Delete - No Merge - On the one hand, there is nothing intrinsically "redundant" about this category, any more than Category:Mathematics educators is redundant to Category:Mathematicians. The real problem is that, as far as I can see, of the 3 people who are listed, only one is/was perhaps properly considered to have been a "Geometry educator". That would be Olaus Henrici, who authored two books on the subject. Neither of the others appears to qualify. Unfortunately, the category's creator ceased editing 3 years ago, and thus won't be able to share his/her thoughts. However, I have invited User:Favonian to participate in their place. Cgingold (talk) 08:40, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The issue with this is that in the case of all ten of McCay's films, without exception, McCay was not just the director, but also the sole writer, sole producer, and sole or primary animator. Curly Turkey (gobble) 22:04, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Move: as with Films directed by Quentin Tarantino. In that case, most (if not all) have Tarantino in many roles other than director, including Producer, Writer, Actor, and sometimes Editor. Although not completely akin, I'd say "directed by" is both accurate, and in keeping with the convention. Altering that convention for the sake of semantics seems to me a little detrimental. drewmunntalk12:17, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Following convention as I understand it would mean that there should be Category:Films directed by Winsor McCay and Category:Screenplays by Winsor McCay and also Category:Films produced by Winsor McCay. These three categories, it seems, would apply to all nine of his films. If including all three categories is acceptable, then that seems to be how it should be done. If it is thought to be too much clutter, then a single "Films by..." category would be best. But if the latter option is selected, the category page probably should have a line of text at the top of the page to explain what the scope of the "by" is. 99.192.71.35 (talk) 13:01, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Egyptian civil war
The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an 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 above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. 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.
Nominator's rationale: These arbritary categories are not defining to the individual player. WP:DEFINING states "if the characteristic would not be appropriate to mention in the lead portion of an article, it is probably not defining". Looking at any biography within these categories fails to demonstrate why the individual is notable for playing during the given timespans. For example, it is complelty trivial that someone played in 1968 and into 1969 to be categorised into the last two categories. These easily fail WP:OC#OVERLAPPING, WP:OC#ARBITRARY and WP:OC#TRIVIAL. LugnutsDick Laurent is dead09:05, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep – I doubt whether these dates are arbitrary; instead I expect they correspond to eras in English cricket. It would certainly be helpful if some text or link could be added to each category to explain the provenance of the dates. The era in which a cricketer played is certainly defining. Oculi (talk) 10:48, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep – The dates do indeed represent specific events or changes that happened within the structure of English cricket and that can and should be clarified. The later date categories tend to be under-populated because there are other defining categories, such as the teams that individual cricketers played for, that have been more widely used. For the four earlier timespans, where teams were often very much ad hoc, these categories are a primary and useful aid to sorting and to reading. Johnlp (talk) 11:35, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Oculi. These categories do indeed correspond to periods in English cricket, and the nominator's description of them as "arbitrary" indicates a failure to do some basic research. The fact that a player played in one period rather than the other is indeed WP:DEFINING. I don't know why the nom thinks that having played from 1701–86 rather than 1946–68 is a trivial characteristic, and I look fwd to seeing the explanation for that surprising view. The parent categories (Cat:English cricket seasons from 1919 to 1945 etc) were kept at CFD 2012 April 18. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 12:06, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, I don't see anything remotely trivial in the difference between being a English cricketer in 1796 and being a English cricketer in 1945. You may regard a gap of two centuries and the passage of the industrial revolution as a trivial matter, and you are entitled to that interesting view of the irrelevance of history. However, I don't share that view. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 13:26, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - but is there some justification for putting extra text at the top of each category for the justification behind each split in years - if a layman were to come along and say "1826 to 1863? Slightly arbitrary dates, no?" - perhaps the extra information would be useful. Bobo.02:15, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I'm not very well-experienced in this section of the site - which are more common, category splits or category merges? Surely the perpetual argument of "Keep"/"Delete" is based on the entire reason why these "Keep"/"Delete" arguments exist in the first place. The people who are pro-category merges will always say "Well, it keeps the need for navigation down to a minimum", while the people who are anti-category merges will say "But then all the people in each category is in a list which is as small a list as those who are interested in said category/ies would ever have the energy/desire to search through". My point is, what we're arguing for/against at the moment is precisely the reason the category splits happened in the first place - ease of navigation for those who don't feel like searching through a list which even now reads at over 9,500 names. Bobo.02:57, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep. We have been through all of this at WT:CRIC: see Wikipedia talk:CRIC#Category_question. The proposal is based on an ambiguous ruling which can only be applied in conditions amounting to pedantry and, as I pointed out to the nominator at CRIC, with any of these rulings there is always another one with complete polarity. So what do we do? I would suggest that WP:COMMONSENSE is the guideline to be applied here because the categories exist to provide our readers (remember them?) with useful navigation and search facilities. Now there is a point to note and it is that the "later" categories are nowhere near complete, but the two earliest ones are entirely complete as all notable cricketers in those eras have articles and all those articles are included in the 1787 and 1825 categories. Which is where they should be because the value to a reader of, for example, the 1787 category is that if he wants to find articles about players in the pre-Lord's, pre-MCC era of the sport he has a comprehensive list to work from. What is the point of simply lumping all English cricketers into one huge, overwhelming category? How does that help a reader who is interested in a particular era (e.g., the roundarm era, the inter-war period, the Twenty20 period, etc.)? Not one bit. True, the categories need to be completed and the CRIC project is gradually working towards that in the same way that we eventually hope to have an article about every first-class player. Rome wasn't built in a day. I would confirm that the "eras" have been delimited by watersheds in the game's history: Oculi made a good suggestion that these should be briefly described on each category page and I've just updated them. But the key point as raised above by BHG (who can see very well) is that the impact of these watersheds on the cricketers themselves has been a "defining" experience. It is therefore most important that each article states the span of a player's career (admittedly, some do not do so and they need attention) and that the players are categorised by era. Taking two Hampshire players as examples, the fact that John Small was active in the Hambledon era is highly significant and defines him in a completely different way to the fact that Malcolm Marshall was an overseas member of the Hampshire team during the limited overs era. These two, by the way, are two of the greatest players of all time, but comparisons are useless because of the different (indeed, chalk and cheese) eras they played in. ----Jack | talk page09:11, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comments. I've just taken a good, long look at WP:DEFINING and it really is a piece of tedious, bureaucratic, pedantic claptrap. Editors interested in these categories should be aware of certain statements in this alleged "guideline" which the nominator has conveniently overlooked. First, it is not mandatory because, even when certain characteristics are non-defining, the guideline states only that they "should be avoided", not "must be avoided". So, for starters, failure to comply with this specific guideline is NOT a reason to delete the categories.
It then goes on to ambiguate itself completely by saying: "It is sometimes difficult to know whether or not a particular characteristic is "defining" for any given topic, and there is no one definition that can apply to all situations". Words like "probably" recur. Dearie me!
But then, and this is essentially the point which BHG so perceptively outlined above, it says: "a defining characteristic is one that reliable, secondary sources commonly and consistently define, in prose, the subject as having". Okay, cricket histories and biographies without exception dwell very heavily upon the era in which a specific player was active. Read any of the sources talking about John Small and his association with Georgian England, Hambledon, underarm bowling, invention of the straight bat, scorer of the first-ever first-class century, his part in the introduction of the maximum bat width, his part in the introduction of the middle stump, etc., etc. are unavoidable and, hence, the period in which he played (i.e., nearly the whole second half of the 18th century) is the single most defining factor of his career. Yes, he is the first player who has been considered to be a "master batsman" but every historian who has judged him as such has done so in the context of the period in which he played and that is because cricket in the Georgian underarm era was a completely different ball game to the one played by the 2013 master batsman Ian Bell. In a similar vein, the fact that Bell plays in the era of Twenty20 with Test cricket dismissals subject to optional technological reviews defines him in a way unthinkable for a former master batsman like Geoffrey Boycott, now a commentator, who played his career in an era that was alien to both Small and Bell alike. Therefore, the era in which a cricketer was active is most certainly a factor that defines his individual career. ----Jack | talk page10:40, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Herein lies the beauty of the WP:CRIN guidelines. Has this individual participated in a First-Class/List A match? Nope? Out. Yep? In. Let's apply the same situation to soccer. At what point do we define "fully professional" and "semi-professional"? After all these years I still have no clue as to which of the leagues in the 200 countries for which I have soccer statistics would qualify as "fully professional". With cricket, it's simple - and, in spite of anyone's claims to the contrary, doesn't fly in the face of WP:BIO, either! An equivalent argument I like to use is the one for Alec Douglas-Home - if his article were to come up at AFD, our argument against deletion could equally as validly be "played first-class cricket". Cricket coverage on Wikipedia is not the "walled garden" that some like to think it is - it just happens to be better covered in publicly available sources - if the same were true of soccer, I would be able to go online and find out if my Uncle Johnny really *did* play for Accrington Stanley in 1897... Bobo.13:23, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but clarify - Although I do not play cricket, I would agree that the era an athlete played in is important if the rules or other aspects of the game changed from time to time. That's a good reason to keep these categories. However, the category names don't indicate this importance to the ordinary Wikipedia reader. If these eras have names, would it be clearer if they were included? Using one mentioned above, should the category be "English cricketers of the Georgian underarm era, startdate - enddate"? Then the significance would be obvious, and if a cricketer was listed in more than one such category, that would be interesting information in itself. —Anne Delong (talk) 12:58, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Reply. That's interesting, Anne, as cricket literature does sometimes use names for periods such as the Hambledon era (broadly c.1764 to 1786); the roundarm era which began about 1826, more properly 1827, and effectively ended when overarm bowling was legalised in 1864; and the so-called "Golden Age" which is supposed to have been 1890 to 1914. The trouble is that these names are arbitrary and the exact periods uncertain. Many writers taking a realistic (or unromantic) view deny that there ever was such a thing as a golden age (how could there be when so many contemporary people lived in poverty and slums?). Did Hambledon really deserve an era all to itself when there equally good clubs in Kent and Surrey at the same time? The only one that does stand up is roundarm but, again, there were still a large number of underarm bowlers all through the roundarm years. As for the one you quoted, it wasn't just Georgian as the first professionals are believed to have been hired in the post-Commonwealth latter-day Stuart period. The only thing we can do is note the watersheds which delimit spans of years and I updated the descriptions of those on each category page earlier. ----Jack | talk page17:33, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The era in which someone played their cricket defines, to greater and lesser extents, the style in which they played, the kit they wore and the rules they played by. The Cat system we have in place is the result of mature consensus and deleting it does nothing but harm the project. --Dweller (talk) 22:30, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep These year ranges are rather specific to specific styles of play / rules variations in the sport and are an appropriate defining characteristic to be used to group individuals who played in the same era, as well as being the means by which external sources categorize participants. The year ranges are separated by an average of almost 40 years, with the minimum being 25 years, meaning that most players will have their careers in one or perhaps two categories, with very few people who cross three ranges. The category pages do a good job of explaining the distinctions between these periods. Alansohn (talk) 02:07, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well yeah but "Indian Territory" (or "Indian territory") is also a generic term meaning "Territory occupied and/or controlled by American Indians", and I suppose some number of our readers would take it as such, and in 1871 that would include places like Montana and so forth. The advantage of using Category:1871 establishments in Oklahoma is that the reader will understand "OK, it was established in 1871 in that area bounded on the east by Arkansas and Missouri, on the north by Kansas, on the northwest by Colorado, on the far west by New Mexico, and on the south and near-west by Texas" which is true. So you gain geographic accuracy in return for the loss of political accuracy. Not sure it's worth the trade-off (it might be) so I'm not gonna vote but just pointing that out. Herostratus (talk) 05:09, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment The fact that we have both makes this even more needed. I had forgotten we had both, since the one is the parent to all the using women sub-cats.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:55, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, Somaliland is not a de facto indepedent nation. The secessionist administration there doesn't control almost 40% of the territory it claims (see Khatumo State and Awdalland). Like Puntland, the region is legally and functionally a Federal Member State within the Federal Republic of Somalia. If the categories are to be salvaged, they would have to be categorized under their parent country (Somalia), like the Tibet categories are under their own parent country (China). Middayexpress (talk) 01:35, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Modern Tibet is completely under the control of China, so is not comparable. Mongolia is claimed by the Republic of China as a rebellious part of its territory. And if you're talking control, Somalia does not control most of the country, so how can it be a country under your standard? -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 05:04, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment nationality is a tricky matter, just because not many people recognize the country does not mean it does not exist. Somaliland contains the structures of independent government and operates independently, so is a defacto country. It is a self-declared independent one, which has not been successfully challenged by the national Somali government. Look at Taiwan, which Wikipedia treats as a country, but which has not declared independence and whose government claims to be part of China. Or Tibet in the late 19th - early 20th century which was claimed by the Qing Empire, but with which the British treated as a separate country. Or the parts of Georgia outside of national control and treated as independent by Russia. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 05:02, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Somaliland's only claim to nationhood is that it has de facto control of its claimed territory, which it in fact does not. Its claimed boundaries are vied with other autonomous regions within the Federal Republic of Somalia. On the other hand, Somaliland's parent country Somalia is internationally recognized as a nation regardless of whether or not it has a secessionist movement within its legal borders. At any rate, the constitution of Somalia permits Somaliland, Puntland, and Somalia's other constituent Federal Member States considerable autonomy, including the right to have their own foreign policies and security forces. This is the actual reason why Somalia's central government in Mogadishu doesn't seek to rein in their autonomy, except with respect to national assets (like the airspace, which the federal government has now reassumed control of from a UN caretaker body [1]). Middayexpress (talk) 14:41, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Unlike Kosovo and the State of Palestine, Somaliland doesn't have any recognition at all as a separate entity. It is internationally recognized as an autonomous region of Somalia. Palestinians and Tibetans are also ethnic groups unto themselves. By contrast, "Somalilanders" are just people from the autonomous Somaliland region in northwestern Somalia, just as "Puntlanders" are people from the autonomous Puntland region in northeastern Somalia. The actual predominant ethnic group in both regions and much of the rest of the country is the same (i.e. ethnic Somalis). A more appropriate analogy would be Transnistria, which also has no international recognition as a separate country. Its categories are thus all grouped under its parent country of Moldova. Middayexpress (talk) 14:41, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for anyone who self-categorizes as "Somalilander" the alternative category may be problematic. During the pre-WW II Olympics, Koreans were "officially identified" as Japanese - though it is clear that "self-identification" was Korean. Best practice is to use the term the persons themselves use. Collect (talk) 14:28, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Koreans and Japanese are separate ethnic groups. On the other hand, ethnic Somalis from the Somaliland region and ethnic Somalis from other parts of Somalia are not. Middayexpress (talk) 14:41, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Japan considered Koreans to be Japanese - and required they compete under their Japanese names. Example thus fails. BTW, ethnicity != nationality - Austrians are not Germans last I checked. Default is thus to use what the person self-identifies as. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:14, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It makes no difference what nationality the Japanese considered the Koreans. They are still separate ethnic groups. "Somalilanders" are for the most part ethnic Somalis (that's an ethnicity, not a nationality), like most "Puntlanders" and other residents of Somalia. Middayexpress (talk) 15:54, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but rationalise the naming. Somaliland and Puntland are autonomous (but internationally unrecognised) fragments from the disintegration of Somalia. As such, there can be no internationally recognised nationality. However, we have 1000s of categories for "people from foo". These are of the same kind. I do not consider Somililander a satisfactory adjective, and would prefer to rename Category:Sunni Muslims from Somaliland and Category:Athletes from Somaliland. This form avoids the difficult question of the legal status of the polity. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:23, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
