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Updating WP:NAMESORT

I've hit my head repeatedly against a hard wall trying to figure out or remember how certain areas sort names. I thought I'd try to update WP:NAMESORT. The current draft is in my Sandbox.

Some things of note:

  1. I did not remove anything from what is currently in NAMESORT except the statement under WP:SUR that begins with, "Beware of middle names which look like surnames..."
  2. I've tried to reference every statement with the following, in the the order of importance:
    1. The Indexer, the journal of the Society of Indexers (UK), American Society for Indexing, Indexing Society of Canada, Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers, China Society of Indexers, German Network of Indexers, Netherlands Indexing Network and the Association of Southern African Indexers and Bibliographers.
    2. The Chicago Manual of Style, located Chapter 18: Indexes
    3. International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions's (IFLA) Names of persons : national usages for entry in catalogue
  3. I couldn't find a reference for, "Some people are known primarily by their first name only. When it is not possible to set the firstname alone as the article title, as with many articles in Category:Brazilian footballers..." I don't know if this was done by consensus or I'm just overlooking a reference.
  4. I was not aware of how Portuguese names names differed from Spanish names and are also sorted differently. Judging from Portuguese and Brazilian articles I looked at, not many people are aware of it too.
  5. I've yet to add how southern Indian and Sri Lankan names are sorted until I find out more from others.
  6. It has been suggested to write up a longer article in similar format as IFLA's catalogue.

Any comments, suggestions or "you are crazy" is needed. Bgwhite (talk) 22:56, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Regarding southern Indian names: I was once taught by man from Madras who was normally shown as "S. C. Anand", sorted under A. Regarding Sri Lankans - Category:Sri Lankan cricketers shows that the overwhelming majority sort by British convention, even those with Portuguese names (just count the number of times that "de Silva" turns up under D, not S). Cricket is well known for the obsession for accuracy among its statisticians. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:06, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
With S. C. Anand, "normally", S. is the town he was from, C. is his father's name and Anand is his personal name. You normally sort on the personal name. I'm just have some confusion on a couple of things before I write them out.
With "de Silva", British convension is to sort on Silva, so they are not sorting on any convention. When I say Portuguese names, I specifically mentioned in my updated version that it is for Brazil and Portugal only. Once a person moves countries, they usually follow the conventions where they moved to. For example, a Chinese person often switches their name around when moving to the West. Bgwhite (talk) 00:09, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
There are bots running around setting DEFAULTSORT, but they are doing somethings wrong. Most notably, they sort Chinese and Korean names in western order. Also, most people don't know what or what not to do when it comes to sorting. Keeping in accented characters or ligatures is the most common problem I see, followed by people using de and von to sort. It something that will never be completely solved. Bgwhite (talk) 00:09, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
A notice of these changes was also published on Help talk:Category and Wikipedia talk:Persondata Bgwhite (talk) 19:51, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for this effort. Your sandbox version is definitely an improvement. In a short while, if commentaries stay low, you should replace the current text and see what happens (after changing all the DEAFAULTSORT typos to DEFAULTSORT though;-) Especially the sorting of Arabic names with Al and El currently is mostly wrong and could use a well-referenced/supported guideline. Coming from a particle-rich country, I've studied (and modified defaultsorts) of names with particles or prefixes quite a bit. I seem to remember that the text in the Chicago Manual of Style is pretty decent for that and goes into detail for many countries. Many of us have been using the Library of Congress Authorities website as "authority" to force a proper sorting, and I suggest you add them as a reliable source in the text. These people are quite serious about it and often contact the person to establish preference. Of course, only (an extremely wide range of) authors are in that list.
Your paragraph about Dutch and Belgian names should be changed though. I believe that everywhere in Belgium names are sorted by first particle/prepositon except perhaps for some nobility. However it has changed over time. Before the 18th century Flemish names were definitely sorted as in the modern Netherlands (e.g. Jan Baptist van Helmont is sorted under H). In the Dutch/Flemish wikipedia the cut off appears set at 1830 (Belgian independence). The origin of the new style of sorting may be as early as 1795, when current Belgium became part of the French Republic/Empire for 20 years. The current sorting of Walloon names under the lower case prefix as well (e.g. Christian de Duve, Étienne de Sauvage) conflicts with French customs, and may be an unanticipated consequence of the French rules. Afasmit (talk) 21:11, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
You are correct and I made changes. Do they look ok? Bgwhite (talk) 22:42, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
How about: " For people in the Netherlands and in the Southern Netherlands before 1830, Dutch surnames are sorted on the body of the surname and not on the prefix(es). For example, Vincent van Gogh is sorted "Gogh, Vincent van" and Rogier van der Weyden is sorted, "Weyden, Rogier van der". In contrast, Belgian people since 1830 are sorted on the (usually capitalized) prefix, both for Dutch and French surnames. For example: Paul van Ostaijen is sorted "Van Ostaijen, Paul" and Christian de Duve is sorted "De Duve, Christian". In South Africa, Dutch/Afrikaans surnames are also sorted by any prefix, e.g. F. W. de Klerk is sorted "De Klerk, F. W.". " for that section?
It may be better to treat names by country rather than by origin. Dutch, French, German, Portugues, and Spanish names are natively sorted on the first capitalized letter, but e.g. British or American people with such names are generally sorted by their prefix. A quick look suggests, that the rare French Canadian with an unfused "de" surname appears not sorted under "de". In Belgium too, many surnames have the prefixes fused with the rest (something rare in the Netherlands), which may have been a/the reason for the change in sorting in the first place. In the Dutch wikipedia I noticed that for sorting prefixes are fused as well, so you get see Stéphane Demol, Tom De Mul, Pierre Denier, Alain De Nil in that order in the category Belgian footballers. For quantum mechanical (probably) reasons, only Belgian nobility appears exempt from the "sort-by-prefix" rule (check nl:Categorie:Belgische adel). This may just have to be policed by people in the know, or you could add "unless they are nobility". Afasmit (talk) 04:17, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Ok, I added what you wrote for the Dutch name section and also added an introductory sentence to it. According to sources, Dutch names with the prefix ver are sorted on ver. I also made changes to make the section to treat names by country of origin.Bgwhite (talk) 23:12, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
The working version is very informative and useful, but I fear that due to the depth of coverage in the "Sort by surname" section editors might feel confused over what decision they should make. Perhaps a dedicated sub-article at Wikipedia:NAMESORT would be appropriate? I think it is desirable for the information on the main page to be more instructive than explanatory for reasons of clarity, leaving fuller justifications and rarer exceptions (such as sumo names, pre-1200 Irish names etc) to a sub-page. If we have the full, unabridged name-sorting information on a separate sub-page, then on the main page we could clearly delineate basic sorting patterns by the following broad naming systems:
  • Family name first. Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Cambodian names are generally written with the family name first, thus Mao Zedong is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Mao, Zedong}}.
  • Family name first in native only. Japanese and Hungarian names have the family name first in their native format, but conform to the western format when written in English, thus László Bíró is known as Bíró László in Hungarian and is sorted as {{DEFAULTSORT:Biro, Laszlo}}.
  • Patronymic/matronymic. This is where the person's last name is based upon that of their father or mother. For example, Arnaldur Indriðason is the son of Indriði G. Þorsteinsson. These are sorted in the following ways:
    • Malaysian, Ethiopian, Eritrean names do not sort on the patronymic, e.g. Mahathir Mohamad is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Mahathir Mohamad}}.
    • Arabic names or Islamic names follow the Western pattern, e.g. Saddam Hussein is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Hussein, Saddam}}. Modern names beginning with Abu, Abd, Abdel, Abdul, Ben, Bin or Bent are considered compound names and are integral to the name. Osama bin Laden is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Bin Laden, Osama}}.
    • Icelandic names follow the western pattern in all categories bar Iceland-specific ones, thus Arnaldur Indriðason is primarily sorted as {{DEFAULTSORT:Indridason, Arnaldur]] but is also sorted as [[Category:Icelandic photographers|Arnaldur Indridason]]
    • In some cultures historical patronymics have become permanent surnames (e.g. Russian, Ukrainian, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Irish, Welsh, Scottish, Jewish, Serbian and other Slavic languages). These should be sorted as usual, thus Ana Ivanović (Ivanović literally meaning son of Ivan) becomes {{DEFAULTSORT:Ivanovic, Ana}}.
  • Dual surnames. Spanish and Portuguese people take on the family names of both father and mother. These names should be sorted by the father's surname. In Portugal and Brazil the latter family name is the father's, e.g. Francisco da Costa Gomes is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Gomes, Francisco Da Costa}}. In Spain the former family name is the father's, e.g. Gabriel García Márquez is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Garcia Marquez, Gabriel}}.
  • Thai people are known and addressed by their forename only, thus Thaksin Shinawatra is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Thaksin Shinawatra}}.
  • Burmese people have no surname at all. Therefore Aung San Suu Kyi is sorted as {{DEFAULTSORT:Aung San Suu Kyi}}.
Then perhaps we could highlight the existence of a few exceptions and link to the full explanation with citations? The clarification of the culture of name sorting is much needed and I very much welcome the expansion Bgwhite – your draft is an excellent piece of work! The difficulty arises in the fact that naming systems are so complex we could easily end up with half of Wikipedia:Categorization of people discussing just that topic. SFB 13:28, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Hmm. When I asked about Scandinavians with proper patronymics (#Sorting of people without family names), the answer I got was that they should be sorted on first name in categories where there were only such articles. Considering that these "last names" are sometimes constructed afterwards for disambiguation, I think that is a good practice, but I don't know how it's done in scholarly sources in English.
Andejons (talk) 20:23, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Sort of. The discussion you referenced was for Icelandic names only. About 85% of current day Icelanders have no surnames and still use the patronymic system. The other Scandinavian countries have had surnames for atleast 150 years (middle class and nobility much longer). The discussion at WikiProject Iceland decided to go against the standard practice and do what you have explained. In my Sandbox version of WP:NAMESORT, I do make this distinction and reference the discussion at WP Iceland. JimCubb told me (before Icelandic exception discussion) that per discussion, all patronymic names on Wikipedia are sorted as spelled... I was making mistakes and he corrected me. I wish I could tell you where this discussion took place as it was before my time on Wikipedia. English and International scholarly sources say the same things. I only have the official Icelandic and Swedish sources, but they also say the same thing. Bgwhite (talk) 21:22, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but the discussion was explicitly about all Scandinavian patronymics. I'll quote what JimCubb said in it: "Scandinavians and Celts who lived before "proper surnames were introduced" cannot be sorted according to their surnames, obviously, and are generally sorted by their names as they appear. (Fee ap Fie ap Fo ap Fum is sorted just like that.)". And I'll agree with your historical description, but not the conclusion. AFAIK, scholarly practice in Sweden is to sort on first name at least up until the 17th century, when most of the nobility had begun using family names.
Andejons (talk) 06:48, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm confused. What you quoted by JimCubb is what I'm advocating and what all the sources say to do for all old Scandinavian names... Sort how spelled or to put another way, sort as they appear. Only when does a name have a surname (family name), do you sort on the surname. "AFAIK, scholarly practice in Sweden is to sort on first name..." that is what I also said.
1st Paragraph: "...there are at least two "accepted" sort schemes for Icelanders". He talks Icelandic only names and how they differ from everybody else.
2nd Paragraph: "Scandinavians and Celts who lived before..." He talks about old Scandinavian and Celtic names only.
3rd Paragraph: "Arabs, Central-Asians and others..." talks about these only.
Final paragraph: "Conclusion of the discussion in Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Iceland#Sort_keys_for_Icelandic_names:" is about Iceland only. Only WikiProject Iceland decided to go against standards per discussion at their project page. Only WikiProject Iceland do you use the patronymic name as the general sort, with Iceland only categories do you sort as spelled. Bgwhite (talk) 08:01, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
My apologies. I think I read too much into your suggestion. I think it needs a clarification about what to do with real patronymics in addition to the family names.
Andejons (talk) 12:31, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
Response to SFB (Sillyfolkboy). I do think you are partially right. It is getting complex and I need to trim. But, on some names, there does need the mention on the main page. Arabic names is a good example as there are a ton of of older Arabic names and it is one question I get asked alot. Another example is just under 1/2 the Malaysian articles contain Chinese names.
I'm really torn on the patronymic section. One one hand there is the Patronymic article that does go into nice detail. On the other hand, the majority of patronymic names are the ones I listed, so it may be easier on the reader to list these. Push it out of WP:SUR and into its own separate section? I really don't know what to do. Bgwhite (talk) 22:02, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Ok, I combined Where and When under on section. Removed Hungarian names. Removed alot of the discussion of why a name is that way. Hopefully this is better. Bgwhite (talk) 22:53, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

(undent) That looks quite a bit tighter. I think it should be made clear that the purpose of the historical patronymic section is so that people can distinguish how to sort the relevant historical people. Also, rather than saying "sort as spelled", I think "sort by first name" would be clearer to readers. On a separate note, I think some of the information you have might be useful to expand elements of the Personal name article. SFB 11:12, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

after WP:NAMESORT update

As discussed immediately above, User:Bgwhite did "Overhaul WP:NAMESORT section" 22:18, 27 January 2012‎ -P64

The big question here is: "If a typical Wikipedia reader is looking for for an article on "Foo Bar" in an alphabetical list, where will they look?" It is of little use for us to tell them, on a page they never read, that Brobdignagians are Big Endian, and Lilliputians Small Endian. This is addressed by the footballer explanation. But attempts to sort differently for different nationalities are very tricky, notably Japanese names are sometimes surname first, sometimes not. Similarly my ancestors in the second millennium took all sorts of prefixes to the surname, probably with variant capitalisation. Probably the best solution is to dual sort where more than one natural sort-key is possible. Rich Farmbrough, 13:30, 6 February 2012 (UTC).

dual sort? Multiple entries in a list, I know, such as [B] Bullwinkle. See The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show and [R] The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Is there a template that effects double listing of one article in a category? Or should an appropriate redirect such as The Bullwinkle Show be put in the category? (That one is now in no category and has no Talk page that might have Cat or WikiProject.)
sort key. Documentation should cover the leading space because category sort-ing takes " " seriously; " Bullwinkle" sorts to the top; "Bullwinkle" under B. For many editors wikilink-age provides overwhelming experience with the pipe "|" and linknames ignore leading spaces.
(I don't know how details vary across DEFAULTSORT: Bullwinkle ; DEFAULTSORT: {{pagename}} ; pipe| Bullwinkle ; pipe| {{pagename}}. In ignorance i think documentation should bypass such details and warn generally against the space. But someone not so ignorant should write it.) --P64 (talk) 16:06, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
There is no double sort mechanism per se in the Mediawiki software. You can set a DEFAULTSORT, but have a category sorted under another value. This is most commonly used on Icelandic names and peers. Same goes for listas value, but done differently.
DEFAULTSORT:Person, Johan     Category:Icelandic people|John Person
As for the space, it is a problem. It also is a problem with the listas value. There is a bot taking care of this via checkwiki. At the moment, a bigger problem is people not leaving a space after the comma... DEFAULTSORT:Person,Johan. There is no bot taking care of this problem. Bgwhite (talk) 20:21, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Regarding January's update

I just came across this. WikiProject Thailand previously recommended that the default sort key follow the Western order, and a given name sort key be entered for Thai people-specific categories, i.e.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Surname, Given-name}}
[[Category:International people]]
[[Category:Thai people|Given-name Surname]]

This hasn't been strictly adhered to, though. Should all Thai person articles be converted to use the Thai-order DEFAULTSORT? This would simplify category editing (and should be easy to fix), but, as Rich Farmbrough noted above, will it be helpful to the reader? --Paul_012 (talk) 06:49, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Could you point to where the above is found. I've come across both ways. Farmbrough's suggestion of a duel sort can't currently be done with the software. Most of the rest is puffery. Sort on surname, if no surname then sort as spelled. Easy. Japan, born before 1885 surname was first, born after and surname is last. Talk about confusion if all Japanese name were sorted both ways. Now the little nuances of particles or barons, I could agree that if there was a way todo two sorts, it would be helpful. Which brings us to oddball Thailand. If you were Thai, doing Thai research or familiar with Thai ways, then you would want sort as spelled. The opposite would be true if you weren't Thai. I don't know. Tell me where you found the above and I'll start asking around with some of the people working with Thai stuff. Bgwhite (talk) 07:27, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
The original discussion (from back in 2006) is here. It's been incorporated into Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Thailand-related articles/Draft, but the proposal failed to gain consensus. Regarding dual sorting, though, it just occurred to me that redirects can be used for creating indexing cross-references. Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects doesn't refer to name sorting. Perhaps it can be discussed whether such use would be appropriate? --Paul_012 (talk) 08:18, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll start poking around with Thailand (my) tomorrow. Redirects wouldn't help... How would redirects help sort categories or listas? Farmbrough does make mention of Brazil up above. Brazil is sort of in the same category as Thailand. Most famous Brazilians are known by their first name or nickname. Their past President was known as just "Lulu". Lulu was a middle name. The joke is that everybody in Brazil has a last name of da Silva. Brazil is a mess to sort because there is no easy rule what so ever. Bgwhite (talk) 08:43, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
The idea with redirects is that if Yingluck Shinawatra is sorted as spelled, a redirect could be created with the relevant categories and the sort key {{DEFAULTSORT:Shinawatra, Yingluck}}. This would result in both the article and the redirect appearing in the category page (under Yingluck and Shinawatra, respectively, with the redirect in italics). This would also work for barons, etc. --Paul_012 (talk) 09:44, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Any update to this? Should Yingluck Shinawatra be sorted under S or Y in Category:Current national leaders? --Paul_012 (talk) 04:23, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Pseudonyms

Just seen that Fred Everything has been defaultsorted as "Everything, Fred", which made me laugh. Is this really recommended practice, and at what point does it stop? Dogg, Snoop? In any case putting a thing about pseudonyms on the defaultsort guidelines would be useful - filelakeshoe 11:52, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

The Fred Everything DEFAULTSORT was added years ago. About a 1/3 of new articles either don't have defaultsort set or have it done wrong. Not many people are familiar with ALL the rules in WP:NAMESORT. Pseudonyms can have a first and last name, so it would be sorted normally. There is a rule already mentioned in WP:MCSTJR about names with no first or last name. Bgwhite (talk) 20:11, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Confusion as to why a person "from a place" is more notable than a person "born in a place"?

Should a biographical article be placed in a category "person from foo" if they were born in foo but spent the rest of their life somewhere else? (When the birthplace is not notable?) Any clarification would be great thanks. Brad7777 (talk) 23:42, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

That wording suggests to me that you think of birth in a notable place as a credit to the person.
In practice, I believe, we face the problem that the birth *or* raising or schooling or employment of a notable person is considered a credit to the place.
These are observations to the group; responses but not answers to Brad7777. --P64 (talk) 01:52, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Why is it "the problem"? People can be in multiple categories. Just categorise the person for their birthplace and other places where they spent significant parts of their life. Any or all of those places might well want to claim the person and stick up a blue plaque. PamD 07:22, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
No, I don't think of birth in a notable place as a credit to the person, I just think somebody's birth place in general, is notable/characteristic of a biography. How can the more vague category "People from foo", be more notable than the category "Births from foo", when most articles categorized in the category "people from foo" were born in foo. (See Category:People from Springfield, Massachusetts)? Brad7777 (talk) 08:17, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Sort order inheritance

Should the sort order rules for people also be used for things that are named for people? Current practice varies, e.g. Robert C. Weaver Federal Building has the sort key "Weaver, Robert C., Federal Building" while James V. Forrestal Building has "James V. Forrestal Building". Bo Lindbergh (talk) 15:42, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Good question. Never thought of that before. I couldn't find any good refs. Looking at university campus maps, [1] [2], a federal building listing [3], plus a few other university's that only had a few building names that include the full name of a person, show that it should be sorted as "Robert C. Weaver Federal Building" and "James V. Forrestal Building". Bgwhite (talk) 18:06, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I wasn’t sure where to ask this because the Category talk:Alcohol-related deaths page (despite the deceptive blue link) contains no actual discussion and unlikely being watched by anyone. Do our deaths-by-substance-abuse categories generally include people who died from judgment errors stemming from intoxication on the said substance as opposed to the direct health effects (drunk-driving deaths probably being the most common case)? Should they be included? Or should there be a more specific category? I spot-checked a few DWI-deaths that came to my mind and saw nothing more detailed than “Category:Road accident deaths in [LOCATION]” with no accompanying category naming alcohol as a factor. Regards. ―cobaltcigs 14:01, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Actors/actresses

There's an RFC here on the use of "actors" versus "actresses" in categorisation: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Actresses categorization - I believe this has been discussed intermittently in the past, though I'm not sure when, and interested editors may want to comment there. Andrew Gray (talk) 11:06, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Unclear sentence in section on sorting Spanish names

The meaning of one of the sentences in the section on sorting Spanish names is unclear. The line is: "For José Ignacio García Hamilton, all of his names listed and is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Garcia Hamilton, Jose Ignacio}}." Should the sentence be rewritten as: "The name José Ignacio García Hamilton is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Garcia Hamilton, Jose Ignacio}}"? Dezastru (talk) 06:33, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Need help understanding section on "Improper Categorization"

In the section on "Improper Categorization," there is a sentence that reads, "If the categorization is 'correct' and the category is reasonable, but still seems problematic, please list it here:". That is followed by a list of 5 categories, the last of which is represented as "...".

Does this mean that if an editor encounters such a problematic categorization, it should be appended to that list of 5 items directly in the Categorization of People article? Dezastru (talk) 06:59, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Limit the number?

I don't see any advantage to the "limit the number of categories" guideline. If articles are being added to fuzzy categories, the solution is to make the categories less fuzzy, not to impose an arbitrary (albeit vague) upper limit on the number of categories. The guideline was criticized in 2008 but not much discussion ensued. The current section has several statements:

Statement Commentary
For example, a film actor who holds a law degree should be categorized as a film actor, but not as a lawyer unless his or her legal career was notable in its own right. Irrelevant example. The question of whether an article ought to be added to a category ought to be answered with reference to the criteria for the category. In this case, Category:Lawyers should specify that someone who happens to hold a law degree but is not noted as a lawyer will not be included in the category. In other words, the motivation for not including the actor is the specification of the category, not the fact that the actor has too many other categories. This seems to be covered by "Not all categories are comprehensive" with no need for "limit the number of categories"
However it is also important to ensure that categories contain all of the most relevant articles. This means that some prominent people, such as senior politicians who have held many offices, will be in a considerable number of categories. Indeed. So clearly we can live with articles having large numbers of categories. Discussion at Talk:Eugen Relgis suggests someone regards more categories as implies more importance. I don't see that any more than a longer article implies more importance. I think the {{Too many categories}} at Carlos Javier López probably has the same motivation. One might question the need for a category Category:Expatriate footballers in Chile; but if it exists, and Carlos Javier López was at one time an expatriate footballer in Chile, then he belongs in the category, regardless of how many other categories he is in.
Apart from these factual categories, for those categories that require an assessment of personal characteristics (e.g. art movement style...), try to limit the number of categories to what is most essential about this person, I guess "factual" means "objective", so maybe "personal characteristics" is supposed to mean "subjective"? If a statement that someone was a rococo sculptor is reliably sourced, then adding the article to Category:Rococo sculptors is justified by the same source. It is more subjective for a Wikipedia editor to pick "what is most essential" rather than simply adding the article to all categories where (a) the category criterion is X and (b) the article states that the person is/was X. The 2008 discussion mentions Talk:Erik Satie#Satie as opera composer. Category:Opera composers (and subcats) should establish a criterion; say for example limit it to composers who have had an opera professionally staged. Then the discussion on Satie comes down to the factual question of whether any opera he composed was professionally staged; not to more subjective questions of whether his operas were important relative to the rest of his work.
something in the vein of: "give me 4 or 5 words that best characterize this person." This seems to me to be a total misreading of the purpose of categories. If you want a brief summary of the article, you don't go to the bottom of the page and read off the categories; you go to the top of the page and read the first sentence. That's where your 4 or 5 key words should go. Categories are not decoration/clutter in articles; the point is that they are bi-directional. Category:Fooian painters should include all Fooian painters with articles; you can't decide that one painter is to be left out because he's better known as a poet, singer, and tennis player. If he is as notable a painter as the other articles in Category:Fooian painters then he should be listed alongside them, so a reader can click from one to another.

jnestorius(talk) 20:35, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree with much of the above - the principle that "a film actor who holds a law degree should be categorized as a film actor, but not as a lawyer unless his or her legal career was notable in its own right" is an important one as without it categories may contain many articles about people who are not notable in that field and articles may contain an excessive number of categories that are of little relevance. However the wording of the rest of that section is far from ideal; if a person is notable in many fields we shouldn't artificially limit the number of categories they can be in. I propose changing the "Limit the number" paragraph to as follows:
Categorize by those characteristics that make the person notable: Apart from a limited number of categories for standard biographical details (in particular year of birth, year of death and nationality) an article about a person should be categorized only by the reason(s) for the persons notability. For example, a film actor who holds a law degree should be categorized as a film actor, but not as a lawyer unless his or her legal career was notable in its own right.
Please let me know your thoughts on this. DexDor (talk) 07:03, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Broadly in agreement, though we must not lose the fact that these linkages work both ways. So some "characteristics" develop more notability through the people. So we need to make sure that e.g. being of a certain nationality, or buried in a special place, is not excluded from this person-centric guideline. E.g. being an expatriate footballer from Foo may not be very defining for that individual, but it may be very important for the country if Foo 'exports' a lot of its talent. We need to make sure the wording reflects this. Ephebi (talk) 23:18, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
I've changed the "General considerations" section as proposed (and made a corresponding change to WP:EPONCAT). @Ephebi - I think that categorization of people should be "person-centric", but perhaps if you spell out what exactly you propose changing in the guidance it'll be clearer. DexDor (talk) 06:52, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Third party opinions needed at Jack Dempsey article

WP:Categorization of people#General considerations says to "Categorize by those characteristics that make the person notable". There is a discussion at Jack Dempsey as to whether this provision would indicate the removal or retention of Category:American Freemasons. We could use some third party opinions. Please swing by, read the discussion, and give an opinion. Thanks. Blueboar (talk) 17:46, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

RfC regarding categorization of persons

There is an RfC on the WP:Overcategorization page which impacts WP:COP. Editors are invited to provide input at the RfC --Noleander (talk) 18:08, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Debate over inclusion of bios in anti-semitism categories

Per some previous Category-for-deletion discussion, a number of anti-semitic + people categories have been deleted:

There is now a debate at Talk:Eustace_Mullins and Category_talk:Antisemitism_in_the_United_States on the question of whether bios of people, living or dead, can be included in the anti-semitism category if some sources say they are anti-semitic. Your input is welcome. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:33, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Including Ethnicity and Gender in Categories

I didn't realize there had been a RfC on this topic in 2012: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Categorization of persons. The consensus was:

As noted quite well through this RfC, BrownHairedGirl's comment can sum up quite a bit of this RfC in the sense that there is no "one-size-fits-all solution". This RfC was more general to get opinions on the inclusion of categorization of people. The consensus is that it's a complicated one to answer, and is why we have guidelines, not policies in place, because we need room for discretion. reliable sources and consensus are key to each individual situation that we evaluate to decide if the inclusion is right or not. With this RfC being so general, if it were to continue, it should probably continue on the talkpages of individual policies due to the consensus achieved here

So, this is pretty far from written in stone. Liz Read! Talk! 21:48, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Categorize by those characteristics that make the person notable

This is what it says:

For example, a film actor who holds a law degree should be categorized as a film actor, but not as a lawyer unless his or her legal career was notable in its own right. Many people had assorted jobs before taking the one that made them notable; those other jobs should not be categorized.

In my opinion, this rules defeats the purpose of having categories at Wikipedia completely:

Does this mean that a person's categories should change frequently depending on what makes them notable at a particular time in their lives? Isn't it of encyclopedic interest to find others that belong to the same category even if this is not what makes them notable. XOttawahitech (talk) 14:09, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

It's about DEFINING, not notability. And, defining usually doesn't change that much over time - so if someone had 10 articles written "Joe, a famous waiter" - and then later Joe became a famous actor, he should still be in the Category:Restaurant staff category, as this was DEFINING for him at one point. And no, it is not encyclopedic to note that many people once worked as a waiter - when I searched in "living persons" + "waitress", I found around 800 bios roughly of actresses, singers, poets, writers, journalists, porn stars, and others, who once worked as a waitress. This is not at all defining however.
FWIW, relevant CFD: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_June_3#Category:Waitresses --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:01, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
WP:NOTABLE is both important and specific. For clarity, policies and guidelines should avoid the terms 'notable' and 'notability' except in that specific sense. The provision quoted here is too strong; "not as a lawyer unless his or her legal career was notable in its own right" suggests that a wikipedia biography of the counterfactual lawyer without acting career would be appropriate.
'Noteworthy' and 'noteworthiness' would be an improvement and formally sufficient but I suppose we can do better. --P64 (talk) 17:13, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment I think our example is horribly worded and not very good. Lets say there is a person Simon Crowman, he gets a law degree at 23, passes the bar, practices law for a year, then goes to Hollywood, makes it big starting in "Batman vs. Superman" and a bunch more films, and we create an article on him. I would say there we do not need to categorize him as a lawyer. However what if we have Judith Miller, who acts as a teenager, and retires at age 19. She has really big roles, including as Robyn in the above mentioned film (like Robin, but only female), and then she gets a law degree, is a lawyer for 30+ years, but never to the point where she gets more than passing notice. I would say we should categorize her as a lawyer because being such is defining to her. I think we need to figure out how to explain this better. Someone does not need to become notable for doing something, but their either have to become notable for it, or have it be defining to them. There is no magic number of years in the procession. For example if Mr. Crowman had had a short but fast career as a football player, enough so that he was notable for being such, then went and go a law degree, but the day before he was thinking of going to the audition for his part in "Batman vs. Superman" was killed in a car crash while on his way home from the court house where there was the hearing on the one case he ever did, defending someone accused of mortgage fraud, would we classify him as a lawyer. Probably. Yes, if he lives, and actually did another case in court defending an accused shoplifter, but then spent 20 years as a major actor, we would probably answer no, his very short 7 months practicing law does not cut it.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:48, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

But there are guidelines and then there is practice. For example, every rapper (or any musician, really) who has ever had a cameo in a film is categorized as an Actor. It is certainly not their "defining" identity (which is a subjective opinion, any way). But if you start deleting them from categories of Actors, you will face opposition because Editors who are fans want the artists' creative activities to be acknowledged in this way.

So, the larger question is when faced between Wikipedia guidelines vs. the practice of a sizable group of Wikipedia Editors, who is correct? I gather that most of the regulars at CfD would opt for the guidelines...but the guidelines reflect the opinion of the Editors who wrote them. They are not a revelation from on high. I think the actual practice of Wikipedia users, when it is practiced by a substantial number of users, should be at least as important and often more important than abstract principles of categorization.

Wikipedia was built to be flexible, to change as knowledge changes. It's not the Library of Congress, it doesn't just accumulate more facts, it evolves. People change and Wikipedia should change to reflect common practices among its Editors. Liz Read! Talk! 19:46, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
The current example looks OK to me; does anyone have a suggestion to improve it? I disagree with JPL's "we should categorize her as a lawyer because being such is defining to her" - being a lawyer may be defining to her, but (unless she is notable as a lawyer) then it's not defining for categorization in an encyclopedia. There are many characteristics (e.g. being married, being a parent) that may be very important to the person themselves, but aren't that important encyclopedically (may be OK to mention in article though).
The current guideline is often/mostly followed - e.g. Clint Eastwood isn't categorized as being a golf caddy. That some editors stretch things a bit is no reason to throw away the guideline (it'd be like abandoning road speed limits just because some drivers often exceed them). DexDor (talk) 20:22, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
DEFINING and NOTABLE intersect - something is notable is people note it - so if someone was writing articles about her as a lawyer, this becomes defining for her. Note that we aren't equal in the application of categories, but defining usually comes in more clearly when we're speaking about jobs (vs. where X is from). I don't think we should categorize by every job a person held, rather only jobs they held that were significant and noted. That's why all actors and musicians aren't in waiter categories, even though many started out that way.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:34, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I was not saying that guidelines weren't useful or should be ignored (and definitely, not thrown away). I was just arguing that we take into consideration the way Editors use categories along with the guidelines. I am 'not saying that any Editor can make up whatever categories they want (that would be a straw man argument that I never proposed). I'm arguing against the view that the guidelines are fixed, absolute and never change. That's clearly not how they are written (see my comment below) and not what the Editors who wrote them intended. If they did, the language would be stronger than it is and wouldn't be so vague and prone to subjective decision-making.
I'm also not saying that people should be categorized according to any random aspect of their life. I wouldn't even agree that famous actors should have a Waiter/Waitress category applied, if they had that job when they were young. Liz Read! Talk! 21:24, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
I think here you're looking at the default "community" consensus as played out across thousands of articles vs the consensus of categorization-fields like those haunting this page. It's an interesting question - if 90% of articles violate one of our guidelines, are the articles wrong, or are the guidelines wrong? There's no easy answer to this question. In some cases, we are pretty firm about saying "This is the consensus guideline, if you want to go against it, give an IAR excuse or go change the guideline" whereas in other cases, we are much more flexible. Having identified a particular issue here, if you see a disconnect between guidance as written and as practiced, why not propose changes to the guidance that capture better what you think the current consensus is? Of course guidelines can change - but there is nonetheless a strong lobby here against over-categorization (we even have a whole page devoted to overcategorization). Ultimately, categories are navigational aids to help users find like articles, and I really think we would not be helped by having thousands of waiters vs the few that are there and truly *are* notable for being waiters, as one example. At the end of the day, we should measure all categorization efforts on whether they are likely to help or hinder the reader.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:55, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Putting creative professionals in categories for their works

Many creative professionals have produced enough notable works to warrant the creation of a category for the works; the issue that prompted this question is architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe (died 1820) and Category:Benjamin Henry Latrobe buildings and structures, although comparable categories exist for many other architects, singers, authors, etc. Is it appropriate to put the creative professional in the category for his own works, assuming that no parent category (e.g. Category:Stephen King) for the professional exists? For example, Latrobe isn't in the category for his works (he didn't design himself, and he's not a building or structure), but it could be argued that we should include him in the category because it's important to have his own article categorised together with articles about topics related to him; presumably this was the rationale for putting 19th-century architect Samuel Hannaford in Category:Samuel Hannaford buildings. I know virtually nothing of professionals other than architects (the Stephen King example was provided by someone else at WP:HD), so I'm only guessing that this problem appears in other fields. Nyttend (talk) 02:15, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I would say no. The creator can be Linked from a hatnote in the category. We should try to keep set categories to contain only elements of the set if possible.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk),
Actually, this came up from the other direction: how do we get readers of the biographical article to know about the category? See my original WP:HD request for more context. I'm familiar with templates such as {{Cat more}} and am happy to use them atop categories. Nyttend (talk) 03:32, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Yes, it's appropriate, and practically necessary as explained immediately above. People who use the category page-count need to be alert to pages listed at the head or foot of the alphabet, which are different in kind from the alphabetical listings.
· For someone with a narrowly eponymous category (WP:EPONCAT) that has subcats, it may be adequate to put the biography in the eponcat only. We do always put it only there, afaik. That one should be first in the category list at the foot of the biography, as for Ursula K. Le Guin#External links. Sophisticated users know and some others may suppose that that link is a point of entry to multiple aspects of our coverage of Le Guin (there are subcats and subsubcats of cat Ursula K. Le Guin). The biography should be sorted to the head of the list of Pages in the category --as Le Guin's biography and bibliography are both sorted in her eponcat.
· For someone without a narrow eponcat, the biography must be in all the broadly eponymous categories in order for the category list to provide navigation, as it is for cat Samuel Hannaford buildings in his category list Samuel Hannaford#External links. Offhand, I would list it first.
· For an intermediate case see Anne McCaffrey#External links, where a navigation box (WP:NAV) dedicated to McCaffrey's works is displayed just above the category list. That navbox lists every page in her only broadly eponymous category Novels by Anne McCaffrey or in one of its subcats (which are not limited to novels). Probably it serves as well or better than to include her Novels cat (or Works cat, etc, if 'twere renamed) in her biography category list. The same goes for her bibliography category list Anne McCaffrey bibliography#External links --and would probably go for any plausible head article because any one would probably be in her navbox.
(The McCaffrey bibliography and Novels/Works category should be in her Works navbox, as they are for Le Guin, immediately below the navbox title. The Le Guin navbox should be in her bibliography footer Ursula K. Le Guin bibliography#References, as it is for McCaffrey.)  Done --P64 (talk) 00:18, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
--P64 (talk) 04:18, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
WP:CAT#Sort keys instructs how to manage the order in which member pages (or subcategories, separately) are displayed on category pages. The 7th to 9th of 10 bullet points concern display at the head, before 'A', and the tail, after 'Z', of the alphabetical listings.
For example use [[Category:Benjamin Henry Latrobe buildings and structures| ]] and [[Category:Benjamin Henry Latrobe buildings and structures|*]] in the category lists at the foot of Benjamin Henry Latrobe and List of works by Benjamin Henry Latrobe to put that biography and that list in the category and display them under (blank) and (*) at the head of the Pages in category "Benjamin Henry Latrobe buildings and structures". --whereas Category:Benjamin Henry Latrobe buildings and structures now excludes the biography and lists the list under 'L'.
Last hour I "fixed" the display of Category:The Chronicles of Narnia, in my opinion --Subcategories and Pages, but not yet the preface or unusual set of three main pages. It may be a useful illustration technically regardless whether you agree, or know anything about the substance. --P64 (talk) 02:18, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
Categories for works should not contain the creator (i.e. I disagree with P64). Similarly, categories for awards recipients should not contain an article about the award itself (I've seen cases of such categories holding just 2 articles - one about a recipient and one about the award). (1) Such categorization is inconsistent with the way WP categorization normally works (e.g. the topic "Xs created by Y" should be just about Xs created by Y; not about Y or X); such inconsistencies may make it harder for people to understand WP categorization. (2) Allowing the creator article to be in the works category in some cases (e.g. unless there's an epon cat or a list article) would add further complexity to WP rules (instruction creep). (3) This sort of categorization would mean the creation of one article/category could make another article ineligible for a category - that's not normally how WP categorization works. (4) There are other means to navigate to a category from the article about the creator to a category for their works (e.g. the article can refer to the category or by following a link from the creator article to an article about one of their works and hence to the category). (5) Categories are, in practice, primarily a tool used by editors rather than a navigation tool for readers (e.g. when viewing WP from mobile devices categories aren't usually shown). (6) The reference to the sort key guidance in the previous comment may give the impression that the guidance supports the type of categorization proposed here; it doesn't (see "Note: If the key article should not be a member..."). DexDor (talk) 07:27, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Defaultsort of Irish surnames starting Ó

Should an article about a modern Irish person named Seán Ó Murchú have

  1. {{DEFAULTSORT:O Murchu, Sean}} or
  2. {{DEFAULTSORT:Omurchu, Sean}} ?

IMO most books in English in Ireland follow #2, and therefore so should Wikipedia. See Google books search: o'brien index "o murchu" User:Bgwhite at User talk:Bgwhite#Defaultsort of surnames starting Ó argues for #1, with references which to my mind do not support the contention. jnestorius(talk) 13:10, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

  • Seeing as the editor in question twice refers to the "University Cambridge of Dublin", I find it hard to take him/her seriously. My gut instinct is to follow #2, per the phone book and Dictionary of Irish Biography. Just for interest, what is the current procedure for Mc, Mac (no space) and Mac (space)? Scolaire (talk) 18:47, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Scolaire's argument says I can't be taken seriously because I wrote the University's name wrong. Egads.
  • Phone books are irrelevant. They don't follow standards.
  • Mc vs Mac is: "Surnames beginning with Mac or Mc are sorted as they are spelled."
  • Sources for {{DEFAULTSORT:O Murchu, Sean}}:
  1. International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), ed. (1996). Names of persons : national usages for entry in catalogue (PDF). UBCIM publications ; new series, vol. 16 (4th revised and enlarged ed.). Munich; New Providence; London; Paris: K. G. Saur. ISBN 3-598-11342-0.. Publication uses University College Dublin and National Library of Ireland
  2. Nic Cóil, Róisín (June 2011). "Irish prefixes and the alphabetization of personal names". The Indexer. Society of Indexers.
    The Indexer is the official publication of all English, German, Dutch and Chinese indexing societies and published by Society of Indexers, a professional body for indexers in the United Kingdom.
  3. Library of University College Dublin — They have Ó (page 1) coming before O' (page 31) in their list of authors on their own website.
  4. National Library of Ireland — They have Ó (page 1) coming before O' (page 117) in their list of authors on their own website.
  5. The concise Oxford companion to Irish literature. Oxford University Press. 2003. ISBN 9780192800800.
Bgwhite (talk) 22:11, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
Maybe you should check your own talk page before trotting out the same claims again. Not one of the sources you linked to support your claim that they make the space mandatory. Two of the three randomly mix O-with-a-space, O-with-an-apostrophe and O followed by another letter. The third deals only with names in the Irish language (where you don't see O-with-an-apostrophe or O followed by another letter) and merely says that Ó Murchú would be under Ó rather than M. Scolaire (talk) 23:44, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
  • The discussion is taking place here and not all over the place. #1 (UBCIM publications) does. #2 (Irish prefixes and the alphabetization of personal names) certainly does. #3 (Library of University College Dublin) clearly does. It has Ó start on page 1 and O' on page 31. #4 (National Library of Ireland) clearly does. Ó starts on page 1 and O' on page 117. #5 (The concise Oxford companion to Irish literature) clearly does. Neither #3 nor #4 randomly link names. 117 pages of Ó and then over a 100 pages of O' certainly isn't random. The pattern is very clear.
  • "The third deals only with names in the Irish language (where you don't see O-with-an-apostrophe or O followed by another letter)..." The third reference (#3) clearly gives names of Ó and O'.... It has Ó start on page 1 and O' on page 31.
  • No sources have been given to say otherwise. Please list your sources. Phonebooks do not count. Bgwhite (talk) 03:57, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
Bgwhite, sources #1 and #2 state to sort Ó Murchú under Ó rather than under M; they say nothing about whether to sort it before or after Oakley or O'Brien. Your sources #3 and #4 are on-the-fly database queries using generic catalog software that has not been customised for Irish collation practices. To quote yourself from the earlier discussion on your talkpage: "don't look at a web page which was generated on-the-fly from a database. Sorting depends on what the default collation the webmasters set up (Mysql and its variants default to Swedish). You have to at look a printed or non-database generated web pages." That leaves your source #5, which is one book. See my earlier Google link for other books. jnestorius(talk) 09:30, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
  • #1 shows it sorting with a space. If the space were not to be included, it would not be there. #2 spells out to sort with a space AND before 'O. #3 and #4 are databases generated by THE authorities in Ireland, that is different than a database by a book publisher. #5 is a book by Cambridge and it should be viewed as secondary. But, it does show that Oxford University Press does follow the same pattern in print form.
  • The British National Bibliography from the British Library, THE source in the UK, does the same thing. For books written in Irish, Ó starts on page 30 and O' starts on page 143.
  • On my talk page, I was saying to be careful as you don't know what sorting algorithm websites use. I would expect National Library of Ireland (NLI) to use one different from the National Library of Sweeden (NLS) or some book publisher. I would expect NLI to be based on Irish and NLS on Swedish. Big libraries use MARC 21, which is specifically designed (actually specifically messed up) for libraries. Book publisher websites use Mysql or other various general databases.
  • No sources have been given to say otherwise. Please list your sources. Bgwhite (talk) 07:55, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Quigg, Patrick J. (December 1967). "The entering and systematic arrangement of Irish names in catalogues, indexes and directories". An Leabharlann: journal of the Library Association of Ireland. 25 (4): 150. O'Brien can be filed after Ó Briain (ignoring the distinction between O apostrophe and O fada) jnestorius(talk) 22:37, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Just to chip in, without any sources, I'd say "O'Brien" and "Ó Briain" should both be sorted simply as "O'Briain" and "Ó Briain" respectively. Soring as "Obrien" or "OBriain" means names like this will be mixed up alongside with "Obama". Better to separate out "Ó" and "O'" names, me thinks. (Similar questions around "Mac" and "Mc" names to. In those names, the question is to default sort with a space or not, even if no space appears in the subject's own spelling of the name.) --Tóraí (talk) 12:03, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Initcap only for Mc and Mac?

The guidelines say "Surnames beginning with Mac or Mc are sorted as they are spelled", with the examples "MacArthur, Douglas" and "McDowell, Malcolm". What about the categorization in the middle of the name? Dont upper-case characters sort differently than lower-case? Some people don't user upper case. Couldn't there be cases in which people would be sorted awkwardly because of this? HandsomeFella (talk) 21:55, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Categorisation by wartime military service

There's an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 April 29#Category:Veterans of the Battle of Kursk. There's a general consensus to delete the categories in question (categorisation by participants of a given battle), but it's raised a broader question:

should categories like Category:Soviet military personnel of World War II contain all biographies of people who saw active military service, or just those who are notable for being military personnel?

The categorisation-notability guideline as written seems to suggest that it should be restricted just to those who are notable as soldiers; however, actual practice (certainly for the UK categories) seems to be to include anyone who had active wartime service (see, eg, the large Category:British Army personnel of World War I), and I'm not sure if we'd gain anything by removing these categories. Thoughts appreciated. Andrew Gray (talk) 15:32, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

How-to?

I would like to see an historical person categorized in "Category:Feminism" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Feminism, Christina, Queen of Sweden. However, I cannot find any articles under "Wikipedia Search" that offers step-by-step instructions. Can anyone categorize (if so, how?) or must an administrator be contacted to do it or a Feminism interest group contacted (again, how?)? As you can see, there are a batch of sub-categories. How does one known which one to choose - would "Feminism and history‎" be correct? I am confused! >_< Thank you for your time, Wordreader (talk) 20:23, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Terribly overdone section

This section Wikipedia:Categorization_of_people#Ordering_names_in_a_category is terribly long. Do we really need such detail, and here? Could it be placed in a different guideline? I have trouble believing this is the only place where such sorting of names is discussed. But here we're talking about categorization but we spend 2200 words discussing the best way to sort the names. Could we at least trim it somewhat? --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:01, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

I see your point. See this talk: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies#de, von, van, etc. I repeat what I said there "But yeah then there are all the sensitivities... ".
The General considerations section should at least be above this more technical section. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:56, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Did some more cleanup and reordering, for instance the bots converting lists in categories is less of an issue nowadays I suppose, so moved it down, etc. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:36, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Proposed changes

Proposed changes

I suppose all other updates I performed on the WP:COP guideline yesterday are uncontroversial. If not, discuss here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:32, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

The discussion in this section is no longer active in order to avoid fragmentation of discussion. The discussion of the same topic is continued at #Proposed language change to WP:COP#N below --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:52, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

WP:COP#N: Occupations only?

Background information: how come WP:COP#N was changed to only apply to occupations (instead of the example just being an example)?

No discussion, no apparent consensus for the guideline change, and most of all: not thinking of consequences. WP:COP#N was written specifically with all kinds of contentious categorizations in mind (surely, nobody must have thought about freemasonry at the time). As for all sensitive categorizations, they were never exempt from this: WP:COP#N was invented with those in mind.

See Category:Freemasons for the current category definition. As the version of WP:COP#N that served until february last year is still quoted there, I can only conclude that Freemasons is perceived as a sensitive category. This makes also clear that there was never any consensus to exclude freemasons from WP:COP#N. Then, what happened to Frederick the Great? He is safely included in the sparsely populated Category:Monarchs who were Freemasons, probably less contentious for mere mortals who don't want to be associated with their more belligerent predecessors. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:58, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Francis you're trying to do too many things at once. You did a bold page move that was reverted, so you need to wait for the page title to stabilize before going around renaming it everywhere else. As for COP#N, there is wide scale practice that intersection of ethnicity/gender/sexuality with a notable job is perfectly acceptable: in other words, the defining test is applied to the job, not to the intersection of job + whatever. Freemasons is sort of like a job, but it's also sort of like 'alumni of' as it's a sort of membership-of-a-club sort of thing, maybe that is a specific example we need to discuss and decide whether club memberships should be based on cop#n or not. Religion seems to be different - for whatever reason - my sense is that religion categories are only added when the expression of that religion is a notable part of their work. There are a great many writers who happen to be catholic but we seem to only cTegorize those for whom catholicism was important to their writing. Otoh, ethnicity, gender and sexuality seem to behave differently.
I think we should not expand the section on gender/etc here, in order to keep the guideline all in one place.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 12:26, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
In sum, we don't need to distinguish between job-like things and non-joblike things (and which of the two applies to freemasonry, Rjensen and Obiwankenobi appear to disagree on that while I couldn't care less): WP:COP#N as well as WP:DEFINING apply to both. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:58, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
Actually, I think we need to be more explicit. There are not just a FEW categories which are automatically applied (eg birthdate, where X is from) - there are a great number of them - including things like alumni, awards, and, in some cases, membership in certain groups. We do have clear consensus that jobs should apply the WP:DEFINING test, but I'm not convinced that the same test applies to ALL categories put on people's pages - we have a number of exceptions, so we just need to identify what those are more clearly.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:29, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
WP:COP#N applies to all people categories, no doubt about that. --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:09, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
I really wish it was that simple. It seems so simple to just state that, but you have to look at HOW categories are used, and which categorizations are accepted without issue. For example, if someone is a novelist, and a woman, are they a) automatically added to "women novelists" or b) Only added if sources can be found that demonstrate that women+novelist is a DEFINING intersection for this person? Your answer seems to be b), but the broad consensus on this matter is a) - which goes directly against a broad reading of COP#N. We all agree COP#N applies to jobs - does it apply to alumni? What about to winners of awards? What about to members of clubs or societies? It's not an all-or-nothing proposition Francis, some categories seem to be all-included, in that anyone who qualifies can be put in, whereas others are more limited, and only those for who it is defining are added. So, if someone was born in new york and grew up in new york and spent most of their life in New York, even if reliable sources don't regularly mention this fact, they will be in Category:People from New York. That's just the way categories are used right now.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:16, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

WP:COP#N applies to all people categories, really don't know what you're going on about. If someone is notable for being a woman novelist, you place her in the Category:women novelists. Really. Cogent is the word here.

Sensitive categories need not be all included, and the reccomendation, according to the WP:COP guideline, is to have a separate list that is more inclusive for such categories. As such that isn't the part of the wording of the guideline we're discussing here. You're referring to Not all categories are comprehensive (etc.), which isn't a part of WP:COP#N.

Category:People from New York has the template:catdiffuse template on top. So, I go from the supposition that the people listed there currently are notable for being from New York, unless they still need to be moved to a subcat. What is problematic there? --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:57, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Francis, you're misunderstanding my critical point. Someone can be "notable" as a novelist, and also happen to be a woman - but she isn't necessarily "notable" as a "woman novelist". The same applies to someone who is gay, and is a novelist. They may not be "notable" as a "gay novelist", in that biographies of the person wouldn't say "Jim is a well known gay novelist"- in fact, his sexuality may not even be mentioned in the lede. The same again applies to ethnicity - someone might say "Julie is a well known novelist" and then much later "Both of Julie's parents were from China, and she identifies as Asian-American" - so should Julie go in "Asian-American novelists" or not? Your changes suggest no, whereas I point to the way these categories are used a strong consensus is YES. They key question is whether the intersection itself must be notable for the individual. (whether the intersection is notable more generally, and thus whether the category should exist, is a matter for WP:DEFINING and WP:EGRS)--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:14, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Really, if someone is not notable for being a "gay novelist", don't put him in that category. See Category talk:LGBT people#Make non-diffusing?, I just added the example of Harold Nicolson who is not notable for being a LGBT writer, so he shouldn't be in Category:LGBT writers. Again, simple.

Other example: Virginia Woolf is not notable for being a Bisexual writer. She is notable for being a LGBT writer, also for being a LGBT writer from England. To derive the appropriate categorizations from that appears pretty straightforward to me. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:03, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

This proposal mistakes defining characteristics for characteristics that make the subject notable. A vast swath of our category structure is based on defining characteristics that are of very little relevance to the subject's notability. Most obviously, Einstein is not notable for being born in 1879, but it is a very defining feature of him. Very few historians that are women are notable for being "female historians" (they are notable as just historians). Similarly, place of birth can often be very little relevance to a subject's notability (like many people born in a maternity hospital, I have never lived in my town of birth). Defining attributes and notability are completely separate issues are far as current practice goes, so on that basis your proposition is not just controversial, it is a highly radical reworking of how categorisation currently works. SFB 17:16, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
For clarity, this is what WP:COP#N would read like (apart from the examples):

Apart from a limited number of categories for standard biographical details (in particular year of birth, year of death and nationality) an article about a person should be categorized only by the reason(s) for the person's notability.

(bolding added)
Place of birth is in itself neither notable nor defining (in Wikipedia context). Nationality is defining, and is also included per WP:COP#N.
So neither for year of birth nor for place of birth is there any difference between WP:DEFINING and WP:COP#N
If a female historian is notable for being a historian she should be in the category historians (e.g. Geneviève Hasenohr). If the gender doesn't make a difference, then it is not defining, and she should not be in a female historians category either way (nor for WP:DEFINING, nor for WP:COP#N), same example: Geneviève Hasenohr.
Hope that clarified a bit. Notability and Definingness are not the same (I never said they were). On the other hand WP:COP#N is usually all you need to know about the WP:DEFINING concept when applying categories to biographical articles, because it is notable characteristics + year of birth + year of death + nationality, which are indeed a practical representation of the difference between defining and notable for biographical articles. You don't need to understand the whole complex paragraph in WP:DEFINING which I quote here:

Often, users can become confused between the standards of notability, verifiability, and "definingness". Notability is the test that is used to determine if a topic should have its own article. This test, combined with the test of verifiability, is used to determine if particular information should be included in an article about a topic. Definingness is the test that is used to determine if a category should be created for a particular attribute of a topic. In general, it is much easier to verifiably demonstrate that a particular characteristic is notable than to prove that it is a defining characteristic of the topic. In cases where a particular attribute about a topic is verifiable and notable but not defining, or where doubt exists, creation of a list article is often the preferred alternative.

Hope you still can follow by the end of that paragraph. The simple formulation of all that for biographical articles is:

For biographical articles: Defining characteristics equals notable characteristics + year of birth + year of death + nationality.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 19:43, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
Francis, the simple fact is, your interpretation is WIDELY disregarded, thus we can clearly state that consensus lies elsewhere. To say that we should start removing women from "women novelists" because we can't establish that they're notable as women + novelist is ridiculous and would never meet with consensus. All we have to establish is "notable as a novelist" + "is a woman". The same applies to "notable as a musician" + African-American or "notable as an actor" + "publicly gay". The one exception I've seen is religion, whereby someone can be publicly roman catholic, but they are not added to "Catholic writers" unless their catholicism is an important theme in their works. I can't really explain why this is the case, maybe because the sexuality/gender/ethnicity identity crowd is more tag-happy than the roman catholics, I don't know, but there you have it. For sexuality, gender, and ethnicity, it suffices that the person identify as such, and then they are placed in any relevant intersectional categories - trying to sort this out on a job-by-job basis would be a mess - e.g. is someone notable as a gay writer but not notable as a gay politician? Is Jane REALLY notable as a woman novelist? during the woman novelist fiasco, a great many female writers were incensed that they were not simply called writers, so our some of our public wants it the OTHER way - e.g. no gender categories at all, but that didn't meet with consensus either. The arguments simply aren't worth it? This is longstanding, whatever happens to be written in one line of policy somewhere aside. The place "defining" is used in this case is to determine whether the intersection itself is defining - e.g. if "African American" + "Writer" is notable and studied as a group (as opposed to "Canadian-American + writer" and whether a reasonable head article could be written about African american writers. Additionally, your formula is incorrect - in practice, it is much more than location and date of birth that gets added automatically (regardless of "notability" or "definingness") - for example, alumni of school X, winner of award Y. The policy now is in need of help, but in the other way - we should explicitly spell out all of the instances where "notability" or "definingness" doesn't come into the picture, and it's a rather long list, but that's the way the categories are used and its better than the alternative.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:12, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I see no reason to make this more complicated than it is. A lot of talk in the previous contribution, not a single real example where WP:COP#N (without the questioned addition) would be lacking in giving succinct guidance.

Copying from an archived debate regarding Jodie Foster:
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
I have not studied the case of Jodie Foster in enough detail to have a legitimate opinion about that issue. But I can speak about my own experience in a way that I think is relevant in this context. For a time, I was categorized in a category of either Athiest or American Atheists (I can't quite remember). I objected to this. I would object to it again if it came up again, because I think it is a matter of WP:UNDUE. Atheism versus religionism is not an issue that I campaign about and including me in such a category would mislead people even if in some sense it might actually be true. (Notice that I'm not saying - not because my own beliefs are uncertain, but because I wouldn't want anyone to take this comment, which is about Wikipedia, as an excuse to add me there!)
I think many categories run the same kind of risk. Unless someone actually self-identifies publicly as belonging to a category, we should be very careful about adding them to that category. I don't know enough about Jodie Foster to know where she fits.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:43, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
We have had precisely the same debate in respect of Joan Armatrading. Wikipedia can cover the facts, but we are not here to allow every interest group to claim their own through categorisation, since this does not allow for any nuance (in the way that list articles do). Guy (Help!) 20:12, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo. You're right about the atheism category - in general the rule is WP:DEFINING as well as WP:EGRS. Someone like Richard Dawkins should clearly be in that cat, but I doubt RS regularly say 'Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and noted atheist, today said...' So for the vast majority of people, no matter their religion, we don't categorize them accordingly since it's usually not an important part of their public life nor discussed in detail in reliable sources. LGBT is treated slightly differently - all it takes is public self-identification to merit the 'gay' tag. As for Foster, it almost seems like a custom-built set up for a Wikipedia battle - rumors have plagued her for years that she was gay, and then finally in a public speech she admits that she came out long ago and mentions her relationship with a woman, but she - whether on purpose or not - does not use the word gay or lesbian, and never says 'I am a XXX'. Then you add the winner-takes-all aspect of categories (eg you're either in or out) and voila, wikibattle royale. The debate here has been raging ever since. And then she marries a woman, adding fuel to the fire. Plenty of reliable sources have claimed she had finally come out as lesbian as a result of her speech, while some editors here state that she could be bi, or could eschew labels entirely - we simply don't know and we cannot trust newspaper's guesses in this matter since they have no means to fact-check short of asking her, again (Foster would regularly stipulate that questions from reporters about her sexuality were off-limits). The compromise arrived at in the RFC was sort of like 'she's said enough to put her in the LGBT tree, but we won't categorize her as a lesbian as that's a step too far' My guess is until she comes out with a clearer statement (which is unlikely as she's guarded her privacy for 40 years and I don't see a press conference in the future) this will go on and on and never be settled - as you can see a recent community wide RFC is now being disputed. I think we should just refer the whole thing to the WMF editorial board. Wait, does that still not exist? :)--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:31, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
I object to the queers are special idea that speaks from the previous. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:51, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Slightly similar to Armatrading we have Tom Daley, who recently mumbled a vague reply to a jokey question on a UK comedy panel game show, from host Keith Lemon. He does not seem keen to make his sexual preferences public, but still gets three separate LGBT Category templates. By being more of a "celebrity" than Armatrading is his categorisation somehow more justified? The criteria are rather unclear. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:53, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
WP:COP#N could get some more attention I suppose. I'm not such a fan of presenting thoughts just by a shortcut, now I do. Because I think that is one that was lost out of sight for a long time and summarizes part of what Jimbo said as something we already knew but just didn't think of. Of course I should only speak for myself. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:47, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Obiwankenobi, how is "she's said enough to put her in the LGBT tree" not completely at odds with the policy which says she must "publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question"? Despite what some have argued, LGBT is not a catchall category for anything other than heterosexual. Janeane Garofolo is open about being asexual, yet she was previously married and has been in a relationship with a man for over a decade. Should she be in the LGBT category? Some have argued that it includes asexual people. 75.119.224.148 (talk) 22:30, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Guy, thank you for the further example of Joan Armatrading. I was surprised to see that she is not included in the LGBT Wikiproject. Nor is Queen Latifa and there is no mention in the article of the longstanding press speculation about her sexuality. I wonder why Jodie Foster attracts so much more attention? 75.119.224.148 (talk) 22:35, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
As has been stated several times, because she came out, "proudly" (her very own words), and she confirmed that she married (see, gay marriage). Now questions for you: What do you mean LGBT is a sexual orientation that someone identifies as being? Assuming it is such an orientation, as you seem to argue, how does someone self-identify as L,G,B, and T? What exactly are your requirements? -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:44, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
And as also has been pointed "out" She never self identified and her "outing" was not about sexuality but about being single and was tongue in cheek.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:50, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
I was answering and asking the IP, we already know that we disagree, but really your dispute is with Jodie Foster if you think contrary to her words, that she did not come out proudly. You have not articulated answers to my questions, so perhaps the IP will. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:04, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
No, you just don't understand the entire situation. You seem to think that by stating "I am coming out" that is means someone is a homosexual. That is just inaccurate...at best.--Mark Miller (talk) 01:11, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
I'm merely taking her at her word, which is the understanding that is needed. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:29, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
No. You are leaping to conclusions. And you appear to lack sensitivity on the subject of other people's lives.--Mark Miller (talk) 01:32, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
No. You are leaping to deny what words mean. It is you who appear to lack sensitivity to other peoples lives. Taking people at their word is being sensitive to them. But I would still like the IP to answer my questions. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:44, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
You don't know what you are talking about and I strongly urge the IP to ignore your question...whatever it was. You lack both sensitivity and knowledge to what "Coming out" actually means. You can come out as anything you want but in this case you are actually filling in the blanks to suit your opinion and even, perhaps, an agenda.--Mark Miller (talk) 02:17, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Alan, I find it strange that you are so sure that Jodie Foster "proudly came out" yet did so in a way that was so ambiguous and cryptic that even supporters were confused by it. Recall that her statements were also taken to mean that she was retiring yet she almost immediately disclaimed this. Obviously it would not be possible for anyone to give you a definitive list of statements that would be acceptable as self-identification but if there is doubt, we should not make assumptions. In this case there is doubt. If someone in the public eye is "proudly out" we can reasonably expect that a less ambiguous statement will eventually be made. This may well be the case for Jodie Foster. 75.119.224.148 (talk) 02:30, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Note, I said she used the word "proudly" to describe her coming out: ". . . I already did my coming out about 1,000 years ago, back in the Stone Age," Foster said. "In those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends and family and co-workers and then gradually, proudly to everyone who knew her, everyone she actually met." [4] So, it's not strange to me that sources write what they write, which is now viewed not a few minutes/hours after, but in the light of time and the public confirmation by her of her marriage. [5]. What is strange to me is people demanding more of her. 'Say it louder, Jodie Foster' does not seem to me either respectful or needed by anyone for anything. Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:37, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Leaping to make her what you want and not waiting for them to say so is just not anything Wikipedia has as a standard. Where is the "Draw your own conclusion" policy? I've never seen it.--Mark Miller (talk) 03:46, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
No. There is no point in discussing this with you. You've made it clear that you cannot believe that others disagree with you in good faith. That breaches the cardinal rule of discussion on Wikipedia. It's neither unheard of, nor unimaginable that many Wikipedians disagree with you considering what the sources say, and it's no crime to seek fidelity to the sources, quite the opposite. Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:59, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
You are right about one thing, there is no further point in discussing this with someone who throws around unfounded accusation of bad faith just because they believe they have a right and/or ability on Wikipedia to make up whatever they want about living persons. We have policies, guidelines and procedures, which you seem happy to ignore to suit your own opinion. It certainly doesn't improve the project.--Mark Miller (talk) 04:22, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Well, at least I am right, then. Except, there is nothing unfounded (some assumed "agenda", your words), or outside policy (V, NOR, NPOV, BLP, IAR) or made-up ([6] [7]) concerning what I have said. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 04:47, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Except that you have actually demonstrated an agenda to label Ms. Foster for some reason. That is not a stretch. And you are indeed suggesting original research, POV editing, violating BLP policy as written, violating (what was once called Burden) the first section of Wikipedia:V as well as IAR as this in no way improves the article or the project. While you do all of this, I have never suggested you were doing it in bad faith. Many people have agendas on Wikipedia. Some good, and some bad, while others don't even realize they do have an agenda. However, per Wikipedia:Advocacy: "Advocacy is the use of Wikipedia to promote personal beliefs or agendas at the expense of Wikipedia's goals and core content policies, including verifiability and the neutral point of view. Despite the popularity of Wikipedia, it is not a soapbox to use for editors' activism, recruitment, promotion, advertising, announcements, or other forms of advocacy." You are clearly advocating for the label of LGBT on a person who has never self indentified. Look, we can do this all night. Go ahead, have the last word. I have said what I need to. Thanks for the debate. It was civil until you made accusations.--Mark Miller (talk) 06:01, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
That's not an agenda. That's an editing dispute. Otherwise, you have just accused yourself of a political or personal advocacy agenda. Of course, you are just wrong. I have not ignored policy by making any of my arguments. (See eg., regarding interpreting policy, in addition to the many editors who have disagree with you.) -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:26, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
There are just as many or more editors that disagree with you. And you do make stuff up. You just did above.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:09, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Most of this is my fault for using you as an example and the behavior or arguments you use. While I may honestly believe you act a certain way or demonstrate a certain behavior, not everything has to be typed out for discussion. So I offer an apology for any sentiment that you felt was in bad faith. I don't even know if you, yourself, have edited the article. I know I haven't.--Mark Miller (talk) 20:54, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, Jimmy. I think your answer will help guide people to the best result.

75.119.224.148 (talk) 22:36, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, thank you Mr. Wales for weighing in on the subject.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:51, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
  • "LGBT" is not a sexual orientation, and neither is "gay". These are constructed identities that entail identification with certain communities and a particular "gay identity". Engaging in either homosexual behaviour does not make one "gay" unless one says one is "gay". The majority of people that engage in homosexual behaviour or desire do not consider themselves "gay". Being engaged in a same-sex marriage does not make one "LGBT", if one does not identify with that label. I don't understand this attempt to pigeonhole people into identities with which they haven't identified. RGloucester — ☎ 01:41, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
    • As an openly "gay" homosexual male who has worked within the LGBT community.......I have to say, this was, perhaps, the wisest comment I have seen yet. A big thank you to you RGloucester.--Mark Miller (talk) 02:19, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
      • It occurs to me that consensus is most likely reachable by reference to WP:COP#N. I think Jodie Foster is homosexual. That she is in a publicly acknowledged same-sex marriage is sufficient to prove it. I don't think there's any serious doubt about that fact, and were it less emotionally charged, we'd probably not have any troubles about it. But I think what might persuade warring parties to put down their keyboards is a close look at WP:COP#N.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:53, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
        • Hmmmmm. This isn't the first time I have disagreed with you Jimbo, but I want to at least be clear. Just thinking they are homosexual doesn't seem to be enough to categorize as LGBT. Gay and homosexual are two different things and while Manning hasn't removed any male parts we refer to them as "her" and changed a name over it because they have self identified, while here we are determining what Foster is based on the rumor, accounts and reports of her relationship. You know we kept all mention of the relationship out of Tom Daley's article until such time that they openly admitted it. I haven't edited the article over any of this. Not sure I have ever edited the Foster article. As long as Foster has outright admitted to being in a same sex relationship and named the person than I can see why we would label them LGBT. I don't think we have a famous homosexual category. Perhaps Lesbian actress? I don't know, but I still strongly disagree with this and don't think anyone has really even bothered to offer much in the way of demonstrating Foster self identification. But, I always support the consensus, whatever it is.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:23, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
        • So, I went ahead a re-read your post Jimbo and the link you left. You stated; "I think Jodie Foster is homosexual. That she is in a publicly acknowledged same-sex marriage is sufficient to prove it." No, it isn't. I know men who, today are married, with children and have been in same sex relationships. Just being in a relationship with the same sex does not make one homosexual. Jodie foster has two natural sons. Using the very same logic we could not categorize Foster as homosexual. We would have to assume bisexuality. Still a part of the LGBT umbrella. But when looking through WP:COP#N I am not seeing the same thing you are. Perhaps WP:DEFINING is a better example where it states:

One of the central goals of the categorization system is to categorize articles by their defining characteristics. Categorization by non-defining characteristics should be avoided. It is sometimes difficult to know whether or not a particular characteristic is "defining" for any given topic, and there is no one definition that can apply to all situations. However, the following suggestions or rules-of-thumb may be helpful:

  • a defining characteristic is one that reliable, secondary sources commonly and consistently define, in prose, the subject as having. For example: "Subject is an adjective noun ..." or "Subject, an adjective noun, ...". If such examples are common, each of adjective and noun may be deemed to be "defining" for subject.
  • if the characteristic would not be appropriate to mention in the lead portion of an article, it is probably not defining;
  • if the characteristic falls within any of the forms of overcategorization mentioned on this page, it is probably not defining.

Often, users can become confused between the standards of notability, verifiability, and "definingness". Notability is the test that is used to determine if a topic should have its own article. This test, combined with the test of verifiability, is used to determine if particular information should be included in an article about a topic. Definingness is the test that is used to determine if a category should be created for a particular attribute of a topic. In general, it is much easier to verifiably demonstrate that a particular characteristic is notable than to prove that it is a defining characteristic of the topic. In cases where a particular attribute about a topic is verifiable and notable but not defining, or where doubt exists, creation of a list article is often the preferred alternative.

In disputed cases, the categories for discussion process may be used to determine whether a particular characteristic is defining or not.

In some ways that comes very close to making an argument for the categorization but by the end seems to defeat it. I also took a look at Category:LGBT actresses. There are currently only three subjects listed. This seems to be a less than notable category. A subcategory is Lesbian actresses‎ where Ms. Foster could not be placed as that is a much more narrow category. Is a woman a lesbian just because they are in a same sex relationship but have natural children? I did notice that the actual category states: "Consider rewording the inclusion criteria of this category if they are unclear.". Perhaps that is something to consider. I don't know. I do have concerns about the other category, Category:LGBT entertainers from the United States. I noticed Nell Carter is listed there but on reading the article I see no mention of her sexuality at all.--Mark Miller (talk) 20:54, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, I'm off to start dinner. If I don't get this chicken in the oven we won't be eating till 8:00 pm. Have a good day Jimbo. And thanks again for the discussion. I do feel it is an important one.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:01, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

There's still basic technical progress that could be made. A category like "LGBT actresses" should be assembled automatically from a Category:Actresses AND a Category:LGBT. This would reduce the issues involved in small categories. Wnt (talk) 21:34, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

There is a reasonable question regarding "defining characteristic", and I have to say that in this case it does not seem to be defining, although, I suppose, that might depend on the amount of weight and space given to her in an LGBT dictionary, and might be impacted by the amount of WEIGHT such a source might give the topic. This seems to me to be maybe closely similar to a question whether Marranos should be counted as Christians, and to have at this point many of the same potential problems and difficulties. It would not be unreasonable I think in this instance to err on the side of caution and not include such a category yet, although, I suppose, in time, like everything else, this might change as events warrant. John Carter (talk) 22:03, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
It could well be argued (not that I am) that since Foster spent most of her life not being known as gay, bisexual or lesbian, and her supposed statement was very much ambiguous, that it seems less likely for this to be a defining characteristic. However, at the moment the wording in the personal life section on top of the fact that there is nothing in the lead, makes me currently feel it is not considered a defining characteristic.--Mark Miller (talk) 22:28, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

In sum, finding the answer to the question whether or not J.F. came out as lesbian, bisexual or none of the previous is irrelevant for inclusion:

  • For lists this question needs not to be solved, and she can be included [8]
  • For categories this question needs not to be solved and she should not be included: her notability is not (or too marginally) depending on LGBT aspects of her (public) life — a.k.a. following the WP:COP#N recommendation.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 09:44, 1 June 2014 (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.

I think it's clear where the consensus lies.

Is this consensus challenged? Really, I don't think so. --Francis Schonken (talk) 04:39, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, Francis, that consensus is indeed challenged. You're using Jodie Foster, but that's a pretty bad example, since her coming out speech was so confusing for the world and the matter of which categories to place was the subject of a community wide RFC. So, yeah, very bad example, total edge case. I'm talking about tens of thousands of other biographies. I have never seen a "gay" biography where all aspects of their lives were not gay-tagged, as it were - e.g. I don't recall ever seeing a gay poet/musician who was tagged as a gay poet but not a gay musician, and if such edits were made I don't remember ever seeing those reverted. Most of my experience has been with women+cats or ethnic+ cats, but the same rule applies.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 05:25, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

cont'd

No problem if you want to challenge the consensus, you know the ropes --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:30, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Re. women+cats, ethnic+cats (& sexuality+cats, religion+cats): it is specifically discouraged to diffuse to such subcats following this incident, see WP:EGRS#General / no. 5.

Giving some examples on gendered musicians:

Gay novelist/poet: Erwin Mortier, only a single LGBT cat, is a counterexample that multiple cats referring to the person's activities would need to be sexualized. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:19, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Francis, I'm sorry but I strongly disagree with both your approach here (eg I Francis alone can determine consensus) and your conclusions. I am well aware of the diffusion rules around gendered/ethnic categories, probably moreso than most. Finding a single person whose LGBT cats aren't fully filled out is a bad way to prove a point, and I'm quite sure if I added LGBT people from Belgium and LGBT poets to his bio no-one would complain. The lived consensus - ignoring a single discussion on Jimbo's page and focusing on things are categorized in the real world - is much more complex than you are trying to enforce here, and we should align the policy with lived consensus and not with 'only those things which are defining' + 2 exceptions - which if actually applied to article space would result in hundreds of thousands of categories being removed.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 12:18, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
You're the only one challenging the consensus. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:34, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Francis you cannot use a talk page discussion about how to categorize a single individual and translate that into a proposal to change guidance. Also, as someone who is involved, you cannot properly judge consensus here - you are the only one arguing for this change. I've reverted your change since the occupational focus had longstanding consensus and reflects how cop#n is currently used. I would welcome a discussion of how to improve it and make a list of those characteristics for which we apply the 'relevant to their notability' test and which ones we do not. However just leaving it as 2 exceptions then everything else is cop#n is simply wrong. Your confusing style of argumentation, attempt to change multiple things all at once, and pasting of large swathes of text here has caused other editors to stay away.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 12:47, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

The case is simple:

  • There was a strong consensus to apply WP:COP#N without "only profession" limitation some 10 years ago when this became a guideline.
  • That consensus was at least silently continued for odd 9 years.
  • Somewhat over a year it was changed to imply "professions only", without discussion/consensus
  • Obiwankenobi claims silent consensus which is OK by me, until...
  • ...the silence is broken...
  • The new consensus may have its limitations (spin-out from a particular debate, m:The Wrong Version#Involving Jimbo, no formal closure, ...), nonetheless its application is much broader...
  • A consensus with limitations outdoes silent consensus, I don't think anyone is questioning that.
  • Again, let that not stop anyone from trying to find a new consensus, but until that happens, the guideline should reflect the current consensus.
  • Additionally: seeing the argumentation up till now in #Proposed language change to WP:COP#N below, my impression is that this is going nowhere. Wouldn't say WP:SNOW but close. Just one person eagerly trying to defeat the obvious. So, keep the discussion tag (I don't want to prevent anyone from presenting a decent rationale), but in the mean while remove the no-consensus insertion from the guideline, it is misleading. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:31, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
Francis that's not how consensus works. If youd like to take this to the third opinion board be my guest, or if you'd like to Work with me to formulate a neutral RFC we can do that too. What is obvious to you goes against thousands of categorizations that have gone uncontested. The insertion around 'occupation' had consensus since no-one opposed, and because it reflected current practice. You are now trying to edit this and other guidelines to reflect your ideal state, vs current practice - that's fine but it needs a strong consensus to do so, and so far you are an army of one. Please stop making changes to this guideline until others come along and support you. The proposed language I placed below aligns much closer to current practice so I think we should start there.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 12:39, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Re. "...I don't agree re LGBT": even Obiwankenobi finds it self-evident that WP:DEFINING applies to any LGBT people intersection category --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:06, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

No, Francis, you're misinterpreting. What isn't defining is the combination of "somehow associated with, but not a member of, the bloomsbury group" - and then you add LGBT to it. In any case the main reason I'm opposed to that category is that, even if it was trimmed down to just be "LGBT members of the Bloomsbury group", it would still fail WP:EGRS as a final rung category. If you want to change this guideline in the way you are suggesting, you need to get a strong consensus and a group of people who are willing to actually do the work required to comply with your new proposed guideline, which I would estimate would result in the removal of thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of people from various LGBT + job categories. Personally I think it's simply not worth the work, and it doesn't align with how people use these categories today.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:47, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
Category:Bloomsbury Group is not a professional category. Being associated with the Bloomsbury Group is not a professional category. Intersecting that with another non-professional category led you to talk about WP:DEFINING. What about this would be inapt for WP:COP#N in your view? --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:38, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

WP:DEFINING applies to all categories/categorizations including sensitive categories like Category:Atheists and Category:LGBT people. Not changing anything. Stating the obvious. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:18, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree it does apply to religion (and lack-of-religion like atheism), we should not tag people who just happen to be atheists even if they don't actively pursue this in their public lives, and this is already covered in WP:EGRS. However, I don't agree that it applies to LGBT categories - rather, the practice has been, as soon as someone has come out as publicly gay, they are tagged accordingly. If you want to argue this is a bad idea, fine, but you need actual people to agree with you that the language needs changing in the specific ways you're proposing - and the amount of work that would be required to go through and de-gay-tag thousands of biographies for whom being gay isn't that big of a deal in their public lives - well it would just lead to big edit wars and drama. Why?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:44, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
WP:DEFINING applies to sensitive categories/categorizations like Category:Atheists and Category:Freemasons would be a no-brainer then? --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:44, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
Freemasons seems to have had some dispute around it, and they seem to have settled on applying the "harder" test - e.g. DEFINING - for membership within. This is really case-by-case Francis, you can't make any broad statements. One distinction that seems important is whether the characteristic is intrinsic or extrinsic - e.g. is it something you chose, or is it something you are? You can't (really) choose your ethnicity, gender, sexuality, nationality, date of birth, etc, so those things we tend to categorize on regardless of whether they are defining. You can choose your job, which clubs you belong to, what you believe, what religion you follow, whether to become a freemason or not, etc - thus, for those sorts of things, jobs, beliefs, clubs, religions, we tend to apply the stricter DEFINING test. This sort of evolved naturally, but it's how categorization seems to work today and seems to be the rough consensus we've arrived at. You're trying to change that, but I don't think it's a good idea to extent "defining-test" to LGBT+(x) cats, such as LGBT writers - if we did so, we'd have to go through the LGBT writers category and remove everyone for whom being a "gay writer" is not defining - but it's quite hard to police such things, so why bother?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:55, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

WP:DEFINING applies to all categories/categorizations. There are no distinctions made in that guideline. It is a standard test, applied to any category including Category:People associated with the Bloomsbury Group if anyone would propose it (I don't). --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:13, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

DEFINING is MOSTLY, however, applied as follows: "Definingness is the test that is used to determine if a category should be created for a particular attribute of a topic." - in other words, DEFINING is used to decide whether a category should exist, or not. Once that category is created and accepted, there are many cases, such as those I've enumerated below, where everyone who qualifies is added, whether it is PERSONALLY defining for them or not. Also please stop out-denting, it makes the conversation extremely difficult to parse.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:47, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
What it is most used for is an unprovable subjective assumption. And even if it could be proved it has no relation to the current debate. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:41, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

This should work:

Apart from a limited number of categories for standard biographical details (for example year of birth, year of death and nationality)[under discussion] an article about a person should be categorized only by the reason(s) for the person's notability.

Bolding not intended for the guideline page, just to show that the definition of "standard biographical details" is perceived wider now (and can be discussed in the next section).

I outdent every time the discussion risks getting trapped in ancilliary topics (away from the bigger picture) --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:33, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I think because there seems to be confusion on this issue, we are much better of enumerated cases where "standard" categories are applied, and cases where they aren't. That's what the section below attempts to do. Your constant out-denting is also disruptive, in that it seems an attempt to highlight your own comments as somehow "more" essential and "less" ancillary. That's not the case, at all - you don't have a monopoly on the big picture.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:42, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
Sorry for the outdents then. --Francis Schonken (talk) 01:11, 19 June 2014 (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.

The discussion in this section is no longer active in order to avoid fragmentation of discussion. The discussion of the same topic is continued at #Proposed language change to WP:COP#N below --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:52, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

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