Category talk:Heads of state

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2004

There's been some discussion at Category talk:Pharaohs as to whether or not the category belongs under Category:Egyptian heads of state or not. French Tourist said it didn't belong, explaining:

Due to the complete political reorganization of the area during Greek, Roman, Arab, Ottoman periods, I think it is not reasonable to link Pharoahs to contemporary Egypt (in Category:Heads of state by country "countries" are reasonably modern countries). For the same reason while browsing through the various subcategories to clean up these categories, I did not even think to subcategorize "Roman emperors" in Italy or "Byzantine emperors" in Turkey, or "kings of ancient Israel" in Israel

This is a good point, but I think it would confuse people not to have them linked. I therefore offer the following proposal.

Under Category:Heads of state, there could be subcategories including Category:Heads of state of modern countries and Category:Heads of state of ancient regions, as well as Category:Heads of state by country. Under Category:Heads of state by country would be Category:Egyptian heads of state (although Category:Heads of state of Egypt would be better, specifying that an Egyptian ruler of non-Egyptian origin counts, but an Egyptian man who happens to be the Syrian head of state does not.) Then, under Category:Egyptian heads of state would be Category:Ancient Egyptian heads of state (which is also under Category:Heads of state of ancient regions) and Category:Modern Egyptian heads of state (which is also under Category:Heads of state of modern countries). Now there are minor problems with this technique, and some would say it goes too far, but I think it would be a good way to handle it.

What do you think? Quadell (talk) 17:20, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

I really think it would be easier to keep the category "heads of state" with the meaning I gave to it, and to create a category "ancient heads of state" for pharoas, roman emperors and so on... It would be nice to easily rename categories. Categories by countries have been quite randomly named using adjectives or names, and for something like heads of state, country names would be clearly better... "Heads of state of Egypt" rather than "Egyptian heads of state". As you shall see, nouns have been used in category "presidents" and adjectives in category "monarchs", and you can look around Category:Categories by country to discover both ways to do have been chosen.

Anyway I have not a very strong interest in the question, I write here my final remarks about this question and leave the problem for the next person stumbling over the dikfficulties of classifying effectively "by country". --French Tourist 18:24, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)