Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Reform

So, umm... What exactly is broken about CfD? Jafeluv (talk) 09:29, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

• Fair question. To my mind, what is broken about it, at the simplest level, is that it is disconnected from the wider community of ordinary editors. More information can be found here: Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion/Archive_2009#There_is_a_problem_at_WP:CfD. Agreeing on exactly what is wrong, or even that something is indeed wrong, has been a problem, and at this time, "Wikipedians who say CfD is broken" are a minority", when it comes to editors wiling to participate in extended discussions. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:51, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Do you have an idea of how to deal with that? "Disconnected from the wider community" to me sounds like you would like more participation at CFD, which would be great. If that's the case, though, we may be stuck with the saying You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. --Kbdank71 21:02, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I happen to disagree with the statement that Cfd "is disconnected from the wider community of ordinary editors". That is to say:

Every corner of Wikipedia has its regulars. The question is whether there are enough participants from other areas of interest on Wikipedia. And I think this is the case with Cfd. (At Tfd matters are worse, if you ask me.) I consider myself a wikignome, with special attention for templates and in lesser degree categories. I see a certain amount of non-regulars here. We have quite a few new and active editors here. True, some people are stuck in certain patterns, but that is only human. Afd has its sworn deletionists also. All in all, I am sure something positive will come out of this discussion. Debresser (talk) 16:51, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

My wife always calls me a natural taxonomist; I've always enjoyed classifications, categories, subject hierarchies...that's part of what brings me to CFD so frequently, and what led me to spend countless hours creating categories when they were first implemented in 2004 (many of which have since been renamed to unpack acronyms, change prepositions, etc., but what can you do...). There's a need for and value in pure information organization, and there are contributors who spend a lot of time on that and there are those who really aren't interested, except maybe when the categories they've created get evaluated. That there are disagreements as to how best to organize information should not be surprising. That it ever descends into name-calling, personal feuds, and crusades is disappointing and avoidable, but above all else unacceptable. Postdlf (talk) 17:24, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Money talks

So, where will the communication be facilitated? Or can we just CFD this now? --Kbdank71 13:28, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

No surprise here. A CfD admin regular suppressing the category is a wonderful way to facilitate communication. Alansohn (talk) 14:40, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Please, there is nothing to suppress. There have been complaints about CFD being broken for a very long time now. Are you seriously telling me that you needed a user category to begin communication about how to fix it? I don't believe that, but I'll play along for now. So, where will the communication be facilitated? --Kbdank71 16:37, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Please, start the threatened CfD, or even better make it a speedy delete. There's nothing like suppressing good faith efforts to deal with the problems to drum up more publicity and recognition of just how dysfunctionally CfD works (or doesn't work). I've offered nearly a dozen suggestions at WT:CAT, but all have been rather effectively ignored. Which behind-the-scenes method do you prefer for communication purposes re CfD? Alansohn (talk) 16:43, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

If I did, you would just whine at DRV, and I'll be honest, that has gotten very old. Since you've added "suppressing" to your talking points of the day, let me ask you this: what suppressing have I done? I merely asked where this communication would be facilitated, because I haven't seen any so far, and I don't believe you need a user category to facilitate it. I checked WT:CAT back to May, and aside from one discussion about "defining", which wasn't ignored, you haven't described why CFD was broken or how to fix it. It's possible I missed the dozen attempts you spoke of. If that is where the discussion will be, fine, I look forward to it. But if you want publicity and recognition, how about a post at the village pump? How about opening an RFC? Creating a category with the vague promise of facilitating communication isn't going to drum up publicity. --Kbdank71 19:03, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Then why threaten with the rather bullying and WP:POINTy "Or can we just CFD this now?". You may want to look before May for additional ignored recommendations, but the fact that there is no definition of "defining" ought to be the number one sign that CfD is broken. Alansohn (talk) 03:19, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

How about you stop your incessant complaining for once and facilitate communication like this category purports to do? Your non-stop bickering with me is just proving my original point in this thread. S Marshall says this page is as good as any, so please, discuss. What's broken, how to fix it? --Kbdank71 09:57, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

• I think a RFC is definitely where we're headed with this. But I think we need to achieve consensus between ourselves on how CFD could be improved, and then open the RFC, so there's a solution as well as a problem to discuss.

  I don't care where we talk. This page seems as good as any.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 01:14, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I do not find Kbdank71's attitude in this section overly constructive. I have noticed this before, whenever there is talk about changing something fundemental in Cfd. Anybody who has been involved in any project for a long time should welcome new brooms, because they can help him shake off the dust and sweep clean. Debresser (talk) 16:41, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

What's broken?

I think we are still stuck at "what's broken?", "is it really broken?"

• My conversation with Debresser at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#Aid_to_navigation.3F is suggestive that the problem is not real. I think this means that the problem is a problem with peoples expectations, not with "categorisation" as is done. Perhaps this is why some don't see a problem at all?
• As Sam said at the link above,

Categorization is seen as:

1. A tagging system that should be free-form and open to any verifiable way of organizing articles.
2. A way of grouping similar articles together to facilitate browsing.
3. An organized hierarchical system of article classification.
4. An indexing system for topics.

people are looking for different things. I think categories are doing #1 OK, and #2-4 really badly. Maybe Wikipedia:Outlines is a better way to do #2-4. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:31, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I personally find categories very usefull for #2 = grouping. I use categories to find related subjects.

Could you be more specific about how you think categorisation could achieve those things that you feel are lacking at present? Debresser (talk) 16:56, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

A few modest proposals

These were left at WT:CFD and made little progress, but are offered again as a starting point:

• 1) Define what is "defining", and establish objective standards for what meets the criteria, which will mean that it will be possible to circumvent the IHATEIT game by demonstrating that the clear standards have been met.
• 2) Eliminate those admins who alternate between voting as participants and casting supervotes as closing admins. Those with a clear inability to separate the two roles don't belong closing CfDs.
• 3) Create a measure of equivalence in deletion and recreation. Let's apply the same process that is used to prevent recreation of categories by preventing a second (and third, and fourth) bite at the apple to delete a category.
• 4) Add a notification that is displayed in each article where a category appears that the category is up for deletion. As it stands now, even regular editors who have used the category will only see the CfD notice if they happen to look at the category. Every other type of deletion discussion in Wikipedia -- article, image, template, redirect, etc. -- is marked by notification on the articles themselves where they are used.
• 5) Integrate CfD with AfD and other discussion areas to ensure that there is a broad audience that sees these discussions and participate, ending the cozy handful of biased individuals who currently rule the roost. Greater light shined on the process by increased participation from unbiased editors will help disinfect CfD's issues, as they largely have at AfD.
• 6) Start giving equal weight to arguments for retention and deletion. Where arguments are based on legitimate interpretations of Wikipedia policy and admins need to concoct arguments that one side is "better" than the other, you're looking at worst at a "no consensus". Some intellectual honesty in doing so would help turn admins from imposing well-honed biases and into neutral arbiters.
• 7) Accept the fact that deletion is not the solution to all problems and start finding ways to consider less disruptive means to solve problems. The "shoot the horse" solution with surnames that dumped 14,000 articles into the parent is a cardinal example of this problem. Unfortunately, the finely-tuned machine for deleting categories from articles has no corresponding means to undo the damage. This can also be helped by avoiding the zeal in near instantaneous deleting categories, especially in contentious closes where there might be legitimate arguments to overturn the decision or restructure the category before deletion.
• 8) Grant primacy to policies and guidelines set by the broader Wikipedia community. Deciding that guidelines on article naming and use of dashes can be ignored only exacerbates the number of CfDs where these issues are raised repeatedly by those who want to disregard broader policies.
• 9) End the excuse of "makes a better list" as an excuse for deletion. This one is used disturbingly often and without any other policy-based justification, despite the fact that ALL categories would be better served as lists, which can have redliinks, sources, be sorted, have explanations, be split into sections, etc. A delete argument on this basis that doesn't explain why the category under discussion should be deleted and kept as a list despite the fact that the argument applies to every other category that exists, has no place at CfD.

Any thoughts? Alansohn (talk) 22:21, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

1) We already began a discussion here, which I am still waiting for you to continue if you have anything to add. To a large extent though, the common meaning of the word is where all discussions begin, and then it's a matter of case-by-case application. We might be able to put together a general list of presumptively defining kinds of characteristics or traits, so please give your suggestions when you resume the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Categorization. And as I've said to you on many occasions, invoking IHATEIT is simply disruptive in this context, because that recognized fallacy goes to an editor's bias against subject matter; it's not relevant to any "bias" as to how content about that subject matter should be organized (if we can even call organization preferences "biases"). Your invocations of it invariably serve to trivialize the comments of those you disagree with, and are never constructive, but only provoke, so please refrain.

2) If by this you mean to prevent admins who ever participate in any CFDs from ever closing other CFDs in which they have not participated, I don't see how that is workable or a solution to any real problem. Looked at from the other perspective, that would effectively hamstring closing admins' ability to either defend categories they themselves had created or discuss renaming or deletion of categories that affected articles they worked on. Why anyone would then want to close CFDs and give up the ability to participate, I don't know. AFD does not forbid admins from closing AFDs who ever participate in other AFDs; I don't see the need for a special rule here.

3) Repeated CFD relistings within a short period of time are already disfavored, except perhaps where the previous CFDs resulted in no consensus. I think we can trust the community to judge whether it's time for another discussion or not.

4) Sounds like a mess in practice, but I'm open to suggestions as to how it could function; perhaps a talk page notification? Given the impact that would have on articles generally, that should at any rate be proposed in a much wider forum. But contributors interested in particular categories should watchlist those categories.

5) Such hostile comments ("cozy handful of biased individuals") violate the spirit of WP:NPA, if not the letter; you can't avoid this just by not naming names when it's clear with whom you have had disputes. A welcome proposal would be to resolve not to treat CFD as a battleground, and not to treat those with different views of how to build the encyclopedia as biased enemies.

6) Not all arguments are created equal, nor should it be a mere vote count.

7) Listifying is often seen as a good solution to the deletion of a category so as to preserve its information. See #9. CFD participants are always able to propose solutions.

8) My only opinion on the dash issue is that it seems ill-advised to use non-standard characters in category names. On naming more generally, categories and articles function differently (particularly regarding redirects and disambiguation issues with categories), so there is no reason to expect complete uniformity.

9) This your own stubborn straw man, not an accurate characterization of any actual argument and not representative of any consensus-held position. Considering the number of times this has been explained to you in great detail, and the lack of reflection of this in any of your comments on this point, it just seems tendentious and disruptive. Postdlf (talk) 17:22, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks for explaining your reasoning, Alansohn. Some opinions:

2) How do you propose this should be done? From what I've seen, we need more admins closing CfDs to keep up with the backlog (this is related to the more general problem low participation, I guess).

3) I'm not sure what you mean. Are you proposing that recreations of previously deleted categories should be included in CfD (something like this nomination)? Or are you saying that premature re-nominations need to be more systematically speedily kept, much like recreations are speedily deleted?

4) "Every other type of deletion discussion in Wikipedia -- article, image, template, redirect, etc. -- is marked by notification on the articles themselves where they are used." – This is true for images and templates, but there's no notification for articles or redirects in the articles that link to them. A notification message for categories could be considered. It might also help bring more people to CfD (although I doubt it would make a big difference since I don't see TfD or FfD swarming with participants). If you want to add the notification in the category box, though, I think that would require changes to the software. Would it be a good idea to make it obligatory for the nominator to notify the creator of the category?

5) I definitely agree that greater participation at CfD would be only a good thing. But "integrate with AfD"? How would that work? The main AfD page is sizable as it is, and adding CfD instructions and nominations would make it even less accessible, not to mention the speedy nominations.

8) Agreed in principle, and I think that the recent decision to use dashes in article names is a step in the right direction. Note that the second sentence of WP:NCCAT states that standard article naming conventions do apply for categories (for some reason it's not mentioned in the "General conventions" paragraph, though). Do you have an example of a guideline that's regularly ignored in CfD in favour of some local convention? Jafeluv (talk) 12:02, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Addendum to #5: Maybe adding CfD discussions to the deletion sorting pages on a regular basis could help bring more interested people to the discussion? Those pages are already used for listing related AfDs, and I don't think any big changes would be needed to include CfDs there. Jafeluv (talk) 12:12, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

2) I disagree. If we were to separate the closing editors from those participating in discussions, then we would really have "disconnected from the wider community of ordinary editors". And they would inevitable "lose touch". With all kinds of dire consequences. Debresser (talk) 16:59, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

2) We indeed need more closing admins. I have the same problem with templates. The problem is that many templates are fully protected, and the same with deletion (including renaming and merging) of categories. Basically a non-admin can not spread out his wings in Wikipedia. Debresser (talk) 17:04, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Ideas

a forum for the discussion of new categories

2010_July_8#Category:People_of_the_Sydney_Northern_Beaches

I see that you were recently creating an extended category substructure, dividing the large Category:People from Sydney. Dividing up the large category is not such a bad idea, but doing so by areas may not be the best way to go. Did you consider dividing on decade of birth, or on profession/reason for notability? Creating subcategories is important, but I think it would be better done if discussed before implementation. Does a suitable forum for categorisation development exist? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:53, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Is there, or should there be, a forum for the discussion of new categories? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:00, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Software checks on new categories

Perhaps category creation should balk when non-English words are included and there is no matching article (redirects no counting). --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:07, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Automatic (bot) notification of the category creator when the category is listed at CfD?

A small case of auto-notifications. See Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion#Automatic_.28bot.29_notification_of_the_category_creator_when_the_category_is_listed_at_CfD.3F. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:28, 24 October 2010 (UTC)