43, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
How long before someone decides to move United States Government into this category? Inherently POV, delete. Grutness|hello? 00:16, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Delete Courtland 00:24, 2005 Feb 18 (UTC)

Category:Lists of people by surname

Delete. After merging with Category:People by surname, this category should be deleted 500LL 14:11, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:German Film producers

Very sorry, my first category, I determined that the F in Film should be small case. How about a delete category that only you have created/edited button? Austrosearch 08:34, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Same as Homosexuality, below. -- Beland 07:53, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Homosexuality

Instead of labeling things as "homosexual", "gay", "lesbian", or "bisexual", I've been reclassifying sexual orientation-related topics under "identity", "science", "society", etc. See Category:LGBT. Some of the categories there could probably stand to be re-named (feel free to make additional nominations), but for the moment, I've finished reclassifying everything from Category:Homosexuality, so it's no longer needed. (This was announced on and supported by Category talk:LGBT.)


Category:Fooish political parties --> Category:Political parties in Foo

See below. Renaming makes searching easier and eliminates the pesky adjectives. If we can get a bot to do it, that would be great. Neutralitytalk 05:32, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

  • Support. Good idea. JuntungWu 17:42, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. This is pretty clear-cut, much more so than the "military history" categories. – flamurai (t) 18:42, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Seems eminently sensible. Ngb 23:30, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Political parties by nationality

Rename to Category:Political parties by country. Neutralitytalk 05:32, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

  • Agree Courtland 07:11, 2005 Feb 17 (UTC)
  • Is the fact that Greenland and British Virgin Islands aren't separate countries okay? JuntungWu 16:11, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Italian-American activists

Delete for the same reasons as the jurists category below; of course, none of the activism of the included individuals actually has anything to do with being Italian-American, but instead ranges from gay rights to labor activism. Postdlf 03:26, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Delete. Agreed. – flamurai (t) 03:27, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete Courtland 04:01, 2005 Feb 17 (UTC)
  • Possibly keep and reserve for people whose activism is/was specific to the role of Italian Americans in American society? -- Jmabel | Talk 21:47, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
    • That would be the only use for it, but are there enough such articles? Postdlf 23:12, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Italian-American jurists

Delete, for the same reasons as Category:Italian-American sporting legends below. This is a purely circumstantial intersection of two unrelated traits, as being one has no effect on whether one is the other. As such, it is a frivolous level of subcategorization that is more appropriate as a list article, if anything. Postdlf 03:22, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Delete. Agreed. Sub-sub-categorization has to stop somewhere. – flamurai (t) 03:29, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete Courtland 03:59, 2005 Feb 17 (UTC)
  • Delete --Hooperbloob 23:33, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

February 16

Category:Carnatic singers

Appropriate name is Category:Carnatic vocalists. Articles under Category:Carnatic singers have been recategorized to Category:Carnatic vocalists. Please delete this category. Thanks. Arunram 14:33, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

February 15

Category:Sexology

Redundant with Category:Sexuality. The sex-related categories have a lot of redundancy...this is part of a general cleanup. -- Beland 02:10, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)


Category:Italian-American sporting legends

"Legends" is POV. Rename to Category:Italian-American sportspeople. – flamurai (t) 16:40, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

  • Support Courtland 17:12, 2005 Feb 15 (UTC)
  • Support Bryan 10:08, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete regardless of name, because this is a frivolous level of subcategorization. Why isn't this more appropriate as a list article? It seems to me that this is a purely circumstantial intersection of two unrelated traits, as being one has no effect on whether one is the other. Why not also create Category:Italian-American 1968 births, or Category:Italian-American sportspeople suicides from Pennsylvania? Postdlf 00:08, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete Agree with Postdif. RedWolf 01:17, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Changing my own vote. I guess I just picked out the obvious thing that popped out to me. – flamurai (t) 03:26, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

Category:Canadian military history, Category:Croatian military history, Category:Japanese military history

Rename from Category:Fooish military history --> Category:Military history of Foo. Neutralitytalk 05:21, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

  • Support -- AllyUnion (talk) 06:10, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Sounds logical to me. Grutness|hello? 11:06, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. History articles are generally of the nation not of the state. For instance Category:Canadian military history covers many events that occurred before the state of Canada came into existence. - SimonP 16:43, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. This following the style guide of avoided adjectives related to country/nationality whenever possible. For the pre-country stuff, they should be in their own category then, with a note in the category saying, for instance for Canada, "For pre-1867 history, see Military history of British North America" or something similar. Burgundavia 22:09, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Note that pre-history is often included in "History of" articles as well. For example, History of Canada includes pre-nation history. – flamurai (t) 22:53, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose It's much more use to have things under current countries with subcategories where necessary. The British/Irish/UK history categories are a mess with masses of misallocation (or rather failure to allocate in accordance with faulty policies) due to failure to follow this principal. Wincoote 08:43, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Support for consistency of style. Bryan 10:03, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Current titles are concise. Maurreen 05:14, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. JuntungWu 17:41, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Poetry anthology

Rename to Category:Poetry anthologies. -Sean Curtin 03:16, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

  • You mean merge and delete yes? Courtland 17:24, 2005 Feb 15 (UTC)
sorry - You had already created the empty new category and I thought it already had items in it Courtland 17:27, 2005 Feb 15 (UTC)
  • Am I correct in "Poetry anthologies" is related to collections of poetry by more than one auther, while "Poetry collections" refers to collections of poetry by a single author?

Courtland 17:31, 2005 Feb 15 (UTC)

Yes. Wincoote 08:47, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. – flamurai (t) 17:34, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

Category:Towns in the European Union

Rename subcategories; there seems to be no consistency. ~ RoboAction 00:53, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Oppose Those which are called municipalities probably reflect local political subdivisions. Those which include two or all of towns, villages and cities could be subdivided, but unless you are going to legally commit to doing all the reallocations yourself, I don't think this should be forced through. Wincoote 03:28, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. zoney ♣ talk 22:25, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Places in Germany

This category was in category:Palaces and the only entry was Nymphenburg Palace, which I have shifted to category:Buildings in Germany. Perhaps a well meaning English spelling mistake by a German editor. I can't see much need for a vague "Places" sub-category for Germany, which already has several more specific place categories, and no one is using it.Wincoote 00:49, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

February 14

Category:Taiwanese political parties

The current official title of the country is Republic of China. And in fact most major parties take part in Quemoy and Matsu, which are not part of the Taiwan province of the ROC, and are not part of (and not near) the island of Taiwan. Renaming to category:Political parties of the Republic of China or category:Political parties of the Republic of China (Taiwan) will better reflect what this category is about. — Instantnood 19:02, Feb 14 2005 (UTC)

  • By nominating I support renaming. — Instantnood 19:04, Feb 14 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep where it is Most people outside the US and Taiwan have never heard of and do not understand the term "Republic of China" - they would confuse it for the People's Republic of China. "Taiwan" is accurate enough here, and the most widely understood term, jguk 13:01, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Quoted from Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese): "the word "Taiwan" should not be used if the term "Republic of China" is more accurate.". "Republic of China" (ROC) is the current official title of the government currently governing Taiwan, Pescadores Islands, Matsu Islands and Quemoy. The word "Taiwan" is not an accurate description in this case, as on Wikipedia "Republic of China" is preferred over "Taiwan" when referring to the government. And as I have mentioned, Quemoy and Matsu are neither part of the province of Taiwan of the ROC, nor near to the island of Taiwan. — Instantnood 19:26, Feb 16 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. The general direction nowadays is towards the word Taiwan, both inside and outside of Taiwan -XED.talk 20:00, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Agree with others. Maurreen 05:20, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Irrespective of the accuracy of the name, the format of the title is wrong, surely. At the very least it should be Category:Political parties of Taiwan Grutness|hello? 00:22, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Political parties of the People's Republic of China

Currently the categories Hong Kong political parties and Macau political parties are subcategories of category:Political parties of the People's Republic of China. This arrangement is not satisfactory, as political parties in Hong Kong and Macao are not regional parties of a country like CSU in Bavaria, Germany. On the other hand, the Communist Party of China do not take part in elections in Hong Kong or Macao. Renaming the category into category:Political parties of mainland China (with the Hong Kong's and Macao's category delinked) will give readers a clear concept that where the political parties in each category actually are taking part in. — Instantnood 18:52, Feb 14 2005 (UTC)

Category:Defunct music groups

This will be filled up fast with most every band that has existed. In the long run, this'll be no different from a "people that died" category and just as useless. -- LGagnon 15:36, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

  • Yes. Delete. Postdlf 15:41, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete Wincoote 00:50, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete – flamurai (t) 17:03, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

February 13

Category:Sex

I nominate this for merger with Category:Sexuality. There are too many sex-related categories around that aren't clearly distinguished from one another. I chose the longer name to clearly indicate that we mean sex, as in the thing people do with one another, rather than sex, as in gender. -- Beland 05:34, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Agreed. 'Delete' and merge. Wincoote 00:51, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge and delete. – flamurai (t) 16:58, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment—I agree with the above distinction, but I wonder how much farther we should clarify things. Should we make any effort to distinguish between sex as a biological characteristic and gender as a cultural identification? Is it feasible to maintain separate categories on this basis? Postdlf 00:13, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)


Category:Religious Philosophy

Incorrect capitalization, should be Category:Religious philosophy Bryan 18:35, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Keep. I recently created the Philosophy of religion category precisely because it's different from Religious philosophy. The latter should be used to refer, for example, to Christian philosophy or Jewish philosophy — philosophy done from a particular religious perspective; the former refers to the philosophical investigation of religious concepts and claims from a neutral perspective. I intend to go through all the relevant articles sorting them out, but I've been distracted I'm afraid. I'll get on to it as soon as I can, though.
    Note that there's an overlap between the two, of course, as with many categories, but Philosophy of religion isn't just a sub-category of Religious philosophy; there are many topics that they don't have in common. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:27, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Change to keep, with alterations - How about Category:Religious philosophies and Category:Philosophy of religion? That way the first has links likes to Jewish, Christian, Hindu etc beliefs (which is why it should be pluralised). The latter is non-plural as it pertains to religion in general (a single entity). If there are going to be two categories can some "clear up" text be included in Philosophy of religion and can they both have a "see also" section. Greg Robson 11:20, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • I would support that. -Sean Curtin 03:11, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

Category:Insurance companies of the People's Republic of China

Rename to Category:Insurance companies of mainland China to better reflect the coverage of the category. — Instantnood 13:02, Feb 13 2005 (UTC)

    • Quoted from Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese): "The term "Mainland China" is a term which can be used when a comparison is to be made with Taiwan for non-political purposes. Hong Kong and Macau are generally not considered part of Mainland China, but are under the jurisdiction of the PRC. Thus, it is appropriate to write "many tourists from Hong Kong and Taiwan are visiting Mainland China." ". Obviously "mainland China" is the appropriate term to describe the situation where Hong Kong and Macao (and the territories under the ROC) are excluded. — Instantnood 19:18, Feb 16 2005 (UTC)
    • By nominating, I support renaming. — Instantnood 19:20, Feb 16 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose We should use official country names. If recatogisations are required, this isn't the way to go about sorting that out. Wincoote 20:46, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Rename this is not about politics--JinFX HuangDi 1968 00:00, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)
  • Rename as long as the various Insurance companies of categories are not overlapping but form disjoint sets, it seems reasonable not to be bound solely by formal national divisions. Courtland 01:05, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)
    • Here is a relevant passage Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese)#Political_NPOV Courtland 01:11, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)
      • Thank you. But I'm afraid even for politics-related topics the categories would still have to be separated and renamed, to better reflect their coverage, that Hong Kong and Macao are not included. The category on political parties would be a good example. — Instantnood 18:25, Feb 14 2005 (UTC)
  • I created this category and named it this way because of the apparent preference for the use of official country names. Neutral becuase of the apparent community preference for formal country names. By the way I can only count two insurers that operate in Mainland China that are headquartered in Hong Kong. JuntungWu 04:04, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Well I guess this category, like other categories for insurance companies, groups insurers according to their place of headquartered or registration, but not where they do their business. Many insurers are in fact multi-national. — Instantnood 18:29, Feb 14 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose - agree entirely with Wincoote, jguk 13:02, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Rename This is not a political topic. Using "People's Republic of China" carries more baggage, since we make a statement by leaving out the Taiwanese companies. Mainland China v. Hong Kong v. Macau v. Taiwan is as neutral as it gets. Besides, Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau are treated as separate economies, so it makes sense to keep economic categories separate. --Jiang 21:19, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Just a little bit of comment: Personally I think "Republic of China" or "Taiwan, Pescadores, Quemoy and Matsu" is much better than just say "Taiwan". Matsu Islands and Quemoy are neither part of the Taiwan Province nor near the island of Taiwan. They are excluded by using the term "Taiwan". — Instantnood 21:31, Feb 16 2005 (UTC)

Category:Heroes of the Three Kingdoms

It's not consistent with the main article Personages of the Three Kingdoms. Also, "heroes" is a very weird term in this context and in my view NPOV and unencyclopedic. JuntungWu 05:06, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

    • By the way by nominating I am supporting a change. JuntungWu 00:54, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • oppose The point is not that it is not NPOV or whatever, as this is part of culture. Its not a just list of people who just got lucky and also lived in a certain time. Maybe u cannot tolerate cutural stuff in a encyclopedia, but "heroes" should give everyone a nice cultural side to the Personages pages. Please--JinFX HuangDi 1968 22:55, 2005 Feb 13 (UTC)
  • Rename to Category:Personages of the Three Kingdoms. Historical figures shouldn't be categorized as "heroes" or "villains", regardless of their actions or reputations. -Sean Curtin 00:48, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I agree with Juntung partially. But I believe keeping its current title is perfectly alright. — Instantnood 18:33, Feb 14 2005 (UTC)

Category:Historical museums

Rename to more standard Category:History museums. Neutralitytalk 05:02, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)

  • Oppose I don't agree that it is more standard, and it is even more likeley to confuse people. Wincoote 20:47, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Rename. None of these museums is historical - they all still exist. "Historical musieums" surely means museums which existed at some point in history, but do so no longer (in the same way that the Library at Alexandria is a historical library). Grutness|hello? 23:50, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • No it doesn't. It is a widely used term for museums concerned with human political, social and economic history, as opposed to art, natural history, technology etc. "History musuems" is a meaningless tautology, which all musuems would belong in. Wincoote 00:55, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Rename. I don't see how "history museums" is more likely to confuse people; seems to me that's the best phrasing for it. Postdlf 23:52, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Rename. How about "museums of history"? Just a suggestion. JuntungWu 15:41, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Rename. "History museums" is clearer than "historical museums," which seems to apply museums that no longer exist. —Lowellian (talk) 10:52, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • Rename, same reasons as Lowellian Bryan 10:11, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Alternate rename => "Museums of History" Courtland 14:16, 2005 Feb 16 (UTC)

Category:Japanese economy

Marked cfd in December but I can't find a discussion. Non standard format. Empty. Duplicates active Category:Economy of Japan Philip 03:38, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Delete--ZayZayEM 13:37, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

February 12

Category:Techno-thrillers

Similar to my fantasy books request below, I think this should also be made into the form Category:Techno-thriller novels. This one's probably more important to rename, though, since it doesn't have book/novel in its title at all and so might get techno-thriller movies and such added accidentally. Bryan 03:38, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Use to populate Category:Techno-thriller novels, but keep as a parent for Category:Techno-thriller films etc. -Sean Curtin 00:45, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)
I would prefer to see books become the standard. -Aranel ("Sarah") 02:42, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Fantasy books

Almost all of the other subcategories of Category:Novels by genre are of the form "Category:X novels", so I think this one should be moved to Category:Fantasy novels for consistency. There are also two subcategories, "Fantasy books by author" and "Fantasy books by milieu", that should also probably be moved over. Overall, the use of "books" and "novels" is inconsistent in various regions of this category structure so perhaps a more widespread renaming effort is called for. I don't know where to go to propose one, though. Bryan 03:34, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Rename: consistency is desirable. However, this change might leave some contents of the Fantasy books category out. For instance, would Tales_from_Earthsea be included in the novel category, though it is a collection of short stories? I would say 'no' and put it under a new category that specifies the Fantasy genre, which itself would be the parent of the Fantasy novels category. Courtland 01:31, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)
Keep. Not all books are novels. (We have had this discussion before. See Category talk:Science fiction books.) -Aranel ("Sarah") 02:34, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Keep, Aranel is quite right - as is Courtland with whom I disagree about desirability of categories for fantasy short story collections, anthologies, stand-alone novellas etc. --Malyctenar 13:58, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Hmm, I think I need to be clearer. I didn't mean to imply I wanted to proliferate categories to cover the different modes (e.g. anthologies) but that if we went to Category:Fantasy novels, then all the non-novel fantasy literature could either go under Category:Fantasy (which I didn't know existed at the time I wrote above) or a new category could be made, Category:Fantasy literature. A graph would look like this:
    Fantasy ===========|
                       ==> Fantasy literature ==> Fantasy novels
    Literary genres ===|                            /|\
               |                                     |
               ========> Novels by genre=============|
In fact, this could serve as a sterotypical graph for all genre literature and novels of the various types. Sorry for the confusion.
Courtland 17:24, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)
Sounds fine to me. As things currently stand, however, "Fantasy books" is a subcategory of "novels by genre", so we either need to remove the non-novels from "fantasy books" (in which case the category's name becomes misleading) or we should remove it from the category "novels by genre". Since a random sampling of the books currently in there were all novels, I figured it'd be easiest to just rename the category and then cull out the non-novels afterward. Bryan 00:43, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
bolding of Bryan's text by me sounds like a good plan Courtland 04:20, 2005 Feb 15 (UTC)
Here's the rundown of content in the category (86 items in all)
novels: 57; cycles of novels: 21; franchises: 5; anthologies of short stories: 2; other: 1 (this is a series of game-books). Of these, 5 of the novels should be deleted because they don't yet exist (proposed titles). The franchises refer to a set of novels, movies, games, comics, etc. revolving around a central character or theme; also includes novel series that have members written by un-related authors.
  • items for deletion: Dust of Dreams | Reapers Gale | The Book of Dust | The Crippled God | Toll the Hounds
  • anthologies of short stories: Tales from Earthsea | The Wind's Twelve Quarters
  • gamebook series: Lone Wolf
  • franchises: A Song of Ice and Fire | Conan the Barbarian | Gormenghast | Red Sonja | Thieves World
  • cycles of novels: A Wizard of Earthsea | Abhorsen Trilogy | Barsoom series | Death Gate Cycle | Deryni novels | Dragon Knight | Dragonriders of Pern | Fighting Fantasy Game Books | His Dark Materials | Incarnations of Immortality | Kane (fantasy) | Magic Kingdom (Terry Brooks) | Majipoor series | Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn | Mordant's Need | Pendragon Cycle | The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever | The Guardian Cycle | The Magic Goes Away | The Warlord Chronicles | Xanth
  • everything remaining are single novels
Courtland 05:13, 2005 Feb 15 (UTC)
  • Keep but move current content to the more specific category. -Sean Curtin 03:08, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

Category:British filmmakers

Marked cfd on 18 Jan, but I can't find an entry for it. Empty, non-standard. Category:British film directors and Category:British film producers are both active. Philip 22:58, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Why not use this as a parent for the two, along with Category:British screenwriters, etc.? Or is there another general category name for film-related occupations? Postdlf 00:01, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Making this the main category won't do as most people involved in films aren't filmmakers as the term is usually understood. I don't think there should be one at all. Would you put, for example, British actors in it, when many do not work in films? All the relevant categories will be in British cinema - or at least the will be in a minute when I've checked. Wincoote 01:50, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Media moguls and barons

I think this calls for renaming because of the potentially negative connotations of the words "mogul" and "barons". I suggested "Influential owners of mass media" but I am sure there's a better name. JuntungWu 14:38, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Just "Media owners" I think. "Influential" is subjective, and notability is best dealt with through votes on the deletion of individual articles. Philip 14:53, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • I started it, so naturally I vote keep. The reason being that it's a label applied in the literature on this subject. I don't know the etymology of mogul or baron, but I don't perceive them to be negative. --bodnotbod 04:52, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)
I don't think it is necessarily natural to support a category name one created oneself. I have chosen some names which I later realised were not ideal. This name is too colourful, and will certainly have negative connotations for a significant number of people. Bland category names are best. Wincoote 20:52, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Battery (electricity)

Changing it to Category:Batteries would better fit the naming standards and avoid the need for the distinguishing (electricity) suffix --Hooperbloob 11:44, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Why would you no longer need the dab parentheses? You'd still get people putting gun batteries in there. The plural is better though. Grutness|hello? 18:51, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
We'd no longer need the dab parenthesis for the same reason a lot of others don't - first come, first served - the gun battery articles (if plentiful) would then be the ones who would need to disambiguate. I'd venture that most people, upon hearing the term 'batteries', would first think of Duracells and the like rather than heavy gun emplacements.--Hooperbloob 21:13, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
There would be more notable gun batteries than electrochemical batteries. 132.205.15.43 21:56, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I oppose renaming it to Category:Batteries. Category:Batteries (electricity) would be better. --ssd 01:51, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Toyama prefecture

Miscapitalized variant of (already existing) Category:Toyama Prefecture. -- Rick Block 04:45, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Halophytes

Category made redundant in the process of categorisation--nixie 06:23, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

February 11

Empty Orphans Detected 7 Jan 2005

The categories in the left-hand column were all empty orphans when they were detected. -- Beland 03:59, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This one is from 9 Feb:

-- Beland 04:41, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

suggest Delete: Things that might go into this category are likely all gathered downstream of Category:Pharmacologic agents and Category:Pharmacology, the latter a child of Category:Medical treatments which would catch all medicines that don't have known pharmacology. Courtland 01:44, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)


Oscars

See Category:Academy Awards. -- Beland 03:59, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

None of these are empty. I've updated the counts (art/cat) above. --ssd 03:03, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Misc

  • Disagree with proposal to delete or merge. Airports are geographical entities and Aircraft are mechanical entities; I don't think we should mix those. Courtland 01:54, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)
  • Why was this even listed? Neither category is particularly small. -Aranel ("Sarah") 02:37, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • As the creator and maintainer of Airport stubs, why exaclty should it be merged with aircraft stubs, other than that they are related? Sorry to be rude, but should we also merge Car stubs and highway stubs for the same reason? Burgundavia 22:16, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)
Disagree with proposal to delete; this is a major stub category. Please advise if you have suggestions as to name change or subdivision. Courtland 02:00, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)

Category:Video Game Shows

Title incorrectly formatted; I suggest renaming to Category:Television series based on video games, following the example of Category:Films based on television series. —tregoweth 00:02, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)



category:English athletes, category:Welsh athletes, category:Scottish athletes

British athletes compete in international competitions for Great Britain. Therefore the aim of categorisation fo listing like articles together is violaed. These should be merged back into Category:British athletes. Dunc|☺ 11:45, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

British athletes compete in some international competitions for Great Britain. In many - such as the Commonwealth Games - they compete for their individual home countries. Therefore, all of these should be kept as subcategories of Category:British athletes. Grutness|hello? 11:49, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Keep. The categorisation can't ever be perfect anyway, as Great Britain technically shouldn't include Northern Ireland. It's easier and less controversial to classify by nation/UK region. zoney ♣ talk 12:00, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Keep, agree with Dunc. Jihg 13:08, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)
Um - which? Dunc asked for them to be deleted! Grutness|hello?
keep I did this. I am doing it for all GB and Northern Ireland sportspeople. I want all English people/ Scottish people etc to be accessible from the English people/Scottish people etc main categories. This is the only way to deal with the inconsistency in categorisation across the board. It used to be a mess, with for example half the most famous English such-and-suches in "English such-and-suches" and the other half in "British such-and-suches" and no link between the two for many categories. Exceptions are an unwelcome complication. All British athletes still are in "British athletes", but just one level further down. Philip 16:54, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Keep. I helped populate these several months ago, but they were summarily deleted without proper discussion. There was a vote to undelete which passed. See this diff on Votes for Undeletion for the removal of the last discussion I saw. -- Avaragado 19:23, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)


Category:Canadian filmmakers

More specific categories are available instead, like Category:Canadian film directors, Category:Canadian film producers, Category:Canadian screenwriters. Jihg 13:21, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

Marked for deletion after block compresions issues are resolved. --ssd 04:53, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

February 10

Category:Pokémon and Digimon

Pokémon and Digimon are two completely different franchises made by different companies; they shouldn't be lumped together like this. A simple reversion to whatever category/subcategory they were in before they move to this category would be good. I've depopulated the category a little bit, but only because I didn't think of nominating it for deletion beforehand. --Sparky the Seventh Chaos 23:48, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

    • Note: The category's original creator has reverted himself, it looks like. --Sparky the Seventh Chaos 23:45, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

NOTE Category speedily deleted by Andrevan on February 14 although SD does not apply.

Category:Russian music

It should be Category:Music of Russia. It contains Music of Bashkortostan, Music of Evenkia, etc., which is not exactly what I would call "Russian music".

  • Support Bryan 10:00, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)


Category:Possible successors to Pope John Paul II

I think this was put together to drive up the hits to the betting site listed as the external link in the category verbage. However, I think the category has merrit, but a better category name would be Category:Papabili. That name would not limit those listed to those who may succeed the curent pontiff. I also don't think it should be in Category:Popes, but I'll have to look around for where it belongs. Gentgeen 09:58, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Category:Christian leaders, perhaps, or Category:Roman Catholic Church? Although I think this may be a useful category, am I the only one who thinks it's in vaguely dubous taste, considering the Pontiff's health problems? Oh, and - having seen the couple of arguments below - I agree, this would be better as a list, so Delete. As someone recently said on TFD, starting a title with "Possible" or "Possibly" is indication enough that there are problems. Grutness|hello? 22:52, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • I question the value of such a ephemeral category. It's only going to be relevant for a limited period of time, and the word "possible" in the descriptive is a sure sign that there is no obvious criteria for inclusion...unless there is an official vatican list somewhere? Postdlf 16:30, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete An article on the subject (without a link to a betting site) would be legitimate, but categories shouldn't be speculative. Philip 22:14, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Maurreen 05:14, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Rename Category:Papabili and delete betting sites. I disagree that the category is only relevent on a limited scale, as there will always be some degree of speculation as to who the next pope will be, whether the current Pope has been in office for 26 years or 26 days. There are certainly cardinals whose names have been mentioned more than others. The public in general are interested in knowing who the favorites are to become the next pope, even if the process through which the pope is elected often hinders those who are favorites. As for taste - it isn't as though the existence of such a list harbors ill will against Pope John Paul II, it's merely an information repository for those interested in who his successor might be, whenever that time may come where he would require one. -- RPIRED 05:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. I disagree with having speculative categories, granted one is going to open the flood gates. What's going to stop people from creating speculative categories for next leaders of countries or figures of other religious denominations. RedWolf 05:56, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. A list could work, since it would be possible to add notes explaining why various people are considered candidates. (Considering the advisability of using the word possible in a category title, see Mark 10:27.) -Aranel ("Sarah") 02:47, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, convert to list. Neutralitytalk 02:54, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

February 9

Category:Football of Grenada

And also Category:Footballers of Grenada. These were renamed from a misspelled category. In accordance to discussion about naming of international categories (Categories_for_deletion#.22By_country.22_categories), "... of Grenada" and not "Grenadian..." was used. However, this is very very incosistent with all the other football and footballer categories (see Category:Football (soccer) by country and Category:Football (soccer) players by country). And it just doesn't sound right. I renamed both categories to "Grenadian ..." for consistency. --Dryazan 16:40, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Support - I don't think these two should follow the "X of Foo" system - "Football of Grenada" doesn't sound English, and "Footballers" should follow the "existing" convention of "football players by country. I am convinced by Dryazan's reasoning - Guettarda 16:59, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • I must admit that I was partly responsible for suggesting the "X of Foo" way of doing things for a whole swathe of Grenada articles that came up at the same time, but was unsure about these two because they sounded strange. It may be that the whole "Fooian football" system is revisited soetime (as happened with olympic competitors recently), but for now I'm willing to support making these in line with the other Fooian football categories. Grutness|hello? 22:29, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)



February 7

Category:Burma

A category which seems largely (totally?) redundant due to the larger Category:Myanmar. Grutness|hello? 07:36, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Delete. --Viriditas | Talk 04:59, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Is this a good candidate for a soft redirect rather than an outright delete? --ssd 01:34, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Redirect, in the interests of avoiding controversy. The dispute between "Burma" and "Myanmar" is a political/ideological issue, so it seems likely to me that some people might look for this category. Madame Sosostris 00:12, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
One odd thing (and worth keeping in mind if the final consensus is for redirect) is that Category:Burma is currently a subcategory of Category:Myanmar! Grutness|hello?
then i agree to have it be deleted

Category:Canadian track and field athletes

Category contains only 5 articles. Redundant with Canadian athletes at the YEAR SEASON Olympics, or Canadian olympians, or Canadian SPORT atheletes, etc etc. --jag123 10:48, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Athlete is not synonomous with Track and Field Athlete in Canadian English. They are different. As for Olympics subcats, they are not redundant either, since those are for specific Olympics. Same for Olympics, since it is particular to the Olympics. Just because there are no non-Olympic TaFA listed doesn't mean there won't be. I can't find this Canadian SPORT atheletes you're talking about. Mind if you provide a link to that category? Should probably be merged with Category:Canadian athletes, but this category would be a better name. 132.205.15.43 03:30, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I never implied athlete was synonymous with track and field athlete or that the Olympic sub-categories were redundant, but thanks for pointing out the obvious. Perhaps when someone creates articles on non-olympic Canadian track and field athletes, they can recreate the category. Excluding ice hockey, Canada doesn't have many athletes, and even less with articles on here. I don't see how spreading that information across a bunch of under-populated categories helps anything. Also, I don't know where I saw Canadian SPORT athletes, so just ignore it. --jag123 03:57, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Keep. The categories overlap, but they're not redundant. Maurreen 06:15, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:English science fiction writers

Childless. Redundant with Category:British science fiction writers. --jag123 11:08, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

it isn't redundant. It is part of a long term project to make all UK writers accessible from both the British people menu and the menus for each of the home countries. This is a time consuming (but more of my time than anyone else's recently), but important system to reflect national sensitivities in the UK and also to achieve a comprehensive and accessible overall classification. Before I started to sort it out, there were completely separate category systems for British writers and writers from each of the home nations, and it is very likely that some people used one without even being aware that the others existed. There are already numerous English writer subcategories, and this one is required for consistency. I will shift a few across now as a start. Philip 19:08, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
This is now a sub-category of Category:English writers, and one of four subcategories of Category:British science fiction writers, and it contains twenty articles so far. Philip 19:59, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Sounds like a good scheme to me - keep. Where the "British" categories are large enough (as in this case) they should definitely be split into E, S, W, and NI (although any Manx or Channel Islanders may prove problematic...) Grutness|hello? 11:03, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

February 6

Category:Bridges in London

Category:London River Crossings (again)

See #Category:London River Crossings below. The "river crossings" category is an exact duplicate of the "bridges" category, except that it also contains tunnels. The consensus below seemed to be that "river crossings" is not very useful because not all bridges and tunnels actually cross rivers. -Aranel ("Sarah") 23:57, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Keep. I think that is actually a reason why it is useful. Philip 19:15, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Cities in the United States

Most follow the format Category:Minneapolis, Minnesota, i.e. City Name, State Name, I have found the following exceptions (and suggest renamings):


I believe these should be corrected for consistency, so that editors will be able to categorize things into US cities without worrying about whether the state name belongs, whether the postal abbreviation is used, or whether it is dropped. dml 15:41, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

For future reference, there's a Template:Cfru that you should use to label changes like this. I'm tagging all except Category:Washington, DC, because I can't imagine what you would change it to. Washington, DC is the full name.
If we can have a Category:London, I don't know why we can't have a Category:New York City (which is very seldom referred to as "New York, New York"). I would recommend going with whatever the article is titled. (We should definitely change those that use abbreviations, though.) -Aranel ("Sarah") 23:41, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, I knew it was some template. The Washington DC article is actually Washington, D.C., with the periods, so the category should probaly match, the articles of US cities always are supposed to always be city, state (except apparently New York City) according to the Manual of Style dml 01:25, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • ISTR that when working on the cities of another country the consensus was keep the non-qualified name if the place was by far the best known example worldwide and unlikely to be ambiguous, and add the qualification if the name was not that well known or was likely to cause confusion. If that is the case I'd say Keep: Jacksonville, Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, Baltimore, Las Vegas, New York City, and Nashville; Fix Up the correct state/district name for Philadelphia, Seattle, and Washington D.C.; and add the state name to Orlando*, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Laughlin. (*may be the best known place, but it's also a first name). Arguably San Francisco and Atlanta could do without, but I'm pretty sure there are also moderately sizeable places with those names outside the US. As for Laughlin, I doubt it's well enough known to do without its state moniker. Grutness|hello? 02:57, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't care either way on this, but hope that whoever is voting to change this plans to do the voluminious work themselves instead of expecting others to follow up. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:29, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)
    • I was hoping that someone had a bot that could do this (or we could wait until mediawiki was updated) dml 20:37, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • There's absolutely no need to change the category names of cities that don't need their states listed to be properly identified. At a minimum, this absolutely applies to L.A., San Fran, Chicago, Las Vegas, and New York City. Postdlf 09:10, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • That'll come as a big surprise to the residents of San Francisco, Texas, and the residents of San Francisco and Las Vegas, New Mexico. --Calton 02:01, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • As an alternative to changing the category names, should the articles be renamed to match the categories? Susvolans (pigs can fly) 17:27, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • The problem (aside from now having to rename the things that link to cities) is that it breaks the convention. It is much easier to link if you don't have to think about whether or not the state is in the name. dml 20:37, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • I do support renaming the categories that have state abbreviations in them, btw: Seattle, WA and Philadelphia, PA (I believe both were my mistake originally, I'm afraid). Neither needs the state name included to clarify it. Postdlf 05:32, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Support for the reason that otherwise one has to remember which ones are 'special' enough to lack the state name. --SPUI (talk) 10:42, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Category:Laughlin should even exist, as it has only one item within it. Looks like someone wants Laughlin to be more popular than it really is. -- Riffsyphon1024 05:49, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • I think that cities that are significant enough should be findable with just their name. While there are many Nashville's in the world, there is only one that is large enough to warrant a category. Best plan though is to do what we're doing at Category:New Orleans, Louisiana. Kevin Rector 15:19, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)


Category:Planetary images → Categroy:Solar planet images

I probably should be bold and redo it, but we have a bot right? Move images in Planetary images to Solar planet images, or Category:Solar system planetary images, because we will shortly be having extra-solar planetary images, and parent that cat under Planetary images. 132.205.15.43 06:12, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I would allege that you meant Category:Solar planet images. RedWolf 06:31, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm unconvinced this move is needed. Category:Planetary images should, ideally, have ten subcategories, one for each of the nine planets of our solar system, and one for extrasolar planets. Maybe eleven or twelve if you want asteroids and Kuiper Belt objects to be subcategories. The currently listed category would therefore be a parent category to categories for images from both our system and other systems. Grutness|hello? 08:11, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    Depends how many images we have. Don't bother creating a category for each planet if it only has a few. Most of those images should probably be moved over to the Commons anyways. —Mike 08:19, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)


Category:History of climate

Shouldn't this be "history of the climate" or "climatic history" - SimonP 04:05, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

  • I vote Keep as is. Climatic history sounds like what a novel has somewhere in the middle. I don't see how adding an article helps the title much. --ssd 00:11, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep - "Climate" is used as a proper noun in many cases - e.g., "Climate Change" (never "Change of the Climate"). Climate history would also be in keeping with usage (rather than Climatic History). Guettarda 15:48, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep Much better than the alternative suggestions to my ear. Philip 20:13, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • I find the current name a bit awkward although the suggested names have problems as well. I'd support a rename if someone came up with a really good alternative. If not, I guess it's a keeper. RedWolf 06:00, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)
    • I think the best name would be "The History of Climate" (with capitals), but that would be against the rules. 22:44, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Rename (pending an agreeable suggestion) I think a rename would be good, as the current name doesn't sit too well with me. The new suggestions don't really do it for me either. Here are some other ways you guys might want to consider--I'm just throwing these out there and tried to make them as different as I could (I don't have a favorite but they might spark some ideas or help consensus): "history of earth's climate" "global climate history" "historical climate changes" "paleoclimatology" "global climate periods". —Ben 11:13, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
And come to think of it, this is at the crux of my problem with the climate articles (in terms of naming conventions and structure). Rhetorically, "climate change" is a perfect category for documented events. The "little ice age" was "a climate change." The "Medieval warm period" is a "climate change." But then again, "Snowball earth" is a theory of "climate change," not an actual climate change (right?). The problem is, you can't say "Climate Change is the current change in climate." Nor can you say "Global Warming is the study of the warming of the globe." The nomenclature in climatology is very messed up. —Ben 11:36, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Ancient Peoples

This should be renamed to / merged into Category:Ancient peoples, in order to drop the pointless uppercase "p" in "peoples". --Joy [shallot]

  • As the lower case policy is established it seems we have to grin and bare it, but please don't call capitalisation "pointless". It is consistent with normal usage which most people learnt in school. The lower case policy would appear to be a manifestation of Wikipedia's geeky origins, but as it develops an ever higher proportion of readers are likely to be people who will find the lower case policy jarring, or just plain wrong. I think I'll be stubborn now and vote to oppose change here. Philip 03:42, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • This isn't the place to suggest a change of policy. Since there are two categories by the same name and only one of them should be kept, Category:Ancient Peoples should be merged into Category:Ancient peoples. —Mike 05:20, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)
  • 'Merge with Ancient peoples. People is not a proper noun here, and so should not be capitalized. What are you thinking using european spelling for capitalized and American style for title punctuation anyway? 8-D --ssd 00:20, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • make "Ancient Peoples" a redirect to "Ancient peoples" Faethon12 17:37, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete category and merge it into the lowercase "Ancient peoples". —Lowellian (talk) 21:59, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

February 5

Categories in Automobile Manufacturers

I haven't actually marked for deletion any of the categories listed. Right now it's not consistent: Category: Car companies of the United States, Category: British automobile manufacturers, Category: French automobile manufacturers, Category: German automobile manufacturers but Category: Automobile manufacturers of the People's Republic of China. Since the parent is "automobile manufacturers", should everything move to Automobile manufacturers of FOO, or say Motor vehicle manufacturers of FOO? --JuntungWu 06:08, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't think Category: British automobile manufacturers is acceptable because it is a British category named in American English, and British English is supposed to have equal status. In normal British English it should be "British motor manufacturers", but "Motor manufacturers of the United Kingdom" is tolerable if people are going to insist on such convoluted forms. Philip 03:20, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The correct British term should surely be Category: British car manufacturers, unless you're going to include manufacturers of other forms of motor as well. (the term "motor" meaning a car is highly affected and somewhat dated) Grutness|hello? 06:34, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
It's dated as a way of referring to an individual vehicle, but not in business usage. The main trade body is the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. Using the term motor allows everything to be included, whereas car creates awkward exceptions. Philip 20:04, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • I am against anything to do with "car" because I can't classify Hino, Man and all the truck manufacturers that way. JuntungWu 10:07, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • Well, trucks aren't automobiles, either, so the problem remains. Grutness|hello? 00:03, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Is "motor vehicle" allowable in US English to cover all cars, vans, lorries, etc.? It is the appropriate ambiguous/parent term to use in non-US English. zoney ♣ talk 12:04, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I am now leaning towards changing everything to Category:Motor vehicle manufactuers of FOO. Motor vheciles is definitely allowable in US english, given the large number of "department of motor vehicles" at state level, e.g., California, New York. --JuntungWu 09:46, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Do you realize that "motor vehicle" also includes boats, motorcycles, etc.? Maurreen 05:31, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Venezuelan sportspeople

Tagged by User:Pearle on 17 January, but apparently not listed here.-gadfium 04:57, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's below under Category:Sportspeople_by_country. (This was before there was a template to handle this sort of thing.) -Aranel ("Sarah") 02:03, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:NNNN actors and actresses

There are quite a few categories using this format listed on Special:Uncategorizedcategories. It seems that they are all deprecated by Category:NNNN actors. RedWolf 05:58, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

February 4

Category:Public Schools

Reason: Now redundant - replaced by Category:Public schools in the United Kingdom and it's subsequent sub-categories. Part of my attempts to clear up the UK education category. More detail here: User:GregRobson/Schools GregRobson 17:09, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. I was under the impression that the capitalisation used there was, indeed, the correct one, and that "public school" was incorrect (obviously, a mix of the two, "Public school", is evidently incorrect).
Thoughts?
James F. (talk) 18:02, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
More on User talk:GregRobson, but to summarise - As far as I know from Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization) first word should be capitalised and school is not a proper noun and therefore does get capitalised unless part of the name of a school? GregRobson 18:26, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia capitalisation rules only apply when one is doubtful as to deviate from the way a sentence is habitually constructed, IYSWIM. In this case, I am querying about what is the correct capitalisation for "Public School"; the context of Wikipedia is irrelevent here.
James F. (talk) 23:55, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
If all else failes turn to the press! - At least they should know. After trying out some queries I found that Google news, BBC News and in nearly every case the following rules applied.
  • If part of a job title - capitalise. Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Claire Jackson Evidence
  • If part of the name of an individual school - capitalise. e.g. "Public School Students Welfare Association" Evidence
  • If part of normal text - don't. e.g. "Lord Patten said public school "yobs" made recruitment difficult" Evidence
  • If naming a specific school - capitalise.
  • Sometimes headline words are capitalised regardless - but that's just a matter of presentation for some news websites.
In conclusion - I believe that as you can't point to a specific instance of "public schools" then it should not be Public schools in the United Kingdom. 'Public' should be capitalised as it is the first word in accordance with Wikipedia's rules of category naming. Public school is not a proper noun. You can visit the 'Public Schools Superintendent', or attend the 'Public School Students Welfare Association', but people cannot write that they were educated at a 'Public School', it's non-specific.
Getting back on topic - all I wanted was to have the initial generalised category removed as it too general. What we call the category I'm happy to discuss below :)
GregRobson 09:38, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Public schools in the United Kingdom is a bad category name anyway, as many English-speaking countries use the term "public school" to mean one funded out of government money - the complete opposite to what we use in the UK. I know "fee-paying schools" are not synonymous with "public schools" as they include "private schools" too - but wouldn't Category:Fee-paying schools in the United Kingdom be better? jguk 22:21, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Public schools in the United Kingdom has a link in it's description to the correct article (public school (UK)), but I do agree that it is a point of confusion - many school articles have linked to the incorrect public schools (outside UK) article. Public/private/grammar are often interchangably, schools' names don't always reflect their type either. If Category:Fee-paying schools in the United Kingdom is decided on by the majority then I'm happy to change things over if Pearle bot cannot be used. For the moment though can we decide that the general label is of no-use now more specific categories have been created? GregRobson 22:49, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Indeed. Hence the use of PS, not Ps, to differentiate.
James F. (talk) 23:55, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I don't know what's the best answer, but "Fee-paying schools" gives the idea that the schools are paying the fees.
Also, at least in the USA, "grammar school" has no connection with either "public" or "private", but it means "elementary school." Maurreen 05:48, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I know. I'm 22 and I only realised a couple of years ago. Silly English language. However all the category labels give a one line description of what they contain and should point to public school (UK). I'd much rather that all the schools articles could be checked to ensure that they point to the UK article, even if they don't public school is effectively a disambiguation page. Some UK school articles read along the lines of "is a public school (UK) (that is, an independent fee-paying school)". If people are looking these things up, I think we should assume that they know about the UK system, if not they they obvious haven't realised that Wikipedia isn't perfect ;)
The context should provide the meaning. i.e. "Public schools in the UK"". Surely this is an improvement on Category:Public Schools which allows an school in the world to be listed - therefore this leaves us with ambiguity and confusion and should be removed. I'm happy to extend the category descriptions to avoid any possible confusion regarding what they contain.
GregRobson 09:54, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I think Category:Public schools in the United Kingdom is fine, for reasons given by GregRobson. But I also think it would be wise to have an explanatory note in the category page, to clarify the matter for people used to a different meaning of "public school." Maurreen 15:01, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I created "Public Schools" with the belief that there would eventually also be a category "Public schools" which would have "Public schools in the foo" sub-categories. If that does take place, and we end up with "Public schools in the United States", "Public schools in the United Arab Emirates", and "Public schools in the Ukraine" meaning one thing (state-funded schools), and "Public schools in the United Kingdom" meaning something rather different, despite being identically named, this will be rather a source of confusion. The idea in capitalising the 'S', as well as keeping with custom as I have experienced elsewhere, was to avoid this confusion. "Public schools in the United Kingdom" could then be used in the International-English meaning, or redirect to "State schools in the United Kingdom".
In most categories, "Foo in Bar" means a listing of Foos, a general concept, in Bar, a geographical area. This is nice and clean. If we go with the proposed change, "Foo in Bar" means exactly the same everywhere except one, the United Kingdom. This is a violation of the normal mental model, and highly inelegant.
Apart from all of this, both "Public schools in the United Kingdom" and "Public Schools in the United Kingdom" suggest that there are other such places not in the United Kingdom - in much the same way that we don't call the category "Playwrights" instead "Playrwrights who are human". "Public Schools" brooks no argument, it refers to all things which are "Public Schools". The disambiguation is not only unncessary, but unhelpful.
James F. (talk) 17:08, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I think I understand that... While it makes sense in the context of the United Kingdom, it doesn't make sense when considering all public schools (as the UK schools don't have the same semantics). So are you suggesting we need Category:Public schools (UK meaning) in the UK or something to that effect?
I do see that you may want a "Public schools" category for worldwide sub-categories :)
GregRobson 17:40, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Exactly. Except that Category:Public schools (UK meaning) in the UK could just be Category:Public schools (UK meaning) , as Category:Public schools (UK meaning) not in the UK is the empty set.
In essence, it's a bit of a mess, and what to do about it seems... unclear.
James F. (talk) 18:45, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

What about Category:Independent schools in the United Kingdom - although I'm not convinced that "fee-paying" is ambiguous or confusing?, jguk 18:56, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Umm. Category:Independent schools in the United Kingdom is the superset of both Category:Fee-paying schools in the United Kingdom and Category:Public Schools; of these two, the latter is not wholly a subset of the former.
James F. (talk) 19:19, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Firstly (edit took place while replying). Independent schools are referred to as "not dependent on the government", so should we have Independent schools and State funded/Comprehensive? I don't mind whether we use either on the latter category. We will ignore any Private Finance Initiative schools for the moment, as that will only make things worse.
I'm in favour of Category:Independent schools in the United Kingdom - there's so much confusion over private/public(UK)/grammar in the articles that I would probably check each category if I was looking for an individual institution anyway. Most are public anyway - so grammar and private would hardly have anything in. It's not too specific and not too general.
So to come to some conclusion...
and so on...
Is it possible for admins to rename a category? If so then I would like all the Public schools in... renamed to Independent schools in... Would people be agreeable to that? Grammar schools in... would need to be deleted once they are all pointed to the Independent sections.
Is all that agreeable to community? GregRobson 19:29, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Two more points - do we really need to split them up between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? and isn't "State-funded" better than "Comprehensive"? After all, I wouldn't call a state primary school a "Comprehensive", jguk 19:42, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Seemed like a good idea at the time - there may not be enough to justify it as there seems to very few in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I'm sure many school articles have no stubs or catergories so they're hard to chase down. I'm happy to alter that. As I said on the "State-funded/Comprehensive" issue I'm happy either way - if I had to pick myself I'd probably say State-funded is easier for anyone to understand (including those outside the UK).
GregRobson 19:56, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Whatever you call UK-specific topics is fine by me. But it might not be feasible to have a universally clear name for "Foo schools by country". "State-funded" appears to be the best possibility. In the USA, this would apply to all levels of education (such as kindergarten through university). Just to check, does it have the same meaning elsewhere? "Comprehensive" in the USA would be vague at best, suggesting just anything that is not specialized. "Independent" in the USA would exclude schools supported by churches, if nothing else. Maurreen 20:48, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If they're aren't going to be lots of "Schools in Xland" categories, maybe "British schools" would be better. That way Manx and Channel Island schools could be included easily, jguk 21:05, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Crikey, I hadn't even thought of that. They're not countries in their own right, but then they're not part of the United Kingdom either. It's turning into one of those "I wish I'd never started..." projects! I might have to back to the drawing board on this. GregRobson 22:37, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Noooo, don't do that - we're nearly there! Category:British schools, then subcategories Category:Independent British schools and Category:State-funded British schools, maybe Category:Church-supported British schools too, jguk 09:04, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"Church-supported British schools" is almost a subset of "State-funded British schools", but not quite... and what Church? CoE? Where do RC schools go? What about Temple-supported schools, or so on? "State-funded British schools with religious support"?
And we still haven't found a good replacement for "Public Schools", as listed above.
James F. (talk) 18:15, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Note: Deleted by Neutrality, 07:30, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC).

Category:Public Schools in England

Reason: Typo error (schools shouldn't be capitalised). Mistake as I attempted to clear up the UK education category. More detail here: User:GregRobson/Schools GregRobson 17:12, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

See above.
James F. (talk) 18:02, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Since Greg created the category, this should be speedily deleted. —Mike 22:16, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)


February 2

Category:Broadcast news analysts

Should be Category:News anchors. "Broadcast news analysts" is a very infrequently used term that doesn't accurately describe the people in the category. - SimonP 19:38, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Our article on these people is at "news anchor," so purely for the sake of consistency it would be a good category title. Google also shows "news anchor" to the most popular:
  • "News anchor" 513,000 hits
  • "Newscaster" 195,000 hits
  • "News presenter" 21,900 hits
  • "Broadcast news analyst" 218 hits
Another title used in the UK is newsreader, unfortunately getting good Google results is impossible as searches for this term are overwhelmed by the software.- SimonP 18:26, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)
FWIW (probably not a lot) the term "newsreader" is standard in Australia and New Zealand. Grutness|hello?
  • See also Category:Television people which includes quite a tree of categories which this overlaps with.-gadfium 23:39, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • "News analysts" sounds like we're talking about news media critics rather than the people who actually present the news on TV. "News personalities," however, is far too vague, and includes everyone from desk anchors to on-the-spot reporters to weathermen (and while we're at it, we should get rid of Category:Television personalities). Would "news anchor" actually be confusing to the British, or is it merely something they don't tend to use? Postdlf 01:20, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    'Analyst' and 'critic' are not the same thing. An analyst is one who analyzes. A critic is one who forms judgements on the merits or value. Pure analysis doesn't make value judgements. —Mike 02:24, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)
    I'm not sure that distinction always holds, but either way, the gist of what I meant was "analyst" sounds like someone who comments about broadcast news itself, rather than someone who is on a news broadcast. Postdlf 02:43, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Is everyone in this category a "new anchor" or are some non-anchors but still prominent news people? There isn't anything wrong with this category as it is, though I understand there is always a drive within Wikipedia to use more colloquial terms. —Mike 02:24, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Analysts and anchors should not be in the same category, unless it is Category:Television journalists. Maurreen 07:40, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • How about Category: Commentators and analysts appearing in television news broadcasts? This avoids the confusion that Postdlf has pointed out. It's long, though. --JuntungWu 12:55, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    Or we could just leave it as it is because the description within the category succinctly defines what it is. Also, Maurreen is incorrect because there can be cross-over between news anchors and news analysts. Besides, this category is an occupational category which doesn't have to be highly specific. If you do feel compelled to separate news analysts and anchors, make those categories subcategories of this one. —Mike 17:54, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)


Category:Mind

Everything in this category should be classified under a scientific heading (e.g. under Category:Psychology and/or Category:Cognitive science), a philosophical or religious headin (e.g. Category:Philosophy of mind), or both. But this category is a third leg which overlaps both, and so seems only to impede navigation and classification. The intro text is also inappropriate, and if the category is kept, it must be changed. -- Beland 04:40, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • No objections raised to this point, so feel free to re-classify. Not my area of expertise/interest so I can't assist. RedWolf 07:10, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

Category:Help

Should be Category:Wikipedia help? -- Beland 04:40, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Formal collaborations

I recommend Category:Wikipedia collaborations instead. -- Beland 04:40, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)



Category:Wikipedia:Deletion

Should be Category:Wikipedia deletion. -- Beland 04:40, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Person

I really can't tell the difference between this and Category:Human. -- Beland 02:13, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's somewhat misleading as the blurb at the top of the category page ignores all non-human persons, such as companies and friendly societies, jguk 13:05, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

February 1

Category:Aboriginal Australians

Lesser-used duplicate of Category:Australian Aborigines. I've depopulated the five articles (of which two were duplicated into the other category) and one subcat (which was already duplicated across) — OwenBlacker 12:44, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

You have ignored the fact that Torres Strait Islanders are *not* Aborigines - they are of Melanesian/Papuan origin. Therefore a separate category should be created (and cross-referenced) for the TSI people and transfer links to Christine Anu and the Meriam People. I'd do it myself, but haven't worked out how to go about it.--Mikeh 13:56, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A better solution might be to rename this category Category:Ethnic groups of Australia to contain categories on Australian Aborigines, Torres Strait Islanders, and - if needed - the various migrant groups that have been in the country in the last couple of hundred years. "Aboriginal Australians" as well as (to my non Koori ears) sounding slightly derogatory, is too easily confused with Australian Aborigines. Grutness|hello? 22:59, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
This category really needs to become Category:Indigenous Australians not Category:Australian Aborigines as this is the currently preferred official terminology for peoples of both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander decent. Its a bit of bitch I know, but it does have to go that way.--ZayZayEM 00:35, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)


January 29

Category:Human image

Merge. This category is very similar to Category:Human appearance and both have similar articles listed in them. There is no text on the category pages to state what their purpose is, i.e. how am I to know whether to place an article under Human appearance or Human image? I propose that we come up with well-defined criteria for placement of an article in either of these categories and state them on the respective Category pages. We should then move the articles to the appropriate categories. —Brim 23:59, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

Category:Cricket subcategories

It appears that this category contains as subcategories all of the subcategories, sub-subcategories, sub-sub-sub categories, etc that fall under Category:Cricket. This seems highly inelegant and unnecessary to me; when the Wikimedia software supports category-aggregation it should be able to get the same results from the main category:cricket as from this one. Bryan 22:52, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This category is here to help those (such as me) who are categorising cricketers and cricket-related articles. It is a useful tool for those who categorise cricket-related articles to keep track of all the various categories that there are. There are a number of useful and interesting ways to categorise cricketers - where they are from, who they played for, whether they played test or international cricket, or whether they received particular Cricket Awards, etc. Please do not delete it. It will hinder cricket-classification! jguk 23:14, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I just looked in a few randomly selected subcategories, and the ones I picked looked like they'd been fairly thoroughly subcategorized already. Have you been removing these subcategories from Category:Cricket subcategories as you go so we can tell when the work is 'done' and this category can be removed? Alternately, if you want this to be a permanent feature, I'd suggest moving the list somewhere like Wikipedia:WikiProject cricket categorization so it won't be tangled up in the 'user-oriented' portion of Wikipedia. Bryan 00:07, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
That's just a bizarre comment. This was done to help users. Philip 13:04, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
No, it was done to help editors. The two groups often overlap, but they aren't the same - hence the existence of the Wikipedia: namespace, Wikiproject pages, talk: pages, and all the other utilities that are designed to assist editors without mixing directly into the encyclopedic content of the article. Bryan 08:12, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
If that is the point, a list would do the job just as well, and would generally be more in keeping with categorization procedures. -Aranel ("Sarah") 00:13, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps even better, for that matter. With a non-category list you'd be able to browse through all of them on one page rather than just 200 at a time, and you'd be able to organize them in whatever order you saw fit. I can do the grunt work of copying the subcategory links from here to a list page, if you like. Bryan 00:22, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
In my opinion lists are a greatly inferior system and a legacy of an immature period of Wikipedia that we are now moving on from Philip 13:04, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
And in my opinion, lists and categories simply fulfil different purposes. It's possible to create a list that does things that categories don't, and it's possible to create a category that does things that lists don't. They each have their place. Bryan 08:12, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
But here we have a category system which is working fine. Do you understand how dispiriting it is for people who are putting great effort into a section of Wikipedia to be confronted by fierce opposition to decisions they have taken on marginal points, and how likely this sort of action is to deprive Wikipedia of contribuitors? Philip 03:36, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I understand hard work, I've even offered to do some on this list's behalf. However, if that hard work is going into something that IMO doesn't fit properly into Wikipedia's conventions, I am not going to let the fact that hard work went into it stop me from recommending that it be changed. If a group of users were to come on Wikipedia and spend a couple of weeks slaving away to create a series of articles containing nicely formatted copies of the full text of Shakespeare's works, cross-referenced and annotated, I'm still going to put it all up for VfD (with transwiki to Wikisource, in this hypothetical case) because it's not something that fits Wikipedia's conventions and guidelines. This shouldn't be considered a personal insult. Bryan 02:30, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
It isn't inconsistent. It does absolutely no harm to any aspect of the existing system. It is an example of multiple categorisation systems, a feature which is enthusiastically endorsed somewhere on the policy pages. Philip 20:10, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
meaningful alternate categorization schemes are useful. This is just a housekeeping tool, and housekeeping tools should be tucked out of sight from the casual user. I don't think we're going to convince each other of anything more at this point, though, so I'm just going to let the vote fall as it will - probably into /unresolved, for the time being. I'll create that wikiproject list too, so that perhaps next time this comes up there won't be so much fear of "lost work." Bryan 01:14, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I did consider the alternative of a list page - but it's just harder to maintain than a categorisation when what you're doing is categorising (which itself is time-consuming, particularly when Wikipedia is on "go slow". Also, it's easy to see whether a category has gone onto the list if the list is a category! Put simply, the category is a tool - it helps, particularly when cricket-related articles on Wikipedia are in their infancy. I recognise your concern, and I myself would prefer it if the proposed "look-through" ability for categories was up and running too, as I admit this category is not ideal. But until that ability is available, it would be helpful to keep this category because of its usefulness.

Perhaps you'll allow me a few moments to explain why it's useful, particularly when categorising cricketers by team. There are many first-class cricket teams - some by what might be considered unusual names (see my request vis-a-vis "Pakistan International Airlines cricketer" above). Not only that, but many team names have changed over the years. It is difficult for me as an Englishman to remember it all! This category allows me to check whether we have similar categories already - one just cropped up for me with a cricketer who played for Natal. Did we have a KwaZulu-Natal cricketers category, or should I create a new Natal cricketers category?

What about when dealing with a cricketer who has gone on to write books, broadcast, get knighted and become President of the MCC? Looking at Category:Cricket subcategories makes it easy to decide how to categorise him.

Anyway, now I have outlined that this category has a useful, practical purpose, I trust you will withdraw the request for deletion, jguk 01:19, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

But if they were in a list you could group all the "team" categories in one spot or do a text-search for "Natal" to make it even easier. Yes, maintaining a list requires a bit more hands-on work, but not a whole lot more. I think it's a price that should be paid in this case, since the current category intrudes into every existing cricket category in a way that isn't in accordance with the existing practices of how category graphs should be structured. I'm willing to help with the work, but I'm afraid my vote in favor of deleting this category still stands. Bryan 01:45, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep Did you pause to consider the amount of effort that was put into this before you tried to get it wiped? It is an extremely useful enhancement in my opinion, and any one who doesn't like it can just ignore it. Philip 13:01, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The amount of effort that went into a category's creation isn't especially relevant IMO to the question of whether the category should exist. Besides, I've offered whatever elbow grease is necessary to preserve the listing of categories in the form of an actual list, so the work wouldn't be wasted. Bryan 08:06, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm inclined to Delete -- that people see this sort of thing as helpful seems to me to indicate that the subcategorization schema may be too complex. And I don't understand why a plain list article would not be adequate to serve the same purpose rather than a separate category. older≠wiser 13:30, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep - I think we have too many cricket sub-categories, but can you imagine de-organising them and just having them all in Category:Cricket - that would be an insanely long list, and consequently not a very usable one. Guettarda 14:09, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Guettarda, I don't think anyone is suggesting doing away with all the subcategories--simply that the anomalous category, Category:Cricket subcategories, which lists all the subcategories be deleted. older≠wiser 14:32, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
      • If this subcategory is deleted, then all the sub(sub)categories within it would have to become subcategories of some higher category - logically, they would become subcategories of Category:Cricket. Inasmuch as these categories already extend over two pages, this would make the Category that much less usable (something like Category:stubs. It isn't an ideally named category, and it may be possible to replace it with a more hierarchical system, but simply deleting it is likely to result in reduced functionality. Guettarda 23:36, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • As far as I can tell, all of these subcategories are already children of another Cricket-related category. As I understand it Category:Cricket subcategories is an alternate presentation of the entire tree under Category:Cricket. older≠wiser 23:58, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
          • Yes it is, and a very useful one too. Philip 03:33, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep - for now. Looks like this is a temporary set-up while the work is being done. I can understand how it would be easier to organise things this way than via a list (in fact, I'm surprised it isn't done more often). I'd expect to see this deleted eventually though - hopefully fairly soon. Grutness|hello? 23:41, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Since the "work" will take years, that is an acceptable way of saying the category should be kept Philip 03:33, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • Actually, I see this as a strong argument for deleting it. If it looks like a temporary set-up but it's not going to go away for years, then it definitely needs to be tucked away in a place where casual readers aren't going to stumble across it. Bryan 02:30, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Copy into list format and delete. -Sean Curtin 23:49, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)
    • Doing that would be completely unproductive and slow down the categorisation of cricket-related articles as a list takes longer to maintain than a category (particularly given the speed WP can get down to sometimes). (It also wouldn't take long for someone to list "List of cricket subcategories" up for VfD!) It's one category, it is useful to those categorising cricket, it should be a slam-dunk keep, jguk 07:48, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • I normally wouldn't be on such a crusade if it really was "just one category", but this particular category intrudes into all 265 cricket subcategories as well and makes hash of the category guidelines (for example, "A good general rule is that articles should be placed in the most specific categories they reasonably fit in"). As for the list being VfDed, make it a subpage of WikiProject cricket and I don't see any way it could possibly get deleted, since that's the sort of thing that wikiprojects are for. Bryan 00:09, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, at least for the immediate future. The category is hugely useful for those of us writing and editing cricket-related articles, since their categorisation is (potentially) so complex. I can't imagine any of the participants in WikiProject Cricket supporting this deletion. --Ngb 12:03, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • And I'm quite willing to put in all the effort necessary to create a list you can use for all that (still completely unspecified) work you guys do over there, as a replacement. This category isn't in the right place if it's simply part of a WikiProject; it's been put into user space. As you said yourself in the Wikiproject's talk page "there are really very, very few of us adding cricket content on a regular basis." If this category is just for those people, and not for the people who come here to read about cricket, I'm more convinced than ever that this isn't appropriate. Bryan 00:09, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • And you're also willing to manually update this hypothetical list for us every time one of us makes a change to the category system? No, didn't think so. --Ngb 09:02, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • The way some people become determined to obstruct other people's projects is one of the most disagreeable features of Wikipedia. Wincoote 01:58, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        • I'm not doing this because I hate cricket and everything it stands for, you know. I've offered my help repeatedly, though ngb apparently doesn't believe me for some reason. But you guys won't even tell me what work you're using this subcategory for. Well, fine, I'll leave you to do whatever it is you do on your own. However, I am going to hold you to your assurances that this is a temporary category; in a couple of months I'll stop by again and see if anything is actually being done with it. Bryan 00:38, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • delete or else temporarily rename to category:wikiProject cricket categories or somesuch so that it is clear that it is not in the main project category. the subcategories should all be directly under category:cricket. clarkk 05:59, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Various Oscar-winner categories

A large number of poorly-named Academy Award-related articles now exist. I propose the following renamings:

Current name New name
Category:Best Actor Oscar Category:Academy Award for Best Actor winners
Category:Best Actor Oscar Nominee Category:Academy Award for Best Actor nominees
Category:Best Actor Oscar (film) Category:Films casting an Academy Award for Best Actor winner
Category:Best Actor Oscar Nominee (film) Category:Films casting an Academy Award for Best Actor nominee
Category:Best Actress Oscar Category:Academy Award for Best Actress winners
Category:Best Actress Oscar Nominee Category:Academy Award for Best Actress nominees
Category:Best Actress Oscar (film) Category:Films casting an Academy Award for Best Actress winner
Category:Best Actress Oscar Nominee (film) Category:Films casting an Academy Award for Best Actress nominee
Category:Best Supporting Actor Oscar Category:Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor winners
Category:Best Supporting Actor Oscar Nominee Category:Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nominees
Category:Best Supporting Actor Oscar (film) Category:Films casting an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor winner
Category:Best Supporting Actor Oscar Nominee (film) Category:Films casting an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nominee
Category:Best Supporting Actress Oscar Category:Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress winners
Category:Best Supporting Actress Oscar Nominee Category:Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nominees
Category:Best Supporting Actress Oscar (film) Category:Films casting an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress winner
Category:Best Supporting Actress Oscar Nominee (film) Category:Films casting an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nominee
Category:Best Art Direction Oscar Category:Academy Award for Best Art Direction winners
Category:Best Art Direction Oscar Nominee Category:Academy Award for Best Art Direction nominees
Category:Best Costume Design Oscar Category:Academy Award for Best Costume Design winners
Category:Best Costume Design Oscar Nominee Category:Academy Award for Best Costume Design nominees
Category:Best Director Oscar Category:Academy Award for Best Director winners
Category:Best Director Oscar Nominee Category:Academy Award for Best Director nominees
Category:Best Picture Oscar Category:Academy Award for Best Picture winners
Category:Best Picture Oscar Nominee Category:Academy Award for Best Picture nominees
Category:Best Song Oscar Category:Academy Award for Best Song winners
Category:Best Song Oscar Nominee Category:Academy Award for Best Song nominees

Yes, some of those new proposed names are hideously long. But the current names for some of these are quite inscruitable, and the long names accurately describe the contents of these categories at a glance. And substituting "Academy Award" for "Oscar" fits these categories into the same pattern as all the other Academy Award related articles. Bryan 20:37, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • I created a category nominess to label people that were nominated. I didn't ask you, Willmcw, to populate them so what's the problem? Is organization a bad thing? Cburnett 21:53, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Overcategorization is a bad thing. Because of the rule that an article should not appear in a category and a subcategory, unnecessary subcategories have a way of hiding articles. I'm not saying that that is necessarily a problem here, just raising the question. It appears that some editors have put a lot of thought and effort into this. Cheers, -Willmcw 23:07, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'm afraid some of your proposals are even more inscrutable. For example: Category:Films casting an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nominee. What a strange construction; if it weren't in the above table, I wouldn't know what it meant. Films don't cast, for one thing. Maybe if you wrote "films with an Academy Award ...", that might help. Still, I think the older names are clear, concise, and not problematic. --Kevin Myers 21:19, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)
It may not be perfect, but it's much more reasonable than tacking (film) onto the end of the name of an award that's inherently an award for people rather than films. I've no problem with changing "casting" to "with", but the old names took me a while to figure out what they actually meant and IMO that's a big problem. Bryan 21:27, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
It would take a much less effort to work on explaining them better. With as long as some of the categories were, I spent a fair amount of time trying to determine how to make them short and succinct, which you've blown through the roof. Cburnett 21:53, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I strongly agree with Kevin Myers. I've nothing against a change of name, but it should be decent English, and the shorter (and clearer) the better. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:09, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Object, object, object...."Oscar" is synonymous with "Academy Award for". There's absolutely nothing gained by making the renames and editting literally thousands of pages. Especially some of those that are now lengthed by some 25 characters. Heck, even you named the heading with "Oscar". I thought "Best Supporting Actress Oscar Nominee (film)" was long but saw no other way to shorten it. And now "Films casting an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nominee". In the words of Dr. Brown of Back to the Future, "GREAT SCOTT!" Nothing gained in this, nothing. Cburnett 21:29, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The grunt-work of renaming these categories and moving the articles over would be done by bots, of course, so it doesn't matter that a lot of work would be involved. As for the "Oscar" thing, take a look in Category:Academy Awards - everything uses "Academy Award" instead of Oscar in there aside from these categories. We should be consistent, so either the Oscar names should be changed or the Academy Award ones should. As for the (film) names, I've explained my objections above. The (film) names are not very good descriptions of what's actually in these categories, IMO. Bryan 21:38, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
*sigh*, this is a rather big headache that you could have proposed on a talk page before putting anything in motion. If you had taken as much time to look at who done all the work as it did for you to change everything, you'd have known it was me. Talk before action.
Lengthening a category by 25 letters to maintain consistency between articles and categories doesn't outweigh the need to name everything "Academy Award".
As to "(film)", well that's what's on the category description. The point is, both the actor and movie are awarded the oscar and "(film)" is the shortest way to categories both while maintaining a consistent name between the two. So by venturing to make them more consistent, you've made this part more inconsistent. Cburnett 21:48, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)


I want to clarify my points and my decision that I made long before this mass renaming was made:

  • Category:Academy Award winning actors is too broad which included both actors and actresses
  • I wanted to create categories for nominees (they deserve at least some recognition for their efforts, so a category is justified)
  • I wanted to mark the films that were awarded oscars with matching categories (a fair number already have sections to list awards)
  • In order to keep the category name lengths to a minimum I used "Best Actor Oscar" instead of "Academy Award for Best Actor"
  • To keep films & actors categories similar, I appended "(film)" to the end of the categories. This creates 4 categories per award: "X Oscar", "X Oscar Nominee", "X Oscar (film)" and "X Oscar Nominee (film)". There's no way to make them shorter without removing information from the name or abbreviating

Bryan's move pretty much voids these points to keep consistency between articles named "Academy Award" and categories named with "Oscar". These two are synonymous and I see little value in lengthening categories by a dozen or two dozen characters to align article names with category names where they differ by synonymous words. Cburnett 22:03, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Agree with moving them, but strongly object to new names. Surely "Academy Award nominees for X" and "Academy Award winners for X" are far more grammatical titles! And they would then be in keeping with such natural parent categories as the previously mentuioned Category:Academy Award winning actors Grutness|hello? 22:32, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I agree. And it's also how the announcers read the lists, IIRC ("And the nominees for X are...") Bryan 22:38, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Firstly, note that the move hasn't actually taken place - this page is for the discussion of potential moves and deletions. Anyway, the main thrust of my renaming proposal is to fix what I see as some violations of Wikipedia:Categorization#General naming conventions, most notably:
  • Don't hard-code the category structure into names. Example: "Monarchs", not "People - Monarchs".
  • Choose category names that are able to stand alone, independent of the way a category is connected to other categories.
  • Category names for lists of items should be plural
These categories won't just be under the Academy Award category tree, but also linked into other categories as well; I've already put a few of them into Category:Films and category:Cinema actors, for example. Succinctness is nice, but I think it's more important that the category name give as clear an indication as possible of what falls under it. There are other long categories out there (eg Category:World War II aerial operations and battles of the East Asian Theatre, Category:United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest) and I don't think ones like the ones I've proposed would be particularly unweildy. Bryan 22:29, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Oh, I just stumbled upon Category:Costume Design Oscar Nominee now too, but I'm not adding it to the table at this time because this has become a lot more complicated and controversial than I'd originally expected it to be. :) I'm finding these articles while rummaging through Special:Uncategorizedcategories, which are in alphabetical order, so I suspect there may be others even farther along in the alphabet I haven't seen yet. Bryan 23:27, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

See my user page for details on this. Note that the award isn't "best costume design" but just "costume design". Cburnett 07:25, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I wasn't trying to say whether the name of the award was correct, just mentioning why I hadn't stumbled across that category until now. Though the article on it calls it the "Academy Award for Costume Design", so my general comments about consistency apply here too IMO. Bryan 07:51, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Oppose move. Existing categories are to the point, use common language and are easily understandable. Besides, if we were to take the formal approach, it wouldn't be Category:Academy Award for Best Actor winners but Category:United States Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award for Best Actor winners. (After all, there are many academies, and most make awards for something or other.) jguk 01:34, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Maybe if the article on the Academy Awards wasn't at Academy Awards this might be a stronger argument, but as it is I don't see why the extra qualifications would be needed. All I'm saying is that there should be consistency, if enough people don't like "Academy Awards" then how about we move all the existing articles with "Academy Award" titles over to "Oscar" titles instead? And in any event these categories are still going to need to be moved even if nobody agrees on a better system than what's in place, since "Nominee" is incorrectly capitalized and none of the categories are pluralized. Bryan 06:50, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
1) I just disagree that there *must* be consistency to this degree. 2) Capitalization of Nominee...well whatever. I see/saw it as title of sorts. 3) The categories are meant to reflect as they would be seen on the article, again as a title. Someone isn't a "Best Actor Nominees" but just "Best Actor Nominee". But 2 & 3 are (honestly) nit-picky details that, while more precise like your suggested names, aren't particularly necessary at this point in the game. If this was six weeks ago before I did anything then sure, rock on with the changes. Cburnett 07:25, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Ideally, in the long run Wikipedia will be "perfect". This is an ideal that I work towards by fixing (or at least pointing out) whatever flaws I percieve in my travels through it, and this sort of inconsistency is one of them. It needs to be fixed eventually, so why not now before even more articles get added to these categories? As for the pluralization and capitalization, this is an extremely common matter of the category naming conventions. Drummers get added to the "drummers" category, boxers get added to the "boxers", kings get added to the "kings" category (or one of their subcategories). So nominees for an award should be added to the "nominees" category, not the "nominee" category. If everything's as standardized as possible it makes it much easier for people to put articles into categories because they don't have to remember all the special cases, they can just guess whatever seems closest to the conventions and that's likely to work. Bryan 07:46, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Object - preciser but WAY too long... gidonb 02:58, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Oppose. Current categories are concise and clear. 05:28, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think nearly all of these should be lists rather than categories, and in fact, the lists are already included in the various articles about each of these awards (e.g. Best Actor), which BTW include both winners and non-winning nominees, and indicate the year and film, and provide a mechanism to include nominees and/or films which don't have Wikipedia articles. Rather than rename these I think they should all be deleted. Including a mention of the award (linked to the corresponding list/article) in the article related to the nominee/winner (perhaps in a standard "Awards" section) seems to me like a far better way to accomplish what is being done here with categories. -- Rick Block 02:02, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The list and categories sort the information differently. And there are dozens of lists with categories and I don't see you proposing to delete them. Cburnett 05:01, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
No doubt that there are dozens, even hundreds (perhaps thousands), of lists with corresponding categories. However, these particular categories are already nominated for renaming, and since they're all convenivently tagged with CFD I thought I'd express my opinion. I think it would have been far less work to create differently sorted list articles if that was the objective (see, for example, List of radio stations in North Carolina which references differently sorted lists). I don't want to start a flame war about this, but do you really think Category:Best Supporting Actress Oscar Nominee (film) is worth a category given I can find all the films with best supporting actress nominees from the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress article? If there's a need to have the films sorted alphabetically (even with the actress and year) I'll volunteer to create the article. -- Rick Block 05:40, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
It's a matter of tagging articles, which is the purpose of categories. Cburnett 06:24, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object merely on the basis of length. Gamaliel 22:52, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Plurals and perhaps other aspects might be tweaked, but the suggestions for renaming are too long at best. Maurreen 17:27, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The old category names aren't much good, but these are little better and are, as others have complained, terribly long. Frankly a number of these categories probably shouldn't exist at all, but that's another debate.... Zoicon5 23:47, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong support. However, if this doesn't go through, a second poll should be held about the capitalization and plural issues ("Nominee" should be "nominees"). Such inconsistencies are unacceptable -- in fact a poll shouldn't even be necessary. Fredrik | talk 18:10, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)


January 17

Category:London River Crossings

There's a strong convention of "Bridges in Foo" for categories. Something needs to be done about Category:London River Crossings; Category:Bridges_in_London also exists. There are a small number of non-bridges in the former, though, including tunnels and a ferry. In contrast, the Holland Tunnel is under Category:Transportation in New York City and Category:Tunnels and Template:NYC Hudson River crossings. I propose putting bridges only in Category:Bridges_in_London, deleting Category:London River Crossings and putting the rest of its contents in Category:Transport_in_London. If kept, it needs to be renamed Category:London river crossings or more preferably, Category:River crossings in London. (This is a re-nomination since the first one was confused and didn't resolve.) -- Beland 06:14, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Weak oppose - it seems to me that bridges and tunnels should go together (at least when those tunnels are under rivers). In theory we'd have Bridges in foo and Tunnels in foo, but there often aren't enough tunnels for that. For instance, Florida has one major road or rail tunnel (New River Tunnel, plus several minor ones in Walt Disney World). I've categorized it into Category:Bridges in Florida, since it can be thought of as a bridge where water goes over a road. It's also listed in the National Bridge Inventory. --SPUI 00:02, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Do you agree to renaming to Category:River crossings in London, at least (lowercase naming conventions)? -Aranel ("Sarah") 03:15, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • That would solve some of the problems. But one thing that no-one here seems to have mentioned is that not all bridges cross rivers. And neither do all tunnels. The Macclesfield Bridge crosses Regent's Canal, the Serpentine Bridge crosses a lake, and the Hyde Park Corner Underpass goes under a road - all in central London. Grutness|hello? 10:48, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I think I would prefer to merge both categories into one, with the name Category:Bridges and tunnels in London. Eugene van der Pijll 20:36, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)



Olympic <x> of the U.S.A.

The following categories have all been replaced by categories with names more similar to the parent category category:American Olympians.

Category:Olympic athletes of the U.S.A. -> category:American Olympians
Category:Olympic softball players of the U.S.A. -> category:American Olympic softball players
Category:Olympic water polo players of the U.S.A. -> Category:American Olympic water polo players
Category:Olympic weightlifters of the U.S.A. -> Category:American Olympic weightlifters
Category:Olympic wheelchair racers of the U.S.A. -> Category:American Olympic wheelchair racers

-- Rick Block 06:09, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

    • The Parent Category should instead be changed to Category:Olympians of the U.S.A, the current replacement now places undue emphasis on the controversial nature of what American is taken to mean by people not in the USA. It's discussed in other US/USA/American related category names here several times. 132.205.45.110 14:53, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
      • The undue emphasis on the controversy comes from non-native speakers of English and a few academic or amateur-politics sympathizers with them. Whatever may be true in Latin American languages and dialects, in English,
        • "USA" or "US" is a state & a government,
        • "America" is the territory of the USA,
        • "American" is the adjective and noun for people whose permanent home is in America,
        • and anyone who says "America" when they mean "the Americas" is either ignorant of English usage, or more interested in being aggressive than in being understood.
      The Olympians are not chosen or paid by the government, so in this case the controversy is whether to use English to accurately identify the Cat, or to misuse English to forward the PoV that every aspect of America or Americans that might be considered positive is an intolerable affront to Latin Americans. --Jerzy(t) 05:29, 2005 Jan 16 (UTC)
    • Actually it should be Category:Olympic athletes of the U.S., in keeping with sibling categories. (Unless Olympic competitors is chosen instead...) At any rate, we should wait for a decision regarding the whole set of siblings. (See #Olympic_athletes_of_X.) It looks like we're doing "of country" all around.) -Aranel ("Sarah") 00:01, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
      • Your argument as stated makes sense only on the assumption that having this Cat match the rest of 1 list is more important than having it match all the articles it appears in, and all its sub-categories. I disagree, and expect, at least, wider evidence about the impact that accepting your position would have.--Jerzy(t) 05:29, 2005 Jan 16 (UTC)


Given the discussion below (tentatively) approving Category:Olympic competitors from the United States, and given the by_country initiative, I would propose the following resolution (updated Mon Jan 17 05:30:20 UTC 2005):

I'm resetting the clock on this nomination to allow people time to object or support. -- Beland 05:04, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Support. I created many of the 'of the U.S.A.' categories to reduce typing, and I'm more or less indifferent whether it is U.S.A. or United States. —Mike 07:26, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)
Support. Adjective usage and abreviations are less than optimal. Tuomas 07:53, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Oppose. Using "... of the United States" is unneeded typing. Even if the adjective forms aren't going to be used, "... of the USA" would be better. Maurreen 16:32, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Support, noting that if we do this with the United States categories, we ought to do it with the others as well. Treating the United States differently because of a political concerns doesn't sit well with me. (I don't see any problem with typing an additional ten characters. "United States" is now much more commonly used than "USA".) -Aranel ("Sarah") 16:41, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Support I'm okay with United States, U.S., or USA. But please let's not pick a name because it's less typing! —Michael Z. 21:04, 2005 Jan 22 (UTC)

Category:Free trade

This category should be disbanded and its articles distributed among Category:International trade and Category:Trade blocs. Otherwise, there's too much overlap and not enough clarity in navigation. -- Beland 04:03, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

January 16

Category:Copyright Expired Encyclopedias

No need for a category, and it's bad grammar anyway. Neutralitytalk 07:11, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)

  • I think there's enough entries in this category to justify its existance. I agree with you on teh grammar, though. --ssd 18:02, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Rename. I would agree with ssd that this category should be kept as others might find it useful for locating content (although usually dated). However, if not deleted, it should be renamed. Some possibilities might be Category:Copyright free encyclopedias or Category:Encyclopedias out of copyright . RedWolf 01:23, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep/rename. And deletion before discussion is finished is bad behavior. The category is useful. Neutrality, you even didn't bother to replace it by any other category, like "encyclopedias", or so. This is inacceptable loss of information, because categories is harder to restore than deleted articles. Mikkalai 18:50, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Rename Encyclopedias out of copyright is good because it begins with the noun, and will be alphabetized with other encyclopedias. —Michael Z. 18:56, 2005 Jan 17 (UTC)
  • Why not "Public domain encyclopedias"? Postdlf 05:32, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Or "Encyclopedias in the public domain", just to get "Encyclopedias" first. / Tupsharru 11:46, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree with "Encyclopedias in the public domain", as it is more precise to define what they are instead of what they are not (i.e. in copyright)--MaxMad 13:45, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ok, so we agree to a rename. Do we need to have a vote as to which name? --ssd 02:17, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Possibly :). Out of the suggestions, I would choose Category:Public domain encyclopedias over Category:Encyclopedias in the public domain. Fits better with the other subcategory Category:Online encyclopedias. RedWolf 06:40, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

Category:Universities and colleges by nationality

I'm moving all the "universities and colleges" articles and categories to the more standard "colleges and universities" form (see [1]). "Nationality" is also bad grammar when referring to institutions. I think we should move it to Category:Colleges and universities by country. --Neutralitytalk 06:47, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)

  • I agree with the change of "by nationality" to "in country". However, the change from "universities and colleges" to "colleges and universities" is not at all appropriate. Most other countries don't have "colleges" in the U.S. sense (or in any sense). Google is in this case likely to reflect American usage; any combination of these words in either order is likely to do that, as non-Americans would not mention "college" in the same breath as "university" in any case. Using "college" at all in the name of the category is U.S.-centric (or at the very least anglocentric), but I can accept that as long as "universities" stand first. It can then be understood as universities and other, variously named institutions of higher learning (whether they are called Fachhochschule, academy or something else). In any case, the change to "in country" is probably uncontroversial, but these changes should be discussed separately. / Tupsharru 07:34, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • OK with changing "by nationality" to "by country", but "Universities and colleges" is much better than "Colleges and universities", IMO. older≠wiser 16:23, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree with Tupsharru. At least for the Netherlands, college should preferrably not be used, as it is confusing: a college is a "high school", while an equivalent of American colleges could be named a 'hogeschool (literally "high school"). Looking at the article college, the situation in Belgium, France, and Germany is almost the same. So if you move Category:Dutch universities, call it Category:Universities in the Netherlands; don't mention high schools. Category:Universities and colleges by country is OK; "Colleges and universities" is worse. -- Eugene van der Pijll 17:44, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • What about using something like Category:Universities and institutions of higher learning? Then one can include French Grandes écoles, German Fachhochschulen, and whatever else there may be that doesn't really fit in under the term "university". The U.S. categories can still use the word "college". / Tupsharru 19:33, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • The proposed names could broaden the category to institutions that don't grant degrees, such as vocational schools. Is that the intention? If so, maybe it would be shorter to just call it "Post-secondary institutions". Maurreen 16:11, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I am very much in favor of this notion of renaming the categories to something else entirely. I would support either "Post-secondary institutions" or "Institutions of higher education". ("Higher learning" sounds awkward to me. I don't know why.) I've posted a note at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Universities, as well. -Aranel ("Sarah") 16:56, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • I am not sure what the consequences would be of a broadened category, but it ought to be discussed somewhere and this may not be the right place. The Wikipedia:WikiProject_Universities is only sporadically active, though. / Tupsharru 21:27, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)



January 15

"By country" categories

We have a lot of "Something_by_country" categories and a lot of inconsistency in naming. Sometimes, we see e.g. "French places", other times, e.g. "Places in France". In the cases nominated below, I propose that we standardize on the "Foo in/of/from CountryName" style. (There are other cases with the same problem, but which are more complicated or controversial.)

  • The adjective form is often akward, sometimes prompting people to inconsistently use the noun form as an adjective. Consider:
Category:Trinidad_and_Tobago_sportspeople
Category:Saint_Kitts_and_Nevis_sportspeople
Category:UAE_sport
Category:Quebec_politics
Category:New_Zealand_politics
Category:Congo_DR_sport
  • People often use improper or controversial adjective forms. It's Pakistani but Afghan, not Afghani. Argentine, not Argentinean. Some people consider "Northern Irish" to be just plain wrong. And we've had no end of argument between "American foo", "U.S. foo", "United States foo", etc.
  • Some people argue that the noun form is also clearer. "Irish foo" might, if misread, be interpreted as "Irish language foo" or "Ethnically Irish foo" as opposed to "Foo of France". Category:Indian_weapons - American Indian or subcontinental? I'm still confused about ethnicity vs. nationality in Slovak vs. Slovakian, and who really knows why the adjective form for The Netherlands is "Dutch"?

-- Beland 02:25, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It's a variation on Deutsch for German, due to shared lingusitic history. Wincoote 02:03, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I disagree. The adjective form is more natural and it's easier to type.
Also, I acknowledge that I don't usually follow this page, but I think other places would be more appropriate for this topic (such as naming conventions, more general category pages, wikiproject for countries). I think interested people might not see it here. Maybe it would be good to at least mention it at the Village Pump. Maurreen 08:51, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • The adjectival form is more confusing, and open to all of the problems that beland mentions above. Consider "Foo of Niger" and "Foo of Nigeria", for instance. I'm also getting fed up with ficxing the non-existent term "New Zealandian" which some Wikipedian seems to have invented. Grutness|hello? 10:53, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • We spend a lot of time fighting over which adjective form to use, particular in cases such as Niger/Nigeria where the adjective in English is not clear. Avoiding the adjective is also an effective way to avoid having well-intentioned people attempt to invent a way around using American. I very much support this proposed standard. (Note: We're not generally talking about a massive change of all existing categories in each group. Quite often there are sister categories using both systems.) -Aranel ("Sarah") 03:41, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • The adjective is more common, and may feel more natural, but the nouns don't have the disadvantages of the adjectives. Nouns would solve plenty of controversies, avoid a couple of misunderstandings, and hardly introduce any problems. In many instances it solves sensitive issues connected to minority ethnicities. Wikipedia ought to express preferance for nouns without expecting uncontroversial adjectivical forms to be (rapidly) converted. /Tuomas 08:19, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • If the noun form is going to be used, I prefer "... of the USA" to other variations. And is "U.S. blah blah" controversial?Maurreen 06:21, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • The short version: Yes. First of all, using U.S. as an adjective is much more common outside of the United States than it is in the United States. It is usually used as an adjective in an attempt to circumvent American, and as a consequence it has political connotations that we should avoid if possible. (I don't like USA just because I don't believe it's as commonly used anymore. Most people say United States, America, or U.S., the latter being generally more common outside of the United States.) -Aranel ("Sarah") 02:05, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Note: I'm starting to pull out individual sections that seem to have reached a consensus for listing at /resolved under '"By country" categorization'. -Aranel ("Sarah") 17:17, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

My problem with the current apparent consensus is that it is focused on state boundaries and not on ethnicity, language and community definitions. This is most obviously illustrated by the 'stateless' or unresolved states, such as the "Palestinian" categories discussed. For the Basque Country, there are two definable geographical entities plus many people and institutions beyond that can be identified as Basque. So Category:Sportspeople of the Basque Country is not as useful as Category:Basque sportspeople. Kurdish categories necessarily straddle boundaries, so "of Kurdistan" does not make sense. Even with identified boundaries, there is too much grey with the "of foo" standard in many cases: Category:Serbian political parties is different to Category:Political parties of Serbia - there are many other examples in Central Europe alone. Perhaps we need both country and ethnic categories, but that seems overcomplicated. Mtiedemann 00:59, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • I prefer the adjective form in many cases, and don't think an attempt should be made to ban it. Wincoote 02:03, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Standard form for country names

When the pattern is "Foo of CountryName", I propose that the country name should be the same as it appears in the title of the article about that country, with an optional lowercase "the" if needed for grammatical purposes.

Entites on both the List of sovereign states and List_of_dependent_territories are currently included in "by country" categories. The European Union is also listed because it sometimes has its own category (for example, for EU elections). Those articles, and many titles, links, and references may need to be updated. Whatever standard forms we decide upon should also be submitted to Wikipedia:Manual of Style and documented there and/or on /resolved.

We also need to know what the convention will be so we can fix various By_country categories.

The following are the standard forms I think are appropriate, for the cases where there may be some ambiguity. -- Beland 02:46, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Agree I heartily endorse the category scheme for countries as Beland has laid out. I find the adjective form for the categories to be very problematic. I think the Whatever of Foo to be much better. Sortior 04:27, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree as well. Ye gods what have I started... Way to go, Beland! Grutness|hello? 11:02, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree /Tuomas 08:19, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

(Note: Links to articles are shown only for reference; links obviously cannot appear in the actual title of a category.)

Congo-Brazzaville:

Congo-Kinshasa (formerly Zaire):

China:

Taiwan:

OK, I myself am having second thoughts. Maybe "China" and "Taiwan" would be clearer. Or at the very least, "Republic of China (Taiwan)"? This would break the convention of sticking with what the articles are named, though. Unless, uh, the articles are renamed. -- Beland 11:57, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • There's the question of Taiwan as referring to the island or the province, as any RoC category would cover more that one might intend, if they wished to only refer to the island of Formosa, or the province of Taiwan, and not all of the terrority controlled by the government of the Republic of China (which is not the same as the territory of the Republic of China... which is the same as the terroritory of the People's Republic of China). 132.205.45.110 22:48, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Do refer to the following text in conventions previously set out with regards to the usage of the names "Republic of China" and "Taiwan": Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Chinese)#Political_NPOV--Huaiwei 08:13, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ireland, when separated:

Ireland, when combined:

Greek and Turkish Cyprus usually have combined categories:

Independent country:

U.S. territory:

USSR when it existed and Russia today:

USSR when it existed and the same geographic region today:

When considered separately:

Others:

-- Beland 02:46, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

    • Agree, but note some inconsistencies are possible with the leading definite article. You've caught "The Gambia" well, but as I found out recently, talking of something being "in the Ukraine", whice seems correct in English, is actually disliked by Ukrainians. I note, BTW, that many Korean categories are combined for the whole peninsula - when not, the seem to use "North Korea" and "South Korea", IIRC. Grutness|hello? 10:53, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I certainly hear journalists say things like "people in Ukraine", and I accept either "the Ukraine" or "Ukraine" to be correct. None of the existing article and category titles use "the", so I'm adding a note above to keep it that way. -- Beland 11:57, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Some more conventions...

As needed:

(Serbia and Montenegro are in a loose union; according to the article, Kosovo's status as a province of Serbia is disputed and it is currently under UN administration.)

At the (necessary) risk of opening a further can of worms, what convention ill be used for (FYRO) Macedonia? Grutness|hello? 11:31, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Duh. Are you really going to do such a great reconstruction? Well, I agree, if you realy will be able to do this in right way, without the appearing tonns of red links :) My POV slightly differs in the following subtle moment: USSR when it existed and Russia today: * of Russia and the Soviet Union Namely, I think that it's not necessary to create superfluous categories like this one, because:

  • In the future someone may create up to 14 categories in the same style: of Ukraine and the Soviet Union, of Kazakhstan and the Soviet Union etc.
  • If somebody contributed to both, say, the science, of pre-Soviet or post-Soviet Russia and the science of the Soviet Union, then he/she simply will be listed in both Scientists of Russia and Scientists of the Soviet Union categories. Cmapm 18:24, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Category:Palestine

Palestine/West Bank & Gaza Strip/Palestinian Authority categories:

West Bank and Gaza Strip:

  • of Palestine
    I strongly disagree here. "Palestine" is a historic geographical term, and is not interchangeable with "West Bank and Gaza Strip". I suggest using "of the West Bank and Gaza Strip" for geographical issues, and "of the Palestinian National Authority" for political issues (such as "political parties"). -- uriber 12:13, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    Generally agree. Also "Palestinians" for the people. All of which gets trickier in historical contexts, especially pre-1948. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:00, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
  • Uriber, you are not making sense here. I do not follow what you are trying to do here. There were and are various contexts for the use of Palestine and they may all be correct. You cannot "standardize" various periods of history.IZAK 11:36, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    In short, what I'm trying to do is to keep the concepts of Palestine, Palestinian, and Palestinian national Authority apart, as they are three distinct concepts, which are often confused. Palestine is a historic region, the Palestinians are (arguably) a people (which appeared only many centuries after "Palestine" was a well-known term), and the Palestinian national Authority is an autonimous state-like political entity governing parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (which, in turn, happen to be parts of Palestine, and the home of some of the Palestinians). This is complicated, but not without precedent: cf.: Jews/Judea/Land of Israel/Israel, United States/American. -- uriber 13:11, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    I would agree with Uriber here. BTW, must we always say "the Gaza Strip" instead of just "Gaza"? Especially in the phrase "The West Bank and Gaza" I would think the shorter phrase is entirely clear. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:00, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
  • Let's make this more concrete...

Huh? How is the following making anything" more "concrete"? IZAK 11:36, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I included the list here so that instead of arguing abstractly about classes like "geographical" and "political", we could just deal with the actual categories we have to rename.
Excellent idea -- uriber 12:58, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • This category contains the following disclaimer:

Note: Palestine is not a country. These airports are located in the contested Gaza Strip and West Bank. Airports of Israel can be found under Category:Airports of Israel

Jmabel: Please note there is already an extensive Category:Israeli history as well as Category:Israel and Zionism. The conflict between the two is covered by Category:Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is also already Category:Palestinian history. To mix the "Israeli" with the "Palestinian" histories TOO much would not be helpful nor accurate at all, and would only confuse matters. IZAK 02:36, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I realize this seems complicated and non-consistent, but you have to remember that unlike other cases discussed here, there is no independent state called "Palestine", so it's natural that "Palestine" does not fit into a template designed for independent states. -- uriber 12:58, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Given the overloading of the term "Palestine", I can definitely see your point. I'm going to remain neutral here, but I would like to request some clarification...for each of the above categories, what would be the preferred new name? -- Beland 20:35, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Good question, I agree, what the heck is goin on here??? IZAK 11:36, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)


What would you call the areas of Ottoman aand British Palestine, if not "Palestine"? IZAK 11:36, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

OK, so I take it these 3 can remain the same. Do the others need to change, to e.g. "Category:People of the West Bank and Gaza Strip"? -- Beland 11:57, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Is West Bank an appropriate name for that piece of territory? Isn't there a more complete name? (West Bank of Transjordan, or West Bank of the Jordan River) 132.205.95.68 22:03, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Yes, but "The West Bank and Gaza" is unambiguous and terse. Just like we do not always say "the United States of America". -- Jmabel | Talk 18:00, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

Having read though this discussion, I generally agree with uriber's position. Issues dealing with the region of Palestine (generally pre-1948) should be in "Palestine" categories. Post 1948 geographical articles should be in the "West Bank and Gaza Strip" category, and political articles should be in the "Palestinian Authority" category. Jayjg (talk) 16:01, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Mostly ditto. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:00, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

The ceaseless wrangling over Palestine is one of the main reasons I'm doing less Wikipedia stuff lately, but once more unto the breach... The term "Palestine" has two meanings in English. The primary meaning - and by far the most widely used one, as Google easily confirms - is the modern political sense: a homeland for the Palestinians. The less commonly used, but arguably more "academic", meaning is the geographical region long known as Palestine. More precise categories are good, where they can be created; after all, "West Bank and Gaza Strip" can and should be a subcategory of "Palestine". Attempting to arbitrarily restrict the term "Palestine" to only one of these two meanings, however, is not. Even if we arbitrarily pick the latter meaning as primary for Wikipedia purposes, there is no good reason to reserve "Palestine" solely for pre-1948 articles. We have a Category:Western Sahara, a Category:Chechnya, and a Category:Tibet; in no case have these categories been absurdly restricted only to pre-conquest-related articles (which would be impossible in the case of the Western Sahara anyway.) - Mustafaa 20:09, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Leave the categories as they are. Palestine/Palestinian should be the primary designation. Everyone is familiar with it. despite all the complications it is the best label for inclusive categories. Philip 14:51, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Transportation_by_country

Subcategories are all "Transportation in Foo" except we have:

"Transport" is the term actually used in Ireland.

This is a precedent-setting decision. Should we have a universal form for this type of category, or should we vary the form to allow a more local flavor? Consistency might make navigation easier, but for article text, there is a precedent to use local terminology if applicable. I suspect that "Transport" is also used the UK and some other Commonwealth countries. If we decide to allow variation in this type of case, should we actively investigate usage in the countries for which categories exist, or allow passive changes over time? What should we do about non-English-speaking countries? -- Beland 02:25, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

See also the next entry...

  • I would vote for Transport of Ireland, for the English forms, I think it is best to try to keep the international flavour of Wikipedia, we can easily add a category redirect for Transportation and Transport if there is confusion. But users in Ireland, England would look for transport and not transportation. Sortior 04:32, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • It doesn't bother me to mix them up a bit if there are folks who seriously object to using Transportation as the standard, although it does tend to cause confusion in assigning categories. (It would always be necessary to check before assigning a transportation category.) -Aranel ("Sarah") 03:41, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Perhaps an energetic youngster or bot can be convinced to create the alternative redirects for all transport/transportation categories. —Michael Z. 05:08, 2005 Jan 17 (UTC)
  • "Transport" is the word used in most English-speaking countries, and the article on transport rests there. "Transportation" has very different connotations - particularly to an Australian! I'm guessing most Americans have no problem with understanding the Commonwealth English form of "transport", and, in the light of the different meanings of the word "transportation" (and that it's a much longer word!) it would be better if "transport" is used, jguk 18:08, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Attempting to impose the American word "transportation" on other English speaking countries is totally unacceptbale. Philip 03:27, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • I created most of the transportation in blah, as part of the Wikiproject airport stuff, but I will stick with the general consensus here, even though it looks wrong to me (I am a Canadian). Burgundavia 22:05, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

Category:National_parks_by_country

(Mostly "National parks of Foo".)

This is a lot like the "transport" vs. "transportation" case, but in this case the vocabulary variation seems to have an even stronger justification. -- Beland 02:25, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Should we agree on a generic term, like protected areas or designated areas, for cases where a country has national parks, national wildlife refuges, national historic sites, national marine protected areas, etc, which will all be in one category? —Michael Z. 05:10, 2005 Jan 17 (UTC)

"Designated" is too vague. "Protected areas" (which is the name of the Wikiproject) is probably best. "Conservation area" may imply things which are not true of all types of parks. Using small letters for "national parks" may imply that it includes all types of nationally owned parks, while capitalized "National Parks" indicates a specific designation. Rmhermen 21:52, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)

Category:Lakes_by_country

  • Fooish lakes -> Lakes of Foo
    • (Currently mixed usage.)

-- Beland 02:25, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

    • While I agree at the country level of using Lakes of Foo, I'd prefer using Fooish lakes at the subdivision level (e.g. provinces/territories, states). RedWolf 17:14, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
That does seem to be common practice (which I personally happen to follow) but, for argument's sake, what justifies the inconsistency? -- Beland
Category:Lakes of the United States and Category:Lakes of Australia use "Lakes of X" for subcategories. Category:Lakes of Canada has Category:Ontario lakes (the only province subcategory) and Category:Lakes of the United Kingdom has Category:English lakes (the only subcategory). "Lakes of X" seems to be the standard for subdivisions. It certainly makes sense for U.S. states (where the adjective is often unclear or obscure). -Aranel ("Sarah") 19:12, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
So will it be Manitoba lakes or Manitoban lakes? I think Lakes of [insert province] is better for the same reasons as Lakes of [insert country]. —Michael Z. 05:14, 2005 Jan 17 (UTC)

FTR, these are not in Category:Lakes by country but represent countries or supranational areas, and don't fit the existing pattern. -- Beland 02:04, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

May I ask: Why not Category:Lakes in Foo? /Tuomas 08:19, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In general, man-made places (such as cities and towns) tend to use "in" and landforms (mountains, bays, etc.) tend to use "of". I'm not entirely sure why this is the case; the standard is of necessity somewhat arbitrary. (It's often not important which standard we use, as long as we have a standard.) -Aranel ("Sarah") 16:17, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)



Category:Shooters_by_country

I'm not sure "shooters" is the best word, either. -- Beland 02:25, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • er... trappist, pistoleer, target shooter, marksman? 132.205.15.43 02:34, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • not "Trappist" - unless you want to confuse shooters and monks! I think it also depends what you want - people who compete at sporting events like the Olympics as shooters (in which case you can't use "Pistoleer" - since they use shotguns IIRC), or people who have used guns in military/paramilitary situations (in which case they're probably covered in other categories anyway). I think that if you're talking sport "Shooters" is correct, though. Grutness|hello?
    • Out of context, the phrase "German shooters" makes me think, "Murderers who shot their victims and who are from Germany". Perhaps "sport shooters" is closer to what is intended.

Category:Weapons_by_country

  • Change all subcategories from "Fooian weapons" to "Weapons of Foo".

-- Beland 02:25, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Question: is this category meant to hold weapons originating in a particular country, used in warfare by a particular country, or some other scope? Courtland 07:08, 2005 Feb 17 (UTC)

Category:Snooker_players_by_country

Change all "Fooian snooker players" to "Snooker players of Foo", and especially Category:Indian_Snooker_players -> Category:Snooker players of India. -- Beland 02:25, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Oppose The proposed name sounds precious to me. Philip 03:28, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree for reasons given in the Category:Cinema_by_country CfD below. Bryan 10:02, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree for consitency Saga City 15:31, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

Category:Sportspeople_by_country

Change all "Fooian sportspeople" to "Sportspeople of Foo", especially Category:Northern_Irish_sportspeople -> Category:Sportspeople_of_Northern_Ireland.

  • Oppose That sounds ridiculously precious to me. Philip 02:57, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree for reasons given in the Category:Cinema_by_country CfD below. Bryan 09:55, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Category:Cinema_by_country

Change all "Fooian cinema" to "Cinema of Foo". -- Beland 02:25, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Agree - in needs a lot of work. Also, went one comes across a country that is defunct... use the original country AND its present day status: Category:Cinema of Czechoslovakia, and Category:Cinema of the Czech Republic ... Category:Cinema of Slovakia. ~ RoboAction 00:10, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose A lot of work to convert the names into an ungainly and non standard form. Philip 22:37, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree - the work will be done by bots, and "X of Country" is a standard form in widespread use. I find it easier to guess category names when they're in this form. Bryan 09:54, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Standard preposition for island countries

In "by country" categories, the preposition should be the same for all countries. For example, most countries have a "Category:Transportation in CountryName". Island nations should not have a "Category:Transportation on IslandName", even if there is only one island in the country. Instead, they should have the uniform, "Category:Transportation in CountryName".

Articles to rename:

to Communications_in_the_U.S._Virgin_Islands
to Transportation_in_the_U.S._Virgin_Islands

Categories to rename:

    • I tend to agree here, although I feel the people of the Isle of Wight would be surprised to see the island suddenly upgraded to country status! Grutness|hello? 10:53, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • I am not certain this is a useful move. There is a case to argue that these categories have all been named thus by their creators because this is the correct way to refer to that class of article. I'm not at all sure what difference there is in use of 'in' and 'on' when referring to a nation or not. There are also various Islands (such as the Channel Islands) which are arguably nations - or not. If you are going to make this change you should change all categories, or indeed all titles and text, referring to Islands to 'in'. This would be wrong. I'm from the Isle of Wight, not a nation or likely to ever be one. On the Isle of Wight (see what I did there?) the term used is invariably 'on'. I write using this term and I believe it to be correct, and indeed I would go so far as to say that to use 'in' is not just a less-favoured alternative, but wrong. I couldn't say what other English-speaking islands use, but for at least one Island it would be erroneous to make the change. Naturenet 23:59, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • ah. perhaps personal bias was coming out for me (I live in the South Island of New Zealand!) Grutness|hello?
  • Oh, whoops. The Isle of Wight is not in the List of dependent territories; I think I must have confused it with the Isle of Man, (which is) while grepping on the word "Isle". Isle of Wight categories should not be changed, since it's an island which you are on, not a country or quasi-country you are in. -- Beland 02:07, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Well, after that prompt response, no objection. But I do wonder whether any of those other Island nations have the same convention as we do on the Isle of Wight. Otherwise why would they have created those categories as they are? But that's speculation, and if other islanders want to object, that's for them to do. Naturenet 08:54, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • There are non-nation islands that use "in" rather than "on" - I've already mentioned NZ's South Island, and our North Island is another such. As is Tasmania. I'm not certain, but I think there's a more than reasonable chance the locals say "in" (or the local language equivalents) in/on Trinidad, Tobago, Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku, Anglesey, Corsica, Sicily, Crete, Sardinia, Borneo, Sumatra, Java, Newfoundland, Oahu... Perhaps once an island is a certain arbitrary size, it begins to feel less like an island (maybe when you can no longer see the sea from most parts of it). I think that local usage should prescribe whether"in" or "on" is used, since it's likely to be consistent among the vast majority of residents of each particular island. The hard task would be finding out which is used... Grutness|hello? 11:56, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • The Irish example may be of interest here, as it is a state and a bit. We say 'in' Ireland, but 'on' the island of Ireland. My vote would be to leave these categories alone as they have likely ben created by people who know what the local usage is. Filiocht 12:06, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
        • That is also my view. Unless someone has a good reason to show that the categories are in error I think there is no need for a policy decision to regularise a situation en masse which includes a number of individual cases which vary with no predictable pattern. There is no possibility of misinterpretation whichever preposition is used, so the trouble of changing them, and risk of introducing an (admittedly trivial) inaccuracy, seems to me to outweigh the benefit (if any) of making the change. Naturenet 17:47, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)


        • Usage is "in" Trinidad, "in" Tobago, but "on" Chacachacare, Monos, or Gasparee (smaller offshore islands). Guettarda 14:18, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

January 11

Category:Crime

I vote it to be merged into Category:Crimes, which grew large (hence sounds more natural) and overlaps "crime", bot in terms of content and "chapter". Mikkalai 02:06, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Crime should talk about crime, where Crimes should list types of crimes and such. These seem different to me. ---ssd 07:55, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • I was thinking that Category:Crime should be the category for articles defining crime or talking about it in the abstract, and Category:Crimes the category for specific acts of crime. Thus Murder and Arson and such would go in Category:Crime; an article about the murder of Kitty Genovese would go in Category:Crimes. Thoughts? -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:56, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • In this case I suggest the category name should be category:Acts of crime (subcategory of "cat:Crime") or similar, to avoid confusion (which is the case right now) with very similar names. In any case, the two are for significant cleanup. Also, clear charters must be written for these categories. Mikkalai 20:08, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • I originated the above mentioned category, believing that Crimes had not been covered in our categories. I believe a merge would be the most intelligent thing to do. Merge. "Antonio Daisy Martin"
  • I agree they should merge, but I think "Crime" is the more appropriate single category name. At a later date, it might be appropriate to have a subcategory of "Fameous crimes" or the like. --agr 17:53, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • I also agree that "Crime" should be the top category. Philip 02:53, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)


January 1

Category:Interstate highways in Alabama (and the other 49 states)

Should be Interstate Highways in Foo. I know this isn't normal capitalization, but an interstate highway is a highway that crosses state lines. An Interstate Highway is a highway in the Interstate Highway System, which these are. --SPUI 00:13, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Agree There is a subtle difference, but yes I think you are correct and it should be Interstate Highways in Foo. Note that Puerto Rico has them too...so it is not just the other 49 states, though a quick perusal shows that some states are Interstate Highways in Foo along with a number of the article titles. Sortior 00:29, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Since {{cfr}} or {{cfd}} notices were NOT placed on the category pages, should this set of categories be re-listed as it strictly did not follow the procedure? RedWolf 01:30, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)

Well, it bothers me little, but the rationale behind using caps makes sense, akin to internet vs. the Internet. And similarly, the larger part of common usage does not necessarily conform to this standard, but that does not mean that one should ignore the correct method. zoney ♣ talk 10:48, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I see two occurences of "interstate highway" in that article. One is caps and the other isn't. However, the original point stands; the Lincoln Tunnel, for example, is an interstate highway but not an Interstate Highway. So if it's kept lowercase, that should be added to the NJ and NJ categories. But this isn't the behavior wanted in these cats, so the capitalization should be done, or an alternate phrasing to make it clearer should be made. --SPUI 05:41, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Pearle is currently tagging these. I would leave a few days for further comments. -- Beland 07:23, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • I don't feel strongly either way, but lean slightly towards leaving highway uncapitalized as I do not think the phrase "Interstate highway" is a proper name. "Interstate" yes, but adding the word "highway" is merely a somewhate redundant indication of the type of highway. That is, all Interstates are highways, but not all highways are Interstates. older≠wiser 13:44, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)
    • Hmmm, maybe Interstates in foo then? Interstate Highway System in foo? --SPUI 05:41, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)




December 22

Category:London Districts

Badly capitalised categories. Susvolans (pigs can fly) 17:24, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • Oppose - these were amongst the first-created categories and (personally - ymmv) and just as there is the 'London Borough of xxx' I feel that this word order better reflects usage and meaning. --Vamp:Willow 23:35, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • While we do tend to prefer the older category if they are both equally good, this is clearly not the case here (unless "District" is somehow a proper noun, but in the category description it is not). If not part of a proper name, words in a category or article title are not capitalized. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions. -Aranel ("Sarah") 00:44, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • I agree; a capital D does not fit Wikipedia's downcase style. "Borough of Foo" is a proper noun, and thus must be capitalized. In this case, "districts" is not part of a proper noun. -- Beland 05:04, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Rename to Category:London districts; Category:London Rivers is miscapitalized and should be renamed to either Category:Rivers in London or Category:London rivers is ok, but it would be best to try to match prevalent convention. --ssd 16:22, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Agree: Rename to Districts of London - the word London is not an adjective. Saga City 09:19, Dec 25, 2004 (UTC)
  • Agree, but London is an objective because it is frequently used as one, even if some people think it is an incorrect usage.
  • I am now inclined to prefer Category:Districts in London to match the Japanese district categories. See for example Category:Districts in Aichi Prefecture. -Aranel ("Sarah") 02:21, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Sigh. I agree. Sadly, though, a couple of months back I modelled the New Zealand city district categories on the London one, so you're also going to want to look at Category: Auckland urban districts, Category: Wellington urban districts, and Category: Christchurch urban districts. Grutness|hello? 22:58, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)



December 1

Olympic athletes of X

We have a mixed convention in Category:Olympic competitors by country:

We previously deleted the category "Olympic athletes" in favor of "Olympic competitors" because "athletes" means all competitors in US English, but means "track and field athletes" in UK English. I propose renaming all the "Olympic athletes of X" categories to "X Olympians". "Olympic competitors of X" sounds like it should be an athletics enemies list of country X, instead of a manifest of its representatives. -- Beland 08:12, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Also note the following, some of which are on /unresolved:

-- Beland 10:16, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The Olympic website uses "athletes" and their commission is named the "Athlete's Commission". You can't get any more official than that. Also it was mentioned at one time by someone (I realize that's pretty vague) in a previous discussion that "Olympic athlete" in Britain refers to the people who compete at the Olympics and not just the track and field competitors. Also I prefer the "-- of country" form rather than the "countrian --" form because categorization is less ambiguous. Take Nate Ackerman as an example; he was born in the U.S. and might have dual citizenship since he competed for Great Britain (I don't know if the rules require citizenship to compete for a country's team). I don't know if calling him a British athlete would be correct, but saying he was an Olympic athlete of Great Britain is most certainly correct. —Mike 08:11, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)
My primary reason for preferring competitors is that it is something that does not cause arguments. (At least, none so far.) Even if the Olympics officially use athletes, there are folks who strongly dislike the term. Would you consider it wrong to use competitors?
As for the "of country" form, I agree. It's more accurate. (But please, let's use "of the United States", not "of the U.S.". Less potential for confusion of punctuation.) -Aranel ("Sarah") 15:21, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It isn't wrong since we can call them anything we want, but it just sounds a bit odd to me since I don't hear "Olympic competitors" much. —Mike 06:05, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

(CFD tags added 4 Dec 2004. -- Beland 08:03, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC))

OK, so then current proposal is to change all of these to "Olympic competitors of CountryName"? Does "Olympic competitors for CountryName" sound better or worse? -- Beland 08:03, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Although I prefer the "athletes of", "competitors for" would likely be less ambiguous than "competitors of". —Mike 05:57, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

How about "Olympians of X"? --MPerel 17:51, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

I prefer the "competitors for" over "of" Sortior 04:46, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)
I prefer Olympic competitors for Puerto Rico, Olympians has a subtext of being winners rather than competitors, "for" is less ambiguous... I think we should use "Olympic competitors for CountryName" Pedant 23:27, 2005 Jan 10 (UTC)

OK, changing to "competitors for". -- Beland 08:36, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Just to throw a spanner in the works, may I suggest "Olympic competitors from X" or "Olympic sportspeople of X"? Grutness|hello? 09:40, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I like "Olympic competitors from X". I'll give another day for objections, but this has been here for a month and a half now, so it's time to get moving... -- Beland 01:53, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The problem of using "from" is that some may take it to mean their point of origin, not who they were competing for. (I still prefer the 'Olympic athletes of X'.) —Mike 03:54, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
  • I prefer "X Olympians" Philip 03:48, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes, I prefer X Olympians as well; though I've not used that phrase before, it does have a nice ring to it. Courtland 07:04, 2005 Feb 17 (UTC)

Cleanup overhead

Discussions moved off-page

Please see:

To be emptied or moved

The following categories meet the requirements for deletion but are not empty. All discussion was left intact above, so you can review it, and after deletion, delete it. This section is meant to be a summary with no discussion. Discussion should go in the previous section.

(Note: If there was no opposition to deletion or especially if there was no discussion at all, then the entry above can be removed for categories listed here.)

Scan start: Jan 31

Category delete keep other rename to / why
- - - - -

The following easily passsed or otherwise had no opposition and the the suggested move should be made:

  • Category:Articles related to Menudo (boy band) -> Category:Menudo
  • Category:London Districts -> Category:London districts
    • This should probably be done by bot. (There are nearly 400 articles.) I suggest Category:Districts in London instead of Category:London districts. -Aranel ("Sarah") 00:43, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • RedWolf created a Districts in London category and transferred one article out of 381 to it (yes, that many). I have reversed this. It is a British category, so it should be named in British English, and that means Districts of London. All the votes for Districts in London are from non-British users. If the articles can be "transferred by bot" to Districts of London that will be very well. Otherwise please leave it as it is unless you are prepared to make the 381 transfers required to implement this petty semantic adjustment yourself. Philip 00:08, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        • On a more careful review of the voting, I am now of the opinion that no consensus has been reached and the transfer of the category to this section was illegitimate. The voting is as follows:
No change - 1 vote
In agreement that the existing capitalisation, but no preference for a new name stated - 2 votes (these might be taken to be votes for "London districts", but certainly not for "Districts in London")
Preference for Districts of- 2 votes (to which I add mine, making 3 votes)
London districts - 1 vote
Districts in London - 1 vote
Philip 03:09, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • As I explained on my talk page, I created the category and then found out that the latest Wikimedia software upgrade broke bot changes (at least for me). I did a manual move just to see if there was a wiki problem. As I look at London Districts discussion under Dec 22, I see 3 votes for Districts in London, not 1. 3 > 1. IIt really is not that big of a deal to me if it's "of" or "in". I'm not about to debate semantics of British vs non-British English usage. The work will likely be done by a bot which won't care. RedWolf 06:53, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)
I don't understand why you keep saying there were three votes for your preferred option when there were not. The only vote for it was from user:Aranel. You must be assuming that unspecific votes were in your favour, but that is mere guesswork. Philip 02:34, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Delete me

The below meet the eligibility requirements for deletion at the top of this page. These categories have been de-populated, and any documentation of this decision taken care of. Admins may delete these categories at will. If there is a particular category which is replacing the deleted category (if redundant, misspelled, etc.) as noted below, that should be mentioned in the deletion log entry.

The category to be deleted is listed first, followed by the proper category that renders it obsolete.

OK, these are all done except for things that require admin powers. -- Beland 10:50, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
These look all done to me. What's left? --ssd 04:32, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Here's what I've found:

I can't tell how many of these still need moving and how many have cache problems. --ssd 19:46, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think the last three are all experiencing caching problems. I posted about this at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). -Aranel ("Sarah") 23:23, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I hope to have these fixed within the next day. I'm running a bot script to automate the process I did manually for California Government images. RedWolf 00:30, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion&oldid=10379332"