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Category:Surnames by country (
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A case of
destroying the village in order to save it. The discussion had nothing approaching a consensus for nuking the entire surname categorization system, landing us with a single category with some 14000 names. While the now deleted system may not have been ideal and needed refinement (it was missing clear guidelines on what makes a surname associated enough with a country to categorize that way) or restructuring (many have suggested categorizing by language rather than country - though of course there'll be gray areas and tricky cases there too, as in most of our categorization schemes) deleting it wholesale destroys an enormous amount of information and makes it much more difficult to create an improved system.
Haukur (
talk) 11:31, 25 June 2009 (UTC) I'm asking for the decision to be overturned and the categories restored without prejudice. We can work to improve the system from there.
Haukur (
talk) 00:55, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse deletion - a correct reading of a difficult and passion-inflaming CFD. Closing admin's comments indicate a close and careful reading of the arguments and a solution crafted carefully in response to those arguments.
Otto4711 (
talk) 14:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Overturn There was a consensus, but the consensus was for keep and modify. The closing was on the basis that it was the personal view of the closer--and supported by some of the comments--and in fact might be my personal view also-- that the group of categories should be reworked. But that is not a reason for deletion. If we need a new structure, that is no reason for destroying the old before we build the new. The closing explains that this does not actually destroy the information about what was originally where because it can be retrieved from the list of changes carried out by the bot, and so it can, but the better way to do it is to not rely on retrieving from the thousands of changes, a very awkward way of doing things, but keeping the old until there is something agreed upon to change to. The closer went far beyond a closer's proper role. He should have closed: "consensus to change: discuss what to change to and then propose an agreed solution."
DGG (
talk) 15:30, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse deletion Not only did the closing admin make the proper decision, the rationales were explained in detail. Good job in cleaning up a mess. The bad is the enemy of the good, etc.
Drawn Some (
talk) 15:50, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse deletion Reasonable, rational, and well-explained close.
Carlossuarez46 (
talk) 17:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Well now. There's the question of consensus, and the question of a proper outcome.
On consensus: there wasn't a consensus in that debate, and the closer appears to have substituted his own opinion for the proper finding. With all due respect for the ingenious arguments provided by Drawn Some and Carlossuarez46, an examination of the debate shows that the idea that this was a "proper deletion" is totally untenable. On the proper outcome: I don't see that it's strictly necessary to classify surnames at all. If it is necessary, then
Category:Surnames is much too large to be viable, so I think it has to be subdivided. Personally I'd go with surnames by language, rather than surnames by country of origin. Overall I'm going to go with relist in the hope of getting a more satisfactory outcome.—
S Marshall
Talk/
Cont 18:15, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- overturn I'm not seeing anything resembling a consensus for deletion here at all.
JoshuaZ (
talk) 18:25, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Overturn I don't see consensus even vaguely leaning toward deletion or upmerge. Not in terms of strength of argument or in terms of numbers.
Hobit (
talk) 19:25, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Nominator's additional comment. I didn't want to go on at length in my nomination but let me add a bit about the way I see it. There were something like three times as many people arguing for keeping the system than deleting it in this discussion and there were cogent arguments on both sides - that strongly indicates to me that there was no consensus for deletion. I didn't participate in the original discussion, I only noticed something was going on when the bot started removing categories from articles I'm watching. Those articles include
Jón and
Guðrún (and those aren't even surnames, they're given names, but let that pass). Now, many people seem to think that categorizing by country is fraught with problems but categorizing by linguistic origin is not. I don't think this really adds up - it's just that we're familiar with the problems of the system we've had and not as familiar with the problems of a not-yet implemented system. Consider the names "Jón" and "Guðrún" - those are respectively the most common male name and the most common female name in Iceland. Nowhere else in the world are those names (with this exact spelling) used. This seems to qualify those names very clearly for being "Icelandic names" and in any system I think they belong in the same category. The discussion which supposedly decided to end that state of affairs seems to have done so on the basis that categorizing surnames from New Zealand or Honduras may be tricky. I just don't see why such a sweeping deletion needs to result from that. And about linguistic origin - wouldn't "Guðrún" and "Jón" be in the same category in a system like that? Not necessarily - "Jón" isn't a name which has any meaning in Icelandic, it's just the local version of the Hebrew name Yochanan.
Haukur (
talk) 19:31, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Closer comment: I disagree with your assessment of the strength of the "keep" arguments. There were none that were compelling—none. That is the reason I didn't "vote count" in determining what to do.
Good Ol’factory
(talk) 22:31, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- That's just completely incorrect, there were a number of good keep arguments. If I have to pick one I should say that I found Peterkingiron's comment particularly incisive.
Haukur (
talk) 22:57, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- How can my opinion be incorrect? I said I disagreed with you, but I didn't say you were incorrect.
Good Ol’factory
(talk) 23:31, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- As you point out Haukur, those two were miscategorised somehow, and are given names not surnames. I don't see this being relevant as an example of potential difficulties with the proposed "by language" scheme. --
cjllw ʘ
TALK 03:36, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- When I tried to save
Category:Icelandic names from deletion I was reverted into the ground and threatened with a block by the person who nominated this whole shebang for deletion. So clearly he did mean for it to be deleted. I don't know why it was categorized the way it was - maybe because most Icelanders don't have family names and the given name is the main name.
Haukur (
talk) 10:28, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- You write: That is the reason I didn't "vote count" in determining what to do. Ah! I see now. So in the end it was really
only one vote that really counted (
yours), nevermind if a majority of editors voted the other way. Give me a break, pal. Now we have over 14,000 names plopped carelessly into one category with only a few sub-categories; pray tell me how anyone could possibly navigate through that and find what they're looking for? <sarcasm>Nice job.</sarcasm> I didn't want a change at all, but the least that could have been done was to organize all the surnames into language categories, which so far has not been done (and will probably take months by a slew of different editors thanks to you).--
Pericles of Athens
Talk 09:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Wow, talk about personalizing a message! I feel so close to you right now ... by the way, heave you read
WP:SARCASM lately? Or
WP:DEMOCRACY, or
WP:BATTLE, or
WP:AGF, or .... You've reminded me that I need to read
WP:MASTODONS again, so for that at least I thank you.
Good Ol’factory
(talk) 09:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Comment: Think about it this way. An obvious cat for Guðrún would be "Category:Icelandic-language given names from Old Norse". Jón would be something like "Category:Icelandic-language given names from Latin" or whatever. We follow what our sources tell us for the names. Reliable books dealing with the origins of names show the etymology of the names through linguistic origins. Modern borders don't usually define names, it's the language of origin. There'll be Jons, Johns, Johannes and Jonssons, Johnsons, Johanssons around the globe and also in the same countries, yet etymologists categorise these names by their linguistic roots. We can make these cats more encyclopaedic and useful this way. What do you think?--
Celtus (
talk) 07:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- I don't mind people creating a scheme like that at all but it will be partially orthogonal to the original scheme which still needs to be undeleted. There's absolutely nothing preventing us from categorizing both by countries and by languages. In a country category 'Jón' and 'Guðrún' should be together. Someone's thrown out my orange and promised me he'll give me an apple instead. Later. When he gets around to it. I don't mind people giving me an apple somewhere down the road - but I still want my orange back!
Haukur (
talk) 10:20, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Overturn and Admonish There is absolutely no consensus here to delete, and the tortured logic necessary to rationalize viewing this discussion as showing a community consensus of deletion shows no regard for the rather clear consensus for retention. As we are seeing more and more often, there is something seriously wrong at CfD. The usual cast of characters will impose their own biases, both at CfD and here at DRV, while the community as a whole views consensus and policy completely differently. It has probably passed the point where
User:Good Olfactory should have his mopping privileges at CfD revoked and move on to focus on another area where he might be more effective in determining consensus per community standards. CfD needs to be swept clean by a new set of brooms.
Alansohn (
talk) 19:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Alan, are you ever going to actually do something like participate in
WP:DR, or are you just going to continue to complain about how "CFD is broken"? You never did respond to me at the last DRV when I asked for some actual stats. Out of all the CFD's, how many were taken to DRV, and of those, how many were overturned? If you're going to continually criticize CFD and the admins that close the discussions, even go so far as to demand admin admonishments, why don't you have the numbers to back you up? --
Kbdank71 20:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Kris, we are going round and round, in a process rather reminiscent of the Otto issue. The problems were entirely self evident, yet no CfD admin noticed, let alone addressed, the problem. Admins were approached, including yourself, with the responses basically being "it's not my job" to deal with this, even with ample evidence provided, go somewhere else. Evidence was gathered, a rather painstaking task of gathering up the details of dozens of Otto's incidents, and the evidence presented at
WP:ANI led to a rather lengthy block that could have been averted with minimal effort if any CfD admin had been willing to address the problem when it was first raised. The overall CfD problem is orders of magnitude larger and far more disruptive. While the Otto problem is mere gross incivility, the overall CfD problems have led to the improper deletion of dozens of categories in clear disregard of consensus. Only the most egregious closes are brought to DRV and these have been overwhelmingly overturned, with the CfD regulars seeing no issues and the new sets of eyes being near unanimous in seeing problems that justify overturning. There is no "dispute" here that is readily amenable to the lowest levels of the
WP:DR process. Again, the admins at CfD will have ample opportunity to fix the problems themselves. If the issues of improper readings of consensus are addressed, great. If not, continuing evidence will be gathered to have the problems dealt with at a higher level.
Alansohn (
talk) 21:40, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- I suggest everyone leave the "Otto issue" out of this, as much as we'd all love to milk it. (As for a recommendation that I be "admonished", I'll have to assume that this is just the third in a series of ongoing attempts to get me "admonished" for doing something or anything:
[1];
[2].)
Good Ol’factory
(talk) 22:17, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- I can tag most of your statements as nothing more than opinion, since you repeatedly complain but can't back any of it up. But that's your M.O., so I don't know why I should expect anything different this time. I guess I'll see you at the next DRV when you vote to strongly overturn, call for the admonishment of whatever admin closed the CFD, say over and over that CFD is broken, say that the "CFD admins" are ignoring the problem, all without taking one step to actually rectify these "egregious problems" that only you see. You know, the status quo. (and no, I'm not going to address the "Otto issue", because he has nothing to do with (your opinion of) "problems at CFD"). --
Kbdank71 12:53, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse (closer). The "village" (category scheme) has not been "destroyed" (users continue to work off Cydebot's contribution record) and though the nice cooperative work of a number of editors a
"by language" scheme it is well on its way to being developed fully. This is exactly what I had hoped would happen as a result of the close. I didn't rename to "by-language" categories immediately because I wanted users to have a chance to decide what new alternative to select. It's my opinion that rather than complaining about how we're going to get there, users could best spend their time and concern here developing and finishing off the new scheme. I realise that there were users who liked the old scheme as it was, but they simply had no viable arguments for keeping the pre-existing structure. There was no good rationale for keeping categories like
Category:American surnames,
Category:New Zealand surnames, etc. That said, if consensus is to reverse this, I won't lose any sleep over it. But I might laugh at the subcategories of
Category:Surnames by country and there would probably be a veerrrrrryyyyy slow, incremental, one-by-one renaming process that will likely result in the same basic thing that is being achieved right now.
Good Ol’factory
(talk) 22:17, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- This is exactly what I'm talking about - because some users had difficulties defining what should be in
Category:New Zealand surnames you decide to delete every last one of those categories, including ones far less difficult to define. You feel that the categorization you disagree with is something you "might laugh at" and yet you feel that you can serve as a neutral arbiter of the discussion? This doesn't add up. If you have such a strong opinion on a matter that you can't even treat both sides with respect then you should participate in the discussion, not close it.
Haukur (
talk) 22:43, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- I think you're confusing some issues and caricaturing both what I said and the other sides' arguments. Unlike you, I don't have a strong personal preconceived opinion of the matter: all I know about the issue is what other users have argued at the CfD. One side gave some very persuasive arguments; the others gave none. Ergo, I think keeping the categories is a mistake, but not because that was my preconceived opinion. One doesn't decide a bad argument is a good one solely in the name of giving one side "respect". I don't think "respect" is a relevant issue at all, really.
Good Ol’factory
(talk) 05:47, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- You continue to baselessly assert that there were no arguments on the keep side even after I've pointed to specific cogent comments. As for me, I don't recall ever having or expressing an opinion on how to categorize surnames until
Category:Icelandic_names (not surnames!) was deleted from under my feet. You deleted that category but you haven't defended that action at all and when challenged you say something about New Zealand and how you "might laugh at" certain ways to categorize things. Please either restore
Category:Icelandic_names or defend its deletion on the merits. If you "don't think "respect" is a relevant issue at all, really" then you're not following
Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators which specifically exhorts admins to "respect the judgment and feelings of Wikipedia participants". It also says you're supposed to impartially determine consensus and, in bolded words, When in doubt, don't delete.
Haukur (
talk) 13:18, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- I have never said "that there were no arguments on the keep side". I have said there were no convincing arguments on the keep side. I had no "doubt" about which arguments were controlling in the circumstances, thus had no hestitation to delete. Your focus on "respect" is misplaced. Respect has nothing to do with how I assessed the arguments. The point is not that respect is not important in the abstract (of course it is), it's just a confusion of issues in the point at hand.
Good Ol’factory
(talk) 06:05, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- The problem with this approach is that you have turned your close into a single supervote that outweighs any votes, arguments offered or actual consensus. You are more than entitled to vote as a participant, but to vote as a closing admin and call your bias the "consensus", inserting your own personal prejudices to insist that keep votes can be discarded simply because you wave them off with a sniff as "unconvincing" is disruptive and turns consensus into a meaningless process that can be subverted by any admin with an agenda. It would seem that there is no consensus that cannot be turned into any result a closing admin chooses simply by discarding votes you disagree with. This is the unfortunate pattern at CfD, where an alternating pattern of voting and closing means that there is little to no separation between the biases present in votes and the exact same biases present in closes.
Alansohn (
talk) 06:22, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Speaking of unconvincing arguments, I don't find the "ad absurdum" argument convincing here. Part of the role of a closing administrator is to assess the strength of the arguments. That's what I did. The only ones who seem to think I carried this out with any prejudice or bias are those who disagreed with the results, which is perhaps not surprising, but is probably more revealing of their own opinions than any I might have about the topic. I'd also note that I do not (nor do any other admins that I know of) close any CfD discussions that I participate in or am otherwise interested in the outcome of. (For further discussion of any concerns about CfD process in a global sense, I suggest raising the issue at
the appropriate talkpage rather than diverting the discussion here, which is focused on this specific close.)
Good Ol’factory
(talk) 23:13, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- The only ones who seem to think I carried this out with any prejudice or bias are those who disagreed with the results, which is perhaps not surprising, but is probably more revealing of their own opinions than any I might have about the topic. Is this really the way it looks to you? S Marshall says that "the closer appears to have substituted his own opinion for the proper finding" but doesn't appear to particularly disagree on the merits. But in a larger sense it's true that there is a very high correlation between views on the merits and views on the procedural issue. As far as I can see, everyone who participated in the CfD and has commented here either originally wanted to delete and now comes up with a clean bill of health for the procedural decision to delete ("rational, and well-explained close [that happens to agree with my recommendation]", "close and careful reading [that happens to agree with my recommendation]") or wanted to keep and thinks the procedural decision to delete was wrong "absolutely no consensus here to delete [and I happen to have come out against deletion on the merits]". This is common enough on DRV and it's kind of how we humans tend to operate. Your trying to portray those who disagree with you as particularly biased doesn't hold any water.
Haukur (
talk) 02:08, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Which demonstrates exactly what was my point. Go figure. (Remember, I was accused of bias before I accused anyone of bias. I'm not sure why the argument could be used against me, but not vice versa. Maybe we shouldn't make it against anyone?)
Good Ol’factory
(talk) 00:44, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- As I've said above in response to another comment (pardon the repetition), there were zero arguments coming from the "keep" side that were compelling. None. Finding consensus is not a vote count.
Good Ol’factory
(talk) 22:34, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Neither is consensus an arbitrary decision, and you may be in the minority in believing the "delete" side had the more convincing arguments.—
S Marshall
Talk/
Cont 22:38, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- It was not "arbitrary", and I resent that suggestion a little bit. Note that I didn't say the delete side was "more" convincing, I said there were zero convincing arguments for the "keep" side. Somebody has to assess arguments when closes are made. I suggest a look at
Wikipedia:What is consensus?, which is a nice guide.
Good Ol’factory
(talk) 22:40, 25 June 2009 (UTC)y
reply
- "Arbitrary", from "arbiter": one whose role is to decide. The word is not automatically pejorative, and not intended to be. And I don't understand how it's given offence.
Thanks for the pointer to the policy, of which I was aware. I think you and I will not agree on this, so I shall wait to see where other editors' opinions fall.—
S Marshall
Talk/
Cont 22:54, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Well, using that definition every decision made by a closer is "arbitrary", because someone decides how to close every discussion. You should be aware of the other possible meanings of words you use. One OED definition of "arbitrary" is, "derived from mere opinion or preference; not based on the nature of things; hence, capricious, uncertain, varying". Another is "Unrestrained in the exercise of will; of uncontrolled power or authority, absolute; hence, despotic, tyrannical." If you consider that I might have interpreted the word in either or those senses, maybe you can see how it could cause some resentment.
Good Ol’factory
(talk) 23:31, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Comment: I'm not sure that there is anything to be gained now from overturning the outcome, but it was wrong in my view. The closer was sympathetic towards categories by language, but said this was too complicated for one person to implement, so he resorted to instant deletion of the lot. Failing a "procedural keep" (which I had expected), I would have thought the categories should have been left for (say) a month to help users to create an improved scheme, left with CFD tags in the interim, followed by delayed deletion. Although it is possible to work from Cydebot's contributions, it would be much easier (for interested novices, or using
WP:AWB) to work from existing categories. -
Fayenatic
(talk) 12:59, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Overturn. While I appreciate that the closer stated reasons for the close, it certainly did not appear that there was anything like a consensus in support of those reasons, nor a consensus in favor of eliminating the existing structure.--
Arxiloxos (
talk) 22:24, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Overturn for the reasons others have already expressed. There was no consensus in this discussion, and the discussion was not properly advertised to the affected groups (such as through the categorized deletion sorting, etc.) so many, many editors were not even aware the discussion was happening. People don't visit categories daily or even weekly in most cases, especially not when they've been there and been being used for years without any issues. I do also support the "by language" discussion that Good Olfactory mentioned, though I don't understand the argument that names can't be sorted from country of origin (for the most part). ···
日本穣
? ·
Talk to Nihonjoe 22:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- That does make sense to me, Nihonjoe. What would an "American surname" be? Running Bear, perhaps... but it's hard to see why countries without their own language would have a surname category.—
S Marshall
Talk/
Cont 22:38, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- That's why I said "for the most part". There are some countries where names are much less likely to come from (United States, Canada, and that's about it really (maybe Australia)), but there are others which have many names coming from them, and which are generally associated with a specific language (Japan/Japanese, Russian/Russia, etc.), and these should have names sorted into appropriately named categories. I don't think the deletion nomination was well thought out, and the decision did not correctly asses the discussion. ···
日本穣
? ·
Talk to Nihonjoe 05:06, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
-
- Nihonjoe, I think you are greatly underestimating the sheer number of "Fooian [country] surnames" categories that were there, for which it would be highly problematic to claim that some given surname "originated" from that country. It's much more than a handful of ex-anglo colonies (US, Canada, NZ, Aust). For example, out of the following, for which could it reasonably be said that some given surname "X" originated from this country:
- Algerian, American, Angolan, Argentine, Australian, Austrian, Bahamian, Belgian, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazilian, British, Cameroonian, Canadian, Chadian, Chilean, Dominican Republic, Gabonese, Bavarian, Ghanaian, Guatemalan, Haitian, Honduran, Iraqi, Israeli, Ivorian, Jamaican, Jordanian, Kenyan, Lebanese, Libyan, Mauritanian, Mexican, Moroccan, Mozambican, New Zealand, Nigerian, Palestinian, Pakistani, Papua New Guinean, Paraguayan, Peruvian, Puerto Rican, South African, Sri Lankan, Sudanese, Swiss, Tanzanian, Togolese, United Arab Emirati, Uruguayan, Yemeni, Côte d'Ivoire, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Guinean, Malian, Namibian, Senegalese, Singaporean, Syrian, Bohemian, Venezuelan.. etc
- And those are only some pulled out from the nominated list, that have no clearly associated cognate language. Of those remaining countries that do have some 'primary' cognate language associated, about half as many again are significantly mutli-cultural, multi-lingual, countries. And even where one language or culture may predominate, minority languages and cultures exist, and with them presumably different surnaming conventions and origins. Would 'Finnish surnames' include or exclude Sami family names? Georgian may be the official language of the country, but like the rest of the Transcaucasus is a hotspot of ethnic and linguistic diversity, where surnames can often readily differentiate these groups. And so on. All things considered, "by language" and "by country" are rarely, if ever, interchangeable pairings.--
cjllw ʘ
TALK 08:20, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Which is an argument for categorizing by both.
Category:Finnish surnames should include surnames strongly associated with Finland - those will include names with linguistic origin in Finnish, Sami, Swedish and other languages.
Haukur (
talk) 10:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Certainly every category was properly tagged. As noted, that was tagged on June 6th and 7th (taking over 12 hours of my time), and not closed until June 24th – 11 more days than the normal 7 days. There was plenty of time for discussion, and lots of discussion.
- Are you saying that folks in some projects weren't watching their categories? (Many folks participated.)
- Or are you saying that after devoting my weekend to hunting down and tagging the categories, often hiding in the wrong part of the tree, I'm also supposed to find (or guess) every WikiProject and Wikipedian that happened to be interested, and notify their Talk, too? (Not on your life!)
- --
William Allen Simpson (
talk) 12:17, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse deletion. The whole process reminds me of interrogation scene from
The Deer Hunter: "Chevotarevich, is this a Russian name? No, it's American". Lines drawn by politicians should not interfere with human names.
NVO (
talk) 05:39, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Overturn and admonish - Ruining the navigability of surname subcats and putting all surnames in the "Surnames" category, then only fixing the situation as regards extremely well-documented East Asian surnames following strong protest does not assist our users nor reflect well on our encyclopedia. Everything we do must have our users foremost in our minds, and all such huge, sweeping changes (particularly those that are poorly thought out, do not have actual consensus, and negatively affect our encyclopedia's navigability) must be made with all deliberation and input from the community. Regarding the subcategorization of surnames by culture, language, and nation, common sense must be the overriding factor to which we bend in such cases. Most importantly, the closing of a discussion against the actual consensus has become a standard operating procedure here among our admins, who have been entrusted with a sacred duty to reflect community will. Such closings against consensus are highly inappropriate and must not continue at our project.
Badagnani (
talk) 05:57, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- I agree that the closure was correct, given the debate—those supporting keeping did not refute the argument that the categories are inherently undefinable. Now, there is potential that surnames categorized by another criterion is good. However, given the fractured opinion in the debate on how exactly to do that, and that it would necessarily require extensive modification of the extant categorizations, I don't feel it was the job of the CfD's closure to do that. Another system can be devised and instituted. ÷
seresin 08:44, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse, the closure was a thoughtful reading and appraisal of a difficult and at times wayward discussion. I think the calling for admonishment here to be overblown, almost preposterous. There was no abuse of process here. Rather, Good Ol' deserves to be credited with being prepared to confront a daunting assessment task, and do what the role demands: read and consider the points and arguments advanced in the discussion, sanity check for common sense, and then arrive at some determination. The closer's actions readily abide by
rough consensus guidelines (not merely counting heads, looking at strength of argument, discounting fallacious or irrelevant arguments, etc). Which were the cogent arguments made, that defended and demanded that the "surname by country" category structure be kept as-is and not further modified? I don't believe I saw any. Sure, some said "keep, very useful", but without specifying just how it was useful to have categories that meant, as a few of them actually specified, "This category lists surnames found amongst citizens of Foo". Others who said 'keep' then go on to say "reorganise/prune/repurpose", most along the same lines as was suggested and as is in discussion right now at
Category talk:Surnames. Still others made comments that indicate misreading of "by country" to mean "by culture" or "by language"; clearly these are not equivalents. The repeating thread through the discussion was that the present "by country" system was unsatisfactory. And it should be noted, that Good Ol's close was not to say "delete/upmerge, no need for these subcats", but was intended to clear the way for a revision/repurposing of the subcategorisation. Possibly, on consideration there may have been a better method than straight delete/upmerge first, but really whichever way it was done would involve rework anyway to redesign and reinvent the subcategorisation of
Category:surnames. It's done now; I'm not sure what added value overturning and recreating these categories would have, if the clear direction is to move away from the "by country" layout anyway. There's already efforts underway on a "by language" tree, surely it'd be better to continue on with that instead of going backwards. --
cjllw ʘ
TALK 09:35, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- I think "by country" is just as good a way to do it than "by language" and I think those two categorization schemes can coexist. Both schemes will have plenty of grey areas and tricky cases. The misreading of the country scheme to mean "surnames found amongst citizens of Foo" in the most general sense possible is silly. It's a strawman position that one citizen of Foo having a surname makes that a Fooian surname. Something should be classified as a Fooian surname if it's associated with Foo in a notable and verifiable way (e.g. if it appears in monographs on Fooian surnames).
Barack Obama plays basketball (his article even says so) but he is not categorized into
Category:American basketball players because it's not a notable or defining characteristic.
Haukur (
talk) 10:05, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- I don't think it's a strawman position, the descriptions on a few of those categories literally said the category was for "surnames found amongst citizens of [country]". That's evidently how some people thought of and used these cats, however much we or others think it's silly or if it was intended to restrict to notably and verifiably associated surnames. I'd agree that any proposed subdivision scheme will have its grey areas and tricky cases. The argument here however is that the inclusion criteria for 'surname by country' subcats are much more nebulous and open to conflicting interpretations and misuse. Even with your reasonable-sounding condition requiring evidence of notable and defining association, I struggle to see how "notable association" with a country can be consistently defined in the majority of cases. Given its modern demographics, would Hindustani names be notably associated with Fiji? What about
Turks in Bulgaria (with attendant political controversy involving surnames)? Is the surname
Fujimori not notably associated with Peru? I have no expertise in onomastics, but surely when scholarly monographs discuss Fooian surnames and their origins they intend and use "Foo" as a cultural/linguistic identifier, and are not referring to the modern political entity [country] that happens also to be called Foo.--
cjllw ʘ
TALK 15:15, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- That was a good topical comment, thank you. In reply: I have no idea about Hindustani names, Fiji names, Turks in Bulgaria, the name Fujimori or Peruvian names. I have no expertise on these things and I'd be fine with whatever solutions the people active in editing these areas will come up with. A litany of possibly tricky cases is just not a compelling argument to delete the entire structure. You'd need to convince me that taken as a whole the structure was misleading rather than informative. It was an enormous category tree, I'm sure there were lots of tricky cases and I'm sure some of the tricky cases were solved in suboptimal ways. But the harm done by a suboptimal solution to the categorization of a particular name or a particular group of names is miniscule. Deleting the whole thing was much more damaging. As for culture, language and political entities you must remember that it's the last one of the three which keeps the statistics. For example, it's very easy to find information about which names are common in Iceland (currently or historicall). There's even some very good stuff online, see here:
[3] A sorting of names by countries seems eminently reasonable to me. A sorting of names by language seems totally reasonable too - but I don't think it will be any less difficult to define boundaries there (and I'm a linguist, if that adds any weight to my opinion). If you want me to, I can give you a litany of tricky cases for sorting names by language but I won't unless asked since I don't oppose sorting by language as well as by country. But for the record, the deletion discussion we're reviewing also had people who opposed any categorization of names, whether by culture, language or country.
Haukur (
talk) 15:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse deletion – a 'by country' subcat scheme doesn't work if there are any exceptions at all. I don't think there would be any great difficulty in finding a source which says Obama or Eisenhower is an American surname or Portillo or Jones an English one. This doesn't mean that it is a suitable basis for categorisation.
Occuli (
talk) 10:19, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse deletion. I can see plenty of
WP:ILIKEIT keeps and "per above" strongest possible keeps, but no remotely convincing arguments for keeping other than the purely formal and procedural one that instead of deleting all these categories and creating more reasonable ones relating to languages or cultures one might as well rename some of the categories.
Hans
Adler 12:36, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse decision – (original nominator) – "Names by country" was previously deleted at
Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 May 28#Category:Fooian names. So far, names have been categorized by "
language" (emptied and deleted out-of-process, now being reconstituted), "
nationality" (emptied and deleted out-of-process),
culture (a few still remain, but not successful well-defined schema), "ethnicity" (many still remain, among the ridiculous are
Category:French-Puerto Ricans,
Category:Italian-Puerto Ricans,
Category:Irish-Puerto Ricans), and now "
country". The situation was an utter mess, not "well-defined". Many were not categorized under
Category:Surnames, and more were not in the "by country" tree either, hiding under "by continent", "by region", and even under various linguistic "words and phrases" subcategories. As noted during the discussion, there were some (such as Basque, Flemish, Frisian, and Uyghur) that aren't countries. It was not possible for the closer to move to any particular new schema, because each and every article has to be examined. Most have no references. While I may not agree with every action taken by the closer, he's been helpful in resolving the process, and achieving a solution. He has my public thanks!
--
William Allen Simpson (
talk) 12:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
-
- It's a bot, reverting a bot is not an "edit war". It took me a while to figure out how it was functioning and how to stop it from reverting me. When I finally did I left a note on the talk page explaining why deleting this particular category didn't make any sense.
[4] At that point you started reverting me and threatening me - without at any point engaging my argument or talking to me like a human being. To this day, no-one has made any attempt to justify the deletion of
Category:Icelandic names and you have made no attempt to justify your reversion of my edits to
Guðrún and the other pages. The situation that now prevails is that
Guðrún and
Sigurrós are in no Icelandic-related category at all, an obviously inferior situation to the one prevailing before. You broke it. Either fix it or at least stop preventing me from fixing it.
Haukur (
talk) 14:11, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- To this day, there are no references in any of the 3 articles that establish their etymology. No references, no category. Therefore, superior situation.
--
William Allen Simpson (
talk) 14:58, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- I completely disagree but you get points for finally discussing the matter. There is a reference in
Jón and
Guðrún for those names being the most common names in Iceland. That makes them Icelandic names and they should be categorized together. In fact, these are the only facts referenced on these articles so if you want to remove everything everywhere that isn't referenced then it's everything else in these articles that you should remove. (Note: I didn't write these articles and I don't think they're good articles, all I'm saying here is that they need to be categorized together as Icelandic names.)
Haukur (
talk) 15:18, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Obviously, Jón merely being common does not make it "Icelandic" any more than Ian, Jan, John, Jon, Yan, Yon, or any other common variant makes them "American". Nor does a particular diacritical mark. Which came first, the chicken (diacritical mark) or the egg (pronunciation). The answer is neither: they were mutations originally from somewhere else.
--
William Allen Simpson (
talk) 22:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- See, that proves my point nicely. Some people won't like "Jón" being classified linguistically as an Icelandic name (grey area!). Nevertheless, it clearly belongs in an "Icelandic names" category in a "by country" scheme since it's the most common name in Iceland and it's basically not used anywhere else.
Haukur (
talk) 23:14, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- I think a number of the preceeding comments are:
a) Focused on conduct rather than content. I think these should be disregarded, because DRV is not the place to resolve a conduct dispute. If there's a genuine conduct dispute, take it to DR. I encourage all concerned to
ignore attempts to focus on conduct rather than content. b) Focused on what the outcome "should have been". I understand why there's a tendency to think in those terms, but DRV is not AfD round 2. Our role in this is to decide if the closer implemented the consensus. That clearly wasn't a "delete" outcome by raw strength of numbers, so we need to define consensus in terms of the weight of argument. We do need to resist the urge to allow our own personal opinions to reflect our assessment of the arguments that other people brought up. —
S Marshall
Talk/
Cont 14:17, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- "... take it to DR." We are at DR. Do you mean
WP:ANI? To be honest, I'd thought we'd resolved the issue with Haukur on his Talk, and didn't bring it to ANI. Had I known he'd try to rehash it here instead, I'd have given him the opportunity to explain himself at ANI first.... That's what comes of my trying to be nice to somebody.
--
William Allen Simpson (
talk) 14:58, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
-
- As I recall, Deletion review is/was part of Dispute resolution. You are here. Not taking you immediately to ANI or 3RR was being nice. Repeatedly pointing you at edit summaries and (in turn) CfD was being nice. Ignoring your diatribe was being nice. "Please" was being nice.
--
William Allen Simpson (
talk) 22:24, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- You're starting to make me smile. Silly threats about blocking me for an "edit war" with a bot were being nice? Why should I take such nice advice on 3RR from someone blocked for it less than two weeks earlier?
Haukur (
talk) 23:08, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Deletion review is for resolving content disputes (i.e. whether a particular piece of content should have been deleted). It's got nothing to do with conduct disputes.—
S Marshall
Talk/
Cont 11:17, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Overturn deletion of such a huge set of categories with big number of voters requires serious weighing arguments from both sides, summarizing the arguments. Unlike deletion of an article, restoring a deleted category is huge hassle. Therefore its deletion must be thought and rethought 7 times. - Altenmann
>t 16:14, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- And it was, nearly 3 times the normal 7 day discussion period. Here's the requested summary:
- Delete/Upmerge (substantive comments)
-
User:William Allen Simpson
-
User:Otto4711
-
User:Occuli
-
User:Beeswaxcandle
-
User:Beeblebrox
-
User:Carlossuarez46
-
User:Vegaswikian
- Delete (less substantive comments)
-
User:Drawn Some
-
User:Dougweller
- Keep (substantive comments)
- none
- Keep (less substantive comments)
-
User:Badagnani, "Strongest possible keep per above"
-
User:Mayumashu, "informative lists"
-
User:Cmaric, "academic useful pages" [sic]
- (thought deleting articles)
-
User:Alansohn, "could hardly imagine a more effective means of organization"
-
User:Russavia, "valid categorisation." Ukrainians "may not like the consequences; that being a history lesson."
- (example was Russian, meaning Greater Russian Empire)
-
User:Wassermann, "User:Otto471 is totally incorrect, ... false statement is downright absurd and strikes me as profoundly disingenuous."
-
User:68.0.143.11 (single purpose account), "extremely helpful"
-
User:Alexsautographs, "It's a great resource"
-
User:Evans1982, "Most names are indigenous to certain countries."
- Keep some, delete others
-
User:Altenmann, "no valid rationale. Well-defined categories."
-
User:Peterkingiron
-
User:WALTHAM2, "west Asian and North African, perhaps excluding Israel"
-
User:Williamb
- Rename/Reorganize (various proposals)
-
User:Debresser, "originating in"
-
User:Jarry1250, "Generalise"
-
User:Johnbod, "Originating in"
-
User:RoccoWasHere (single purpose account), "useful", "originating from"
-
User:Ophelia Alexiou (single purpose account), "Culturally Originating from"
-
User:WBardwin, "glad to see the topic of reoganiztion under discussion." [sic]
-
User:CJLL Wright
-
User:Celtus, Strong support of the above User:CJLL Wright
-
User:NVO, Weak support of User:CJLL Wright
-
User:PericlesofAthens, "extremely useful", "cultures"
-
User:Nexm0d, "re-categorize the articles to their real ethnic or linguistic origin!"
-
User:Fayenatic london "relating to origin of the name"
-
User:Henry Merrivale, "Essential categories. Study of Fooian surnames in its morphological and semantic aspects is a standard subject; there are hundreds of monographs on onomastics of different countries. Just to give an easy example: the ref list to Unbegaun's monograph "Russian surnames" (sic!) is 10 pages." "Probably the source of the confusion is incorrect umbrella category: Surnames by country."
- --
William Allen Simpson (
talk) 22:24, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- As is obvious from summary, 8 folks wanted to keep all, 30 folks (discounting User:Badagnani) wanted to delete all or some, or implement another schema (for categories, that always involves deletion). By the numbers, that's a pretty strong consensus! There wasn't a consensus on which alternative to implement, although we are now trying to follow CJLL Wright's ideas.
--
William Allen Simpson (
talk) 22:37, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- I think that counting those who wanted to "keep all" on one side against those who wanted to "delete all or some" on the other isn't likely to cut much ice with the unfortunate person who closes this DRV.—
S Marshall
Talk/
Cont 11:17, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Needless to say, this is a tendentious and highly selective misrepresentation of the debate. There was a common feeling that we could improve the category structure, nothing like a consensus to delete it. This is more Bến Tre logic on your part.
Haukur (
talk) 01:02, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse, agree with cjllw. The discussion identified a clear problem with the category structure and a decisive close was appropriate. Outright deletion was perhaps a little drastic in some cases, when several of the cats could probably have just been renamed, but there's no sense in recreating the old tree as was and denying the existence of the problem, far better to press on and implement a new system.
Flowerparty☀ 16:27, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Comment - Since when does a DRV close "Admonish" anyone? AFAIK, for a DRV closer to do so would be contrary to the policy laid out at WP:DRV. I think some of you may be confusing
WP:DRV with
WP:DR. -
jc37 23:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- I think that in the unlikely event that the closer decides "Overturn and admonish" has the day, he should administer a
WP:TROUT. :)—
S Marshall
Talk/
Cont 11:20, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse - Interesting discussion. A closer is not a vote counter. Anyone who thinks that he is, needs to go read
WP:CON again, and this time for understanding. The closer is to determine consensus of arguments based upon the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia. Not those just based upon personal assertions. Personal opinion is only valid in questions of style. Not in questions of content. And in this case: no reference, no category, indeed applies. Categories are a navigational tool. If you want to add "referenced content", make a referenced list, create a referenced article. But without that
reliably sourced referenced content, no category may exist. And a few isolated references for a few specific category members, doesn't mean that all the other category members may stay. Seriously, anyone could have depopulated all members without references, and been fully within policy. This is a consistent policy, which has been in place for YEARS. You cannot add annotations to category members, therefore they are NOT to be used for content purposes, again, because the individual category members cannot be referenced. And that's not just following
WP:CAT, that's following
WP:V and
WP:NOR. -
jc37 23:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Note to DRV-closer: I still think the category structure should be undeleted without prejudice. But in case you decide against that I'd like to ask you to consider temporary undeletion as a compromise. Almost everyone agrees that the old category structure has a lot of information helpful in creating a new category structure. The person who deleted the tree has asked us to work off bot logs to get this information - that's a seriously unnatural and cumbersome way to do things. It would be much easier if the original tree were undeleted for, say, a month or two.
Haukur (
talk) 23:29, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- comment. If it were to make it easier for editors to work on redesign and rebuild of category structure along the lines as is being discussed and commenced at
category talk:Surnames, then I think Haukur's temporary undeletion proposal is a very reasonable one. It probably would be a little less cumbersome than working off Cydebot's logs. To achieve the temporary undeletion, would we presume an input list could be fed into some bot that would then go about re-adding cats? Or maybe, the input list or bot operation could be tweaked to add in the renamed cats (eg Russian surnames-->Russian-language surnames; Bangladeshi surnames-->Bengali-language surnames etc) where these can be readily identified, and the remaining more involved cases considered one-by-one upon recreation.? --
cjllw ʘ
TALK 16:01, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Response -- How would the bot be programmed to check for a reference, and check that the reference is about language origin (not to a list of most popular names, as for the Icelandic names). Every single entry needs to be checked. And it's a lot easier to check the simpler existing edit list from Cydebot by hand (already organized alphabetically by country, already has the edit link in place, 1 click), than to bring up parallel category screens and click multiple times (open category, open article, open edit). He doesn't want to do the checking, he wants somebody else to do the work for him.
--
William Allen Simpson (
talk) 13:07, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- I don't understand what you're saying. Parallel category screens? Who wants whom to do work for whom? I just want the category structure back - preferably to keep it, but failing that I want it back in order to turn it into something not organized by country. Hence, the temporary undeletion idea.
Haukur (
talk) 17:56, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- As for the references, it isn't any sort of unique failure of the previous system that not every article was referenced. Good Ol’factory has put five articles into the new
Category:Japanese-language surnames and none of those articles has any reference at all (are you going to revert him?). Moving from "by country" to "by language" doesn't somehow make references more likely to appear, this is just neither here nor there.
Haukur (
talk) 18:18, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse. The admin's rationale was sound. The handling afterwards was a bit hasty and clumsy; and obviously people are a bit pissy about it. I know my watch-list took one hell of a beating. But this doesn't trump the rationale for the deletion. These cats have to be as useful as possible and every piece of information presented on Wikipedia has to be based on reliable sources. The study of names is through language. No matter how badly we want our nationalistic cats, it isn't how surnames are categorised in sources dealing with the etymology and classification of surnames. The rationale to use verifiable and encyclopaedic cats was in the best interest of this project. We need to put aside our national pride and our personal preferences. We have to think about what is best for this encyclopaedia. So that means using reliable, meaningful and easily understandable categories.--
Celtus (
talk) 06:29, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Overturn.
- The Cfd itself had unusually wide repercussions and should therefore have had correspondingly wide publicity. Notice of it did not reach all editors who felt themselves to be affected, such as some of those at
User talk:Good Olfactory#Surnames
- Thre is wide agreement, shown in the Cfd and elsewhere, that some sort of national/linguistic classification of surnames is useful
- It is neither necessary nor permissibile to undertake
WP:OR about a classification scheme. Suitable sources are widely available, such as the categories used in Hanks, Patrick; Hodges, Flavia. A Dictionary of Surnames. Oxford Univerity Press.
ISBN
0-19-211592-8.
- It is, as far as I know, impossible to add references to a [[Category:..]] declaration. There is, as far as I know, no evidence as to how many categorisations in existing articles were actually supported by references within the article, although confident statements such as "Most have no references" are being made above. Certainly references are present in many cases, and the Hanks & Hodges book, for example, would easily serve as a source of reference for thousands more (nearly all those of European origin)
- The only reasonable closure conclusions were "no consensus" or "reorganise" (or "reorganize" if you prefer). No argument has been presented that running the bot was necessary or helpful for achieving reorganisation.
- In running the bot, exceptions have been made for Chinese, Slovene, Montenegrin, GSB/Konkani, Galician, Czech, Bengali, Belarusian, and Arabic. No rationale seem to have been offered for this bizarre list.
- The remark "(through) the nice cooperative work of a number of editors a 'by language' scheme it is well on its way to being developed fully" made by Good Olfactory above is not supported by
my own experience
SamuelTheGhost (
talk) 11:09, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- No exceptions were made. Most of those were in a separate CfD nomination on a later day, nominated after conclusion of this CfD, as they were already categorized under "language" or "words and phrases", and therefore could more easily be renamed "-language". I created Chinese-language (and others not mentioned here) by hand.
- As to your quote,
my own experience, So would it be possible for a bot-writer to use an existing or new bot to reinstate these as some "category:Hungarian-language surnames" or the like? This illustrates the problem.
"These articles really do need to be gone through one by one and the ones that are not applicable to "by language" do need to be removed from the applicable categories. Users should also be checking for reliable, verifiable sources, etc. in each article, which are lacking in a large number."
There is plenty of "cooperative work", it merely wasn't the answer you desired.... Nobody else is going to do it for you.
- If you really have a source reference, it should be very straightforward to find each surname one by one in the Surnames parent category (or type it in directly), add the reference citation to the article, and add the correct category.
--
William Allen Simpson (
talk) 12:56, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Thank you for explaining the basis on which the exceptions were made. I find it very arbitrary, since it depended on the precise wording used in the category definition, which may well have only loosely correlated with the way the category was used in practice. To continue with the Hungarian example, I don't know what the category said, since it's been deleted, but the actual uses did correspond in about 90% of cases with Hungarian language.
- You seem to have a weird conception of the word "co-operative". I would characterise the response I've been getting from Good Olfactory and you as rigidly unco-operative, and rude to a point just short of breach of
WP:CIVIL. A good example of the rudeness is your phrasing "If you really have a source reference" above, which I can only take as implying that I'm bluffing, whereas I've already drawn attention to the Hanks & Hodges book, which is a source for thousands of these names.
- Your remark "Nobody else is going to do it for you." betrays your lack of grip on the realities of the situation. Wikipedia belongs to all of us equally. I edit it partly for the common good, partly because it's interesting and pleasant, particularly when editors do co-operate. If this deletion decision is overturned, I shall do some work on improving these categories, in areas where I feel competent to do so. If the upmerge stands, I shall edit elsewhere, always alert for any action which is liable to destruction by arbitrary use of a bot.
SamuelTheGhost (
talk) 17:38, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse — This was a difficult to summarise AfD, and I think that
GOl'f did an excellent job of summarising the debate: if I'm not sure what is best to put in their place, certainly all the concerns I had were reflected in the closing summary, and I am confident that the decision was well-considered. As an aside, given the impact of the deletion, it should have been no surprise to anyone that the CfD would be vigorously contested: the closing admin can take the unusual step of listing their own XfD closures on DRV if they want the appeals to be heard without the shocked outrage that follows the deletion. — Charles Stewart
(talk) 12:52, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Overturn, then refine. The OP who stated that this is "destroying the village to save it" is spot-on. Yes, silliness like "this cat includes names appearing in the Fooian phonebook" is ridiculous. However, such radical anti-nationalist opinions as "there is zero reason the name Fujimori should be associated with Japan instead of Serbia" are equally silly. Dumping 14,000 names into one cat helps nobody, and impedes any attempts to re-org in a more helpful fashion. For example, if
Category:Iranian names is judged to be inaccurate since Iran contains many cultures, if we dump into the 14,000 name subcat there's no way I can cat the names. If, however, we agree to attempt to, with references, divide it into
Category:Persian names,
Category:Azeri names,
Category:Baloch names based on the documentable cultural associations of each, it would be infinitely easier if said names were filed under "Iran" instead of dumped in with every name on the planet. The delete smacks of POV "one world" opinions, and threatens other cats tenuously based on nationality (which makes them well-sorted for 95% of users) that would arguably be better based on "culture".
MatthewVanitas (
talk) 04:03, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- You have a source. You are categorizing names from the source, not from an existing category. Your assertion only makes sense by assuming that you are categorizing by looking at the names first (your example, Iran), and then deciding by inference and deduction whether they belong to a subculture. That's contrary to long-standing policy. As are your POV remarks about "radical anti-nationalist opinions" and "one world opinions".
--
William Allen Simpson (
talk) 13:49, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Overturn but refine and prune -- Surnames can be categorised by places to which they are indiginous. Murray and Cameron are Scottish; Murphy is Irish; Sneider is German; Sarkozy is not French (Polish or Hungarian?); Portillo is Spanish; Patel is Indian; Fujimori is Japanese; etc. Many English surnames are ultimately English place names and are thus obviously English. On the other hand, in most countries settled by Europeans eg USA and New Zealand, there will be no equivalent, except possibly in the case of Native Americans and Maoris. National categories will not always be appropriate: the same set of Muslim first names are used as surnames in various Islamic countries, so that Hussain and Mohammed will need to be categorised as Islamic (rather than Pakistani or Iraqi). On the other hand in the Middle East, religious groups have effectively become ethnic groups, so that Armenian names will have been used by Armenians from a number of post-Ottoman states. Similarly, Lee would need to be categorised both as English and as Chinese. Due to there being a relatively small set of Africaaner surnames, though ultimately of Dutch origin, it might be appropriate to have a category for them, but this would be an exceptional case. These surnames characterise a person as to their ultimate paternal origin. I would discourage their use in bio-articles on individuals, but they would be appropriate for articles on people with a particular surname, which are usually little more than disambiguation pages.
Peterkingiron (
talk) 08:03, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- comment. All those diverse circumstances and examples could be addressed (less messily, IMO) under a "by language" of origin/association tree, and not by place/country. If we'd been having this 'surnames by country' discussion in 1989 instead of 2009, then by rights we would not contemplating cats for Armenian names, or Georgian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Uzbek, Ukrainian etc surnames, but Russian/Soviet surnames. Similarly there'd be only Yugoslavian surnames, not Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin, etc. Doing it by language less susceptible to winds of political change, although it will have its own hardbasket cases. It's also a better indicator/measure of name origin, than political boundaries have been, or can be. --
cjllw ʘ
TALK 16:24, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- In 1989 we would most likely have regarded Croatian, Serbian and Montenegrin as one language. In 1999 we would have regarded them as two languages. Whether to regard them as one, two or three languages is a political question rather than a linguistic question. As for the erstwhile Soviet republics I think it would always have been reasonable for a "Surnames by country" structure to include them as subcategories of "Soviet names". In an earlier comment I mentioned that it's the countries which keep the statistics - I should also have mentioned that it's the countries that make the laws. My country, for example, has a finite list of allowed names and a commission which needs to approve any given names not on the list (including new spelling variants). New family names are not allowed at all. There's a lot to link names and political entities.
Haukur (
talk) 16:40, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- No, in 1989, 1999, and 2009, whether Croatian, Serbian and Montenegrin are different languages is answered by verifiable, reliable sources. Adding surnames to a category depending on its ending in "-ic" or "-ich" (or starting with "Mac" or "Mc") is by inference and deduction.
--
William Allen Simpson (
talk) 13:32, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- What exactly are you disagreeing with? You say "in 1989, 1999, and 2009, whether Croatian, Serbian and Montenegrin are different languages is answered by verifiable, reliable sources" and I totally agree with that - the point is that verifiable, reliable sources would have answered the question differently in each of those years. You can also toss Bosnian into the mix. My point is that distinguishing languages is something subject to the winds of political change.
Haukur (
talk) 17:42, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Your point is demonstrably false, according to references in the respective language articles. The identifiable cultures and languages existed long (hundreds of years) before the borders were recently redrawn, evidenced by the different surname endings and spellings mentioned above.
--
William Allen Simpson (
talk) 08:45, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
reply
- No, I'm quite right about this. Whether or not something is regarded as a language or a dialect is usually just a political issue - reliable sources in 1989 treated Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin and Bosnian as dialects of one language -
Serbo-Croatian. Reliable sources now treat this differently, because of political changes rather than linguistic changes.
Haukur (
talk) 11:16, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
reply
- A detailed example. I feel the discussion above has tended to get too abstract and is in need of some examples of what was actually deleted. So here's one.
Category:African surnames is one of the categories deleted. What did it contain? This:
Youssouf,
Van der Merwe,
Van Heerden,
Sissoko,
Sillah,
Shakur,
Sesay (Surname),
Okello,
Oduya,
Ndikumana,
Mohamedally,
Kébé,
Koroma (surname),
Kiprop,
Kabila,
Kabbah (surname),
Edusei,
Doumbia,
Domoraud,
Diop,
Diallo,
Diagne,
Dembo,
Dawodu,
Daramy (surname),
Coulibaly,
Conteh (surname),
Conde (surname),
Cissokho,
Cissé,
Bockarie (surname),
Bankole,
Ba (surname),
Aubameyang,
Asaria,
Asamoah,
Appiah,
Aluko (disambiguation),
Alassane,
Ahumibe,
Aboubakar. From the discussion above you might think it included every surname in every phonebook in every country in the African continent but that's obviously not the case. It seems like a pretty reasonable group of names with notable and defining associations with Africa (I haven't checked every one, maybe you could nitpick on some of them, I'm not saying it's perfect).
Haukur (
talk) 21:49, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- "It seems like a pretty reasonable group of names with notable and defining associations with Africa..." - That would appear to be an unreferenced assertion. -
jc37 05:18, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Comment - Is this meant as a joke? What is your evidence that these are not African surnames? If not meant as a joke, please keep in mind that everything we do at Wikipedia must be based on reasonableness, and keeping our users foremost in our minds. Substituting a "Surnames" category for a legitimate "African surnames" subcategory is neither reasonable nor something that assists our users in finding the information they need to find (with all verifiably African surnames buried in a "Surnames" category with 14 thousand entries). Let's not undermine our encyclopedia in such a manner, allowing a few editors with extreme viewpoints to ruin our perfectly reasonable system of navigation--as they have so far been able to do.
Badagnani (
talk) 06:25, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
reply
- No it wasn't a joke. Though, I think it was stating the obvious. Speaking of which: "What is your evidence that these are not African surnames?" - I don't need evidence, those who would include them need the evidence (reference).
- I think you're confusing categoryspace with mainspace. We tend to allow unreferenced assertions in mainspace, due to
presuming that the info is accurate, and we're just waiting for it to be referenced in a timely manner. And if it isn't it'll likely be deleted for one of various reasons (commonly: "unsourced
WP:OR").
- In category-space, since it's not about content, but navigation, you HAVE to have the references, for two reasons (among others). First, potential misrepresentation of fact. And without references in the source article, there's no way to PROVE it. (The oft-quoted line from the beginning of
WP:V applies here...)
- Second, since categories are for navigation purposes, if there are no references to support it, then what's the purpose of the navigation? To go from assertion to assertion? That's rather obviously contrary to Wikipedia policy (as I noted above). And this doesn't even get into
WP:BLP issues.
- And so far, all that seems to be currently verified is that these are surnames. Until the rest is verified, then: No category.
- If anyone's "undermining the encyclopedia", it's whoever is attempting to create an category system based upon unverified assertions of
original research, contrary to long-standing policy.
- And while we're discussing this, you know what else has been lacking?
WP:NPOV!
- I'm am absolutely stunned that anyone would accuse other editors of anti-whatever bias.
- I won't speak for anyone else, but for me, this comes down to a clear set of policies that have been in place for YEARS. And
WP:IWANTIT just doesn't trump policy in this case.
- I hope this clarifies. -
jc37 17:33, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
reply
- I don't really follow. Categories without references seem pretty harmless in most cases and certainly in the cases we're discussing.
Diagne gets categorized as an African surname without a reference. What's the worst that can happen if this somehow turns out to be wrong? I don't see why that would be worse than unreferenced inaccurate statements in article text.
Haukur (
talk) 01:45, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
reply
- We're sorry that you don't understand. That lack of understanding is one of the reasons that the entire surnames by country scheme didn't work, and had to be replaced. From Youssouf to Aboubakar, there are/were no references proving they are African surnames. I'm hoping that folks will pay more attention to categorization by language. Meanwhile, take this shorthand statement to heart: no reference, no category.
--
William Allen Simpson (
talk) 08:45, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
reply
- See, here's the thing - I'd like to see actual intellectual arguments rather than "shorthand statements" chanted over and over again.
Haukur (
talk) 11:21, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Other examples. It's a misrepresentation of the debate that the deletions represented a move from a "by country" structure to a "by language" structure. In reality they meant a move from a somewhat variegated structure to no structure at all. A number of the categories deleted are language-based and cannot be interpreted in any other way.
Category:Urdu names was deleted. So was
Category:Afrikaans surnames.
Afrikaans and
Urdu are languages. The language-group categories
Category:Slavic surnames,
Category:Germanic surnames,
Category:Germanic names and
Category:Celtic surnames were also deleted. I continue to think that the best way to proceed is to undelete all those categories and work to improve the system from there.
Haukur (
talk) 21:49, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Whether or not a "by language" system was to be adopted was left as an open question when the close was performed. Discussion was recommended on this point. If the resulting consensus is to create a "by language" system, then obviously these categories could be restored to join the system.
Good Ol’factory
(talk) 00:01, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
reply
- This doesn't make any sense. You yourself have been actively participating in creating a by-language system and in suppressing efforts to work with other systems. (See e.g.
User_talk:Good_Olfactory#Surnames_redux.) So what's the deal? Why did you delete these by-language categories? In what possible sense did the CfD reach a consensus to delete by-language categories?
Haukur (
talk) 01:41, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
reply
- No, I haven't been "actively participating" in the development of the language scheme or in suppressing any other moves to develop other systems. I'm quite uninvolved, actually. I've responded to inquiries, made a few non-substantive comments on
Category talk:Surnames, re-deleted categories that were re-created, and done some other administrative work (like unprotecting a surnames template) for some who've asked me for help, but no where have I expressed a preference for the language scheme over any other proposed scheme. The language scheme got off the ground quickly, but I haven't seen much action on an alternate scheme. I'd be happy to similarly assist the other scheme if it gets off the ground too. At this stage I'm not even sure what it would be. My statement above explains why the language categories were originally deleted: "Whether or not a 'by language' system was to be adopted was left as an open question when the close was performed. Discussion was recommended on this point."
Good Ol’factory
(talk) 02:29, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Yes you have been. See e.g. this edit of yours:
[5] I'm shocked, shocked that you have added an article to a category without any reference being provided. Have you yet to accept the sacred shorthand statement in your heart?
Haukur (
talk) 11:27, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
reply
- The examples that you gave here were categorized "by country". You seem to agree that they were incorrectly categorized. With the categories themselves incorrectly categorized, why do you expect the contents were better? (Checking them at the time revealed no references.) No reference, no category.
--
William Allen Simpson (
talk) 08:45, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse per Flowerparty and others above. --
Kbdank71 15:32, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse. Clearly from the discussion at CfD and here, the existing structure had problems. By upmerging to the parent, all of the articles are in one place awaiting reassignment in whatever manner consensus arrive at. Clearly this has created the optimal placement of the articles to fix the existing problems and the best status to implement any new scheme. The previous arrangement was deeply flawed and would have been a nightmare to untangle.
Vegaswikian (
talk) 05:34, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
reply
- Overturn; action to replace by-country categories with one enormous category was not supported by the discussion, and closer did not make a compelling argument for it. The existing structure had problems; a number of potentially better proposals were made; the closer instead opted for a third, obviously worse choice. It would have been just as easy to implement a new (potentially parallel) system from the status quo position than from the current position, indeed probably easier.
Christopher Parham
(talk) 13:53, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
reply
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