Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 15

April 15

NEW NOMINATIONS

Category:American Jewish billionaires

Propose deleting Category:American Jewish billionaires (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Nominator's rationale: I haven't done much editing in categorization recently, so maybe the rules have changed, but this one sure reeks of a WP:OCEGRS problem to me. At the very least, there ought to be community consensus (rather than the actions of a single editor) that this intersection is sufficiently noteworthy and unbiased to merit inclusion; I do not believe it is, certainly not without context. Chubbles (talk) 07:39, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Neo-Latin writers

Propose renaming Category:Neo-Latin writers to Category:Writers in Neo-Latin

Nominator's rationale:

Copy of speedy

Category:Neo-Latin writers to Category:Writers in Neo-Latin – C2C: Per all child cats and per parent Category:Writers in Latin by period. NLeeuw (talk) 01:01, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This is not very natural language. It is inconsistent with the same level categories "Classical Latin-language writers‎", "Latin-language writers of late antiquity‎", "Medieval Latin-language writers‎", "Old Latin-language writers‎", and "Renaissance Latin-language writers‎".

This is because "Neo-Latin" etc are actually styles, that are associated with a period. Jim Killock (talk) 05:42, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Latin-language writers of late antiquity to Category:Writers of late antiquity in Latin – C2C: Per all child cats and per parent Category:Writers in Latin by period. NLeeuw (talk) 00:57, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Very clumsy sounding Jim Killock (talk) 05:44, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Classical Latin-language writers to Category:Writers in Classical Latin – C2C: Parent Category:Writers in Latin by period. NLeeuw (talk) 00:54, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Very clumsy sounding Jim Killock (talk) 05:44, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Old Latin-language writers to Category:Writers in Old Latin – C2C: Per all child cats and per parent Category:Writers in Latin by period. NLeeuw (talk) 00:44, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Sounds clumsy. Same Jim Killock (talk) 05:43, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Renaissance Latin-language writers to Category:Renaissance writers in Latin – C2C: Per all child cats and per parent Category:Writers in Latin by period. NLeeuw (talk) 00:42, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Sounds weird per others Jim Killock (talk) 05:44, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Medieval Latin-language writers to Category:Medieval writers in Latin – C2C: Per all child cats and per parent Category:Writers in Latin by period. NLeeuw (talk) 00:39, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Same Jim Killock (talk) 05:42, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Same. These sound weird. Jim Killock (talk) 05:43, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@JimKillock The parent Category:Writers in Latin by period and grandparent Category:Writers in Latin and other related categories were all renamed by consensus last year: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 October 7#Category:Latin-language writers. These are just logical follow-ups to that result. The reason we went for this formula is explained at length in that nom. NLeeuw (talk) 15:49, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But these are not "by period"; they are "by style". This especially true for Neo-Latin. The periods and styles often coincide, but not precisely. Better would be to follow the styles defined in the articles, so:
Old Latin writers

Classical Latin writers

Medieval Latin writers

Renaissance Latin writers

Neo-Latin Latin writers

I've explained elsewhere that the periods and styles are not precise. For instance, a writer in the Renaissance may have employed Medieval Latin, or Renaissance Latin; and some may define their Renaissance Latin as Neo-Latin. These are stylistic boundaries which roughly match period, but it is the style, not the period, that determines their classifications. Jim Killock (talk) 19:50, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@JimKillock I know. Category:14th-century Neo-Latin writers were a thing; it's good that you created that category. But I don't see how it would create a problem if we renamed it Category:14th-century writers in Neo-Latin. If anything, it is even clearer that "14th-century" refers to "writers" and not to "Neo-Latin", so that we shouldn't assume that the kind of Latin they wrote was Medieval Latin. This is all the more reason in favour of renaming, so that our readers understand the difference between style and period. NLeeuw (talk) 14:03, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The issue is that the whole category structure is used to amalgamate and conflate these two ideas. I don't have an easy solution to it, that doesn't involve some work. It's reasonable to say that a C12th Medieval Latin writer used Medieval Latin, or a C20th writer uses Neo-Latin. Boundary centuries seem debateable. However, the structure makes an absolute assumption, that century and style are the same, except where I started to break it up. This has come up in two recent discussions, the other being when someone wanted to remove my boundary category. But it's clear that the intention was that Category:Classical Latin-language writers should contain Classical Latin writers, ie be a style category, not a time category. Likewise, Late Latin and Neo-Latin. There can be doubt about medieval Latin because of it seems to refer to a period rather than a style; however as it is a set of style categories we should assume it is about style, likewise for Renaissance Latin. The fact that the categories group information from centuries is a laziness, nothing more. In short it is a mess but it is only made worse by changing the names to appear to refer to time periods, some of which don't really exist (Classical Latin isn't a time, nor is Latin Latin, nor is Neo-Latin).

Category:Writers in Classical Latin; Category:Writers in Neo-Latin - these all refer to a style; they are acceptable from that perspective, but they sounds strange / clumsy to my ear; the natural way to say is Category:Classical Latin writers, Category:Neo-Latin writers, or as close to that as WP allows.

Taking one example to show why the suggested formulation can sound wrong. Category:Writers in Old Latin; Old Latin is recognised as a phase of Latin, rather than a "style" of Latin, so a bit different, but it functions the same. It is like Old English, not quite the same as Modern English. So, "writers in Old Latin" doesn't work because You [verb] in [language]; you don't [person] in [language]. It is either People writing in Old Latin or Old Latin writers. So Category:Old Latin writers sounds better, another option would be Category:Writers using Old Latin.

Category:Renaissance writers in Latin; Category:Medieval writers in Latin - refer to a time period and remove the style names. These would need to be Category:Writers in Renaissance Latin; Category:Writers in Medieval Latin. This is not great English, most natural would be Category:Medieval Latin writers, Category: Renaissance Latin writers

So there seems to be some inconsistency of approach in the current suggestion, as well as a somewhat clumsy use of "in" that isn't needed.

It has taken me some time to pinpoint the issue with "in"; but I think it is because language can be either a noun or an adjective. When it is a style, describing how someone writes, "Classical Latin" etc, is an adjective. If "Classical Latin" is an adjective, then "in" shouldn't be used. If "Classical Latin" is a noun, as with "Classical Latin" the topic then "in" is possible, eg "Grammar in Classical Latin", or "They write in Classical Latin". As an adjective, it works as "Classical Latin writers". --Jim Killock (talk) 00:59, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose this will have to be moved to full then... NLeeuw (talk) 13:42, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll add the other nominees soon. NLeeuw (talk) 06:47, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Yemeni scientists by century

Propose merging Category:Yemeni scientists by century to Category:Yemeni scientists

Nominator's rationale: Upmerge for now. There is only one century in here, which is unhelpful for navigation Mason (talk) 04:18, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Merge per nom. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:32, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Politicians arrested in Yemen

Propose merging Category:Politicians arrested in Yemen to Category:Prisoners and detainees of Yemen

Nominator's rationale: Non-defining intersection of occupation and location of arrest. Mason (talk) 04:12, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Merge, we shouldn't have "arrested" categories anyway. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:34, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Marching

Propose purging Category:Marching (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Nominator's rationale: Purge or reparent. Are pride parades part of military traditions? There's already Category:Military marching and Category:Military marches. --MikutoH ^talk! 02:33, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Selectively merge to Category:Parades and turn the page into a disambiguation page, per WP:SHAREDNAME. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:36, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Electronic rock musicians

Propose deleting Category:Electronic rock musicians (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Nominator's rationale: Individual musicians and groups are not the same. Either populate this with articles of individual people or delete it as an innapropriate redirect without another good target. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 01:34, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Aphex Twin songs

Propose renaming Category:Aphex Twin songs to Category:Aphex Twin tracks

Nominator's rationale: (Or maybe "Aphex Twin compositions".) Strictly speaking, songs contain singing. Aphex Twin tracks have no singing, or no singing in the traditional sense. For example, it is not really accurate to describe Avril 14, a piano instrumental, as a "song". Popcornfud (talk) 17:07, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lean oppose. Don't other categories have non-singing songs in them? I don't think it's helpful for navigation to make the distinction between songs that contain vocal tracks and those that do not. Mason (talk) 20:26, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just for clarity, I'm not proposing we create separate tracks for vocal and instrumental Aphex Twin tracks, just keeping a single category and renaming it. (There are very few, if any, Aphex Twins that could really be called "songs" in my view, and I also suspect the habit of calling non-vocal tracks "songs" tends to be an Americanism, but that's probably by the by.) Popcornfud (talk) 21:14, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment, Category:Aphex Twin compositions would well fit as a subcategory of Category:Compositions by composer. Marcocapelle (talk) 07:19, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That would work for me. Mason (talk) 20:06, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Would that not also be redundant to Category:Songs written by Aphex Twin? Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars^{Talk to me} 15:35, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Qwerfjkl talk 12:33, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars seems to be right, this should be a merge or reverse merge. Marcocapelle (talk) 13:44, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I don't have very strong opinions on this. Mason (talk) 19:29, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Alt Rename Category:Aphex Twin songs to Category:Compositions by Aphex Twin, and re-parent to Category:Compositions by composer per Marcocapelle (and Mason);

& merge Category:Songs written by Aphex Twin to Category:Compositions by Aphex Twin per Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars. Category:Songs written by Aphex Twin was created 15 January 2016‎; Category:Aphex Twin songs was created 21 October 2007‎, is therefore older, and therefore should be the merge target. This seems to be a comprehensive solution to all issues observed above. NLeeuw (talk) 14:35, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Comments on NL's proposal would be very much appreciated!
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, House Blaster (talk · he/him) 22:04, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Love it! Mason (talk) 00:17, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Should I ping the other participants to ask their opinion? They might not have read this, but I don't want to unnecessarily alert people. NLeeuw (talk) 06:39, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This final solution is surely in line with my earlier comments. Marcocapelle (talk) 17:13, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Marcocapelle Don't you mean 'certainly'? I often see you use the word 'surely' where I expect the word 'certainly'. As far as I know, in English, 'surely' is usually used in a question sentence to someone else, asking them to confirm something you would expect / like them to believe, or to say, or to do / to have done. 'Surely you locked the door, didn't you?' It's like the English equivalent of '...toch zeker wel...?' See the usage notes at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/surely because [surely] connotes strong affirmation, it is used when the speaker or writer expects to be agreed with. Unlike sure it may be used neutrally—the reader or hearer may or may not agree, and it is often used when the writer is trying to persuade.
- Surely you must admit that it was a good decision.
In this case, it's like you're asking yourself whether you agree with your own earlier comments. 'Deze oplossing is toch zeker wel in lijn met mijn eerdere opmerkingen?' There is nobody who can answer that question except for you. NLeeuw (talk) 06:33, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Then my "surely" should be read as "certainly". Happy to improve my English vocabulary. Marcocapelle (talk) 17:35, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  You're welcome! NLeeuw (talk) 00:26, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: ....and I forgot to tag Category:Songs written by Aphex Twin last week. Oops. If there are no further comments by next week, we should be all set for implementing NL's proposal. Apologies for the delay/third relisting.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, House Blaster (talk · he/him) 00:22, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]