The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: delete/rename/merge per nom. Kbdank71 13:42, 8 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Category:Drug lords ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Category:Drug lords by nationality ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Propose merging Category:American drug lords to Category:American drug traffickers

Propose merging Category:Colombian drug lords to Category:Colombian drug traffickers

Propose merging Category:Dutch drug lords to Category:Dutch drug traffickers

Propose merging Category:Irish drug lords to Category:Irish drug traffickers

Propose merging Category:Mexican drug lords to Category:Mexican drug traffickers

Propose renaming Category:Peruvian drug lords to Category:Peruvian drug traffickers

Propose merging Category:Turkish drug lords to Category:Turkish drug traffickers

Nominator's rationale: Delete/Merge/Rename as needed. Although it has not closed yet, it seems apparent from the discussion so far that the New Zealand drug lords category is going to be merged to its corresponding traffickers category. The rest of "drug lord" category set should be dismantled for the same reasons, specifically as I said in the earlier CFD: there is no objective definition as to what distinguishes a drug "trafficker" from a drug "lord" (or a drug "kingpin" or a "major player in the drug trade" or any of the other words and phrases that are used in the popular press). "Drug lord" is overly sensationalistic. Otto4711 ( talk) 23:47, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Support – per nom. 'Trafficker' is a sufficient description; no need for an aristocracy (although in the UK we had a drug Czar at one point, an anti-lord on the side of Law and Order). Occuli ( talk) 09:08, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Support per nom. -- Richhoncho ( talk) 20:21, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Support merge. I created some of these awhile ago to flesh out the large Category:Drug lords into nationalities. It didn't even cross my mind that the terminology was inappropriate, but of course it clearly is. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:02, 4 May 2009 (UTC) reply

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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The result of the discussion was: delete. Kbdank71 13:45, 8 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Category:Deceased stand-up comedians ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Nominator's rationale: Delete. We don't categorize people by the intersection of occupation and dead or alive status. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:40, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Delete. Past discussions have shown that these categories are unnecessary. — Σ xplicit 23:56, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Delete per nom. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 00:00, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Delete per nom. Occuli ( talk) 08:10, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Delete - Don't want to start seeing a "deceased x" category system, with x being any profession. VegaDark ( talk) 14:55, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Delete The supposed precedents don't convince me. I have no reason to believe that people would not want to find deceased comedians, but there has to be a better way of finding an intersection between Category:Dead people and Category:Stand-up comedians (or any other category that exists in Wikipedia). I don't believe that this is the best way to do this and there needs to be a more generic solution to this issue. Alansohn ( talk) 02:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• 'Comment. This category is currently orphaned. If kept, it should be parented in Category:Stand-up comedians, but if deleted a check should be made first to ensure that the 6 articles there are in Category:Stand-up comedians or one of its sub-cats by country. --14:25, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
• Delete. Deceased comedians don't do stand up! -- Richhoncho ( talk) 14:31, 3 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Satirical comment. Oh hell! I just came across a newspaper article that refers to Mitch Hedberg as a "late stand-up comedian". Because this status is verifiable through a reliable source, this means it's defining and should be categorized, right? Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 09:40, 4 May 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Non-satirical response I have no idea who else this disruptive WP:POINT and personal attack was addressed to as an insult, but as indicated above, I do believe that the combination is defining. My justification for deletion is that there have to be better ways to organize the combination of Category:Dead people and Category:Stand-up comedians (or any other category in Wikipedia) so as to allow navigation through this and all other categories. If this attempt at mockery belongs anywhere, there are more than enough Wikipedia pages labeled as "humor" that could have been appropriate places for this thinly-veiled personal attack; There's no reason it belongs at CfD, especially coming from an admin. Alansohn ( talk) 13:34, 4 May 2009 (UTC) reply

• The only person Good Olfactory could have been having a personal attack at was himself, who nominated the category in the first place. He was, I take it, responding to my play on words. WP doesn't have to be without humor all the time, only in the relevant places. I'll put the "dead-pan comedians" joke back in the box, if you'll accept no personal attack was ever intended. Thanks. -- Richhoncho ( talk) 14:07, 4 May 2009 (UTC) reply

• Category:Unpunctual stand-up comedians surely? Occuli ( talk) 20:49, 4 May 2009 (UTC) reply

• "Thanks folks! I'll be here for all eternity!" I guess we can just file this under "bad jokes that were poorly understood". Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:00, 4 May 2009 (UTC) reply

• Category:Dead people, as you can see just by looking at it, isn't directly applied to individual people, but is merely a parent for "year of death" and "manner of death" categories. We never have done, and shouldn't start doing now, "dead people within a particular occupation" categories — there's no need to "better organize" a combination of categories that doesn't actually exist at any level of organization in the first place. Delete. Bearcat ( talk) 18:28, 5 May 2009 (UTC) reply

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The result of the discussion was: delete. Kbdank71 13:46, 8 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Suggest merging Category:Archvillains to Category:Supervillains

Nominator's rationale: Merge. It is technically the same. Several characters listed as Archvillains are already listed as Supervillains. The Supervillains category is already divided into several sub-categories depending on the villain's type or genre. Lord Opeth ( talk) 23:13, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Don't supervillains have superpowers? -- 24.13.246.116 ( talk) 23:28, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Delete, no merge - the contents of the archvillains category do not appear to be supervillains. Rather, they are arch-enemies of various and sundry fictional characters. Per longstanding consensus we don't categorize fictional characters as "villains" (supervillains being the exception reflecting the notion that "supervillain" is an occupation). Otto4711 ( talk) 23:36, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Delete - partly redundant, but partly also due to the vagueness of the category. I agree that 'villains' categories should generally be avoided. Robofish ( talk) 05:54, 4 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Delete cannot define what's in and what's out. Carlossuarez46 ( talk) 19:19, 5 May 2009 (UTC) reply

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The result of the discussion was: "Speedy" rename. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:39, 7 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Propose renaming Category:Tiki Culture to Category:Tiki culture

Nominator's rationale: Rename. Capitalization. Trivialist ( talk) 23:11, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• This can be taken to Speedy Renaming. Cgingold ( talk) 02:46, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Support rename given title of parent article. Alansohn ( talk) 02:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC) reply

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The result of the discussion was: rename. Kbdank71 13:46, 8 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Propose renaming Category:Dairy Farm to Category:Dairy Farm International Holdings

Nominator's rationale: Rename. To match main article Dairy Farm International Holdings. The current name is a shortened version of the real name and is, of course, somewhat ambiguous. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:08, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Support to match title of parent article. Alansohn ( talk) 16:58, 6 May 2009 (UTC) reply

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The result of the discussion was: rename. Kbdank71 13:46, 8 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Propose renaming Category:Darwin to Category:Darwin, Northern Territory

Nominator's rationale: Rename. To match the main article, Darwin, Northern Territory. Darwin alone is ambiguous. If we narrow our consideration to only placenames, the primary placename meaning of "Darwin" is probably the city in the Northern Territory. But, of course, categories are not limited to placenames, and "Darwin" is also a scientific unit, a spacecraft, an operating system, an asteroid, etc., (not to mention the name of a prominent family) so the ambiguity should be resolved. The same reasons are why the article uses the name it does. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:59, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Merge for the reasons given. DGG ( talk) 01:47, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Rename per nom. Occuli ( talk) 08:12, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Support rename to match title of parent article. Alansohn ( talk) 02:20, 3 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Support rename Mainly due to ambiguity with Charles Darwin. Orderinchaos 11:47, 3 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Support rename per nom Satu Suro 12:55, 3 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Rename per nom and per match-to-article-title. Bearcat ( talk) 18:36, 5 May 2009 (UTC) reply

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The result of the discussion was: merge. Kbdank71 13:47, 8 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Suggest merging Category:German-Israeli people to Category:Israelis of German descent

Nominator's rationale: Merge. Duplicate categories. Nominated category is brand new; target category is older and conforms with the format of other subcategories of Category:Israeli people by ethnic or national origin. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:48, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Delete another ethnic category that is not needed, and are these people descended from people who would have been in Germany's borders today, interbellum, pre-1918, any time we please without specifying? Does it include Austrians? Or only Ostmarkians (Austria 1938-45)? Does it include Swiss Germans? And of course, how "German" must you be to be "of German descent". Arbitrary inclusion criteria as usual for ethnic categories. Further indications of its uselessness.... Carlossuarez46 ( talk) 23:19, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Here in Wikipedia we don't make the decision as to descent based on analyzing borders or some arbitrary percentage of "German" in one's ancestry or in their bloodstream; we use self-descriptions and other descriptions of the individuals in question in reliable and verifiable sources to determine such categorization. This process not only works well for every racial, ethnic, nationality, religion and sexual preference description or category in Wikipedia, it is what the bedrock concept of verifiability is all about. Setting percentages and analyzing ancestry charts or blood tests would be the very definition of original research. Alansohn ( talk) 02:35, 3 May 2009 (UTC) reply
    • It's subjective to depend on self-descriptions, which can be (a) wrong (a certain US Secretary of State only found out about her "Jewish descent" when her nomination was being contemplated), or (b) based on entirely different standards from one person to the next (ethnicity in Brazil, Mexico, and much of Latin America lately has been dominated by trumpeting how much Iberian and Indigenous ancestry you have and minimizing or denying any Asian or African), so someone with 25% or even 50% African ancestry in Mexico will often not admit (claim?) African ancestry but in the US they may well with considerably less than 25%, so Foos of African descent will have different meanings among different Foos and probably among people in the same Foo. It's just pure subjectivity. We don't put people into Category:United States Senators just because they claim in reliable sources to be elected to that office (see Al Franken). Carlossuarez46 ( talk) 19:27, 5 May 2009 (UTC) reply
    • "It's subjective to depend on self-descriptions" !?!? This oft-repeated claim is based on a complete and fundamental misunderstanding and misinterpretation of Wikipedia policy, all the more disturbing in that it is so frequently presented as a justification for deletion of similar categories by an admin who has been granted the authority to close these discussions. We do not follow the Nuremberg Laws, as you have proposed, as a method of determining racial, ethnic, national origin or sexual preference, and any attempt to do so violates WP:NOR. All information about individuals in Wikipedia is based on self-descriptions and other descriptions in reliable and verifiable sources, the bedrock foundation of Wikipedia policy. The real and imaginary cases you offer present borderline cases that are never a valid argument for deletion. If information about an individual is found to be incorrect, the solution is to correct it, not to deny that the system of categorization exists. Alansohn ( talk) 17:06, 6 May 2009 (UTC) reply
      • Are you really as angry as you sound, or is this meant to be taken as just sarcasm? Postdlf ( talk) 21:39, 6 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Merge per nom. Carlossuarez46 raises points about German borders and ethnicity that could be addressed at the level of Category:People of German descent rather than here. As long as Category:People of German descent exists, so should Category:Israelis of German descent, particularly given the unique historical link between Germany and the post-war creation of the Jewish state. Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 23:37, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Remain: why is this nice category useless? -- Cmaric ( talk) 06:01, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply

• Merge per nom. (But Swiss Germans have been German-speaking Swiss people for the last 600 years and are very definitely not German.) Occuli ( talk) 08:19, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Merge we merely have two redundant categories here. PasswordUsername ( talk) 09:56, 3 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Merge via category redirect, I'm sure there will future instances.
  -- William Allen Simpson ( talk) 20:43, 6 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Merge per Shawn in Montreal's well-thought comments, though I agree with Carlossuarez46's concerns regarding categorizing ethnicities. Postdlf ( talk) 21:39, 6 May 2009 (UTC) reply

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The result of the discussion was: rename. Kbdank71 13:48, 8 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Propose renaming Category:Australian Infantry to Category:Infantry units and formations of Australia

Nominator's rationale: Rename. Standard naming convention within WPMILHIST category structure. Buckshot06( prof) 21:32, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Support (as the category's creator, from memory). What Buckshot proposes is the correct name for this category. Nick-D ( talk) 01:55, 2 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Support Reads better Orderinchaos 11:46, 3 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• rename per nom to match the category contents and the outside parent Hmains ( talk) 03:07, 5 May 2009 (UTC) reply

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The result of the discussion was: withdrawn. Kbdank71 15:32, 6 May 2009 (UTC) reply

:Suggest merging Category:Songs written by John Lennon to Category:John Lennon songs

• Not merge as Category:Songs written by XXX is much clearer than the ambiguous 'XXX songs' (which is being used to house 'songs recorded by XXX'). If Lennon did write some songs that he did not record, then the category inclusion is wrong. Occuli ( talk) 21:25, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Oppose merge per Occuli. " Stand By Me" is a John Lennon song, but he didn't write it. Grutness... wha? 23:04, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
  • So is it SOP that every song written by and sung by John Lennon gets categorized both times? If so, I'll withdraw my nomination. Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 23:08, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Oppose merge because John Lennon didn't record all his songs. And I disagree with Occuli, cover versions without separate articles are not categorized by every cover artist - beacuse somewhere, sometime nearly all artists have performed "Happy Birthday" and in the US, the "Star Spangled Banner" - does everyone who bellies up to the mic at a sporting event in the US get the national anthem categorized as "their" song. Hardly. Carlossuarez46 ( talk) 23:21, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
  • • WITHDRAW per WP:SNOW. I do still think it would be better if the categories could be clarified in some way so that the the vast majority of Lennon's songs do not need to categorized both times, as seems to be the case now, but a merge doesn't appear to be the way to do it. Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 23:31, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• To Carlossuarez46. How then is it decided which of the 3000+ XXX who recorded Yesterday (song) is granted an 'XXX songs' category? Do Chet Atkins and Joan Baez stand out as the obvious non-Liverpudlian contenders or is there something alphabetical developing? Or My Way (song) – this is put in Frank Sinatra songs, Elvis Presley songs, Paul Anka songs, Nina Hagen songs, Nina Simone songs and Shirley Bassey songs. Can I add Sid Vicious, who did it very much his way? (This category is an obvious magnet for overcategorisation and mega-clutter, unlike say eponymous singer categories.) Occuli ( talk) 08:39, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply

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The result of the discussion was: no consensus, even after the relisting. Kbdank71 14:03, 8 May 2009 (UTC) reply

 Administrator note After reading the above [below], it is clear that there is no consensus to delete these articles. However, there have been some suggestions regarding renaming, splitting or merging which could reach consensus, so I am relisting this discussion in order to encourage more discussion regarding those options.-- Aervanath ( talk) 05:59, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Category:Victims of political repression ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  
• Category:Victims of political repression by country
• Category:Victims of American political repression
• Category:Victims of British political repression
• Category:Victims of Communist repressions in China
• Category:Victims of Nationalist repressions in China
• Category:Victims of political repression in the Republic of the Congo
• Category:Victims of French political repressions
• Category:Victims of Nazi German repressions
• Category:Victims of political repression in Fascist Italy
• Category:Victims of North Korean political repressions
• Category:Victims of South Korean political repressions
• Category:Victims of Pakistani political repression
• Category:Victims of Communist repressions in Poland 1939-1989
• Category:Victims of Russian political repressions
• Category:Victims of Apartheid repressions in South Africa
• Category:Victims of Nationalist repressions in Spain
• Category:Victims of Soviet repressions
• Category:Victims of political repression in Taiwan
• Category:Victims of political repression in Uruguay
• Category:Victims of political repressions in Communist Yugoslavia

Nominator's rationale: Delete. This category and its subcategories are too vague, too subjective. If the word 'victims' is given its widest meaning, then every single person who lived within the influence of a repressive political presence can be included. If the phrase 'political repression' is given its widest latitude, then laws judged as repressive can be included, making every citizen of that country a victim. This category and its subcategories appear to me to be magnets for POV-pushers, and potential dustbins for lazy editing. Binksternet ( talk) 19:45, 21 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Delete per nom. Kittybrewster ☎ 20:38, 21 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Keep but consider renaming to standarize. Those categories are badly needed, and yes, they may include a lot of people. So what? So do many other categories. Note that in many cases those categories have more refined subcategories. One thing that I think we may want to clarify and standarize is whther the word "political" should be included, or removed in the above categories. Is political repression the same as repression? As "Repression" is a disambig, and only "political repression" makes sense out of the available choices, I think that the answer is yes - so I'd suggest removing the word "political" from the above categories. Further, we need to standarize the grammar: we have "victims of [country-name] repression" and "victims of repression in [country-name]". Which is better? I think we prefer "in [country name]". Also, we need to stanndarize singular "repression" vs "repressions". I also suggest standarizing to singular per main article ("political repression"). -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:42, 21 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Support working out consistent naming guidelines. Διγουρεν _{Εμπρος!} 05:49, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Keep. The nominator's rationale boils down to "We can't decide inclusion because the criteria are nuanced and context-rich!" That's exactly the thing: we don't have to. Instead of having to do WP:OR, we have sources. Historians have done a whole lot of research on all of these topics, and written about it. Διγουρεν _{Εμπρος!} 20:53, 21 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Comment. I would instead characterize my rationale as "We can't decide inclusion because the criteria are vague and open to to subjective interpretation." I'm not worried about the historians and cited sources, I'm worried about the potential for edit wars and the lazy slapping-on of a label where subtle nuance or polarized expert opinion doesn't support the hard label. What happens if one cited source says the person was a common criminal who violated a law of the land, and another says the person was a revolutionary who was martyred for a cause? What category is that? Let's move forward into categories that have more precision. Binksternet ( talk) 22:27, 21 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Everything in life is subject to subjective interpretation, with the exception of pure mathematics. That doesn't mean it is unfit to be discussed in Wikipedia. The fundamental policies of WP:RS and WP:NPOV apply in these categories as everywhere.

In other words: the trick is to let the expert researchers do the dirty work; then Wikipedians won't have to decide who is or who isn't a victim -- they can refer to expert opinion. And scholarly consensus is what any self-respecting encyclopædia reports. Διγουρεν _{Εμπρος!} 05:48, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Keep. Vague??? It is enough to look at Category:Victims_of_Soviet_repressions to see that it includes a hundred pages for people who were indeed victims of Soviet political repressions - per numerous sources (no modern scholarly source ever questioned them to be victims of repressions, like extrajudicial execution, etc.). Biophys ( talk) 21:04, 21 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Comment. So, is it impossible to replace the vague categories for ones that are more precise? I think it is possible. Here's an example: General Vladimir Viktorovich Sakharov could be placed into the notional category of Category:People shot by Bolsheviks, or something similar. Nobody could possibly argue that point because of its specificity. Binksternet ( talk) 22:18, 21 April 2009 (UTC) reply

That is precisely what we must avoid. "People shot by Bolsheviks" is a self-invented category. How about "People drawn by Bolsheviks" or "People shot by Cheka" (many Bolsheviks criticized Cheka for atrocities, so why should we blame them?). On the other hand, "Victims of political repressions" is a well established terminology. Biophys ( talk) 22:39, 21 April 2009 (UTC) reply

What is a "self-invented category"? And why would any category be judged except on its own merits? Binksternet ( talk) 02:52, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply

This is very simple. Terminology like "victims of political repressions" is widely used in literature, whereas "People shot by Bolsheviks" is an invention by a wikipedian ( WP:OR). Biophys ( talk) 03:50, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply

If you limited the categories on WP to ones "used in literature", there would be a massive cutback of long-standing cats. I see no reason why a perfectly good category should be thrown out because it was invented by a wiki editor. If it makes sense, if it neatly classifies, it stands on its own. My throwaway example about Bolsheviks that you seem to be focusing on could, of course, be created as anything you like; perhaps you'd be happier with Category:Executions carried out by Bolsheviks, or Category:Bolshevik killings, or whatever. Binksternet ( talk) 11:38, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Yes, we must stick as close as possible to categories that are widely "used in literature" to avoid WP:OR. Otherwise, people will indeed make something like Category:Bolshevik killings. Biophys ( talk) 22:58, 25 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Delete per nominator's argumentation. An unnecessary, vague and POV-pushing template. Offliner ( talk) 21:07, 21 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Move to strike the above comment from record as vague genericism unapplicable to the discussion at hand. We're at CfD, not TfD. Διγουρεν _{Εμπρος!} 05:52, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply

It's clear to me that Offliner was responding to this exact cfd, and typed 'template' by mistake. The opinion presented here is valid. Binksternet ( talk) 11:38, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Yes, it was just a simple typo. Sorry about that. Offliner ( talk) 21:40, 24 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Keep. Let reliable published sources determine whether an individual should be included into the relevant category. Victims of Nazi repression, that is easy. Victims of British political repression, more difficult. But either way, each individual should be treated on a case by case basis on the relevant talk page. Don't see any evidence that this approach has caused endemic edit wars in the past. Martintg ( talk) 22:52, 21 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Keep Valid categories. The individual article talk pages are the place to discuss what goes here. There are enough utterly unambiguous ones to justify the categories. DGG ( talk) 23:17, 21 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Keep - "victim" and "political repression" are terms routinely used by reliable sources. You do realise you're suggesting we delete Category:People who died in Nazi concentration camps and Category:Great Purge victims, right? Nothing "vague" or "subjective" about those, is there? To be fair, we can set up more rigorous inclusion criteria, but deletion is hardly the answer. - Biruitorul ^Talk 00:14, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Comment. Those categories are not ones I propose deleting, though I recommend a renaming to make 'victims' be 'deaths' for the Great Purge cat. The low-ranking Soviet officers who suddenly had no role models and were pushed into higher-profile positions before their time... these people could be called victims, in a sense. The Nazi category is perfect as is, no need to delete it or adjust it. I don't understand why you would see the current cfd as touching it. Binksternet ( talk) 02:49, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Delete per nom. A person may be described by some biographers as a victim of political repression, and by others as a common criminal. As an encyclopedia, we need to categorize people by objective means. — Malik Shabazz ( talk · contribs) 02:16, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Comment: You certainly can. By your rationale, we could go ahead and delete Category:Victims of Nazi German repressions. Because not everything is as extreme does not mean that it did not happen or should not be listed here. Every individual listed in these categories can have his or her history examined and srutinized, although – per nominator – POV-pushing is inevitable here. That's life, though, and the solution is not to just throw out the baby with the bath water. PasswordUsername ( talk) 02:28, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply
    • Yep. The victims of Nazi repression are listed above as well. — Malik Shabazz ( talk · contribs) 03:03, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Keep - You can't silence the victims. This is about political repression. It happened. We document it. PasswordUsername ( talk) 02:28, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Comment: I'm not trying to silence anybody. I'm trying to make clear a foggy issue. Very different motive than you impute. Binksternet ( talk) 03:37, 23 April 2009 (UTC) reply
    • I was not mentioning you specifically – but for what it's worth, I'll note that categories such as, for example, Category:Victims of Soviet repressions have been around with us for years. Category:Victims of American political repression was recently created and expanded. You then suggested that we split the articles into subcategories since you were uncomfortable with the category, which I did. Now you're suddenly arguing for the deletion of the entire victims of repression category. PasswordUsername ( talk) 10:34, 23 April 2009 (UTC) reply
      • A category being around for years is not a defense; it can be wrong for all those years, or events can supersede it, making it less apt than it was at its start. Yes, you have correctly summed up the history of my ambivalence about the category, which I first encountered at the American cat. Splitting it was under discussion, but once I began seeing the connections to other cats, it didn't seem to me to be the solution. I'm not in favor of deleting the very accurate subcategories, I'm in favor of deleting this unspecific umbrella category and its country cousins. Binksternet ( talk) 16:33, 23 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Delete per nom and Mailk. Many prisoners claim to be the victim of political repression; is Assata Shakur a victim of political repression or a cop killer? One can debate it, but sources differ and I'd rather not to have such subjective categories around which can violate WP:BLP.-- TM 04:21, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Comment: what a prisoner claims about himself or herself is somewhat irrelevant, falling under WP:SELFPUB. What matters is what researchers say. Διγουρεν _{Εμπρος!} 05:54, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply

And researchers fundamentally disagree on a great number of people. Lumping them together in such a way is unhelpful and incredibly POV.-- TM 17:01, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Speedy close as failed nom. A whole bunch of different unrelated cats is dumped together for a summary delete? No way. If necessary, rename/amend/clarify one by one. NVO ( talk) 15:22, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Comment: They're obviously related very well – at least as far as all are categorized by nation as victims of political repression. They're members of the same supercategory. If you have issues pertinent to some of the categories but not others, you are free to discuss them here and vote on each individual subcategory here as well. It can be discussed here too. PasswordUsername ( talk) 20:03, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Delete, unless some objective criteria can be found for inclusion.   Will Beback  talk  20:06, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Strong delete all. These categories are not amenable to an objective definition, because one person's political repression is another person's example of the state taking proportionate measures to defend itself against people who want to disrupt society ... and the result is endless scope for edit-warring. It is much better to categorise by objective measures, such as "people imprisoned by", "people executed by" etc.
  One editor above mentioned Category:Victims of Nazi German repressions, apparently as a illustration of the folly of this nomination, but I think that category is an excellent illustration of the folly of this type of category. It has well-specified sub-categories (e.g. Category:People killed by the Third Reich) which do have objective tests for inclusion and should be kept, but this parent category is so vague that it could include every citizen of Germany in the 1930s. Similarly, Category:Victims of British political repression could reasonably include everyone in Ireland from 1169 to at least 1922, and I'm sure that there are plenty of reliable sources to back up such a claim. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 23:26, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply

If "there are plenty of reliable sources to back up such a claim", then what's the problem? No one disputed victims of Soviet repressions to be such. There are other better categories? Please suggest them, let's discuss and rename. Simply deleting all these categories would make a significant damage. Biophys ( talk) 03:46, 24 April 2009 (UTC) reply

It woukd be quite easy to find reliable sources denying that Britain's benign rule in Ireland ever involved political repression, and which would justify us emptying the category. Similarly, there are reliable sources which describe hundreds of years of repression, and if we follow them , then we get a bot to add the category to everyone born in Ireland, which would be pretty useless. That's why these categories are useless: we can get reliable sources pointing to two polar opposite approaches, because the concept of "political repression" is a POV one. --- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 23:37, 25 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• What you really seem to be saying is that these categories be renamed or split from "Victims of Xxxxx repressions" into "People imprisoned by" and "People executed by" categories. I have no objection to this, since for example, most people in Category:Victims of Soviet repressions have either been killed or imprisoned by the Soviet regime. Given the number of categories and volume of entries, deletion would not be an optimal solution when a rename would do. Martintg ( talk) 00:07, 23 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Your suggested solution could work, especially for the categories that are vigorously populated. Splitting 'victims of ... repression' into people 'imprisoned by' and 'killed by' could obtain a greater degree of precision. Binksternet ( talk) 03:37, 23 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Indeed, however it is not 100% ideal either. Marrying a Jew in Nazi Germany was a criminal offense which could earn a person time in jail. Is that repression or upholding the rule of law? Should that person be in a category "People imprisoned by" along side some common criminal? Martintg ( talk) 05:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC) reply

This only shows why current categories must be kept. Many victims were imprisoned and killed. Some died from malnutrition in Gulag or during the Holodomor. They were "victims of repressions" by all counts - per sources. Were they killed? That is something arbitrary. Biophys ( talk) 03:52, 24 April 2009 (UTC) reply

So for consistency, do you support adding to Category:Victims of British political repression everyone who died in the Great Famine or emigrated in search of food? Most of the modern sources agree that the potato famine was so devastating largely because of political policies pursued by the British government. This important: unless we can be reasonably sure that these two famines will be treated consistently, then you are simply illustrating the inherently POV nature of these categories. - BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 00:54, 26 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Last year we deleted Category:Political prisoners because it had similar problems to these categories. Do we have sources for each of these articles that say, in fairly direct terms, that they were victims of political repression? Is there, in every case, a clear distinction between political repression and racial or relgious repression.   Will Beback  talk  04:06, 24 April 2009 (UTC) reply

I would not mind removing word "political" and renaming all of them simply as "Victims of repression". As about sourcing, let's simply take a look at the first (in alphabet order) article in Category:Victims of Soviet repressions (note - there is no word "political" and rightly so): Memed Abashidze - he was officially a victim of Soviet repressions ("repressii" in Russian), and he was officially "Rehabilitated", which means: "the restoration of a person who was criminally prosecuted without due basis, to the state of acquittal or being "not guilty". Any concerns about the category? No one has an obligation to verify if all articles on the subject are properly sourced. We must only make sure that the category is reasonable. A disputed usage of a category in several articles does not mean the entire category should be deleted Biophys ( talk) 21:37, 24 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Very Emphatic Keep- an absolutely essential category, easily documentable, essentially neutral, even if some jackass would surely eventually apply it to say, David Duke. Galassi ( talk) 23:03, 24 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Note to closing administrator. Some creators of these categories were not notified about this deletion discussion. Biophys ( talk) 21:44, 24 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Done. All creators have been notified, or have already taken part in this discussion. Binksternet ( talk) 21:52, 7 May 2009 (UTC) reply

• Very emphatically keep. The argument of subjectivity in deciding what qualifies as repression is flawed. Political repression is an objective phenomemon, of which numerable treatises have been written. There are deifinitions by the UN, by renowned political scientists, etc. of course, I agree that we can (and must) discuss the criteria under which an action can be qualified as political repression. There are many amibuous border cases; but this does not mean that the whole concept is subjective. If an individual was legally persecuted due to his political/ideological convictions, that qualifies as political persecution. Otherwise, why would the constitutions of liberal demnocratic countries (and the UN charter of human rights) prohibit such persecution if it did not exist as a phenomenon? Viator slovenicus ( talk) 17:54, 25 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Reply. Of course political persecution exists as a phenomenon; the problem is that the application of that label is a highly POV subject. There are of course countless treatises on it, but not all of them agree, and some of those who maintain that there are "objective" criteria are less sure when those criteria are applied too close to home.

Consider a few examples, off the top of my head:

1. the activists in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament whose phones were tapped by the British govt in the 1980s
2. members of the American Communist Party, who were hounded for years by the FBI, well before HUAC got to work on them
3. Irish Republicans interned by orders of Eamon de Valera during WWII
4. Thousands of British trades unionists whose freedom of movement was blocked during the miner's strike, allegedly without legal authority
5. Nick Griffin of the far-right British National Party, tried on charges of hates crimes, which he defines as political repression of his free speech.
6. Thousands of Germans excluded from state employment under the Berufsverbot. Does the tag political repression apply only to the Nazi period, or to all those disqualified under the berufsverbot, including East Germans since reunification?
7. Leonard Peltier, allegedly imprisoned on false charges laid for political reasons
8. Millions of Native Americans, deprived of their land and much else for generations.
9. Damian Green, the Conservative MP arrested for what he describes as simply doing his job as a politician.
10. Walter Wolfgang, arrested under the Terrorism Act for speaking out of turn
11. Those at the 2009 G-20 London summit protests, who were coralled in pens for several hours (a form of detention) because of their politics, and two at least people at that protested who were assaullted by police. Was that political repression, or do we only apply that tag to victims of Ferdinand Marcos's suppression of political activity?

I could produce countless more cases where the application of a "victims of political repression" tag would be highly controversial. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 00:02, 26 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Are any of these actually in any of the categories under discussion? I think not. Johnbod ( talk) 02:45, 26 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Reply to User:BrownHairedGirl. The difficulty in applying a label cannot be, in my opinion, the ultimate argument for dismissing it altogether. I would agree with you if the application of the label were entirely (or mostly) dependent on subjective criteria. But I don't think this is the case here. I can't answer you in the examples you quote, because I simply don't know about these subjects; but in cases when an individual or group was persecuted (imprisoned, discriminated, harrassed) on behalf of established authorities because of his/her convictions political/ideological convictions and/or for exercising rights guaranteed by internationally acknowledged human rights charters (of free speech, of conscience, of assembly, etc.), then he/she is victim of political repression. And I see no reason why not to categorize him/her as such. The adequacy of such categorization should be, in my view, discussed in individual cases. I can give you some examples of cases I've come across. I have only been working with the categories Category:Victims of political repression in Fascist Italy and Category:Victims of political repressions in Communist Yugoslavia. In the first case, I decided not to apply the first label to members of the Arditi del popolo who were trialed and convicted for violent acts; attempt assassination of a politician is not an activity protected by any charter of human rights, therefore individuals who were persecuted because of this cannot be labeled victims of political repression. In the second case, I decided not to aply the label to a Yugoslav military officer who was caught by the Yugoslav secret police when trying to escape to Bulgaria, then trialed & imprisoned for treason. In fact, this was an act considered as disertation (or treason, espionage, etc.) by valid international law, and such not protected by human righs charters. I agree: there are (and will be) much more ambiguous cases, but I think that in the spirit of Wikipedia, then will be solved on individual basis by open discussion. Viator slovenicus ( talk) 02:52, 26 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Certainly keep but rename for consistency as far as possible to Victims of (adjective) repression in Foo. This will not work well for the British category, which is a confection of 17th century dissidents, WWI and WWII pacifists, and Indian nationalists. These need splitting. The pacifists suffered imprisonment becasue they were suspected of supporting the enemy. The Indian natioanlist events of course took place in India, and so would not fot into Category:Victims of political repression in the United Kingdom. Peterkingiron ( talk) 00:04, 26 April 2009 (UTC) reply
  • This has been posted in the wrong discussion.... Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 03:06, 26 April 2009 (UTC) reply
    • I have moved it to the correct discussion. Robofish ( talk) 04:59, 26 April 2009 (UTC) reply

*Delete most - I think these categories are just inherently too vague and difficult to classify people into. While we do have an article on political repressions, one look at it demonstrates how vague and all-encompassing the term is; I don't deny there are such things as political repressions, but there's no obvious 'acid test' for whether a particular person was a victim of one or not. As it is, these categories are too easily manipulated for POV purposes; wherever possible, more precise categories should be used instead. Category:Victims of Soviet repressions might be an exception, as it is so notable it actually has its own article ( Political repression in the Soviet Union), and I struggle to think of how better those people could be categorised; that one is probably worth keeping, but the rest I would delete. Robofish ( talk) 05:12, 26 April 2009 (UTC) On second thoughts: Relist separately. As those just below point out, some of these are worth keeping; but I still don't think they all are. It would be better to list each category separately, and only keep those for which the subject is a notable subject of independent historical scholarship. Emphasis on historical - the categories for still-existing states are too open to POV abuse, and should probably be deleted. Robofish ( talk) 01:54, 27 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Reply: Could you please explain why do you think Category:Victims of Soviet repressions should be kept, while, for instance, the Category:Victims of political repressions in Communist Yugoslavia or Category:Victims of political repression in Fascist Italy should be deleted? I don't see any consistency in your argument. Viator slovenicus ( talk) 16:33, 26 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Reply (to Robofish): Are you suggesting, in this manner, that Category:Victims of Nazi German repressions be deleted simply because there is no article with an equivalent title? All of these categories have had books written about them. PasswordUsername ( talk) 16:46, 26 April 2009 (UTC) reply

2nd Reply: The last suggestions of Robofish seem reasonable to me. I'm skeptical about some of these categories, too; but I don't want to see categories related to repressive regimes of the past (which are the only ones I actually use, and of which I know enough to apply them) deleated in a "package" because of the controversial application of similar categories to existing regimes. Viator slovenicus ( talk) 21:56, 27 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Comment. I've seen some heated reversions in articles having to do with events that should be long put to bed, such as at War of the Pacific which should have ended in 1883, because editors who have strong feelings about the historic event are still arguing about how it is presented here. Me, I don't differentiate between categories about regressive regimes of the past and ones about current political entities. Binksternet ( talk) 22:06, 27 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Delete I see that Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was listed in Category:Victims of Russian political repressions. He wasn't a victim of Russian political repression; he was a terrorist SOB who finally got his deserved comeuppance. Yet one of the editors in this discussion saw fit to reinclude that category; and of course (knowing this editor) he didn't include the Russian terrorist category. This is indicative of the POV problems with such categories, hence delete. -- [[User:Russavia|Russavia]] ^{[[User talk:Russavia|Dialogue]]} ( talk) 18:57, 26 April 2009 (UTC) reply
  • (I must reply as "this editor"). We have article Assassination of Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev. An acting president of unrecognized country, he was killed by several GRU officers, as was officially proven in a court. If someone believes that was not a repression of a political opponent (who was not involved in any military/terrorism actions at the time of killing), this only shows his bias. Biophys ( talk) 01:52, 27 April 2009 (UTC) reply
    • And anyone who believes that he was not a terrorist son-of-a-beeyotch who deserved to be blown up 100 times over and finally got his comeuppance, is showing their bias. That's called playing devil's advocate, nothing less nothing more, and shows how POV such categories can be, and in many instances are. -- Russavia ^Dialogue 04:41, 27 April 2009 (UTC) reply
      • A victim of political repressions can easily be a terrorist. For example, Boris Savinkov. Or he can be a "revolutionary", a "freedom fighter" or whatever someone's POV wants him to be. From the Chechen position, the assassination of Yandarbiev was a terrorism act. And I tend to agree with them because the killed person was a civilian at the time of killing, and the murder served no useful purpose besides creating fear among the Chechens who left Russia. But regardless to that, he was a victim of political repressions. Biophys ( talk) 22:09, 27 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Keep, but only as an empty cat for navigation purposes. Looking at Category:Victims of American political repression only because it is a largish cat that will grow because of english speaker knowledge and because it already has sub-cats. Within that cat you have 3 people I chose at random, Cheddi Jagan, Har Dayal, Lucy Parsons, and I can find nothing that ties them in together other than the category name. If they were put into sub-categories "repressed by legigislation XYZ" or "repressed by American foreign policy ABC" it would have some kind of logic. At the moment any woman who died before before universal suffrage could be included, ditto african-americans. Doing this helps to remove POV entries and makes the navigation workable. -- Richhoncho ( talk) 10:26, 29 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Keep We have ample reliable and verifiable sources to document this strong defining characteristic. Alansohn ( talk) 21:02, 29 April 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Reply ... and in plenty of cases, we also have ample reliable and verifiable sources which dispute those conclusions. The flaw with these categories is simple: they do not record a fact, they make make a value judgement about the fact. In any case like this which involves a value judgement, two scholars in possession of the same facts can reach very different conclusions. In an article, the different value judgements can be discussed and compared, but the binary nature of a category doesn't permit such subtlety. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 05:32, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Keep. Political repression is well know. Langtucodoc ( talk) 16:27, 2 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Relisted for further discussion

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Aervanath ( talk) 05:59, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• There's two possible means of organization: by regime, or by country. For example, we should have Category:Victims of repression in Russia with subcategories for Czartist Russiam, Soviet Russia, and Post-Soviet. Or we could have Category:Victims of Communist repression, subdivided by country: Russia, China ,etc. -- or both. There are unfortunately enough people to fill in the groups. The division by country is likely to give rise to less controversy about where to put them. . There's a possible more general name: Individuals subject to political repression in... , which avoids the word, "victim". But this can get very general if one thinks of the victims of lynchings and of civil wars. But we have to do something: it's a perfectly reasonable category for most of the individuals, suitable for reference and browsing. DGG ( talk) 07:55, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Well, we should have both. In other words, victims of repression in Soviet Russia should be a subcat of victioms of repression in Russia and the victims of repression in communist states. PS. But what to do with the Category:Victims of Communist repressions in Poland 1939-1989? Please note that there was no communist Poland until 1944/1945; the 1939-1944 period, or even more correctly, 1939-1941, concerns victims on the Polish territories annexed to Soviet Union - technically, part of Russia, but not recognized as such by Poland. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:40, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• • Comment:Piotr, not bad suggestion, although the annexation of Eastern Poland has been recognized by everybody (including Poland) since 1945. PasswordUsername ( talk) 19:01, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Note: Category:Victims of communism was finally renamed (thankfully) to Category:Victims of political repression in Communist states. Cgingold ( talk) 08:49, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Sigh. Which only means that it has to be renamed again to Category:Victims of repression in Communist states. I guess somebody didn't bother to read my explanation at the very beginning of this discussion (look above...). -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:40, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Very strong keep with additional chronological and systematic narrowing like Victims of Communist repressions in Poland 1939-1989. Mathiasrex ( talk) 08:02, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Comment: Whatever else happens, one very specific thing that must be taken care of is to eradicate all instances of the nonsense word "repressions". There is no such word in the English language. In all cases the correct word is "repression" -- no "s". Cgingold ( talk) 09:01, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Yes, exactly as I suggested above. And all instances of "political repression" need to be shortened to just "repression". -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Strong delete per BrownHairedGirl. Categories should be objective rather than subjective. "Persons imprisoned..." or "Persons executed..." are more appropriate category names, as they are more factual and less open to all-comers. DrKiernan ( talk) 09:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Comment First to other points, I would leave out "political". Second, to what's included, a number of countries have specific definitions regarding victims of repression under prior regimes. An inventory of those would likely provide a number of items which could be agreed upon and explicitly spelled out in the category. PetersV       TALK 21:04, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Comment – having read through the above, I am pleased to agree with Cgingold that it should be 'repression' throughout. Also there is little point in deleting Category:Victims of Soviet repressions and leaving the subcat schemes Category:Victims of Soviet repressions by nationality and Category:Victims of Soviet repressions by religion unscathed and in search of a parent, together with several other legitimate offspring. Occuli ( talk) 10:48, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Discussion of 'Keep, but only as an empty cat for navigation purposes', suggested by Richhoncho, combined with Rename 'repressions' to 'repression' as suggested by Piotrus

• Comment. This idea could work. The sub categories would all have to be specific enough to include a very tightly defined group. I'm sure some of the subs will end up having just one person in them. Binksternet ( talk) 13:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Note that I continue to think that Delete is the best overall answer, as nom. Binksternet ( talk) 21:59, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Still delete but if kept, Victims of political repressions in the Republic of the Congo should be instead Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville). Republic of the Congo is an actual state now, and isn't the one referred to in the category. However, the one that the category actually refers to lasted for only 4 years. It could also be broadened if kept and we could use the current name of the state, Democratic Republic of the Congo.-- TM 14:32, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Keep. Some of this discussion is misguided. "Victim of political repression" is a neutral term. It does not say whether the victim was good or bad. If and only if the wikipedia article about a person defines xim as such from a reasonably representative point of view, then xe belongs to the category, according the basic wikipedia rule, WP:V. The inclusion criteria for gray zones (e.g, vs. "act or war" or "combatting terrorism", etc. ) must be defined in the category talk page. - 7-bubёn >t 16:52, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Delete Inherently POV and non-objective. I can think of "Victims of political repression" categories that would include just about anyone. Are these categories even useful? Drawn Some ( talk) 18:01, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Comment I continue to support delete as noted above. Using these as empty super-categories is problematic because many people persecuted for their political beliefs were never charged with any crimes ( Paul Robeson comes to mind) or convicted of criminal charges (the Haymarket defendants, for example). Although there is general consensus among historians that they were victims of political repression, they wouldn't fit in any objective sub-cat of Category:Victims of American political repression. (Note: A special category for the Haymarket men was deleted last month: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 March 13#Category:Haymarket Eight.) — Malik Shabazz ( talk · contribs) 19:08, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Comment. Since the categories have been relisted as "no consensus" for discussion, any votes to delete or keep are out of place. I agree with DGG and Piotrus that it can be organized by country, by a period of time (in a particular country), and by the type of repression (Communist, Nazi, religious, etc.). Not every combination however would include a sufficient number of articles. It would be best to do nothing, and allow people to create the corresponding sub-caterogies as needed. One possible improvement might be only to exclude word "political" from all cats. However, this must first be specifically debated. Biophys ( talk) 00:30, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Comment I am strongly against removing the word "political" from the category. The word " Repression" has many rather disparate meanings. While often "repression" actually means "political repression", the category must be clean-cut. Mukadderat ( talk) 00:57, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Comment 2 Since the discussion is not about deleting and renaming a single category, but rather about the organizing the whole category subtree, the relisting it here is misguided. I suggest to move the discussion into Category talk:Victims of political repression, and post the invitation into any wikiprojects relavant to the subject, eg Wikipedia:WikiProject Human rights, Wikipedia:WikiProject Politics, etc. Mukadderat ( talk) 00:57, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Reorganise into more specific categories, per DGG above, seems like a sensible solution. I still worry that the categories for currently existing states are too much of a POV problem to be worth keeping, though. Robofish ( talk) 05:25, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• keep of course, as articles show historic fact and the purpose of categories to help readers navigate to articles, which these do. Change 'repressions' to 'repression' where necessary. If any individual category needs to be renamed to better reflect its content, then it should be separately nominated for rename to allow for specific discussion. Hmains ( talk) 19:21, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• keep. Discussion of renames, splits and merges ought be done on a case by case basis in the relevant category talk pages. Martintg ( talk) 03:44, 3 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Thoughts only When people suggest including "political" don't they actually mean "repressed by state?" I also think that cause can be found for not using the word "victim" because undoubtably some were repressed because of actions they took (can you be a victim of your own actions in these instances?). The fact that so many people have commented suggests that this is an emotive or moral question and is coloured by POV whether unintentional or otherwise, and, to look for a simple solution covering all the categories named in this nomination is nearly impossible. There is no benefit taking the discussion back to the category talk pages, because effectively this discussion is already there. Which is why, for grammatical purposes they should be renamed "repression by state" - this should be an empty cat (as I suggested earlier) and the subcats named as appropriate for each country. Then, and I think this is important, if there are any further problems with naming each cat or sub-cat it should be brought back individually, rather than as a combined nomination. Notification to the relevant Wikiprojects shouldn't be a suggestion - it should have been done at this stage. Finally, discussion whether certain people should be included in certain categories is not helping this discussion, save to prove that some kind of renaming is essential. -- Richhoncho ( talk) 07:28, 3 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Keep but establish clear inclusion criteria Political repression exists. That said, it is a troubled category, so we need to establish clear inclusion criteria, a discussion best left for category talk page. Ray ^Talk 20:57, 7 May 2009 (UTC) reply
• Delete: Establishing our own inclusion criteria is WP:OR. Applying someone else's criteria is WP:SYN. Not establishing criteria is allows for unattributed NPOV. There is no way around it. This category has got to go. - TheMightyQuill ( talk) 04:05, 8 May 2009 (UTC) reply

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: withdrawn by nominator. I didn't realize there was already a policy requiring that songs be in categories like this, my bad. Sorry for the incovenience. rʨanaɢ  ^talk/ _contribs 14:14, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Category:Indochine songs ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Nominator's rationale: Delete. I love Indochine just as much as the next guy (there's really nothing better to listen to when you're drunk and on a bike), but this category only has 1 article in it. In the future, once someone has written multiple articles on Indochine singles, the category can always be easily re-created (or a footer template can be made, with the same effect. rʨanaɢ  ^talk/ _contribs 05:13, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Keep per WP policies. See :

* Category:Songs by artist : "Please note that all song articles should have subcategories here, regardless of how many songs the artist has recorded"

* WP:SONGS#Categories : "Song articles should be placed into two categories, a subcategory of Category:Songs by artist ("Category:<Artist name> songs") and a subcategory of Category:Songs by year (a subcategory of Category:Singles by year for singles)"

* WP:OC#SMALL : "Avoid categories that, by their very definition, will never have more than a few members, unless such categories are part of a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme, such as subdividing songs in Category:Songs by artist or flags in Category:Flags by country."

Europe22 ( talk) 09:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Keep - but rename to Category:Indochine (band) songs per Indochine (band) and per clarity. Part of Category:Songs by artist (and as there are 18 albums by Indochine (band) there may well be articles for other songs in due course). Occuli ( talk) 10:10, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: speedily deleted by Athaenara after creator's consent. Bencherlite ^Talk 23:16, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Category:Wikipedians against sports franchising ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Nominator's rationale: Delete - Support/oppose category, also a "not" category. Does not help to categorize things we don't like, per extensive precedent here. VegaDark ( talk) 01:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• I agree. You may fire when ready. 000 Clifton ian000 06:26, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• I've tagged it for speedy deletion, since Cliftonian is the creator and only member of the category and has given permission for deletion. rʨanaɢ  ^talk/ _contribs 09:34, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: delete (with creator's consent). Bencherlite ^Talk 23:13, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Category:Wikipedians who found MC10's secret page ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Nominator's rationale: Delete - Non-collaborative, individual user category. Identical category precedent to delete here. VegaDark ( talk) 01:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Userfy if possible? Vanity category; serves no purpose. However, I don't think it's possible for categories to be userfied... - down load | sign! 01:19, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
• Comment Can Special:WhatLinksHere work? It is on User:MC10/MA/SP (redirect) as includeonly. If so, then Delete. M C 10 |  Sign here! 01:49, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Yes, so long as the barnstar itself actually does link to the secret page. If you don't want people to be able to find it that easily there are probably several ways you can try to hide it in the template. VegaDark ( talk) 01:59, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
    • I agree to deletion. Delete by creator. M C 10 |  Sign here! 02:59, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: delete. Kbdank71 13:54, 8 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Category:User mk/bg ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Nominator's rationale: Delete - innapropriate use of a babel category. Connected to a user box stating "This user considers Macedonian language as a dialect of Bulgarian language" - Babel categories signify levels in proficiency in a language, not whether a user considers something to be a dialect of a language or not. Additionally, it doesn't help to categorize users by this belief, so I would oppose any form of rename as well. VegaDark ( talk) 01:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Delete - I agree with Nom that this category is inappropriate and unhelpful. A reminder, also, that the whole Macedonia subject is currently under ArbCom review. Beeswaxcandle ( talk) 08:58, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: delete per WP:SNOW, it's empty, and precedent. Anyone wishing to continue to bicker is directed to take it elsewhere. Kbdank71 15:28, 6 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Category:Wikipedians by alma mater: Huntington Beach High School ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Nominator's rationale: Delete - High school alma mater category, which have unanimous, extensive precedent to delete. See here. VegaDark ( talk) 01:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• Delete high-schools have comparatively small class sizes compared to universities, so the chances of multiple established Wikipedians who went to the same high school is extremely slim. So what we would have is a whole mess of categories with one/two user(s) in it. This one is no exception, so delete per nom. Tavix |  Talk  02:45, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

In accepting the point of view expressed by others engaged in this discussion, I would argue that perhaps all categories of Wikipedians should therefore be deleted. In creating the category for HBHS, I simply followed what appears to be a common practice. The matter is for me not one that requires much debate, as the label created is easy enough to add the the user page. So, delete the category with my blessings but, not without deleting all categories related to Wikipedian educational history, not just those for High Schools, since not all Wikipedians have college educations, much less degrees. The avowed goal of Wikipedia is to be editable by any person, not just those with college educations, and limiting Wikipedians to distinction based upon college education is an elitist act. The only way to not disgrace yourselves with elitism is to be consistent across all demographics. You can't have it both ways, listing post-secondary institutions in categories and not listing secondary institutions, without engaging in elitism. The only non-elitist convention is to eliminate all such categories, or allow them to proliferate. William R. Buckley ( talk) 22:13, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• I don't think these types of categories are not about elitism, but it could be useful for finding people of your own alma mater. This was what I had in mind when I voted, not elitism or anything of that matter. I don't think having a college education or even a high school education has anything to do with how people should view you as a Wikipedian. I know for me, I haven't even graduated high school (yet), but I don't think that affects my editing at all. Tavix |  Talk  23:28, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

You perhaps want to remove the word *not* from the first sentence of your above comment; leaving this word suggests that your writing is sub-par, and combined with your admission of having not yet completed your high school education tends to argue against your point. An alternative deletion would be the word *don't*; use of double negatives constitutes an abuse of English. William R. Buckley ( talk) 03:22, 2 May 2009 (UTC) reply

That is exactly my point - it does not necessarily follow that higher education is requisite for quality editing. However, allowing categories for only college level Wikipedians (and thus not allowing categories for non-college educated editors) is elitist, plain and simple. William R. Buckley ( talk) 07:27, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply

The "alma mater" categories have nothing to do with elitism. Their existence is because such users are more likely to collaborate on topics relating to their college and/or university. For instance, there are tons of topics someone from OSU could collaborate on: See Category:Oregon State University. For high school categories, there is almost always only a single article that such users could collaborate on (if that), and even in the rare circumstances that a high school has multiple articles relating to it, it is generally going to still be too narrow of a subject for people in such a category to collaborate on. A better venue for these people to try to collaborate at is the high school's talk page. Additionally, as said above, high schools have a lot less people than colleges, so such categories are likely to only contain a small number of people, which also wouldn't be beneficial for collaboration. VegaDark ( talk) 14:55, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply

One could easily make the same argument that you give, in relation to high schools. Some secondary institutions boast large numbers of students per class year, and some colleges claim exceedingly small numbers of students per class year. HBHS, when I attended, had class sizes on the order of one thousand per year. This means that four thousand students (freshman, sophomores, juniors, and seniors) were on campus on any given day. The current enrollment at Pacific University (Forest Grove Oregon) is xxx, as reported by the administration of Pacific University; [this note awaits a response from Claire Delamarter, Associate Registrar]. I am sure many more small college examples can be found. Moreover, and quite frankly, it does not matter your intent; please recall that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Like it or not, the net effect of limiting categories of wikipedians to college association is an elitist act. Intellectual myopia seems to abound within Wikipedia. William R. Buckley ( talk) 19:51, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply

• Delete - does not aid in collaboration. Otto4711 ( talk) 18:39, 2 May 2009 (UTC) reply

An arbitrary and capricious vote. I love elitists! They, and how they hide from their elitism. William R. Buckley ( talk) 21:39, 2 May 2009 (UTC) reply

I've been called worse by better. If you want to assume that my vote is based in elitism, you're certainly free to do so. Calling everyone who disagrees with you an "elitist" does bugger-all toward convincing anyone of anything, and repeating it endlessly is tiresome. Of course you have no idea where I went to college of indeed if I went to college, so deciding that I'm some elitist Joe College because I don't believe this category fulfills the stated purpose of user categories, which is "to aid in facilitating coordination and collaboration between users for the improvement and development of the encyclopedia", seems kind of foolish. So spare us this populist posing. Otto4711 ( talk) 06:37, 3 May 2009 (UTC) reply

I call them as I see them; if the shoe fits, then you should happily wear it. That others know not of your college education is by your choice, not theirs; I certainly do not hide my identity, unlike you. The argument given to support deletion of the category is based upon the assumption that no other Wikipedian will have come from the indicated school, and thus there is no need for collaboration. This argument is weak for a number of reasons. Consider, for instance, that such a category will be subscribed in multiple only if it is in place for sufficient time. Further, the likelihood of collaboration will increase with time, and the number of graduates, which is quite large for HBHS. After all, this school was founded in 1906. Also, you made the claim of being "some Joe College," not I. My claim is that elimination of any category on the basis of tenure multiplicity (or lack there of) is an act of elitism. Not all categories of elitists claim small numbers. For instance, the membership of citizenship of the United States of America is a form of elitism; i.e. Americans are better than anybody else, and in particular, say, Mexicans. Your inability to see such conflicts is a direct consequence of elitist views. NB: the word sequence "...went to college of indeed if I went..." demonstrates a lack of skill with the English language. So, if you did go to college, you learned nothing, and if you didn't go to college, then you quite convincingly demonstrate same. William R. Buckley ( talk) 19:23, 3 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Deciding that someone is poorly educated on the basis of a single typographical error is the mark of a true snob (I call them as I see them). Otto4711 ( talk) 08:20, 4 May 2009 (UTC) reply

You were trying to make a point about your quality as an editor. I pointed to your failure to proof your own post. William R. Buckley ( talk) 10:12, 4 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Someone who writes 'American's' and 'Mexican's' is in no position to lecture other users about English errors, IMO. Robofish ( talk) 16:57, 4 May 2009 (UTC) reply

All people can improve. Further, I never said my English composition skill is perfect. My point concerned editing skill. William R. Buckley ( talk) 17:26, 4 May 2009 (UTC) reply

One more point. I am no populist, as anyone who knows me in person will attest. William R. Buckley ( talk) 19:28, 3 May 2009 (UTC) reply

All the more reason to knock off the populist posing. Otto4711 ( talk) 08:20, 4 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Nothing that I've written here is populist. Only a fool thinks otherwise. William R. Buckley ( talk) 10:08, 4 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Right, what you've written here is populist posing, which is what I said. Try to keep up. Otto4711 ( talk) 07:46, 6 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Another great debate on the subject at hand. I'm just glad that I'm not the only one bearing the brunt of Otto's personal attacks. Alansohn ( talk) 14:58, 6 May 2009 (UTC) reply

• Delete - empty category, and not useful for collaboration. I find the accusations of 'elitism' baffling and, given User:William R. Buckley's own behaviour in this CFD thus far, somewhat ironic. Robofish ( talk) 05:48, 4 May 2009 (UTC) reply

You are another individual who likes to hide his/her identity. William R. Buckley ( talk) 10:12, 4 May 2009 (UTC) reply

• Delete While there are high schools where there might be enough alumni here to benefit from finding each other and collaborating, there's no evidence that this is the case here. Alansohn ( talk) 00:21, 5 May 2009 (UTC) reply

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: delete. Kbdank71 13:51, 8 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Category:Wikipedians from Deep River, Ontario ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Nominator's rationale: Delete - "Wikipedians by small location" category, which have precedent to delete as too narrow to support collaboration. City has a population of only 4216. See here and here for precedent. VegaDark ( talk) 01:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

While that is true, a surprisingly educated, creative, and productive, group of people have either been born or passed through this small northern town, going on to contribute to many different fields making remarkable improvements to society. This makes Deep River, ON an exceptional place. l santry ( talk) 12:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Please note that you, L. Santry, are communicating with elitists. See my claims above. William R. Buckley ( talk) 19:56, 1 May 2009 (UTC) reply

I sincerely don't understand your comment "are communicating with elitists". I am merely stating that per capita there are more nuclear physicists, chemists, mathematicians, . . . . scientists than any other city, town, hamlet etc. It is due to Deep River being a one horse town. Most people work, or worked, for Atomic Energy of Canada at the Chalk River Laboratories or in some business that accommodates the plant or people that work there <shrug>.

The argument given you by VegaDark, that your town (Deep River Ontario) is unworthy of distinction vis-à-vis a Wikipedian category, is an elitist position. How is this notion difficult to follow? William R. Buckley ( talk) 18:25, 2 May 2009 (UTC) reply

There's nothing elitist about a standard policy against creating single-entry categories. Bearcat ( talk) 18:33, 5 May 2009 (UTC) reply

It is the end result that defines elitism, not the justification. William R. Buckley ( talk) 01:58, 6 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Er, no, it isn't. Bearcat ( talk) 20:02, 6 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Another anonymous editor! Well, Bearcat, how do you define elitism? William R. Buckley ( talk) 20:42, 6 May 2009 (UTC) reply

• Delete - it occurs to me that a category with only one user in it is not exactly very useful for collaboration. Robofish ( talk) 05:42, 4 May 2009 (UTC) reply

They start off with one user, and grow with time. William R. Buckley ( talk) 10:09, 4 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Then it can be created when there are enough users from Deep River to warrant it. Bearcat ( talk) 18:33, 5 May 2009 (UTC) reply

again, not trying to be dense, but by using the elitist argument then Berkley or MIT would be too small to be considered important and also should be deleted (???!) They are small but no one would argue their important contributions to society. l santry ( talk) 13:59, 4 May 2009 (UTC) p.s.<size doesn't matter> reply

It's not the size of the place that's the issue — it's the fact that there's only one page in the actual category. If there were 10 people in the category, it would be fine even if the place had a total population of 11. Bearcat ( talk) 20:04, 6 May 2009 (UTC) reply

well then, how about waiting a month to see if other people find the template, if by then if other people haven't found it and are linked to it, then consider deleting it?? l santry ( talk) 11:19, 7 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Exactly my point, though I would expect to have more lead time to finding additional personnel; say six months. It is ridiculous to expect that any category would find initial creation with, as suggested by Bearcat, ten like minded Wikipedians. William R. Buckley ( talk) 16:03, 7 May 2009 (UTC) reply

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.