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: keep. The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:20, 13 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Propose deleting Category:Female Wikipedians ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: Relisting per Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2012 August 27. Procedural nomination, I am neutral. T. Canens ( talk) 13:43, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Keep. I think this category has value because finding female Wikipedians could be relevant, either as potential collaborators on a particular subject area or for research purposes.— S Marshall T/ C 16:50, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep: This is just as important as other self-identification categories and women are a minority here, being able to find and collaborate with other women (who have their own set of tastes, interests and expertise) would help to foster a better environment that is more welcoming and friendlier to new potential (female) editors. Ncboy2010 ( talk) 17:45, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Delete. Cannot fathom how this would help build the encyclopedia. -- Nouniquenames ( talk) 17:16, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep because of the importance. fosters collaboration. for all the reasons we have any cat. What I cannot fathom is the need to delete this. To me its value is self evident. Dloh cierekim 17:46, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep - per above users; facilitates collaboration. NYSM talk page 17:51, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep - given the well-documented issues Wikipedia has with gender balance and increasing female participation, I think deleting a category which assists and encourages such participation is not helpful. I suggest that those who think it should be deleted need to take a broader view of what 'facilitating collaboration' means. Robofish ( talk) 19:07, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep. Much more useful than "trout slapping". Hyacinth ( talk) 22:41, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Delete - We're building an encyclopedia, not a social network. All user categories should be created to that end. It's longstanding practice that "self-identification" user categories are frowned upon and violate WP:USERCAT. While there are plenty of WP:OTHERSTUFF arguments about other categories such as the religion categories, you won't find me arguing that those should be kept either - I would fully support deletion of all the religion categories. There a vast amount of user categories and it's been a very long process getting them to even the stage they are now, which is leaps and bounds better than the user category system before I got here. It's been years getting rid of categories for those who like to eat particular foods, like particular people, or support or oppose particular issues, all which don't help build the encyclopedia. Reversing the longstanding deletion of this category sets us back quite a bit. All the arguments for this category being "collaborative" are only in response to finding out the only reason user categories are intended to exist is for collaboration, not because they are actually collaborative. There's some beat-around-the-bush logic that categories such as this are in fact collaborative because it will apparently foster a sense of community or whatnot and someone people will feel good about the fact that there are people in categories with them and this will somehow get them to work together on an article. Let's be honest, you really want to keep this category because you like it, not because it's somehow going to foster collaboration. There's nothing that females as a whole can be expected to share an interest in collaboration over, so the traditional thought of collaboration can't be applied. Are we really going to believe that having a category for female Wikipedians is somehow going to help reduce the gender gap? How will that be accomplished exactly? VegaDark ( talk) 02:01, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep. Unless you're going to remove the whole category system, which I'd probably vote for. Kerfuffler ( talk) 02:54, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep as a tool for monitoring the involvement of female editors. A lack of women editors has been a persistent form of systemic bias on en.wp, and this is one part of the efforts to counter that bias. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 10:21, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep per Robofish.-- В и к и T 10:32, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep per Dlohcierekim and others. Rivertorch ( talk) 10:59, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep, given that the gender gap is a core focus of the Foundation, removing one of the most convenient ways of measuring it would just be silly. Lankiveil ^{( speak to me)} 11:05, 6 September 2012 (UTC). reply
• Comment - (Please take my comments below into consideration of this discussion.) - The only way this doesn't go against previous consensus, WP:CAT, WP:USERCAT, WP:NOT, etc., is the usage as originally described by John Vanderberg in the DRV, as noted by BHG above. And as such, it should be treated as a hidden, tracking category, and NOT as a "Wikipedian category", as the point of Wikipedian categories are intended for collaboration. I went to Category:Wikipedians by interest, and noted that there is no category "interested in topics related to women". The reason? because most topics are related to women. To suggest otherwise would be at least somewhat discriminative, I would think. - jc37 17:05, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply

  Sorry, but that's a silly argument. Many topics are of similar interest to both genders, but there are many topics which are of particular interest to women (start with pregnancy, sex discrimination, menstruation, childbirth). Aside from particular topics, there is the very important issue of helping women to cope with the massive gender imbalance in Wikipedia. It is helpful for women editors to be able to identify other women editors in this male-dominated environment. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 15:52, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply

  @BrownHairedGirl: I think what jc37 meant was that the categories should be deleted, not the userboxes or other things one uses to identify oneself. His argument isn't silly because one could allege that: 1) The category does not have an exact practical function, and may violate WP:USERCAT and this from WP:NOT; 2) Userboxes do not necessarily need a category. You do have a good point that the category may be used to look up the activity of female editors.
  On a related note, see also my comment at the Category:Gay Wikipedians discussion below. I am myself neutral here. Cheers, theFace 18:12, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Delete per my comments below in the Gay Wikipedians cfd. -- Kbdank71 21:45, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep - for all the reasons I mentioned in the DRV. John Vandenberg ^{( chat)} 11:14, 8 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep. User categories like these can allow interested editors, who feel that their personal identities are relevant to their contribution to the project, to self-identify, to locate similar others, and to learn collectively. These identities, Gay and Female in todays discussions, but among many others, are significant in the real world, and are the subject of concerns of bias. Where these is potential of bias, it is far better to declare it openly than to pretend to ignore it.

  The current practice of strongly resisting, through deletion, any user categories that are not narrowly defined as intended for collaboration for a well defined, narrow purpose, is silly. It needlessly prevents the development of more general positive applications. These categories do not pose any real threat. There are far easier ways to network socially than through a wikipedia category. Any misuse of Wikipedia resources can be readily identified by examining a user's contributions, then warning, deleting inappropriate pages, and blocking, as required. Using broadly titled categories to identify intention to misuse the project, and deletion of the categories as a method to correct such misbehaviour, is a mistaken effort.

  Other methods may work similarly. Personal statements on userpages, userboxes, and signing up on a project page (Essay, or WikiProject) have their advantages. Categories have other advantages, such as simplicity and ease of navigation. The slowly developing category intersection tools may yet make them powerful. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 12:59, 8 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Keep Women thrive on having a collective unity when in spaces - whether it's collaborating together (i.e. women's organizations, sewing circles) or just knowing there are others like you out there. One simple way to support the engagement of women is to provide that space and contact, and knowing there is an easy way to find other women (or people who identify as women) on Wikipedia through userboxes and a category is immensely helpful and beneficial. (And this is coming from my role as gender gap fellow and a woman editor! :) ) SarahStierch ( talk) 05:20, 9 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep Just needs to be advertised more since I would have added self if knew. Will do so. CarolMooreDC 18:15, 9 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep - per SarahStierch. It's an aid to collaboration, not an artifact of social networking and is thus useful in growing the project - Alison ^❤ 19:10, 9 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep - per SarahStierch. Helpful in supporting the engagement of women by providing them an easy way to connect with other women. -- Netha (talk) 19:25, 9 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep per all of the above. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:06, 9 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep I can see this being useful in targetted recruitment drives. Stuartyeates ( talk) 01:45, 10 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep per all of the above. As a female Wikipedian myself, I find the idea of a category useful for finding others like myself, for collaboration or just general interest in keeping up with what they're editing. -- Gloriamarie ( talk) 15:35, 10 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep per Robofish and Brown Haired Girl. VegaDark makes a good point, and I want to commend the work he's done removing truly frivolous categories. To address the point he's made: one of the main ways we can influence the construction of the encyclopedia is through improving the social network that supports its construction. I submit that no encyclopedia could be constructed (by any method, wiki or not) without a complex and robust social network. It's important not to veer into the frivolous -- I'm sure we all have experience interacting with editors who have no particular interest in improving articles, and we don't want to encourage that -- but at the same time, it's vital to support the social needs of good faith editors. It's also vital to understand those needs. VegaDark, you're right to suggest that the existence of this category won't reduce the gender gap. But what it might do is help individuals and organizations better understand gender-related issues. If that happens even to a small extent, in my view that's plenty of reason to maintain the category. - Pete ( talk) 22:39, 10 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep per Brown Haired Girl (who isn't in it). Harmless category with only nine people in it. If it gives pleasure to those nine and others, why not keep it? MathewTownsend ( talk) 00:10, 11 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Delete we do not do indiscriminate only female categories, those are used as container categories, which this has no categories to contain. As we have learned from people attempting to apply the precedent of having Wikipedians who want Kish and Gumbo to come back, there is no "harmless" keeping of a category. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 01:21, 11 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep - as we work towards reducing the gendergap (we can argue perhaps about the size, but I don't think its existence is seriously questionable), there may be need for collaboration with female Wikipedians who chose to self-identify as such. [The number is now ten.] Ladyof Shalott 18:44, 11 September 2012 (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: keep. The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:21, 13 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Propose deleting Category:Gay Wikipedians ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: Relisting per Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2012 August 27. Procedural nomination, I am neutral. T. Canens ( talk) 13:42, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply

NOTE: - Category:Gay Wikipedians first was deleted as a result of the 4 October 2007 uCfD Wikipedia:User categories for discussion/Sexuality and gender identification. The uCfD deletion of Category:Gay Wikipedians was endorsed at the October 10, 2007 DRV entitled Wikipedia:Deletion review/Sexuality and gender identification categories, with the reason that "Deletions endorsed. Prior deletions of other (more "mainstream") gender/sexuality categories do belie the accusations of bias here. The consensus below endorsed the uCfD determination that these "status" categories (like "signs of the zodiac") do not contribute value to the encyclopedia, and may harm it by introducing factionalism." The 27 August 2012 DRV result was to relist at CfD. -- Uzma Gamal ( talk) 04:36, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Keep This category is extremely important to many wikipedians; Without knowing it was previously deleted (The history only showed a redirect to Category:LGBT Wikipedians), I removed the redirect and added the category to a few gay-male-specific templates and it immediately gained more than 270 members. User:VegaDark re-redirected it to Category:LGBT Wikipedians explaining the previous deletion and told me to bring it up at the deletion review log.

Putting everyone in a catch-all category ( Category:LGBT Wikipedians) is a disservice to everyone within the community and diminishes the importance of our individuality. The categories contribute value to the encyclopedia by allowing people to find and collaborate with those that share experiences, points of view and interests relevant to their current research and page projects. It encourages free expression and leads to a friendlier editing environment. Ncboy2010 ( talk) 15:38, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Keep. I think this user category has value because it could help Wikipedians with similar backgrounds or preferences to find each other and collaborate.— S Marshall T/ C 16:48, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep, agree with rationale as expressed by Ncboy2010 ( talk · contribs), above. — Cirt ( talk) 17:13, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Delete. Cannot fathom how this would help build the encyclopedia. -- Nouniquenames ( talk) 17:16, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep - per Ncboy2010 ( talk · contribs) and reasons discussed at deletion review. NYSM talk page 17:36, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep It actually does help build the encyclopedia. It does not add a social feature that detracts from building the encyclopedia. It is an error to say that it is redundant to other similar cats and Wikiprojects. Just to carry over what I said in the DRV, or rather from what I quoted from what others as saying-- Just being gay does not mean they necessarily identify with people that are LBT, nor should they be forced to categorize with a larger group because of the lack of a scope they find acceptable."little green rosetta) For that reason, deleting the thing "is a gross disservice to all who belong within the community."(per undeletion nom) I confess I don't see any benefit to the deletion in the first place, and "I see no issue with self-identification categories on Wikipedia.(ThemFromSpace) Some have scoffed at the catagory as a collaborative tool. The deletion nom stated, "While a userpage notice may be useful, it's not necessary to have a category identifying who the user prefers to have sex with (if any), or what gender a person prefers to identify with. . . ."(Jc37) This completely misses the importance of the category. It could be said that those whose self identification is with this cat is as important as those whose self identification is via ethnicity or nationality. In aother words, anyone "who would use this category self-identifies with a culture and declares a desire to find and be found by other members of the culture for collaboration."(Blue Rasberry) Yes, we are all Wikipedians, but we have all these cat's and userboxes to personalize that experience. Deleting this one diminishes that. Dloh cierekim 17:42, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep per Ncboy2010 and because, since hundreds of comparable categories exist, it makes no sense to single this one out. Rivertorch ( talk) 18:07, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep Many people identify this category as exactly analogous to any other cultural description, such as Wikipedian categories indicating culture, ethnicity, religion, race, or nationality. To delete this category would be the same as deleting a category such as Category:Jewish Wikipedians, Category:Palestinian Wikipedians, Category:Taiwanese Wikipedians‎, Category:Wikipedians interested in feminism, or many others. Self-expression and the development of community by interconnection is a fundamental part of many people's identities and having such categories to support collaboration between members of a community is critical to many users' experiences. All of these cultural identifiers are very important and that is why people use them. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:13, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep per Rivertorch. Insomesia ( talk) 18:24, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep I don't see any reason to delete this category among all the others and it doesn't do any harm. In fact it's actually useful to the Gay Wikipedians who don't want to be categorised together with the Lesbian, Transgender, Bisexual and Queer wikipedians. Thanks ツ Jenova 20 ^{( email)} 18:25, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep per Rivertorch and Blue Rasberry. I can't understand what appears to have been the original deletion reasoning that Category:LGBT Wikipedians is sufficient unless we're also going to upmerge all the currently existing subcategories into analogous parents like Category:Christian Wikipedians, Category:Wikipedians of Eurasian descent, etc. Fat&Happy ( talk) 21:16, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep. While there may have been reasons to delete the category before, Wikipedia has become a more "mature" project since then. I don't mean the sense in that we all act more maturely, but mature in the sense that the organization itself must think of itself as a real volunteer project, not just a group of a a couple hundred dreamers hanging out on the internet. And, at any other workplace or volunteer project in most countries (particularly first world countries, where most of our editors are located), people are generally allowed to self-identify by ethnicity, religion, hobbies, sexual orientation, whatever. Obviously, doing so runs risks in some organizations, and people make decisions to be "out" (as straight, as gay, as an evangelical Christian, as someone who hates dogs, whatever) at their own discretion; the same is true here. But some people like to be able to categorize themselves, because they believe it builds solidarity and a closer sense of "togetherness" (goals which also help build the encyclopedia). I don't like using such categories, but I don't want to stand in the way of those who do. Qwyrxian ( talk) 22:08, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep. There is only one reason to oppose this category. Opposition to this category shows real or willful ignorance of the variety and use of user categories and policies regarding them. Hyacinth ( talk) 22:37, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Delete - We're building an encyclopedia, not a social network. All user categories should be created to that end. It's longstanding practice that "self-identification" user categories are frowned upon and violate WP:USERCAT. While there are plenty of WP:OTHERSTUFF arguments about other categories such as the religion categories, you won't find me arguing that those should be kept either - I would fully support deletion of all the religion categories. There a vast amount of user categories and it's been a very long process getting them to even the stage they are now, which is leaps and bounds better than the user category system before I got here. It's been years getting rid of categories for those who like to eat particular foods, like particular people, or support or oppose particular issues, all which don't help build the encyclopedia. Reversing the longstanding deletion of this category sets us back quite a bit. All the arguments for this category being "collaborative" are only in response to finding out the only reason user categories are intended to exist is for collaboration, not because they are actually collaborative. There's some beat-around-the-bush logic that categories such as this are in fact collaborative because it will apparently foster a sense of community or whatnot and someone people will feel good about the fact that there are people in categories with them and this will somehow get them to work together on an article. Let's be honest, you really want to keep this category because you like it, not because it's somehow going to foster collaboration. There's nothing that gay people as a whole can be expected to share an interest in collaboration over, so the traditional thought of collaboration can't be applied. I don't agree that all homosexual Wikipedians should be grouped to the LGBT category - that category should be deleted as well, as that doesn't foster collaboration either. I'd be pretty pissed if I was gay and got grouped in with transsexuals as well - how is that anything alike? But that's not relevant, as once again, this boils down to collaboration purposes. I have yet to hear a convincing argument as to how maintaining such a category fosters collaboration. If collaboration were the real goal there's many other avenues other than a self-identification user category. VegaDark ( talk) 02:01, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply

"Let's be honest, you really want to keep this category because you like it"? That is false, please do not assume that everyone here is lying to you. "There's nothing that gay people as a whole can be expected to share an interest in collaboration over" A majority of us share an interest in WP:WikiProject LGBT studies. "I'd be pretty pissed if I was gay and got grouped in with transsexuals as well - how is that anything alike?" Please be careful with what you type, your wording sounds slightly degrading and offensive. NYSM talk page 02:18, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Wait, so the reason to keep this category is due to a shared interest in WP:WikiProject LGBT studies? Is that not what Wikiproject membership categories such as Category:Wikiproject LGBT studies participants is for? As for your second point, I simply stated they were not alike. There's nothing degrading about that. VegaDark ( talk) 02:23, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply

I just listed one thing Gay Wikipedians can collaborate over, since you went out of your way to say there is nothing. Just please be careful with what you type, you're coming off as extremely defensive. NYSM talk page 02:27, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply

There's plenty of things gay Wikipedians can collaborate on, but nothing that we should assume is a shared collaborative interest by the mere fact they have a particular sexual preference, just as I cannot be expected to have a shared collaborative interest with other straight people. I'm saying that someone looking through Category:Gay Wikipedians would be just as likely to find someone to collaborate with on an area of their interest as Category:Wikipedians who have various interests (please stay red). The reason for user categories is to group users of similar interests for collaboration, but a grouping of gay people have no such shared interest. Any of their personal experience as a gay person would fall under the no original research policy. VegaDark ( talk) 02:45, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply

If users can search for other users who identify the same as themselves, and see which of those users have similar interests as they do then that could facilitate collaboration. The existence of this category can possibly be beneficial, while at the same time cannot be harmful, so I cannot see logic in removing it. You are singling out this category, while not taking any action to delete other categories which, by your belief, should not exist either ( Category:Wikipedians by religion, it's 35 subcategories, and their 30+ subcategories). NYSM talk page 03:10, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply

The shared interest that gay Wikipedians have is that they are part of a minority which the majority targets for discrimination. Sharing a sexual preference or an arbitrary interest does not make people want to collaborate together in the way that facing discrimination does. In countries such as the Unites States it is completely legal in most places for an employer to dismiss an employee explicitly for their employee's sexual preferences, and the gay community sees such issues as unfair and needs to connect members in any way to combat such oppression. For personal safety gay people most in most cultures need to be aware of where other gay people are. A pillar of the gay rights movement is visibility of gay people. Sharing an arbitrary interest with another person is radically different from sharing the experience of being targeted for hostility based on one's nature, so the comparison you made with that redlink category is not legitimate. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:03, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Keep. Unless you're going to remove the whole category system, which I'd probably vote for. Kerfuffler ( talk) 02:53, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Weak Keep - (I was solicitated on my talk page about this CfD. [1]) Ironically, deleting the category in October 2007 fixed any then existing reasons listed for deleting the category, so that the category now can be recreated. Modernly (presently), deleting this category should be based on Inappropriate types of user categories. I don't see anything in there that qualifies for deleting the category. Keeping this category should be based on Appropriate types of user categories. I don't see anything in there that provides a basis for keeping the category. Looking at the general Wikipedia:User categories guideline: "A user category is appropriate if it has the capacity to facilitate coordination and collaboration between users for the improvement of the encyclopedia." The examples listed in Wikipedia:User categories are participation, ability, knowledge or understanding, and interest - all related to the encyclopedia rather than related to other people. Category:Gay redirects to Category:LGBT, but that's not based on any consensus. [2] We don't have a Wikipedia:WikiProject Gay. While most of the keep basis listed above in this CfD are less than satisfactory, Blue Rasberry reasoning above seems to make the most sense. But without a guideline basis for keeping the category, we lose control over the general area. Wikipedia:User categories should be revised to provide a guideline basis for keeping the category and those similarly situated and at the same time provide a basis for deleting other similar categories where bias and potential factionalism predominate over secondary considerations. -- Uzma Gamal ( talk) 05:15, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep per Rivertorch, Blue Rasberry and Fat&Happy.-- В и к и T 10:36, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Strong keep. We all have personalities. We're not robots. If we give our opinion on matters, it is based upon our genes and the experiences we have had. Even if we think we remain unbiased, we unwittingly may still be. User pages and boxes give us an opportunity to understand each other a bit more, which improves our morale and solidarity. I'm not a huge fan of userboxes, because a lot of them are pointless crap. This one is not. - theFace 11:55, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Retracting my vote. I idiotically thought this was about the userbox, instead of the category. Switching to neutral. I don't care whether this is kept or not. Cheers, theFace 14:24, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Comment - There are LOTS of ways to explain how and why this category goes against various policies and guidelines. (Just to quote WP:USERCAT: "In addition (similar to all categories), user categories should not be used as "bottom-of-the-page" notices. If a Wikipedian wishes to have such a notice, they may edit their user page and add the notice in some other way (such as by adding text or a userbox), rather than inappropriately creating a category grouping." And incidentally, Category:LGBT Wikipedians is a recreation too, for that matter, and should have been deleted. But personally, I think that attempting to openly and sincerely try to discuss this is a waste of my time. You disagree? Read the comments in the DRV, and the voting above. Let's look at some of the comments:

  • There are those who think that they are voting to keep a userbox, when a userbox can exist just fine without a category.
  • There are those who mistakenly think that self-identification categories are collaborative (the zodiac situation very concretely disproved that)
  • There are those who say IWANTIT. And why?
    • Because others have "theirs", and I want mine
    • Because I think a category is the way to express myself. (It's not)
    • Because I think " Gay" shouldn't be lumped together with other LGBT (Neither the nominated category nor the LGBT category should exist.)
    • People should be able to use categories to build "solidarity" (We're here to build an encyclopedia, not create divisive factionalism)
    • Because not having this category diminishes gay people. (What, really? Utterly ridiculous. We could delete EVERY Wikipedian category and not diminish anything.)

  So where's the policy arguement from those saying "keep"? So far, it doesn't exist.

  That said, does anyone believe that any closer isn't going to just "count votes" and close this as keep? Of course not, they would be attacked on their talk page (as most closers are who don't "count votes"), and there would be a drama-filled cycle of DRV, etc.

  I just witnessed the DRV closed as relist, which didn't meet the requirements to even be listed there. Does anyone believe this will be different? Of course not. Sometimes, actual consensus is short circuited by a vocal IWANTIT crowd shouting down policy.

  Nothing new here.

  So, feel free to show how "you got yours". You showed those evil Wikipedians that you had a "right" to your own category. You got a "bottom of the page" notice, mis-using categories. And in the end, what did you gain?

  Nothing.

  It's not collaborative, it's only use, if anything, would be to further violate consensus for vote stacking, just as such have been used in the past.

  And it has nothing to do with building the encyclopedia.

  (Reading my comments above.) Well, it looks like I did just "waste my time", and subsequently listed the policy-based reasons why this shouldn't exist. I guess my want to help outweighed my pragmatism once again.

  Meh.

  Happy editing... - jc37 17:51, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply

You didn't waste your time. You made me retract my vote (see above), and moreover, it's always inspiring to see such a well written, dissent opinion. It's what makes WP both fun and frustrating. You're technically right, this category goes against policy. But I never think in terms of rules, really. I judge things on a case by case basis. I switched to neutral, but I would still tend towards a keep because this category has a positive vibe to it. Yes, it's ILIKEIT, but does it matter? We have (un)funny userboxes, satirical but well-intended essays (e.g.: [3] [4] [5] [6]), we have a Teahouse, ' adoptions', we give awards ( one to many perhaps). Even some of the policies contain quips (e.g.: [7] [8] [9]). I do think it gives off a sense of camaraderie. Within reasonable boundaries, I think such positivism ultimately helps us. Cheers, theFace 14:24, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Delete. My apologies if I repeat some of what has been discussed above, or what I've said elsewhere. That said... I find it interesting that many of the keep votes give reasoning to the effect of "why single this out", or even one of them "unless you're going to get rid of them all, which I'd probably support". Yes, I am against every single user and wikipedian category. None of them do anything other than allow users to shout on their user pages (albeit quite quietly way down at the bottom) "Hey look at me, I'm an X wikipedian! And if you click on that link, you'll see other X wikipedians." And that is ALL they are good for. They are not good for collaboration: wikiprojects do a much better job at that. They are not even good for self-identification: as I noted, said identification happens way down at the bottom of the user page. A better way to tell the world who you are: Edit your user page, type "My name is Kris and I'm an X wikipedian!" at the top, click save. You can even make it big and bold! My point is, user categories are the worst possible way to accomplish, well, anything, and they certainly do nothing to help us on our main goal here: edit the encyclopedia. -- Kbdank71 18:42, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply

As the author of a snippet you cite, I want to point out that I actually agree with you to a large extent. But it's patently obvious that the consensus is to have these categories, and given that, I cannot see any justification for deleting this particular one. Kerfuffler ( talk) 18:48, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply

As a side note to that, I generally think all “meta” content (where Wikipedia pretends to be a community and exposes itself that way to the public) is self-aggrandizing and lame. Kerfuffler ( talk) 19:46, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Consensus can change. It has to start somewhere; voting keep just because others are is doing yourself a disservice. -- Kbdank71 21:44, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply

FYI, your characterization of my “vote” (note: this is not a vote) is completely incorrect. Kerfuffler ( talk) 11:36, 8 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Keep the user category system is useful (I use it almost daily), and sexuality is one of the more core parts of self-identification. John Vandenberg ^{( chat)} 11:27, 8 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep. User categories like these can allow interested editors, who feel that their personal identities are relevant to their contribution to the project, to self-identify, to locate similar others, and to learn collectively. These identities, Gay and Female in todays discussions, but among many others, are significant in the real world, and are the subject of concerns of bias. Where these is potential of bias, it is far better to declare it openly than to pretend to ignore it.

  The current practice of strongly resisting, through deletion, any user categories that are not narrowly defined as intended for collaboration for a well defined, narrow purpose, is silly. It needlessly prevents the development of more general positive applications. These categories do not pose any real threat. There are far easier ways to network socially than through a wikipedia category. Any misuse of Wikipedia resources can be readily identified by examining a user's contributions, then warning, deleting inappropriate pages, and blocking, as required. Using broadly titled categories to identify intention to misuse the project, and deletion of the categories as a method to correct such misbehaviour, is a mistaken effort.

  Other methods may work similarly. Personal statements on userpages, userboxes, and signing up on a project page (Essay, or WikiProject) have their advantages. Categories have other advantages, such as simplicity and ease of navigation. The slowly developing category intersection tools may yet make them powerful. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 12:59, 8 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Keep I like knowing where my people are at! And it's so invaluable when it comes to sharing information, seeking out like minded editors, and for specific types of outreach (i.e. surveys). And it's really empowering to know there are others like you out there! SarahStierch ( talk) 05:21, 9 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep - useful to assist in finding editors with which to collaborate - Alison ^❤ 19:13, 9 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep per all of the above. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:07, 9 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Delete there is a well developed precedent to not have categories of this type. All decisions on categories have potential to be detrimental to control unwanted categories in the future. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 01:24, 11 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• My problem with this category is that I personally find it useful primarily in assessing the motivation behind edits to certain classes of articles. Not exactly fomenting collaboration, but then, sometimes working "with" people here means working against them. So I can't say that I personally argue against the category's utility, but I just want people to consider that categories of special users are not only of use in seeking out like minds. Mangoe ( talk) 03:44, 11 September 2012 (UTC) reply

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The result of the discussion was: rename (C2D merge). The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:15, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Propose merging Category:Liberian people of African American descent to Category:Americo-Liberian people

Nominator's rationale: Merge. Americo-Liberian defines "a Liberian ethnicity of African American descent". This recently-created category is therefore identical in scope. – Fayenatic L ondon 12:34, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Merge as proposed. (The other option is to reverse-merge but since we have the article on Americo-Liberian, I still prefer the proposed merge) Pichpich ( talk) 00:21, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply

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The result of the discussion was: rename (C2C). The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:12, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Propose merging Category:Finnish election results templates to Category:Finnish election result templates

Nominator's rationale: To conform with the standard set by other "election result" categories. Gabbe ( talk) 06:52, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Support - Clear cut, it needs to conform with the rest. NYSM talk page 03:43, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Merge no-brainer. Pichpich ( talk) 00:19, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply

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The result of the discussion was: keep. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 11:26, 13 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Propose deleting Category:Japanese people of Jewish descent ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: Empty category (contained three bogus / unsupported entries, all unsourced, all now rempved) JoshuSasori ( talk) 05:08, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Note: Category is not empty; Category:Japanese Jews is a subcat. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:39, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Keep – part of Category:People of Jewish descent by nationality, and not empty. Oculi ( talk) 08:31, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Comment. Is it usual for the "Jews" category to be a subcategory of the "Jewish descent" category? A number of category members are not of Jewish descent, but rather are converts. This is probably true for many such categories. – Roscelese ( talk ⋅ contribs) 20:34, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • The U.S. equivalents are reversed; the top category is Category:American Jews, with Category:Americans of Fooian-Jewish descent as subcategories. Which could also have inconsistencies, depending on whether "American Jews" mean ethnically, religiously, both, or just either one. Fat&Happy ( talk) 20:43, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• comment there is Category:American people of Jewish descent. That category is supposed to be limited to people who have Jewish ancestors but who do not fit any definition of being Jewish, including self-identifying as being Jewish. Personally I think that leads to it being a non-notable fact, at least something it is not worth categorizing by, but I have been unable to persuade enough others of this fact. To make things worse, the Category:American people of German-Jewish descent is largely used as a category for Jews (I still think it should be renamed to Category:American Jews of German-Jewish descent). One of the issues is no one knows if Category:American people of x descent is a nationality or ethnicity format, and at some level nationality and ethnicity are very hard to seperate. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 01:30, 11 September 2012 (UTC) reply

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The result of the discussion was: withdrawn.-- Mike Selinker ( talk) 05:32, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Propose deleting Category:The Marvelettes members ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) ok, nevermind. I see now that this nomination was ill-conceived. Consider it withdrawn. Pichpich ( talk) 02:58, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Nominator's rationale: Delete per WP:SMALLCAT. The category is unlikely to grow (although at least one former member may one day get her own article). In any case, the four articles are already well inter-linked and Template:The Marvelettes also serves as a bridge between them. The category just isn't all that useful. Pichpich ( talk) 03:40, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Keep I think the rule is if there are three or more notable members of a band, then having this sub-cat is fine. Having a template doesn't mean the category should be deleted, per WP:CLN. Lugnuts ^{And the horse} 07:21, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Keep – part of the established Category:Musicians by band, and per Lugnuts. Oculi ( talk) 08:34, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply

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The result of the discussion was: egrem. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 13:02, 13 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Propose merging Category:Eudendrium to Category:Eudendriidae

Nominator's rationale: Upmerge There's only one article currently in the category but all articles that could potentially be included are already in Category:Eudendriidae. Conversely, all pages in the latter cat are of the eudendrium genus so there's really no reason not to merge. Pichpich ( talk) 03:02, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Reverse merge - there's a reasonable enough presumption that members of the genus Myrionema, also a member of the Eudendriidae, will have articles written for them (as species, they are notable), at which point the category would just need to be split again if it was merged to the family. Merging to the genus, on the other hand, properly categorises the articles (and allows the family-level cat to be a container for its genra). - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:42, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply

That solution would also be fine. Pichpich ( talk) 00:18, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply

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The result of the discussion was: no consensus. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 04:47, 14 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Propose deleting Category:Tigray geography stubs ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: Delete. Undersized stub category. Upmerge template to Category:Ethiopia geography stubs until 60+ articles tagged. Dawynn ( talk) 01:48, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply

• Comment: I can't see any scope to reach 60. I looked through Category:Ethiopia geography stubs and moved some down into other regions, but didn't spot any that I could tell were located in Tigray. – Fayenatic L ondon 13:59, 5 September 2012 (UTC) reply
• Why 60 for the threshold? The parent holds 142, which is at the large end of suitable. Add 25, giving 167, it is still less than the default 200 per page view, but not if Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region geography stubs‎ (52 P)

and Somali geography stubs‎ (43 P) are similarly upmerged. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 07:37, 12 September 2012 (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.