Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/User

Speedy nominations

If you have a legitimate candidate for speedy rename/merge/delete, place them here instead of under the date.
If something listed here is not a clear case for speedy, please re-list under the current date.

New nominations by date

Please list new nominations at the top of the list for today's date.

October 12

Category:Wikipedians by website and subcategories

These serve absolutely no use in improving the encyclopedia. Knowing whether an editor reads or participates in 4chan, Myspace, Slashdot, or YTMND is irrelevant to the project, and is only potentially useful for social networking, which is not helpful. There is no reason to imagine that people that list themselves as fans or readers of a website are interested in contributing encyclopedic content about it; they are just advertising information about their preferences, and, to be useful, should say that they are interested in collaboration if they are. Dmcdevit·t 03:01, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - While I don't entirely oppose the nom, It could be argued that at least some of the websites have articles and so the categories are useful for collaboration. Also, the subcats have not been tagged. If/when this happens, I would like to see the Wikipedia sister projects, the Wikia projects, and "other" wikis, listed in separate, individual noms, if you wouldn't mind. - jc37 03:31, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete, serves no collaborative potential. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 13:11, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, jc37 18:14, 12 October 2007 (UTC) - Since subcats were not tagged. - jc37 18:14, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Tagging subcats and listing them in grouped nominations. - jc37 18:14, 12 October 2007 (UTC) - Actually I think I'll ask User:AMbot if he would be so kind as to tag these (These are every subcat of Wikipedians by Website.) - jc37 18:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Online communities, forums, and blogs

Category:Wikipedians who use 4chan - Imageboard

Category:Wikipedians who use DeviantART - online artistic community

Category:Wikipedians who use Facebook - Social network service

Category:Wikipedians who use Flickr - a photo sharing website and web services suite, and an online community platform, which is generally considered an early example of a Web 2.0 application.

Category:Wikipedians who use Gaia Online - an anime-themed forums-based website.

Category:Wikipedians who use Last.fm - a UK-based internet radio and music community website, founded in 2002. It is the world's largest social music platform.

Category:Wikipedians who use Slashdot - often abbreviated as /. is a science, science fiction, and technology-related news website

Category:Wikipedians who play There.com - Billed on its homepage as "...an online getaway where you can hang out with your friends and meet new ones...", There defines itself as a service providing a shared experience that allows people to interact in an online society.

Category:Wikipedians who use StumbleUpon - a web browser plugin that allows its users to discover and rate webpages, photos, videos, and news articles. A small proportion of the 'stumbles' users come across (typically less than 2%) are sponsored pages matching their topics of interest.

Category:Wikipedians who use YTMND - an initialism for "You're The Man Now, Dog", is an online community centered on the creation of hosted web pages featuring a juxtaposition of a single image or a simple slideshow, which may be animated and/or tiled along with optional large zooming text and a looping sound file. Images used on such sites are usually either created or edited by users. Most are meant to expose or reflect the more inane facets of pop culture, and some can be considered inside jokes.

Strong delete - These, I think, are what User:Dmcdevit was referring to in his initial nomination above. - jc37 18:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong delete per nom. Wikipedia is not MySpace and a directory of users of various social networking sites carries no value. Merely using one of millions of websites implies neither an above-average desire nor ability to contribute encyclopedic content about the subject. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Currency tracking sites

Category:Wikipedians who use Where's George - a website that tracks the natural geographic circulation of American paper money.

Category:Wikipedians who use Where's Willy - a website that tracks Canadian paper money — most commonly five dollar bills, but also higher denominations.

Delete - While interesting, I don't see these as useful. - jc37 18:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong delete per above. Merely using a website implies neither an above-average desire nor ability to contribute encyclopedic content about the subject. A userbox or userpage notice is sufficient to express the affiliation. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Wikipedians who use Grid.org

Category:Wikipedians who use Grid.org - was the website and organization that ran distributed computing projects such as the United Devices Cancer Research Project. It retired on April 27, 2007.

Delete - inactive project - jc37 18:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per jc37. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Wikipedians who participate in NaNoWriMo

Category:Wikipedians who participate in NaNoWriMo - or National Novel Writing Month, is a creative writing project originating in the United States in which each participant attempts to write a 50,000 word novel in a single month.

Delete - While interesting, I don't see this as helpful. Though it's about writing, it's about writing fiction. Really bad idea, I think. - jc37 18:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. The skills required to write good, gripping fiction are different from those required to write encyclopedic content (especially in light of the WP:NOR and WP:NPOV policies). – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikia

Category:Wikipedians who use Wookieepedia - Star Wars wiki

Strong keep and Rename to Category:Wikipedians who contribute to Wookieepedia - There are currently Manual of style discussions concerning use of topic-specific Wikia wikis. - jc37 18:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Merely using a website implies neither an above-average desire nor ability to contribute encyclopedic content about the subject. There are thousands (more?) of wikis and I oppose the desire to establish any sort of stronger connection between Wikipedia and these other wikis (I'm not certain if that's what the MOS discussions are about, but I know that some users support this). – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, for one, there is a discussion about moving "in-universe" information to Wikia wikis, such as Wookieepedia and Memory Alpha. And such "transwiki" moves have already occurred. - jc37 20:44, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Other wikis

Category:Wikipedians who use LyricWiki

Category:Wikipedians who use WikiWikiWeb - It contains various topics and discussions about software engineering. The term wiki that is used to refer to other similar groups of modifiable Web pages, e.g. Wikipedia, came from this original wiki.

Keep and Rename "...who use..." to "...who contribute to..." - I can see how these could be helpful for collaboration. (Especially open-source information use.) - jc37 18:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per my comment at #Wikia. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Other encyclopedias

Category:Wikipedians who use Encyclopaedia Metallum - non-wiki Internet encyclopedia project

Category:Wikipedians who use Everything2 - non-wiki Internet encyclopedia project

Keep and Rename "...who use..." to "...who contribute to..." - I can see how knowing how to write encyclopedic articles can be useful. - jc37 18:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Everything2, which seems to be more of a blog/Uncyclopedia mix than an encyclopedia (my apologies if I gathered the wrong impression, but I just randomly clicked a few articles they had); no opinion on EM. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Other collaborative encyclopedia-like projects

Category:Wikipedians who contribute to Distributed Proofreaders - digital library project

Category:Wikipedians who use MusicBrainz - Online music database. Uses a wiki to teach how to use the database

Category:Wikipedians who contribute to the Open Directory Project - (ODP), also known as dmoz (from directory.mozilla.org, its original domain name), is a multilingual open content directory of World Wide Web links owned by Netscape that is constructed and maintained by a community of volunteer editors.

Category:Wikipedians who contribute to OpenStreetMap - Open source map project. Uses a wiki for WikiProjects related to the map.

Keep and Rename "...who use..." to "...who contribute to..." - I can see how these can be useful for collaboration. (Especially open-source information use.) - jc37 18:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep OpenStreetMap and Open Directory Project; no opinion on the others. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dictionaries

Category:Wikipedians who contribute to Flags of the World - Internet-based vexillological organization and resource (including dictionary of terms) is a member of Fédération internationale des associations vexillologiques

Category:Wikipedians who use Link Everything Online - LEO (website). online Dictionary

Keep and Rename "...who use..." to "...who contribute to..." - I can see how these can be useful for collaboration. - jc37 18:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep FotW; no opinion on LEO. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Wikipedians in the Association of Members' Advocates

Category:Wikipedians in the Association of Members' Advocates - The category claims to just be people who have the userbox on their page. The reason is that the Association of Members' Advocates has been "shut down" and is marked as historical. There has been repeated consensus that categories shouldn't exist just to show who has a specific userbox (whatlinkshere is enough for this). - jc37 17:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - as nominator. - jc37 17:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom as a membership category for a defunct project. The category can be recreated (perhaps under a different title) if the project is revived; until then, whatlinkshere should suffice. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:34, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Wikipedians who are currently online

Category:Wikipedians who are currently online - While this seems nice at first glance, consider that it's a lot easier to tell by checking one's watchlist or someone's contribution history, than to guess based on this category, which may or may not be updated correctly (how often does one forget to turn out the lights...) Also, in some cases categorisation is a result of a script which by current use categorises the monobook page to the category as well. And User:Flameviper is indef blocked/banned. Before this category is deleted, I wonder about the results of a checkuser (F). - jc37 16:44, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - as nominator. - jc37 16:44, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Several of these are monobook pages and most of the users in the category are most certainly not online. One user has been in the category continuously since March, but has made only 4 edits since then (2 in March and 2 in September). Others haven't edited for anywhere from 12+ hours to several months. Contribution history is a much more reliable indicator of on- or off-line status. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:02, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedians by active status

Category:Wikipedians who are not currently active

Category:Wikipedians who are partially active

(Willing to split this nomination if requested) - As Wikipedia continues on, these categories will become voluminous in size. Note that there are indef blocked users categorised this way as well. I think that this is a great non-userbox example of where the userpage notice is fine, but the category is questionable. - jc37 16:44, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete both - as nominator. - jc37 16:44, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete both per nom. I can think of no value in browsing through a category of inactive or partially active users. It may be useful to know whether a specific user is inactive or partially active (that purposes is served by userpage notices), but a category of everyone who self-identifies as partially active or inactive is not useful. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Awarded Wikipedians

Category:Awarded Wikipedians - Template:Lc1

Nominator's rationale: Self-agrandizement and not needed, barnstars are not defining, I urge Delete. Carlossuarez46 04:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. If awards were anything other than "I, random person X, decide to give you an award right now", this might make sense, but they are not. -Amarkov moo! 04:50, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Rename~~ I created the category. No self-agrandizement there, just to know who has got and who didn't. Can be renamed Category:Wikipedians who received barnstars Heltzen ◩ 11:07, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Amarkov. The fact of the matter is that receiving a barnstar is really no different than receiving a "good job" comment on one's talk page; the former just carries something of an "Ooh ... shiny" component for which most people (myself included) probably have a weakness. More importantly, a category of Wikipedians who have received barnstars (there are thousands) does not foster encyclopedic collaboration. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:07, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The explanations and rationale given afterwards make all sense, I change my opinion, please delete Heltzen ◩ 21:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Wikipedian homemakers

The utility of the 'by profession' categories lies in the fact that being a member of a certain profession usually implies possession of certain specialised knowledge or, more importantly, access to or awareness of information and sources about a subject. That argument does not seem to apply to this category.

Delete as nom. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:18, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I was going to say "Keep", as it's a profession with a knowledgebase like any other. But it occurred to me that this could be seen as a "not" category. There are all the other professions and then there are homemakers. I'm torn at the moment, so staying neutral for now. - jc37 15:22, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - How can this category be used for collaboration? "Homemaker" is far to broad of a category to facilitate collaboration on any articles. VegaDark (talk) 03:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - being a homemaker requires more work than most professions and doing it right requires skills worth identifying. Mikebar 14:40, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- What knowledge or skills associated with this profession do you deem relevant to encyclopedia-building? – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 14:58, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ~~~~

Category:User nds-NL

Note: This nomination also includes Category:User nds-NL-1

This is a single-user category for speakers of Dutch Low Saxon, a variant of Low German; all regional and local dialects of "Low German" and/or "Low Saxon" receive the ISO 639-3 code "nds". We should not create separate categories (with user-created classification codes) for minor variations across national boundaries.

Merge into Category:User nds and Category:User nds-1, respectively. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:05, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note that there is a separate Wikipedia for Dutch Low German [1]. Apparently the speakers from Germany and the Netherlands couldn't work together and split. This would justify a separate category. --Chlämens 04:06, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The reason why there is nds-NL.wikipedia.org is that on nds.wikipedia.org they prescribed an orthography shaped after German spelling, the nds:Sass’sche Schrievwies, since most of the original contributors were from Germany. The Low Saxon speakers of the Netherlands, however, preferred an orthography shaped after Dutch spelling, so in the end they forked. -- j. 'mach' wust ☛ ☏ 08:10, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ~~~~

Category:Wikipedian Primera División de México fans

Note: This nomination also includes Category:Wikipedian Club América fans, Category:Wikipedian Club Deportivo Guadalajara fans, Category:Wikipedian Club de Fútbol Monterrey fans, Category:Wikipedian UANL Tigres fans and Category:Wikipedian Club Universidad Nacional fans

These are userbox-populated categories for fans of individual teams in the Primera División de México. Aside from the userbox creator, who appears in all five subcats and the parent category, the subcats contain only one other user and the parent two others. I propose that we do one of the following:

Delete all categories, including the parent, as too narrow in scope/lacking collaborative value.
Upmerge the subcategories to the parent category, which will take care of the issue of overcategorisation and category clutter and also reduce the WP:MYSPACE aspect of specific "fan" categories.

In both cases, the favoured team of each individual user will still be identified by the userbox on their userpage.

Delete all or umperge as nom, and per the precedents here and here. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 18:27, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ~~~~

October 11

Category:Pan-Green Wikipedians

Delete, sounds like an ideology or organization, see previous discussions. -- Prove It ^(talk) 15:53, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom and precedent. It's actually an informal political coalition, but its effectively a broad 'ideology' category. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:01, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Pan-Blue Wikipedians

Delete, sounds like an ideology or organization, see previous discussions. -- Prove It ^(talk) 15:50, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom and precedent. It's actually an informal political coalition, but its effectively a broad 'ideology' category. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:01, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

October 10

Category:Furry Wikipedians

Category:Furry Wikipedians - "This user is a Furry." - This is another notice of self-identification category, not intended for collaboration. In discussing this with a user involved with the Furry WikiProject, I found that the Project doesn't have a cat, but just keeps a list. I added a userbox subpage to their Project, and created such a category, should they wish to use it (which is wholly their choice, obviously). In any case, as I was saying, this category is merely a notice about self-identification. Those who wish to collaborate about all things furry, are welcome to join the WikiProject, or even just "help out" by joining in on the tasks there. (I notice that they have several bounties, so go to it : ) - I'm not suggesting a rename or merge, since that's apparently not the intent of the category, and I think we should attempt to avoid miscategorising Wikipedians. jc37 21:46, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as nominator. - jc37 21:46, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep based on precedent, with no intention of restating the arguments that have been made too many times already. See this, this, this, and this. I'm not saying that the consensus for keeping is strong, but it's certainly to the point where nothing that happens in this CfD will change the lack of consensus. — xDanielx ^T/_C 22:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I disagree with the assumption that user categories are only useful if they are used directly for collaboration. I believe such categories foster a sense of community that has been lost as Wikipedia has grown, as well as increasing the chance of people joining and remaining at Wikipedia (as explained on talk, and in the discussion below for LGBT Wikipedians). I'm sure some people would say "where do you draw the line?" Personally, I probably wouldn't delete any but the obvious "joke" categories, because I don't see a compelling need to do so. If the categories make their participants happier to be Wikipedians, that is good enough a reason to have them. GreenReaper 22:39, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For the love of $DEITY, Keep! First the Great Userbox Purge, and now the Prolonged User Category Purge. When it comes to the cleanliness of your namespaces, you are all downright obsessive-compulsive (whose class of category I see you have also gone after). Pursuing this crusade is a waste of your time, and defending against it is a waste of our time. Also per GreenReaper and xDanielx. ---Bersl2 08:44, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okey-dokey. If this UCFD closes as a keep, I'll go ahead and create Category:Nazi Wikipedians. Remember, deleting it is a waste of your time, it's only a category. Footnote: I am not equating Nazis to Furries, I am making a harmless out-of-context analogy.--WaltCip 10:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- See, that doesn't work on me. By all means, create Category:Wikipedians who hate bersl2 and have slept with his mother if you really want to; I don't care—not enough to want to do anything about it—and I certainly would never ask for administrative action unless action had first been taken against me (e.g., defacing my user page). —Bersl2 11:29, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 12:11, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:LGBT Wikipedians

Category:LGBT Wikipedians - I apparently accidentally overlooked this category when nominating the rest of the Wikipedians by sexuality or gender identification. Same rationale as the previous nom. (That it's used as a notice of idenitification, and is apparently not intended as a grouping for collaboration.) From the category: "These users identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.". In addition, if any individual wished to collaborate on such topics, there is always Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies. - jc37 02:57, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - as nominator. - jc37 02:57, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep - After having slaughtered all of the other categories,

Category:Asexual Wikipedians

Category:Pansexual Wikipedians

Category:Polyamorous Wikipedians

Category:Bisexual Wikipedians

Category:Homoflexible Wikipedians

Category:Heteroflexible Wikipedians

Category:Femme Wikipedians

Category:Lipstick lesbian Wikipedians

Category:Gay Wikipedians

Category:Bear cub Wikipedians

Category:Lesbian Wikipedians

Category:Queer Wikipedians

Category:Genderqueer Wikipedians

Category:Transsexual Wikipedians

you just have to make sure you get them all, huh? -- ALLSTAR ECHO 03:08, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Enough already. You got rid of the "fringe" groups. But there is no good argument that this doesn't help collaboration. You don't have to identify as LGBT to be a member of the LGBT wikiproject. Kolindigo 03:31, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong delete. I fall under this category, yet I claim that my sexuality, gender identity, or lack thereof has nothing to do with writing an encyclopedia. - ∅ (∅), 05:48, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Yet you proclaim your bisexuality via a userbox on your user page. Interesting. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 05:57, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Being open about who you are, and what you're like in RL has little (or nothing) to do with writing. I openly state that I'm female, homesick, and that I sleep odd hours via userboxes. Does that affect how I write as an editor? No. Many editors choose to display personal info via userboxes, but it doesn't affect the way they edit. :) Ariel♥Gold 09:00, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe, and maybe not. A lot of times, people's agenda on WP can be related directly to the userboxes displayed on a user's user space. I was just pointing out that maybe while not directly saying I'm bisexual and therefore I edit, by placing a userbox declaring one's bisexuality, it's still giving that public position that is closely related to the user making use of the userbox and making contributions/edits/delete votes. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 10:38, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I thought about this for a long time. The arguments for deletion are reasonable. Wikipedia isn't MySpace. I don't want it to become MySpace. But, like it or not, Wikipedia is a social space. Last time I checked, it was the 9th busiest website in the world. Most of those people are just here to look, but there is a huge user community here as well. Like any large community, it has subgroups. What I have learnt over at Wikia is that a sense of shared community is important; and beyond a certain point, that sense of community fades, because the group is just too large. Just being a Wikipedian isn't enough. People therefore seek out smaller groups with which they have an affinity, even if they are not necessarily intending to edit in those areas. When I look at Category:Furry Wikipedians (which I've been told is liable to be nominated here soon, for the fifth time), I know that even though I am among a huge sea of editors, I am not alone. There are people of common interest here - and not just one or two, but two hundred of them (when the template isn't being messed around with). And that is a good feeling. It attracts me to the website, just like the presence of other furry fans attracted me to Second Life. Is it the only reason I come here? Of course not. But it is one of the reasons, and it does make me happier to see it. So don't be too quick to dismiss features of community-building that aren't directly related to writing encyclopedia articles. You may be pruning away the reasons why we're here today. GreenReaper 10:19, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Since this concept is not specific to this category I have elaborated in talk. GreenReaper 11:13, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep per the keepers here, especially GreenReaper. Although I assume it's unintentional, it's borderline homophobia. But it's overwhelming deletionism. These categories are useful as collaborative and community building tools, and there are no rational arguments made against that. And there are enough editors within this category. I wouldn't be fighting for a cat with only two members. WP is not a print encyclopedia. so please stop trying to force it into that mold. — Becksguy 10:57, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wish I'd been aware my user category was proposed for deltion and apparently failed (although the notice in my edit history links to the wrong thing altogether). My argument is strong keep, perhaps reverse the previous motion for deletion. The category is useful for among other things, statistical evaluation.~Zythe^{Talk to me!} 12:47, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment As with all of the Sexuality and gender identification categories above, CfD of this cat is against WP:POINT in that it's an abuse of process, failure to assume good faith, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, gaming the system and just flat out disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 16:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How so? --Kbdank71 16:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom and User:I do not exist. --Kbdank71 16:21, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - To respond to some of what I've read so far:

"you just have to make sure you get them all, huh?" - That's called "being thorough", I suppose.
"You got rid of the "fringe" groups." - I don't know if I would place such a label, personally.
"Although I assume it's unintentional, it's borderline homophobia." - Actually I take very strong offense to that. You know absolutley noting about me in this regard (and as far as I am concerned it will stay that way).
"But it's overwhelming deletionism." - No it's not. And incidenatlly, feel free to note the first few userboxes on my user page.
"These categories are useful as collaborative and community building tools, and there are no rational arguments made against that." - I suppose it depends on how one defines "rational". If you define it as "people who agree with me", then I suppose you may not find the reasonings "rational".
"WP is not a print encyclopedia. so please stop trying to force it into that mold." - This has nothing to do with that either.
"The category is useful for among other things, statistical evaluation." - It's been noted in the past that "Whatlinkshere" is useful enough for that.
"As with all of the Sexuality and gender identification categories above, CfD of this cat is against WP:POINT in that it's an abuse of process, failure to assume good faith, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, gaming the system and just flat out disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point." - Well now. Where to begin. I think the best answer is probably WP:AAGF. And personally, I seriously wonder if you are not skating rather close to every link you accuse me of.
Only one person who said "keep" seems to at least understand the nomination, which is this (which I've stated before): There is a current concensus at WP:CFD that categories should not be used merely as bottom-of-the-page notices. Well the same thing has been happening with User categories as well. It isn't new, and there is no specific target to the LGBT category, except that it's a notice of self-identity not a group of people interested in collaborating on this topic. (It is stated on the category page rather clearly, as I noted in the nom.) If they were interested in collaborating on this topic, then they can join the WikiProject. I sincerely do not understand the histrionics involving this. It strongly fees like: It's ours and we want it. Which, of course isn't much of an argument for keeping, and really just feeds into the supposition that this is truly being used merely for "mySpace" purposes. I understand User:GreenReaper's want for such, but that's not what the category system is for (I won't bother with quoting the first pillar or WP:NOT. I'm sure you've all heard it before, by now.) I currently don't have a problem with userpages being used for building community (as long as it doesn't get out of hand, of course). But the categories aren't in userspace, and need to be clear in usage. And just to clarify for those way out there in the cheap seats, This category wasn't "singled out", but is just another of several. As I said before, other such categories, such as Wikipedians by birth, and Wikipedians by marital status, have been removed as well. - jc37 20:46, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"There is a current concensus at WP:CFD that categories should not be used merely as bottom-of-the-page notices." I won't link to specific CfDs since there are far too many, but I think your assertion is somewhat dubious. Look at this CfD (which includes the category in question) from August for example, which had a rather fat snowball running in favor of keeping. — xDanielx ^T/_C 22:53, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
First, that wasn't a link to a WP:CFD page. Second, I would welcome your "far too many" links to CfDs (or even to UCFDs). All I need do to just start for examples is to scroll down this page... Though there have been a lot more than you might imagine. - jc37 23:03, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's important not to damn things just because they're not being used the "right" way. No, categories weren't intended for collecting groups of users; but they have turned out to be rather effective tools for just that purpose. What matters is whether or not the category helps or hurts Wikipedia. My main arguments for it helping are above. Perhaps you don't think it helps very much - it's not an argument that can offer much tangible proof - but I've yet to see a truly compelling argument for how such user categories hurt Wikipedia, either. They can be abused, but abusers have plenty of other ways of causing problems, like going down the list of editors of an article. They aren't exactly being pushed upon readers, either. They're there for users (or prospective users) who are already looking at user pages, and can also be useful for both those both starting and maintaining WikiProjects. GreenReaper 23:21, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wait for the outcome of this DRV, and act accordingly. — xDanielx ^T/_C 22:53, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Jc37's detailed comment above. The category is used merely for decorative purposes (as a userpage notice) and does not foster encyclopedic collaboration. Mere self-identification implies little or nothing in terms of interest or ability to contribute. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 15:35, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Without community-building, Wikipedia will wither and die. MattHucke ^(t) 16:37, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

~~The Chewbacca defense might work in the Oval Office, but not here.~~ Can you provide any reasoning behind this category being, as you say, "community building"?--WaltCip 16:54, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, without article writing, Wikipedia will wither and die. You don't need to build a community to edit. --Kbdank71 17:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In my experience, a sense of community and shared purpose is vital to building and maintaining a successful wiki. The stronger the community, the stronger the wiki. If there is no community, the chance of any significant projects being undertaken is greatly reduced. Random editors dropping by now and then to add trivia or correct spelling entries do not constitute such a community. The reason sites like WikiFur, Wookieepedia and Memory Alpha have succeeded is because they have dedicated communities behind them who care personally about the site and its topic - and this happens on Wikipedia, too. The individuals concerned may or may not be associated with WikiProjects in their areas of interest, just as the contributors to separate wikis may or may not be involved in the administration of those wikis; but they still wish to belong to a "community of X on Wikipedia." Such WikiProjects are unlikely to start without the presence of a community, and they do not replace the need for it. GreenReaper 19:46, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But how is this category, other than perhaps being a buzzword or a feel-good structured system (and as I've seen by many of the keep rationales here, powered by intense emotion), a contributor to the community, when it is - in fact - divisive?--WaltCip 19:49, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Arguing that it should be deleted because it's causing disagreement because you think it should be deleted is something of a circular argument. :-) I've explained above and in talk how such categories contribute to building the community of users in a particular area. I honestly don't know why people outside of that area want it deleted - or why they care at all about such categories. My guess is that they underestimate its value, and overestimate its cost in terms of performance. It's like the manager who proposed mandatory bag searches by security staff because they suspected someone was taking half-used toilet rolls home with them from the office. Pushing for the deletion of such categories causes ten times the problems the category could ever have theoretically caused, without even proving that there's a problem in the first place. GreenReaper 20:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - What is the purpose of this nomination, other than to turn Wikipedia into some Metropolis like cyber ghetto, where we do nothing but edit this fucking encyclopedia and subjugate our personalities and individuality for the sake of the Wiki Police State? What with all the WP:AGF and WP:NPA ad nauseum, this site is already blander than cottage cheese. Anymore obliteration of our actual humanness and you'll see people jumping ship en masse...with me leading the pack. Jeffpw 19:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you are so outraged that something as innocuous as a category is deleted then perhaps you should leave, considering that any stress placed on you by actual edit-warring would have rather grave results.--WaltCip 19:44, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. So you're in the LGBT group, whoopie. Don't need a category for it. People within the LGBT community (not just on Wikipedia) need to stop wearing their sexuality like it's some kind of badge. Whether you're gay, straight, bi, or happen to like it from chickens doesn't matter, and you don't need to shout it to the world. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 12:16, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Well done, ^demon. Spoken like a true, card-carrying member of the opressive majority. I'll stop wearing my sexuality on my sleeve just as soon as you and your right wing cohorts stop trying to marginalize me and my LGBT brothers and sisters and give us our full civil rights. Deal? And as a quick aside, ^demon's comment beautifully illustrates why this category is valuable: if only so that LGBT Wikipedians know who to turn to for support when being bashed. Jeffpw 12:26, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: WP:AGF please. I am a card-carrying homosexual democrat. Stop assuming you know me when you don't. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 12:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Homophobic rant? Demon just said there is no need for a category of any sexual basis. Any desire to indicate such thing can easily be done outside of Wikipedia, or on the userpage itself.--WaltCip 13:18, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

October 9

Category:Wikipedians by alma mater: UCE Birmingham

Rename to Category:Wikipedians by alma mater: Birmingham City University. The university has been renamed - to update to the new title. DWaterson 15:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, single user category and potential for collaboration is minimal. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 15:29, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment it's only single user because I've already updated the userbox that populates the category to Category:Wikipedians by alma mater: Birmingham City University. Which adds two more :P DWaterson 21:15, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Rename per nom; convention of Category:Wikipedians by alma mater. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 15:22, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

October 8

Category:Taoist Wikipedians

Rename Category:Taoist Wikipedians to Category:Wikipedians interested in Taoism. per Kababblist nom below. As there are only 3 members of the category, I do not oppose deletion as an alternative. - jc37 08:17, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Rename - as nominator. - jc37 08:17, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete (1st choice) or keep (2nd choice), but oppose rename. Identification != interest. For instance, I am a Wikipedian, but have little interest in any of the articles related to Wikipedia. I adhere to a certain ideology, but I have no interest editing articles related to that (or any other) political ideology. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 18:36, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The point is that being an adherent means studying about it, which means you're showing interest in it. This is different than most religions in which you can be "in it" by merely saying you are. - jc37 20:54, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - I see where you are coming from, given the description provided in the article, but I'm not sure whether people who add themselves to the category made or will make that distinction. Although the article does state that "Tao is rarely an object of worship, being treated more like the Indian concepts of atman and dharma", it also notes that "Daojiao/Taochiao refers to Daoism as a religion". – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 21:02, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, per many previous discussions. Adherents of a particular religion are likely to know more about that religion and related resources, and are therefore able to collaborate on articles about that religion and related subjects. — Bigwyrm _{watch me}^{wake me} 06:52, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Note that this user specifically used the Wikipedian categories to apparently votestack a previous category discussion. Though, to be fair, he apologised for his actions afterwards. It does, however seem to colour the suggestion of collaboration. (Multi-pasting a single comment to multiple noms is one of the drawbacks of separate listings.) - jc37 07:53, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Why do you think that adherents of a religion are more likely to know about "related resources" regarding the religion? I think that claim could easily be made for theologians, regardless of religious affiliation, but I don't see how mere self-identification implies any sort of knowledge of reliable sources. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - This is obvious circular logic, but it has value: I claim that adherents of a particular religion are more likely to know about that religion and related resources because I expect people to know what they believe. I expect people who claim to be Buddhist to know more about Buddhism than I would expect of the average Christian. I expect people who claim to be Scientologists to know more about Xenu than I would expect of Buddhists. I expect people who claim to be Jimbologists to know more about their deity than Scientologists would. Etcetera. From that expectation, and the general observation that most Wikipedians are also intelligent and literate, I expect that most Wikipedians who assert adherence to a particular ideology will be more aware of the resources regarding that ideology than nonadherents.
    As for the complaint about self-identification, I do not find it reasonable to expect that Wikipedians provide credentials regarding ... well ... anything. Think about it. We don't ask that editors who claim to know Esperanto take a placement test to demonstrate their level of literacy. Nobody asks members of any profession to provide proof of employment. Wikipedia, at every conceivable level, works on the honor system. — Bigwyrm _{watch me}^{wake me} 08:31, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Please see my response at the discussion for Category:Jehovah's Witness Wikipedians. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Black Falcon, and oppose renaming. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 13:03, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 19:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per User:Bigwyrm. bibliomaniac 1 5 23:25, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Kabbalist Wikipedians

Rename Category:Kabbalist Wikipedians to Category:Wikipedians interested in Kaballah - Per the article, this isn't a religion. It's a study of information. - jc37 07:22, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Rename - as nominator. - jc37 07:22, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete (1st choice) or keep (2nd choice), but oppose rename. Identification != interest. For instance, I am a Wikipedian, but have little interest in any of the articles related to Wikipedia. I adhere to a certain ideology, but I have no interest editing articles related to that (or any other) political ideology. Whether Kaballah really is or isn't a religion, I think it's treated as one; for instance, the article states that "Kabalah refers to a set of esoteric beliefs and practices ...". Black Falcon ^(Talk) 18:38, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The point is that being an adherent means studying about it, which means you're showing interest in it. This is different than most religions in which you can be "in it" by merely saying you are. - jc37 20:54, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Please see above. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 21:02, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, per many previous discussions. Adherents of a particular religion are likely to know more about that religion and related resources, and are therefore able to collaborate on articles about that religion and related subjects. — Bigwyrm _{watch me}^{wake me} 06:52, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Note that this user specifically used the Wikipedian categories to apparently votestack a previous category discussion. Though, to be fair, he apologised for his actions afterwards. It does, however seem to colour the suggestion of collaboration. (Multi-pasting a single comment to multiple noms is one of the drawbacks of separate listings.) - jc37 07:53, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Why do you think that adherents of a religion are more likely to know about "related resources" regarding the religion? I think that claim could easily be made for theologians, regardless of religious affiliation, but I don't see how mere self-identification implies any sort of knowledge of reliable sources. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - This is obvious circular logic, but it has value: I claim that adherents of a particular religion are more likely to know about that religion and related resources because I expect people to know what they believe. I expect people who claim to be Buddhist to know more about Buddhism than I would expect of the average Christian. I expect people who claim to be Scientologists to know more about Xenu than I would expect of Buddhists. I expect people who claim to be Jimbologists to know more about their deity than Scientologists would. Etcetera. From that expectation, and the general observation that most Wikipedians are also intelligent and literate, I expect that most Wikipedians who assert adherence to a particular ideology will be more aware of the resources regarding that ideology than nonadherents.
    As for the complaint about self-identification, I do not find it reasonable to expect that Wikipedians provide credentials regarding ... well ... anything. Think about it. We don't ask that editors who claim to know Esperanto take a placement test to demonstrate their level of literacy. Nobody asks members of any profession to provide proof of employment. Wikipedia, at every conceivable level, works on the honor system. — Bigwyrm _{watch me}^{wake me} 08:32, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Please see my response at the discussion for Category:Jehovah's Witness Wikipedians. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 19:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:SubGenius Wikipedians

Category:SubGenius Wikipedians - Brought up below, I think we should revisit this discussion. - jc37 07:04, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - staying neutral for now. - jc37 07:04, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete; categorisation on this basis does not foster encyclopedic collaboration; a userpage notice may be useful, but I see little or no reason to browse through a category of users who self-identify with a particular set of beliefs. Self-identification with a set of beliefs implies neither an encyclopedically-relevant interest in the subject nor an above-average ability to contribute encyclopedic content that does not violate the "no original research" policy. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 18:43, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - previous discussion is at [2]. What has changed since August that justifies reopening these? DenisMoskowitz 14:56, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, per many previous discussions. Adherents of a particular religion are likely to know more about that religion and related resources, and are therefore able to collaborate on articles about that religion and related subjects. — Bigwyrm _{watch me}^{wake me} 06:52, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Note that this user specifically used the Wikipedian categories to apparently votestack a previous category discussion. Though, to be fair, he apologised for his actions afterwards. It does, however seem to colour the suggestion of collaboration. (Multi-pasting a single comment to multiple noms is one of the drawbacks of separate listings.) - jc37 07:53, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Why do you think that adherents of a religion are more likely to know about "related resources" regarding the religion? I think that claim could easily be made for theologians, regardless of religious affiliation, but I don't see how mere self-identification implies any sort of knowledge of reliable sources. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - This is obvious circular logic, but it has value: I claim that adherents of a particular religion are more likely to know about that religion and related resources because I expect people to know what they believe. I expect people who claim to be Buddhist to know more about Buddhism than I would expect of the average Christian. I expect people who claim to be Scientologists to know more about Xenu than I would expect of Buddhists. I expect people who claim to be Jimbologists to know more about their deity than Scientologists would. Etcetera. From that expectation, and the general observation that most Wikipedians are also intelligent and literate, I expect that most Wikipedians who assert adherence to a particular ideology will be more aware of the resources regarding that ideology than nonadherents.
    As for the complaint about self-identification, I do not find it reasonable to expect that Wikipedians provide credentials regarding ... well ... anything. Think about it. We don't ask that editors who claim to know Esperanto take a placement test to demonstrate their level of literacy. Nobody asks members of any profession to provide proof of employment. Wikipedia, at every conceivable level, works on the honor system. — Bigwyrm _{watch me}^{wake me} 08:43, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Please see my response at the discussion for Category:Jehovah's Witness Wikipedians. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete, being a member of a religion (and a joke one at that) does not foster contribution and typically leads to inherent bias. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 13:04, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as a parody of this project. SubGenius is a parody religion and I suspect that there is a strong element of parody in this category as in "They have a Church, we have a ~~parody~~ Church; they have a savior, we have a ~~parody~~ savior; they have a category, we have a ~~parody~~ category." There are only ~~two or three SubGenius-related~~ twelve SubGenius-centric articles (and only a few main ones), they can find each other readily on the talk pages. --Justanother 13:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Just outa curiosity, from where are you quoting? Also: there are eighty-seven SubGenius-related articles. Somewhat more than two. Even somewhat more than three. — Bigwyrm _{watch me}^{wake me} 08:43, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - I am "quoting" a hypothetical statement. The clues that it is a hypothetical are my "I suspect" and "as in". Yes, you are right that there a number of articles that mention SubGenius but that is hardly the main concern of them, e.g. Richard Rosenberg or The Firesign Theatre. However, there are more than two or three majorly related ones, there are maybe twelve, although some of those twelve are of dubious notability, e.g. Jehovah 1 or Dobbstown. But there are twelve and I should have checked before naming a number. --Justanother 22:29, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 19:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Discordian Wikipedians

Category:Discordian Wikipedians - Brought up below, I think we should revisit this discussion. - jc37 07:04, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - staying neutral for now. - jc37 07:04, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete; categorisation on this basis does not foster encyclopedic collaboration; a userpage notice may be useful, but I see little or no reason to browse through a category of users who self-identify with a particular set of beliefs. Self-identification with a set of beliefs implies neither an encyclopedically-relevant interest in the subject nor an above-average ability to contribute encyclopedic content that does not violate the "no original research" policy. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 18:43, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - previous discussion is at [3]. What has changed since August that justifies reopening these? DenisMoskowitz 14:55, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, being a member of a religion does not necessarily foster contribution, Black Falcon puts it best. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 17:09, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, per many previous discussions. Adherents of a particular religion are likely to know more about that religion and related resources, and are therefore able to collaborate on articles about that religion and related subjects. — Bigwyrm _{watch me}^{wake me} 06:52, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Note that this user specifically used the Wikipedian categories to apparently votestack a previous category discussion. Though, to be fair, he apologised for his actions afterwards. It does, however seem to colour the suggestion of collaboration. (Multi-pasting a single comment to multiple noms is one of the drawbacks of separate listings.) - jc37 07:53, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Why do you think that adherents of a religion are more likely to know about "related resources" regarding the religion? I think that claim could easily be made for theologians, regardless of religious affiliation, but I don't see how mere self-identification implies any sort of knowledge of reliable sources. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - This is obvious circular logic, but it has value: I claim that adherents of a particular religion are more likely to know about that religion and related resources because I expect people to know what they believe. I expect people who claim to be Buddhist to know more about Buddhism than I would expect of the average Christian. I expect people who claim to be Scientologists to know more about Xenu than I would expect of Buddhists. I expect people who claim to be Jimbologists to know more about their deity than Scientologists would. Etcetera. From that expectation, and the general observation that most Wikipedians are also intelligent and literate, I expect that most Wikipedians who assert adherence to a particular ideology will be more aware of the resources regarding that ideology than nonadherents.
    As for the complaint about self-identification, I do not find it reasonable to expect that Wikipedians provide credentials regarding ... well ... anything. Think about it. We don't ask that editors who claim to know Esperanto take a placement test to demonstrate their level of literacy. Nobody asks members of any profession to provide proof of employment. Wikipedia, at every conceivable level, works on the honor system. — Bigwyrm _{watch me}^{wake me} 08:44, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Please see my response at the discussion for Category:Jehovah's Witness Wikipedians. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 19:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I'm commenting here, but my comments apply to Category:Subgenius Wikipedians as well. I'd like to assume good faith about the UCFDing of these categories. Can someone help me by letting me know what the reason is to bring these back up after they were protected by a strong consensus decision 2 months ago? I'd hate for it to be "we don't think as many people who disagree with us are paying attention this time." DenisMoskowitz 01:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The 'strong consensus decision' to which you refer (although I question the accuracy of applying that term to that particular situation) applied to the all-or-nothing discussion concerning all of the religious identification categories. A separate discussion that included this and the Subgenuis category was more mixed (originally deleted, then restored). I can't speak for Jc37, but his nomination statement suggests that the nomination was prompted by someone's recent comment in an alternate discussion. The idea that this is case of 'asking the other parent' is not supported by the evidence, which includes the fact that this was one of several dozen nominations initiated by him in the past several days. The added fact that he merely initiated discussion and chose to remain neutral at the outset is more than adequate confirmation, I think, of the absence of any attempt to game the system. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 15:21, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - That's fair, but if not all religious categories are up, then is there something special about these religions that makes them less worthy of user categories? Both of the presented deletion comments would apply equally to any religious category. I'm concerned that there's a "pick off the easy ones" action occurring, where the earlier decision is overturned in bits. DenisMoskowitz 15:29, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - In light of the fact that these categories were previously the subject of a deletion nomination separate from the other religious identification categories, I think it's safe to state that there there exists, at least, a perception that these categories are somehow distinct from the others. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:22, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Users with anti-vandal tools

Utterly useless. Dmcdevit·t 02:51, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Before I looked at the cat, I was thinking that I can easily see its use, but I wondered if it wouldn't be better served as split into subcats which explain which tools the user(s) utilise rather than just a broad generic cat. If you're having issues with a tool that you're using, I presume that asking someone else who uses the tool might be what you'd like to do. However, seeing now that it's a single user with a single userbox... - jc37 03:31, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - per my comments above. - jc37 03:31, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - I just made a userbox and then a userbox category. That's no reason to delete it. Hyper Sonic Boom 23:56, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. It's superfluous with Category:Wikipedians by anti-vandalism program. Maybe you can add that to your userbox instead. bibliomaniac 1 5 00:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per jc37. The userbox should either categorise into one of the subcats of Category:Wikipedians by anti-vandalism program (not the nominated category, though) or shouldn't categorise at all. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:41, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Why are you all protesting to delete it? It's a harmless category - period. HyperSonicBoom ^RFA? 02:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- See WP:HARMLESS for the reason your argument may be faulty.--WaltCip 10:41, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - I did. Just look at all of the other userpage-hosted userboxes with categories - I don't see you trying to delete them, and they don't do good here, either. So before deleting mine, delete theirs. HyperSonicBoom ^RFA? 01:19, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Some user categories are useful and some aren't; those that aren't will be identified and deleted over time. The existence of other, possibly less useful categories does not justify the continued existence of this one (please see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS); category cleanup is a constant process and every category is dealt with as it is encountered. More to the point, why do you think this category should remain, when it is effectively a duplicate of Category:Wikipedians by anti-vandalism program? You've opposed deletion, but haven't really provided a reason why this category is useful. Cheers, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 01:42, 12 October 2007 (UTC) P.S. The category does not really belong to you or any other individual editor (see Wikipedia:Ownership for details).[reply]
      - It isn't a duplicate. It just identifies the users with my userbox, which means they have an anti-vandal tool. But if you want to delete it so bad, then go ahead and delete the thousands of other user categories, too - they don't do any good here, either. Hyper Sonic Boom ^RFA? 17:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        There is no need for a category that merely identifies users of a certain userbox. User categories should be formed around certain topics/themes (such as ability to speak a language), not random userboxes. If you want a list of users who use the userbox that you created, you can find it via the whatlinkshere function; just go to the userbox page and click the "what links here" link below the search box. It will show this. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:30, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Wikipedians Who Have A Source Code Page

Utterly useless. One member of the category, and apparently someone who doesn't realize that the "source code" is what anyone can see from the edit window. Dmcdevit·t 02:51, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - I almost wonder if it's a vanity page of some kind. - jc37 03:31, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or merge with Category:Wikipedians Who Have A User Page -Rocket000 04:59, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom; probably just a simple misunderstanding. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

October 7

Category:Jehovah's Witness Wikipedians

Category:Jehovah's Witness Wikipedians - 2 member category and both are using the same userbox, so they can obviously find each other. - jc37 11:42, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - as nominator. - jc37 11:42, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - What is the hurry? The cat is only a few months old. It is helpful for those in minority religions to find fellow members and it contributes to NPOV and countering systemic bias in the articles. --Justanother 13:23, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, being a member of a religion does not help your contribution (and as we've seen, can actually hurt it). ^demon^{[omg plz]} 13:38, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Being a member implies that one has knowledge and insights that non-members do not and that cannot but help the article. It is not the condition of being a member that hurts one's contributions, what hurts is the normal and common humanoid behavior of thinking that one's own opinions and experience constitute the whole of reality when coupled with an aggressive editing attitude. --Justanother 13:55, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per discussion of August 2nd. They should All stay or All go. I wouldn't be sad to see them all go away, but it's unfair to single out one for special treatment. -- Prove It ^(talk) 15:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. On one hand, I agree with ProveIt, but on the other, I strongly believe that Wikipedia is better off without any of these, and if it takes cherry-picking them off one by one, so be it. --Kbdank71 16:01, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per ^demon and Kbdank71. The "knowledge and insights" to which Justanother refers would almost certainly constitute original research. When it comes to articles, sources (should) matter, not personal viewpoints, interpretations, understandings, and the like. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:12, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- WP:OR? Not necessarily. Would you not say that a physicist might have knowledge and insight of physics that would benefit the articles on physics? As opposed to a layperson? The material is already in RS, the knowledge and insight gives you the ability to know what you are looking at and translate that to a better article. To a non-Scientologist, "raw" Scientology looks like nonsense and gibberish while I can make it understandable to a layperson because I understand it. Not WP:OR, simply word choice. And POV. The POV that it is understandable. If you approach Scientology (or physics) with the preconceived notion that you cannot understand it you will create quite a different article than if you approach it from an understanding viewpoint. Personally, I believe that every article in this encyclopedia should give preference to the POV of understanding as opposed to not understanding. So if that makes me a POV editor then so be it. I understand Scientology; critics of Scientology understand criticism of Scientology - they are different subjects. --Justanother 20:08, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - I think I see now to what you were referring. However, here's the thing: whereas we can assume that a physicist has subject-specific knowledge that is relevant to articles on physics, I don't think we can assume the same for adherents of religions. In fact, I don't think that the "profession" and "religion" categories are really comparable. Getting a job requires some knowledge relevant to performing the duties of the position; self-identifying with a religion does not. Keeping a job requires one to have or to learn certain knowledge; continuing to self-identify with a religion does not. Performing the duties associated with a job requires certain knowledge; merely being an adherent of a religion really does not. The fact that there exists Category:Wikipedians interested in religions for those who have an active interest in editing articles related to religion further convinces me that religious identification categories themselves do not foster collaboration. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 22:25, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - I echo Black Falcon's sentiments. Being a physicist implies you have knowledge of physics. Being a member of a religion does not. I am agnostic, and yet I know more about Christianity (being raised Southern Baptist, and having an interest in the history of the Catholic Church), than many devout Christians I know. See the problem? ^demon^{[omg plz]} 13:15, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Speaking only for Scientology, the essence of being a Scientologist is studying and using Scientology - "understanding it", if you will. For this reason, a Scientologist is head and shoulders above non-Scientologists when it comes to actually writing about Scientology. Critics of Scientology are most suited to discussing criticism of Scientology. Some here might say that sociologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, etc. are most qualified to discuss Scientology but they come from their own POV, usually a secular one bordering on materialism and scientism. Theologians are truly most qualified to discuss Scientology from a non-Scientologist viewpoint presuming that they have done the necessary research but that is a very small group indeed and one not likely represented here. In my experience, other religions also stress the value of study, most notably Islam and Judaism. The key point is that, for a member of a religion, the religion has substance and knowledge to be gained. Just as physics has substance and knowledge to be gained. For that reason a category by religious affiliation can be as helpful as a category like Wikipedian engineers. --Justanother 15:16, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, per many previous discussions. Adherents of a particular religion are likely to know more about that religion and related resources, and are therefore able to collaborate on articles about that religion and related subjects. — Bigwyrm _{watch me}^{wake me} 06:53, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Note that this user specifically used the Wikipedian categories to apparently votestack a previous category discussion. Though, to be fair, he apologised for his actions afterwards. It does, however seem to colour the suggestion of collaboration. (Multi-pasting a single comment to multiple noms is one of the drawbacks of separate listings.) - jc37 07:53, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Why do you think that adherents of a religion are more likely to know about "related resources" regarding the religion? I think that claim could easily be made for theologians, regardless of religious affiliation, but I don't see how mere self-identification implies any sort of knowledge of reliable sources. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:36, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - This is obvious circular logic, but it has value: I claim that adherents of a particular religion are more likely to know about that religion and related resources because I expect people to know what they believe. I expect people who claim to be Buddhist to know more about Buddhism than I would expect of the average Christian. I expect people who claim to be Scientologists to know more about Xenu than I would expect of Buddhists. I expect people who claim to be Jimbologists to know more about their deity than Scientologists would. Etcetera. From that expectation, and the general observation that most Wikipedians are also intelligent and literate, I expect that most Wikipedians who assert adherence to a particular ideology will be more aware of the resources regarding that ideology than nonadherents.
    As for the complaint about self-identification, I do not find it reasonable to expect that Wikipedians provide credentials regarding ... well ... anything. Think about it. We don't ask that editors who claim to know Esperanto take a placement test to demonstrate their level of literacy. Nobody asks members of any profession to provide proof of employment. Wikipedia, at every conceivable level, works on the honor system. — Bigwyrm _{watch me}^{wake me} 08:58, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - I see where you're coming from, but ultimately disagree with the assumption that adherence to a religion implies an above-average knowledge of the religion and/or related subjects. My point regarding self-identification was not intended to question the truthfulness of self-categorisation, but rather to highlight a difference between 'religion' and 'profession' categories. In order to become an accountant, for instance, one must receive certain training and education; no such prerequisites exist for identifying with a religion. (This assumes, of course, that users self-categorise in accordance with the intent of the category.) A Christian may know more about Christianity than a Muslim, or s/he may not ... it depends on their respective professions, education, and interests; the mere fact of affiliation is secondary. In the end, I think it comes down to a question of whether we're willing to make the assumption evident in the first sentence of your post; it's not an unreasonable assumption, but it is still just that. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - I see a subtle difference here. I do not assume that any particular adherent of any particular religion has more knowledge of their religion than the layperson. I have encountered too many people who assert one ideology and exercise another and too many people who identify with an ideology, but do not know enough about it to exercise it. I still expect that people know what they believe.
        The same distinction applies to your example as well. I do not assume that any particular worker has more knowledge of their chosen occupational field than the layperson. I have encountered too many overeducated idiots who, in spite of having degrees, still could not understand their jobs. I have encountered too many people who work in a field even though they lack the appropriate certification, or who received their certification through persistence in taking a test until they passed by some fluke rather than having enough understanding to pass the first time. I still expect that people know what they do.
        Think of it as the concept behind WP:AGF applied on a more general scope, even though I select a more particular word to describe it. People have a general capacity for error, and a few will fail spectacularly; this must be expected, also. I do not expect perfection, or even sustained excellence. I do not expect sagely wisdom, Doctorate-level education, and master craftsman artistry from everybody. I expect that people know what they are. — Bigwyrm _{watch me}^{wake me} 21:07, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedians by mental and physiological condition and subcats

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The result of the debate was delete. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 02:26, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Wikipedians by mental condition

Category:Wikipedians by physiological condition

- I am sympathetic to those who truly have such disabilities. However, as noted below, a user page notice of some kind (such as a userbox) should be enough to convey that one has such a condition. There is no need for categories grouping such users together. Please comment under the individual nominations below. - jc37 00:31, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on parent cats I would suggest deleting both of these cats, regardless of whether or not any of the child cats survive. After some of the listed cats are deleted (which is likely), they should all be listed under Category:Wikipedians by condition, which might be more appropriately renamed Category:Wikipedians by medical condition. Horologium t-c 02:40, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete these with fire, along will all subcategories below. We've said it time and again, they do not foster contribution. I have never once seen how people in "Wikipedians who survived cancer" has helped them on Cancer or related articles. I am really sorry for your condition, really, but putting yourself in a category isn't helping Wikipedia. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 14:05, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Speedy Delete, CSD C1. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 15:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Upmerge both into Category:Wikipedians by condition, which should later be renamed to Category:Wikipedians by medical condition, per Horologium. Of course, this assumes that some of the subcategories survive. There's really no reason, in terms of navigation for the purpose of collaboration, that categories for mental and physiological conditions should be kept separate, especially if some of the subcategories are deleted. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 16:22, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 21:30, 7 October 2007 (UTC) some subcats still under discussion....[reply]

Comment. Since all of the subcategories were deleted and any new subcats are likely to be deleted as well, a simple deletion of the nominated categories (and probably their parent) is all that's really needed. Whether this is done with or without prejudice to recreation is another matter, and I personally prefer the former, especially for the "mental" and "physiological" categories. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 14:56, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Category:Users who found Dillio411's secret page

The following discussion is an archived debate regarding the category or categories above. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was delete. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 02:29, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, somehow I don't see this as useful, although admittedly the spinning star logo is fun to watch. -- Prove It ^(talk) 18:35, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This Category is realy just for me to give people a Special barnstar so they dont have to sign the gustbook. this is just for me to see not you or any one. --Dillio411 22:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy Delete per above comment.--WaltCip 10:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy Delete - Vanity category. "this is just for me to see not you or any one." - This is not what the category system is for. And "Whatlinkshere" should serve your purposes just as well. - jc37 23:22, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
delete Category serves no useful purpose except to keep track of someone's records. --D_arkF_alls ^talk 02:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Keep~~ what the pont of deleting it no one's going to see it--Dillio411 20:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Because that defeats the purpose of having a category. And no more than one !vote per person, please.--WaltCip 01:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete While I certainly advocate fun and games while doing serious work (and indeed, I think that fun improves productivity), this category does nothing to improve Wikipedia, and while it may be a convenience for Dillio, categories are used to improve and help the encyclopedia, and shouldn't be for personal use. Ariel♥Gold 09:23, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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October 5

Category:Wikipedians studying in German Swiss International School

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The result of the debate was delete. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 11:20, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is a category for students of the German Swiss International School, a K-13 school in Hong Kong.

Delete per the precedent set by the Aug 30 discussion for all "high school" user categories. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 18:10, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Category:Wikipedian Punjab cricket team fans

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The result of the debate was delete. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 11:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is a category for fans of the Punjab cricket team. Despite being originally created in March 2006 (see Special:Undelete/Category:Users who support the Punjab cricket team), the category still contains only two user subpages (which are either editing tests or userpage archives) of a single user who has been effectively inactive since March 2007, when the user retired. For these reasons alone, and putting aside the issue of the relative worth of 'sports fans' categories, this category does not foster collaboration; there's no reason to preserve a category that contains only the user subpages of a retired user.

Delete (1st choice) or merge into Category:Wikipedian domestic cricket fans (2nd choice) as nom. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Black Falcon (talk • contribs) 17:53, October 5, 2007 (UTC)

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Category:Wikipedians taking a Wikibreak

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The result of the debate was delete. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 11:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The knowledge that a particular user is taking a wikibreak can be useful; a list of all Wikipedians who are on wikibreak (or, rather, those who use the template) is not, except perhaps to someone trying to choose an account to hack. I can't think of any valid reason that someone would need or want to seek out users who are temporarily inactive.

Delete as nom. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 05:36, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - per nom. I honestly hadn't thought about it, but that makes sense, I suppose. - jc37 07:23, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, no cat needed, userbox w/o category would be useful Mikebar 14:42, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Category:Wikipedian philologists

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The result of the debate was rename. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 02:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Propose renaming Category:Wikipedian philologists to Category:Wikipedians interested in philology

Nominator's rationale: The userbox which populates this category reads: "This user is interested in philology." Therefore, the category title should conform to the convention of Category:Wikipedians by interest, rather than of Category:Wikipedians by profession. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 05:16, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as a single user category. If no consensus to delete, rename per nom. - jc37 07:23, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Category:Wikipedian paramilitary people

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The result of the debate was merge. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 11:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Propose merging Category:Wikipedian paramilitary people into Category:Wikipedians in the Civil Air Patrol

Nominator's rationale: When I first saw this category for Wikipedian paramilitary people, I thought it would include members of groups such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the Loyalist Volunteer Force, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, and the like. As it turns out, however, all of the users and userboxes in this category are affiliated with the US Civil Air Patrol; in fact, all of the userpages in the category either also appear in the CAP category, sport a userbox proclaiming an affiliation to the CAP, or both. To avoid confusion and duplication, and to promote specificity, I propose that these categories be merged. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 05:09, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Merge per nom. And I think someone needs to learn how to add options to a template - there are more userboxes than members of the cat, and they're all essentially the same, but for some minor text changes. - jc37 07:23, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Category:Wikipedian pastry chefs

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The result of the debate was delete. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 11:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Despite being originally created in January 2006 (see Special:Undelete/Category:Pastry Chef Wikipedians), this category still contains only one user, whose userpage identifies him as "an aspiring pastry chef" (emphasis added). Moreover, the user has been effectively inactive since May 2006 (having made only two edits since then). Also, I think that the scope of this category is too narrow to adequately foster encyclopedic collaboration in a way that does not constitute original research.

Delete (1st choice) or merge into Category:Wikipedian chefs (2nd choice) as nom. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 05:01, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. - jc37 07:23, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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October 4

Category:WikiProject Chemistry participants

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The result of the debate was egrem. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 02:29, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:WikiProject Chemistry participants to Category:WikiProject Chemistry members (or vice versa; both tagged)

I know we can't come to conclusion on members vs. participants, but we can't have BOTH of these, can we?--Mike Selinker 21:20, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Merge per jc37 ~~"participants" (13 members) into "members" (73 members). I think that can be considered indicative of the general leaning of the WikiProject regarding this issue.~~ Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:44, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Merge "members" into "participants". Two reasons: 1.) "Membership" as opposed to "participation" was one of the downfalls of Esperanza. 2.) It's obvious by the fact that the "members" cat has them all categorised under "U" that this is a userbox. Compare to partcipants... - jc37 01:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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More WikiProject participants

The following discussion is an archived debate regarding the category or categories above. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was rename as per revised nom with 2 deletions. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 02:42, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- Post-closing, I am also modifying Category:WikiProject Armenia Wikipedians per this direction.--Mike Selinker 04:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:WikiProject Turkey Wikipedians to Category:WikiProject Turkey participants
Category:Wikiproject U.S. Congress Wikipedians to Category:WikiProject U.S. Congress participants
Category:WikiProject Azeri to Category:WikiProject Azerbaijan participants
Category:Members of WikiProject Mammals to Category:WikiProject Mammals members
Category:WikiProject Musical Instruments honoured guests to Category:WikiProject Musical Instruments participants (or delete)
Category:WikiProject Probability Users to Category:WikiProject Probability participants
Category:Russian History WikiProject members to Category:WikiProject Russian History members
Category:WikiProject Scottish Islands/Userbox to Category:WikiProject Scottish Islands participants
~~Category:WikiProject Succession Box Standardization to Category:WikiProject Succession Box Standardization members~~ (created new category for members; used previous category for project pages)
Category:Unreferenced article patrollers to Category:Wikipedian unreferenced article patrollers
Category:Article Rescue Squadron members to Category:Wikipedians in the Article Rescue Squadron
Category:User KIS to ~~Category:WikiProject Keep It Simple participants~~ Category:Wikipedians with Keep It Simple layouts (updated below)
~~Category:WikiProject Timeline Tracer Friends to Category:WikiProject Timeline Tracer participants~~ (already taken care of)
Category:Members of the (unoffical) WCS Wikiproject to Category:WikiProject Worcester Central School members
Category:Romani WikiProject members to Category:WikiProject Romani members
Category:WikiProject Guitarists Participants to Category:WikiProject Guitarists participants
Category:Participants in WikiProject Nebraska to Category:WikiProject Nebraska participants
Category:Participants in WikiProject Iowa to Category:WikiProject Iowa participants
Category:Participants in WikiProject Protected areas of India to Category:WikiProject Protected areas of India participants
Category:Members of the Lego Wikiproject to Category:WikiProject Lego members
Category:Members of WikiProject Tenacious D to Category:WikiProject Tenacious D participants
Category:Members of WikiProject Birds to Category:WikiProject Birds members
Category:WikiProject Kurdistan Wikipedians to Category:WikiProject Kurdistan participants
- UPDATE: Several more added. (Also, I've been manually repairing those that just need capitalization correction to some part of their name, when only one template needs changing.)--Mike Selinker 06:04, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

These all should be formatted to the standard groupings (WikiProject in front, members or participants in the back, with no preference for which). I'm not in favor of categories for people who like the projects without participating in them, so I could support either merging or deleting those.--Mike Selinker 23:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Rename with a preference for "members" over "participants" in all cases ("participant" implies a level of activity which may not exist), except for the following:
- ~~Keep Category:Article Rescue Squadron members, which corresponds to Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron; there is no such thing as Wikipedia:WikiProject Article Rescue Squadron.~~
- Delete Category:WikiProject Musical Instruments honoured guests; if kept, rename.
- Delete Category:WikiProject Timeline Tracer Friends; it's a "friends of..." category; if kept, merge.
- Keep Category:Unreferenced article patrollers, which corresponds to Wikipedia:Unreferenced articles; there is no such thing as Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced article patrol. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:17, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - For the two you recommend keeping, should they not go under Category:Wikipedians by WikiProject, and if not, where should they go?--Mike Selinker 00:34, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - I think those two should be moved into Category:Wikipedians by Wikipedia collaboration, since they are not WikiProjects per se (especially the "Unreferenced article" page). Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:46, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - Agreed. I've recategorized those two into that category, and redid the suggested rename to match that category. (By the way, "members" is just fine with me.)--Mike Selinker 18:09, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        OK, I agree with your revisions and the new proposed names. Cheers, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 01:08, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Rename all per nom except Delete the two BF pointed out. These two are another casualty of using "members" in the category names. Let's worry more about getting people to collaborate, and less about who's "included" in the membership. And again, I prefer participants over members. - jc37 01:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The more I think about those two cats, and the concept of "membership", the more I want to say "burn with fire" (With apologies to User:^demon : ) - jc37 01:42, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Some updates. Based on comments left on my page and here, I'm changing my opinion on a couple of categories. I now support deletion of the Timeline Tracer category, as it creates the spectre of having heirarchical distinctions between non-admin editors, which seems antithetical to the concept of a project. However, my nomination for Category:User KIS needs to change. I would say it's better as Category:Wikipedians with simple layouts, along the lines of Category:Wikipedians with pictures.--Mike Selinker 12:14, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Category:Wikipedians with simple layouts may refer to any simple layout not KeepItSimple labels which are specific for diminishing clutter in user pages. Category:Wikipedians using WP:KISimple layouts should be correct ℒibrarian2 13:05, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I made it Category:Wikipedians with Keep It Simple layouts for clarification's sake. No opinion whether the category should stay or go.--Mike Selinker 19:19, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot resist the need to comment on this passage above: "It creates the spectre of having heirarchical distinctions between non-admin editors, which seems antithetical to the concept of a project". It seems that a call to ethics could be applied to the author who is providing a clear unethical division between non-admin editors and the other editors, highly distastefull ☤'ProfBrumby 13:16, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I understood your comment, could you clarify? - jc37 15:22, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on the "User KIS" nomination

Comment This is not a category for participants, WP:Keep It Simple has no members as such. This category is for Wikipedians who choose to use KIS Labels instead of userboxes ℒibrarian2 11:33, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
ErrorThe category indicates who uses those labels not membership. It is thought to be used, if some main change is done to the KIS labels, for checking that everyone using the KIS labels is updated Heltzen ◩ 11:47, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - If this is just a "users by how they choose to format their userboxes (or lack thereof)" then this should go. (Compare to the idea of having a category: "Wikipedians who use userboxtop to display their userboxes", or even "Wikipedians who choose to use userboxes".) As an aside, I would presume that "Whatlinkshere" would be more appropriate for this? - jc37 15:22, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I moved it to Category:Wikipedians by Wikipedia user page.--Mike Selinker 15:07, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Rename "Category:Wikipedians with Keep It Simple layouts" as proposed now seems a good rename ℒibrarian2 12:11, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Rename to Category:Wikipedians with Keep It Simple layouts Heltzen ◩ 12:13, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on the "Timeline Tracer" nomination

Keep This is not a "participants" category, please read Wikipedia:WikiProject Timeline Tracer/Participants This is a category for those who don't have the time for full participation but want to help with small tasks. Don't see anything against policy in preserving the name Daoken 10:14, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
CommentThe category is for editors who help with minor tasks in the project. There are two categories of participants, those who actively participate and those who choose to participate with minor tasks, the need to separate them is for knowing to whom to assign an specific task when needed. Daoken 12:05, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete by author This category is obsolete, new internal listing of members by level has been implemented Daoken 12:58, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete - There is no such thing as a "minor" task. It's a matter of helping out, or not. See my comments under the main nom for more on this. - jc37 15:22, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- This has been deleted per the author's request.--Mike Selinker 04:58, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Category:Wikipedians by Pidgins and Creoles

The following discussion is an archived debate regarding the category or categories above. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was delete all. No prejudice against creation of a proper single ethnic/nationality category. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 11:51, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Wikipedians by Pidgins and Creoles

Category:Wikipedians by Spanish-based Creole languages

Category:Chabacano Wikipedians

Category:Chavacano Wikipedians

Each one a subcat of the previous one. The last two are single user cats (the same user). 4 cats for one Wikipedian? - jc37 20:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all - as nominator. - jc37 20:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all per nom. The appropriate category for speakers of the Chavacano language is Category:User cbk ("cbk" is the ISO 639-3 code for the language). Since the single user in these four categories is already present in Category:User cbk, there is no need to do anything but delete the four categories above. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:21, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Move one, delete others I actually discussed this with the creator of the categories some time back. What it appeared he was attempting to do was create an ethnicity category (improperly, inside the language categories). I had actually forgotten that discussion until now. I'd suggest identifying one of the Chavacano/Chabacano cats as a target, and moving it to Category:Wikipedians by ethnicity and nationality, and then deleting the other and the rest of the pidgins and creoles tree. Horologium t-c 00:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Do we have an article for "Chavacano" as an ethnicity? Both Chavacano and Chabacano redirect to Chavacano language, and Chavacano people, Chavacano (people), Chavacano (ethnicity), Chavacano (ethnic group), Chabacano people, Chabacano (people), Chabacano (ethnicity), and Chabacano (ethnic group) are redlinks. My impression is that this is more of a linguistic group than an ethnic or national group, in which case I don't think a rename and move is necessary. Please correct me if I'm mistaken in my assumptions. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Category:Wikipedians on the autism spectrum and subcats

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The result of the debate was delete all. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 11:41, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Wikipedians on the autism spectrum

Category:Wikipedians with Asperger syndrome

Category:Wikipedians with High Functioning Autism

Category:Wikipedians with PDD-NOS

Another case where a userbox notice may be helpful, but a category is not.

Delete - as nominator. ~~If no concensus to delete, Merge all to Wikipedians with autism spectrum disorders.~~ - jc37 00:31, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Merge All as per nom. I oppose deleting the whole tree, because there is a use for these categories; as pointed out at one of the many UCFD discussions for this category (at least three since April 2007), it was noted that when dealing with autistic editors, it may be helpful to solicit assistance from another autistic editor. This was done when dealing with a somewhat disruptive editor who was focussed on Lord & Taylor. However, I don't think it is necessary to overcategorize with all of the listed subcats. Failing a merge, I would suggest deleting the PDD-NOS cat and the high-functioning cat; the latter is ill-defined, and the former is a catchall for any condition that does not have a specific DSM-IV code, which makes it a poor candidate for categorization as there is little collaborative potential. Horologium t-c 02:26, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. --Kbdank71 13:55, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom and my rationale below. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 14:18, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Merge all per Jc37/Horologium, selectively delete HFA and PDD-NOS per Horologium, or delete all per Jc37/^demon. I know that this comment doesn't provide much clarification for the closing admin; it's sole purpose is to argue against the status quo. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 16:51, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I disagree with consolidating the Asperger's, PDD-NOS, and high-functioning autism categories. Although related, these are all distinct conditions, and each has its own degree of effect upon a person — people with PDD-NOS will be very different from those with HFA. I think, at the very least, the Asperger's category should be kept, as this seems to be the best-defined and widest band on the autism spectrum. -Severa (!!!) 11:16, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, so you oppose merging, and you support keeping Asperger's? - jc37 10:43, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If it came down to it, I would only oppose merging the Asperger's category into the parent autism spectrum category, but not the PDD-NOS or high-functioning autism categories. -Severa (!!!) 12:07, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, jc37 10:43, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all and do not merge per nom. Carbon Monoxide 23:41, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Severa. There are differences between the autism spectrum disorders, and there are certain times where another editor in the same category may be needed.

For example, knowing that an editor who is editing an article has Asperger's (rather than another ASD) and there is some dispute with the edits, another editor with Asperger's would probably be helpful in helping with a resolution since they are more likely to use literal language, have a better understanding of the other editor (e.g. probably doesn't do to well with criticism or easily mistakes when someone is or isn't being critical), and that quoting relevant Wikipedia guidelines/rules/etc would help as those with AS tend to follow them religiously - although may be slightly overlooked if the article is something they are highly foccused at editing. I know this is just an example, but since both editors have added themselves to that category, Wikipedia is likely something they are both heavily interested in, even though they probably concentrate their editing in different areas.

The same can be said of the other categories.

Is there a distinction between HFA and Asperger's? That hasn't been clarified yet, however not everyone with Asperger's would be classed as having HFA - since not everyone with Asperger's have an average/above-average intellect (although it is typical). Also, the HFA article makes no mention of whether there is a link between HFA and genetics (whereas the AS one does).

Those that are elsewhere on the autism spectrum probably don't share these similarities and "shared qualities".

Those with PDD-NOS do not share as many similarites as those that can easily be classified by one definition. They may share similarites with autism, rett syndrome, childhood disintegrative disorder, asperger syndrome (or a combination of characteristics from one or more groups including neuro-typical). If an editor with autism and another with asperger's were to have trouble reaching agreement, the person with asperger's would probably give in to the person with autism. If someone with PDD-NOS were to get involved - and are PDD-NOS because they not only have similarties to autism but have similarites to asperger's too - there would be a higher chance of reaching agreement between the two editors).

And yes, I know the examples have all been about conflict/dispute resoloution, but it was just one example of how keeping these categories would be worthwhile - I could have used collaboration between editors as a different example. —TheJC (Talk • Contribs • Count) 12:42, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You know, the idea that users would require others of their medical condition in order to be able to communicate... It just sounds like the classic: Unless you grew up in my generation, you wouldn't understand how I talk; Unless you grew up in the projects you wouldn't understand; If I'm reading your comments correctly, what we're talking about is a written style of prose. And I would guess that every single one of the many million of users who edit Wikipedia have a different style of prose. This walks a rather fine line of WP:AGF. (And for that matter Assume the presence of a belly-button.) - jc37 13:10, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ignore my comment then. I rarely edit wikipedia anymore because I can't tell when someone is making a personal attack against me (as they assume bad faith) and because I'm not able to read between the lines, and I can only go by how your comment reads to me. I think this is why I stopped getting involved in these discussions. —TheJC (Talk • Contribs • Count) 14:24, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how to read that, but if you in any way feel or felt that I was making any sort of personal attack against you, you have my heartfelt apologies. You are, of course, welcome to comment in these discussions. My comments directly above were about the idea being put forth, not about the person offering the perspective. As I was saying, it walks a ratherfine line, and makes me concerned about questions of presuming good faith of our editors. I wasn't suggesting that you weren't. So again, my apologies, for any confusion that may have caused. - jc37 16:11, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Category:Wikipedian college seniors

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The result of the debate was delete. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 11:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Categorisation on the basis of year of study does not foster encyclopedic collaboration. In addition, and despite having existed for 20 months, the category contains only one member. Since the single user joined the category in May 2006 (and, thus, may no longer be a senior), I think deletion is preferable to merging in this case.

Delete as nom. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 06:52, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - single user cat. - jc37 07:27, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, which I'm sure comes as a shock to many, or possibly Merge with Category:Wikipedian college students - The one user in that category claims membership on a separate userboxes page under the heading Irrelevant userboxes. However, I also note that the userbox in question was copied from the original before it was modified to remove reference to the category. In spite of that, I tend to agree with the assertion that the category has questionable merit, especially in light of the fact that the condition of being a senior only lasts for one year, and that the condition of being a senior does not provide a significantly different perspective beyond being a college student of any other undergraduate level. So, either merge with Category:Wikipedian college students and fix the userbox, or delete it altogether. — Bigwyrm _{watch me}^{wake me} 10:05, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Merge or Delete per above Mikebar 14:44, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Category:Wikipedian commercial airline pilots

The following discussion is an archived debate regarding the category or categories above. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was delete as empty, no prejudice against recreation. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 11:38, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Propose merging Category:Wikipedian commercial airline pilots into Category:Wikipedian commercial pilots

Nominator's rationale: The two comments at Category talk:Wikipedian commercial airline pilots suggest that this should not be a separate category, largely because the category "incorrectly assumes that a commercial pilot is an airline pilot". Indeed, the userbox that populates this category (User:Luke119/userbox/instcommpilot) says nothing about being an airline pilot. On the whole, this 2-user userbox-populated category seems to have little potential for growth and little need to exist separately from its parent (which also includes just two users). – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 05:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Actually there is a difference. The technology involved, and what such pilots actually do. While I understand the hesitance to keep a couple 2-member categories, the rareness of the profession would seem to offset the small size of the categories. - jc37 06:35, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- (ec) There is a difference between "commercial airline pilots" and "commercial pilots" (although the former is a subset of the latter), but my reason for suggesting the merge is not the small # of users in the category. Rather, it's the fact that there is no indication that the users in this category are actually commercial airline pilots; the userbox that categorises them into the category only says that they're certified commercial pilots. It's my opinion (and the opinion of the two users who commented on the category's talk page) that this category was created in error. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 06:46, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Apparently the difference I was missing (and apparently missed back in the previous discussion as well) was that the userbox says "aircraft" and not "airline". I was bold and edited the userbox. Feel free to speedy delete this airline cat as empty, with no prejudice for it's proper recreation later. - jc37 07:44, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Merge I say merge, I think have commercial pilots is simpler than airline. Also this name will be able to include all commercial pilots which in my opinion simplifies things greatly. --bobsmith319 19:27, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strong KeepGentlemen (and ladies of course) I don't know if you are aware that a commercial pilot is not the same as an airline pilot, both hold different FAA airman certificates, licenses and qualifications. Airline pilots are those holding an ATL (Airline Transport License) while commercial pilots hold a CPL (Commercial Pilot License) the two categories are not one and the same. TopTopView 18:05, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I think we are. What you may not be aware of is that those in the category are there due to a userbox which says commercial "aircraft" not "airline". (I made the same mistake myself previously.) So, as it turns out this nom was essentially discussing editing a userbox. My apologies for any confusion. - jc37 18:10, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh I see. The easiest way to solve it and to avoid an array of mini-categories will be to put all pilots userboxes under Category:Wikipedian pilots will it not? We are all pilots and no one will feel de-categorized. To be pilot is common to all license categories.TopTopView 18:17, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Merge/Delete to Category:Wikipedian commercial pilots. - (Just realised I had not clarified.) - jc37 02:19, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Category:Wikipedians who play role-playing games

The following discussion is an archived debate regarding the category or categories above. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was delete. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 11:13, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Wikipedians who play role-playing games - See Role-playing game - Vague inclusion criteria, since the RPGs could be Paper and pencil games, or video games. See also: Category:Wikipedians who play pen-and-paper games and Category:Wikipedians interested in video games. - jc37 05:19, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - as nominator. - jc37 05:19, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Upmerging is not necessary since the subcategories are already othwerise categorised. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 05:31, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all categories listed in this nom. None of them promote collaboration. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 13:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Category:Wikipedians by access to sources

The following discussion is an archived debate regarding the category or categories above. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was delete all. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 11:13, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Wikipedians by access to sources

Category:Wikipedians with access to academic journals - 4 members

Category:Wikipedians with access to conference proceedings - 1 member

Category:Wikipedians with access to university intranet sites - 2 members

Category:Wikipedians with access to university libraries - 13 members

Essentially any college student could claim membership in these categories per the local university library. As could anyone with a decent library in their neighborhood. It also occurs to me that anyone with internet access has access to all of these, and since you need internet access to edit Wikipedia, these just became potentially all-inclusive categories. - jc37 03:26, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all as nominator. - jc37 03:26, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all. Despite the fact that this type of category is focused directly toward fostering collaboration, I have to agree that they have limited utility. (1) Anyone living near a university can have access to a university library (membership can generally be purchased by persons who are not affiliated with the university) and possibly to intranet sites as well. Certainly these categories include every university student, professor, and staff member with access to a computer. (2) Knowing that someone has access to academic journals is not particularly useful unless one knows to what journals they have access; also, Google Scholar provides a limited degree of access to academic journals to anyone with an internet connection. (3) Categorisation on the basis of access to conference proceedings is simply too broad; there are tens of thousands of local and international conferences across dozens of subjects. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 04:35, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Reluctant Delete. I wish these had more potential, as the "Access to sources" categories are one of the few great uses of user categories. Sadly, these aren't helpful. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 12:59, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Category:Deaf Culture Wikipedians

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The result of the debate was delete. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 11:12, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Deaf Culture Wikipedians - While a userpage notice may be useful, the category grouping is not needed. See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Deaf and Category:WikiProject Deaf participants. - jc37 03:15, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - as nominator. - jc37
Delete per nom. The existence of Category:WikiProject Deaf participants largely makes this one redundant; any collaborative potential that the nominated category has is likely captured by the WikiProject's category. Also, 40% of the users in the nominated category appear in the WikiProject category, so there is a significant degree of overlap. Finally, according to the article Deaf culture, Deaf Culture does "not automatically include all those who are clinically or legally deaf, nor do they exclude every hearing person". Thus, User:Ginkgo100/Userboxes/User Deaf and Template:UserDeaf, which simply state "This user is deaf", should not categorise into this category. Removing these userboxes would leave only 4 actual users in the category. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 04:44, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom and Black Falcon. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 14:12, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Sexuality and gender identification

The following discussion is an archived debate regarding the category or categories above. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was delete all based on strength of arguments. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 02:20, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Asexual Wikipedians

Category:Pansexual Wikipedians

Category:Polyamorous Wikipedians

Category:Bisexual Wikipedians

Category:Homoflexible Wikipedians

Category:Heteroflexible Wikipedians

Category:Femme Wikipedians

Category:Lipstick lesbian Wikipedians

Category:Gay Wikipedians

Category:Bear cub Wikipedians

Category:Lesbian Wikipedians

Category:Queer Wikipedians

Category:Genderqueer Wikipedians

Category:Transsexual Wikipedians

While a userpage notice may be useful, it's not necessary to have a category identifying who the user prefers to have sex with (if any), or what gender a person prefers to identify with (if any). This would also include Heterosexual Wikipedians, Celibate Wikipedians, and various Paraphilial Wikipedian cats, if they existed. - jc37 03:10, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all as nominator. - jc37 03:10, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep for crying out loud. These categories have been up for deletion and kept every time, see Category talk:Gay Wikipedians for links to three failed CfDs for that category alone. I won't go into detail why this CfD is misguided, but I think it should be closed immediately on precedent alone. TAnthony 05:33, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I did, I have. (One of those was a suggestion to merge/rename all to Homosexual Wikipedians, so it's somewhat off-topic. You may also wish to note that several categories which were "Keep" comparisons in those discussions, such as Wikipedians by Marital status, no longer exist either.) The shortest response is that Consensus can change. There is an ongoing current consensus that categories which are merely self-identification notices should not exist as categories. A userpage notice, such as a userbox, is enough to state whatever it is someone may wish to identify with. If someone wishes to help out with collaborating on LGBT issue articles, they can always check out Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies. - jc37 06:08, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, all of you deletionists can certainly nominate something enough times that the defenders finally get sick of defending, and "consensus can change" because it's too much trouble to rehash the same arguments. I am constantly baffled by the energy that goes into gutting things which some people find helpful or motivational, when your time could be better spent ACTUALLY EDITING AN ARTICLE. Seriously, what do you all actually care that editors are grouping themselves arbitrarily in userspace, why don't you just eliminate all userboxes and user categories and be done with it? If Category:Wikipedians in the United States is allowed to exist, these should as well. The fact that hundreds of editors have placed themselves in a category like Gay Wikipedians should state clearly that it is valuable. And I don't mean to single you out jc37, but for example you are in Category:Wikipedians who participate in the Star Wars Collaboration of the Week, which is completely ridiculous by comparison. Give me a break, people! TAnthony 08:07, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Please pardon me if I ignore the histrionics in answering.) The only person on this page so far who has shown actually collaboration of User categories is Horologium (though in a different discussion). I can actually give a concrete example of how User categories are not collaborative in nature (besides the problems of votestacking). Awhile back, the User categories for the individual signs of the zodiac were deleted. The initial result of the discussion was merge to "Wikipedians interested in the zodiac". So another admin started making the change. There was a rather large hullaballoo from users who were angry that they were being placed in a collaborative cat, since they had no interest in the subject whatsoever, but were merely declaring something about themselves. So we actually went back to the discussion, and closed it as delete all, instead, since the users in question didn't want to be "interested in" or "collaborative about" the topic. And this involved quite a few "hundreds of users". By the way, "hundreds of users" is roughly equal to people who placed a userbox on their userpage to self-identify. Or for that matter placed the category on their page to use the link at the bottom of their userpage as a notice as well. If you want a notice, place a notice. Please don't use the category system for it. Oh, and incidentally, how can you suggest that a category which groups people by actual collaboration doesn't help with editing the encyclopedia? I think it's rather similar to the one I have about editor assistance (or administrator, for that matter). - jc37 08:24, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strongest Possible Delete. I'm baffled why we must go through this every single time. There has been no evidence presented that shows these categories help collaboration. The LGBT Studies WikiProject does a very good job at coordinating efforts on these subjects, and these categories are only serving a social networking purpose. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 13:55, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per demon and jc. I agree strongly with the statement If someone wishes to help out with collaborating on LGBT issue articles, they can always check out Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies. --Kbdank71 14:36, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep: WP:LGBT doesn't cover nearly all of those, and self-identification helps editors find other editors. A simple user-page notice can't accomplish that. And there's no evidence that having the categories hurts collaboration at all. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 19:21, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So you're saying it's harmless? ^demon^{[omg plz]} 19:25, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This had nothing to do with the nom, but rather is a more general response, but since you ask, yes, I've seen many instances where User categories have been used to hurt collaboration. Many, many, many attempts to votestack a discussion, for example. See Wikipedia:Canvassing for more ways in which categories may be used (both good and bad uses). - jc37 19:56, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete delete delete per nom and kbdank71. Carbon Monoxide 23:38, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(ec)Comment Without going into the relative worth of these cats, I would suggest to the members of the LGBT WikiProject that you create a user category for members of the project. (This is one time where adding the category to the userbox is a good idea.) The deletion of such a category cannot be justified, and it appears that it is the only way that any of the groups under Category:Wikipedians by lifestyle will be able to group. All of the current subcategories of that group have been nominated for deletion at least twice (most of them three times) in the five months I have been active in UCfD discussions. I am not accusing anyone of bad faith, but the frequency that these categories (includes the Demoscener and Deaf Culture cats, and the Furry cat, which did not get nominated this cycle) are seen here in the discussion queue is a bit disturbing. Consensus can change, but not THAT quickly, and the past discussions have been fairly clear decisions to retain. I would suggest that the demoscener, deaf culture, and furry editors create WikiProjects and user cats for them as well, since the siege on the subcats of Category:Wikipedians by lifestyle appears to be unresolvable. Horologium t-c 23:47, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I think that is a good idea, with one caveat: any WikiProject categories should be populated naturally (i.e. by people adding themselves to the category) rather by renaming any of these categories, the reason being that identification doesn't necessarily translate into interest, and certainly not into WikiProject membership. I realise that this isn't what you suggested, but I think it's an important point to note. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Yes, I agree. Adding other people to a category is inappropriate. However, having a WikiProject userbox on one's page seems to be a pretty clear indicator that the user wants others to know about his interest in the topic, and while not all WikiProjects have categories, many do, and unless the project itself is deleted, there is no justification to eliminate the user cat for its members. The LGBT and Furry projects have userboxes, without associated user cats. The Deaf Wikiproject is related to Deaf Culture, but not identical in scope. (Perhaps Deaf Culture could be a task force within that project, or a daughter project.) I am not aware of a Demoscene Wikiproject at this time. Horologium t-c 00:44, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - (Responding to Horologium's first post.) As someone above mentioned, you might wish to go back and read over those discussions. If someone were to assess those discussions now, based on the categories we have now, they all would seem to be at least no consensus, and two of them appear to be rather clear deletes. However, none of that is why I nominated these. As I mentioned above, there is an emerging consensus at WP:CFD that using categories as a "notice" on the bottom of articles is a bad thing(tm). Categories are groupings. In general, if you want to note something about the topic of the article, add it to the article. Well a similar consensus has been emerging about User categories as of late. Statements of self-Identification should not be turned into categories. Look to the removal of the Wikipedians by birth, marital status, and so on. And incidentally, several of the sexuality cats have already been deleted, including Wikipedians by sexuality itself. So I don't think that it's safe to say that there has been an overall consensus to "keep". Anyway, as for Furry, I didn't nominate that one because after reading mountains of text of discussions, I just am not sure what recourse of those suggested is best. I was already leaning towards the WikiProject route myself. In response to the discussion above, the result of this discussion should have no bearing on whether a WikiProject-named cat may be added to a WikiProject userbox or not. So Be bold : ) - jc37 01:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all. A category for members of WP:LGBT would be sufficient for encyclopedic purposes. LGBT-related articles already run a high risk of become battlegrounds for identity politics. Think about what reasons someone might have to look through something like Category:Lesbian Wikipedians. Either it's for idle curiosity or social networking purposes, in which case the category is frivolous, or it's looking for people likely to share a particular POV (because membership in these categories is based on a highly politicized identity, not an area of expertise). My userpage used to be in at least one of these categories, but I removed it quite a while ago because I just couldn't see what purpose it served. Wikipedia is not about me expressing my identity. It is about writing an encyclopedia. - AdelaMae ^{(t - c - wpn)} 02:51, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and can we please have a moratorium on doing this every couple of months?! Yeah, sure, consensus can change, but it's getting real annoying to see this keep coming up over and over for CfD until people get it deleted out of sheer out-stubborning everyone else. And, btw, next time you do it, can you make sure the links in the categories actually link to the deletion discussion in question? Kolindigo 00:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The claim that this category is redundant to the list of participants in WikiProject LGBT studies is inaccurate; not all of the WikiProject editors are gay, and not all gay Wikipedians participate in the WikiProject. Many of these categories serve the purpose user categories are intended for - to help likeminded Wikipedians who may share similar editing interests find one another easily and to reveal any editing biases they may bring to their work. There are a few on the list that I would support deleting because they don't seem to me to serve that purpose: :Category:Lipstick lesbian Wikipedians, Category:Femme Wikipedians, and Category:Bear cub Wikipedians. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 02:09, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"to help likeminded Wikipedians who may share similar editing interests find one another easily and to reveal any editing biases they may bring to their work." - In other words, a userpage notice... - jc37 12:49, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Now I'm confused. Are you saying that isn't what user categories are for? If it isn't, then what are they for? And how would you use a userpage notice to find likeminded users, unless you just happened upon their userpages? -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 18:07, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per AdelaMae. If I were to question whether my own editing of an article were biased against one of these groups then I would probably ask someone that is in one of these categories for their input. As to the nomination rationale, I am in the Gay Wikipedian's category and that has nothing to do with who I prefer to have sex with or who I identify with (I do not identify with the gay community). If there was a Celebate Wikipedian's category then I could be under that category too (however I see no reason for a creation of that category, don't see why another editor would want to find a celebate editor, and probably wouldn't even include myself in that category as I wouldn't see it having any useful purpose). I'm leaning towards delete since the only time I'd want to find someone in one of these categories would be for input on editing something related to them. Since articles related to these categories would come under the scope of the LGBT Studies WikiProject (with the exception of Asexual Wikipedians), then a user category for members of that wikiproject should suffice. Using my own rationale for commenting delete, I probably shouldn't be in the Gay Wikipedians category as I have no interest in editing articles in that area. —TheJC (Talk • Contribs • Count) 13:50, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep - Besides the numerous other attempts at deletion, and failure of said attempts, it's only reasonable to assume that if these were deleted then every cat InsertYourOwnTitle Wikipedians would/should be deleted as well. I always find it amazing how the gay articles/cats/templates/lists always get targeted with the same arguments. You should be ashamed of yourself for even bringing these up for deletion again. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 17:39, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - (Rather than to respond to each thread, I'll just attempt to comment here.) - In reading the above comments, I'm dismayed by how many commenters apparently aren't reading the nomination, or the responses. Reading things like "You should be ashamed of yourself for even bringing these up for deletion again." tells me that they haven't bothered to do the research to note the difference in the nominations or that several such categories have already been deleted, including the parent cat Category:Wikipedians by sexuality. This nom is due to a changing consensus about user categories in general. Wikipedian categories should not be used as userpage notices. And saying ILIKEIT doesn't seem helpful. Suggesting that the categories be used to find "like-minded individuals", is a suggestion to stack a bias. Notifying others that a user has a certain bias is fine as a userpage notice (such as a userbox). I wonder if I had made this nom to be: "Merge all to Category:Wikipedians interested in collaborating on sexuality and gender-related issues", would the members of the categories be upset because they weren't interested in collaborating, but wishing to state their preference... I know I'm repeating myself here, but apparently commenters aren't even bothering to read this discussion either. - jc37 01:17, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't care. I personally have never been interested in displaying my sexuality on my userpage, but if others wish to disclose theirs that's fine with me. I am thus rather ambivalent about whether these categories remain, though I would like to make two points that: a) these categories were how we recruited many of the members for WP:LGBT in the first place and b)many of the people in these categories were not interested in joining us. To claim therefore that a WP:LGBT userbox is sufficient is demonstrably false. Essjay was gay but never joined WP:LGBT, many others are the same.

What I am bothered by is the fact that these categories are being put up for deletion every few months, and it seems to me both quite strange and a complete waste of time that people are so insistently trying to destroy these categories. Sure they make claims of "consensus can change" but we're talking over a period of a year or so here. These cats have been Afded four times within a year, and consensus has been no different every time. If the cats survive, I would appreciate if the deletionists could stop their assault for at least year before attempting it again, it's starting to get very annoying and distracts us from our goal - building an encyclopedia free to all. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 01:24, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"consensus has been no different every time" - I don't believe that that is true. And there have been more than 4, it's just that some of the others resulted in something besides "no consensus/keep". And finally, I won't speak for anyone else, but I always find it amazing when it's suggested that I'm a "deletionist". : ) - jc37 01:36, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - fosters collaboration, meets criteria for categories. Let's not go deleting cats based on bias. Mikebar 14:47, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"...based on bias." - Did you even read the nomination? This has nothing to do with bias. This has nothing to do with whether the notice is useful, but whether the grouping is useful. Whether the grouping accurately shows people who wish to collaborate, or if it's just about having a talk page notice, and that feeling of warm fuzziness of being in a category, grouped with others. If it's the latter (similar to the zodiac cats) then these should absolutely be deleted. This is no different than the deletion of the food categories awhile back. Though several of us may like apples, that doesn't mean that a category is necessary to show it (even though there are more than enough related articles to presume collaborative use). This is about the intent of the categories in question. - jc37 16:23, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Demoscener Wikipedians

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The result of the debate was delete. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 11:10, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Demoscener Wikipedians - See Demoscene - While interesting, and a userpage notice may be helpful, the category grouping isn't needed. - jc37 02:50, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - as nominator. - jc37 02:50, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Category:Nudist Wikipedians

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The result of the debate was delete. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 11:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Nudist Wikipedians - See Nudism (which apparently redirects to Naturism) - While a userpage notice may be helpful (though I'm not certain how), the category isn't needed. - jc37 02:42, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - as nominator. - jc37 02:42, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Being a nudist does not help foster collaboration at all. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 13:53, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Category:Wikipedians in Esperanto organizations

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The result of the debate was delete. After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 11:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Wikipedians in Esperanto organizations - 2 members who both have the populating userbox, so I presume they can find each other. - jc37 00:46, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - as nominator. - jc37 00:46, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. I don't see 'by organisation' categories as being particularly useful in the first place, since the ability to improve articles is what counts, not any off-wiki affiliations. However, in this case, the organisation(s) is/are not even specified. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 01:18, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Category:Users in the US Millitary

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This is a bit complicated of a decision, but I tried to maintain the following principles in my decision: 1) Categories are currently present tense and per Black Falcon, they should not switch to past tense. 2) Per jc37 this is much like a profession and so former service is still worthy of categorization. With that in mind....

The result of the debate was

rename Category:Users in the US Millitary and Category:Wikipedians in the U.S. military,
rename Category:Wikipedians who served in the US military to Category:Wikipedians who served in the U.S. military,
rename Category:Wikipedians in the United States Coast Guard to Category:Wikipedians in the U.S. Coast Guard
keep Category:Wikipedian military people. -- After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 01:34, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Merge/Rename both Category:Users in the US Millitary and Category:Wikipedians who served in the US military to Category:Wikipedians who served in the U.S. military

Rename Category:Wikipedians in the United States Coast Guard to Category:Wikipedians who served in the U.S. Coast Guard

Rename Category:Wikipedian military people to Category:Wikipedians who served in the military

"who served in" is more accurate to the inclusion criteria. I used U.S. per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (abbreviations). (The talk page of which provided me with this link to the U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual (See p.164).) I have no preference between using "military" or "armed forces". I used military since it's what is currently in use.

Category:Wikipedian military people's inclusion criteria suggests that it's currently essentially a too-broad "interested in" category, even though the name is more suggestive of those who served in the military. It will need pruning, though I would not oppose deletion in order to "start over".

See also Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by military branch as a reference for usage of all of the above. - jc37 00:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Merge/Rename as nominator. - jc37 00:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Merge/Rename per nom. - Personally I would not object to all of these categories being merged into "Wikipedians who served in the US Military", as their existance is redundant. One category for all active and prior service personnel, with sub-categories for the diverse branches, including Guard and Reserve, seems, to me, the best way to go. However, I'm not doctinaire on this. I would like to see other models, if they are available.--Lyricmac 01:34, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. There are 200+ militaries in the world, each with one or more (usually more) services; add to that a past/present distinction which I think is important to maintain, and we have ca. 600-1000 categories. I see no utility in encouraging such a categorisation scheme, since the ability to improve articles is what counts, not any past or present off-wiki affiliations. Moreover, in many countries, military service is compulsory, so such categories would include a significant portion of those countries' populations. Overall, I'm not convinced that current or prior service in a military branch implies any sort of encyclopedically-relevant interest in the subject or an above-average ability to contribute encyclopedic (i.e. sourced) content to military-related articles, especially in a way that does not breach the "no original research" policy. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 01:40, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Per my comment above:
- Delete Category:Users in the US Millitary; if kept, rename to Category:Wikipedians in the U.S. military (not per nom).
- Strong delete Category:Wikipedians who served in the US military because the title is indicative of a past affiliation; if kept, rename to Category:Wikipedians who served in the U.S. military (per nom).
  - Added later: upmerge only the subcategories to Category:Wikipedian military people.
- Delete Category:Wikipedians in the United States Coast Guard; if kept, rename to Category:Wikipedians in the U.S. Coast Guard (not per nom).
- Oppose renaming Category:Wikipedian military people; the suggested title of "who served" indicates a past affiliation, which is not overly useful. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 01:40, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - How about Category:U.S. Military Wikipedians as a catch-all category for all of the above?--Lyricmac 01:58, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - (edit conflict) Do you mean merging the others into it? If so, then I think that would be fine, except for Category:Wikipedians who served in the US military, which I think should be deleted as it indicates a past affiliation. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 02:04, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - If there is to be a catch-all category, I would prefer for it to be Category:Wikipedians in the U.S. military (present tense), but (as above) with Category:Wikipedians who served in the US military excluded from the merge. However, I still think outright deletion of individual 'by military' categories for individual countries is the better option. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 02:07, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - Are you saying that there should not be a category for past US miliary personnel? That was the reason behind my catch-all category "US Military Wikipedians". I am not certain I understand.--Lyricmac 02:14, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        Yes. I see no reason to categorise based on past affiliations. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 04:23, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - How is knowledge of the military different whether you are currently enlisted, were enlisted 5 years ago, or 10 years ago? The category is going to be used for ex-members of the military regardless of the rename, obviously, so the name should probably reflect that. This isn't about an affiliation to a club. As I've been noticing as I've gone through contribution histories and user pages regarding this, those who served or are serving consider this a profession. And someone may categorise themselves under Wikipedian accountants, whether they are now working as a lawyer, or even if they are retired. There are other benefits to the rename I've suggested, but that's enough for now. (For one thing, I'm attempting to look towards future categorisation as well.) Incidentally, The U.S. cat shouldn't be the "catch-all" since it's country specific, and "military people" is way too broad a term (it could include civillian military contractors, for example). - jc37 02:18, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The primary value I see in drawing a current/past distinction is that current members of the military could be aware of, or perhaps even produce, public domain images. If, by the way, my proposal does not gain consensus, then I prefer your suggested series of renames and merges to the status quo. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 04:23, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - There's way more to collaborating on Wikipedia than image uploading, but I understand your thought. That said, I still think that no matter what we name them, they'll be used as the community chooses to, and we already see how that'll work... - jc37 01:45, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete/Merge per Black Falcon, seems reasonable. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 13:45, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

October 3

Category:User_als_and_subcats

Moved to Wikipedia talk:User categories for discussion. The discussion is still ongoing, so please feel free to help work towards a consensus there. - jc37 19:38, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]