November 15
Category:Ministers of Posts and Telecommunications
- 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: Rename. Timrollpickering 23:51, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
- Nominator's rationale: For clarity, we need the country. Category:Ministers of Posts and Telecommunications of Liberia would also be fine. Good Ol’factory (talk) 23:32, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- Rename per nom. The parenthesised form is better, because ministerial offices rarely include the country name in their official titles. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 04:54, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
- 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.
Category:Superhero crime films
- 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: No consensus. Timrollpickering 21:37, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
- Nominator's rationale: Per WP:OVERCAT, Crime is intrinsic to the superhero genre. TriiipleThreat ( talk) 20:36, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- Delete per nom. DonIago ( talk) 21:12, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- Comment, it looks as if this is part of a series with Category:Superhero thriller films, Category:Superhero drama films, Category:Superhero horror films and Category:Superhero comedy films. They may all be nominated for merger to Category:Superhero films per WP:NARROWCAT. Marcocapelle ( talk) 10:22, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- Weak Keep (for now) - Per WP:SMALLCAT, this is part of a larger structure. That said, it's part of a very subjective structure that probably should be deleted. Category:Films by subgenre really needs pruning of these genre/theme intersection cats. For example, check out its subcat. Category:Crime films by genre. and you'll see many more of these kinds of categorizations ( Category:Crime action films,for example). This whole house of cards of subjectively assessed genre intersections really should go. - jc37 20:05, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
- Keep Per jc37's observation. As for subjective, aren't genres always subjective? Dimadick ( talk) 16:53, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
- 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.
Category:State Emergency Service of Ukraine
- 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: No consensus. Timrollpickering 21:38, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
- Nominator's rationale: To match all the other country subcategories. The State Emergency Service of Ukraine is an organisation, but it doesn't merit its own category Rathfelder ( talk) 19:20, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose moving people related to State Emergency Service of Ukraine into Category:Emergency services in Ukraine. Armbrust The Homunculus 20:12, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- This particular objection (which I support) can be solved by moving the eponymous article to Category:Emergency services in Ukraine, then deleting Category:State Emergency Service of Ukraine. That would be more accurate than plain merging. Marcocapelle ( talk) 21:11, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose these appear to be two disparate categories. SportingFlyer talk 13:19, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
- It appears that in the Ukraine this organisation performs services that in other places are delivered by a variety of organisations, but apart from the eponymous article there is only one article and one subcategory - with one article in it. Rathfelder ( talk) 20:55, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
- Delete for now (and move eponymous article to Category:Emergency services in Ukraine, see earlier comment), there is currently too little content. No objection against recreation of the category if suddenly many more articles are being published about this organization. Marcocapelle ( talk) 21:11, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
- 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.
Category:Torture in films
- 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: split to new sub-categories
Category:Documentary films about torture and
Category:Torture in art; no consensus to rename or delete the nominated categories. –
Fayenatic
London 22:44, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
- Propose renaming Category:Torture in films to Category:Films about torture
- Delete or Split Category:Works about torture to Category:Torture in art and Category:Novels about torture (added parent cat to nom- jc37 20:34, 18 November 2018 (UTC))
- Nominator's rationale: As with other recent renames, make it more clear that this category should be applied when the film is about torture, not when it's included incidentally. DonIago ( talk) 14:02, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- Comment Wouldn't this rescope the category to only include splatter films? That is the horror genre that mainly depicts torture and the "physical destruction of the body" Dimadick ( talk) 14:59, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- Support and heavily purge per nom. Very few of these films are about torture, though keep e.g. Ghosts of Abu Ghraib which is a documentary film. Marcocapelle ( talk) 08:52, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- Comment Putting fiction in which torture features as either a signigicant - or incidental element of a drama alongside documentaries dealing with real incidents of torture (per Ghosts of Abu Ghraib and
Taxi to the Dark Side, does not appear to be very useful - I don't see how to fix though. Eliminating fiction in which torture is largely incidental would at least be a start.
Pincrete (
talk) 23:43, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- Comment Sub-categories in Category:Documentary films by topic are typically used of sucategories of whatever category handles the wider topic in film. For example Category:Documentary films about conspiracy theories is a subcategory of Category:Films about conspiracy theories. You could start a category called " Category:Documentary films about torture, but I am far from certain if we have sufficient articles on the topic. The UN definition of torture which we use states: "For the purpose of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions." Dimadick ( talk) 10:52, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
- Delete or Rename to Category:Documentary films about torture and subcat under Category:Documentary films by topic and purge. Delee or Split Category:Works about torture to Category:Torture in art (and subcat under Category:Art by subject), and Category:Novels about torture (and subcat under Category:Novels by topic). Essentially, "per nom and discussion", but that I found a place in existing category schemes for each of them, if they are not deleted. - jc37 20:29, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
- Why "Torture in art" versus "Art about torture"? That seems to be going in the opposite direction of my original nomination argument... DonIago ( talk) 15:04, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
- "Art about torture"? Do you mean depiction of
Passion bearers and other
Christian martyrs (which often graphically depict their manners of torture or death), or do you mean
BDSM-style whippings such as the Etruscan
Tomb of the Whipping (490 BCE)? Should we alert
Wikipedia:WikiProject Pornography about the concersation involving their typical articles?
Dimadick (
talk) 17:04, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
- I'm okay with the definition used above.
DonIago (
talk) 17:27, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
- Films about torture, or films in which torture is a major part, could be of various types. They include splatter films, documentary films & thriller/horror films about (fictional or real-life) criminals who kidnap, torture & kill their victims. I don't think we have enough articles about such films in order to create subcats, so we should rename the cat as proposed & remove from it those which are insufficiently torture-related. Jim Michael ( talk) 02:17, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
- As to why the cat name choice(s), they were due to the others in the parent cats. See others in
Category:Art by subject, for example. I really don't have a preference in naming the cats except that they should follow existing structures when possible/appropriate. -
jc37 04:59, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, most art by subject categories follow the "______ in art" titling. Randy Kryn ( talk) 12:55, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
- I'm okay with the definition used above.
DonIago (
talk) 17:27, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
- Support creation 'Torture in art' subcategory, I saw this discussion because I was searching for the correct category for Rembrandt's The Blinding of Samson painting and thought it would be 'Torture in art'. Will add it to 'Works about torture' for the time being. Randy Kryn ( talk) 03:06, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
- Update, I've populated the category 'Work about torture' with the addition of related artwork about Jesus, St Peter, etc. Anticipating these to be moved to the proposed new category:Torture in art. Randy Kryn ( talk) 12:52, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose - For me, [Topic] in [medium] (e.g. torture in film) is very different from [Medium] about [topic] (e.g. films about torture), and the distinction comes down to categorization based on fictional elements or real-world elements. Using this example, I distinguish three types:
1. Documentary films about torture as a real-world phenomenon. This is the only context in which "films about" is appropriate.
2. Non-documentary films where the concept of torture features as a central theme in a fictional context. It may be appropriate to use [Topic] in [medium] categorization here.
3. Non-documentary films that contain fictional depictions of torture as a plot point but not as a central theme. This is trivial and not worthy of categorization.
While I do not disagree with some of the proposals, e.g. separating documentary films, I do disagree with using the [Medium] about [topic] format to categorize any work of fiction. -- Black Falcon ( talk) 18:19, 16 December 2018 (UTC)- Unfortunately many editors who aren't well-versed in categorization will see categories such as "Murder in film" and think it's perfectly reasonable to apply that category to any film in which there's even a single murder...and, if all you're doing is looking at the name of the category, then can anyone really blame them? This leads to categories being bloated with inappropriate entries. The "Films about murder" option may not be the best solution out there, but it's the best one to arise from any discussion I've engaged in on the matter, short of restricting the ability to add/create categories in general.
DonIago (
talk) 16:23, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
- You have a point, and perhaps it means that even the 2nd type is not suitable for categorization and better handled via articles and lists. However, a dearth of good categorization practices should not cause us to blur the treatment of a topic in reality ("films about X") versus in a fictional context, so I could support
Category:Films about torture only if it was restricted to documentary films. --
Black Falcon (
talk) 21:02, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
- As a thought exercise then, would you say that "Films about cars" wouldn't be appropriate to apply to
Cars (film) because the cars in that film are obviously fictional? Perhaps we need subcats to distinguish between fictional and non-fictional representations of a subject?
DonIago (
talk) 17:36, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
- I would: Cars features a fictional representation of cars, or perhaps more accurately depicts cars (as characters) as a way of telling a story, but it is not about cars as the term applies in a real-world setting. In general, I think we need to avoid categorization that relies on a fictional reality (i.e. elements of a fictional plot) and thereby assumes an equivalence between reality and fiction—in this case, assuming that a "car" in the real world (a mechanical object) and a "car" in the fictional universe of Cars (a sentient being) are the same thing. I know it's a hard distinction to preserve when anyone can place articles in a category, as you indicated, but I think it is the dividing line between what is meaningful to categorize and what is speculative/subjective. -- Black Falcon ( talk) 04:10, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
- As a thought exercise then, would you say that "Films about cars" wouldn't be appropriate to apply to
Cars (film) because the cars in that film are obviously fictional? Perhaps we need subcats to distinguish between fictional and non-fictional representations of a subject?
DonIago (
talk) 17:36, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
- You have a point, and perhaps it means that even the 2nd type is not suitable for categorization and better handled via articles and lists. However, a dearth of good categorization practices should not cause us to blur the treatment of a topic in reality ("films about X") versus in a fictional context, so I could support
Category:Films about torture only if it was restricted to documentary films. --
Black Falcon (
talk) 21:02, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
- Separating factual works from fictional ones could be difficult in that many works are partially factual. Another issue is that it's difficult to draw the line between a film/novel/play etc. which is about torture, and one in which it isn't about torture, but torture is a major part.
Jim Michael (
talk) 22:15, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
- I'm inclined to agree on the first point, which is why I'm also inclined to avoid using that as a distinguishing point. As to the dividing line between "about" and "major part", I imagine sources could be used to bolster claims if and when they're contested. DonIago ( talk) 00:22, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
Separating factual works from fictional ones could be difficult in that many works are partially factual.
In what way? A work of fiction may draw on real people, events, or places, but ultimately it is intended as a fictional representation of all of them. A non-fiction work may contain inaccuracies or falsehoods, but ultimately it is intended (or presented) as a true documentation of reality. Either way, there is a clear distinction between what each was intended to be. On the second point, I agree with you and DonIago that it can be difficult to distinguish using current naming conventions, and I think restricting the use of "about" to non-fiction works only would help to clarify that line. -- Black Falcon ( talk) 03:18, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
- Unfortunately many editors who aren't well-versed in categorization will see categories such as "Murder in film" and think it's perfectly reasonable to apply that category to any film in which there's even a single murder...and, if all you're doing is looking at the name of the category, then can anyone really blame them? This leads to categories being bloated with inappropriate entries. The "Films about murder" option may not be the best solution out there, but it's the best one to arise from any discussion I've engaged in on the matter, short of restricting the ability to add/create categories in general.
DonIago (
talk) 16:23, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
- Procedural comment, closure request for this discussion added on the administrators' noticeboard. Marcocapelle ( talk) 07:40, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
- 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.
November 15
Category:Ministers of Posts and Telecommunications
- 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: Rename. Timrollpickering 23:51, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
- Nominator's rationale: For clarity, we need the country. Category:Ministers of Posts and Telecommunications of Liberia would also be fine. Good Ol’factory (talk) 23:32, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- Rename per nom. The parenthesised form is better, because ministerial offices rarely include the country name in their official titles. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 04:54, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
- 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.
Category:Superhero crime films
- 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: No consensus. Timrollpickering 21:37, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
- Nominator's rationale: Per WP:OVERCAT, Crime is intrinsic to the superhero genre. TriiipleThreat ( talk) 20:36, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- Delete per nom. DonIago ( talk) 21:12, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- Comment, it looks as if this is part of a series with Category:Superhero thriller films, Category:Superhero drama films, Category:Superhero horror films and Category:Superhero comedy films. They may all be nominated for merger to Category:Superhero films per WP:NARROWCAT. Marcocapelle ( talk) 10:22, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- Weak Keep (for now) - Per WP:SMALLCAT, this is part of a larger structure. That said, it's part of a very subjective structure that probably should be deleted. Category:Films by subgenre really needs pruning of these genre/theme intersection cats. For example, check out its subcat. Category:Crime films by genre. and you'll see many more of these kinds of categorizations ( Category:Crime action films,for example). This whole house of cards of subjectively assessed genre intersections really should go. - jc37 20:05, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
- Keep Per jc37's observation. As for subjective, aren't genres always subjective? Dimadick ( talk) 16:53, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
- 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.
Category:State Emergency Service of Ukraine
- 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: No consensus. Timrollpickering 21:38, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
- Nominator's rationale: To match all the other country subcategories. The State Emergency Service of Ukraine is an organisation, but it doesn't merit its own category Rathfelder ( talk) 19:20, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose moving people related to State Emergency Service of Ukraine into Category:Emergency services in Ukraine. Armbrust The Homunculus 20:12, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- This particular objection (which I support) can be solved by moving the eponymous article to Category:Emergency services in Ukraine, then deleting Category:State Emergency Service of Ukraine. That would be more accurate than plain merging. Marcocapelle ( talk) 21:11, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose these appear to be two disparate categories. SportingFlyer talk 13:19, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
- It appears that in the Ukraine this organisation performs services that in other places are delivered by a variety of organisations, but apart from the eponymous article there is only one article and one subcategory - with one article in it. Rathfelder ( talk) 20:55, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
- Delete for now (and move eponymous article to Category:Emergency services in Ukraine, see earlier comment), there is currently too little content. No objection against recreation of the category if suddenly many more articles are being published about this organization. Marcocapelle ( talk) 21:11, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
- 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.
Category:Torture in films
- 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: split to new sub-categories
Category:Documentary films about torture and
Category:Torture in art; no consensus to rename or delete the nominated categories. –
Fayenatic
London 22:44, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
- Propose renaming Category:Torture in films to Category:Films about torture
- Delete or Split Category:Works about torture to Category:Torture in art and Category:Novels about torture (added parent cat to nom- jc37 20:34, 18 November 2018 (UTC))
- Nominator's rationale: As with other recent renames, make it more clear that this category should be applied when the film is about torture, not when it's included incidentally. DonIago ( talk) 14:02, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- Comment Wouldn't this rescope the category to only include splatter films? That is the horror genre that mainly depicts torture and the "physical destruction of the body" Dimadick ( talk) 14:59, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- Support and heavily purge per nom. Very few of these films are about torture, though keep e.g. Ghosts of Abu Ghraib which is a documentary film. Marcocapelle ( talk) 08:52, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- Comment Putting fiction in which torture features as either a signigicant - or incidental element of a drama alongside documentaries dealing with real incidents of torture (per Ghosts of Abu Ghraib and
Taxi to the Dark Side, does not appear to be very useful - I don't see how to fix though. Eliminating fiction in which torture is largely incidental would at least be a start.
Pincrete (
talk) 23:43, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- Comment Sub-categories in Category:Documentary films by topic are typically used of sucategories of whatever category handles the wider topic in film. For example Category:Documentary films about conspiracy theories is a subcategory of Category:Films about conspiracy theories. You could start a category called " Category:Documentary films about torture, but I am far from certain if we have sufficient articles on the topic. The UN definition of torture which we use states: "For the purpose of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions." Dimadick ( talk) 10:52, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
- Delete or Rename to Category:Documentary films about torture and subcat under Category:Documentary films by topic and purge. Delee or Split Category:Works about torture to Category:Torture in art (and subcat under Category:Art by subject), and Category:Novels about torture (and subcat under Category:Novels by topic). Essentially, "per nom and discussion", but that I found a place in existing category schemes for each of them, if they are not deleted. - jc37 20:29, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
- Why "Torture in art" versus "Art about torture"? That seems to be going in the opposite direction of my original nomination argument... DonIago ( talk) 15:04, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
- "Art about torture"? Do you mean depiction of
Passion bearers and other
Christian martyrs (which often graphically depict their manners of torture or death), or do you mean
BDSM-style whippings such as the Etruscan
Tomb of the Whipping (490 BCE)? Should we alert
Wikipedia:WikiProject Pornography about the concersation involving their typical articles?
Dimadick (
talk) 17:04, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
- I'm okay with the definition used above.
DonIago (
talk) 17:27, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
- Films about torture, or films in which torture is a major part, could be of various types. They include splatter films, documentary films & thriller/horror films about (fictional or real-life) criminals who kidnap, torture & kill their victims. I don't think we have enough articles about such films in order to create subcats, so we should rename the cat as proposed & remove from it those which are insufficiently torture-related. Jim Michael ( talk) 02:17, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
- As to why the cat name choice(s), they were due to the others in the parent cats. See others in
Category:Art by subject, for example. I really don't have a preference in naming the cats except that they should follow existing structures when possible/appropriate. -
jc37 04:59, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, most art by subject categories follow the "______ in art" titling. Randy Kryn ( talk) 12:55, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
- I'm okay with the definition used above.
DonIago (
talk) 17:27, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
- Support creation 'Torture in art' subcategory, I saw this discussion because I was searching for the correct category for Rembrandt's The Blinding of Samson painting and thought it would be 'Torture in art'. Will add it to 'Works about torture' for the time being. Randy Kryn ( talk) 03:06, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
- Update, I've populated the category 'Work about torture' with the addition of related artwork about Jesus, St Peter, etc. Anticipating these to be moved to the proposed new category:Torture in art. Randy Kryn ( talk) 12:52, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose - For me, [Topic] in [medium] (e.g. torture in film) is very different from [Medium] about [topic] (e.g. films about torture), and the distinction comes down to categorization based on fictional elements or real-world elements. Using this example, I distinguish three types:
1. Documentary films about torture as a real-world phenomenon. This is the only context in which "films about" is appropriate.
2. Non-documentary films where the concept of torture features as a central theme in a fictional context. It may be appropriate to use [Topic] in [medium] categorization here.
3. Non-documentary films that contain fictional depictions of torture as a plot point but not as a central theme. This is trivial and not worthy of categorization.
While I do not disagree with some of the proposals, e.g. separating documentary films, I do disagree with using the [Medium] about [topic] format to categorize any work of fiction. -- Black Falcon ( talk) 18:19, 16 December 2018 (UTC)- Unfortunately many editors who aren't well-versed in categorization will see categories such as "Murder in film" and think it's perfectly reasonable to apply that category to any film in which there's even a single murder...and, if all you're doing is looking at the name of the category, then can anyone really blame them? This leads to categories being bloated with inappropriate entries. The "Films about murder" option may not be the best solution out there, but it's the best one to arise from any discussion I've engaged in on the matter, short of restricting the ability to add/create categories in general.
DonIago (
talk) 16:23, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
- You have a point, and perhaps it means that even the 2nd type is not suitable for categorization and better handled via articles and lists. However, a dearth of good categorization practices should not cause us to blur the treatment of a topic in reality ("films about X") versus in a fictional context, so I could support
Category:Films about torture only if it was restricted to documentary films. --
Black Falcon (
talk) 21:02, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
- As a thought exercise then, would you say that "Films about cars" wouldn't be appropriate to apply to
Cars (film) because the cars in that film are obviously fictional? Perhaps we need subcats to distinguish between fictional and non-fictional representations of a subject?
DonIago (
talk) 17:36, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
- I would: Cars features a fictional representation of cars, or perhaps more accurately depicts cars (as characters) as a way of telling a story, but it is not about cars as the term applies in a real-world setting. In general, I think we need to avoid categorization that relies on a fictional reality (i.e. elements of a fictional plot) and thereby assumes an equivalence between reality and fiction—in this case, assuming that a "car" in the real world (a mechanical object) and a "car" in the fictional universe of Cars (a sentient being) are the same thing. I know it's a hard distinction to preserve when anyone can place articles in a category, as you indicated, but I think it is the dividing line between what is meaningful to categorize and what is speculative/subjective. -- Black Falcon ( talk) 04:10, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
- As a thought exercise then, would you say that "Films about cars" wouldn't be appropriate to apply to
Cars (film) because the cars in that film are obviously fictional? Perhaps we need subcats to distinguish between fictional and non-fictional representations of a subject?
DonIago (
talk) 17:36, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
- You have a point, and perhaps it means that even the 2nd type is not suitable for categorization and better handled via articles and lists. However, a dearth of good categorization practices should not cause us to blur the treatment of a topic in reality ("films about X") versus in a fictional context, so I could support
Category:Films about torture only if it was restricted to documentary films. --
Black Falcon (
talk) 21:02, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
- Separating factual works from fictional ones could be difficult in that many works are partially factual. Another issue is that it's difficult to draw the line between a film/novel/play etc. which is about torture, and one in which it isn't about torture, but torture is a major part.
Jim Michael (
talk) 22:15, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
- I'm inclined to agree on the first point, which is why I'm also inclined to avoid using that as a distinguishing point. As to the dividing line between "about" and "major part", I imagine sources could be used to bolster claims if and when they're contested. DonIago ( talk) 00:22, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
Separating factual works from fictional ones could be difficult in that many works are partially factual.
In what way? A work of fiction may draw on real people, events, or places, but ultimately it is intended as a fictional representation of all of them. A non-fiction work may contain inaccuracies or falsehoods, but ultimately it is intended (or presented) as a true documentation of reality. Either way, there is a clear distinction between what each was intended to be. On the second point, I agree with you and DonIago that it can be difficult to distinguish using current naming conventions, and I think restricting the use of "about" to non-fiction works only would help to clarify that line. -- Black Falcon ( talk) 03:18, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
- Unfortunately many editors who aren't well-versed in categorization will see categories such as "Murder in film" and think it's perfectly reasonable to apply that category to any film in which there's even a single murder...and, if all you're doing is looking at the name of the category, then can anyone really blame them? This leads to categories being bloated with inappropriate entries. The "Films about murder" option may not be the best solution out there, but it's the best one to arise from any discussion I've engaged in on the matter, short of restricting the ability to add/create categories in general.
DonIago (
talk) 16:23, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
- Procedural comment, closure request for this discussion added on the administrators' noticeboard. Marcocapelle ( talk) 07:40, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
- 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.