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November 21

Category:Manchu statesmen

Nominator's rationale: Who was or is not a "statesman" is problematically ambiguous. (I acknowledge "politician" has a similar problem, but the problem is less.) Rename. (For full disclosure, I also believe that the category is currently improperly a subcategory of Category:Qing Dynasty politicians, since some ROC and PRC politicians were Manchu and could be considered "statesmen" (and certainly were politicians; if/once renaming is done, I plan to take it out of the Qing politician tree.) --Nlu (talk) 23:43, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Category:White South African soccer players

Nominator's rationale: There is no reason to subdivide players by ethnic group or skin colour within their nationality. I propose that this category be deleted and any players not already in the "South African soccer players" category be moved there. Jameboy (talk) 23:12, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football-related deletions. Jameboy (talk) 23:19, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Category:American people of Native American descent

Nominator's rationale: The title of this category is one too many "Americans" in it. The default nationality of a Native American is American. If no other nationalities are given, you can pretty much discern that said person lives in the USA, just like for "English people", with no other nationalities listed, you can assume that they live in England. The pages in this category should either be upmerged to Category:American people of indigenous peoples descent or downmerged to the occupational or tribal categories. pbp 22:25, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose There is a clear difference between those with some Native American ancestry and those who are recognized as Native Americans and registered members of a tribe. To merge these all into one is to put together things that are not all the same.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:25, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No, not really; they are pretty much the same, the registration designation alone is meaningless and certainly not justification for an entire category with a redundant name. Again, you're overthinking it. pbp 23:37, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Category:American Girl authors

Nominator's rationale: This is the only work-specific subcategory of Category:American children's writers. It contains only 3 articles and doesn't appear likely to expand. Textbook WP:OCAT. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 22:23, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Which is exactly why it should be either renamed to disambiguate, or an appropriate parent created. Considering that there are only the 3 authors and they make a row of {{American Girl}} navbox, if we did create a parent it would make sense to upmerge this one as OCAT. What I can't figure out is any common system to existing fiction series/franchise categories (as far as their parentage) - they seem a bit all over the place. This is probably why the two American girl categories are not well parented. --Qetuth (talk) 23:33, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Category:American people of African-American descent

Nominator's rationale: The title of this category is one too many "Americans" in it. The default nationality of an African-American is American. If no other nationalities are given, you can pretty much discern that said person lives in the USA, just like for "English people", with no other nationalities listed, you can assume that they live in England. The pages in this category should either be upmerged to Category:African-American people or downmerged to the occupational categories. pbp 21:46, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Jewish descent is different. There is only one "American" in the Jewish category you've mentioned. And in regard to the "ethnicity, not race" quandary, I think you're overthinking it, and also think your analysis that African-American is only an ethnicity is false. The number of people who do that and have Wikipedia articles isn't really large enough to justify a category, sorry. pbp 22:23, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Since it was brought up, what is Jewish descent anyway? If someone converts to Judaism, would any offspring be of Jewish descent then? That seems rather non-defining. Nymf hideliho! 10:40, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
FYI, I have nominated the American Native Americans category for deletion on almost identical rationale to this page pbp 22:29, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like there are a number of other categories in addition to this one that could be used for her pbp 15:48, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This is a ceci n'est pas une pipe argument. If he was African-American, whether or not he thought he was is irrelevant pbp 17:42, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment You are only those ethnicities you self-identify as. Ethnicity is a social construct, so if someone does not identify as part of an ethnicity, they are not part of that ethnicity.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:49, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • There's a lot wrong with this statement, as well as some of your others above. a) African-American is a race as well as an ethnicity, and b) only being the things you say you are makes the category subjective, and categories are supposed to be objective. If a person was German-American, but he said he was Italian-American, by your logic, what he says he is trumps what he actually is, so you'd remove him from the German-American category and put him in the Italian-American category. That's not correct, sorry. Also, please intent responses to mine and other people's comments, rather than saying "Comment" over and over again; it clutters up the CfD with too much bold text pbp 00:42, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • As mentioned in the guidelines linked to in the discussion of the White South African category above "Ethnic groups are commonly used when categorizing people; however, race is not." Thus, we cannot apply racial rules in categorizing people. We must treat categories as ethnic groups. Ethnicity is a social construct, people are not inherently African-American, they are African-American because they are identified as such by themselves and others. Healy was not.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:18, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Again, you missed the point that the whole "identification" thing is subjective and categories are supposed to be objective. If there's no inherentness (i.e. objectivity) involved, then there shouldn't be a category. pbp 01:49, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep it's simple IMO - why should people be defined by one parent? these are people of MIXED backround and ethnicity, they should not automatically be lumped into and labeled as "african-american".Xvon (talk) 01:32, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
User has made few or no contributions outside of recategorizing people into this category
OK, there's a lot wrong with this comment as well. For one, this category isn't specifically for mixed-race people. For two, very few African-Americans are 100% African, most have at least a little White and/or Native American ancestry in them, and therefore are technically mixed. For three, the practice on Wikipedia is to categorize people by all their races or ethnicities, even if it's less than half. Look at how many different ethnicities are listed for Alec Baldwin. What is not standard Wikipedia practice is to have separate categories for pure and mixed pbp 01:46, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
QUOTE: why should people be defined by one parent? these are people of MIXED backround and ethnicity, they should not automatically be lumped into and labeled as "african-american".
That's not how categories work. If a person is commonly reported as being of a single ancestry, then their bio article gets a single ancestry category tag. If they are commonly reported as being of more than one heritage, then they get more than one category tag. So nobody is being "defined" by Wikipedia editors on the basis of one parent's heritage while the other parent's heritage is ignored. The subjects of our bios get defined by their own self-identification (if they are alive) and by what scholars and other reliable reporters have written about them (if they are deceased). If the bio subjects are in fact of more than one ethnic heritage but they publicly self-identify with the heritage of just one parent, or if scholars, for whatever reason, primarily identify them with the heritage of just one parent, then we should be categorizing them with just a single tag for that parent's heritage. Dezastru (talk) 06:46, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
QUOTE: the practice on Wikipedia is to categorize people by all their races or ethnicities, even if it's less than half. Look at how many different ethnicities are listed for Alec Baldwin.
Yes, we should be categorizing by all of the WP:DEFINING ethnicities, whether partial or full. However, we should not be listing every possible ethnicity that has ever been reported for people. As WP:Categorization makes clear, "A central concept used in categorising articles is that of the defining characteristics of a subject of the article. A defining characteristic is one that reliable sources commonly and consistently define the subject as having—such as nationality or notable profession (in the case of people)...." Dezastru (talk) 06:46, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nom Comment: Neither of the keep votes have addressed the main problem I as nominator had with this category; namely, that there are two "American"s when only one is needed. Even if we're operating on the (faulty) assumption that this category is needed, wouldn't it be better named Category:Americans of African descent? Again, this is not advocating that the category should be kept in any way, we don't need separate categories for people who are African-American and say so versus African-American and don't, nor do we need separate categories for pure and mixed pbp 01:57, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • upmerge to Category:African-American people. This category has a main article that documents the American use of this term. There is no main article documenting use of "American people of African-American descent" or anything like it. And no references have been offerred to demonstrate that the term or concept "American people of African-American descent" has any usage, let alone common usage, by any sector of American society to describe any sector of this society. This may occur in the future, but we are not living in or writing about the future at WP: we are here and now. Hmains (talk) 02:15, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • upmerge. The Urban Dictionary entry "Afro-American" gives as definition 2 "used to describe an American of African descent" and 3 "a term which has fallen out of favor in recent years for the more politically correct two word phrase 'African American'." Now, an interesting category would be "non-Americans of African American descent", but that's a different issue... DavidLeeLambert (talk) 12:27, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment user purplebackpack seems to have some sort of an agenda with this descent category. i am new to wikipedia but something seems fishy here since he has attacked user johnpacklambert and now attacked me because i am new and have so far only made minor contributions (in the near future i plan on editing more articles outside of this topic). Xvon (talk) 02:20, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment POSSIBLE SOLUTION TO THIS ISSUE: there is another cat on wikipedia called American people of African descent, could this be a possible resolution to this categorizing problem?Xvon (talk) 02:53, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Standard Wikipedia practice is the general format followed by articles, categories, etc. It is determined by a number of consensuses on the topic, each reached by a number of editors pbp 00:05, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • KEEP: if a person has mixed or mulatto backround (especially if they do not appear black or african-american) why is it not a good idea to create a more "neutral" category like american people of african-american descent? this describes the person more accurately while still retaining the fact that they are of partial african heritage. apparently people like purplebackpack can't see this though, and INSIST that they be called "african-american". another issue that johnpacklambert touched on was identity. we have no idea whether these people see themselves as af-am, biracial, multiracial, or something else so why does wikipedia and people like purplebackpack, hmains, etc. get to label them as "african-american"?

PS if you read the alicia keys article it says right there in the article that she identifies with her "biracial heritage". the terms "biracial" and "african-american" are not exactly interchangeable. enough said here. clearly this category should not only exist but is very appropriate for a supposedly "accurate" and "neutral" website like wikipedia. Xvon (talk) 03:54, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User has !voted twice, so second vote striken

The common practice has been to put people of multiple races or ethnicities in as many categories as possible. Each of those categories is assumed to be for Americans who are either full or part that ethnicity. Therefore, Adolphus Busch and I go in the same category, German Americans, as he is of full German descent and I am of partial German descent. For people of multiple ethnicites, you list all of their ethnicities. So, for Keys, you list her as African-American, plus the various white ethnicities she is. Yes, people of partial African descent are classified as African-American, but there's absolutely nothing stopping them from being classified as white as well. Even if we decided that there needed to be a category for biracial Americans, it should be titled something different than this title (and please note my above comment that said category might have to include most African-Americans, since most of them have a little White or Native American mixed in. pbp 04:15, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think people need to start from the statement that we categorize people by ethnicity, not race. I have to say that the whole idea of classifying people by what they look like is totally a "by race" categorization. I also think the above statement by Pirplebackpack89 would show more what is going on if it was admitted the category is Category:American people of German descent. However we do have Category:Pennsylvania Dutch people and Category:American people of Pennsylvania Dutch descent because Pennsylvania Dutch is an ethnic identified that does not apply to all who had Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. That is what is going on here. This is not an issue of teasing out some non-African ancestry in 3 or 4 generation back, it is an issue of people who had one parent who was a German lady, as in a citizen of Germany, and their father was an African-American serviceman, and they proactively identify with both ancestries. Or a person who had a grandfather who was African-American, but all their other grandfather's clearly weren't. It cannot be based on what a person looked like anymore than you can categorize someone as African-American with the only reference source being a photo of the person. Some articles I have dealt with in Category:African-American actors recently, that was certainly what it seemed had been done since no where in the text did it mention that the person was African-American.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:06, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agree that if there is no explicit statement in reliable sources of the individual's ancestral heritage, we shouldn't be tagging their article with a heritage category at all. Dezastru (talk) 06:46, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What you seem to be asserting here is that "African-American" is a separate and distinct ethnicity from "African", which leaves me quite confused. I thought that African-American was an ethnic identifier used for American people of African lineage. Are you saying that if someone of African lineage is born in the USA, then their ethnicity becomes not African, but African-American, as a distinct thing? Are there reliable secondary sources which document this kind of designation? It is all new to me, but I am no ethnographer or anthropologist; race and ethnicity are largely unknown topics to me, and is tangential to my work on Wikipedia, but I try to be accurate and uphold Wikipedia policy, and our fundamental pillar is that we neutrally report what is documented in reliable secondary sources. Elizium23 (talk) 17:18, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Elizium. I find it highly unlikely that the phraseology "African-American American" or "American of African-American descent" is commonly used to describe people. As for the argument of being placed into the category based on what they look like, it would affect people being placed in this category as much as it would effect Category:African-American people (Again, question of objectivity). As for the Pennsylvania Dutch example, that's a) an OTHERSTUFF exists argument that shouldn't carry much weight, and b) An especially peculiar case in that it refers to a part of America; a person of Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry living in a U.S. state other than Pennsylvania would be analogous to a person of African-American ancestry living in another country rather than this one pbp 17:47, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment wouldn't it be a smart idea to just re-word the cat in question (i personally think it's fine as is but apparently others disagree) since the nomenclature seems to be an issue. my question again would be why isn't the category American people of African descent appropriate for people with mixed ethnic parentage, where one parent is a descendant from africa? these people in question should not be automatically labeled as "african-american" by wikipedia. Xvon (talk) 22:21, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
also purplebackback keeps making the following argument "For people of multiple ethnicites, you list all of their ethnicities. So, for Keys, you list her as African-American, plus the various white ethnicities she is". this is a false argument, what you should do is list her as all of her "white" ethnicities and then for her "black" ethncities you should word the category the same way as the white cats are worded which is "American people of --- descent". i think this would solve the problem at hand. Xvon (talk) 22:23, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
another thing i want to respond to is the following silly argument, again made by pbp: "the category might have to include most African-Americans, since most of them have a little White or Native American mixed in". this is ridiculous on it's face, the new category would ONLY be used for people that have other "white" or "caucasian ethnic" cats listed at the bottom of their articles, not EVERYONE who has a drop of white or native american ancestry. Xvon (talk) 22:34, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I'm not seeing a compelling reason why we need two different categories, one for mixed people and one for pure. We don't have that with any other ethnicity. Also, I resent the notion that most African-Americans have a little white and/or Native American as being "silly". No, that can be proven with a number of reliable sources pbp 22:47, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. As has most likely been mentioned above, 'African-American' ethncity is defined as simply having any amount of Black African ancestry, so having this category is meaningless, unless it is for being who have self-identified as not being African American; for those who have publically opted out of belonging to the ethnicity, so to speak. Mayumashu (talk) 22:53, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. According to the intro of African American, to be of the ethnicity one has to have "significant" black African ancestry and not just "one drop". If this is true, then this category is indeed necessary. Mayumashu (talk) 23:06, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So? We're not wedded to what the page says (and what's significant, anyway? 1/8? 1/4?). Most other ethnicities or races have just one category which you get put in regardless of whether you're 100% or 6.25%. I have yet to see any compelling evidence as to why this should be any different. And even if it should, it should be titled something other than this completely nonsensical title pbp 23:13, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We shouldn't be tagging articles according to what fraction of a person's heritage is of a particular background. That kind of information serves no encyclopedic purpose. If only one heritage is defining for them, then they only get one category tag. If they have two defining heritages, then they get two tags. Dezastru (talk) 06:46, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
again, a very silly argument by PBP and i don't want to get blocked so i'll refrain from saying anything further. you apparently are completely missing the points of my arguments and are just stuck on the notion that we can't have a more neutral-sounding re-worded category for people of varying backrounds who have large non-african heritage besides "african-american people". Xvon (talk) 23:25, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. when a large majority of their backround is non-African. also many of these people do not even look black or african-american, they look like mixed "ethnic" people or multiracial human beings and should not get labeled "african-american" because it is politically correct. again this is real simple but people instead seem to want to say that this issue is subjective and ambigious when IMO it's not. Xvon (talk) 13:53, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
How someone looks is irrelevant to the criteria laid out in our guidelines for categorizing with regard to ethnic or national heritage. The only things that matter are how someone self-identifies and what reliable sources have reported about them. We do not characterize on the basis of "racial features." Dezastru (talk) 06:46, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question two actually, both for user pbp. one - what is your alternative account name, how do we know your not also nymf or someone else voting here? two - is your birthdate 8-7-89 or 8-8-89, i can't tell from your userpage birthday count template. Xvon (talk) 14:10, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Some kind of cleanup is clearly warranted to bring the categories tree in line with Wikipedia policies and guidelines. To start, there is a conflict among the definitions in the tree. The primary category under discussion here is Category:American people of African-American descent, defined as "people of African American descent." The African American term that is linked in the definition goes to a Wikipedia article in whose lede the term was defined (circa March 2012) as "African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans or Afro-Americans, and formerly as American Negroes) are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa. Most African Americans are of West and Central African descent and are descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States. However, some immigrants from African, Caribbean, Central American or South American nations, or their descendants, may be identified or self-identify with the term." The current definition in the lede of the main article linked to is "African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans or Afro-Americans, and formerly as American Negroes) are citizens or residents of the United States who have total or partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa. The term is not usually used for black residents of other countries in the Americas." Some of the current members of Category:American people of African-American descent are Halle Berry, Mariah Carey, Ward Connery, Jimi Hendrix, Thurgood Marshall, and Vanessa Williams. The parent category is Category:People of African-American descent, which is defined as "people of African American descent (whether full or partial) who were raised outside of the United States," with a link to the same main article with the definition(s) as I just described. Note the contradiction: Parent category is people who were raised outside the United States, which does not include many of the prominent members of the main category under discussion. Dezastru (talk) 02:07, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. This is a rather confusing discussion, so let me try to summarize what I think have been the main points of contention others have already laid out, in the interest of trying to get everyone on the same page for further discussion.
- pbp has proposed changing Category:American people of African-American descent because of the inelegantly redundant use of "American" in that term.
- John Pack Lambert does not feel the redundant use of "American" is an issue and, further, argues that Category:American people of African-American descent is needed because we otherwise will have no way to distinguish, with categories, individuals who have African-American ancestry but do NOT self-identify with that African-American ethnic heritage from individuals who have African-American ancestry and DO self-identify or are otherwise identified as being part of the African-American ethnic group. According to this argument, a person such as Anatole Broyard, who apparently never publicly identified as having African-American heritage, or such as Ward Connerly, who (my understanding has been) rejects the designation of African-American in reference to himself and prefers to be described as being of "mixed" ethnic heritage, could not be distinguished in our categories from someone such as Martin Luther King, Jr. unless we have the Category:American people of African-American descent. John Pack Lambert also argues that we need a way to distinguish with categories individuals of African-American ethnic heritage from individuals who are of African descent but not of African-American descent (so, a way to distinguish between Michelle Obama [ie, African-American = descendant of African-American slaves] from Barack Obama [descendant of Africans but not of African-American slaves]).
- Xvon does not feel that the redundant use of "American" in Category:American people of African-American descent is an issue, and argues that such a category is necessary because without it we would have no way, in categories, to distinguish Americans who are solely or mostly of African ancestry from those who have some African ancestry but are biracial or multiracial (with a large amount of non-African-American ancestry) rather than African-American (Xvon regards African-American and biracial/multiracial as being mutually exclusive). Dezastru (talk) 03:04, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That pretty much sums it up, except for the other four editors who participated (all four voted merge or delete, citing either my semantics point or my point about us not needing separate cats for full and partial ancestry) pbp 14:52, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
(responding to your comment on the edit summary page) It wasn't my intent to summarize each participant's contribution to the discussion or "count votes." Rather, I was trying to summarize what seemed to be the main arguments (regardless of who had made them); I mentioned the names of several editors in the summary only for sake of reference. Dezastru (talk) 07:47, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Here are some of the guidelines that are necessary to consider in tackling these concerns.
- First, per WP:EGRS, "ethnic groups are commonly used when categorizing people; however, race is not."
- Second, per WP:EGRS, "people who occupy the grey areas are not a valid argument against the existence of a category; if they do not fit, they simply should not be added to it." (A corollary to this, from the WP:Categorization of people, is "not all categories are comprehensive: for some 'sensitive' categories, it is better to think of the category as a set of representative and unquestioned examples, while a list is a better venue for an attempt at completeness.")
- Third, per WP:Categorization, articles should only be included in a category if the application of that category is verifiable with reliable sources and, in the case of bios, if the category is of a defining characteristic for the subject of the bio.
- Fourth, while I am not aware of an explicit statement to this effect in any policy or guideline, the spirit of the BLP guidelines, including WP:EGRS, is that on sensitive or controversial subjects regarding living persons, WP articles should be written to respect the self-identity of the subjects of the bios. The WP:EGRS guideline specifically advises categorizing according to self-identification of the subject in matters dealing with religion and sexuality. It does not mention ethnicity explicitly in that regard, but I think the reason for that is that there are so few instances in which there are discrepancies between the bio subject's self-identified ethnicity and the ethnicity described by most reliable sources.
I tend to agree with pbp that the term "American of African-American ancestry" is not ideal because of the juxtaposed double use of "American" in that term. If a more elegant term with essentially the same meaning can be identified, I think we should adopt it.
Elizium23 asked whether "of African-American descent" is a separate heritage from "of African descent." The answer is YES. All Americans of African-American descent are also "of African descent," but the reverse is not true: not all Americans of African descent are also of African-American descent.
Those Americans who are of African-American descent comprise a subset of Americans of African descent — albeit a subset that is SO MUCH larger than all the other subsets by orders of magnitude that it is exceedingly rare that a need for clarification as to the term's meaning arises. The vast majority of people of African descent in the United States are and long have been descendants of slaves whose ancestors immigrated from Africa. The group comprises a specific ethnic category with its own history, language patterns, cuisine, musical traditions, etc. that are distinct from those of West Indians with African ancestry and of other groups in the African diaspora. My sense is that the numbers of WP articles on Americans like Barack Obama, who have African ancestors but no African-American slave ancestors, is too small at present for us to need to tease out a separate category to describe them. If necessary, we can have Category:African-American people, defined as those who are descendants of African-American slaves (or, to put it another way, who are descendants of Africans who immigrated to the US prior to the 20th century), along with Category:Americans of Kenyan descent, Category:Americans of Wolof descent, Category:Americans of Ibo descent, Category:Americans of South African descent, etc. (using either a specific African tribal or national identity as warranted).
With regard to Xvon's concerns about grouping Americans with some African ancestry who identify as biracial or multiracial with the generic group African-American people, I tend to agree with pbp that such a practice would be consistent with how we otherwise categorize according to ethnicity. (Incidentally, biracial and multiracial are not mutually exclusive with African-American. A person can be biracial as well as African-American — while at the same time being Irish-American, for that matter.) If an American has an Italian father and an Irish mother, he is categorized, separately, in both the Italian-American group AND the Irish-American group. Halle Berry could be categorized as African-American, English-American, and German-American. The WP:EGRS guideline, again, is that we categorize by ethnicity not race, so even though she might self-identify as "biracial," categorizing her explicitly as such would be going against the guideline. (I do wonder, though, whether that guideline might not be worth considering making an exception to for the cases of those who identify as biracial. — Tis a matter for another discussion some other time!)
One point that needs to be stressed, however, is that categories should reflect defining characteristics. If someone has 6 or 12 different ethnicities that they self-identify with, their bio should NOT list all of them. The goal is not comprehensiveness. Rather, it is to highlight the most significant characteristics of the bio subject. This should include the most significant ethnic associations.
With regard to John Pack Lambert's argument that the term African-American people does not appropriately describe people who do not self-identify with that ethnic heritage even though they may have some African ancestry, we should follow the guidance of categorizing on the basis of self-identification and verification based on reliable sources. If someone has African ancestry but doesn't self-identify with that ancestry, then we shouldn't use any category for their bio that mentions African ancestry or African-American ancestry. Categories are not the place to get into fine details in the rare cases of individuals who acknowledge having African ancestry yet disavow any relation to African-related ethnic heritage. Dezastru (talk) 04:36, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • This sounds like a good argument, however there are people who self-identify with the ancestry but do not call themselves African-American. So there are clearly people who identify as having this ancestry but would not identify with being tagged with this term. The same happens with Native Americans, which is why we have the two different categories for these ethnicity/ancestry terms.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:35, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You've given us the name of ONE person, who had a very unsual case. I don't see the particular justification you've laid out for this category (acknowledged ancestral roots without self-identification of the ethnicity) ever passing the WP:OC#SMALL criterion. Dezastru (talk) 07:53, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
JPL, two things: a) categories are supposed to be objective, and self-identification is most decidedly subjective, b) even if we do allow people to remove categories based on self-identification, they shouldn't be in this one any more than the regular Category:African-American people pbp 15:42, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

*Comment - I would ask that the closing admin hold off on a decision for the moment, as I think there are still a few other factors to consider and I would like a few days to think about the implications of the proposal. I think the term "American people of African-American descent" is messy, and I do not support the justification given for its use by JPL, but I am leaning toward keeping it for other reasons. Dezastru (talk) 08:05, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you'll get your wish in that it won't be closed on time since this is heavily backlogged. However, I personally don't see the need for extra time at all. This should be closed at 001 UTC on 29 November because (even with an additional keep vote) there is still a 2:1 consensus against keeping it. Now, could you concisely (<75 words) lay out your "other reasons", i.e. why exactly African-Americans need two categories, when most other American backgrounds only have one? Because IMO, there is no reason at all why they should. People of whole and partial ancestry should be in the same category; people who think they are should be in the same category as people who think they aren't pbp 15:42, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

:::I am not yet prepared to explain my other reasons. If I were, I would not be asking for another few days, I would just explain the reasons now. I've spent several hours trying to map out the connections in the related category tree branches and have not yet finished, but will have in the next few days, and I am asking for more time so I don't waste several more hours only to find that the admin has already closed the discussion. I'm not quite sure what the hurry is. Dezastru (talk) 18:01, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

*Comment the hurry IMO is because users such as PBP for whatever close-minded reason do not want to see why this cat is completely justified and that people in this country of african-american backround are not comparable to caucasian americans like he suggested above. also how exactly are there "two categories" for af-americans. that is not true at all. what the separate cat "americans of af-am descent" or whatever it is re-worded to (which i don't even agree that it needs to be re-worded but apparently i'm in the minority here) would be useful for is not painting with such a broad brush for people whom are of partial af-am ancestry but also have large ancestry that is NON african-american. these people SHOULD NOT BE PLACED into a cat titled "African-american people", there should be a distinct (but similar) cat that is used for these persons on wikipedia. Xvon (talk) 00:21, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Two points: a) Why shouldn't black categories be treated the same way as White categories? Are you saying that black and white categories aren't equal? That preferential treatment should be given to one?, and b) Why shouldn't a request where the non-keep votes significantly outweigh the keep votes be closed as soon as the requisite seven days are up? pbp 01:00, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - There is obviously a need for this category. People of some or partial African American descent but identify as another race(for example, Bi-racial, mixed, Cablasian, Hispanic, White, etc.), but the person is still of African American descent. We do not exclude people from different cultures from being placed into categories. Is there an Americans of Irish decent, Americans of English descent? Americans of German descent? Category:American people of Welsh descent? Category:American people of Huguenot descent? According to the nom, why not just have all of the people in those categories state they are "Americans of White descent"? After all, they are all Caucasian related categories. I would support the Cat being renamed to "People of African American descent"(if more people believe that Americans of African American descent has too many "Americans" in it), but not merging the Cat. Also, there is definitely not consensus here to delete. Not even close. If this was closed now, it would have to be kept. Thanks. Dave Dial (talk) 01:27, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What? There are three keep votes against five+nom merge or delete ones. That's not a consensus for keeping. And how do you figure that deleting this category equates to merging all white ethnicities into "Americans of White descent". The traditional solution to people of multiple races or ethnicities is to categorize said person by all their ethnicities. Why should we abandon that here? pbp 04:00, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
once again PBP is missing the larger point here. clearly this category should not be merged and at most i think it should be re-named to something less "messy". Xvon (talk) 04:15, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Purplebackpack89, your math seems to be out of sync. These are the numbers right now-
  • Keep
John Pack Lambert (talk) 4:49 pm, 21 November 2012, last Wednesday (6 days ago) (UTC−5)
Xvon (talk) 8:32 pm, 22 November 2012, last Thursday (5 days ago) (UTC−5)
Dave Dial (talk) 8:27 pm, Today (UTC−5)
  • Keep(conditionally, to which the answer to his question is "yes", which it is)
Mayumashu (talk) 6:06 pm, 23 November 2012, last Friday (4 days ago) (UTC−5)
  • Leaning Keep
Dezastru (talk)
  • Delete
pbp 4:46 pm, 21 November 2012, last Wednesday (6 days ago) (UTC−5)
Nymf hideliho! 5:40 am, 24 November 2012, last Saturday (4 days ago) (UTC−5)
  • Merge
Fayenatic London 6:51 am, 22 November 2012, last Thursday (6 days ago) (UTC−5)
Hmains (talk) 9:15 pm, 22 November 2012, last Thursday (5 days ago) (UTC−5)
DavidLeeLambert (talk) 7:27 am, 23 November 2012, last Friday (5 days ago) (UTC−5)
Dezastru (talk) Today
So that would be 5 probable keeps, 2 deletes and 3 merges. There is no consensus for any action, so the default action is to keep the category. Thanks. Dave Dial (talk) 04:55, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've taken the liberty of indicating that my vote is now MERGE.
So that would be 4 probable keeps, 2 deletes, and 4 merges. Dezastru (talk) 06:46, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge - Agree with Fayenatic London that this category title should be deleted and its current membership upmerged into Category:African-American people. Measures should be taken to prevent future good-faith re-creation of the original category without prior discussion.
- Currently, Category:American people of African-American descent has two parent categories. One of the parents (Category:People of African-American descent) is clearly not what those who are arguing for keeping the category intend, as it is defined as people of partial or full African-American descent raised outside of the US (and that parent category's parent, in turn, is Category:People of American descent, itself defined as people who themselves or whose forebears had been Americans but left the country).
- The other parent, Category:American people by ethnic or national origin, is defined (paraphrasing) as US citizens by their ethnicity (or any ethnicity of their forebears) or by the previous nationality they or their forebears held. That parent category has a sibling category called Category:American people of African descent, which divides, eventually, into subcategories such as Category:American people of Yoruba descent and Category:American people of Kenyan descent, as well as Category:African-American people. These are the only ethnicity/nationality category branches necessary for classifying the vast majority of US citizens who have recent (within the past few centuries) ancestral roots in Africa. Americans whose African ancestors immigrated to America prior to the 20th century will be tagged as Category:African-American people. Those Americans whose African ancestors are known to have belonged to a specific African nationality or ethnic group can be categorized by that group. In terms of their African heritage, Michelle Obama would be categorized as Category:African-American people and Barack Obama as Category:American people of Kenyan descent (and, potentially, Category:American people of Luo descent). Halle Berry would be categorized as Category:African-American people, possibly along with Category:American people of English descent and Category:American people of German descent. Alicia Keys could be categorized as Category:African-American people, along with Category:American people of German descent, Category:American people of Italian descent and Category:American people of Irish descent.
- James Augustine Healy should be categorized as Category:African-American people and Category:American people of Irish descent. For historical figures who have been dead as long as Healy, their self-identification is only part of the story, since WP reflects what scholars have written about such figures. If reliable sources routinely identify Healy as having had African-American heritage, then WP should categorize him as such, particularly if his African-American heritage is one of the major reasons he is a notable figure. Self-identification is a far more relevant issue in categorizing the ethnic heritage of living people.
- Self-identification of ethnic heritage is objective to the degree that it is reported by reliable sources. If Barack Obama is reported to have had a Kenyan father, or if he writes that he did in an autobiography, then Wikipedia should reflect that reporting.
- Creating separate categories for those who have an ethnic heritage but don't identify with it vs. those who have the same heritage but do identify with it serves no encyclopedic purpose and creates more work for all editors concerned. Our categorization system should be simple enough that editors who are casually contributing don't have to spend hours upon hours, as I have now done, trying to figure out the rules underlying the organizing scheme. If the organizational structure is that complex, it isn't going to be very useful except to a very tiny handful of myopically dedicated users.
- We should only be categorizing by ethnic or national heritage if that heritage is a WP:DEFINING characteristic of the individual in question. If the subject of a WP bio article is incidentally known to have had a distant ancestor who was Cherokee, but the bio subject is commonly described in reliable sources as being of Irish-American ancestry, then we should only categorize him as being of Irish-American ancestry and we should not include the Cherokee ancestry in the categories for the bio.

Dezastru (talk) 06:46, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • can someone here please explain to me why actor Max Casella is not listed in the Category:American_Jews and only listed in the "american people of jewish descent" and "american people of italian descent" categories? if we were to follow the logic of people who want to merge or delete this cat shouldn't max casella be placed in the "american jews" category?? Xvon (talk) 07:24, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Bilateral relations of Georgia (country)

Nominator's rationale: The point of the nomination is to impose some standard name format for the subcategories of Category:Bilateral relations of Georgia (country)
Option 1 Rename as proposed above and rename all subcategories to Category:Country1–Georgia relations (or Category:Georgia–Country2 relations depending on alphabetical order). Currently some of the subcategories have this form while some use the Category:Country1–Georgia (country) relations.
Option 2: Keep the current name for Category:Bilateral relations of Georgia (country) but rename the subcategories to Category:Country1–Georgia relations.
Option 3 Keep the current name for the container category and rename all subcategories to the Category:Country1–Georgia (country) relations format.
In any case, we should decide on a standard format for the subcategories. It's important to point out that the articles on the bilateral relations of Georgia do not use the "(country)" disambiguator (e.g. Albania–Georgia relations, Armenia–Georgia relations, and so on) so I'm in favor of dropping the disambiguator for the corresponding categories. My own preference is therefore option 2 but I think a case can be made for any of the three solutions. Pichpich (talk) 19:56, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Procedural note I have not nominated the subcategories since I'm not even sure which of them should be renamed. I have however left a note linking to this debate on the talk page of each editor that has created one of these subcategories. I trust that this is an acceptable alternative. Pichpich (talk) 19:56, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that argument and it makes sense to err on the superobvious side. On the other hand, we seem to have decided that the disambiguation was not necessary for the articles so it seems somewhat contradictory to impose it on categories. Pichpich (talk) 21:44, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option 3 maintains consistency with other Georgia categories. Also, states do have bilateral relations, AFAIR under the Articles of Confederation, that was possible, and through until the Civil War, that was also possible in practice. And even now, states enter into international agreements. -- 70.24.250.26 (talk) 07:24, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option 3 for consistency with other "Georgia (country)" categories. Implementing the consistency allows us to avoid these endless category debates as to when the disambiguation is needed and when it is not. We have had this debate several times before; why does it need to keep changing? Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:20, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option 3 for consistency with the rest of Category:Georgia (country). Trying to pick out individual subcategories which may not need the same disambiguation as the majority of the tree clearly does serves no purpose. --Qetuth (talk) 05:11, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option 2 -- Georgia (US State is not a sovereign nation and so never has international relations. The foreign relations of Georgia (State) are condiucted by the US Government through the State Department in Washington DC and US embassies abroad. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:46, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Prisoners at ADX Florence

Nominator's rationale: Per other categories in Category:Prisoners and detainees of the United States federal government and United States Penitentiary, Florence ADX.-- Mike Selinker (talk) 18:20, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Architects from Providence, Rhode Island

Nominator's rationale: Per WP:SMALLCAT. Category has only two entries ...William 15:05, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Displaced Persons camps

Nominator's rationale: Rename. The stated scope of the category is for displaced persons camps in the aftermath of WW2. It may be appropriate to set up a parent Category:Displaced persons camps to also hold Category:Refugee camps in Sri Lanka (recently renamed following CFD Oct 25), see page Sri Lankan IDP camps. As for the wording re WW2, there is no standard but other categories are Category:Aftermath of World War II and Category:Art and cultural repatriation after World War II.– Fayenatic London 14:00, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Category:German American businesspeople in brewing

Nominator's rationale: Per close of Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2012_October_23#American_brewers_of_German_descent.-- Mike Selinker (talk) 12:33, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Mints

Nominator's rationale: Rename. Ambiguous name, contains coin manufacturers not the confectionery or any of the other meanings of mint. Tim! (talk) 07:02, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Propose upmerging or renaming
but we don't use the format of Category:Mint (coin) with brackets - do we? Ephebi (talk) 23:36, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
well we do use brackets for Category:Victoria (Australia) and subcategories Hugo999 (talk) 04:27, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
since when has being the first item in a disambiguation page been the basis for a category name? There are lots of words in English which have multiple meanings but this is not reason to exclude them from common use Ephebi (talk) 23:44, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is however a good reason to not assume that the word alone will be given a different meaning than that. My point is that mints as a categoory name is ambiguous.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:23, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Category:New Zealand civil servants

  • Propose upmerging or renaming

Nominator's rationale: Duplicate category. The “NZ public servants” category (2006) is older than the “NZ civil servants” category (2012), and they have traditionally been called the Public Service in New Zealand, under the Public Service Commission, see New Zealand public service (except for the trading departments NZPO & NZR). As the parent is Category:Civil servants by nationality the category Category:New Zealand public servants could be renamed (so it is also tagged), but as with Australia “public servants” is the local usage. But either title, rather than two categories! Hugo999 (talk) 04:45, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral. I created Category:New Zealand Māori civil servants as part of a mass-creation of stubs from DNZB. If the decision is up-merge, could I please be allowed to do it by hand to give me a chance to look at every bio and consider adding other cats. Stuartyeates (talk) 05:57, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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