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Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/Non-admin closures

This discussion is clearly going nowhere, since one admin objects to everything without providing alternatives.
Leaving the discussion open is clearly just sucking editors into a wormhole, so I have deleted my draft to end the drama.
I thought that here seemed to be consensus for some sort of expansion of the possibility of NACs to clear the backlog, but I clearly misjudged that ... and I am sorry for wasting editors' time with this proposal. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:13, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

As discussed above, I have set up a page for non-admin CFD closures, at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/Non-admin closures.

For now, I have tagged it as {{under construction}}.

To see its effect on WP:CFDW, I did a test transclusion which I then self-reverted. See the Test

No details were discussed above, so I have made WP:BOLD decisions on how to structure it. It would be best if my choices are reviewed before this goes lives.

Points to note:

  1. I have WP:ECP protected the page. That means that CFD closers must have been registered for 30 days, and made at least 500 edits
  2. At § Guidance for Non-Admin Closers I have included top a reminder of the guidance at WP:NAC
    • Below that, I have verbatim copied the text from WP:NAC reminding closers of CFDs to be wary of the complexity of this area
  3. At § Guidance for admins, I:
    • ask admins to assess whether the closure meets the requirements of (WP:NAC).
    • to ping the NACs when taking action on an entry
  4. As per WP:CFDW, I have split the working area into two sections: § NACs: Move/merge, then delete and § Empty then delete
  5. In each section, I have asked NACs to make entries which are the same as those used at WP:CFDW, but with two additions:
    • top and tail each entry with ----, to separate each closure
    • to sign and date their addition, so that reviewing admins know who added the entry

Note that the page makes prolific use of <includeonly>..</includeonly> and <noinclude>..</noinclude> so irrelevant text does not display when transcluded in WP:CFDW

That's it. I hope that the page is reasonably straightforward, and strikes an appropriate balance between inadequate explanation and instruction creep

Comments/denunciations etc welcome. We need a rough consensus before implementing something like this. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:34, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Pinging DannyS712 and some admins: @Ymblanter, Timrollpickering, BU Rob13, Fayenatic london, and Black Falcon. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:36, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
@BrownHairedGirl: Can you explain the section below To indicate that manual work is necessary, and that the bot shouldn't blindly remove the category, use the following format:? I don't understand the format, but I'm also confused about why its needed, since non-admins like myself can still edit the manual page. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 23:41, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
@DannyS712: that's a copyover from WP:CFDW.
In some cases, many or all of a category's contents may be result of a template. The bot cannot fix such templates. And when the template is fixed, it takes a while for the pages which transclude it to purge. So this is a note to the bot saying in effect "wait until we tell you that the other stuff is sorted". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:51, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
@BrownHairedGirl: then can you put an example on that page, so that its clear? Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 23:57, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
@DannyS712, here's an example:[1]. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:07, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I don't think we should explicitly direct admins to enforce an essay (NAC) that makes recommendations on how non-admins may want to go about doing closes to avoid controversy. In particular, if a non-admin is competent, no policy or guideline restricts them from performing complex closes. In fact, the most recent community consensus at an RfC explicitly noted that admins could not unilaterally overturn a close of a non-admin merely because they weren't an admin. Further to that, I don't think we should be pinging non-admins to each action on a close, since the presumption should be that the close will stand unless there has been some extraordinary lapse in judgement, in which case the admin should challenge the close to the non-admin before enacting it just like they would challenge any other close. ~ Rob13Talk 01:09, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Agree with Rob. Agree, there is consensus, and always was, it is not OK to "overturn a close of a non-admin merely because they weren't an admin", but placing the emphasis on "merely", not "because". Admins should feel empowered to encouraged to unilaterally overturn an NAC because the close was a bad close. "some extraordinary lapse in judgement" is probably too high a bar. In such a circumstance, it is expected that the admin will immediately re-close, or will explain the error of the close. Simple mistakes happens, they should be easily fixable, it should not be a requirement to send a bad NAC close to DRV for a DRV admin regular to unilaterally revert the close, which has become a recent practice. "No admin would have made that close" is an expression that nicely covered when an NAC should be reverted. If the merit of the NAC is debatable, the closer's talk page followed by DRV is the way to resolve it.
WP:NAC contains excellent advice, always needs improvement, and should not be read as hard and fast rules. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:25, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
The transcluded sections use includeonly/noinclude to tweak their descriptions slightly, depending on context. I thought it would be confusing without that.
If that tweaking is confusing, maybe we shouldn't do that tweaking of description, or maybe not transclude. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:06, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
Oh, I see. No, the transclusion is not confusing as soon as it is reasonably well documented --Ymblanter (talk) 10:27, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

WP:CFDWNAC: Guidance to admins

Please assess whether the closure meets the requirements of Wikipedia:Non-admin closure (WP:NAC).

If you believe that the closure may be outside the scope of WP:NAC, please leave a signed note in the relevant section below pending resolution of the issues.

Whatever action you take, it will be helpful to the non-admin closers if you include in the edit summary a ping to the closer. This can be done simply by linking to their userpage, e.g.

[[User:Example2]] -- move for processing

--BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs), WP:CFDWNAC as of as of 00:08, 11 March 2019‎

@SmokeyJoe and BU Rob13: thanks for your comments.

I agree that is not OK to "overturn a close of a non-admin merely because they weren't an admin", and I don't think I implied that. I certainly didn't set out to do so.

But from the responses by both of you, maybe I have done something in that direction, or maybe struck the wrong tone?

So in the quote box on the right, I have quoted the current text of the notes, which I think is the relevant section. (If not, pls correct me.)

Do either or both of you want to suggest changes or a complete rewording?

As I note at the outset, this is just my first draft ... and if/when this goes live, it has to be on the basis of consensus support. If that looks nothing like my draft, so be it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:50, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

  • User:BrownHairedGirl, I think what you are doing looks good. The text in the box raises zero issues for me. There is the tiniest bit of crossover resonance with NACs at RM, maybe slightly more relevant than expected given the CfD-RM crossover with category renames, and how category rename discussions may be reviewed at WP:MRV. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:03, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
  • @BrownHairedGirl: I guess I'm a bit concerned about what you see it looking like if an admin believes a close does not fit the scope of NAC (which, I must reiterate, has the status of an essay). Does the admin effectively overturn the close by refusing to implement it? What counts as "outside the scope of NAC"? I think the presumption should be that the close is valid until it is overturned at a community venue, just like with any other close. ~ Rob13Talk 03:14, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
  • @BU Rob13, I see where you are coming from, but ...
  1. My fundamental concern is that an admin who moves an entry from WP:CFDWNAC to WP:CFDW is taking on board some responsibility for setting the bots loose. Per WP:Administrators#Care_and_judgement "Administrator tools are also to be used with careful judgment".
    I am not sure what the consensus is on how much responsibility they bear, but I am sure it is a non-zero quantity. That's why I thought it appropriate to flag up the need for some scrutiny before action: an admin should not be simply a clerk.
    The action an admin might take then could be anywhere on the spectrum of: think-a-bit-then-proceed ... discuss-with-closer ... take-to-DRV ... to at an extreme, overturn if it seems outrageous.
    This is not the place to specify how those choices would be made or to define the limits on them.
  2. I don't think you are quite right to treat WP:NAC as simply an essay. It has not been formally adopted as a guideline, but nor has it been rejected as such. It is WP:SUPPLEMENTAL, which is somewhere in between the two, and it seems to me to roughly describe community consensus.
  3. Note that I took care not to prescribe any course of action if an admin has concerns, other than to note that they are raising the issue. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:04, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
@BrownHairedGirl: I agree they take on some responsibility, so it would be worthwhile to ask admins to ensure the closes adhere to WP:CONSENSUS and WP:DEL, the actual policies, rather than some essay. Until NAC has been upgraded to a guideline (which I would strongly oppose), we shouldn't be instructing admins to adhere strictly to it. ~ Rob13Talk 15:00, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
@BU Rob13: WP:NAC is not some essay, and it's disappointing to see you repeatedly mislabelling it in that way.
Categories are much more complex than AFD, RM, MfD or TFD, because each category page impacts many other pages, and in some cases the category structure is such that a few deletions or incomplete merges may cut thousands of pages off from category hierarchies in which they belong. Without the references to WP:NAC, what is an admin to do in the following common situations if the NAC has closed in favour of a botched nomination where there are only a few unqualified "support" !votes, and no recognition of the consequences :
  1. Nomination deletes a container category rather than merging it, orphaning the subcats
  2. Nomination merges to only one of multiple parent categories. e.g. "Cat:Foo in Bar" is merged only to "Cat:Foo"
  3. Nomination breaches WP:EGRS, without any discussion of that effect
You appear to be advocating that in such cases an admin has no discretion to do anything other than lets the bots loose. I would regard that as massively disruptive, and I'd regard it as a gross dereliction of duty if any admin said "I was only following the orders of the closer, and it's none of my business that the closer has no experience of categories and no understanding of consequences".
I am keen to facilitate NACs if there is some filter or scrutiny before the bots are let loose. But I will oppose this whole thing if it is to be used as a vehicle to allow inexperience closers to wreak havoc with the category system while telling everyone "go to DRV if you don't like it" as others peruse the bot logs to try to figure how the damage could be undone.
This all seems to me to be a huge pity. We have an opportunity here to open the door a little, and thereby expand the limited range of closers ... but if Rob insists that it's a choice between the status quo and throwing the door wide open, then we'll end up with no change. And then skilled NACs like @DannyS712 won't be able to help clear the backlog which prompted this proposal. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:51, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
@BrownHairedGirl: What about saying that by transferring entries, admins implicitly endorse the closure. In the examples of me pinging @Ymblanter, they evaluated each one individually before deciding that, yes, my NAC was okay, and the bot should perform the needed actions. I agree that there are situations where a good-faith NAC can be misguided, and the bot should not be instructed to carry it out. --DannyS712 (talk) 20:56, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @BrownHairedGirl: I'm not saying "blindly set the bot loose". I'm saying that a close cannot be overturned by an admin unilaterally, as there is no policy or guideline allowing an admin to do that, and WP:CLOSECHALLENGE provides different steps to appropriately challenge any close. If an admin wants to place a result on hold while they challenge the close on its substance per WP:CLOSECHALLENGE, I'd be fine with that. I specifically object to talking about "closes that comply with NAC" or anything similar, though, if that is intended to go beyond the substance of the close into an evaluation of whether the (correct) close should have come from a non-admin. An "explanatory supplement" has no more standing than an essay, per WP:SUPPLEMENTAL (which is a guideline). The heading explicitly notes it has not been vetted by the community. As a side note, were someone to "block" Danny's closes by opposing the creation of a subpage to WP:CFD/W, I'd just create a page in my userspace and invite Danny to submit things there. A centralized subpage of WP:CFD/W is ideal but not required, so long as at least one admin is willing to process his closes. That's what the information page for CfD states currently, and there's substantial precedent allowing non-admins to make closes at CfD while working in conjunction with an admin. ~ Rob13Talk 21:03, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
@BU Rob13: the situation of you implementing by closes by @DannyS712 is where we are now. I have no objection to that, because you both have good judgement.
As you note, that has been the case for some time: an NAC may be implemented by an admin if they so choose.
This proposal is an attempt to make that process less private, by providing a central page where any admin may assess and possibly implement the close by any NAC.
However, your stance seems to be that any attempt to take this out of the realm of private-bilateral deals must be done as a removal of all admin discretion. That seems to me to be perverse and disruptive, and I see nobody else supporting that, but if you want to block this process, that's up to you.
I'm sorry for wasting my time and other people's time in drafting this. So I think it's best that I just delete WP:CFDWNAC and withdraw this proposal. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:54, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
@BrownHairedGirl: I'm not trying to block anything, and it's unclear to me how a disagreement over the instructions for this page has led to you considering withdrawing the proposal entirely. I'm still not sure exactly what you're advocating an administrator do if they believe a close is improper. If I thought one of Danny's closes wasn't a good close, I'd talk with them first. If I still disagreed, I'd go to AN and try to overturn the close that way. If the close was upheld at AN, I would enact the close (or leave it to someone else to do so, if I very strongly disagreed). That's what I suggest the instructions say, in line with WP:CLOSECHALLENGE. All I disagree with is the idea that an admin could essentially unilaterally overturn a close while skipping the discussion with the closer and/or the trip to AN. ~ Rob13Talk 22:01, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
@BU Rob13: I'm sorry that you are unclear how a disagreement over the instructions for this page has led to you considering withdrawing the proposal entirely.
But I am surprised that you are unclear. I don't see how I can spell out any more clearly than I have that I regard it as essential that a) NACs are clearly warned that a level of competence is required, and b) admins must exercise discretion.
You have opposed both.
That's not simply a matter of the wording of instructions; it's a fundamental disagreement about the purpose of this page.
The purpose which you want is something which I vigorously oppose. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:14, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
@BrownHairedGirl: If you believe I oppose either of those things, there's been a rather serious miscommunication. I agree non-admins who close discussions require a level of competence, and have backed that up with action in the past, ending mentoring arrangements with an editor that had intended to get them closing CfDs because I believed there was insufficient competence. I agree that admins must exercise discretion, obviously, because ultimately it's their name on the edit that spurs the bot to action. Our point of actual disagreement (or perhaps, just confusion, because I'm still not clear on what you position on this is) appears to be two-fold: One, should an admin be able to object to a non-admin close merely because it was a close call and they were a non-admin, even if the close is perfectly justifiable? NAC says this is okay, but the most recent assessment of consensus on this point at an RfC has stated admins cannot unilaterally revert a close just because a non-admin performed it, which I believe to contradict that point. Two, what should it look like when an admin disagrees with a CfD close that a non-admin has made? I think it should look like WP:CLOSECHALLENGE, with the bot implementing the result on-hold until the close has been overturned at AN or the admin is satisfied with the non-admin's response on their talk page. ~ Rob13Talk 01:05, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
@BU Rob13:, I 'll take those two points in turn:
  1. As noted above, I did not specify what action an admin may take when face with a bad close by a non-admin. I do not want to unilaterally write a new point of broad guideline or policy into a technical page, and nor do I believe that this discussion should do so.
    What I did instead was to create a technical mechanism by which an admin may place a non-admin close on hold while the issue is resolved, however that may be.
    So lemme be clear: no matter how hard you push me, I will not take a position here on the precise range of appropriate responses by an admin who finds an NAC to be problematic. This technical discussion is simply not the place for that.
  2. The draft at WP:CFDWNAC is very clear what should it look like when an admin disagrees with a CfD close that a non-admin has made?: "please leave a signed note in the relevant section below pending resolution of the issues."
    That marks the entry as on-hold ending resolution. It will look something like "Discussing this with the claser @Example, at Usertalk:Example#CFDclose --sig".
    I suspect that by what should it look like you actually mean "what actions should the admin take" ... and my answer to that is again that this technical page is not the place to micro-specify that.
We agree that competence is required for closing CFDs. So it seems to me be essential that there should be some clear notice to that effect at the top of WP:CFDWNAC.
I believe that it would be reckless folly to set up such a page without warning editors that does require skills and experience.
That could be done in two ways: by writing our own policy on the hoof, or by referencing an existing page which has community support. WP:NAC may not be perfect, but it sure as hell has a lot more proven community buy-in than anything which you or I might draft here. And WP:NAC is the only place I can find which sets out the competence issues required for CFD closes.
So, please, clarify what you actually want ... because all you have done so far is to say that you abhor WP:NAC.
Do you want:
  1. No competence-required notice on the page?
  2. Some amendment to existing NAC-based notice?
  3. Some new text? (in which case, please produce a draft)
But before answering, please step back and look at the big picture here. As I noted lower down this page, we have an opportunity here to extend the possibility for NACs. But so far, all you have done is to object to everything without providing a single clear counter-proposal, and to insist on some maximalist points of principle which it is abundantly clear do not have consensus support in this discussion.
AS a result, we have a sprawling pointless meta-discussion where we could have had a step forwards. And I've had enough. I will be busy in the next few days, and don't have time to continue with this drama; nor do I want to suck more of the energies of other editors into something which is clearly going nowhere. So my next edit will be to delete WP:CFDWNAC. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:04, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
  • (1) Is there any history of NAC problem closes at CfD?
    (2) Is there any other such sensible and skilled non-admin wanting to help out with CfD closes but Danny?
    (3) Isn’t this this answer? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:52, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
    @SmokeyJoe: umm. I'm flattered, but WP:NOTYET --DannyS712 (talk) 21:53, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
    There is no history of NAC problem closes at CfD that I'm aware of. In fact, there's a long history of non-admins coming in and cleaning up backlogs at CfD, especially when allowed to make difficult closes. I did it before I became an admin. Marcocapelle continues to be an excellent closer at CfD. Danny is emerging as a good one. Many non-admins choose not to run for RfA due to how toxic that process has become. ~ Rob13Talk 22:04, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
    ec. Danny. My reading of this situation is that CfD is technically challenging, and closes require both skill and trust. Upgrading WP:NAC to ensure that only the qualified NACers get into CfD closing is an unfortunate consequence of RfA having become too big a deal. RfA is supposed to be the community considered and deciding whether you should be trusted with these admin action. As to whether you should personally, that’s a user_talk discussion. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:06, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I wasn't aware of this discussion going on until just pinged. Just want to share with you this edit of myself after which MJL self-reverted their closure. This provides some evidence of two things at the same time: A) there is some risk in non-admin closures indeed; B) in this case, under the new regime, a unilateral revert of the closure by an admin would not be needed, because just a chat with MJL would suffice. The general problem with a unilateral revert of one admin is that another admin might have approved the NAC closure so that the procedure is becoming rather arbitrary. The possibility that a second admin has another opinion than a first admin is really not an unlikely event, even at WP:DRV there is not always unanimity between admins. Rather than allowing unilateral reverts I would prefer a more elaborate description of circumstances in which a NAC closure is less desirable or undesirable. Number of categories nominated, amount of discussion, tone of voice in the discussion, generally sensitive topics (e.g. certain topics in politics), experience level of NAC closer, etc. should all play a role. When factors like these are listed in a document (either supplement or essay), there is less risk of a bad NAC closure, and even if a bad closure happens an admin can directly refer to this list in a follow-up chat with the NAC closer and the chat will then become a lot easier. Marcocapelle (talk) 23:20, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I'm most concerned with unilateral reverts of a close simply because the close was made by a non-admin and was a close call. WP:NAC seems to even encourage this practice, but I think it's plainly against the fundamental principles of the project – that adminship is just a set of tools, and that any editor with the opportunity to improve the project should feel free to do so. ~ Rob13Talk 01:09, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
  • That’s not my understanding of the spirit of NAC. Reading it carefully, it speaks barely at all to admin reverts of NACs. A footnote says “Closures may only be reopened by an uninvolved administrator in their individual capacity, giving their reasoning,”. I think I recall the expression "No admin would have made that close" from before the NAC page was even written. There are a few unwritten assumptions that you new people aren’t reading. A unilateral admin’s NAC revert is a huge slap. It’s not for when the close is close or arguable, but for when the close was completely inappropriate or wrong. Like when done by an involved inept newcomer. Some text could be added to clarify. There is sort of a case currently at MRV, except the actually close done was correct. When challenged, all it needs is for an admin to counter sign it. NAC reverts have become rare, largely due to requests on the closer’s talk page generally working so well, and all closers being fearful of a formal overturn at DRV or MRV. So, I think, mostly this miscommunication is over something rare. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:27, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
An example of the standard practice of any admin reverting an NAC, with reasons provided, is Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2019 March 12#Veracity of statements by Donald Trump. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:35, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
  • (ec) @BU Rob13: I'm tired now, so this will be brief. And it will also be blunt.
There is broad agreement here to extend to facilitate more NACs at CFD. WE have here a draft of a mechanism to do that.
AFAICS, most editors who have commented -- me, SmkoeyJoe, Marcocapelle, Ymblanter -- want some a) sort of clear warning of caution and of competence being required;, and b) some mechanism for admins to mark problematic NACs as on hold while they are resolved.
You, however, are demanding that the whole thing be opened much wider than other participants in this discussion want.
So the effect of what you are doing is to block progress because it doesn't go far enough for you.
I disagree profoundly with you about the principle you assert that any editor should feel free to close a CFD. I believe that it goes completely against the principles of the project that someone without demonstrated competence and experience should be empowered to exercise a unilateral judgement which others are obliged to follow without a trip to the drama boards.
We disagree on that. And it's a fundamental disagreement of principle which will not be resolved here.
So you now have a choice. Do you:
A/ continue to object to anything short of your maximalist goal?, or
B/ welcome this is a step towards your goal, with the possibility of taking it further later, if and when a consensus emerges to do so.
Only you can make that choice.
But I for on am feeling very fed up that you are making the best the enemy of the good. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:31, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
Fascinating to just happen across this discussion as an admin who works with categories but doesn't close a lot of CfD discussions. I didn't know that there was a crisis with closing CfD proposals. But I support any proposal by BrownHairedGirl who knows this area of Wikipedia more than almost all admins and editors. But I wonder if a notice on WP:AN wouldn't gain some attention from admins who don't know that there is a backlog at CfD. Liz Read! Talk! 01:54, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
In the past, I've tried such notices with little success. Most admins don't know the category-related guidelines and don't care to learn them, so our closers tend to be "homegrown" rather than recruited from existing admins. CfD participants passing RfA as a result of CfD closes is more common than admins becoming involved in CfD closes. And BHG, that's simply not what I've advocated. I'm fine with placing things on hold pending further discussion. I've said as much multiple times. I'd like to know what that "further discussion" looks like. I've asked for an answer to that several times and still await it. ~ Rob13Talk 02:00, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
@BrownHairedGirl: It's been hard to provide a counter-proposal because I wasn't sure what your position actually was. That's why I requested clarification. I'm perfectly fine with requiring competence and having a notice to that effect. I believe I've made clear that I fully agree with you on that point and haven't questioned anything about the notice along those lines. Now that I understand your position more clearly, the specific change I would like is for the notice to spell out that an admin who objects to a non-admin's close should discuss the substance of the close with the non-admin on their user talk, preferably explicitly referencing the first step of WP:CLOSECHALLENGE, as a first step toward resolution. I would have no objection to this if the notice made clear that an admin cannot simply decline to enforce a close and not discuss the matter, leaving things up in the air with no clear path forward. As long as a discussion follows, I have absolutely zero objection to this. I'm fine with punting on the issue of what happens if the admin and non-admin continue to disagree; I can accept the argument that this is a poor venue to hash that out. I think "discuss with the non-admin" is such an obvious first step that directing an admin to do that in the instructions is uncontroversial.

I would appreciate if you'd undo the closure of this section, because I think there is progress to be made here. I'm not trying to be obstructionist. I'm not trying to reach the best possible solution or else scuttle the whole thing. I'm trying to ensure we get to the best possible solution that we can agree on. That does take some discussing of our different viewpoints, which is all I believe we've done here. ~ Rob13Talk 02:41, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: you did get clarification, repeatedly. You just ignored it and kept going around in circles.
e.g. at 04:04 yesterday, I wrote[2] The action an admin might take then could be anywhere on the spectrum of: think-a-bit-then-proceed ... discuss-with-closer ... take-to-DRV ... to at an extreme, overturn if it seems outrageous. This is not the place to specify how those choices would be made or to define the limits on them.
But you continued on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and feckin on ad infinitum making variants of the same point and asking variants of the same question, but ignoring the answers ... and you continued going off down wormholes like your fundamental objection to WP:NAC and how you desire to see anyone close anything ... then contradicting that with your description of how you apply a lot of discretion wrt to NACs.
And at no stage whatsoever did you suggest any clear alternative or amendment to what was proposed.
This pattern of jumping around tangents, ignoring what had actually been written, and providing no clear alternatives is utterly antithetical to a consensus-building. I have known your work long enough to have not the slightest suspicion that you were any way trying to troll or be disruptive. But lots of what you did above was horribly similar to the classic alt.syntax.tactical techniques.
If, as I believe, you didn't intend to do that, then it's time to revise your approach. Stay focused, be clear about exactly what you want or don't want, and provide clear alternatives. That's a path to solutions; but the circling and the claim that questions haven't been answered when they actually have is just a path to timewasting madness.
So, no, I won't reopen this discussion, and I won't undelete my draft. I have had way more than enough. But I don't WP:OWN either page, and the draft is CCA-licensed, so other editors and admins can make their own decisions about whether they see any productive purpose in reviving this proposal, or whether they too will be sucked into a wormhole of ask-questions-but-ignore-answers and object-but-offer-more-alternatives.
Over and out. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:09, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
I think the breakdown in communication here occurred because I believed it desirable to specify at least an initial action for the admin to take when declining to action a non-admin close, and I didn't anticipate objection to that point. I misread your comment as presenting several possible first actions and attempted to continue the discussion by figuring out which action should correspond to which type of potentially faulty close. That's why I went down the "rabbit hole" of talking about closes I don't regard as faulty. I thought it relevant because, if we're trying to specify what an admin should do as a first step when encountering a bad close, we necessarily need to figure out what constitutes a bad close. I interpreted the existing language in the header you proposed as stating "anything not specified in NAC" constitutes a bad close that could be overturned by an admin, even if the substance of the close was fine. I didn't think that was your intent, which is why I was trying to drill down on what you did intend. I apologize that this came across as badgering or ignoring answers. I appear to have fundamentally misunderstood your position, which resulted in me asking for something that didn't even apply given what you had already told me. This was not what I wanted. I probably shouldn't have participated in this discussion at all today. I've been feeling unwell for the past couple days, and it probably affected my comprehension of your position somewhat. This isn't an excuse, just context.

I withdraw any objection to any of this, as well as my participation in this area for at least the near future. Please do not let me be the reason this doesn't happen. ~ Rob13Talk 03:25, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, @BU Rob13, Hope you feel better soon.
I'm checking out on this one. If anyone else wants to pursue some path to achieve similar goals, then they are of course free to do so. And that obviously includes reopening this discussion if they think it helpful, and/or undeleting the draft Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/Non-admin closures if they think that helpful.
But I'll leave it to others.
My parting thought is that in a comment yesterday[3], @SmokeyJoe best described the fundamental problem here. There is broad consensus that CFD closes require some experience and good judgement, and the community used to assess that by the WP:RFA process. Adminship had two functions: a vetting process to screen out the incompetents, and a revocable status as an incentive to sustain high standards.
Sadly, adminship turned out to be harder to revoke than some editors thought right, so the RFA screening process developed into a vetting process which became more and more gruelling until some time in about 2010 it came to look more like hazing. The result is not enough admins, so the community needs workarounds to stop processes such as CFD grinding to a halt without removing all quality control. Any possible workaround to the brokenness of RFA will obviously be a kludge, and I am no longer sure whether there can be consensus for any kludge in this case.
In the absence of either a new culture at RFA (tried many times, and failed) or an NAC process here, what we are left with is ad hoc practice in which some admins effectively delegate their decision-making power to a few trusted individuals. That works very well in some cases, but it is inevitably a bit cliquey ... and this effective privatisation of vetting seems to me to be in principle the worst possible workaround to the backlog. That's not in any way a criticism of the individuals such as @Marcocapelle and @ DannyS712 who use this workaround; they do great work, and without them, CFD would simply break. But their endorsement should happen through a public, transparent process, and their current limbo status is a mark of a serious community failure. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:17, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
If there was a problem with RFA in this regard, surely we would be able to point to a CfD regular who has been denied the mop. I know everyone at CfD has been trying to get Marcocapelle to run for adminship for years now, and I guarantee he would be an easy pass if he'd just step up and do it. DannyS712 would make a great candidate soon enough. He would have my support now, but I completely understand why he'd want to wait to have a bit more tenure first. On the other hand, BU Rob13 passed RFA in no small part due to the CfD backlog despite a short-ish tenure at the time. -- Tavix (talk) 21:44, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
@Tavix: Thanks for the pre-emptive support, but yes, I would like to have a bit more tenue first --DannyS712 (talk) 21:58, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
@Tavix: the problem with RFA is not that there are ongoing cases of fine editors who are denied the mop.
The problem is that nowadays hardly anyone applies, because regardless of outcome the process is just too unpleasant. Even aside from the peanut gallery throwing insults and the witch-hunters trawling a candidate's contribs to pounce on the the smallest laspe, there is the open-ended question process where some editors just bombard candidates with time-consuming questions.
I have also tried several times to persuade Marcocapelle to run, but like everyone else I have approached in the last 5 or 6 years he declined. I can't fault their wisdom in prioritising self-preservation. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:35, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
Speaking for myself, my RfA was fairly recent (less than 3 years) and it was a similar RFA in that it was a narrow request to help out at RfD, and I don't think it was unpleasant at all. Quite the opposite in fact—because it provided a wide range of praise and a touch of constructive criticism where necessary. I've told Marco this in the past, but I think he would have a similar experience to the one I enjoyed if he runs. -- Tavix (talk) 22:47, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
Tavix, I have seen some other RFAs go well like that. But it's pot luck; some go horribly wrong, even for good candidates. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:54, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
I guess there's only one way to find out... -- Tavix (talk) 01:11, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Anecdotal evidence for sure, but for what it's worth, I nearly retired after my own RfA even though the outcome never appeared to be in serious doubt. Editors who I had disagreed with in content disputes came out of the woodwork to oppose based on grudges they chose to hold onto for no particular reason. Long-term editors I had never met took to openly calling me a sock with no evidence besides the fact that I was fairly competent right out of the gate. Others criticized me for early mistakes characteristic of a newbie. (Yes, I get the irony that the last two positions are contradictory.) I found it to be a profoundly unpleasant experience, and I very nearly withdrew despite heading toward success just to make it end. ~ Rob13Talk 02:33, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

For the record, my RFA less than five years ago was unproblematic as well (though I run into problems later).--Ymblanter (talk) 14:14, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
/me gently shoos RFA commenters to WT:RFA or a relevant user talk page. --Izno (talk) 16:01, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Backlog monitoring

Thanks to some cunning Lua programming by @Pppery at Module:XfD old, I have created a template to dynamically display the current state of the backlog at WP:CFD and WP:TFD.

The template is {{XFD backlog}}. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:00, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

From the discussion that originally led me to write the module:
Behold the end of the era of bots and the beginning of the era of Lua! {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 01:02, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
I was far righter than I had realized. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 03:09, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Changing when non-administrative closures are permitted

Editors may be interested in participating in this discussion about what types of non-administrative closures are permissible. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:34, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Replace primary CFD template with LUA module

I have written a LUA module, currently at Module:Sandbox/Od Mishehu/cfd, which would duplicate the functionality of the current {{cfd all}}, the template which all the other cfd templates ultimately use. I believe my module is both more readable than {{cfd all}}; and, since it uses only a single parameter to represent the type of discussion, it's easier to upgrade the system if we create an other discussion type. Note that for attribution purposes, we don't need to keep {{cfd all}}, since this version of {{cfr}} is virtually the same. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:58, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Good work, @עוד מישהו.
I had just start work on sandboxed versions of the cfx templates (e.g. {{Cfd/sandbox}} .. {{Cfd all/sandbox}}) which would add to the template some processing links:
  • in all cases, an "Admins: click here to delete" link, which would build an edit summary explaining the action (deletion, merger, or renaming)
  • For merge or rename actions, a further link "Admins: click here to redirect"
There is a crude demo (cluttered with diagnostics) at Category:X1 (permalink). (Note: I think the extra features are visible only to admins)
In some cases, this requires extra parameters to be passed from other templates, which will be a bit of faff to set up. But I really think that this is worth doing, because currently a lot of cutting and pasting is needed to achieve these tasks. Building in this functionality would significantly streamline the administrative task of processing CFD closes. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:20, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

The lua module, as currently coded, is an example of a module I would TfD as "Unnecessary Lua module, can be implemented in Wikitext". {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 01:24, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

I think that the module's use would be cleaner than the use of the current {{cfd all}} is, and the coding to handle this cleanliness is cleaner than a template could possibly be. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:42, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
@BrownHairedGirl:I have added the functionality of a message to be shown only to admins with a deletion link; confirmed that it disappears when I log out and reload the page.. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:42, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
@ עוד מישהו Od Mishehu that sounds great. I am sure it is way cleaner than the Wikitext versions of that functionality, which got v convoluted. Is there a live demo?
In my experiments, I found that I needed to do a few tweaks to {{Cfd full}} / {{Cfr full}} / {{Cfm full}} etc to pass through the params to get the redirection feature to work and produce informative edit summaries. Have you got redirection working?
It seems to me that this is potentially a good time to dispose of the intermediate "cfx full" templates. If we're gonna have a Lua module, might as well let it do all the work. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:10, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
Except that LUA is generally invoked directly only from the template namespace. We would need a template namespace wrapper for it. And tweaking could be done more easily and cleanly in a LUA module than in the template namespace. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:16, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
@עוד מישהו Od Mishehu we currently have {{Cfd}}→{{Cfd full}}→{{Cfdall}}
AIUI, your proposal would leave us with {{Cfd}}→{{Cfd full}}→{{Cfdall}}→Module
So why do we need {{Cfd full}} in that mix? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:28, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
My plan is to remove {{cfd all}} from the flow, have all the cfx full templates call the module. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 23:22, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Relisting procedure

The following was posted at WT:XFDC#CfD Relisting - discussions should be closed as relisted:

WP:RELIST says that When relisting a discussion, it should be removed from the log for its original date (this does not apply at Categories for discussion) and moved to the current date's log where the discussion will continue. However, currently relisting CfDs does result in removing it from the log. As BU Rob13 nicely explained to me (User talk:DannyS712#Relisting CfDs), When you relist a CfD, the appropriate way to do so is to leave the original discussion where it was, closing it as normal with "relisted at X" as the rationale, with X being a link to the new discussion. You can then copy over the discussion to the new location with {{relist}}.

The above advice is inconsistent with WP:CFDAI, which for relisting says "See Template:Cfd relisted" – and that template's documentation says to replace the original discussion. So what is, or should be, the relisting procedure for CFD? (Note that I can code XFDcloser to do CFD relists either way – the script already uses the "close as relisted" method for TFD relists, and the "replace with a relisted note" method for RFD) - Evad37 [talk] 09:59, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Pinging @DannyS712 who posted the above to WT:XFDC - Evad37 [talk] 10:04, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Pinging @Tavix: who created this template Hhkohh (talk) 10:04, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
  • The "RFD" way is superior, IMO. The closing templates should not be used because the discussion is not actually closed, simply moved to another location. From my experience at CfD, discussions aren't relisted that often, and I've seen it done both ways, which is probably why there are inconsistencies. -- Tavix (talk) 01:17, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I have always relisted by closing the discussion on the old page, rather than removing it. I can see no advantage to removing it, but many situations in which removal would be confusing and unhelpful.
And CFD relistings aren't that rare. I have probably relisted 25 or more discussions this month in the course of clearing some of a backlog.
Which reminds me: there is still a backlog of discussions open since January and February. Some of them are relistings from December 2018. @Evad37 and Tavix: please please could you two help out by closing a few? Please? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:28, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
I copied the "closing" method of BHG & others when I came on board, and only recently realised that the discussion can be cut rather than copied, and that there is a CFD relist template which specifies the latter. Using the template does not confuse the bot that counts open discussions for WP:CFDAC, so I'm willing to change my practice. – Fayenatic London 12:35, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I detest CfD relisting, where it means copy-pasting my comments to a new page that I am not watchlisting. Relisting should mean that the discussion has an unusual point of interest, but the copy-pasting causes me to lose it because I rely on watchlisting. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:32, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
    • @SmokeyJoe: so long as CFD uses a page-per-day structure (rather than individual pages for each discussion, like AFD and MFD), co-paste will continue to be the only technically possible way to relist. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:09, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
      • You could leave the discussion where it is, add the resisting comment to the discussion, and find some other way to advertise old CfDs wanting further participation. I’m not sure relisting actually serves to advertise old discussions, I think it does the opposite, hiding old discussions from appearing as unclosed very old discussions. Reshuffling old discussions to the top, doesn’t that just re-expose the discussion to the same CfD regulars? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:17, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
        • I think it re-exposes the discussion to anyone who is visiting the new discussion page, which will include some CfD regulars (not necessarily the same ones) and some CfD non-regulars who happened to be there due to another discussion. I would think not relisting would do more to hide it, so that only those browsing very old discussions would come across them. -- Black Falcon (talk) 02:52, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
          • In practice, relisting is often more effective for gaining additional comments, than leaving the discussion running on the original page. It is also useful in some cases for adding related or alternative categories into the nomination. – Fayenatic London 12:35, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I agree with Tavix, that the approach used at RFD (transferring the discussion to the new page and leaving a relist notice in its place) is better. I share SmokeyJoe's frustration re: watchlisting, but it'I find it a relatively minor inconvenience to watchlist the new page to which the discussion was moved. -- Black Falcon (talk) 02:52, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
    • When my signature is copied to the new page, does that relisting step create a Ping to me from the new page (which I think would be good)? Does relisting involve a relister’s signature that enables the ping, subject to their being too many pings? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:46, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
      I don't think so. I've never been notified of a TFD relisting (this one didn't notify me), I've had to find them through my watchlist; so as they both involve a copypaste I guess the same applies to CFD relistings. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:30, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Bots not working?

The tasks added in the last ~12h to the page were not processed. Usually they are taken care of within minutes, and I do not see any issues with the added tasks so that the bot could have got stuck.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:00, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Indeed, Cydebot has been inactive for 23 hours. The last edit of the operator was 4 months ago. Do we have a replacement?--Ymblanter (talk) 13:10, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
I've been trying to get one approved: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/JJMC89 bot III. — JJMC89 (T·C) 18:51, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
Although Cyde does not necessarily respond to messages left on his talk page, he generally responds very quickly when emailed. He ran the bot when I messaged him on 24 March, and made some more changes re job submission on the 25th, since when it seems to be working fine again. – Fayenatic London 22:06, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

RfC re: Categorizing all works (albums, songs) by an artist by genre

I've submitted an RfC re: the categorization of all works (albums, songs) by artists by genre.

Please see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Music#RfC_on_categorizing_all_works_by_an_artist_by_genre.

Thanks! ---Another Believer (Talk) 21:04, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Page Moves for Categories??

Page mover access is now necessary to move categories. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 00:38, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I would have sworn that Renaming of Categories by Page Move was not permitted; hence the existence of the CFD process. And yet I just discovered a whole group of categories that were moved by an editor completely on his own accord a few years back, simply by moving them as is done with articles. Has there been a major change on how this is handled compared to how things were done 5 or 10 years ago? (Is my memory failing, or has there always been a Page Move button/link right there on every Category page?) I would be most appreciative if someone would be kind enough to clarify all of this. Thanks in advance! Anomalous+0 (talk) 12:51, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

You can page move categories now (as opposed to earlier), yes. That does not change that each category invocation needs to be changed (by bot, usually). --Izno (talk) 12:55, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
Wow. That is huge. Glad to know I hadn't lost my mind! How/Why did such a big change come about? And also, if any editor can move categories entirely on their own, doesn't that negate the whole raison d'etre for having a CFD process, as well as creating a gigantic mess?? (e.g. what I just came across at Category:Population concern organizations and its subcats.) Anomalous+0 (talk) 20:21, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
The problem is attribution, per usual. Edit histories were not sticking with the categories except by hand-jamming in the edit history by the bot, which was not sufficient in the case of lengthy edit histories. No, it does not negate the CFD process. Such a move can be and will be reverted if out of process. I haven't seen a significant mess ever pop up at ANI so I don't think that is that messy. --Izno (talk) 20:57, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for taking the time to reply again, Izno. And I hope other editors will respond, as well. When I say "creating a gigantic mess" I am talking about (for example) the kind of situation I referred to at Category:Population concern organizations and its subcats. One editor made a series of Category moves, etc. that has left things in a shamble. The other issue that concerns me is, what's the point of working out a reasonable solution at CFD if any ignorant (i.e. unknowledgable) editor can come along and change things all on their own?? Seems like a huge waste of time. Or am I missing something? Anomalous+0 (talk) 22:06, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
The decision (to extend the ability of autoconfirmed users to move categories in addition to regular pages) was not taken by English Wikipedia, but by the software developers. We had an RfC about it at the time, the outcome of which was (IIRC) that we should continue to use WP:CFD and WP:CFDS for at least two reasons: one, it would provide at least 7 days (48 hours for CFDS) notice of an impending move, so that others could comment; two, upon approval of the move, a bot - normally Cydebot (talk · contribs) - moves the category page and its talk page, and also goes through all pages in the category to amend the category code in each page. It is this second step that is often overlooked by the person performing an undiscussed direct move. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:00, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
I've also found Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive262#Category pages will be movable soon and Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Archive 15#Limiting category moves. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:08, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the background info, Redrose. Not terribly surprising that this change didn't originate down here in the sub-basement. <sigh> It is good not to lose the edit history when there's a rename; I've never understood that. The fact remains, however, that -- in contrast to what happens at CFD -- there is NO "notice of an impending move" when someone uses the Page Move button; it takes effect instantly. Am I missing something? Anomalous+0 (talk) 09:24, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
The point is that you shouldn't go straight for the Page Move button - you're supposed to file a CFD or CFDS first, and see how it pans out. If it closes as "rename", a trusted individual - perhaps the closing admin, or perhaps Cydebot - will perform the actual page move. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:14, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Ahh, if only... The problem is, the vast majority of editors are completely unaware of the proper procedure that should be followed. They don't even know that there IS a proper procedure, because there's no mention whatsoever of CFD or CFDS on the page that opens when someone clicks on the Move Page link. Here is the entire message they see:
"Using the form below will rename a page, moving all of its history to the new name. The old title will become a redirect page to the new title. Links to the old page title will not be changed.
"This can be a drastic and unexpected change for a popular page; please be sure you understand the consequences of this before proceeding. Please read Help:Moving a page for more detailed instructions.
"Warning: You are about to move a category page. Please note that only the page will be moved and any pages in the old category will not be recategorized into the new one."
Notice that only at the very end is there a warning about categories -- but only with regard to the need to recategorize the pages. Even if an editor decides for some reason to take a look at Help:Moving a page and finds the section on Categories, they still aren't advised to open a discussion at CFD -- much less told that it's mandatory.
It seems to me that editors should be warned in very clear terms -- right there on the Page Move page -- that they must post their proposed changes at either CFD or CFDS prior to moving/renaming a Category. Frankly, I'm astonished that this wasn't taken care of right from the start. (Again, am I missing something???) Anomalous+0 (talk) 01:57, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
I suggest that category pages should not have, by default, a “move” button. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:06, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
Hah - we've come full circle. As I said above, I was stunned to discover the Page Move button on Category pages. If we are indeed stuck with that, we should at least take whatever steps we can to limit the damage. Anomalous+0 (talk) 04:33, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
I wholeheartedly agree with both of you. -- Black Falcon (talk) 04:37, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
Totally agree. Do we have a technical way to know how often this happens? Few cat pages are watched, & the optimism expressed by Izno above ("Such a move can be and will be reverted if out of process. I haven't seen a significant mess ever pop up at ANI so I don't think that is that messy") may be excessive. Johnbod (talk) 05:26, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
I'm not sure about a technical way of evaluating the frequency of out-of-process moves, but User:RussBot/category redirect log is a potential tool for tracking them. -- Black Falcon (talk) 05:33, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
Not all category moves need discussing. We would also need a speedy procedure. I quite often move categories I have just created, mostly because of the spelling of "organisation", and that is a useful solution to that problem because it creates an automatic redirect. Rathfelder (talk) 08:17, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
In general I think it is way to tempting and easy to move any page, and it should be harder, but with the necessary exception being a page you recently created and has not many edits by others. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:43, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
@Rathfelder: We do have a speedy procedure, it is WP:CFDS. But moving cats that you have just created yourself should be fine, since you will be immediately fixing all the pages in the category. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:58, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
Like I said above, "Ahh, if only..." In theory it should be fine -- but in reality, only very knowledgeable and experienced editors will carry out the process properly. Case in point, the mess left behind at Category:Population concern organizations and its overlapping/redundant subcats, where one editor made a series of Category moves, etc. involving his own recently-created categories, but didn't bother to properly re-categorize all of the articles. The very thing that prompted me to open this discussion. Anomalous+0 (talk) 13:15, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Would it be a good idea to create an edit filter that blocks users other than bots and admins from moving categories, in order to solve the problem of out-of-process moves that keeps coming up? {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 04:31, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

I'd be in favor of it. -- Black Falcon (talk) 05:27, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
I can write a filter for this, but I think it would be better to remove the move-categorypages right (Move category pages) from users, which would leave sysop as the only group with the right. It could also be granted to bots if desired. — JJMC89 (T·C) 05:42, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
I didn't even realize there was a separate right for that, hence the edit filter idea. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 15:04, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
@JJMC89: I suggest you file a phab task asking for that config change. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 18:17, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
That would be premature without a formal consensus for the change. I suggest an RFC. — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:56, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
I agree with both that this is a good idea and with that we need an RfC--Ymblanter (talk) 15:01, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
Me too. Johnbod (talk) 15:49, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
The original request was here and the addition of the move permission was here. --Izno (talk) 15:55, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

RfC: Restrict technical ability to move categories

Should the ability for unprivileged users to move categories be removed?. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 02:58, 22 February 2019 (UTC) (modified 17:16, 22 February 2019 (UTC))

Survey

CONSENSUS IN FAVOR
There is consensus in favor of removing the ability to move category pages from the 'user' group. However, the ability of Page movers to move categories should remain, so there is also consensus in favor of adding the right to the 'extendedmover' group. If you have any questions, please ask me. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 03:33, 26 March 2019 (UTC) 2nd sentence (about page movers) added 19:23, 26 March 2019 (UTC) (non-admin closure)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Discussion

  • Comment - there's often a large backlog at CFD (example) and the ability of non-admins (experienced and in good standing) to close some rename CFDs (example) (without having to ask an admin to do the move) can help alleviate this. DexDor (talk) 06:49, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment - this RFC would have a stronger case if it linked to some examples of bad category moves by non-admins. It might also be helpful to link to the long discussion held before this ability was given to non-admins. DexDor (talk) 06:49, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
    A lot of the talk above didn't link to explicit problems. I too would like to see the actual issues demonstrated. --Izno (talk) 14:52, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Quick comment If you watch Category:Wikipedia non-empty soft redirected categories and User:RussBot/category redirect log regularly you'll often see big categories that have been arbitrarily moved with the contents left behind, often with poor to non-existent edit summaries. These are moved by users who often assume bots will just do the rest and it has caused problems in the past, at one point causing RussBot to crash until applying a maximum limit on the number of articles in a category to be moved in a single day. Timrollpickering (Talk) 12:03, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
    That category is currently empty. Do you have any specific examples? DexDor (talk) 12:38, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Question We've been unbundling the admin package for years. What consideration was given to including Template editors & Page movers before proposing an admin-only restriction? Cabayi (talk) 12:19, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
    That idea simply never occurred to me. I wouldn't oppose adding the relevant permission to other trusted but non-admin user groups. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 13:32, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
    I would support page mover. Template editors also are trusted, but the permission doesn't fit in the scope of the group very well. (I say this as a TE but not a page mover.) --Izno (talk) 14:53, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
    I was thinking of TE's tboverride permission forgetting that PM got that too in the end. I agree it's a better fit for PM. (since we're doing disclosure, I'm both TE & PM) Cabayi (talk) 19:19, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment - The discussion in 2014 suggests that we (enwiki) may not be able to change this. DexDor (talk) 12:38, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
    How, exactly, could enwiki not be able to change this? Even if this somehow falls under m:Limits to configuration changes and the devs refuse to change it on Phabricator, it could be easily enforced using the Edit Filter. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 13:31, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
    Have you read the 2014 discussion (objections from enwiki were insufficient to stop the dev changing MW to allow cat moves (by non-admins)) ? If you propose restricting cat moves using EF then perhaps the RFC should make that clear. DexDor (talk) 15:42, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
    What I see there is the sysadmins deciding that the 2015 dicussion wasn't a strong enough consensus to implement that feature. This RfC should resolve that concern. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 17:15, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Question modified from "Should the ability for users other than admins and bots to move categories be removed?" per discussion above. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 17:16, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Question - Can't category pages be edit/move protected just as other pages? If so, assuming this request is in mitigation of some existing problem, why not just protect the most populated categories and preclude the need for modifications to user rights beyond that capability? I would assume it could be done similarly to how templates are managed, for example: the most populated and troublesome could warrant full protection, a second tier of highly populated categories could be TE protected, a third tier, EC protected, and lastly, for categories with say 1,000 or less members could be openly editable or perhaps restricted to confirmed/autoconfirmed. Why couldn't such a regiment preempt any prudent concerns while precluding the need to discuss or develop more bureaucracy than we already have? Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 19:05, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
    @John Cline: The original context of this was #Page Moves for Categories?? above, which did provide some examples of badly-moved categories. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 19:30, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
    I'm sorry Pppery, I should have said "assuming this RfC would mitigate the problems that exist"; that is what I actually meant and stated it out of context. I know there are problems and your attempts here are in good faith; seeking to improve Wikipedia for sure. The main idea in my question is why we can;t just begin using protection to reach the desired end? And if, for some reason, category pages can't be protected as other pages can, it seems to me we should be seeking to get that ability enabled for admins as a first priority. What say you?--John Cline (talk) 20:23, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
    Category pages can be protected just like any other page, except that pending changes is not available. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:30, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Bumping thread for 7 days. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 13:39, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Implementation

To implement this change, I opened phab:T219261 and then filed [5]. --DannyS712 (talk) 03:51, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

DannyS712, one of the participants of the survey and 2 others have supported allowing Page Movers and/or Template editors to allow moving categories. Have you read that part? ∯WBGconverse 05:45, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
Yes, and while there is little opposition to that idea, there also isn't much support. The initial proposal was removing the ability to move categories from non-admins, and there is consensus for that. But, I'm not willing to declare a consensus to expand the scope of either page movers or template editros solely on the basis of this small RfC. I hope this answer provides the explanation you are looking for. --DannyS712 (talk) 12:08, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
DannyS712, but you are willing to revoke the ability, based on this small RFC? ∯WBGconverse 16:41, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
@Winged Blades of Godric: point taken. If you have any examples of page movers properly moving caterogy pages, I'd be happy to reconsider. I understand that so far they have had that right. As for template editors, I'm afraid that I am unconvinced - the technical know-how needed to TE is different from the knowledge of page moving needed for categories. --DannyS712 (talk) 17:00, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
DannyS712, what?
What makes you think that moving a category is so technically arduous, that I or other Page-Movers can't pull it off? AFAIK; if a category needs to be moved we need to use the damn move button, dwell upon whether to leave a redirect or not and if yes, change the hard redirect to a soft redirect one. Then run AWB to pull a list of all articles from the old cat and use regex to change the old cat to the new cat. Even if someone forgets the later (which's the toughest of the three steps), Russ-Bot usually takes care of those. What's the big deal? ∯WBGconverse 17:50, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
Also, why does commenting outside of the survey section dis-entitles their view(s) to be considered? I see Cabayi, PPxpery, Izno, John Cline (and I guess DexDor) supporting the bit for page-movers. ∯WBGconverse 17:53, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
LOL, I didn't notice the other section, sorry. Reading through that, I agree that consensus reflects that page movers should retain the right. However, back to your first point, the problem is generally that people don't always perform that AWB run. Regardless, when I next open my computer I will amend the close, phab task, and gerrit edit accordingly. Sorry for not noticing there support for page movers retaining the right. --DannyS712 (talk) 18:42, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
DannyS712, thank you:-) I agree that it's the correct call. ∯WBGconverse 19:04, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
@Winged Blades of Godric: I have amended both the close and Gerrit pull to have page movers retain the right. Is your phab "hold" still needed? --DannyS712 (talk) 19:44, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
Nope. ∯WBGconverse 15:52, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

 Done Deployed as of a minute or two ago. If there are issues, please re-open the task. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 23:45, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

@Jdforrester (WMF): thanks, this appears to have worked - I (as a non page mover/bot/sysop) am no longer to move categories, while my bot still can bring up the menu to move (I didn't actually try the move). Thanks --DannyS712 (talk) 23:59, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Backlog

There is a pretty big backlog of CfDs waiting for closure, but per WP:CFDAI If you are a non-admin, you will not be able to use the /Working page as it is protected, so do not close discussions that require any of the above 3 actions [rename, merge, or delete] unless you are prepared to implement them manually, or an admin has agreed to help you. Are any admins willing to help me close some discussions? Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 05:39, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

ping some admins: @Ymblanter, Timrollpickering, BU Rob13, Fayenatic london, Black Falcon, and BrownHairedGirl: who edited /Working page last week. Hhkohh (talk) 06:16, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
There is also a huge backlog of clean-up needed at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working.
After the bots have done their work, there needs to be 1/ a check for backlinks for each category, 2/ removal of redirects from the old title if appropriate (e.g. where the old title was ambiguous), 3/ remove the entry from the page.
That clerical task has not been happening, so CFDW is more clogged than I have ever seen it. I have been working on it today, but some of it is slow work. It would help a lot if those who have closed the discussions listed on CFDW could clean up whatever they have added to CFDW. Pinging @Ymblanter, Timrollpickering, BU Rob13, Fayenatic london, Black Falcon, and BrownHairedGirl: again. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:27, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
I am actually doing this cleanup every day, but indeed in the last several days we were getting more categories there than we can digest.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:37, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
@BrownHairedGirl and Ymblanter: This has mostly been me; sorry about that. I haven't been tidying up after myself there. I was asked to help out with the backlog, presumably because many of the oldest discussions were participated in by most of our active admin contributors. Given there were few admins who could close those discussions but many who could do the clerical task of cleaning up at CFDW, I prioritized making some of those closes with the limited time I had. I'll try to also clean up at CFDW a bit when I next have some time. ~ Rob13Talk 15:16, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
@BU Rob13: It is great that you are closing the old CfD discussions, and you are in no way under obligation to clean up after the bot. I apologize if my response sounded like this. It was just an observation that currently we are on a larger backlog side.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:19, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
@DannyS712: Thanks for volunteering to help. I can help a bit with merging etc, but you would probably need to ping me every single time.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:20, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
@Ymblanter: Okay. I'll close a couple CfDs this weekend, and message you to add them; if that works well, I'll close a few more, etc. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 15:22, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
Yes, sure, let us see how it works.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:32, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
@Ymblanter: I have closed Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 February 28#Category:Ismaily managers as consensus to rename to Category:Ismaily SC managers. Can you please list this? Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 20:46, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
 Done--Ymblanter (talk) 20:55, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
@Ymblanter: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 February 27#Populated coastal places in Cape Cod towns closed as merge to Category:Populated coastal places in Massachusetts. Also, I realized that the instructions imply that non-admins can close discussions as delete, redirect, merge, by themselves if they manually implement the result; deletion is the clearest (use cat-a-lot to remove the categories, tag the page for speedy deletion) so I may only come to you for listing redirection and merges, or deletions of larger categories. Is that okay? --DannyS712 (talk) 05:00, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
 Done, thank you. Whereas many things about the categories can be done manually, such as merging without deletion, once the volume goes up they are best left to a bot. It is no fun to move 50 items manually between the categories.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:26, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
@Ymblanter: I use a great script to make it really easy --DannyS712 (talk) 07:27, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for those closes, @DannyS712, but I think it's better if they are implemented by a bot. Better logging, and less chance of operator error. I haven't seen any errors in Danny's use of Cat-a-lot, but I know from my own experience that it's horribly easy with Cat-a-lot to click few millimetres in the wrong direction, and launch a train of events which is a nightmare to unravel, so I would be alarmed to see it becoming a routine tool for implementing CFD closes.
So I propose that we set up a page Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/Non-admin closures where non-admins can lists closes just as they would at WP:CFDW, but an admin will need to copy the entries across to CFDW.
That seems to me to the best way of dove-tailing NACs into the existing framework. Any thoughts, @Ymblanter, Timrollpickering, BU Rob13, Fayenatic london, and Black Falcon? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:29, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
Of course I wasn't pinged and my input is extraneous in many ways, but I do feel strongly that BHG is right on the mark with her suggestion. I'd like to hear DannyS712's thoughts as well, to know if he agrees, understands, and concurs with letting the bot do most of the tedium opposed to potential over reliance and perhaps over confidence with using Cat-a-lot (as stated best practice? Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 15:51, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
Makes sense to me.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:10, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
Seems a good plan to me. (I have capitalised a letter in the proposed name.) WP:CFDWN for short. – Fayenatic London 20:57, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
@Fayenatic london and Ymblanter: what about (read to the end before saying no) reducing the protection to extended-confirmed, while disallowing all edits from non-admins via an edit filter instead? See Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested/Archive 13#Testing an idea for more background, but the idea would be that NACs would be saved in the edit filter log, and any admin could approve them by making the edit (see User:Suffusion of Yellow/effp-helper). Thoughts? --DannyS712 (talk) 03:06, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
DannyS712, BrownHairedGirl have opposed to reducing protection level many time in WT:CFDW and it is dangerous to reduce CFDW protection level Hhkohh (talk) 03:17, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
@Hhkohh: again, edits made by non-admins would be disallowed, meaning that effectively the page is still fully protected. But, it allows extended-confirmed users to submit their edits for an admin to make --DannyS712 (talk) 03:19, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
@DannyS712: I am wary of technology I haven't used before, so I'd need to see what that looks like before taking a firm view on it. CFDW is a truly massive massive security vulnerability if not fully protected, so I am v cautious about anything which might compromise it. The one breach we have before it was protected was relatively minor, but without going into WP:BEANS territory it's easy to envisage how another bout of abuse could be much much worse. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:16, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
In the meantime, Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/Non-admin closures seems to me like a simple and transparent solution. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:16, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
DannyS712, perhaps your bot can take over Cydebot? Hhkohh (talk) 03:23, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
But, someone filed taking over it, See WP:BOTREQ#Categories for Discussion bot Hhkohh (talk) 03:27, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
@Hhkohh: that, and the fact that I'm not an admin --DannyS712 (talk) 03:35, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
@BrownHairedGirl: Thanks for pinging me, and I think it's a most sensible idea. User:DannyS712's idea seems like it could be a very elegant solution, but I share your hesitation about reducing the protection level until we have thoroughly explored and understood its implications. -- Black Falcon (talk) 20:49, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
@Ymblanter: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 January 20#Category:Departments of the University of Dublin, Trinity College - Category:Departments of the University of Dublin, Trinity College closed as merge to Category:Trinity College Dublin. Would you mind if I refactor the extended discussion below to separate my pings about specific closes and general talk about nacs? --DannyS712 (talk) 06:53, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 Done. Refactoring the abpve discussion probably will be unproductive since the requests are part of the conversation, but it might be a good idea to leave new request below (before the dedicated page has been created).--Ymblanter (talk) 09:37, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
@Ymblanter: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 February 22#Category:Spanish-language Mexican telenovelas closed as merge Category:Spanish-language Mexican telenovelas to Category:Mexican telenovelas - I partially implemented this with myself, but for some reason catalot is refusing to edit some pages, and I can't tell why --DannyS712 (talk) 10:19, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
@Ymblanter and @DannyS712, please let's not have this discussion flooded with the clerical work.
I have proposed a separate page for those individual requests, but haven't had a clear answer to that.
So unless there actual objections to it from one of you two (or from anyone else who joins in), I will implement it later today. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:41, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
I actually did answer in this threas that I fi nd a dedicated page a good idea.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:52, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 Done--Ymblanter (talk) 10:44, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
As an alternative to needing the bot at all, I think I still have some AWB scripts that implement CfD closes with minimal operator input needed. I could share those if I find them on my computer. ~ Rob13Talk 18:14, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Backlog halved, but still big

When @DannyS712 opened this discussion on 8 March, and @Hhkohh pinged some admins, the was a backlog of 156 unclosed CFDs.

This morning, the backlog is down to 88.

I had a blitz over the last few days, and closed or relisted ~70 CFDs in the last 3 days. I can't keep on putting that much time into it, and I don't think it's good for one editor to close too big a proportion of them, so I'm going to take a bit of a break from it.

I know that several other editors have closed quite a few, but we still need a spurt of more closes to clear the backlog.

There are still 15 unclosed discussion from January, and it would be great to see them closed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

@BrownHairedGirl and Ymblanter: - Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 March 8#Dubbed films closed as delete all (Category:Dubbed films and all 48 subcategories). I went through and checked - all of the subcategories were tagged with CfD notices. Given the total size of the CfD, (over 1500 pages in 49 categories) it may be wise to review my close before listing it for processing. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 19:42, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 Done, thanks, good close, will list for processing in a moment.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:47, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
(ec) @DannyS712, that looks to me like a sound close: unanimous support for delete, on the basis of a well-established guideline, after projects notified. However, I am WP:INVOLVED as the nominator and notifier, so it's best that I leave the listing at WP:CFDW to an uninvolved admin. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:50, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
@Ymblanter: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 February 15#Category:Ethnic groups in the Republic of Macedonia - closed as rename Category:Ethnic groups in the Republic of Macedonia to Category:Ethnic groups in North Macedonia. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 03:26, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
Also Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 March 8#Template:Indie-rock-group-stub closed as rename. I moved the stub template manually, since its not a category that requires bot processing, but I'm listing it here for the record. --DannyS712 (talk) 03:37, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
@Ymblanter: and also Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 March 1#British Empire closed as merge all. Its 57 categories total, so you may want to review the close first. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 03:46, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
I have seen this, will have a look now.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:09, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
 Done, thanks--Ymblanter (talk) 09:28, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
Moved to Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/Working

--DannyS712 (talk) 00:49, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Might I suggest that Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/Working might be a marginally better place for these workings, if not a dedicated subpage (like the one that blew up below :)? --Izno (talk) 16:15, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
I agree with Izno: it would be better to use Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/Working. And @DannyS712, I think this belongs on a public rather than a userpage. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:42, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
@BrownHairedGirl, Ymblanter, and Izno:  moved most of the discussion to /working, and will add new requests there. --DannyS712 (talk) 00:49, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

~100 page C2D nominations

Right now, I've got an edit queued as User:Izno/Sandbox#c2ds to mass-nominate several category moves per existing RFC consensus. Does it make sense to have a detailed explanation about the RFC in each line or is C2D sufficient or should I make a top level bullet which indicates this has consensus (given the number of categories nominated)? --Izno (talk) 17:19, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

And it looks like I missed another 100 or so, so that's 200 categories to move. --Izno (talk) 17:22, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
A top-level bullet will be fine, provided that the consensus is a) solid and b) applicable to all pages in the set.
Repeating the same explanation after each line is unwelcome, because it just makes the whole thing more bulky and harder to read. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:01, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
I thought as much. Thanks. --Izno (talk) 18:26, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Breaches of WP:ENGVAR

I see Cydebot has just changed Category:Sports organisations established in the 1910s to Category:Sports organizations established in the 1910s and a whole bunch of other categories, changing the spelling from British English "organisation" to US English "organization". That's clearly a breach of WP:ENGVAR. Bermicourt (talk) 07:53, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

@Bermicourt: Cydebot just does what it was instructed to do. The category was nominated at WP:CFDS in this edit by BrownHairedGirl (talk · contribs), and no objections were posted within 48 hours; so it was moved to the process queue. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:36, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
You will undoubtedly be interested in WP:VPPOL#RFC: spelling of "organisation"/"organization" in descriptive category names. --Izno (talk) 15:27, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
@Redrose64. Thank you. I realise Cydebot is a dumb bot; I was just trying not to personalise the issue. And I also realise we followed the standard speedy delete process. That was what I was querying.
@Izno. Thanks, that's helpful. Bermicourt (talk) 18:33, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
It's a myth that "ise" is WP:ENGVAR. See American and British English spelling differences#-ise,_-ize_(-isation,_-ization) Rathfelder (talk) 20:12, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
@Izno: just to clear the air, does your username indicate that you might have a conflict of interest over this spelling choice? – Fayenatic London 09:33, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
@Fayenatic london: Isno has too much of a Spanish feel :^), but apparently is yet unclaimed. --Izno (talk) 12:13, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Bug or feature?

If I click "+" to add a category, then hit it again to get a second text field, then fill in both text fields and hit "OK" for both, it still isn't saved. To save my edit I must hit a third button, the "save" button, located at the top of the list of cats and thus easy to miss. If I fail to hit the third button, I can close the tab without getting a pop-up warning me of unsaved changes. This caused me to lose a bunch of edits before I noticed. Can anyone think of a better user interface design? HLHJ (talk) 23:04, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

@HLHJ: are you talking about hot cat? --DannyS712 (talk) 23:42, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Anyone wants to standardize the naming in Category:Criminals by occupation?

Shouldn't be too hard, but I don't use whatever automated tool makes listing multiple categories for discussion not a pain. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:37, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

@Piotrus: if you tell me what formatting you want in terms of the renaming, I can probably take care of tagging all of them using my bot. (see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DannyS712 bot 13 and ping @BrownHairedGirl) --DannyS712 (talk) 05:39, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
@DannyS712: Since all but two pages use 'convicted of crimes' with the other two using "with criminal convictions", I'd suggest renaming those two from 'wcc' to 'coc' format. Not sure if we just need to tag two categories or all for discussion? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:25, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
@Piotrus: I mean personally I prefer the 'wcc' style - I can tag them all, with the 'wcc' being tagged for renaming to 'coc', and the 'coc' tagged for renaming to 'wcc', so that either one can be decided upon in a CfD. Thoughts? --DannyS712 (talk) 16:02, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
@Piotrus and DannyS712: I think "convicted of" is preferable, as it is shorter and matches the sub-categories for specific crimes, e.g. within Category:Politicians convicted of crimes‎. – Fayenatic London 12:40, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
@Fayenatic london and Piotrus: we shouldn't have our own CfR here though - should I tag any or all of them for renaming? --DannyS712 (talk) 15:50, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
@DannyS712: I guess we should tag them all since we don't have consensus here for one name. So let's list them all if you can do it easily and see which one majority prefers. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:45, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
@Piotrus: Do you want just the direct subcategories, or the entire category tree? --DannyS712 (talk) 05:04, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
@DannyS712: Hmmm, I am not sure I see the difference? I'd defer to you if you have a preference. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:42, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
@Piotrus: Like do you want Category:American government officials convicted of crimes tagged and discussed? What about Category:FBI agents with criminal convictions? These aren't subcategories of Category:Criminals by occupation, but they are sub-sub and sub-sub-sub categories of it, respectively. --DannyS712 (talk) 16:45, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
@DannyS712: I see, thanks for finding those. Yes, I think we should discuss all categories at once, so then we can rename them all to one standard. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:22, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
@Piotrus: okay. The next run that I do with the bot will be tagging all of those, so it should be ready in a few days --DannyS712 (talk) 06:23, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
Note that this has been  Done --DannyS712 (talk) 02:29, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

14 weird categories - CfD or RfD?

Hi. I recently found 14 categories (listed at User:DannyS712/sandbox#Redirect categories) that are entirely composed of pages with 2 lines, a redirect to the category, and then a categorization in the category. They are basically lists of the journals in Beall's List before it was taken down. I believe that the categories should be converted to lists (of plain text, not of links to the pages in them), and then deleted. This would mean that all of the redirects in the categories, which redirect to the categories themselves, would be deleted under G8. Should this group nomination take place at CfD, where the categories would be deleted and the redirects speedied per G8, or at RfD, and then (if they are all deleted) the categories deleted per C1? Since there are more than 6000 redirects, I'd prefer the former, but I'd like to ensure that this is done right, since what shouldn't happen is that a bot processes the categories and removes the redirects from the categories, but leaves the redirects themselves just lying around. Thoughts? Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 04:18, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Hall of Fame categories

I have noticed that there seems to be an ongoing project here to eliminate Hall of Fame categories. My concern is that there appears to be no consistent criteria. For example, if Hall of Fame categories are to be eliminated entirely with WP:OCAWARD's vague "not a defining characteristic", then why is Category:Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees not up for CfD? Let's start at the top. All the arguments I see at the various CfD discussions use WP:NOTDEFINING, so why not Football? On the other hand, if we are going to keep the Pro Football category (which has about ±300 articles in it), then what is the dividing line beyond "I've never heard of it" or "only five articles" or whatever? For example, state-level halls of fame, HOFs for sports less widely-televised than American Football, and so on. I'm concerned about this inconsistency and the potential for bias against smaller or under-represented topics. Montanabw(talk) 18:16, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

The whole premise of OCAWARD is unequal treatment. So isn't the answer simply that "smaller or under-represented" awards are not as a general rule defining? postdlf (talk) 18:37, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
Or to put it another way... Not all “Halls of Fame” are equal. Some are worth categorizing, others are not. Blueboar (talk) 19:04, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
Yep. Polka Hall of Fame, anybody? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:31, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
Per WP:SMALL some categories are allowed when they are small to start with. Depends on their potential for growth. dawnleelynn(talk) 19:48, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
That's when they're part of a comprehensive and ordinary classification that we don't want to punch holes in, like Category:Museums by country (Hi, East Timor!). Not applicable here where we're talking about whether separate and unrelated awards or honorifics individually merit their own categories. postdlf (talk) 20:20, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
Postdlf and others. So what is the case with a category that is small because the number of articles created so far is not that big, but the potential for more articles to be created is great? dawnleelynn(talk) 20:26, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
Big categories aren't necessarily permitted and small categories aren't necessarily forbidden. Otherwise, I don't understand how your question is meaningful in the abstract, or how it relates to the OP's issue. postdlf (talk) 21:01, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
I've never seen a Hall of Fame inductees category that should be deleted under WP:SMALLCAT. RevelationDirect (talk) 02:56, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Bot for some NACs

Currently, non-admin closures of CfDs still generally require the help of an admin to implement, since WP:CFDW is fully protected. Having worked for a while to get help from admins to implement my closures, what would other users think of me creating a new bot task to implement my closures? As a page mover, I can now move categories myself, and the bot would simply go through and remove/replace categories, the same way the current bot does, except I would trigger it manually using AWB. (I would use a separate bot account to avoid flooding the recent changes feed; see here for more). Thoughts? --DannyS712 (talk) 00:45, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Pinging some of the admins that have helped me: @BrownHairedGirl, Ymblanter, and JJMC89. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 00:45, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

@DannyS712, I can see the utility, but in general I am opposed to that idea. The centralisation of that task in approved bots makes for a very low error rate, because the code is well-tested.
I know that you are an exceptionally conscientious and skilled user of tools, but my own experience of manually implementing CFD closes is that the finicky nature of the AWB interface leads to a non-zero error rate. I do it when e.g. there are multiple merge targets and bots can't handle it, and I did it when Cydebot was down ... but it's not a good solution.
I still think that the best solution here is to turn that redlink blue. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:59, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Malformed deletion attempt

An IP is trying to get all articles created by a now-blocked editor deleted, apparently out of spite for some reason. This includes Category:Songs written by Renārs Kaupers, which they have simply tried tagging with a PROD and not gone through the proper procedure for CfD. Regardless of whether this category should be deleted or not, can the malformed deletion notice be removed from this page? Richard3120 (talk) 19:26, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

In what way is it malformed? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:41, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
There wasn't a corresponding CFD discussion. I've reverted the tags DexDor (talk) 19:45, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks DexDor – I don't think you can PROD a category anyway. Richard3120 (talk) 20:04, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
No, you can't prod a cat - but the IP had realised that fairly quickly, so by the time that you posted here it was no longer a prod but a cfd; and as far as WP:CFD#HOWTO is concerned, steps I and II had been completed. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:08, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Empty Cats & CfDs

I patrol Wikipedia:Database reports/Empty categories and tag empty categories to sit for 7 days before they are deleted (only if they remain empty). Daily I seem to come across categories that have been emptied after a CfD has been closed but the category has not been deleted and it is sometimes a couple of days (or weeks) since the CfD has closed. Will a bot eventually delete the cats or can I go ahead and do so? I don't delete a category that is part of a CfD even if it has been closed.

I guess I'm leaving this note to verify that I can go ahead and delete categories in a closed CfD instead of waiting for the bot to get to it. I have at times left a note to the CfD closer to let them know that the category still exists. Liz Read! Talk! 01:30, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Here is an example of what I'm talking about Category:Years in literature, Category:Years in webcomics and Category:Biota. Liz Read! Talk! 02:24, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
Some should be deleted, but others should be {{category redirect}}s. (I'll leave it to the admins with more experience here to explain when each is preferred.) If the category is listed on WP:CFD/W (or a subpage), then the admin who listed it should be taking care cleaning up backlinks then deleting or redirecting. — JJMC89 (T·C) 06:16, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
WP:Category redirects that should be kept is a recent essay (by me) that addresses the above.
Sometimes a category is tagged and listed for deletion, which may take time if templates have to be changed first. Other times, all the contents of a category are nominated but the parent is overlooked in the nomination. It can be tagged as empty, or an admin may consider that it's a clear enough case to delete as housekeeping WP:G6, in which case the log entry should link to the related CFD. – Fayenatic London 07:31, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
The categories you list contain a large amount of incoming backlinks, I was not deleting them for this reason. I was not able to quickly figure out where these links come from and how they should be fixed (recently we have enough stuff at CFDW to deal with), but if someone else could fix this, it would be great.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:44, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
I noticed that Category:Years in literature had many links to other-language Wikipedias, and the Wikidata item could not be instantly merged to the one for Category:Literature by year as there were multiple clashes e.g. in Arabic and Farsi Wikipedias. I would therefore have kept that redirect rather than deleted it, in order to facilitate resolution of the mess outside en-wiki. – Fayenatic London 06:36, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
We can still restore the redirect and include it into the Wikidata item.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:49, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Bot to fix double category redirects

I am seeking approval for a bot to bypass double category redirects. Your comments are welcome at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/JJMC89 bot 17. — JJMC89 (T·C) 06:28, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Category re-creations

It recently came to my attention that Category:Deaths from heart failure and Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction had been re-created against consensus of relevant discussions, and that [[:Category:Deaths from heart-related cause, a grammatically deficient copy of Category:Cardiovascular disease deaths (deleted in this discussion), had also been created. I've just (abv?)used Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working to clear out and re-delete the categories per speedy deletion criterion G4, protected the first two to prevent good-faith re-creations, and made sure that all the relevant subcategories of the latter category were still properly categorised. Pinging @Paulinho28 and Anasuya.D: as the creators of both these categories, and @Marcocapelle: who was a strong advocate for their deletion. I hope this is all (relatively) OK. Graham87 17:08, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Also pinging @Gianluigi02:, the user whose edit made me aware of these categories. Graham87 17:13, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
No objection on the G4s temselves. As one of the bot operators, I'd prefer that CFDW not be used to G4 delete categories since G4 does not get mentioned in the deletion logs. The bot operators are responsible for all bot actions, and without this edit summary (or this discussion), there would be nothing indicating that they are G4 deletions. Deleting the category yourself then listing at CFDW should still result in the category being emptied. IMO, that should be OK. Alternatively, I can manually start the bot (or use Cat-a-lot) with a custom summary on request. — JJMC89 (T·C) 05:56, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
Ah yes, I was thinking of deleting the category myself but I didn't know if that would cause problems with bots or maybe people who track red-link categories. Good to know that it would work if need be. Graham87 06:11, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

What is containerization?

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 January 16

Could someone explain or refer me to an explanation of what containerization is? A search in Help found nothing. Thank you. deisenbe (talk) 22:24, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

I had the same question as deisenbe, and found their question on one of subpages of /Log, and moved it here. The "Nomination procedure" section mentions "containerization" three times, but it is indeed not explained. Other category actions, like renaming, merging, or deletion seem self-explanatory. —⁠andrybak (talk) 23:38, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
I stumbled on this: Wikipedia:Container category. deisenbe (talk) 23:51, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
Thank you. I've added wikilink to the first mention of containerization. —⁠andrybak (talk) 00:13, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Attempt to explain what is "containerization". —⁠andrybak (talk) 00:18, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

User:Beyond My Ken re-inserting incorret categories, Secular critics vs critics

Proposal for C2F speedy deletion process

Based on User:Oculi's comment in this discussion, here is a suggestion for an additional criterion for speedy deletion. I have advertised this proposal on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Categories, please feel free to advertise it anywhere else where you think it is appropriate. Marcocapelle (talk) 04:41, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

WP:C2F

This criterion applies if the content of the category consists of an eponymous article only, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination. The default outcome is an upmerge to the parent categories, where applicable.
  • Seems OK by me (note: I added a word). The outcome should be merger to all applicable parents. That way, it fits under WP:C2. Otherwise, if it was strictly for deletion, it would belong as an extension to WP:C1.
We would need to decide the process and whether there is a delay. Probably the same 7-day delay should apply as C1. It would need a new template similar to {{db-c1}}. Should that add the page to Category:Empty categories awaiting deletion, but requiring merger to parents rather than simple deletion? Or should the nomination be listed in a new section at WP:CFDS? – Fayenatic London 14:36, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
  • It may be confusing to closing administrators at CFDS to have a 7-day delay rather than a 2-day delay as with other C2 nominations. But other than that, 2 or 7 days would be equally fine with me. We can also have it named C1B instead of C2F if a period of 7 days turns out to be the preferred option. I was assuming to have it listed in WP:CFDS, not necessarily in a new section (or we would need a new section if there is a delay of 7 days). Marcocapelle (talk) 06:04, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
    I certainly meant a 2-day process rather than than 7. (Is there any easy way of checking for out-of-process emptying?) Oculi (talk) 10:08, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
    • OK, C2F can simply be an addition to the other C2 processes, then.
    As for out-of-process emptying: "Related Changes" with categories only works on current members; it does not trace recent removals. (I've just edited that page to state this explicitly, as it was confusing to me in the past.) The checks that I sometimes do are: (1) check the other contribs of the editor who tagged the category as empty; (2) check the contribs of the category creator around the time they created the category, to see what else they originally added (this check is generally not quick). – Fayenatic London 19:15, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
  • It has been implemented now. Marcocapelle (talk) 12:04, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
    I have an issue with this. Speedy deletion requests for categories should not be a 2-day process but take a full 7 days such as for empty categories. I'm not sure a process primarily for uncontroversial category renames should have any criteria that allows for speedy deletion. StarcheerspeaksnewslostwarsTalk to me 18:21, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
    One could argue that 7 days for an uncontroversial deletion of an empty category is absurdly long. Oculi (talk) 18:55, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
    C2A to C2E are not only for renaming but can also be speedy mergers, after 2 days; the outcome for the nominated page can either be redirection or deletion, at the discretion of the admin(s) who process it. C2F is not simple deletion like C1, but by default it is merger to all applicable parents. Therefore I support the processing of C2F by (i) listing on the Speedy page with the other C2s, and (ii) implementing the merger after 2 days. After that, the category would usually be deleted, but its contents have first been merged.
    Also, if the creator wants to re-create it and populate it with additional pages, there is nothing to stop them (this is also the case with C1). – Fayenatic London 20:32, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
    I'm not against speedy deletion of such categories under some newly created criteria but this forum is not the proper venue. If there are no applicable categories to merge it to, then it's a deletion request which does not belong in a process for renaming and merging. StarcheerspeaksnewslostwarsTalk to me 01:07, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Formally it is a merge to the parent categories. If the article is already in its parent categories, or not in any category at all, the merge becomes of course technically equivalent to a delete, but that could likewise apply to merging under WP:C2D and WP:C2C criteria. Marcocapelle (talk) 11:20, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
  • The C2 criteria exist because it was formerly the case that category pages couldn't be renamed like other pages, you needed to create a new cat page, copy the content from the old one, move the category talk page (if one exists), update the categories of all the member pages (which may involve amending templates and waiting for the job queue), and finally delete the original cat page. This last action is why a CSD criterion exists at all, and the number of actions that need to be carried out is why a delay exists - if people want to contest the speedy, they can do so in the two days before any action is taken. If it is felt that the rename is controversial and more than two days may be required to discuss, WP:CFD is the way to go. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:51, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
  • @Rathfelder, Fayenatic london, Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars, and Armbrust: Procedural comment I have moved all current C2F discussions in CFDS to the section "On hold pending other discussion", that other discussion being this discussion. Marcocapelle (talk) 11:11, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
  • There appears to be one oppose, by Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars, on somewhat tenuous grounds in my opinion. One might suppose Rathfelder, who has used C2F, supports. I am aware that any oppose to a speedy, however groundless, leads to derailment but I had not supposed this would apply here. (An empty category is not discussed anywhere; its emptiness is not advertised anywhere except within a multitude of similarly empty categories.) Oculi (talk) 16:04, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
  • I disagree to the extent that we're still using a process for speedy renaming and merging for deletion. A "new name" is a required parameter for such speedy requests, and if one cannot be provided because the goal is deletion, then new speedy criteria she be created or it should be sent to CFD. Can we just ensure there is an applicable merger target or else it does not meet requirements for speedy merging? StarcheerspeaksnewslostwarsTalk to me 16:51, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
    • The C2F procedure could require that {{cfm-speedy}} be used, and that the target stated in that template should be an appropriate parent of the nominated category if there is one, or otherwise one of the categories on the lead article. – Fayenatic London 21:29, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
    User:Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars would that sufficiently address your concerns? – Fayenatic London 14:11, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Category:Middle-earth_horses is a set category, not eponymous. My intention was that WP:C2F should apply only to eponymous categories (which is implicit in the present wording but should perhaps be explicit). I can't offhand think of any example of valid eponymous categories containing any top-level redirects (most redirects should be in a set subcat, eg cat:Band albums). WP:C2F also would not apply if there were any subcats at all (some editors seem to think that pages in subcats don't count). Oculi (talk) 23:12, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

WP:C2F

This criterion applies if the category contains only an eponymous article or media file, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination. The default outcome is an upmerge to the parent categories, where applicable. Nominations should use {{cfm-speedy}} (speedy merger) linking to a suitable parent category, or another appropriate category (e.g. one that is currently on the article).

Fixing moved categories

@GoldRingChip: – This user moved a bunch of categories per uncontroversial case fixing, but didn't do the corresponding fixes to articles in the categories. Is there an easy way to clean this up? Someone maybe advise him or assist him? See hus move log. Dicklyon (talk) 16:49, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Oops

Sorry for the accidental excision of 18KB from this page (the project page, not this talk page). It appears I tried to edit an older version of it. Bruce leverett (talk) 19:46, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Help with move

I want to propose a move of these categories from their current places to new ones in relation to article-based "Requested Move" I have proposed. How would I go about proposing multiple categories? Here is the list

My reasoning for the move as per the proposed move is:

In relation to the recent discussion at Talk:Rojava#Requested_move_14_October_2019 which concluded that Rojava remain, it makes no sense that other articles about the very same entity use the other proposed name regardless of its official use. In my own research I found articles, templates and categories which use a mixture of Rojava, Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, North and East Syria, NES, Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, Northern Syria and Syrian Kurdish. I personally know of no other territory on Wiki that is so disorganised in the naming of its articles. The reasonings for this vast range of names is clearly due to the various disputes which have been had and the lack of clear up following them. As a result, I call for a unified name under the most recent decision made and for a listing of all Wiki entities related to Rojava be created to ensure such are updated in the future. The articles listed are the ones which I have found so far, but I am sure there are plenty more out there.

UaMaol (talk) 22:24, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

UaMaol: I have reformatted your list and removed duplicate entries.
The first one was renamed last year per Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2018_June_17#Category:Cantons_of_Rojava. You have initiated a Requested Move of its main article at Talk:Foreign_relations_of_North_and_East_Syria#Requested_move_23_October_2019. When that is closed, assuming there is consensus, that will be sufficient authority to rename the category to match, using criterion C2D on the Speedy page. – Fayenatic London 22:58, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Deletion procedure for a recreated category that was deleted before

Which deletion procedure is the right one for a category that was deleted (WP:CfD) but was recreated shortly after? I'm speaking of Category:People of Swedo-Finnish descent that was deleted in last June. 85.156.64.153 (talk) 15:50, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

WP:CSD#G4 may apply, so you could try {{db-repost|Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 April 5#Category:People of Finland Swedish descent}}, and if that fails, another WP:CFD may be in order. Whichever you use, remember to link to the original deletion discussion. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:45, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

A very unusual redirect is being discussed at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2019 November 27#Academic_and_Scientific_Publishing. It might be useful to have some fresh eyes on it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:10, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Proposed expansion of C2D

The C2D criterion currently says:

Consistency with main article's name
  • Renaming a topic category to match its eponymous page (e.g. Category:The Beatles and The Beatles).
  • This applies only if the related page's current name (and by extension, the proposed name for the category) is unambiguous, and uncontroversial – either because of longstanding stability at that particular name, or because the page was just moved (i) after a page move discussion resulted in explicit consensus to rename, or (ii) unilaterally to reflect an official renaming which is verified by one or more citations (provided in the nomination). If the page names are controversial or ambiguous in any way, then this criterion does not apply, even if an article is the primary topic of its name.
  • This criterion also does not apply if there is any ongoing discussion about the name of the page or category, or if there has been a recent discussion concerning any of the pages that resulted in a no consensus result.
A. Propose replacing
(i) after a page move discussion resulted in explicit consensus to rename,
with:
(i) after renaming via WP:Requested moves (either a discussion or a technical request),
B. Propose appending
  • This criterion may also be used to rename a set category in the same circumstances, where the set is defined by a renamed topic; e.g. players for a sports team, or places in a district.

Technical requests at WP:RM are overseen and checked by administrators before implementation. The change in Part A would recognise these as sufficient grounds to rename a category. Part B is to recognise what is already accepted practice; other examples are alumni from a college, or albums by a band. – Fayenatic London 14:28, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

  • Support both - A is clearer than at present, and B has indeed been accepted practice for some time. Oculi (talk) 15:22, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Regarding A, I think I prefer the current text, though I'm happy to do something like "after a page move discussion resulted in explicit consensus to rename (e.g. at requested moves, technical requests, or RFC)". Put a process before the mechanism, IMO. --Izno (talk) 15:35, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Weak oppose A and support B. Although I appreciate the reasoning behind the proposed change in A, I do not think we should consider a technical request at WP:RM (cursorily reviewed by an admin who is potentially uninformed about the topic) to be more meaningful than, say, an informal (i.e. non-WP:RM) talk page discussion between a few informed editors. Regarding B, the change documents current practice, as Oculi pointed out, and my only thought is making it clearer that C2D cannot be used to convert a set category into a topic category. -- Black Falcon (talk) 06:00, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose A and support B per Black Falcon. Armbrust The Homunculus 02:38, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Regarding A, what about breaking it down into the following sub-scenarios:
  1. The title has longstanding stability → Green tickY C2D applies
  2. The article was recently renamed via RM → Green tickY C2D applies
  3. The article was recently the subject of a (presumed uncontroversial) move, done either boldly or via WP:RMT. From here, two possibilities:
  1. The admin reviewing the request agrees that the move was uncontroversial → Green tickY C2D applies
  2. The admin reviewing the request judges that the move was potentially controversial (i.e. it should have been discussed in an RM, not boldly performed or listed as a technical move) → Red XN C2D fails. At their discretion, the reviewing admin may reverse the page move. The nominator is directed to seek consensus for the new naming scheme via WP:RM or another discussion venue.
I think there needs to be room for admins to exercise their judgement, because there are going to be...
  • Bold moves that are clearly uncontroversial (e.g. correcting a spelling error, replacing a nonstandard disambiguator with a standard one specified in a naming guideline). It would be kind of silly to incentivize editors to use the WP:RMT process for these moves even when they're not technically prevented from doing the move themselves, just so they can then speedily rename the corresponding category without going through CFD. The whole point of RMT is to be a proxy for performing bold moves that you can't do yourself for technical reasons (e.g. there's a redirect with history in the way).
  • Technical moves that were potentially controversial. Admins and page movers at WP:RMT aren't necessarily doing much more than a sniff test before performing each move. It's possible the admin reviewing the category rename request will notice something iffy about the recent move that the admin/pagemover at RMT missed (though I don't think a C2D generally requires any more due diligence than an RMT).
  • Verifiable official name changes that do not justify an uncontroversial move. I was actually quite surprised to see the or... unilaterally to reflect an official renaming which is verified by one or more citations clause in WP:C2D, because it's actually very common for RM discussions to reject a new official name as the new article title on the basis of it not being the WP:COMMONNAME. The WP:OFFICIALNAMES page is specifically about this: People often assume that, where an official name exists for the subject of a Wikipedia article, that name is ipso facto the correct title for the article... In many cases this is contrary to Wikipedia practice and policy. Here's just one recent example - the Motion Picture Association of America officially rebranded as the "Motion Picture Association" but an RM didn't find consensus to move to that name (here are many more examples).
Colin M (talk) 17:15, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
You raise some very good points. I agree that allowing room for judgment is useful and helps avoid unnecessary rigidity, but with the caution that some bureaucracy is useful at CfD due to the high number of pages affected by category changes. Regarding your comment about "official renaming", I agree that the current standard—which is based on the idea that categories should almost always follow established and uncontroversial article naming—is flawed in its assumption that a unilateral name change to the official name is necessarily appropriate or uncontroversial, and probably should be reconsidered. -- Black Falcon (talk) 04:26, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Alerts for speedy category changes

Should C1 and C2 nominations be reported on WikiProject Alerts pages? Please add your views at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts/Bugs#Speedy category processes not reported. – Fayenatic London 08:21, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Question on how to start a discussion about a category naming convention change

How would I go about starting a discussion about a change in a redirect category naming convention? While the main category has a lot of 1 level-deep sub-categories, they are probably only watched by the creator of those categories and I'd prefer not to tag all of these categories if I don't have to. --Gonnym (talk) 13:33, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

WP:VPR I think? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:48, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
You might start in on the main topic article talk page, or the top category talk page, or a WikiProject talk page; wherever it is, please post links to it in these other talk pages. – Fayenatic London 08:24, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia community sites

New cat with a meaningless name..... Category:Wikipedia community sites. Anyone know what "community sites" means and is it something people will search for? As someone who has been taking care of our help system for years I am puzzled at this new cats meaning. Is this worthwhile keeping?--Moxy 🍁 00:21, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Moxy, I believe it would make sense to add Category:Wikipedia community sites to discussion Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2020 January 17#Category:Wikipedia help overviews. —⁠andrybak (talk) 01:14, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Template options

I got frustrated with {{cfdnotice}}, and have expanded its functionality. It now handles |type= and |target= parameters, and has {{cfrnotice}} and {{cfmnotice}} wrappers that apply |type= automatically. Also created redirects like Template:CfD notice, Template:CFRnotice, and Template:cfm-notice, etc., etc. (every variant) so you don't have to memorize the "cfxnotice" exact spelling style.

I have not made corresponding enhancements to the {{cfd-notify}} and {{cfdnotice2}} templates (yet? – I'm hoping someone else will beat me to it). Just kind of ran out of coffee-induced patience for it all at the moment, though this would probably be most useful of all for {{cfd-notify}} (the user notification) since we use it a lot more often. I just started with the first one that came to mind.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:02, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Should Twinkle require nominators to input new/other category names?

The merging, renaming, and converting templates all accept a second parameter for the new name, while splitting takes two. The tagging templates ({{cfm}}, {{cfr}}, and {{cfs}}) all handle an unprovided name just fine ({{cfc}} doesn't yet, as it appears to be unsupported by Module:cfd) but the nominating templates ({{cfm2}}, {{cfr2}}, {{cfc2}}, and {{cfs2}}) do not, displaying Category:TO CATEGORY, Category:NEW CATEGORY, TO ARTICLE, and Category:OTHER NEW CATEGORY. Are those occasionally useful, in case someone wants to nominate something but doesn't know what best it should be renamed/split/etc. to? I can make Twinkle not allow such empty nominations, but I'm not a CfD regular so I figured I should ask here first to see what folks think. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:07, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Amorymeltzer, {{cfc}} now handles an unprovided name just fine after conversion to Module:Cfd. If we are to allow empty nominations I think we should have a better message then Category:TO CATEGORY. ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 14:19, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for taking care of that! To be clear, I think allowing empty nominations is undesirable. If we want to be maximally obviously/annoying, something like Category:REPLACE THIS WITH YOUR NEW CATEGORY could be done. I think simply just requiring them in Twinkle should drop them to near naught, though. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:20, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support. A proposal to merge, rename or convert should specify the name - and if, in exceptional cases, it shouldn't then the user can type in "TBD" etc . DexDor (talk) 15:21, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
  • As it happens, I nominated today a category for renaming but did not add a proposed name as I just had no idea which one could work, as the current one and the standard disambiguation ones were all not possible. --Gonnym (talk) 15:36, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
  • While I agree that empty nominations are generally undesirable, they are occasionally useful when the nominator wants to spark discussion but does not have a particular target name in mind. I do not use Twinkle and, therefore, have no personal stake in this. However, why would we impose a requirement when using Twinkle that does not exist when applying the templates manually? -- Black Falcon (talk) 22:32, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
    This is sort of why I was asking. The reality is that someone could, as DexDor notes, simply enter "TemporaryFillerCategory" if they wanted to; this is just about whether these specific empty notices were useful. To your final question, a better example would be the TfD merge template, or various article tags that require a parameter. Some templates (like the above) "break" nicely, but not all do. At any rate, there shouldn't be any loss in functionality. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 02:23, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
    In answer to that specific issue, I would say no, these particular expressions are not especially useful. "TO CATEGORY", "NEW CATEGORY", etc., could be replaced with "TBD", "?", etc., with no loss of meaningful information, in my opinion. -- Black Falcon (talk) 04:21, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/QEDKbot

Please see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/QEDKbot, which is a proposal for an admin bot to tag and delete empty categories in accordance with WP:C1. — JJMC89 (T·C) 22:56, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Twinkle using conversion to article (cfc) or list (cfl)

The tagging templates {{cfc}} and {{cfl}} are different, mainly around the use of "article" versus "list." The nominating template {{cfl2}} redirects to {{cfc2}}. The CfD instructions don’t treat them as separate, which makes sense since there's no real difference. Indeed, the only difference is whether to use the word "article" or the word "list." With that in mind, should Twinkle offer:

  1. Just a "convert to article" option using {{cfc}} (current status quo)
  2. Just a "convert to list" option using {{cfl}}
  3. Both via separate options in the CfD sub-action dropdown
  4. Both via the same sub-action dropdown, but toggle "article" and "list" status via a checkbox

Basically, this is a lot of text asking whether CfD-ers want to change the word "article" to "list." ~ Amory (u • t • c) 22:34, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Of interest, perhaps, from 2010: Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2010_June_3#Template:Cfc ~ Amory (u • t • c) 22:36, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
Ideally, {{Cfc}} could take the place of {{Cfl}}, with a parameter for "article" or "list" – and the default could be "article or list". It seems quite unnecessary to have two templates that are identical except for a few words. Until that happens, though, I would suggest either #3 or #4. -- Black Falcon (talk) 00:20, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

A question on mass nomination

There is a category Category:Video games by game engine which itself is fine, but it is the 53 subcats currently in it that I'm looking to have moved/renamed in the same renaming schema. Do I need to make a CFD entry for all 53, or is there a different approach I can take with those? --Masem (t) 17:19, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

See WP:CFD#HOWTO and search for the word "bundled", it occurs several times. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:31, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

WP:C2E

I've tried to use this a few times recently, when I've changed my mind about something I've done, and in in each case there have been objections. I've not noticed anyone else using it. Is it actually useful, or should we abolish it? Rathfelder (talk) 14:58, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Proposal to restrict WP:C2D slightly

current C2D text
  • Renaming a topic category to match its eponymous page (e.g. Category:The Beatles and The Beatles).
  • This applies only if the related page's current name (and by extension, the proposed name for the category) is unambiguous, and uncontroversial – either because of longstanding stability at that particular name, or because the page was just moved (i) after a page move discussion resulted in explicit consensus to rename, or (ii) unilaterally to reflect an official renaming which is verified by one or more citations (provided in the nomination). If the page names are controversial or ambiguous in any way, then this criterion does not apply, even if an article is the primary topic of its name.
  • This criterion also does not apply if there is any ongoing discussion about the name of the page or category, or if there has been a recent discussion concerning any of the pages that resulted in a no consensus result.
  • This criterion may also be used to rename a set category in the same circumstances, where the set is defined by a renamed topic; e.g. players for a sports team, or places in a district.

In practice, all requests that involve removing a disambiguator from a category name are being opposed. In order to formalize that, I propose to add explicitly in the C2D criteria something like:

  • C2D does not apply to proposals to remove a disambiguator from the category name (not even when the main article does not contain a disambiguator).

This may reduce the number of hopeless CFDS requests a bit. @Armbrust, Gonnym, Fayenatic london, Ymblanter, Oculi, Rathfelder, Black Falcon, and GiantSnowman: pinging a number of CFDS regulars. Marcocapelle (talk) 10:36, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

  • No opinion on this, but having it say one way or another would certainly help. --Gonnym (talk) 10:38, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm fine with a change of that nature. GiantSnowman 12:25, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support - this is already implicit. The 2nd bulleted point could perhaps be replaced by 2 snappier points (people don't necessarily read up to the 'except when' bit, rather like the 'unless' bit in WP:SMALLCAT). Oculi (talk) 14:28, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
  • quite happy with that idea. Rathfelder (talk) 14:55, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support. We could replace the current 2nd & 3rd bullet points with:
    • This applies only if the related page's current name (and by extension, the proposed name for the category) is:
      • unambiguous (so it generally does not apply to proposals to remove a disambiguator from the category name, even when the main article is the primary topic of its name, i.e. it does not contain a disambiguator); and
      • uncontroversial, either because of longstanding stability at that particular name, or because the page was just moved (i) after a page move discussion resulted in explicit consensus to rename, or (ii) unilaterally to reflect an official renaming which is verified by one or more citations (provided in the nomination). This criterion does not apply if there is any ongoing discussion about the name of the page or category, or there has been a recent discussion concerning any of the pages that resulted in a no consensus result, or it is controversial in some other way.
– Fayenatic London 23:05, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Moving article name and category name together

  • Regarding this issue though, do we have a process to initiate a move discussion about an article and it's eponymous category? It is very time wasteful to have two separate discussions about the same issue (WP:DISCUSSFORK), when both WP:RM and WP:CFD follow the same naming convention guidelines (Wikipedia:Category names#General conventions says in the first bullet that Standard article naming conventions apply which leads to Wikipedia:Article titles). --Gonnym (talk) 11:36, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
    • If it's unambiguous then a separate C2D following the RM is quite easy and efficient, requiring just two days' exposure. There is no set process to cover both at once in cases of ambiguity. Perhaps the best way to introduce one might be for an RM (on the article talk page) to cover the category as well, nominated on a separate line but in the same discussion; the category page should be tagged and listed as usual in the daily CFD log, but with a statement that all discussion should take place on the RM page. It should be clear that a permissible outcome is to move the article but not the category. Alternatively, a CFD discussion could include an RM for the lead article. – Fayenatic London 12:01, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
    • There are good reasons to have two separate processes/discussions. Category naming does not always blindly follow article naming, such as instances when disambiguation is removed from the article's title but kept in the category's title because people often (typically?) add categories without visiting the category page. -- Black Falcon (talk) 00:02, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Locality categorization by historical subdivisions

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Your input about the categorization of settlements is requested at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Locality categorization by historical subdivisions. Thank you, Renata (talk) 22:30, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Module:Cfd

Module:Cfd has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the module's entry on the Templates for discussion page. * Pppery * it has begun... 19:18, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Category:Bandon

Hello, I created Category:Bandon without realising there was already Category:Bandon, County Cork. I have removed Category:Bandon from the few pages I had added it to, but I believe it should also be deleted, leaving only Category:Bandon, County Cork. Please could an administrator )or whoever appropriate, I'm not sure) delete Category:Bandon? Kind regards, MunsterFan2011 (talk) 12:52, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

@MunsterFan2011: Just tag it {{db-author}}. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:46, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
@MunsterFan2011:  Done, I deleted the category per your request. -- Black Falcon (talk) 21:59, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
@Redrose64:, @Black Falcon:, thank you both very much. MunsterFan2011 (talk) 12:57, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Year categories

Would like to know before I tag categories. Are the year categories for articles that are titled "AD x" (AD 12, AD 1000), such as Category:12 eligible for WP:C2D? Pinging @Fayenatic london: as they handle a lot of CFDS. --Gonnym (talk) 10:41, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for asking first. Currently, categories for years 1 to 10 use "AD", and later years do not.[6] Talk:AD 1 seems to be the place with most discussion about this. IIRC, last year there was a CFD about three year categories because somebody had moved them out-of-process. BrownHairedGirl persuasively argued that no year categories after 10 should be disambiguated using AD, because this would hamper navigation using standard templates. Sorry, I can't find that discussion right now. – Fayenatic London 15:41, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
I found this for Category:11 but that move was undone by a reverse move. There's a related cfd in Feb 2017. Oculi (talk) 19:23, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
There is also Talk:100 (disambiguation) and Talk:AD 911. – Fayenatic London 20:34, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

WP:DEFININE is an acceptable reason?

WP:C2B Consistency with established Wikipedia naming conventions and practices lists two criteria: expanding names like U.S., and DAB. My question is: is this the complete list? Or could WP:DEFINE be applicable too? -DePiep (talk) 11:18, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Intro text says "... are strictly limited to"; does this apply to the C2B description or its listing? -DePiep (talk) 11:20, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

question re scope of discussion

hi. is there any way to tag a specific current CfD discussion, to request input from a wider group of editors? thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 22:44, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

@Sm8900: First, ensure that the Category talk: page has appropriate WikiProject banners, so that it's picked up by WP:AALERTS. Also, use {{subst:cfd-notify}} and {{subst:cfdnotice}} judiciously, being careful to observe WP:CANVAS. Unfortunately, I don't think that WP:DELSORT can be used for CfDs. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:02, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
okay, that's very good to know. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 01:26, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Help - linkfix

I just added Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2020_March_20#Scripts_encoded_in_Unicode_1.0 manually, because it is a bulk. Somehow, the link from a tagged page does not work: see Category:Scripts encoded in Unicode 2.0 "this category's entry" link. Can someone fix this? Thx. -DePiep (talk) 21:58, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

{{Cfm full|day=20|month=March|year=2020|startmonth=March|startyear=2020|1=Scripts encoded in Unicode 1.0}} — Diannaa (talk) 22:24, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) DePiep, when using {{subst:cfm}}, the section name is passed as second parameter, as per its documentation. When substituted, Template:Cfm full uses its first positional parameter for section link, when passing to Module:Cfd. The fix is to pass the full section name as first parameter to {{Cfm full}}, as Diannaa has pointed out. —⁠andrybak (talk) 22:28, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
I did not ask for documentation. Not for RTFM patronising either. I had to solve half a dozen of such details. BTW did you know that the {{cfm}} template says that is it an CFD template? I did not come here out of lazyness. Meanwhile I fixed an other issue here. -DePiep (talk) 22:35, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanx. I thought the combination CfX-page and help would be specific enough. There was an element of despair, tbh. Thx again. -DePiep (talk) 23:42, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Must say: cfx-templates are not friendly. I expect three inputs, simply: old category -- new category -- CfD-title. In all of them Cfx's , with same param pattern-or-name. Why not? -DePiep (talk) 23:47, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
The "old category" parameter is not needed for CfX templates, because templates can utilize {{PAGENAME}} and other magic words to figure out on which page they are placed. —⁠andrybak (talk) 23:52, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Technically not needed maybe, in certain situations. In this case, I had some 20 (twenty) old names. Still, the target page section title MUST BE EXACTLY one of them (Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2020_March_20#Scripts_encoded_in_Unicode_1.0). Why are there not named parameters for this? am surprised that this cat-move process is so tech-governed, not editor-based. All the best, -DePiep (talk) 00:03, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Templates for stub template nominations

Since stub templates are nominated at CfD, I was surprised that the nominating templates {{sfd-t}} and {{sfr-t}} didn't have corresponding discussion text templates. I went ahead and created {{sfd-t2}} and {{sfr-t2}} to align with the others. I also added a |stub= parameter to {{cfd-notify}} (similar to {{tfdnotice}}'s |module=) to change the messages there to be appropriate for a stub template notice. I don't spend much time at CfD, so I'd welcome feedback, changes, or a smack across the head as needed! ~ Amory (u • t • c) 13:30, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

C2D

C2D, in particular its "set category"-related last paragraph, has come up at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2020 March 24#Musical compositions – depending on the outcome of that decision, some precisions in order to avoid pitfalls might need to be added to the C2D guidance. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:36, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Need help with somewhat large renaming proposal

Hi, I'd like to propose renaming all of the categories in this category. Given that there are so many and I don't have Twinkle, etc, I was wondering if someone with those tools could set it up for me? I'm thinking "Albanian Eurovision Song Contest entrants"‎ -> "Eurovision Song Contest entrants of Albania", and so on so that it doesn't assign a nationality to the entrant. Also, is this something that would need discussion or is there precedence to fix these types of wording fixes automatically? Grk1011 (talk) 15:32, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

I see that there is no nationality requirement; eg Celine Dion won for Switzerland once, and is Canadian. Oculi (talk) 16:07, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Category:Far-left terrorism

We have Category:Far-right terrorism, but no Category:Far-left terrorism. Why? Both extremes resort to terrorism. -- Valjean (talk) 16:46, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

There is Category:Communist terrorism. Oculi (talk) 16:53, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, that would logically be a sub-category, just as Category:Anti-communist terrorism is a subcategory of Category:Far-right terrorism. -- Valjean (talk) 21:44, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
There is Left-wing terrorism, companion to Right-wing terrorism, so I see no obstacle to creating Category:Far-left terrorism. Oculi (talk) 22:45, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Okay. That makes sense. I just noticed that both Left-wing terrorism and Right-wing terrorism articles cover the "far" versions, for example, "Right-wing terrorism or far-right terrorism". Using the "far" version for categories should be good enough, as ordinary right- and left-wingers don't engage in terrorism. Both are generally sensible people. Extremism is what's bad and can lead to radical actions. -- Valjean (talk) 00:31, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

questions about CFD process, and re-creating Category:Historic Hotels of America (deleted by CFD in 2018)

Giving notice by this posting that I am going ahead, contrary to this previous CFD in 2018' which led to consensus decision to delete, to re-create the deleted Category:Historic Hotels of America. I thought maybe running a new CFD would be required or would be good practice, but I don't see relevant advice at wp:CFD. I just see flat statement: "If a category is a red link, then it is already deleted (or was never created in the first place) and does not need to be nominated."

The 2018 CFD came to the wrong decision, not really the closer (User:Good Olfactory)'s fault IMHO, but nonetheless the wrong decision based on facts available already, IMHO. There was unfortunate dismissal of the views/info provided by the one participant most fully informed about the topic, IMHO. It is no longer timely to try to reverse the decision at wp:Deletion Review, though. Anyhow now, after a lot of development, mostly by me, of National Registry of the Historic Hotels of America (soon to be moved/renamed to Historic Hotels of America) and creation or expansion of many linked individual hotel articles, it would be more clear, immediately, to anyone investigating that the topic and category are justified.

There is more explanation at National Registry of the Historic Hotels of America#Previously existing category for Historic Hotels of America (which after a Requested Move is completed, will be at Historic Hotels of America#Previously existing category for Historic Hotels of America). User:Magnolia677 who nominated the category for deletion in 2018, and User:Thierry Caro who participated on the "Keep" side back in that CFD, there note this new initative and support, or at least do not oppose, re-creation now.

If anyone wants to notify all the other 2018 CFD participants (who mostly were on "Delete" side), feel free. Or let me know if I should. Otherwise I don't want to aggravate them, in effect confronting them with my retrospective opinion that they were all wet, and/or stir up renewed opposition. Any new discussion will lead inevitably to approval of re-creation of category, I am sure.

Questions:
1) Is it required or preferred to run a new CFD to reverse the previous CFD's decision, in this case?
2) Is it required or preferred to notify the participants at the previous CFD, about this discussion or about a new CFD?

Thanks, --Doncram (talk) 19:29, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

If you believe the category was deleted incorrectly due to procedure or because new information has been identified since deletion, WP:DRV is still the correct location. Deletion of the new category can and will occur under WP:G4 otherwise. OTOH, There was unfortunate dismissal of the views/info provided by the one participant most fully informed about the topic makes it sound like you are under the impression that one participant gets to decide what the consensus is, regardless of the discussion held, which is not how consensus works. You can try the argument at WP:DRV, but such arguments rarely get somewhere. --Izno (talk) 21:43, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Are you serious? That for an informed capable editor to create a sensible category, they must go and get approval at wp:DRV??? My impression is that DRV is primarily to provide review of admin-type deletion decisions, i.e. it is a high-level forum for reviewing an administrator's conduct and quality of judgement and communication, and mainly is about finding fault. Its proceedings are semi-secret even, reflecting their personally-directed nature, in that they are automatically collapsed so that they cannot be found in normal searching. At worst, here, I thought maybe someone would show up and say i really must run a new CFD to formally reverse the old one, as a matter of giving notice and allowing low-key low-level approval. I do have an opinion that the original CFD went off the tracks, but that doesn't matter and no one has to agree or disagree. Just looking at the topic, it is simply obvious that a category is justified. I'd rather not have a CFD, and think a DRV would be ridiculous. So, really? And where is this written? --Doncram (talk) 00:16, 23 April 2020 (UTC) wp:G4 does not mention categories; it is explicitly about articles (ones which are "sufficiently identical copies" to previously deleted ones). For articles, I know that it is fine for me to create a new article where an old article existed, if I am exercising my own judgment that the new article is valid by GNG or whatever, and if I believe it is not extremely similar to a version that was deleted. Editors don't have to ask anyone, and I and other experienced editors do that all the time. Can someone point to policy discussion/decision about this kind of thing? --Doncram (talk) 00:26, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

G* criteria are applicable in all namespaces unless otherwise specified. G4 particularly says nothing about articles much less explicitly so: page is used where one might expect article to have been used were it the case that G4 was only about articles (This applies to sufficiently identical copies, having any title, of a page deleted via its most recent deletion discussion.).

That for an informed capable editor to create a sensible category re-create is key here. You may create any category you wish, but almost by definition, the category page will have almost the exact same content as it did prior to deletion by the discussion and so G4 applies to this case. (An article is different in that regard.)

provide review of admin-type deletion decisions Yes?... "Did the admin closing the discussion in question make the right call?" is indeed the question posed at DRV. You dispute that the call was correct. DRV is accordingly the place to dispute the decision. I do not quite understand why you believe a DRV for 7 days would be any different than a CFD for... 7? days. Moreover, CFD's scope is delete, merge, rename or split categories and stub types, none of which you are proposing.

(There is a possibility that I do not understand the correct place to go here. It is also possible that you could just WP:BEBOLD and create the category yourself anyway and then let whoever stumbles upon it decide whether that should have been done, but IIRC you have had previous run-ins with The Law in that regard.)

--Izno (talk) 02:55, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

It is fairly common for editors to recreate previously deleted categories, sometimes inadvertently. These can then survive unchallenged or be brought to cfd and discussed again. In the UK we have categories for listed buildings (eg Category:Grade II listed buildings in the City of Westminster), some of which are hotels eg Savoy Hotel. I would expect to be able to create Category:Listed hotels in England (assuming there are enough of them). It is not evident to me why there should be a difference re categorisation between 'listed' in the UK and National Historic Register in the US. Oculi (talk) 11:26, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
This said, I would be very wary of recreating a deleted category if I had been blocked recently, at great length by BHG no less, explicitly for recreating deleted categories. Oculi (talk) 12:37, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

How are/should be stub template merges be handled?

Sort of related to my above note at #Templates for stub template nominations, but part of the reason I created templates for stub template nominations was to let Twinkle properly handle 'em. SD0001 noted that there's nothing for a proposed merger of a stub template. There wasn't any mention of it in the instructions, so what's the process? They're presumably rare, and I haven't been able to find some examples of these. Would creating {{sfm-t}} and {{sfm-t2}} be worthwhile, or is there a different procedure recommended? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:16, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Are you intending to merge the templates, or just the categories that they populate? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:43, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
The former, I guess? I'm just trying to figure out if Twinkle should list delete & rename or delete & rename & merge for stub templates. Right now, the structure for the former exists. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:14, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
I've never heard of stub templates being merged, though renaming and deleting are obviously common. Imho it's a moot point, so I wouldn't recommend creating anything for "merge" at the moment. Her Pegship (I'm listening) 18:30, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Related to this, but Twinkle should now properly support nominating stub templates for deletion and renaming at CfD, and autoselect CfD as the venue. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:40, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Category merger proposal: Japanese international schools

Hi! I'd like to merge categories which each have fewer than five articles (including daughter in categories) from multiple country-based categories to continent-based ones.

The continent categories in question:

The following continent-based categories have enough schools to remain viable:

The following continent-based categories have potential to remain viable:

The other relevant country-based categories should be merged into the continent-based categories. WhisperToMe (talk) 21:40, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe: This is not the place to propose category merges. Please follow the directions at WP:CFD#HOWTO. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:39, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
@Redrose64: I added it there because Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion states: " For nominations involving large numbers of categories, help adding these templates can be requested here. " here being "Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion" WhisperToMe (talk) 19:46, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Speedily closing a CFD discussion

We have Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion#Applying_speedy_criteria_in_full_discussions. Should there not be some advertised route for bringing such noms at cfd to the attention of potential 'speedy' closers? I refer in particular to Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2020_May_6#Category:Defunct_mass_media which appears to me to be speediable and which is overlapping with further noms I wish to make. Oculi (talk) 21:32, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

What should be the venue for discussing Rcat templates?

This section is transcluded from Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion/Archive 14. (edit | history)
This nuanced RfC concerns the question of where to discuss rcat templates. Based on the discussion below, the only formal close that's available to me is no consensus; but that doesn't mean we haven't reached any decisions. The discussion below contains a lot of excellent reasoning, and it makes a good platform for future progress.

An unstated assumption that underlies the RfC question is that there should be one, single venue for discussing rcat templates. During the discussion, editors challenge this assumption, and it's worth noting that this very discussion was transcluded to several different pages. And this, of course, gives us a potential solution: the options at the RfC are not mutually exclusive. It seems to me that by the magic of transclusion, rcat template discussions can be listed in or linked from several places at once. Although my close is "no consensus", I commend this outcome to you all.—S Marshall T/C 12:23, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

What should be the venue for discussing rcat (WP:Redirect categorization) templates/categories?

This question is prompted by Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2020 January 20#Template:R from meme where this question was raised. I personally think it should be at RfD since the audience at RfD will likely be more experienced with redirect categories making them better at making decisions about them then the audiences at TfD or CfD. While this is quite different from RfDs regular content I still believe that they are the most suitable for handling these template with RfDers generally having experience using them. Both TfD and CfD have a reasonable claim since they are templates and they are used for categorizing pages. I will transclude this section at WT:RFD, WT:TFD and WT:CFD so all interested parties can participate. ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 22:12, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Trialpears, Good discussion. In theory, I'd say TfD because of the namespace. However, in practice, since rcats are so widely used, I'm wondering if we shouldn't be discussing these in a more prominent place? CfD proposed by MJL seems reasonable, but CfD, too, sees even less participation than TfD in most cases. RfD is reasonable, though not necessarily dealing with redirects so the editors/admins there may be less familiar with the template nuances. What about MfD (like userboxes), or, possibly, at one of the Village Pumps? (Twinkle would need to be updated in any case.) Doug Mehus T·C 22:21, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
I'll be honest and say that I would also prefer to have those conversations here. RFD regulars are the ones who have the most familiarity with them, but I have a hard time squaring my preference with the mandate of CFD to discuss all categories. The last place, imo, that should be the venue for RCATs would be TFD since they're just a unique type of categories and TFD regulars would be the less familiar with their usage than RFD regulars. (edit conflict) –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 22:27, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
MJL, Yeah, similar thoughts as well. RfD makes the most sense to me, too, but its regulars may be less familiar with the intricacies of the rcats and categorization. What about MfD? Doug Mehus T·C 22:35, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
@Dmehus: No, definitely not MFD; they're mandate doesn't come close to RCATs. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 22:41, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
MJL, Okay, fair enough. No clear answer for me then. It's been RfD and CfD; neither of which are ideal (for different reasons). Doug Mehus T·C 22:42, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • CFD -- they're a type of category. The template is simply a vehicle for applying the category, similar to stub templates which are discussed at CfD. -- Tavix (talk) 22:53, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • CfD - MJL, who maintains the Archer script, does seem to favour CfD because those editors/administrators are more familiar with the subtleties. RfD would notionally make sense as well, so I wouldn't be opposed to that, and it does generate (somewhat) higher participation than CfD. No real clear, runaway "winner" for which venue is best, but on balance, I concur with the sentiments expressed by MJL and Tavix to firm up my support, for the reasons expressed above. Doug Mehus T·C 23:07, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • TfD These are templates; I see no good reason to add yet another special case. * Pppery * it has begun... 01:10, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
  • TfD or CfD depending on what is discussed. If the issue is with the category itself, then nominate the category and hold the discussion at CfD. If the issue is with the template, then nominate it at TfD. --Gonnym (talk) 10:17, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
    Gonnym, There is established precedent, though, to discussing certain types of templates in other venues. For example, userbox templates, regardless if in userspace or template space, are discussed at MfD. In this case, as discussed above, there are wide-ranging implications with rcats, both in terms of how they're categorized, how they're used, and the impacts to scripts like Archer, Capricorn, Twinkle, etc. CfD does seem to have modestly higher participation than TfD, at least on some days, though it really varies. Crucially, though, the active CfD editors are more likely to be keenly aware to the intricacies of the rcats as the two are closely related. Doug Mehus T·C 14:40, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
    I see those as rare (and IMO bad) exceptions to the rule. I also disagree with your participation analysis. I had a category nomination relisted twice with 0 participation. I'm not changing my opinion on venue. --Gonnym (talk) 15:12, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I have to go with CfD, because they're almost entirely about maintenance categorization. That the categories are usually placed via templates is simply incidental; many maint. cats. do not have templates, but they wouldn't suddenly become TfD "jurisdiction" if someone created templates for them. I could see TfD maybe being the right venue when there is no correspondence between a template and a cat., but this is uncommon. Thinking back, we used to have other cases like this, where things that were mostly categories but also with a template or other "feature" were discussed in other venues. E.g., Stub categories/templates used to have their own WP:SFD, but this has been closed, and CfD is now the venue. It would be strangely inconsistent to declare CfD not the venue for the parallel case of Rcats. Pppery's "No good reasons to add yet another special case" actually is a better rationale to use CfD than TfD. WP not being a bureaucracy (and per Gonnym, above), it should be fine to occasionally TfD an rcat template (if it doesn't implicate a corresponding category; e.g. there are various more-specific rcat template variants that still go to the same maint. cat. as the more general one, unless/until we decide to split the cat. to be more specific; and we might need to discuss a template in template terms only, without any effect on a category that did directly correspond). See also WP:RM being the conventual venue for template renames, yet TfD has sometimes been used for template-related rename discussions. Consensus can form anywhere, if there's sufficient clueful editorial input. A further complication is that many rcats are actually template redirects, not templates, yet they all relate to categorization in the end, even if not exactly corresponding categories. So, if there's to be a default, it should be CfD, because a category is always involved one way or another, and moving categories around or deleting them is a more complicated process than doing the same with templates and redirects. This isn't even really about Rcats in particular; any template that exists solely to apply a category is really a CfD matter, being an incidentally templatey means to a categorization end.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:28, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Need to think about this but whatever the outcome, it should be cross-advertised so people who don't follow all related discussions will see it. My gut sense prior to thinking about it is to prefer CfD if the change will affect categorization, or TfD if it will not. For example, if there was an effort to merge {{R from move}} and {{R from merge}} so they used parameters, but the net result would not affect categorization, then TfD is the place to discuss it. If there is an effort to split {{R from move}} so that some moved articles wind up in a new category, then CfD would be the place to discuss it. Again, I may need to give this more thought. Either way, cross-announce the discussion so people who follow only TfD or RfD discussions will be aware of it. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:08, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
    I didn't proofread the above comment very well. To correct and summarize: The original discussion should start wherever it makes sense to start it, CfD, TfD, or RfD. However, if there is any impact on the other two areas, there needs to be cross-advertising as appropriate. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:40, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
    Already done; this entire discussion is sectionally transcluded into both WT:CFD and WT:TFD. Also "advertised" at WP:VPPOL.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:48, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
    I didn't proofread the above comment very well. To correct and summarize: The discussion of changes to a specific RCat template should start wherever it makes sense to start it, CfD, TfD, or RfD. However, if there is any impact on the other two areas, there needs to be cross-advertising as appropriate. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:58, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
  • TfD or CfD on a case-by-case basis. Well, I learn something new every day. I assumed such templates were for the benefit of other editors looking at a redirect's history and status, and wasn't aware of the categorization purpose. From my naive perspective, these are page templates first with categorization as a side effect. But as editors above me argue, the venue really depends on the action contemplated. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 19:07, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Anarchy per WP:NOTBURO and WP:CREEP. Either TfD or CfD is an appropriate venue and regardless of where the deletion discussion occurs, as long as interested editors are properly notified "a procedural error made in a proposal or request is not grounds for rejecting that proposal or request." Leave where to nominate it up to the nominator based upon what they think is the most important factor to discuss. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:00, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
    • RfD is actually an interesting option. If we must choose a place to have these discussions, I would prefer that forum since the people familiar with rcats are most likely to see it there. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:10, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
      Wugapodes, I agree with you here. My first choice would probably be RfD, but secondarily, CfD since the template itself is just the vehicle, as Tavix and SMcCandlish explain, by which the redirect gets categorized. Without the maintenance categories, these rcat templates would serve no purpose. Doug Mehus T·C 23:33, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
Beg to differ, Dmehus, rcats have two important functions: 1) to sort redirects to maintenance categories, and 2) to inform editors who come the the redirect page by explaining the reasoning behind the categorization. Reason "2" is why there are text messages on each rcat. The informative explanations and descriptions are especially helpful for editors who are inexperienced and are learning the details about redirect categorization. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 23:52, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
  • TfD if discussing a particular Rcat template, CfD if discussing the underlying category, and RfD if whichever type of page is being discussed is itself a redirect to another page. In all cases, a note should be left at WT:REDIRECT as changes to any of these types of pages shouldn't be made without input from editors with experience working in the overall redirection pseudo-namespace. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:14, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
    • All Rcat templates have a corresponding category (because that's the purpose of the Rcat template), so it isn't possible to separate the two. If one gets deleted, so does the other, and so on. -- Tavix (talk) 17:20, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
    What Tavix said...completely. The template is just the conduit by which the rcat categories are applied, since it involves adding text below the redirect destination. We could, in theory, categorize redirects without the template, but then how would we easily apply the category descriptions below the destination of each redirect? We'd still need a template from somewhere to do this efficiently; copying and pasting doesn't strike me as efficient. Doug Mehus T·C 17:29, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
  • ...TfD. Is anyone else in this discussion besides me aware of the existence of {{Catfd}} and {{Catfd2}}? See WP:TFDHOWTO for instructions in regards bundling related categories with TfD discussions. (Apparently, this method has been in place since 2006 or so.) Steel1943 (talk) 20:30, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes, although they weren't on my mind when I !voted above. * Pppery * it has begun... 21:25, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
  • TfD, per the principle of least astonishment. I think it would be advisable to notify WikiProject Redirects, but I do not think these nominations belong at CfD (can decide what to do with a template-populated category but not whether the template itself should be kept, deleted, redirected, etc.) or RfD (unless the template is a redirect). -- Black Falcon (talk) 23:44, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I'd say here RfD if the aim is to fine-tune the scope of the templates, because the RfD crowd includes a majority of people who go around tagging the redirects, but TfD/CfD if the proposal is to delete certain templates and categories, by the principle of least astonishment. Deryck C. 00:09, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
    "here" is ambiguous because this dicussion is transcluded on the talk pages of all relevant XfD. I assume you mean RfD. * Pppery * it has begun... 23:11, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
    True, in theory, but when a section is transcluded as Trialpears has done (very handy, thank you! Now I know how to do that properly!), in practice, it becomes very difficult for an editor to reply on the talk page with the transclusion because they will see no other discussion. So, yeah, I assumed Deryck Chan meant RfD unequivocally. Doug Mehus T·C 23:14, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
    Corrected. I didn't realise this was section-transcluded to other noticeboards. Deryck C. 22:40, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Hate to say it, but generally amenable to most of the above. My instinct is TfD, just because it'll be the default assumption, but I do agree that the folks at CfD are most likely to care or have an opinion. I actually think RfD is the least-good option; they are related to redirects, but have little in common with them (to borrow a line from Mitch Hedberg, Rcats are to redirects as cooking is to farming). Steel1943 brings up the catfd templates, which I like and would seem to support TfD, but they wouldn't increase awareness unless someone stumbled on the category, would they? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 21:12, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
  • TfD. Late to this discussion and surprised that I had to hear about it by checking Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure, rcats are templates, not categories nor redirects. They should be discussed at TfD, nowhere else. As always, the category would follow, i.e., if an rcat is deleted, then its maintenance category is also deleted. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 00:00, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
    • Oh weird, I didn't know that WP:RCAT is for "templating redirects". I always thought it was for Categorizing redirects. My point is that we are categorizing redirects, so its the categories that matter. I find it shocking that someone with so much experience with RCATs would so wrongly declare that they are not categories when they clearly are. -- Tavix (talk) 14:12, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
      • Oh, friend Tavix! Rcats have been sooo misunderstood, as exemplified by this entire discussion. Rcats serve TWO main purposes, and only one of those is categorization. You're a pretty smart editor, and I would bet ten dollars to a doughnut that if you were to give it just a few moments of thought, you are probably one of the few editors who will then realize what the other main purpose is. Okay, I won't leave you in suspense. The other main purpose is to make visible text appear on the redirect page, text that provides information to whomever comes to the page, information about the categorization of the redirect among other things. Rcats are so much more than sorting tools. If they weren't so much more, then we would just still be hard-catting redirects using the [[]]s instead of the {{}}s. Spread the word, rcats are much more than just redirect sorters, they are sources of important information! especially to those editors who possess little or no experience in redirect categorization. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 06:45, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
P.S. Maybe it would be a good idea here to mention that I almost always refer to the templates as "rcats", which is actually an acronym of sorts for "redirect categories". That's just me. Back in the old days I called them "rcat templates"; however, with age and decrepitude I shortened it to just "rcats". So I'm guilty... sundowners is setting in. P.S. left by P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 07:13, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
  • CfD to be consistent with how stub templates are handled. Both are wrappers for a category. They definitely don't belong at RfD since they are only associated with redirects. Alternatively, have stub and rcat templates discussed at TfD like all other templates. — JJMC89 (T·C) 19:15, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
  • TfD With stub tagging, the main part of the system is the categorisation, as it helps interested editors to find articles to expand. With redirect tagging, I've always thought the main thing are the templates themselves, which convey useful information to the person viewing the redirect. The categorisation, on the other hand, is incidental (save for few exceptions like Category:Printworthy redirects) and exists just because it's easy to add a line to the template causing the categorisation. Maybe someone like SMcCandlish or Tavix can enlighten me how categories like Category:Redirects from other capitalisations or Category:Redirects from ASCII-only titles are useful in the way ones like Category:India road stubs are. SD0001 (talk) 13:45, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
    • Huh? Categories have different purposes so it's disingenuous to compare two completely separate categories that have different purposes and declare one more useful than the other. The categorization is what is actually being done, the templates simply explain what the category is. -- Tavix (talk) 14:12, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
      • I don't think it is an either–or situation (or, "actually" versus "simply"). The rcat templates serve two functions: they categorize redirects and they provide context/explanation for why the redirect exists in a way that is standardized and can be understood by someone who is only casually familiar with redirects. While I tend to agree that categorization is the more important of these, that does not nullify the other function. -- Black Falcon (talk) 04:00, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Evaluating consensus

So, what's the verdict? It looks a lot like "no consensus", but is there something from this discussion that we can apply? According to my count, TfD received a plurality of support (5.67) (6.67) (7.83), followed by RfD (4.67) (5.33) and then CfD (3.67) (4.67) (4.83). If one takes the view that the discussion was specifically about where to discuss rcat templates, then TfD enjoys a narrow majority (8–6) (9–7) (10–8). Of course, whether the rcat template is separable from the rcat category was one of the points of disagreement. Some argued it is not and that the template's sole purpose is to categorize, while others (including me) think it is—e.g., a rcat category can be merged or renamed (at CfD) without impacting the existence, name, or display text of the rcat template.

Venue Editor(s) Argument(s)
CfD JJMC89, SMcCandlish, Tavix The template is purely a vehicle for applying the category.
RfD Deryck Chan, Dmehus, MJL, Trialpears, Wugapodes Editors at RfD are more likely to be familiar with redirects, though perhaps not with categorization and templates.
TfD Amorymeltzer, Black Falcon, Paine Ellsworth, Pppery, SD0001, Steel1943 Templates should be discussed at TfD.
CfD or TfD Gonnym, Ivanvector, Mark viking CfD if the category is being discussed, and TfD if the template is being discussed.
CfD, RfD, or TfD Davidwr Discussion should be had at whichever venue makes the most sense, and should be cross-advertised (at WT:REDIRECT or the other venues).

I know this is an imperfect analysis and oversimplifies people's opinions (for example, I belong in the "CfD or TfD" group but responded "TfD" because the original question specifically asked about the rcat template), but I wanted to at least try to reach some sort of an outcome. Thoughts from others on how to move forward would be appreciated. -- Black Falcon (talk) 00:49, 15 March 2020 (UTC) — Counts updated on 00:26, 23 March 2020 (UTC). — And again on 01:11, 1 April 2020 (UTC).

​(I participated in the above and a no consensus likely supports my slight preference so take this with a grain of salt but) I agree with no consensus, the discussion particulars makes that clear to me. There's a lot of gray to be considered, even if folks feel one way or another. I think a "no consensus, don't jump down anyone's throat if they do it somewhere other than TfD" would be reasonable. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:57, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
Appears to be "no consensus" to me also. I !voted for TfD, because I've always thought that when necessary, it is the rcat templates that should be taken to task. Yet when Mac or someone else takes the maintenance category to CfD, I've never been bothered enough to jump down their throats. It's all the same in the end result, either the cat and rcat are kept, or they're deleted. Only problem has been when a deleter forgets one or the other. Happens sometimes, however somebody has always caught it and dealt with it effectively. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 16:05, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Mass nom help

I would like to nominate all the subcategories of Category:Centenarians except Category:Supercentenarians for deletion, but I don't know how to do mass nominations. Could someone help?

Desired rationale:

Almost no one in these categories is notable for being a centenarian; rather they are notable for other achievements (suggesting that being a centenarian is not defining). Randomly selected examples include:

Very few of these articles actually have sourced content that even relates to their subject's longevity. Because life expectancy is increasing around the world, being a centenarian is less and less unusual and therefore less and less defining.

— buidhe 01:56, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Category:Left-handed_guitarists

An editor just created the category "Left-handed guitarists" Category:Left-handed_guitarists. Based on prior discussion here it was decided that the category "Left-handed musicians" be deleted, and you can read that discussion to see the reasoning. This old category was dismissed as trivia and I see no difference with this new category. It should be deleted. SolarFlashDiscussion 18:08, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I have notified the category creator and listed the category for deletion. – Fayenatic London 09:00, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Admin instructions for Speedy

The current Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Speedy#Admin_instructions treat any opposition as carrying sufficient weight to prevent speedy processing, even if the rationale is missing, plainly mistaken or futile against the weight of precedent.

I have followed that approach in the past but this seems to be overly cautious, cf. this bold and helpful decision by Good Ol'factory.​

In effect I have interpreted the end of WP:C2D, "or it is controversial in some other way", to include WP:ILIKEIT/WP:IDONTLIKEIT by treating any "Oppose" as a block to processing. It seems to me that I have been too reticent to use admin powers boldly, and the Speedy AI section needs rewriting accordingly. – Fayenatic London 10:39, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree. Some opposes are just 'oppose' or give a fatuous reason. It's quite frustrating to bring something to speedy and then find it is actually slower then cfd. (I am not agreeing that Fayenatic has been personally remiss in any way.) Oculi (talk) 14:33, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
I would just say "motivated opposition"--Ymblanter (talk) 19:30, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Fayenatic. Good Ol'factory's judgement was right, because the opposer was simply objecting to the principle of C2D and to the whole CFDS process. In my admin days I tended to take any objection as an absolute bar to speedy, but FL is right to say when an admin takes that path, they are effectively empowering WP:IDONTLIKEIT.
The underlying question of principle here is whether we regard CFDS as being like PROD, where the aim is to allow a simple mechanism for uncontroversial deletions. Any objection stops a PROD (unless the objection is withdrawn), because the objection means that the deletion clearly is controversial.
CFDS is different, because nominations must be based on some simple and precise criteria, which are speediable to reduce the bureaucratic overload of category maintenance. We shouldn't allow objections to create the situation Oculi rightly mentions, where frivolous objections make CFDS actually slower than a full CFD.
Nonetheless, I am wary of limiting objections too much. There have been many occasions where a nomination has exposed ill-defined edges to the speedy criteria, best illustrated by the history of WP:C2D -- where the important clause about ambiguity has added only a few years ago. We need to retain space for objections which note that rigid application of the criterion will have unintended adverse consequences.
So the difficulty here is how to define what objections may be overruled. There is a risk that we could create to broad a power to overrule, and another risk of instruction creep (it'd be easy to write a few paragraphs here). So I think best to keep it it short, and add at WP:CFD#Admin_instructions something like:
"4. Admins may disregard objections which are frivolous, or amount to WP:IDONTLIKEIT"
How does that look? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:19, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
Sensible. Rathfelder (talk) 22:24, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
BrownHairedGirl's suggestion would be fine, I think. I admit that it is a fine line, and I expected to get blow back from the decision I made, but I think it was the right one given the nature of the objection. Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:49, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
I think that the process followed should be in line with the instructions on the page, so I was surprised by Good Ol’factory's decision. A newish editor should be able to read the page, follow the instructions and expect that other editors will do the same. If the new section 4 is added then the rest of the page should be tweaked, e.g. (changes in italics)
In the lead: Request may take 48 hours to process after listing if there are no valid objections.
In C2D: C2D may be rejected if there is any ongoing discussion about the name of the page or category, or there has been a recent discussion concerning any of the pages that resulted in a no consensus result, or it is controversial in some other way. TSventon (talk) 13:56, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
I support all these changes so far, except that I would further re-word the lead: Requests may be processed 48 hours after listing if there are no valid objections. – Fayenatic London 15:26, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
I agree with the proposals by both TSventon and Fayenatic. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:59, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

CFDS: G5 deletion?

Is there a criterion I'm missing or is there some other way that I can get a speedy processing of a category due to WP:G5? Just blocked a category-minded sock (Special:Contributions/Dietic). --Izno (talk) 01:33, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

I think they have all been nominated for deletion. 2601:240:109:4DBD:B4C2:8DE1:65FC:69F6 (talk) 04:41, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
No? --Izno (talk) 14:30, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
Izno I may well be missing something, but can't you tag the categories under WP:G5 for speedy processing? (As long as they are not "categories that may be useful or suitable for merging"). TSventon (talk) 15:27, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
That would delete the category but actually processing the category via bot? --Izno (talk) 16:00, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
You could (mis)use WP:CFDW. --Trialpears (talk) 16:07, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
@Izno: I believe I've gone through and correctly reorganized each of the cats based on this user's edits. At least in this instance, for this particular editor, you can go through the cats created by them with G5 (mostly the MCU related ones) and delete them. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 16:42, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Instructions for opposing a speedy

I couldn't find any instructions for how to oppose a speedy. Do you simply record your oppose; or do this and move the request and oppose to the opposed section? Thincat (talk) 10:24, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

  • You record your oppose, with reasoning. There's a section just above (Admin_instructions_for_Speedy) where editors argue that a mere or frivolous oppose should be discounted. Oculi (talk) 21:11, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
    • Thank you. When I edited in my oppose (diff) I saw there were other opposes added in among the "current requests" as well as some where the request and oppose were included in the "opposed requests" further down. I decided to make my request as a move. Later Timrollpickering helpfully moved a whole bunch of opposed requests down (diff). By best practice, should the people opposing have moved their requests or was it indeed best to leave it to an "expert"? Or maybe it doesn't matter much. Who carries out moves to "Disambiguation sub-list", "On hold pending other discussion" and "Moved to full discussion"? I sometimes think it helps for a novice to write instructions so I shall do this (for others to correct) but I'd like to get my ideas sorted out. I see from the "Admin instructions" the implication is that that some of the consequential activities may be carried out by non-admins. I'm not really concerned about that: more what is the minimum activity necessary to oppose a speedy request? (It seems as if many are being opposed for non-frivolous reasons). Thincat (talk) 09:12, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
      • The procedure would be as has happened. You made a non-frivolous and indeed logical oppose; you waited, BHG responded; you might then have withdrawn your oppose. There are 3 or 4 editors who process the list. Roughly speaking after 2 or 3 days, unopposed speedies are processed and opposed ones are moved to the 'opposed' section. "Disambiguation sub-list" is a temporary phenomenon. Oculi (talk) 10:07, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Non-admin closes

I see you guys have quite a backlog again. I'm planning to help out this weekend (starting tomorrow) as I've done a few times previously when the backlog was particularly bad. Just thought I should ask how I should handle my non-admin closes. Could I just list everything I want listed at WP:CFDW at the talk page and let an admin actually implement it? I heard somewhere someone saying that I should do as much as possible on my own without the bot which is almost always possible for renames as an AWB user and page mover but to be frank that just seems like a waste of time when we have a bot that can do it. Thanks! --Trialpears (talk) 22:28, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Please list them at Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/Working#NACs.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:48, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Opposing a speedy request

Having recently opposed a speedy nomination for the first time and finding the procedure arcane and lacking in instructions, I have added some instructions to WP:CFDS. I have been bold in editing straight there but, of course, would welcome corrections and improvements. The instructions might have been better in their own subsection (before Admin instructions?) but I think adding an extra subsection may require various templates to be changed from pointing to editing "section 11". Thincat (talk) 19:31, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

New speedy criterion proposed

Hey all, I would like to propose a new speedy criterion C2G: reversal of a recent speedy renaming, to allow full discussion (some justification would need to be supplied). This would allow us to apply WP:BRD to the speedy CFD process, and is needed, in my view, since CFDS's 48 hours is VERY short, making it difficult for even WikiAddicts to stay on top of all the speedy renominations (note: "speedy" empty category deletion gets seven days, 3 1/2 times as long). I anticipate one objection: "recent" is intentionally not defined, and anyone could oppose a C2G nom as "not recent enough." Rather than throwing sand in the gears and lengthening the 48 hours for ALL speedy noms, I think this is better. But what say you: Support, Oppose this proposal? UnitedStatesian (talk) 05:38, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Invalid C2D requests

Regarding name changes of film studios, sports teams or similar categories that while WP:C2D, create anachronistic categories and shouldn't qualify for a speedy move. After the Disney-Fox merger, Fox categories such as Category:20th Century Fox films and Category:Fox Searchlight Pictures films were moved to their new names, but then after a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Archive 75#Fox Searchlight Pictures categorizing were reverted back and the category tree was restructured with new and old names. This situation is exactly the same for sports teams. Placing a player like John Barber (basketball) who played for Minneapolis Lakers in a Category:Los Angeles Lakers is just flat out incorrect. I've been opposing these speedy moves, but there is no way I can keep up with the amount of weekly requests. --Gonnym (talk) 14:13, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

If it's the same team, just renamed, then there are many precedents for moving to the new name. For small categories, multiple categories would not be helpful for navigation; instead, we redirect the old names as WP:Category redirects that should be kept. However, if the old category is well-populated, I think most editors would not object to creating a new category with the new name, leaving the old category as a sub-cat.
I don't think I would change C2D, because it should still apply in small cases. But would it be useful to have a template to show that the old category is exempt from merger under C2D, a bit like {{G8-exempt}}? – Fayenatic London 11:27, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
multiple categories would not be helpful for navigation - navigation should be secondary to accuracy in this situation. It's just factually not correct, which is a problem. In addition, in most cases, name changes don't occur out of the blue. In sports it can mean a team moved a city (Minneapolis/Los Angles), in media like the above film example, a company merged/bought another company. That does not make those films "released by Disney" now, even-though Disney now does own them. The proper solution would just be to change the top most category per C2D, but leave the specific categories. So the top level category is now "Los Angels Lakers" (which is like the "franchise" category for a film franchise), then have "Los Angels Lakers players" and also "Minneapolis Lakers players" categories. This handles both C2D and accuracy. I agree, that a template like {{G8-exempt}} is a good idea. --Gonnym (talk) 13:49, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Gonnym on this. The neatest solution is to keep the original category as a subcat of the new one. This makes navigation easier as articles of different dispensations are not jumbled together. Oculi (talk) 18:43, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

RFC on including disambiguators in category names

Consistency in category names and the main article is positively helpful in some hierarchies, e.g. music albums, because of the use of {{albums category}} then automatically links to the main article, the head category and the songs category, e.g. Category:1927 (band) albums. In that example, we are committed to keeping the disambiguator "(band)" as part of all the related category names.

However, great minds have told us that

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" – Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative" – Oscar Wilde

In other hierarchies we are rolling out consistency even where there is little apparent gain. For example, Terminator is a disambiguation page covering e.g. gene terminator as well as the famous film series and its spin-off media, whose main article therefore has to be Terminator (franchise). The main category is therefore likewise Category:Terminator (franchise). The debatable point is that WP:C2C is then invoked to rename all its sub-cats e.g. Category:Terminator films to Category:Terminator (franchise) films. IMHO this would result in longwinded and clumsy titles for insufficient gain.

I therefore propose that the disambiguator "(franchise)" should generally not be replicated into sub-category names for e.g. specific media types within a franchise hierarchy. Only the top category for that franchise needs to contain the word "(franchise)".

Likewise, similar disambiguators may also be excluded from the general requirement for consistency, e.g. the disambiguators "(film series)", "(TV series)" and "(video game series)" probably do not need to be replicated down to categories of characters, episodes etc, except where there is ambiguity at that level. – Fayenatic London 09:23, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

I can see that we may have some redundancy in some case, but long-established categorisation practice has always placed a high value on consistency, much higher than in article space. I am wary of undermining that principle, and the examples given by Gonnym illustrate some of the pitfalls of doing losing consistency. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:38, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Support. Using an ambiguous term in a longer phrase that disambiguates it naturally means that you don't also need to disambiguate it artificially. The addition could be made more generically, as "don't disambiguate category names unless the full category name is ambiguous". -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:21, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose Inconsistency in category names is a real pain. It wastes a lot of time and energy. Rathfelder (talk) 15:23, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm weak opposing on this issue because this is an unfortunate clash between the usage of categories to unambiguously classify things in a hierarchy and human readability of categories. "Terminator (franchise) films" is both ugly to look at but necessary to maintain consistency and unambiguously clarify that these are films in the topic of Terminator (franchise) rather than films under the broader topic of "Terminator" or films about other terminators. :In my opinion, the best solution to this problem would be to allow multiple names for each category for different purposes. One "systematic" name which would be formulaically constructed to satisfy the need for unambiguous category names. "Terminator (franchise) films", or "Operas by John Adams (composer)". Then "common" names, such as "Terminator films" or "Operas by John Adams" that could appear when context allows it and it would be more human readable to use them. Readers can choose which one to see and the "common" names would be default to display in places like the bottom of articles. But unfortunately we can only have one name for each category and I believe the importance of well constructed category names is greater than the importance of those category names being human readable. Category:Terminator (franchise) films is a better name than Category:Terminator films. Chess (talk) (please use {{ping|Chess}} on reply) 04:41, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
    • That's actually a nice feature, but I doubt the powers-that-be would do this, as they move painfully slow. It's also pretty straight forward. Have an alias attribute for a category and if an alias attribute is set show that in the bottom of pages instead of the category name. --Gonnym (talk) 10:42, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
  • First, see WP:Emerson and Wilde on consistency (expanded after this thread opened to now include Wilde's reformulation of Emerson). On the meat of the question, I'm going with oppose. BHG summed it up best: "long-established categorisation practice has always placed a high value on consistency, much higher than in article space." As Gonnym's examples show, and even the OP's hand-wringing concern indicate, making such a change could break a lot of things. In the category space, precision matters much more than naturalness, and much categorization is template/module-automated. Working around a suddenly inconsistent categorization system would require a great deal of recoding, and we have no one but volunteers to do it on their own time, if they ever feel like it. I could only support this if that recoding were already completed in sandboxes and fully test-cased, before the actual categorization changes.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:18, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Support in principle not using excess disambiguators. But if SMcCandlish is right that there will be breakage requiring coding to fix, then we need to wait for that fix to be shown. Dicklyon (talk) 05:02, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose - at present we have a nice simple set of rules. The category name should follow the article (unless the article name is ambiguous) and sub-category names should follow the head category name (with local variations). Cream is ambiguous, hence Cream (band) and Category:Cream (band). Is Cream albums ambiguous? Is Cream songs ambiguous? Is Cream members ambiguous? Is Category:Cream album covers ambiguous - clearly, yes, so off to speedy with it. These subsidiary questions would require hours of research and discussion, but fortunately we have a simple rule which circumvents all. Oculi (talk) 11:43, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
  • I support the proposal as currently narrowly stated (i.e. applying only to "(franchise)" and other mass-media-related disambiguators), as well as the broader principle of: where the context makes a parenthetical disambiguator unnecessary, a parenthetical disambiguator should not be present in the category name. (Category:Albert Kahn (architect) buildings‎ is still my pet peeve). UnitedStatesian (talk) 18:32, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
  • A question for @UnitedStatesian and any other editors who want to break the consistency between article names and category names: please can you clarify how you propose to resolve the way that this will break templates such {{Albums category}} which rely on the article name matching the category name. In particular:
  1. Have you devised a method whereby the template can figure out what disambiguator is needed to generate the article name?
    if so, please describe the methodology
  2. How many templates will need to be modified?
  3. Who you propose will code these template modifications?
  4. Do you propose that in every such case the article name will be supplied as a parameter?
    If so, how do you propose to ensure that this is maintained accurately?
  5. How many categories do you calculate will be renamed as a result of this proposal?
  6. Do you believe that such categories should be reamed a) at CFDS by some new criterion, b) individually at CFD, c) in groups at CFD.
  7. How many person hours of editor time will this all take?
So far as I can see, those supporting this proposal have no idea of how many changes this would involve, and merely assume that queues of skilled editors will appear to fix hundreds of templates and scrutinise tens of thousands of CFDs. If you feel this is an unfair assessment, then please show me the evidence to prove that I am wrong.
I think that @Fayenatic london failed to think this through before making this proposal. FL's comments about "foolish consistency" and "last refuge of the unimaginative" fail to recognise that consistency of category massively simplifies the work of category maintenance. Not many editors work on categories, but there are 1.9 million categories to maintain ... and removing consistency increases the workload. Where will we find all the extra time of skilled category editors and template editors to do all this extra maintenance? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:32, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
C'mon, BHG, it's not like you to misread a proposal. I specifically excluded anything involving {{Albums category}}, and accepted up front that consistency is therefore required within the musicians hierarchy. I therefore asked whether there are similar templates for other media that would likewise break if the top category alone is disambiguated with "(franchise)". – Fayenatic London 22:42, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
@Fayenatic, I know that your proposal is quite narrow. Unfortunately, the very prominent quotes serve as a rationale for a much much wider removal of disambiguators, which is why we have some editors advocating just that. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)
Even though not part of the proposal, the simple and obvious solution to the affected albums categories would be just this: don't use the template on those categories. BHG seems to forget here that WP exists for readers, not maintainers. And I find it rich to read an argument that Categories Must. Always. Follow. the article name from the same editor who, in many, many, MANY other discussions, has defended category name mismatches for her exact same, reader-ignoring solely ease-of-maintenance reason. (Category:Birmingham, West Midlands comes immediately to mind as a cat at the top of a huge, also entirely name-mismatched tree: <whisper>psst, the article is at Birmingham</whisper>). UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:53, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
@UnitedStatesian, if you want to snipe, you really need to do better than that.
I have applied the same principle for years: consistency, except where it creates ambiguity. Ambiguously-named categories lead to miscategorisation, which hurts readers.
In this case, the proposal is to create ambiguity by removing a dismabiguator. I consistently oppose creating avoidable ambiguity. That principle is part of WP:C2D: consistency can't be applied to create ambiguity.
UnitedStatesian says:

the simple and obvious solution to the affected albums categories would be just this: don't use the template on those categories

However that "simple and obvious solution" is neither simple nor obvious. There are currently 4,787 categories which transclude Template:Albums category and are named with a parenthetical disambiguator. Consistency ensures that the templates generate cross-link automatically, but without consistency somebody has to manually check those cross-links to cats for EPs, singles, songs, songs written, etc. If those cross-links are not generated automatically, then there will be over 28,000 links to manually check and maintain. Is UnitedStatesian volunteering to all of that monitoring in perpetuity? Or just hoping that other editors will shoulder the burden created by that proposal? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:36, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose as too specific and inflexible. I am a big proponent of consistency in category names, and also believe that categories should be disambiguated more readily than articles (see, for example, c:Commons:Category disambiguation, which Crouch, Swale and I have been working on). However, Francis's Suites example convinced me that it should not be an ironclad rule. There are times we should keep the disambiguator even when not likely to be ambiguous, e.g. Category:Native American museums in Georgia (U.S. state), which is in line with the rest of the entries at Category:Museums in Georgia (U.S. state). My personal take is: If disambiguation is required for a majority or a significant minority of the items listed, then include the disambiguator on all similar items for consistency. If disambiguation is only required for the top cat or a tiny minority of the subcats, then the disambiguator may not be necessary. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:21, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Weak oppose for simplification I'd carry the disambiguator to the sub categories per C2C. I have in the past argued against this but it does seem to work better than having to determine if a sub category should have the qualifier to. In cases like Category:Perth and Category:Plymouth we have DABs even though Perth and Plymouth are primary topics and C2D doesn't allow such moves anyway. In most cases if a DAB is at the article base name then there should almost never be a category with the same name at the base name, unless possibly cases like the franchise example where a category can serve as a container for both topic, though a broad concept article should probably be written. Note that WP:SHORTFORM does allow descriptive articles to be left without a disambiguator even if the head article does have one and I'd keep the descriptive article's category with one even if the article doesn't. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:38, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Can this now be closed? No point in stalling even longer. --Gonnym (talk) 10:47, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

C2A and grammar

Does C2A apply to correcting obvious grammatical errors in category names? For example, changing Individual frogs toads to Individual frogs and toads? If so, can I add this bullet point? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 08:27, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I would support this. – Fayenatic London 11:01, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
How about this wording:

Correction of obvious grammatical errors, such as a missing conjunction (e.g. Individual frogs toads → Individual frogs and toads). This does not include changing the plurality of a noun when such change involves the distinction between topic and set categories.

I'm not sure yet how pluralization of topic and set categories should be handled. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 03:11, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Opposing a recent category move

A whole slew of categories were moved overnight from "Conservation in X" to "Nature Conservation in X" as a speedy move. Can someone direct to me to the discussion on this, as I sadly missed this? To take as an example, Category:Nature conservation in Scotland clearly includes both nature conservation and heritage/built environment, and the lead article, Conservation in Scotland, is written to reflect this.Grinner (talk) 07:15, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Category:Nature conservation in Australia (also speedily renamed) includes buildings. Oculi (talk) 10:25, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
@Grinner: The categories were speedily renamed because of this requested move that moved the article Conservation (ethic) to Nature conservation. You can also see the rationale of the speedy listing here, which listed 201 articles in the rename (see the full list here). Perhaps you might want to talk with Fayenatic london? bibliomaniac15 19:40, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, I have done. I don't really see the reasoning myself, one article being renamed leads to over 201 categories being moved: seems a bit drastic to me. As I say, the move may be appropriate for some of the categories, but it certainly isn't for Scotland or Australia. Conservation in Switzerland also includes cultural heritage conservation too btw, as may others. Basically this needs to be considered on a case by case basis.Grinner (talk) 20:05, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Categories should be unambiguous in scope. I accept that some of these national categories need to be manually split between Nature conservation and Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage, and that some articles belong in both. (Cultural heritage by country is another hierarchy that should parent the new heritage conservation categories.)
I propose to carry out this manual splitting where required, and would welcome participation of yourself and any other interested editors.
Would you accept that the speedy moves have been mostly correct and helpful? If relatively few country categories present problems, then I suggest it would be best to split them as a priority. Alternatively, I could revert the speedy naming in those cases, so that first we can split the contents to new Heritage categories at a more leisurely pace. – Fayenatic London 21:20, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
I don't think I can agree that this has been mostly "correct and helpful", because I haven't been and looked at the 201 categories that have been changed. A change such as this needed more concensus, and I would prefer that it be reverted and then each category changed on a case by case basis as appropriate. In particular respect of Scotland, how do you propose to deal with National Trust for Scotland, Conservation in Scotland and List of World Heritage Sites in Scotland, all of which straddle both categories? Grinner (talk) 07:14, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
Splitting up Category:Protected areas of Scotland is likely to be particularly problematic: Marine Protected Areas cover both cultural and natural sites, and I'm not really sure that, for example, ‎Forest parks are actually about nature conservation, they exist mostly as areas set aside for recreation and tourism. Grinner (talk) 07:21, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
As I said, articles/subcats which straddle both categories should go in both categories. Category:Protected areas of Scotland should move into parents for cultural heritage, and only certain sub-cats within it should be put back into Nature conservation. It doesn't sound too hard. – Fayenatic London 08:29, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
I'm not completely opposed, but I would have preferred more consensus before this unilateral move. I'm not clear what you are proposing for Category:Protected areas of Scotland: are you saying this would be a subcat of cultural heritage, and the natural heritage protected areas would simply lie in Category:Nature conservation in Scotland. The Protected areas of Scotland covers both types of area so this would need split, as would Conservation in Scotland. Would it not be simpler to reinstate Category:Conservation in Scotland, but have the nature and heritage conservation as two subcats of it? Grinner (talk) 09:15, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
I don't see the benefit of restoring the ambiguous categories. We don't have a generic article on conservation (that's a disambiguation page), so it's not obvious to me that the article Conservation in Scotland should be kept as one rather than split into two pages. However, I'm not intending to tackle the article, and I concede that its existence is a valid objection to the speedy move.
Looking at All pages with titles beginning with Conservation in , most are solely on the topic of nature conservation rather than heritage, namely Conservation in Angola, Australia, Belize, Brazil, Iceland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Uganda and United States. Only the articles Conservation in Hong Kong, Ireland, United Kingdom and Scotland also cover cultural heritage. (Conservation in Italy is just a stub list.)
Would you accept it if I just revert the speedy moves of Scotland, Ireland, UK & Hong Kong, as only those have a lead article that covers both these types of conservation? – Fayenatic London 10:58, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
Aye, that sounds good to me. I'd be happy to look at subdividing the Scotland category into 2 subcategories to match the "international standards". Grinner (talk) 11:20, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
I got the impression that the speedy rename was fine for most countries. I expect there would have been more objections otherwise. I would also expect Fayenatic's suggestion to be sensible, as this is usually the case. The articles ought to be renamed (as 'conservation' is ambiguous). Oculi (talk) 11:25, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Help generating list of political party categories

Hi, looking for some technical assistance from a CFD regular. Per this CfD, I'm looking to generate a list of every political party topical category that does not prefix the word "political" before "parties", i.e., something like the following list:

Extended content

Category:Agrarian parties Category:Agrarian parties in Australia Category:Agrarian parties in Austria Category:Agrarian parties in Bulgaria Category:Agrarian parties in Canada Category:Agrarian parties in Costa Rica Category:Agrarian parties in Germany Category:Agrarian parties in Greece Category:Agrarian parties in Hungary Category:Agrarian parties in India Category:Agrarian parties in Ireland Category:Agrarian parties in Lithuania Category:Agrarian parties in Pakistan Category:Agrarian parties in Poland Category:Agrarian parties in Romania Category:Agrarian parties in Serbia Category:Agrarian parties in Slovenia Category:Agrarian parties in the Philippines Category:Agrarian parties in the United States Category:Agrarian parties in Ukraine Category:Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party member parties Category:Anarchist parties Category:Anti-communist parties Category:Anti-communist parties in the Czech Republic Category:Anti-nationalist parties Category:Asturian nationalist parties Category:Banned communist parties Category:Banned socialist parties Category:Catalan nationalist parties Category:Celtic nationalist parties Category:Central committees of communist parties Category:Centrist parties Category:Centrist parties by continent Category:Centrist parties by country Category:Centrist parties in North America Category:Christian democratic parties Category:Christian democratic parties by continent Category:Christian democratic parties in North America Category:Classical liberal parties Category:Classical liberal parties in the United States Category:Communist parties Category:Communist parties by continent Category:Communist parties by country Category:Communist parties in North America Category:Congresses of communist parties Category:Conservative liberal parties Category:Conservative parties Category:Conservative parties by continent Category:Conservative parties by country Category:Defunct Communist parties Category:Defunct conservative parties Category:Defunct far-right parties Category:Defunct nationalist parties Category:Defunct social democratic parties Category:Defunct socialist parties Category:Democratic socialist parties Category:Democratic socialist parties in Africa Category:Democratic socialist parties in Asia Category:Democratic socialist parties in Europe Category:Democratic socialist parties in North America Category:Democratic socialist parties in Oceania Category:Democratic socialist parties in South America Category:Direct democracy parties Category:Direct democracy parties in the Czech Republic Category:Ecosocialist parties Category:Falangist parties Category:Fascist parties Category:Fascist parties in Belgium Category:Fascist parties in Chile Category:Fascist parties in France Category:Fascist parties in Germany Category:Fascist parties in Romania Category:Fascist parties in Russia Category:Fascist parties in Spain Category:Fascist parties in the Netherlands Category:Fascist parties in the United Kingdom Category:Federalist parties Category:Federalist parties by country Category:Feminist parties Category:Feminist parties by continent Category:Feminist parties by country Category:Feminist parties in North America Category:Galician nationalist parties Category:Georgist parties Category:Green conservative parties Category:Green parties by continent Category:Green parties in North America Category:Labor parties in the United States Category:Labour parties Category:Labour parties in Ireland Category:Labour parties in Scotland Category:Labour parties in the United Kingdom Category:Labour parties in Ukraine Category:Left-wing nationalist parties Category:Left-wing parties Category:Left-wing parties by country Category:Left-wing populist parties Category:Liberal conservative parties Category:Liberal conservative parties by country Category:Liberal parties Category:Liberal parties by continent Category:Liberal parties by country Category:Liberal parties in North America Category:Libertarian parties Category:Libertarian parties in Austria Category:Libertarian parties in Germany Category:Libertarian parties in the Czech Republic Category:Libertarian parties in the Netherlands Category:Libertarian parties in the United Kingdom Category:Libertarian parties in the United States Category:Libertarian socialist parties Category:Maoist parties Category:Marxist parties Category:Monarchist parties Category:Monarchist parties in Afghanistan Category:Monarchist parties in Albania Category:Monarchist parties in Burundi Category:Monarchist parties in Cambodia Category:Monarchist parties in France Category:Monarchist parties in Germany Category:Monarchist parties in Greece Category:Monarchist parties in Iran Category:Monarchist parties in Iraq Category:Monarchist parties in Italy Category:Monarchist parties in Japan Category:Monarchist parties in Monaco Category:Monarchist parties in Nepal Category:Monarchist parties in Portugal Category:Monarchist parties in Romania Category:Monarchist parties in Russia Category:Monarchist parties in Serbia Category:Monarchist parties in Spain Category:Monarchist parties in the Czech Republic Category:Monarchist parties in the Netherlands Category:National conservative parties Category:National liberal parties Category:Nationalist parties Category:Nationalist parties by continent Category:Nationalist parties by country Category:Nationalist parties by ethnic group Category:Nationalist parties in North America Category:Nazi parties Category:Neo-fascist parties Category:Non-interventionist parties Category:Nordic agrarian parties Category:Pacifist parties Category:Pacifist parties in the United Kingdom Category:Paleoconservative parties Category:Pirate parties Category:Populist parties Category:Pro-independence parties Category:Progressive parties Category:Progressive parties by country Category:Progressive parties in Taiwan Category:Prohibition parties Category:Radical parties Category:Radical parties in Chile Category:Radical parties in Italy Category:Regional parties in Germany Category:Regionalist parties Category:Regionalist parties in Croatia Category:Regionalist parties in France Category:Regionalist parties in Hungary Category:Regionalist parties in India Category:Regionalist parties in Italy Category:Regionalist parties in Romania Category:Regionalist parties in Spain Category:Regionalist parties in the Czech Republic Category:Regionalist parties in the Netherlands Category:Regionalist parties in the Philippines Category:Regionalist parties in the United Kingdom Category:Regionalist parties in Ukraine Category:Republican parties Category:Republican parties in Cambodia Category:Republican parties in Spain Category:Republican parties in the United Kingdom Category:Right-wing parties Category:Right-wing parties by continent Category:Right-wing parties by country Category:Right-wing parties in North America Category:Right-wing populist parties Category:Ruling Communist parties Category:Secretariats of communist parties Category:Social conservative parties Category:Social credit parties Category:Social credit parties in Canada Category:Social democratic parties Category:Social democratic parties by country Category:Social democratic parties in Africa Category:Social democratic parties in Asia Category:Social democratic parties in Europe Category:Social democratic parties in North America Category:Social democratic parties in Oceania Category:Social democratic parties in South America Category:Social liberal parties Category:Social liberal parties in Argentina Category:Social liberal parties in the United States Category:Socialist parties Category:Socialist parties by continent Category:Socialist parties by country Category:Socialist parties in North America Category:Sri Lankan Tamil nationalist parties Category:Stalinist parties Category:Student wings of communist parties Category:Student wings of conservative parties Category:White nationalist parties Category:Women's wings of Communist parties Category:Worker-communist parties Category:Youth wings of communist parties Category:Youth wings of conservative parties Category:Youth wings of Green parties Category:Youth wings of liberal parties Category:Youth wings of social democratic parties


Category:Agrarian parties in the United States Category:Conservative parties in the United States Category:Defunct conservative parties in the United States Category:Paleoconservative parties in the United States Category:State and local conservative parties in the United States Category:Environmental parties in Hawaii Category:Left-wing parties in the United States Category:Liberal parties in the United States Category:Progressive parties in the United States Category:Socialist parties in the United States Category:Liberal parties in the United States Category:Classical liberal parties in the United States Category:Defunct liberal parties in the United States Category:Social liberal parties in the United States Category:Libertarian parties in the United States Category:Defunct libertarian parties in the United States Category:Nationalist parties in the United States Category:American nationalist parties Category:Defunct nationalist parties in the United States Category:Native Hawaiian nationalist parties Category:Paleoconservative parties in the United States Category:Progressive parties in the United States Category:Defunct progressive parties in the United States Category:Democratic socialist parties in the United States Category:Social democratic parties in the United States Category:Religious parties in the United States Category:Right-wing parties in the United States Category:Defunct right-wing parties in the United States Category:Conservative parties in the United States Category:Libertarian parties in the United States Category:Socialist parties in the United States Category:Communist parties in the United States Category:Defunct socialist parties in the United States Category:Democratic socialist parties in the United States Category:Labor parties in the United States Category:Social democratic parties in the United States Category:State and local socialist parties in the United States

I'm figuring someone has a more complete method for pulling a printout of all subcategories. My above jury-rigged approach was based on the API but is incomplete (i.e., doesn't go deep enough). If useful as context, the idea is to feed this list into DannyS712's bot for a bundled nomination clarifying that these are "political" parties, per their parent category. czar 02:30, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Advice?

I'm at a bit of a loss with this situation so looking for advice. This CfD has been open since June and would appear to have consensus that "Anarchist parties" is an ambiguous title (are the parties anarchist?), to be clarified as "Anarchist political parties". There is a standing/reasonable objection that similar categories be changed as well, except that such a nomination would be ponderous. With thanks to Oculi, a generated list of applicable categories for the bundle is too unwieldy for a single nom. What is the best way forward? czar 17:32, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Category fails WP:NPV by its very definition

I just saw this and I was left wondering who decides whether a book is popular or not. --uKER (talk) 23:20, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

It's "popular physics" books, not popular "physics books". I think that means there probably needs to be a dash. --Izno (talk) 00:06, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
Or a note at least - Popular science books is the main article for this tree, a wierd little stub largely dating back to 2004 - a living wikifossil. Johnbod (talk) 03:21, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Page mover § Moving categories

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Page mover § Moving categories. * Pppery * it has begun... 00:35, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Naming of navbox categories

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Templates § Naming of navbox categories. —⁠andrybak (talk) 14:27, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

For the watchers of this page: to clarify—the outcome of the discussion linked in my previous post might affect applicability of rename criterion WP:C2C to navbox categories. —⁠andrybak (talk) 14:34, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
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