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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Ahecht (talk | contribs) at 13:37, 28 July 2020 (→‎Discussion of Organi[SZ]ations category redirects: support). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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WikiProject iconThis page is within the scope of WikiProject Categories, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of categories on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CategoriesWikipedia:WikiProject CategoriesTemplate:WikiProject CategoriesCategories articles


Proposal to restrict WP:C2D slightly

See discussion at: Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion#Proposal_to_restrict_WP:C2D_slightly. Marcocapelle (talk) 10:38, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, this was implemented, and the discussion was archived at Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion/Archive_18#Proposal_to_restrict_WP:C2D_slightly. – Fayenatic London 08:44, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to abolish WP:C2E

See discussion at: Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion#WP:C2E. Marcocapelle (talk) 13:49, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, no action was taken. The discussion was archived at Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion/Archive_18#WP:C2E. – Fayenatic London 08:47, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Category help needed for WP:Task Center

Hi category experts! I'll try to keep this concise, but for context: I recently introduced a feature at the WP:Task Center (which is being considered for inclusion on a streamlined standard welcome template) that allows editors to go to a random page needing help within a large maintenance category like Category:Articles to be expanded. I ran into a bit of a stumbling block since most of those categories are sorted by month but the random article tool can no longer handle subcategories. Luckily, most of them have an associated category like Category:All articles to be expanded that I can use instead, but for three of them, I had to use an awkward workaround to link to the most recent month's pages instead (ctrl+F for "February 2020" at the Task Center page to find these). I'm not enough of a category expert to create "all"-style tracking categories for these; could one of you help do that? Thanks! Sdkb (talk) 20:00, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Can any of you help with this? The Task Center is slated to become a major centralized destination for new editors, so it's important to get it up to speed, and we need help from category experts to do so. Sdkb (talk) 18:23, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Bumping thread. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 08:03, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

People from categories?

Do we have a clear definition of how we define where a person is from when adding a People from ... category? Can a person be from more than one place? -- GhostInTheMachine (talk) 18:43, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The definition is broadly inclusive, and yes. You should search the talk page archives, there have been many discussions on this over the years. postdlf (talk) 19:55, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Any summary or overall conclusions? — GhostInTheMachine (talk) 20:25, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
My understanding, which I think is generally accepted, is that "from" is ambiguous. It might mean a person was born there, grew up there, lived there or did whatever they were notable for there. So they can indeed be from more than one place. But it's not necessary, or in my view desirable, to include, for example, the place where they were born if they emigrated as a small child and never returned, nor all the places they ever lived. It's a matter of judgement. So where Barack Obama was born is clearly significant. And I think there are rules about international sportspeople. Rathfelder (talk) 17:09, 30 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Setting up category

Is there a way to set up a category that duplicates Category:All Wikipedia level-4 vital articles but goes to the page itself instead? This is for this conversation, which led to this one. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 04:04, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Sdkb: I guess it makes sense to ping the participants in the other discussions so that they can give input to this discussion as well. Marcocapelle (talk) 08:00, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    @Marcocapelle: it's basically a technical question — how do I set up a category based on another? — and I don't want to annoy others with excessive pings, but if you think it's needed for transparency or something then go ahead. Is anyone here able to help with the question itself? (my somewhat similar question above has also gone unanswered for over two months now) {{u|Sdkb}} talk 08:07, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Batman characters Clean up

I've being looking at the Batman Characters category and it's very poorly done. Many characters that do not meet the notability guideline is kept there and there is also cases likr Ned Creegan which links to another page. I recommend we prune it by removing all pages that fail to meet the notability guideline. --169.0.216.37 (talk) 13:35, 30 April 2020 (UTC)John Smith[reply]

Actors from Saskatoon

Category:Actors from Saskatoon is a container category. The sub-categories include Category:Actresses from Saskatoon and Category:Male actors from Saskatoon. Having an "actress" category makes having "male actor" category redundant.. It is commonplace to use "actor" for males and "actress" for females. If you are going to say "male actors," why not have a "female actors" category? Thoughts? Mr. C.C.Hey yo!I didn't do it! 19:58, 30 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Follow-up on Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2020_April_18#Category:Norfolk_County_treasurers

@Bearcat, Grutness, Peterkingiron, Fayenatic london, and Namiba: pinging contributors to previous discussion. Marcocapelle (talk) 08:08, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In this discussion I suggested to nominate the entire tree of Category:County treasurers in the United States for deletion, as a WP:NPOL-passing and generally not defining political office. Before immediately carrying on at CfD, do you have any further input to this suggestion? Marcocapelle (talk) 08:08, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be inclined to leave it now, unless you are tackling more of Category:County officers in the United States as non-notable. – Fayenatic London 08:41, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing from me - IIRC my only comments in the discussion were about Norfolk being ambiguous, with the county in England being the best known. Grutness...wha? 10:07, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I would not support such a nomination. I think we underestimate the impact of county government in many circumstances and generally overestimate the impact of legislators. Moreover, while being a county officeholder does not guarantee inherent notability, there are many circumstances in which those office holders are notable through WP:GNG.--User:Namiba 15:13, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It is perhaps worth noting that this appears to be the only "County treasurer by county" category in the entire US, and, indeed, that there are only two "County treasurer by state" categories - neither of which have as many as 20 articles. I think that until there are at least a few more "by state" categories, "by county" is a bit premature. Grutness...wha? 03:42, 4 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Disclosure: I built the County treasurers hierarchy during the CfD discussion, because the Category:County treasurers in Massachusetts parent was not even in Category:American treasurers, and when I put it there, I found that most of the pages directly in that one were County treasurers from Wisconsin. That's how we ended up with two categories by state. I did not look into how notable the Wisconsin people are; the pages may have been mostly created by user:Packerfansam. – Fayenatic London 22:19, 4 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Cfdnotice listed at Requested moves

A requested move discussion has been initiated for Template:Cfdnotice to be moved. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 17:15, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To opt out of RM notifications on this page, transclude {{bots|deny=RMCD bot}}, or set up Article alerts for this WikiProject.

See an RfC on exceptions to WP:OCAWARD

The RFC is at WT:Overcategorization#RfC_on_exceptions_to_WP:OCAWARD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:58, 3 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: a bot to place eponymous categories as the first category on articles

Per MOS:CATORDER, when an article is categorised

Eponymous categories should appear first

This is a very helpful form of sorting, because it makes it easy to find the eponymous category at the bottom of the page, which allows further exploration of the topic of the article.

However, it is a long way from being universally applied. When I encounter it, I often fix it, as in this edit[1] today to TAP Air Portugal.

But that's a bit tedious and slow, and the task could be easily done by a bot, which I will set up if there is consensus to do so. I envisage an initial pass through all the subcats of Category:Eponymous categories, and a re-run every month or so to catch new eponymous categories and any existing ones where the order has been broken.

The methodology is simple:

  1. Get a list of all the categories which are subcats of Category:Eponymous categories
  2. Convert those titles to a list of articles
  3. Trawl through those articles, and in each case if the articles is categorised in a category whose title exactly matches the article name, then

Any thoughts? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:23, 5 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

PS The bot would of course be subject to approval at WP:BRFA. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:44, 5 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Bot progress

WP:BHGbot 6 has now completed its first run. 2176 edits so far: see these edits and newer.

That set was built on subcats Category:Wikipedia categories named after people to a depth of 3. I will do another run to a greater depth, and move on to other subcats of Category:Eponymous categories.

So far the only problems have been:

  1. an edit which blanked[3] the page. User:LuK3 was kind enough to alert me, but I couldn't replicate the bug, and have no idea what caused it. I have added some safety checks to the AWB module[4], and will keep an eye open for any further glitches.
  2. a bug in WP:GENFIXES which I have encountered before, which sometimes moves {{short description}} out of its MOS:ORDER-defined position at the top of the page. This is a trivial issue which doesn't change the way the page is displayed, so I haven't disabled GENFIXES. But I have filed a bug report: see phab:T254071, which turns out to be a duplicate of phab:T247694 (filed in mid-March).

The bot is coded to skip any article which is not categorised in a category whose title exactly matches the article name. Because of this, I can feed it any list of articles, and it will just do more skipping. Since eponymous categories are not consistently categorised as such, I have widened the scope by recursing the search to depths which give me list of tens of thousands of pages. I will feed that into the bot to see what it picks up, but the result is that the bot's work may continue for a week or more. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:45, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Future plans: Now that I have the methodology sorted, I plan to do a re-run every few months. The first re-run will be in a few weeks when the current rounds of various spin-off tasks of category and article disambiguation are complete. I will then download new versions of all the lists of pages from these various worklists are built, and build new reports on each of them.
    When I started this task, I thought that fixing the category order and sort keys would be the scope. But the analysis has since led on to other task, such as missing eponymous categories and eponymous categories for disambiguation pages, which I think are much more important for the health of the category system .. but which have also involved a lot more manual work than I envisaged. I think that as the obvious errors in those other worklists are fixed, we will find some issues of article and category naming which need decisions. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:59, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Eponymous categories which don't include their eponymous article

@Oculi raised above the issue of eponymous categories which don't include their eponymous article. I set about investigating this by creating a modified version of the bot code, which examines the same lists as the bot does, but looks for articles without the eponcat.

So far, I have found over 300 such cases, and the results tell me that this issue can't be handled by a bot. The list includes several types of case, including:

  1. Articles which have not been categorised in an identically-named category which clearly is the eponymous category for that article. I have fixed some of these cases (see e.g. these 32 edits), but it's slow work, because it needs careful checking.
  2. Categories which have an eponymous page in article space, but where that page is actually a disambiguation page. I have been nominating some such categories for speedy renaming (see the 13 nominations by me which are currently listed at WP:CFDS), but again this is slow, manual work ... so I have only scratched the surface.
  3. Categories where the head article is correctly categorised using a template, but show up on the list 'cos the bot can't expand the template.

As I trawl though more lists of articles, I expect to find hundreds more such cases. It would be great if one or more other editors were willing to help work through this mess. If anyone is prepared to put some time into it, I will upload the lists I am generating ... and I can separate out the cases where the eponymous category is a dab page. If you want to do some of this, please ping me. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:09, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@BrownHairedGirl: I'm willing. Some cases can be best dealt with by moving articles (e.g. Indiana Jones) or adding them back into the category if they have been moved out unnecessarily (e.g. Mario); I don't mind looking at the merits case by case. – Fayenatic London 11:12, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Fayenatic, I can now provide better data.
Having got hold of a list of all categories and a list of all articles, and excluded redirects and dabs from both lists, I was left with a list of 178,717 titles which exist in both category space and article space.
I have processed that list in two ways:
  1. Articles which include the eponcat, but with an incorrect sort key, or not as the first category. That is the final run of WP:BHGbot 6, which is underway: see 35,312 pages at User:BHGbot/6/List 5.
  2. as a separate job, to find articles which don't include an existing eponymous category, i.e. Item #1 from above. That list is just complete, at 7,716 pages. This will includes articles with header templates, so I will have some processing to do. I think I will work though this various ways, but that it can mostly be done by AWB with some care.
That leaves item #2 from above: Categories which have an eponymous page in article space, but where that page is actually a disambiguation page. I think that I can generate a complete list of such categories by comparing some of the comprehensive lists I have. My brain is slightly mushy today, so I may leave it until tomorrow to create that list, but I think I can make a definitive, complete list. I will ping you when I have done it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:12, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Fayenatic: List made. See new section below: #Non-disambiguation categories with eponymous disambiguation page in article space. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:19, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Unproved descent and categories

Hello,

A discussion is open whether a footballer who claims having had a great-grandmother from Guinea (or is it Guinea, the wider region?) but having been unable to prove it deserves having his article placed in Category:Martiniquais people of Guinean descent, seen guidelines WP:BLPCAT and WP:EGRS. On a side note, this debatable inclusion alone justifies the existence of this thin intersection category, which would otherwise be empty. Additional input would be welcome! Place Clichy (talk) 09:33, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Follow-up to CfD notice templates merge and more generic wording

Hello,

Following the discussion , the several templates CfD notification templates were merged. In this process, the template wording was made "more generically worded so it's not exclusive for the creator of the category" by Steel1943.

In this spirit, the text and presentation of the former Cfdnotice2 template are even more generic and concise. Would it be appropriate to use this text in the new unified notification template?

Also, Template:Cfdnotice was not merged. Its documentation indicates that it is intended to be placed on the main article's talk page to notify users of the category's nomination, however I wonder if it is used much. Should it be redirected to the new template, or kept as is?

Lastly, the documentation at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion § Notifying interested projects and editors should probably be updated, as it currently instructs users to use 3 different templates for the following cases: WikiProjects, substantial contributors to the category and other interested editors (incl. main article talk page). If I remember correctly, there is also copy-paste code in several template documentations which may need to be amended.

What do you think? Place Clichy (talk) 09:41, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Conversation including Category:Articles with inconsistent citation formats

Please be aware of this conversation: Help talk:Citation Style 1#Inconsistent citation, Articles with inconsistent citation formats, and a historical function of Citation Bot —¿philoserf? (talk) 00:13, 16 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Very large sportspeople categories

Certain sportspeople by city categories have grown very large over the years. Category:Sportspeople from Chicago, for example, contains almost 2,000 articles. Normally these would be broken up by sport but I seem to recall that being discouraged previously. To make them useful, it might be time to split the very large ones (say over 400 articles?) by sport. In the US, this would include only the following cities: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, New York City, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Seattle. Thoughts?--User:Namiba 14:21, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There have multiple CFDs where the consensus is not to break them down by sport. Here[6], here[7], here[8], and here[9] are just a few....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 15:45, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
None of those have occurred since 2014 and obviously the categories are much larger now.--User:Namiba 15:51, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Its been discussed and the consensus is pretty damn clear. Chicago had hundreds of baseball players then. The CFD was 6 to 1 merge. A recreation of the page was deleted. There have been other discussion, rowers, ice hockey, tennis players and I know a few of those, Ice hockey and rowers, were more recent....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 15:59, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Despite size, I don't see how a breakdown by sport is WP:DEFINING. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:24, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
WP:DIFFUSE comes to mind, not WP:DEFINING.--User:Namiba 16:30, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Diffusion by non-defining intersections doesn't help navigation. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:08, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That a sportsperson played basketball is more defining (also more verifiable and thus more objective) than that they are "from Chicago". The latter is subjective and open to a variety of interpretations - were they born there, raised there, did they live there while playing sports, did they play for a team based in that city (many sportspeople play for more than one team at one time or another), do they live there now? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:16, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • For what use are they too large? They are sorted alphabetically. I’ve always thought dividing them by specific sport could wrongly imply they played that sport in that place, when there may not have been that connection for many of them. postdlf (talk) 16:47, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are actually large numbers of categories for particular sportspeople, mostly footballers, by city. Why should some be allowed but not others?Rathfelder (talk) 17:31, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mass creation of blank categories

Hello,

I noticed that User:TheImaCow is creating a large number of blank categories, i.e. categories without any parent or description, in fact exactly 0 bytes. Out of 453 categories created between 29 April and today 2 June, 288 were created with 0 bytes, and 164 have not been edited since then.

Please kindly note that as mentioned in Wikipedia:Categorization § Category tree organization, every category apart from the top one (Category:Contents) must be a subcategory of at least one other category. Indeed blank categories are not very useful, and are even disruptive.

@TheImaCow: is it too much to ask you to come back to you orphan creations and place at least one parent category in them, usually two or three? When they are part of an existing structure (such as Category:Healthcare in Kiribati in Category:Health care by country), it is generally easy to find similar sibling categories and copy them, adapting only a few words. If you have issues, you may ask for help here. Place Clichy (talk) 17:27, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

On that matter, I already sent them a note, which was ignored; it was bot-archived four days later. Not only did they create parentless categories, they also removed all parents from some cats, leaving those parentless also. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:02, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, thank you for the note! I will try to sort all the categories I created correctly. Redrose64, I read that, but somehow I didn't really get it. Sorry, my mistake. But that I have removed all top categories from categories, I don't know an example, can I get one? --TheImaCow (talk) 05:42, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Here. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:28, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Slave owners

Due to current events in the US, the categories Category:Slave owners and Category:Slave traders are getting increased attention. More eyes on these would be good. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:44, 10 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Non-disambiguation categories with eponymous disambiguation page in article space

Following a discussion above with @Fayenatic london, I have played with various tools and created a list of non-disambiguation categories with have an eponymous disambiguation page in article space: User:BrownHairedGirl/Non-disambiguation categories with eponymous disambiguation page in article space

The list is up-to-date as of this morning, and contains 2,094 pages.

Many of these are obvious errors of a category name which needs to be disambiguated: e.g. Category:Wugang // dab page Wugang. In that example, the category should be renamed to Category:Wugang, Hunan.

I think that most such examples could be speedily renamed per WP:C2D, if the article title meets the stability criteria.

Some other cases are less straightforward, e.g.

  1. Category:Yeşiltepe // Dab page: Yeşiltepe is a category by shared name, which should be deleted
  2. Category:Yorkshire Cup // Dab page: Yorkshire Cup is a {{category redirect}} from an ambiguous title. I think that the category redirect should be deleted.
  3. Category:1300s // Dab page: 1300s. I really hope we don't disambiguate Category:1300s to Category:1300s (decade) per the article 1300s (decade), because it will seriously mess up category header templates.

If editors want to work on cleaning up this list, I will make a fresh list periodically. After a lot of faffing, I found a relatively simple methodology which should be repeatable with about 30 minutes.. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:18, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I speedily closed Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2020_June_21#Category:Yeşiltepe as delete, thanks to Rathfelder acknowledging that he created the page in error, but in practice it required upmerging as the contents had been removed from its parent.
If it was me minding CFDS when Category:Yorkshire Cupwas rightly moved to Category:RFL Yorkshire Cup, I probably intentionally left the category redirect, as only one of the Yorkshire Cups currently has a category or multiple articles, and those do not have disambiguated page names, but are simply e.g. 2019 Yorkshire Cup. It is therefore quite likely that future articles might be put in Category:Yorkshire Cup, and this would helpfully be automatically corrected. I acknowledge that other editors may disagree about leaving the redirect, in case it was added to one of the other (shared name) Yorkshire Cup articles.
So IMHO all these cases call for careful examination. – Fayenatic London 16:15, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would also edit the list to remove redirected categories (Category:Faculty and Category:Reunion are two that jumped out immediately, but there are many more). UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:47, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per UnitedStatesian's suggestion, I have added two sub-pages: one without the 327 redirected categories, and one with only the 327 redirected categories:
    Selection: All pages • No redirected categories • Only redirected categories
    Hope this helps. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:35, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have made a trial nomination for Category:A Clockwork Orange. – Fayenatic London 14:30, 23 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • @BrownHairedGirl: I found Category:Motifs and nominated it for renaming to Category:Motifs (music). Set categories with plural names seem to have been overlooked, except where the main article has a plural name e.g. Neglected tropical diseases. Do you want to do a bot run to find such singular/plural cases? – Fayenatic London 08:55, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Fayenatic, good work with the motifs. A lot of such cases are being thrown up my my current AWB exercise of adding missing eponcats, though I see that one is not on the list. Good catch.
      This isn't a bot job; it is a list comparison job followed by a lot of scrutinised edits. I can see how a list like you suggest would be very useful, but creating it would be a much more complicated task. The list above is created by a direct comparison of existing page titles, where the complexity is formatting the lists (some with several million entries) into an identical format from the multiple formats they come it. That format-standardisation was a less trivial task than I thought it would be, but once I had all the lists identically formatted and perfectly sorted and had removed all dab and redir pages (whose own lists had been similarly processed), I had the relatively easy task of comparing a few lists applying a bit of boolean logic through multiple passes of comm.
      However, the task which you suggest starts with the standardised lists created for that analysis, then adds a further layer of deriving the plural form from the singular, before doing the comparisons. That's bad enough in English due to the irregularity of plurals (carrot/carrots, but child/children, potato/potatoes, aircraft/aircraft, goose/geese, crisis/crises, sheep/sheep, police/police) ... but when we add in parenthetical disambiguators it gets fiendish complex. Descriptive titles are tough too, because the plural is usually added to only one word, often not the last one: e.g. the plural of "Child of FooWoman"/"Children of FooWoman" (not "Child of FooWomans" or "Childs of FooWoman). Sometimes it is the last word which is pluralised: e.g. "Green-skinned engineer"/"Green-skinned engineers". So my head spins a bit.
      I will have a think about it and see if there is some way I can generate some sort of a list which tackles a subset of cases without being overwhelmed by grammatical nonsense or false positives. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:22, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Progress on non-disambiguation categories with eponymous disambiguation page

I have spent most of this week going through the list of unredirected categories with an eponymous dab page in article space, and have made about 500 speedy renaming nominations (nearly all WP:C2D), and opened a few dozen full CFDs. 1857a has also made 100 or more CFD nominations from the list.

My plan at this stage is to let those nominations get processed (whatever the outcome), and then do another round of list-making to see what's left. That will probably be some time around 5 July.

Having gone through the list twice, it seems to me that there are a significant number of dab pages which aren't really dismabiguating. A few examples:

I don't have answers on this. I just think these points deserve examination. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:13, 26 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Works adapted for other media

I've had part in making several child categories in this tree, but I'm starting to seriously question if we should even categories these things at all. Being adapted into another media is not remotely defining of the original work. These categories also get heavily overused in franchise articles I've noticed.★Trekker (talk) 19:26, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That may be true for some, but when I look at Category:Novels adapted into operas or Category:Works adapted into films, there are many works for which the adaptation is notable and significant. Once a tree like "Category:Works adapted for other media" has been established, it better be complete. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:28, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Tons of adaptations are notable and significant, that doesn't make it defining for the original work. I honestly think the whole thing should be gotten ridd off.★Trekker (talk) 13:10, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's hard to see who would find such categories useful. The articles will no doubt mention the adaption, at both ends. Rathfelder (talk) 10:35, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • It may not be defining when works are adapted from one audiovisual medium to another audiovisual medium ... but it is very much defining when a written work is adapted to an audiovisual medium. When a stage-play or a novel is adapted into a successful film, attention paid to the original work multiplies. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:39, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • How exactly is that defining? And even if was defining for a couple of examples how would that justify having this extensive tree for every single thing? To me it seems pretty POV to claim that its defining for some but not for other cases. How would be conclude that with any consistency?★Trekker (talk) 16:39, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Family categories

My work on eponymous categories has thrown up several family categories, such as:

From my encounters, it seems to me that most family categories share one or more of the following flaws:

  • An ambiguous title. The format "<FooSurname> family" is highly ambiguous in most cases, because everyone named "FooSurname" is part of a "FooSurname family". See e.g. Reed (surname)#Notable_persons_with_the_surname_Reed: there are dozens of them, and in nearly case they shared that surname with spouses, children, parents, grandchildren, grandparents, cousins etc ... some of whom may also be notable. The bare title "Reed family" gives readers and editors no way of knowing which set of family relationships is being captured in a Category:Reed family.
  • Lack of citations. To be included in a family category, then per WP:CATVER there should be a citation in the article for the family relationship. That is not always the case.
  • Lack of a WP:DEFINING test. Even if we have a citation that Séamus MacFoo is the grandson of Pádraig MacFoo and another that he is the nephew of Colm MacFoo, is that actually a WP:DEFINING characteristic?
  • Lack of a head article, which seems to breach WP:NOTGENEALOGY. Unless the family is itself a notable topic, the family relationship looks like trivia.
    WP:EGRS#Special_subcategories sets a requirement for dedicated group-subject subcategories, such as Category:LGBT writers, that the category should be created only where that combination is itself recognized as a distinct and unique cultural topic in its own right. If a substantial and encyclopedic head article (not just a list) cannot be written for such a category, then the category should not be created.

So I throw out for discussion the following tentative suggestions for some guidance on family categories:

  1. Precise naming. Family categories should be named in accordance with WP:PRECISE, i.e. a title

    unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but should be no more precise than that.

    For example:
  2. Explicit citations that the person is a member of notable family. To be included in a family category, a biographical article should have a citation to a reliable source explicitly describing the family relationship. It should not be enough to have one source noting that Séamus MacFoo is the grandson of Pádraig MacFoo and another source noting that he is the nephew of Colm MacFoo; that is WP:SYNTHESIS, a breach of WP:No original research.
    To avoid synthesis, we need reliable sources which explicitly describe a notable family relationship with other notable people:
    • Green tickY "The MacFoo family from Ballyporeen have been prominent in Irish business and politics for over a century.[ref1] Séamus MacFoo is the founder of MacFoo Construction Ltd.[ref1] He is the grandson of Home Rule MP Pádraig MacFoo, and nephew of wholesaler Anne MacFoo. His cousin Colm MacFoo (son of Pádraig) is a leading novelist.[ref1]"
    • Red XN "Séamus MacFoo is the grandson of Pádraig MacFoo.[ref1] He is the nephew of Colm MacFoo.[ref2]"
  3. Requirement for definingness. Even if reliable sources note that a person is a member of a notable family, then per WP:COPDEF, they should be included in the family category only if membership of the family meets the tests set out in WP:DEFINING.
  4. Requirement for notability of the family (or, alternatively, a stronger condition: that a head article already exists).
    To avoid breaches of WP:NOTGENEALOGY, we should not categorise people by family unless the family is itself WP:Notable in its own right, and not just as a list of X begat Y who begat Z. If a substantial and encyclopedic head article (not just a list) cannot be written for such the family, then a category for the family should not be created.

These are just some initial ideas of how we might try to systematically cleanup the current mess. I haven't mulled over these ideas for long enough to form a settled view on their merits, and I am sure that other editors will add insights, and maybe find fatal flaws in my idea. But I hope this is a useful start. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:18, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

  • Every of these four suggestions is very reasonable and in line with existing policy. Marcocapelle (talk) 17:42, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Generally agree, but I think point 2 needs clarifying. IMO most/all family categories should be deleted; if, for example, one article is about an artist and another about a politician and they are closely related (e.g. siblings) then that should be covered in article text (where it can be referenced) and doesn't need to also be a category - categories are mainly for connecting similar articles (e.g. artists, politicians) where there might not otherwise be a direct link between the articles. DexDor (talk) 17:58, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • This seems like a little bit of a waste of time to me. The only clear point is the first one, which is already covered by policy. One seems to fail basic logic, one requires us to use the very means you argue against in another section, and another requires an arbitrary subjective decision. The four points in brief:
  1. Precise naming - goes without saying and is standard practice for categories overall, so no special condition is needed for it, other than maybe to make some uniformity in the category naming.
  2. "Explicit citations that the person is a member of notable family. To be included in a family category, a biographical article should have a citation to a reliable source explicitly describing the family relationship. It should not be enough to have one source noting that Séamus MacFoo is the grandson of Pádraig MacFoo and another source noting that he is the nephew of Colm MacFoo; that is WP:SYNTHESIS, a breach of WP:No original research." You're directly contradicting yourself here. You say we need a citation to a reliable source about a relationship, but if a citation in a reliable source says people are related it won't do. As for the suggestion that it's synthesis (rather than simple logic that if A and B are related as closely as your examples they are by definition in the same family), that's ridiculous. And if you want to go around removing references to family links that are cited in articles, you might as well scrub all biographical information in Wikipedia, because that's how biographical articles are written. If sources tell you that A is closely related to B and C, then they are by definition members of the same family.
  3. Requirement for definingness. If a person who is notable in their own right is closely related to other people who are closely related in their own right, that is almost always defining. If anything, this rule is most likely to exclude members of noble families, who are often only notable because they are members of noble families, rather than having any independent notability of their own.
  4. Requirement for notability of the family (or, alternatively, a stronger condition: that a head article already exists). Very strongly against this one, for the reasons I gave when this came up at CfD. A family with many notable members might not have an overall article, ironically for the very crime you pointed out above, WP:SYNTHESIS - the individual members are notable in their own right and need categorising together, but the family as a whole does not need an article, and would require editors to assemlbe pieces for the articles of individual family members. We have no articles, for example, on the Category:Fonda family, the Category:Wahlberg family, the Category:Cumberbatch family, the Category:Phoenix family, the Category:DeMille family, the Category:Marley family, the Category:Attenborough family, the Category:Matisse family, the Category:Hugo family, the Category:Baden-Powell family, the Category:MacArthur family, the Category:Gretzky family, the Category:Hadlee family, the Category:Escobar family, or the Category:Bachop-Mauger family, all of which are clearly notable.
It seems to me that the majority of problems relating to family categories are related to the first of your points, which should already be covered elsewhere and are fixable through CfD, so don't need dealing with here. The other points ether don't stand up to scrutiny or are self-contradictory, so really shouldn't be dealt with here. Grutness...wha? 18:10, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Though I sympathise with the ambition I cant see how it can be achieved. Are we proposing to delete thousands of these categories? The best defined families are probably the noble ones where often the only notability for many members is their family membership. We say that notability is not inherited, but actually it often seems to be if you are associated with someone sufficiently famous. Rathfelder (talk) 19:51, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Reply: I have generally only created family categories in cases where the families are notable, well-defined (with plenty of references) and have articles and associated categories on Danish wikipedia. I generally create them in connection with my work on covering manor houses and other estates. These are often passed down through families for generations and historically they have often been owned jointly by several family members (in a way that is not always documented). Membersof these families have often also constructed a great number of notable buildings and other structures. I see the categories as a useful way of creating an overview of property (country estates, churches, city homes and other structures) that are somehow connected in a way that it is not always relevant to highlight in individual articles. I also think it is worth noting that these family related categories are sometimes mire better (imo) and more general alternatives to creating several individual person-based categories.Ramblersen2 (talk) 10:07, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've usually found it a useful rule of thumb as well, but in the opposite way. If there's a family article, there's less need for a category because everyone's already linked in through the article. If there is no article, then a category becomes more useful to the average reader, especially in those cases where being a member of the family is defining (which it almost always is. After all, a person's upbringing is of vital important to the life they end up leading, whether via nature or via nurtute, each of which ultimately reflect on their family. I will also note that the page you referred me to isnt even at the level of being a guideline, and definitely isn't policy). I'm not too sure what you mean by the categories being poorly sourced, given that when a person is related to someone else famous it's almost always a central part of any information available on them and usually easily sourced (unlike the Guatemalan categories, which seem unconnected to any argument about specific family categories). Grutness...wha? 09:00, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Category disambiguation

{{Category disambiguation}} no longer requires all its parameters to be on one line.

For years, this template has been a minor frustration to me, because it didn't handle whitespace elegantly, and required all its parameters to be one line. This made the code hard to read, especially on dab cats with many items.

It turned out to be easy to fix.[10] (I tested it on a pointless huge catdab page: Category:YYYY in Ireland).

So a catdab page which used to be written as

{{Category disambiguation|the [[Foo (hamster)]] endemic to Atlantis|Foo (hamster)|the 1607 [[Foo (novel)]] by John Doe|Foo (novel)|the 1715 [[Foo (film)]] based on the novel by John Doe|Foo (film)|the 1839 [[Foo (TV series)]] based on the novel by John Doe|Foo (TV series)|the Swiss [[Foo (ship)]] launched in 1127|Foo (ship)|the village of [[Foo, County Mayo]]|Foo, County Mayo|the anti-twerping [[Foo (law)]] in Ruritania|Foo (law)|the [[Foo (planet)]] discovered in 2023|Foo (planet)|the [[Foo (hat)]] worn by crew of the Apollo XXXII lunar mission|Foo (hat)|the prototype [[Foo (car)]] built on Rockall for Finn McCool|Foo (car)}}

... can now be written in a more readable form, such as 

{{Category disambiguation
  | the [[Foo (hamster)]] endemic to Atlantis | Foo (hamster)
  | the 1607 [[Foo (novel)]] by John Doe | Foo (novel)
  | the 1715 [[Foo (film)]] based on the novel by John Doe| Foo (film)
  | the 1839 [[Foo (TV series)]] based on the novel by John Doe| Foo (TV series)
  | the Swiss [[Foo (ship)]] launched in 1127 | Foo (ship)
  | the village of [[Foo, County Mayo]] | Foo, County Mayo
  | the anti-twerping [[Foo (law)]] in Ruritania | Foo (law)
  | the [[Foo (planet)]] discovered in 2023 | Foo (planet)
  | the [[Foo (hat)]] worn by crew of the Apollo XXXII lunar mission | Foo (hat)
  | the prototype [[Foo (car)]] built on Rockall for Finn McCool | Foo (car)
}}

Hope this helps. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:22, 10 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"emigrants" cats and refugees

This is a question coming from Nyadol Nyuon, who was born to Sudanese parents living in a refugee camp in Ethiopia. As part of new pages patrol, I added Category:South Sudanese emigrants to Australia which was questioned by the article creator User:Laterthanyouthink on the talk page. I'm now unsure what the cats should be here, Category:Emigrants_by_nationality refers to 'nationality' but nationality is unclear here. Nationality turns out the be a non-trivial concept. Is there any guidance? Could a note be added to Category:Emigrants_by_nationality and maybe some of the cats for nationals with large numbers of displaced people? Stuartyeates (talk) 20:31, 10 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nationality is a complicated question and it's used all over Wikipedia in a very loose and sometimes misleading way, usually to mean country of origin. Very few biographical articles say anything explicit about nationality. But I dont think its a problem that can be fixed. Its one of the ambiguities we have to live with. Rathfelder (talk) 07:43, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe we need systematic cross-referencing with Category:Sudanese refugees and Category:Refugees_in_Australia?

Uncategorised cats updated, introducing title country template

Wikipedia:Database reports/Uncategorized categories is struggling to update at the moment - it hasn't run successfully for 4 months, if my Quarry clone is anything to go by, it's probably bumping into timeout limits as the servers are getting busier. However I have managed to get my Quarry version to run and I've updated the DBR page accordingly if anyone wants something to work on?!
Whilst I'm here, I've added {{title country}} to BHG's useful series of title templates (which now includes {{title monthname}}. The lookup table is based on a football template so it's not comprehensive, but it's usable enough for now. Amd you can use it with {{country2nationality}} to generate a demonym off a country in the title, which is quite useful. Le Deluge (talk) 08:18, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Organi[SZ]ations category redirects

I think it's time to revive an idea that I floated before: creating {{Category redirect}}s to resolve the WP:ENGVAR variations in category names using the word "organisation(s)" or "organization(s)".

This is an application to category-space of the principle set out at MOS:COMMONALITY:

If one variant spelling appears in a title, make a redirect page to accommodate the others, as with artefact and artifact, so that all variants can be used in searches and linking.

The problem

Over 15,000 categories contains the word "[Oo]rgani[SZ]ation(s)". Some are proper names, such as Category:International Labour Organization (more such categories can be found under Category:Wikipedia categories named after organizations.)

However the overwhelmingly majority of these categories are descriptive titles created by Wikipedia editors per WP:NDESC. See e.g. Category:Scientific organizations and its many subcats, or Category:Organizations by date of establishment plus its subcats.

The choice between the Z-spelling and the S-spelling is largely random. In categories which relate to a specific country, then where that country has particular ties to one spelling, the category can be renamed to that country's preferred usage. But this leaves two large sets of categories where the choice is essentially random, defaulting to the choice by the editor who created it:

  1. Categories not tied to a specific country, such as Category:Scientific organizations or Category:Organizations by country or Category:Organizations by year of disestablishment
  2. Categories tied to a non-English-speaking country, such as Brazil, where there is no clear ENGVAR preference.

That leaves the overwhelming majority of such categories with a basically random choice between S- and Z- spellings.

The unpredictability of spelling is a nuisance for both readers and editors, who have no means of determining which spelling to use.

Previous attempts at a solution

Back in 2017, I proposed using BHGbot to create category redirects from one spelling to the other. However, the discussion at WP:Bots/Requests for approval/BHGbot 3 seemed to run into the sands, so I abandoned the idea.

Then in April 2019, I tried another approach: an RFC to set aside ENGVAR for all Wikipedia categories which use the word "organisation"/"organization" as part of a descriptive name per WP:NDESC, and standardize them to use the "Z" spelling, i.e. "organization" rather than "organisation". See WP:Village pump (policy)/Archive 153#RFC:_spelling_of_"organisation"/"organization"_in_descriptive_category_names.

That discussion turned into a huge procedural trainwreck, with votestacking, multiple closes, and at least one close reviewed at WP:AN. It was finally closed as "no consensus" after more than five months ... and although the closer specifically said "no consensus, with no prejudice against speedy renomination", I have no appetite for going there again. There are I many things I could say about conduct in that RFC, but they wouldn't help. The fact is that the community doesn't seem able to discuss that idea in a way which might lead to a consensus. I still think that for metadata such as categories, standardisation of this minor variation of spelling would be good thing, but I accept that it's not gonna happen.

So that brings me back to the idea of category redirects. Having reviewed the 2017 BRFA discussion, it seems to be that I had screwed up by not having a prior discussion before opening a BRFA ... but that at BRFA, all concerns had been satisfied, with one exception: false positives.

False positives

I have looked at this from as many angles as I can find, and I can only think of one type of situation where such a redirect may inappropriate:

  • We have an article called "Foobar Organisation", with an eponymous "Category:Foobar Organisation".
    However, we also have an article called "Foobar Organization".
    If "Foobar Organization" has an eponymous "Category:Foobar Organization", then no problem: the bot won't create overwrite the existing category.
    But if "Category:Foobar Organization" doesn't exist, it would be an ambiguous title which should not be created as a redirect.

This situation seems to me to be so rare that it probably doesn't exist at all. If there is significant concern about this, I could screen for such cases by adding another layer of list-comparison to my checks, but I don't think that it is needed.

UPDATE: I just did check of this, using data dumps from 25 July. The result of my processing is 12,461 entries in my list of redirect-cats-to-create if the bot is run. The number of false positives (cases where the proposed new redirect matches the name of an existing article) is zero. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:00, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed new BRFA

If there is consensus here, I propose to open a new BRFA. Using new tools which give me a list of all existing categories, I propose to use BHGbot to create these spelling-variation redirects to all categories which include the whole word "[Oo]rgani[sz]ation(s)". That would include proper names, and project categories as well as content categories.

The methodology is:

  1. Get a list of all categories which do not transclude {{Category redirect}} or {{Category disambiguation}}, and whose title matches the whole word "[Oo]rgani[sz]ation(s)" ... Cryptic's quarry:query/46899
  2. Use the Linux sed tool to convert the titles in list at step 2 from "[Oo]rganisation(s)" to "[Oo]rganization(s)", and vice versa
  3. use the Linux comm tool to compare the list from step 2 with a list of categories from quarry:query/45923, and exclude any category which already exists. That creates the list of category pages to be created as redirects.
  4. Check the creation list for the #False positives described above, by removing any titles which also exist in a list of all article pages. I don't think this step is needed, but it's a simple addition.
  5. Use WP:AWB to take each of the category page titles in the list from step 4, and
    • skip the page if it already exists. (This should happen only if the category page has been created since the lists were made)
    • use an AWB custom module to:
      • if the title of the category page includes the whole word "[Oo]rganisation(s)", create a redirect to the same title, but with the spelling changed to "[Oo]rganization(s)"
        e.g. the page Category:Anti-Foobar organisations would be created with the content {{Category redirect|Anti-Foobar organizations|bot=BHGbot}}
      • if the title of the category page includes the whole word "[Oo]rganization(s)", create a redirect to the same title, but with the spelling changed to "[Oo]rganisation(s)"
      • if the title of the page category includes neither "[Oo]rganisation(s)" nor "[Oo]rganization(s)", then skip it. This should never happen, but it is a safety-check against any corruption of the list.

Yesterday, I did a trial run of list-making, which gave me a list of 12,639 {{category redirect}}s to create. If the bot is approved, I will rebuild the list so that it's up-to-date.

Please give your feedback on either the principle or the methodology, or both.

Discussion of Organi[SZ]ations category redirects

comments, supports/opposes, flames, questions etc here please
  1. The problem is as set out above in the section labelled #The problem ... viz that

    The unpredictability of spelling is a nuisance for both readers and editors, who have no means of determining which spelling to use

    That's why I propose creating category redirects. Sadly, I don't see any sign that you read the proposal before replying. Please will you take the time to read it now?
  2. There is no attempt to circumvent any guideline or policy. Please identify which part of the MOS you think is being circumvented.
  3. Almost an hour before User:Only in death posted here, I have left a notice[11] about this discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Proposal_to_mass-create_category_redirects_to_resolve_ENGVAR_variation_in_the_spelling_of_"organi[sz]ations". This proposal does not attempt to change or any breach any policy or guideline or established practice; it is simply a technical proposal to create redirects to accommodate a WP:ENGVAR issue, so there is no need to hold the discussion there. Even a mention at VPP was arguably excessive, but I prefer to err on the side of over-notification. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:43, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose If the extent of the 'problem' is that editors are briefly unsure if to use S or Z, that can be fixed with a one line addition to the MOS consisting of "Pick whatever, virtually no one cares and of the tiny amount who do, no doubt one will be along shortly to 'correct' it." This appears to be completely a non-issue and I would want to see substantially more actual evidence (not mere assertations) that there is a legitimate issue to solve before creating loads of pointless redirects. Which from the proposals and previous discussions, only appear to be needed to satisfy some editors preference for one spelling to display over another. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:16, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • @User:Only in death, it seems that you misunderstand the problem.
    The issue is simply that readers and editors don't know which spelling to use, and in many cases there is no established guidance which will allow a reader or editor to determine which spelling is correct. A redirect resolves the problem, because an editor or reader can use either spelling and achieve the desired result.
    This is not a novel idea: it's actually part of the MOS, at MOS:COMMONALITY:

    If one variant spelling appears in a title, make a redirect page to accommodate the others, as with artefact and artifact, so that all variants can be used in searches and linking.

    This proposal just applies that long-established principle consistently to this corner of category space; it's already used in about 3,000 such categories, so this is just using a bot to finish the job.
    There are currently 84869 Category redirect pages. This proposal would add only ~12,500, which is an increase of less than 15%.
Your suggestion of Pick whatever 'cos no doubt one will be along shortly to 'correct' it is flawed in three respects:
  1. It doesn't help readers who are looking for the category title, because no-one will appear to correct their search.
  2. If an article is miscategorised due to the use of a wrong spelling variant, that is nearly always because it has been listed at Special:WantedCategories. That cleanup page is nearly always backlogged (it currently has 472 entries). If redirects can reduce the need for humans to do the work, why not use them?
  3. If a an editor adds an article to Category:Foobar organisations in some country and it turns out to be a redlink, they may not be aware that it exists under a different spelling ... so they may just remove the category per WP:REDNOT.
And no, this is not about satisfy[ing] some editors preference for one spelling to display over another. On the contrary, the whole pint of it is that it will not change the spelling which is displayed on any unredirected page. It's about making the spelling a non-issue by making either variant usable ... and the fact that you make that allegation is evidence that you don't understand what is proposed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:47, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I understand perfectly well. You have yet to provide any evidence or coherant argument as to what actual problem exists that needs to be fixed, or why per rath below spelling needs to be standardised. If you cannot in a couple of short sentences explain succintly what the issue is, then that is your problem. As an aside, special wanted categories is makework. It could be ignored forever and have zero impact on the encyclopedia. I've said my piece, taking this page off my watch list. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:46, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@User:Only in death, with respect, you clearly do misunderstand: this is not a proposal to standardise spelling. It is a proposal to adopt the usual en.wp workaround to lack of standardised spelling. (That's Rathfelder's point. Standardisation would be one way of fixing the problem. Redirects are the other .. and since standardisation was rejected, I propose creating redirects.).
And the problem is very clearly described: there is no correct spelling for most of these categories, so redirects remove the need for readers and editors to guess which variant is being used.
Exactly the same issue exists in article space, where the MOS supports using redirects. Far from being an attempt to circumvent a widely accepted MOS guideline as you wrongly asserted in your first comment, it's actually an attempt to apply the MOS. Your choice not to read the linked and quoted part of the MOS is not a flaw in my explanation.
However, since you regard Special:WantedCategories as makework, you clearly have no interest in ensuring that articles are accurately categorised as editors intend. That's a choice which you are quite entitled to make ... but it's no basis for opposing the work of those editors who do try make categorisation work. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:04, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I dont think any of the editors involved in categoris(z)ation give a damn about "one spelling to display over another". But whenever we try to standardize the spelling of organisation categories we are defeated by people who get very excited about it. Hours of work are wasted for no purpose. Rathfelder (talk) 16:00, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support; this seems to me to be an entirely harmless proposal that can remove a persistent annoyance. While there are a lot of ise/ize ENGVAR variations, from a category perspective "organi(s/z)ation" is probably the most frequently problematic, and certainly one I'd appreciate because I've been exposed to both spellings for so long that neither ever looks wrong. We'd have no general problem with redirecting any "Foobar Organisation" article to "Foobar Organization", and I'm really not seeing any reason why the same should not apply to categories; this appears to be a fairly systematic and clean implementation of this, and BHG really does seem to have thought through most of the obvious issues. ~ mazca talk 01:11, 26 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • BrownHairedGirl, would this see a respelling of categories on pages? For instance, will pages that display the {{use British English}} template, or are just written in using that spelling convention, have organisation amended to organization? Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 01:54, 26 July 2020 (UTC).[reply]
Support, so long as this proposal does not involve changes to main space I see it as a good idea. Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 13:05, 26 July 2020 (UTC).[reply]
  • Question: Does the proposal solve the #The problem? I understand that category redirects don't function the same way ordinary redirects do. Editors can't use them, they don't change the display for readers. Speaking of readers: when do readers face a spelling problem? They just click on the category as provided, no? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:23, 26 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Readers face a spelling problem if they want to browse a category without going via an article in that category - they have to guess whether the category uses s or z spelling. If they guess wrong (e.g. Category:Fair trade organisations) and there is no redirect in place they get either search results (that may or may not include the category they are looking for), an invitation to search or an invitation to start the category (which depends on exactly how they navigated, whether they are logged in (and if so whether they have permission to create pages in category space), whether they are using a desktop or app, and possibly other factors; in a best case scenario they are one click away from what they are looking for, often 2-3 clicks away, in a worst case scenario they have to search again. It is not possible to reliably predict which it will be on average because the data to determine that is not available to editors (if the WMF even collect it, I don't know). If there is a category redirect in place then they are always exactly one click away from the category (and that link is far more prominent).
    Editors can use category redirects in the same way they use normal categories. e.g. if an editor adds a page to Category:Organisations based in Indonesia then all that happens is another editor or a bot will come along later and move the article to Category:Organizations based in Indonesia. Thryduulf (talk) 12:09, 26 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Just a small addendum to Thryduulf's very helpful explanation:
    If you use WP:HOTCAT to add or change a category, in most cases HOTCAT will resolve the redirect before saving. So there's nothing for a bot to cleanup.
    (Aside: HotCat is one of those gadgets that every editor should use. It makes the task easier and more accurate, leaves clear edit summaries, and has no downsides.) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:36, 26 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • My preferable solution would to abolish this nonsense of a problem and create a consistent naming scheme in category space, but editors be editors. So support this. One comment though, I'd be a bit more happy if when done, you'll change {{Category redirect}} to accept a second parameter so all categories of this nature will be placed in a subcategory of Category:Wikipedia soft redirected categories instead of at the top level. At some point, a 100k size category is pointless. --Gonnym (talk) 11:56, 26 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. This seems like an obviously beneficial thing to do that will help editors and readers. I would have expected to see this discussion advertised at the proposals village pump so I will add a link there using similar wording to that you used at the policy village pump. Thryduulf (talk) 12:09, 26 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support theoretical concept. Having been involved in the 2019 Village Pump discussion I can remember how heated it became. In note to another commentator, the issue doesn't matter until it actually does, and the discussion I referred to above is worth a read to see how much of an issue it became. In an ideal world it shouldn't be an issue, however as humans this is how it is. Just to ask what became of the 2017 Bot? What was it that made it not be progressed further? The proposal sounds like a good theoretically policy solution to the problem. Not having much to do with BRFA I think it will be up to them if the technical solution is good enough to implement the policy solution regards server load etc, or how often the bot needs to run. The "false positive" issue you raised above seems such an edge case that I don't think it matters - do you know how many pages fall into such an issue? I would suspect in the "false positive" case it just needs an interested editor to make a manual edit. I note in the 2019 discussion there was some chat of bringing over an option in Chinese wikipedia to have a similar option for en-US vs en-GB/Aus/Can/etc. - is this an easier technical solution? - Master Of Ninja (talk) 09:20, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  1. The 2017 Bot proposal kinda ran into the sands. The main problem was that the bot discussion got clogged with conceptual issues which I now see in hindsight should have have been resolved before going to BRFA.
    I think all issues had been resolved, but it was unclear who needed to make the next move, and I was a bit bored with it and wasn't giving it any more attention. See WP:Bots/Requests for approval/BHGbot 3.
  2. I dunno anything about the Chinese option. But since that would require some sort of major change to the mediawiki software used on en.wp, it's way beyond what we can consider here.
  3. I will do some checks on the edge case issue, and get some numbers. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:22, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Master Of Ninja: I did the check, as I just noted above[13], it found zero "false positives" in a list of 12,461 redirects to create. Thanks for prompting me to do the check. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:07, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@User:BrownHairedGirl - I think this is good evidence to show your proposed bot won't create issues. Good luck with moving the proposal on. - Master Of Ninja (talk) 08:25, 28 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Where does it actually say you should not just empty a category you don't like?

There is a discussion on this, intended to lead to proposed additions on the main category policy pages, at Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion#Where_does_it_actually_say_you_should_not_just_empty_a_category_you_don't_like?. Please contribute there. Btw, it's good to see this page seems busier than it has been in the past. Johnbod (talk) 15:50, 26 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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