Category talk:College radio stations in Oregon

RFC

Note that at present, this is the talk page of a deleted category. However, as an RFC discussion has been requested on this, please do not delete this page at the present time.

Requests for comment

This category has given rise to a conflict between the preferences of Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon and Wikipedia:WikiProject Radio Stations. At issue is the fact that WPO would like the category Category:Radio stations in Oregon to be subdivided by format, while WPRS presently has a consensus against such format-by-state subcategories — at present, WPRS' practice is to apply the parents Category:Radio stations in Oregon and Category:College radio stations in the United States as distinct categories.

This category was previously deleted by CFD. There wasn't really an overwhelming consensus either way, however, so it's worth revisiting the issue. Bearcat (talk)

WP:ORE position

What are the reasons why such categorization should be permitted? Bearcat (talk) 17:47, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

• I'm not really sure why this needs an Rfc, but here goes: WikiProject Oregon is a highly active project that takes very good care of the articles under its scope. Part of the stewardship of Oregon articles includes several editors who help keep the Oregon articles well-categorized (and the categories well-categorized) and thus easy to find for our readers. The category pages under our scope are even part of a project-wide watchlist, which means they get far more attention than most categories, which helps us spot vandalism, newbie attempts at categorization, talk page queries, etc. So I'd say Restore the deleted category, as it will be helpful for our readers, who, lest we forget in all the fun we are having writing for Wikipedia, that it is the readers for whom we do this project, not for ourselves. If it's upsetting to the radio project to have the Oregon college stations split out from the rest (and I haven't read the details of why this should be so), and it's unacceptable to further distribute the other stations to appropriate state categories, I'd suggest we simply double-categorize the articles, which is an acceptable practice in selected cases. Leave the radio station articles in both the parent U.S. cat and in the child Oregon cat, with an appropriate note on the talk page. Perhaps other editors will see the Oregon cat and re/create other state cats. Again, double cat. If it's a broader matter of splitting articles too finely, well sorry to bring up other stuff, but there are plenty of single-article Oregon sub-subcategories (most not created by WP:ORE members!) that are silly at best and a hindrance to navigation at worst. If all else fails, I suppose we could make a List of college radio stations in Oregon. Heck, we can make one of our award-winning, information-packed, sortable, fully illustrated tables out of it. Katr67 (talk) 20:08, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

• I don't feel comfortable with the heading, which seems to be saying that this is WP:ORE's position. If it is so-interpreted, I withdraw my comments, as I seem to have placed my argument in the wrong section. If each WikiProject is supposed to come to consensus separately, and summarize their argument here, well, frankly that seems strange. I don't think I've ever seen a debate set up as WikiProject vs. WikiProject before. Despite my argument above, I personally won't lose any sleep if this gets deleted, and apparently neither will Pete. I think so far that's 2 !votes for apathy, and I take it Aboutmovies is !voting for "restore". I think this should be organized as a standard Rfc--don't we want other, previously uninvolved editors to be involved? Katr67 (talk) 02:34, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

RFC maybe, but it seems to me like WP:DRV is the right place. Since transparency is one of the things that has plagued this issue, we really should be doing it the right way. Anyone want to start a deletion review? I could start it myself I suppose. But, it would be my preference if we can all agree to leave all personal conflicts aside before bringing it to a wider audience. They simply don't help anything. Also, I'm going to remove the protection on the category; we are engaged in discussion, nobody here has a history of vigilante disregard for reasoned discussion. We are all grown ups, or should at least aspire to be. -Pete (talk) 18:54, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

My apologies, I see Bearcat already removed the protection. Thanks for doing that. -Pete (talk) 18:58, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

WPRS position

What are the reasons why such categorization should be disallowed?

Traditionally, under Wikipedia's basic categorization policy, subcategories by individual state should be created only in one of two situations: (a) the national parent category is so large and broad that subcategories are necessary just to keep the category at a basic level of manageability, or (b) the subcategory represents a class that's notable in and of itself, an inherently distinct phenomenon from other sibling categories. Wikipedia does not necessarily permit a category for every group of articles that happens to share a particular trait — the point of categorization needs to be an inherently notable criterion in its own right.

In determining how Wikipedia's established and binding rules around categorization applied to our project, WPRS came to the conclusion that format-by-state subcategories such as this one do not meet either of those criteria. Category:College radio stations in the United States is not so large that it requires subcategories, and beyond geography itself there's nothing that makes being a college radio station in Oregon fundamentally different from being a college radio station in Pennsylvania or Florida or Nevada or North Dakota. The purely geographic distinction, further, is already covered by the "Radio stations in STATE" tree, so the subcategory doesn't represent any distinction that isn't already reflected in the existing categories.

Essentially, the view of WPRS is that a category of this type violates WP:OCAT, specifically the injunction against "Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Intersection by location". Bearcat (talk) 22:14, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Results

Final question: should these categories be permitted or not? Bearcat (talk) 17:40, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm part of WikiProject Oregon, but I'm not sure about the suggestion that we (or any wikiproject) speak with a unified voice. I don't have much interest in the general principle of how college radio stations are categorized, and don't have much familiarity with how many there are in various states. But I do think such a category is appropriate in Oregon, where there are several, and where an active community of editors has written articles about several. If other states don't have them similar categories, it's fine by me -- I don't see a need for total consistency on stuff like this, but prefer to see categories to grow somewhat organically where Wikipedia content exists to support their existence. -Pete (talk) 17:45, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, most US states have several college radio stations and an active community of editors who have written articles about them. Oregon isn't unique in this regard at all. Bearcat (talk) 17:54, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Seeing as how there are two intelligent, experienced, and productive Wikipedians who apparently have the energy to sort this out, I'm going to let my apathy take hold, and endorse whatever decision the two of you (and whoever else) come to. -Pete (talk) 20:28, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they should. Aboutmovies (talk) 00:16, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

No, for reasons I've explained elsewhere on this page, they should not. - Dravecky (talk) 22:07, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Not to fuel the "he said, he said" bit, but the two deletion edit summaries say:

• "18:10, May 31, 2008 Bearcat (Talk | contribs) deleted "Category:College radio stations in Oregon" ‎ (per Radio Stations Wikiproject, format categories aren't broken down by state.)"
• "08:39, October 23, 2008 (Talk | contribs) deleted "Category:College radio stations in Oregon" ‎ (a wikiproject dictating categories with "wikiprojects don't control categories" as a rationale needs to recalibrate its irony meter. WikiProjects don't have the authority to unilaterally override established CFDs, either.)"

I believe that what Aboutmovies meant in the (now-deleted so forgive me if I'm misrembering what it said) edit summary is exactly what he meant. That he hadn't seen a CFD about this, nor was it referred to in the May deletion summary, and it said the deletion was per the radio project, thus it looks like the decision of a single WikiProject instead of consensus. (Remember Consensus?) So I can see why he reacted the way he did. (And no, he doesn't speak for the project, I hate his guts, actually.) I believe that categories are supposed to be taken to CFD, rather than simply being deleted. Since several of us watch over the category pages tagged with WP:ORE, if such a discussion was started and the category page tagged appropriately, we probably would have known about it. Perhaps there was a previous CFD that Bearcat knew about. It could have been referenced in the edit summary. And I see that a CFD *was* mentioned in the second deletion summary, so when the category was deleted in May it must have been because of a previous CFD, not a current one. Am I right? I'd sure like to see a link to the CFD please. (I'll look for it but if someone beats me to it, great.) I'm sure that putting a link to the deletion discussion would have saved us a bunch of time and aggravation and perhaps we could have simply started a deletion review instead of getting all cranky at each other. Now let's all hold hands and sing "Kumbaya". Thanks. Katr67 (talk) 20:32, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Found the CFD:Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 May 25#Category:College radio stations in Georgia. Looks like the CFD did take place in May. Can an admin check to see if the now-deleted category page had {{cfd}} applied to it? Katr67 (talk) 20:39, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Can we change the rather nasty sounding page protection note too? That isn't helping matters, sorry. Katr67 (talk) 20:46, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I glanced at the discussion about the category that took place in May. I note that most of it took place on the radio project's talk page and not at the CFD, and again, someone could have dropped a note to someone to ask us WTF? Anyway, reference has been made to the the consensus of the radio project, yet I haven't seen a link to the previous discussion or even a summary of what y'all decided, so we don't have to hunt for it. I'm prepared to take the radio project's word that this category is somehow a very bad idea, if only you could explain to me why. I promise I'm done commenting about this now. Katr67 (talk) 21:08, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

The deletion record is

• 2008-06-06T21:04:11 SkierRMH (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Category:College radio stations in Georgia" ‎ (C1: Empty category) (restore)

The CFD mentions Category:College radio stations in Georgia (U.S. state) but it was never created. —EncMstr (talk) 21:12, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

The original CFD nomination proposed that as a rename, but the final closer agreed with the position that they should be deleted instead. Bearcat (talk) 22:16, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, but can you tell if Category:College radio stations in Oregon ever had a {{cfd}} tag applied to it? Can you still get the page history? Katr67 (talk)

Duh! Sorry. The complete history (deletions merged with edits) is:

• 2008-10-23T08:39:17 Bearcat (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Category:College radio stations in Oregon" ‎ (a wikiproject dictating categories with "wikiprojects don't control categories" as a rationale needs to recalibrate its irony meter. WikiProjects don't have the authority to unilaterally override established CFDs, either.) (restore)
• 2008-10-06T00:17:55 Aboutmovies (Talk | contribs | block) (162 bytes) (+cats)
• 2008-10-06T00:15:51 Aboutmovies (Talk | contribs | block) (59 bytes) (start again, don't recall a CFD on this and WikiProject Oregon does break these down like this (not to mention WikiProjects do not control categories))
• 2008-05-26T18:44:39 Vegaswikian (Talk | contribs | block) (226 bytes) (cat and not an article)
• 2008-05-22T07:46:31 Absolon (Talk | contribs | block) (294 bytes) (category sorting)
• 2008-05-31T18:10:06 Bearcat (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Category:College radio stations in Oregon" ‎ (per Radio Stations Wikiproject, format categories aren't broken down by state.) (restore)
• 2008-03-05T12:38:39 Aboutmovies (Talk | contribs | block) (293 bytes) (add cross cat link)
• 2008-03-05T12:35:16 Aboutmovies (Talk | contribs | block) (225 bytes) (sort)
• 2008-03-05T12:32:09 Aboutmovies (Talk | contribs | block) (218 bytes) (start cat)

That should cover it! —EncMstr (talk) 21:51, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

So not only was this cat not nominated in anyway (other than a brief mention in another CFD), but I as the original creator was never notified. In fact, was anyone ever notified? As to Wikiprojects not controlling, that was the point with my note in the recreation. To point out the implicit problem with WikiProjects controlling these things (anything including notability guidelines). Only community established and vetted policies and guidelines control. Here, WP:OVERCAT does not apply as this is simply breaking it down further in what I felt are getting to be large categories Category:Radio stations in Oregon and Category:College radio stations in the United States. Plus, this actually reduces the number of cats in the acutal article since it combines two into one. Next, breaking things down by state is normal. Thus, this was prefectly fine as a category, except the radio folks feel they have guidelines on this. Again, those, no more than any project's guidelines, do not control. And since this did not have a CFD, its unilateral deletion (now both times) was improper. Not to mention I fail to see any consensus on the Georgia cat for a deletion there as well. It was nominated for a rename and about half were for that and half for delete, which is not consensus, thus the status quo is supposed to remain. But that's just following guidelines and policies, which I guess we are free to ignore. Aboutmovies (talk) 22:16, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

PEr the notability arguement in the radio folks area, can you point me to where in WP:CAT that is discussed? I searched for that word and didn't find it. Though I did find this: Categories are mainly used to browse through similar articles. Make decisions about the structure of categories and subcategories that make it easy for users to browse through similar articles. Which to me seems to counter the notability thing. Aboutmovies (talk) 22:21, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

WP:OCAT#Intersection by location. And a category does not have to go through a separate CFD process if it's raised within a discussion on an equivalent category. It would have to go through a separate CFD if it had been created later, or not noted in the original discussion, but if it's raised within that discussion and nobody provides a valid reason to treat the categories differently from each other, then the CFD result applies to them both whether they were both part of the original nomination or not. Bearcat (talk) 22:33, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Where are these rules about no need for a seperate CFD? I've got the policy Wikipedia:Category deletion policy which says:

Categories that have been listed for more than five days are eligible for deletion, renaming or merging when a rough consensus to do so has been reached or no objections to the nomination have been raised.

Note the word listed, not "raised" or mentioned. Further, if it had been created later, again, here you would be a bit off, as the speedy criteria would then apply and then "substantially identical recreations of earlier deleted content," would allow for deletion without a CFD. Not to mention, think about how this process played out. The entire reason to list these, give notice, and actually complete the nomination process via the template on the cat's page is to provide notice to those interested so that WP:CONSENSUS can be found. Here, and anytime something like this happens, it provides no notice unless someone happened to know about the other CFD that was happening. As here, many were unaware, thus no real community consensus could ever have occurred. Taken with how this played out, including edits like this that remove the cat without an edit summary followed immediately by a second edit without an edit summary that tends to hide what was going on tends to show me that this was completed a bit underhanded, as if people didn't want this discussed.

Now with your overcat, please continue with what that guideline (vs. policy of deletions) says: " Geographical boundaries may be useful for dividing subjects into regions that are directly related to the subjects' characteristics (for example, Roman Catholic Bishops of the Diocese of Columbus, Ohio or New Orleans Saints quarterbacks). In general, avoid subcategorizing subjects by geographical boundary if that boundary does not have any relevant bearing on the subjects' other characteristics. For example, quarterbacks' careers are not defined by the specific state that they once lived in (unless they played for a team within that state). However, location may be used as a way to split a large category into subcategories." Thus, as I said above, this cat was used to split two large cats down to subcats. Now if you want to go with the whole they are not directly related characteristics then the cats Category:Radio stations in Oregon and Category:College radio stations in the United States would also fall within that and should similarly be deleted. And to throw this out, since those two have been mentioned in this thing, if the ultimate decision is to delete the Oregon college radio stations cat, then I believe this serves as the discussion for the other two and all could be deleted, if we follow your deletion policy, right? Aboutmovies (talk) 00:12, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Neither Category:College radio stations in the United States nor Category:Radio stations in Oregon is currently large enough to require subcategorization; the Oregon category, in fact, doesn't even qualify as large at all. Neither category is large enough to qualify for the size exception to OCAT's injunction against intersections by location — that's talking about categories that contain thousands of entries, not categories that contain less than 100 as the Oregon one does.

As for the subject's characteristics, a radio station's format most certainly is a defining characteristic of that station, and there is a meaningful and categorizable distinction to be made between college radio stations in the United States and those in Canada, Malaysia, India, the United Kingdom or Serbia. Category:Radio stations in the United States may not be subdividable by state on the meaningful difference axis, but it most certainly does qualify for subdivision by state under the size criterion as it would contain several thousand entries if it weren't subdivided.

But radio-stations-by-format-and-state intersections don't qualify under either size or meaningful difference: neither the format category nor the state category is large enough to need it, and there's no meaningful difference between college radio stations in Oregon, college radio stations in Florida, college radio stations in North Dakota or college radio stations in New Jersey. That's what "avoid subcategorizing subjects by geographical boundary if that boundary does not have any relevant bearing on the subjects' other characteristics" means: college radio stations in Oregon aren't different from college radio stations in New Jersey in any significant way. They don't answer to a different broadcast regulator. They're not licensed under a different set of laws or regulations. They don't broadcast some unique class of programming unlike other college radio stations. The fact that they're in Oregon doesn't, in and of itself, make them different from the set of college radio stations that happen to be located in another state.

Now if you want to go with the whole they are not directly related characteristics then the cats Category:Radio stations in Oregon and Category:College radio stations in the United States would also fall within that and should similarly be deleted. And to throw this out, since those two have been mentioned in this thing, if the ultimate decision is to delete the Oregon college radio stations cat, then I believe this serves as the discussion for the other two and all could be deleted, if we follow your deletion policy, right? No, because (a) this isn't CFD, and (b) those aren't equivalent categories. Equivalent categories most certainly can be batched in a single CFD, and additional categories most certainly can be added to a CFD after the original nomination if they're equivalent and could be kept or deleted on the same basis as each other. What you're raising is a false analogy to the matter at hand — neither one of them could be legitimately discussed in the same CFD as a "college radio stations in STATE" subcategory, and neither one of them was discussed in the same CFD as any "college radio stations in STATE" category. Bearcat (talk) 01:59, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Largeness is a point of view, and for me over 100 means its time for a sub. Your opinion may differ, but there is no set number (though as covered at CAT it implies over 200 could be in lieu of adding a TOC, and the US cat is well over that number). As to "encyclopedically unique"? Where is that coming from? Most categories are not "encyclopedically unique". Categorizes are not encyclopedic period, they are about navigation, see Categories (along with other features like cross-references, lists and navigation boxes) help readers find articles, even if they don't know that they exist or what they are called. Thus finding an article is the key, not notability or uniqueness. If their are enough college radio stations in other states, then there too they should have cats.

Second, no this is not CFD, and since this cat was never part of a CFD, it has just as much authority to affect other cats as the CFD for the Georgia cat does on this cat. Which is to say none. Which is the point, this discussion only controls this discussion, thinking this would control anything else would be wrong, just as thinking the CFD for the Georgia cat would control this cat. Since that CFD has absolutely nothing to do with this one, as this cat was not listed in the CFD nor was proper notice added to this category, as required by the CFD process. So yes, additional cats can be added, but they have to be added properly to provide proper notice to allow for actual discussion. What kind of consensus can be developed when there is no notice? No notice means only a few people get involved and makes it look like a cabal. Aboutmovies (talk) 02:54, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Categories are inherently encyclopedically unique. Category:Church buildings and Category:Schools, for example, describe sets of things that are inherently distinct from each other. Category:Michael Jackson albums are inherently different from Category:Amy Winehouse albums. Category:Radio stations in Ontario are inherently a different kettle of fish than Category:Radio stations in Nebraska. CFD has a whole established set of policies and precedents and guidelines and conventions to determine the validity or non-validity of categories, which go well beyond just navigation — a lot of categories that were perfectly valid from a purely navigational standpoint have been converted to lists instead of categories, or deleted entirely, because they didn't constitute a significant, distinct, notable or encyclopedic grouping. We don't, for example, use the category system to separate Michael Jackson albums by which specific label he released them on — that would be valid navigationally, but it's not a significant characteristic of the albums. Navigation is a purpose of categorization. It isn't the only purpose, and there are plenty of times when it's secondary to other considerations. Bearcat (talk) 03:12, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Let's keep going on this, shall we. How are Category:Radio stations in Ontario unique from Category:Radio stations in Manitoba? How are Category:Schools in New York unique from Category:Schools in Ohio? How are Category:Newspapers published in Alabama unique from Category:Newspapers published in Georgia (U.S. state)? How are Category:Dams in New Mexico unique from Category:Dams in California? And in regards to almost any category brokendown by state, how is it unique compared to other states (obviously there would be a few exceptions such as LA has parishes and not counties)? Next, please show me a guideline or policy where this is located, as I personally try to follow policies and guidelines. Lastly, as I've said before, the reason these were brokendown further was due to size, which again, can you point me to the policy (or a guideline) that says what the number of articles in a category must attain prior to a category being divided into further subcats? And, do you still think your deletion was proper under the process outlined at CFD for you deleting this category? Please let me know, that way this separate issue from whether or not there should be categories of this type, can be addressed in the proper forum. Aboutmovies (talk) 06:16, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

On another note: "repeated recreation in defiance of past CFD consensus, citing a mythical "mine take precedence over yours" hierarchy of wikiproject policies as rationale" is rather odd when the note deleting the cat was as mentioned above "per Radio Stations Wikiproject, format categories aren't broken down by state." Which mentions no CFD (or a link to it as is standard). So, does that mean your comment referred to something mythical as well? And I ask again about the notability argument you raised earlier, where is that located? Aboutmovies (talk) 00:20, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

You're the one who set up a hierarchy of precedence by stating in your edit summary that one Wikiproject's preferences should override another one's, not me. And for the record, I'm not the only one who interpreted your edit summary as being overly aggressive in tone.

And I ask again about the notability argument you raised earlier, where is that located? And as I've answered on more than one occasion: WP:OCAT#Intersection by location. Just because you insist on raising false analogies that don't fit under that criterion doesn't make it somehow less applicable to this situation Bearcat (talk) 01:59, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

That doesn't support you and notability. The next section discusses notability, not intersection by location. So, what does notability have to do with this? As to hierarchy, you acted first by deleting this under the specified authority of the radio station wikiproject per your edit summary. Thus you set up the hierarchy, and I personally found that edit summary of yours to delete the cat aggressive as well, along with your protection edit summary for preventing recreation of the cat (which as below was an improper summary). Aboutmovies (talk) 02:54, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

And on yet another note, you should give accurate edit summaries. You stated "repeated" recreation. That is false. It was only recreated once, thus no repeat. Needs to happen twice (the recreation vs. creation) for there to be "repeated". Aboutmovies (talk) 00:24, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Bearcat, this supposedly aggressive tone of Aboutmovies wouldn't be an issue if you weren't being so damn sensitive. Why are you so tied to your flawed interpretation of what he said, in an ephemeral edit summary, even in the face of painstaking clarification? Why are you continuing to personalize this content disagreement?

The initial category removal, in which you were closely involved, was utterly lacking in transparency. That's OK, we're all volunteers and sometimes we overlook things. But you continue to ignore the fact that Aboutmovies could not be reasonably expected to know the full history of the issue, and that's not right.

And, as has been stated over and over again, Aboutmovies never claimed that a Wikiproject should control things. In fact, there are few Wikipedians with a clearer exposition of their philosophy of editing -- Aboutmovies has a several year history of total consistency in arguing that policy trumps everything else. Please read WP:BRD if you haven't already; it's an important view on how wiki-based communities work. -Pete (talk) 16:57, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Template

(de-indent) I understand the desire of folks who wish to make navigation and grouping of the college radio stations in Oregon easy and obvious. I understand the policy and organizational needs to reduce the number of categories. What I don't understand is why no mention has been made of the {{Oregon college radio}} template that handily and attractively serves the stated desires of the WP:ORE folks without resulting in thousands of new "format by state" categories that make WP:WPRS members so queasy. (Breaking down the roughly 45 format categories for each of the 50 states would create 2250 new categories!) - Dravecky (talk) 00:57, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

So, if a template is a substitute, should we just get rid of all categories? Next, there should not be that many cats, as many states would not have enough to justify having a cat for each. And if you really want to make things simple, why not upmerge everything into Category:Radio stations? Then you only have to worry about one cat.

I'm being a bit sarcastic/flip, but I hope you understand the point. There should not be some blanket rule, let alone a WikiProject rule, outright banning this (and this is besides the improper deletion to begin with). But more importantly, and this should be common sense, we need to take these types of things on a case-by-case basis. If there are enough articles (personally my thoughts for all cats are you more than 5 already exiting and the potential to have at least 10), then a new category makes sense. Do you really think a reader in Florida wants to navigate through all 400+ college radio stations, or do you think it more likely they are interested in the ones in their state? Personally, I think most readers would fall into the second category. As Wikipedia grows, there will always be a need to create new cats, otherwise the existing ones become too big. I know some people think too big means more than 1000 or what not, but I remember when I first started on Wikipedia and it took me a while to figure out that some categories had more pages, which is why there the TOC template for large categories (or as the instructions say you can simply make sub cats). The reason I prefer the subcats (where possible and when they make sense) is that many readers will fail to scroll down all the way and see all the articles in a cat, which then defeats the purpose of cats, which is navigation. The default settings for screen size that unregistered users has is rather small, which means cats with 100 plus articles will have rather long pages. Then throw in those people on old computers whose screens are small, have low resolution monitors or who are sight impaired and the pages again can be rather long. Breaking categories up into smaller and more manageable units helps the reader, and helping the reader is the far more important on Wikipedia then making things easier for wikiprojects. Aboutmovies (talk) 04:04, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Getting rid of all categories is a nice bit of reductio ad absurdum but neither is the solution to create categories for every possible grouping of 5-10 articles as you suggest. Wikipedia has pretty clear policies about category creation, described in detail above, that explain why this precise form of overcategorization is to be avoided. I'm still not convinced we need as many "FORMAT radio stations in the United States" categories as we have now, especially for those categories when all or all but a few articles are for U.S. stations. (Yes, I'm looking at you, Category:Classic country radio stations in the United States and Category:Adult top 40 radio stations in the United States!) The template will make this sort of by-state navigation more obvious and more intuitive to exactly the users you describe since the template can also carry notes like the name of the associated college where a category only lists the stations by callsign with no annotation. A template is not a universal substitute for categories but it can be a useful tool to make access and navigation better for the user without overcomplicating the plumbing of the encyclopedia. - Dravecky (talk) 16:44, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

And argueing for templates instead is a nice Argument to moderation, and your original bit about queasy is a touch of Appeal to fear, while saying that I propose cats for everything that could have 5-10 articles is a bit of a Straw man argument. Note that how you categorized my argument is false; I said you need to have the potential for 10 or more thus if the potential is that there will only be 8, then no dice (generally speaking, but as always with common senses and is covered at WP:OC#SMALL). Now, should we keep going back and forth with Fallacies of relevance? I'm sure we can come up with some more!

As to your argument about overcat, nope, the policy is not clear. Nowhere does it give minimums and maximums, which is how it should be. That way (as I explained above and is in line with the general principles of Wikipedia as covered by WP:IAR and WP:CONSENSUS) each one can be evaluated on its own. As to your argument about call signs, that is another argument to list everything in the main radio station cat and just use templates as the call sign only listed in the cat applies to all categorization of radio stations, and for that matter TV stations and really everything in a category as generally the only thing you can tell about an article in a cat is that it has the attribute listed in the cat, which allows the reader to navigate between similar articles. Aboutmovies (talk) 20:10, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not an "argument to moderation" if the "middle ground" in question was already established as the standard and normal practice for precisely such situations long before the particular discussion it's being mentioned in even started. Bearcat (talk) 23:21, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

This is a good discussion to have, but this is not the place to have it. A discussion page for a non-existent category shouldn't even exist. Since Bearcat has been unresponsive to a couple of requests, I think WP:DRV is the best option. Any objections? I can open a discussion there later tonight. -Pete (talk) 20:53, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The reason I haven't provided any further answers is because you have yet to request an answer from me that I haven't already provided more than once in this discussion. The approach you and Aboutmovies have taken so far has been to simply ignore the answer — or to use logical fallacies to construct strawmen that have nothing whatsoever to do with the discussion at hand — so that you can reask the same question a second and third time and pretend I'm failing to respond to repeated requests for an answer to a question I've already answered. Bearcat (talk) 21:52, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Bearcat, I asked you: "How are Category:Radio stations in Ontario unique from Category:Radio stations in Manitoba" and you did not give answer. I asked you "And I ask again about the notability argument you raised earlier, where is that located?" regarding how notability applies to your overcat by intersection argument where notability is not mentioned in the critera. I've asked you "And, do you still think your deletion was proper under the process outlined at CFD for you deleting this category?" and you have not replied. And I've asked you "can you point me to the policy (or a guideline) that says what the number of articles in a category must attain prior to a category being divided into further subcats?" and you have not given the authority for this or a number. So, I'd say that no you have not already provided answers to these questions. If you feel you have answered these, please provide the diffs. Aboutmovies (talk) 22:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

One by one:

"How are Category:Radio stations in Ontario unique from Category:Radio stations in Manitoba?" Logical fallacy which is not relevant to this discussion. It's in no way parallel to the situation at hand, because what you're proposing is not a first-level subdivision of Category:Radio stations in the United States, but a second-level intersection of two separate subcategory trees. If an analogy would help explain what I mean, consider it this way: if "Radio stations in country" is a tree, then "radio stations by province or state" and "radio stations by format in country" are branches coming directly off the trunk. What you're proposing, however, is not a branch that's growing organically from the tree trunk, but the botanical equivalent of manually tying two separate branches together with a rope.

"And I ask again about the notability argument you raised earlier, where is that located?" has already been answered more than once; it's written right into the very explanation of WP:OCAT#Intersection by location, in the requirement that the location has to have a direct bearing on the subject's other characteristics — that criterion means that there has to be something uniquely encyclopedic about the intersection itself. To use the examples cited in that point, what the criterion means is that in order to be valid, there would have to be something that somehow made being a "male model from Dallas" inherently different from being a "male model from Houston" or a "male model from San Antonio". Subdividing "Radio stations in the United States" by state is an inherently distinct primary set because of geography; subdividing it by format is an inherently distinct primary set because of the different programming style. But intersecting those two sets falls under WP:OCAT, because it creates a secondary set whose "boundary does not have any relevant bearing on the subjects' other characteristics" — the fact that they're in Oregon does not make them fundamentally different from college radio stations in other states, and the fact that they're college radio stations doesn't make them significantly different from any other radio station operating in Oregon. It doesn't constitute an inherent distinction of its own — it's simply an intersection of two separate distinctions that don't actually have any specific relationship to each other.

"And, do you still think your deletion was proper under the process outlined at CFD for you deleting this category?" As has already been pointed out, there was nothing improper about the deletion as it occurred.

"Can you point me to the policy (or a guideline) that says what the number of articles in a category must attain prior to a category being divided into further subcats?" Policy does not have to spell out a specific number; precedents as applied in practice by actual CFD discussions are just as valid a consideration even if they haven't been explicitly codified. There does not have to be a specific minimum number written down in policy if CFD already has a working consensus, in which the raw number of articles is only one criterion out of several, about how to determine the validity or invalidity of such subgroupings.

And yes, I have previously answered all of these questions in this discussion. Bearcat (talk) 22:57, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Bearcat, the question you haven't answered is this: how could someone like Aboutmovies, who created the category to begin with and obviously cares about it, and edits Wikipedia regularly, have been reasonably expected to know that there was a proposed deletion, or to know what the outcome of that proposed deletion was? You have focused heavily on Aboutmovies' behavior (which I believe is a mistake to begin with); but you haven't addressed this fundamental problem with your view of his actions. -Pete (talk) 22:52, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

This is the rhetorical equivalent of calling me a witch: the mere allegation inherently puts a false onus upon me to prove the negative. Bearcat (talk) 23:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Bearcat, I'm not calling you anything, or asking you to prove anything. I just think it would help the tenor of this discussion enormously, if you were to at least acknowledge that AM was taken by surprise. I'm not blaming you for it, but I'm mystified as to why you don't even acknowledge that this situation is very difficult from a good-faith editor in AM's position to deal with. -Pete (talk) 23:24, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I've listed the decision for deletion review here: Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2008 October 31 -Pete (talk) 01:46, 31 October 2008 (UTC)