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User talk:SDZeroBot/Category cycles. —
andrybak (
talk) 18:07, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#MOS:GENDERID being used in place of WP:Article titles and for category arguments. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 20:47, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality#The piece about the subject's sexual orientation being relevant to their public life. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 01:50, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Templates § Naming of navbox categories. — andrybak ( talk) 14:26, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
The navigation buttons are not working appropriately on Category pages. For example: in Category:Upcoming films, when clicking Next page, it jumps to entries beginning with F. This is not what the url says, but it skips over 16 articles that started with E. You can see them if you adjust the url to start the pagefrom argument with D. Is anyone else having this issue? Is there a solution known to fix this? BOVINEBOY 2008 10:18, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
“ | Templates are not articles, and thus do not belong in content categories. | ” |
With no explanation, this one sentence labels most categories as article-only categories for no reason related to the five pillars, that I can imagine. Since most possible types of template-specific categories would have one or fewer templates in them (if were to exist) there are rightly very few template-specific categories, but if you try to keep templates out of all the other categories, it defeats the whole purpose of the categories system: to help users find things.
When looking for a templates in the category tree, allowing templates in normal categories would make it much much more possible for users to find the template they are looking for. But when looking for articles and other non-templates in the category tree, allowing templates in normal categories also does not hinder users from finding the articles they are looking for. Rather, it very likely that having templates in the category tree would make it even easier to find articles you are looking for, since that is also the purpose of many templates. This procedure makes the category tree a worse tool, both coming and going. tahc chat 18:16, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
Just seeing this thread now. I raised this same issue here in September; see Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Archive 17#Template categories as subcategories of content categories. I'm in agreement with tahc and Michael Bednarek. I think we'd be better off with templates and categories for templates integrated into the main category tree at the subject level. "Templates are not articles, and thus do not belong in content categories" isn't much of rationale. Images aren't articles either, and yet we see them integrated into the main tree. Compare Category:Images of Colorado to Category:Colorado templates. Only the image category rolls up into Category:Colorado. What's also misleading is Wikipedia:SORTKEY, which defines "τ" (tau, displays as "Τ") is for templates". I see that andrybak has recently added an addendum to this line reading "Keep in mind, template categories should not be added to content categories per WP:CAT#T." When and where is the tau sort key supposed to be used then? Jweiss11 ( talk) 04:05, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
... prevent the use of category tools to detect templates placed in topic categoriesis a circular argument – those tools (which are they?) would not be needed. There's no added complexity, instead categorization will become simpler. Hypothetical scenarios are not a valid argument. For the record, I support that subject-related templates are categorized in the subject's main category, e.g. Template:Albert Einstein belongs in Category:Albert Einstein, Template:Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Category:Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Template:Mozart symphonies in Category:Symphonies by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and a dozen other similar Mozart-related templates in similar categories. -- Michael Bednarek ( talk) 02:27, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
we have clear support here for inclusion of templates and category templates in the main category tree at the topic level from Tahc, Michael Bednarek, Oculi, Fayenatic london, and me with DexDor opposing. Not sure if Dr Greg has a clear position here. Is this enough of a consensus to move forward with changing the policy? Jweiss11 ( talk) 13:58, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
Please see:
Template talk:R to project namespace#RfC: Should we categorize redirects to the same namespace?
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 19:15, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
Maybe an example should be added for islands in that Isle of Wight is sorted as "Wight, Isle of" when referring to the island but as "Isle of Wight" when the referring to the county/district, Isle of Mull is a good example of one that doesn't have this variation. Crouch, Swale ( talk) 18:01, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
I would like the possibility to list childless and childfree people.
This topic is not covered in Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality. There are "involuntary" and "voluntary" childlessness. "Involuntary Childlessness" links to "infertility" ( source) but it could also be due to mental problems, so they are not the same.
"Should I create Category "Childless with the sub-categories "Childfree", and "Involuntary Childlessness" or "Infertility" ?
I have never created a category and feel a bit overwhelmed browsing all the category help pages. So how should I go about creating, naming and branching these topics? In advance : thanks. - Cy21 ➜ discuss 10:42, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
A few editors and I have had some discussions about the categorization structure and relationship between four different category types that categorize according to various countries/origins:
The central issue is how category types 1–3 should relate to type 4.
Question 1: Should 1–3 be subcategories of 4?
In favour—having a parent–child relationship between the four categories eases category navigation between subjects that are closely related. For example, France has an interest in expatriates of France being in Germany, and this interest and concern will affect the bilateral relationship between the two countries. In opposition—perhaps the connection is too tenuous or not universally relevant.
Question 2: Should #2 and/or #3 be a subcategory of #1?
In favour—a "BARian emigrant to FOO" is clearly (by definition almost) "of BARian descent", and they could be said to be a "FOOian person" insofar as "FOOian person" can mean a "person from FOO". In opposition—it could be argued that a "BARian person" is not of "BARian descent". Or that "FOOian" means nationality (or even citizenship), and that a person does not necessarily obtain nationality upon emigration. (Complicating the issue is that citizenship and nationality are two separate but related concepts—a person can be a national of a country but not be a citizen, such as in permanent residency.)
I am not unbiased in my opinion. I think that the answer to both questions is "yes", mainly for ease of navigation between these topics. As long as category types 1–3 exist (and there are good arguments that they should not), I do not think we should be overly strict in applying a relationship between them all for what are at best fuzzy concepts. But, I am interested in getting a wider discussion going on these issues. Good Ol’factory (talk) 02:25, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
bilateralism is the conduct of political, economic, or cultural relations between two sovereign states", so those "relations" categories may also contain something that's not directly about goverments/politics; i.e. also content about economic or cultural (sports = culture) relations between two countries. 87.95.206.253 ( talk) 13:29, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
Question 1: Yes. Ideally, these would be altogether in a category called BARian diaspora in FOO (e.g. Category:Russian diaspora in Germany) or in some cases BARian FOOian society (e.g. Category:European-American society, emphasized by thic CfD started by Fayenatic london which was unfortunately not yet extended to the subcategories). That way, they do not clog the parent BAR–FOO relations category. To refine even more how I usually structure these categories when I come upon them, there is often a BARian ambassadors in FOO category as a child of the expatriates category (which is correct). As an exception to WP:SUBCAT, I consider that the Ambassadors category deserves to be placed directly in the FOO-BAR relations category in addition to being a 3rd-level child through Relations→Diaspora→Expatriates→Ambassadors precisely because they manage the diplomatic relationship and have therefore a direct and defining link to it.
Question 2: Yes for emigrants (#2) but No for expatriates (#3). Emigrants to Foo are Fooian people while expatriates to Foo are not. Indeed the very difference between an emigrant and an expatriate is that they make the new country their permanent place of living. Place Clichy ( talk) 19:22, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
I've made some changes to the wording of the guideline to improve clarity and cut some redundancy. Specifically, i moved a paragraph out of § Subcategorization that was mainly about categorizing articles rather than subcategories. Feel free to make any necessary adjustments. — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 11:24, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
My proposal is to have a configurable bot that keeps track of the size of categories over time, such that you can create charts like {{
Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog chart}}
. You can then display these at the top of the category page or in a WikiProject, for example to invite editors to help reduce backlogs and to show off your progress. It doesn't have to be for backlogs, either. For instance we could have a chart showing the growth of
Category:All WikiProject Women in Red pages over time.
How it works
Administrators can add new categories to the bot's configuration page. I've created User:MusikBot/CategoryCounter/config as an example. Each entry should have the category name, granularity ("daily", "weekly" or "monthly"), and the title of wherever the data should be stored (probably a subpage of the chart template). There is also a 'cutoff' option, which specifies the number of days after which the dataset should be truncated (so older data is removed as new data is added). This may be necessary especially for the "daily" granularity because after several years the dataset can become too large.
The bot would go off of this category to populate another JSON page with the data, for example Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog chart/daily. You can then make charts that display this data, such as with Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog chart. The bot won't create the chart for you, only populate the data, however there will be thorough documentation on how to set it all up.
Any concerns?
Does the above system make sense? Any thoughts or concerns? I thought about using templates as some archiving bots do, but this is a fairly fragile system compared to JSON, and I'd prefer administrators maintain the configuration so as to prevent additions of very small categories that unnecessarily strain the system. That said, getting the size of a category is a pretty cheap query, so I imagine we could have many hundreds if not thousands of categories set up before the bot would run into scaling problems. If the bot ever does break or stops running, the dataset pages can still be manually edited (by anyone) and the chart will update accordingly.
Let me know what you think! — MusikAnimal talk 04:45, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
For example, this biography: [1]. Had about 25 categories, and an IP added 10 more. Should we try to limit the # of categories to a certain number, or should we always add a person to the categories that they fit into? – Novem Linguae ( talk) 12:48, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
The "defining characteristics" rule seems to be widely ignored — or perhaps I don't understand it. I've included two examples below. My point is not to litigate particular cases of categorization in these examples, but to try to clarify the rule.
For example, I'm not sure how Category:Jeffrey Epstein is supposed to work. Many of the articles categorized under it are clearly related to Epstein and unproblematic: TV series about him, properties he owned, people primarily known as his accusers, etc.
But others are only tangentially associated with him: Eva Andersson-Dubin's relationship with him is that she dated him and socialized with him; Leon Black used him as a financial advisor and put him on his charity's board; Peggy Siegal worked as a publicist for him; Space Relations is a novel that supposedly inspired his crimes.
Then there are several people who were named by Virginia Roberts Giuffre as "participants" in Epstein's sex trafficking scheme with whom she was "directed to have sex" ( Jean-Luc Brunel, Glenn Dubin, George J. Mitchell, Bill Richardson). Giuffre's allegations are of course shocking, but so far they are just uncorroborated allegations by one person, these people deny them, and in fact she didn't even allege that she had sex with these people — the deposition was about the actions of Ghislaine Maxwell. It may well turn out that all these people are guilty of horrible crimes, but in the meantime, adding them to the Jeffrey Epstein category functions primarily as a sort of character assassination by association. It seems quite a stretch to say that these allegations are a "defining characteristic" of these people.
Category:Christmas food certainly includes some foods which are specifically associated with Christmas, such as Christmas cookies and panettone, but also a long list of things which are consumed on Christmas, but also on many other occasions, in a variety of cuisines.
In what way is apple pie "defined" as a Christmas food? — the article don't even mention Christmas. Chicken and dumplings doesn't even say it is a holiday food, let alone specifically a Christmas food; the same for nut (food). Apple cider is mentioned as traditional for various winter holidays, among which Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas — does that make "Christmas food" a "defining characteristic"? Kourabiedes in Greek cuisine are popular for all special occasions, not just Christmas. King cake with a fève inside is generally served for the Christian holiday of Epiphany (holiday) (also known as "the twelfth day of Christmas") — is that enough to associate them with Christmas foods? The Menudo (soup) article mentions menudo as traditional for wedding receptions and for hangovers, and "in the 1930s, among migrant workers in Arizona, menudo parties were held regularly to celebrate births, Christmas, and other occasions" — can we really say that being a Christmas food is a defining characteristic of menudo because it was a celebratory food among some Mexican migrant workers in the 1930s? Sarma (food) (sarmale) is apparently served year-round, but "especially for holidays like Christmas and Easter" in Romania; but in the rest of the formerly Ottoman world where they are widely eaten, they have no special association with Christmas. And so on.
How specific does the association between a food and Christmas have to be before it is a "defining characteristic" of the food? It seems to me that the minimal criterion to be mentioned as a "Christmas food" is that some reliable source should explicitly say that it is "common" or "traditional" or "characteristic" of Christmas specifically, not just that it is served on many holidays. Beyond that, I'm not sure what "defining category" means. How broadly known does the association have to be?
In summary, how indirect can a supposedly "essential", "defining" characteristic be? — Macrakis ( talk) 15:29, 25 November 2020 (UTC)
{{find sources}}
template to generate a bunch of links that might help, for the "apple pie" example:
Notes
Please see Category talk:Faculty by university or college#Request for comment on naming. -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 15:30, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Should people in Category:Sportspeople from Denver be in Category:People from Denver? I'm picking sportspeople and Denver as an example. In general, are occupations from place treated as WP:DUPCAT or not? Carlossuarez46 ( talk) 18:26, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
Are too many categories for recipients of state honours and awards being deleted? Please see Wikipedia talk:Overcategorization#RfC on WP:OCAWARD. -- Necrothesp ( talk) 12:22, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Categories § Prioritizing search results. --
Trialpears (
talk) 20:45, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
Input would be gratefully received at User talk:Rathfelder#People from Foo. Thanks. — Brigade Piron ( talk) 17:25, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
For those who don't hang out at Template talk:Title year, I've created some new templates that will hopefully be useful to editors working on categories - {{ Title year+1}}, {{ Title year-1}}, {{ Title year2range}}, {{ Title year2range+1}} and {{ Title year2range-1}}, the latter using the new {{ Year2range}} template. I've also fixed {{ Copycat}} so it works off the sidebar again, and it now looks for year ranges as well (although doesn't work quite the same way for them). I've been on a Wikibreak for a bit so I don't think I thanked Pppery for sorting out all the safesubsts on Copycat, I'd got as far as thinking that safesubst might be useful but the documentation was particularly opaque! Le Deluge ( talk) 00:12, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
Request for input: In a widespread and repeated fashion, Helpfulwikieditoryay has been removing categories for erotic photographers by nationality from the general categories for photographers by nationality and removing categories for pornographic actors by nationality from the general categories for actors by nationality. For instance, here they removed Category:American photographers as a parent category of Category:American erotic photographers. Similarly, here they removed Category:Canadian male film actors as a parent category of Category:Canadian male pornographic film actors. There are dozens more. Place Clichy and I have both inquired about this on the user's talk page here, but we haven't really made much progress. Things are venturing into the land of edit warring (me included), so I thought I would bring this here for comment. Who is correctly categorizing? Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:24, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Category:fooian photographers
as parent to Category:fooian erotic photographers
is clearly against the principles of
WP:SUBCAT. Helpfulwikieditoryay's remark, "I'd rather be correct than just take mob rule", doesn't bode well. --
Michael Bednarek (
talk) 03:36, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Category:British people by occupation
. Not having Category:American photographers by genre
doesn't mean that American erotic photographers are not American photographers. --
Michael Bednarek (
talk) 05:33, 22 June 2021 (UTC)not for genre" while the removed category contains e.g. List of action film actors. This came after the same edit was reverted together with a talk page message explaining the revert. This pattern is repeated on dozens of pages and categories.
I recently created the eponymous cat Category:Allie X. In this edit, Robby added it to Category:Canadian singers. This doesn't seem unreasonable. But in practice, all other eponymous categories in the hidden cat Category:Wikipedia categories named after Canadian musicians have no non-hidden parent category. This seems to be true of musician categories more widely, e.g. none of the categories in Category:Wikipedia categories named after Australian musicians or Category:Wikipedia categories named after American musicians have non-hidden parents.
WP:OCEPON refers to the guidance at
WP:SEPARATE: Keep people categories separate: categories with a title indicating that the contents are people should normally only contain biographical articles and lists of people, and perhaps a non-biographical main article
}. This would seem to be a good reason to not include an eponymous cat like
Category:Celine Dion under a "people category" like
Category:Canadian singers, since it contains e.g.
Category:Celine Dion songs, and songs aren't people.
But on the other hand, WP:OCEPON points to Category:Barack Obama, Category:John Maynard Keynes, and Category:Albert Einstein as examples of eponymous cats, and all three of these are placed in people categories like Category:Scientists from Munich and Category:Presidents of the United States.
The more generic guidance about eponymous category parentage at
WP:EPONYMOUS is a little hand-wavey: eponymous category should have only the categories of its article that are relevant to the category's content
.
So I'm pretty confused. We seem to uniformly follow one practice for musician eponymous cats, and another for eponymous cats for presidents and Nobel laureates. The WP:SEPARATE guideline seems to favour the former practice, but it's not entirely clear.
I'm wondering if maybe this is just a pragmatic choice related to the size of these categories and navigation? e.g. there's a small, finite number of US presidents, so adding their eponymous categories under Category:Presidents of the United States doesn't render the subcategory list too intractable. But we have 500 eponymous categories for American musicians, so dumping them all directly into Category:American musicians would make navigation hard, with all the non-eponymous categories like Category:American session musicians getting lost in the fray? But that's just a guess.
Help? Colin M ( talk) 14:51, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
There is a content dispute at Talk:Lincoln, Nebraska#Ukrainian refugees in Lincoln about the addition of Category:Ukrainian communities in the United States to a city where 0.09 percent of the city's population is Ukrainian. Your input would be appreciated. Magnolia677 ( talk) 19:27, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Categories#Category:State government in Nigeria — Lights and freedom ( talk ~ contribs) 00:10, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Hello! Advice seems to indicate that categories like Category:Irish male actors and Category:Irish actresses should be non-diffusing with Category:Irish actors but they are. Can anyone help me understand this? Usedtobecool ☎️ 02:19, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
Your feedback would be appreciated at Cfd#Category:Historical figures with ambiguous or disputed gender identity. Thanks, Mathglot ( talk) 20:33, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
The ninth bullet point under general naming conventions states: When an article topic requires disambiguation, any category eponymously named for that topic should include the same form of disambiguation, even if no other articles are likely to have an eponymous category. This seems to result in unnecessarily clunky category titles that incorporate redundancies. If there are several articles that could be titled Schplug, such that there are various Schplug articles with brackets indicating which entity is meant, then is it really necessary that, if one of these is Schplug (band), the categories for that band's recordings be Category:Schplug (band) albums and Category:Schplug (band) songs, and for its musicians Category:Schplug (band) members (hopefully no-one will insist on Category:Schplug (band) band members). If the other putative Schplugs are white goods, breeds of cattle or traditional Swiss footwear, (they are not: I made the word up) then none of them are going to be releasing singles or albums, or have an evolving personnel, and the disambiguation is redundant and unsightly.
I would suggest rewriting that ninth bullet point as When an article topic requires disambiguation, any category eponymously named for that topic need only include disambiguation if there is a danger of confusion. Thus the assumption is that there need not be the parenthetical addition, but that it can be required by anyone claiming reasonable danger of confusion. Kevin McE ( talk) 13:42, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
See this discussion. Marcocapelle ( talk) 10:38, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
Is there such a thing as overdoing the categorization of an article? I'm looking at this pair of edits at Félix Guattari, which raised the number of categories on the article from about 15 to over 75. Largoplazo ( talk) 15:47, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
Yes. Lots of articles about philosphers are like that. I dont think its helpful. Rathfelder ( talk) 16:26, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
This query is triggered by the recent placing of Thomas Aikenhead (hanged for blaspheming against Christianity) into a Criminals from Edinburgh category. It returns to a topic which I recall attempting to raise before, without response, I think in a WikiProject that no longer exists, after Richard Carlile (jailed many times while campaigning for freedom of the press in the UK) was placed into a criminal category. Many figures in history either suffered penalties as criminals or would have so suffered had they fallen into the hands of their adversaries. Obvious examples range from philosophers and historians to the founders of religious schisms or political secessions. I can also think of playwrights, actors and mathematicians convicted because of their sexuality. For all of these, I would regard use of the "criminal" categorisation as unhelpful (whereas something like Category:People prosecuted under anti-homosexuality laws provides a categorised view without carrying that negativity). Looking in the archives I see Wikipedia_talk:Categorization/Archive_17#Criminal_categories touched briefly on this question, but I would like to explore consensus on when a "criminal" categorisation is appropriate. My view (expanding on the exchange in the edit comments in the Carlile article) is that it should be limited to individuals or organised groups who sought financial gain and/or exercised violence against others, though I appreciate that may also be woolly as a definition. AllyD ( talk) 09:07, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
Examples ranging from Socrates to Martin Luther King
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I'd encourage interested editors to review this ANI thread regarding Kanghuitari ( talk · contribs)'s extensive creation of categories, many of which have resulted in CfDs, and chime in if they desire. DonIago ( talk) 19:06, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
@ UnitedStatesian, RandomCanadian, Oculi, Jpbowen, Necrothesp, DuncanHill, Mathsci, Brigade Piron, 14GTR, and DanielRigal: Pinging participants in the below-referenced discussion. BD2412 T 05:07, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
The recent discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2021 December 5#Category:Alumni by educational institution, which proposed to do away with the entire category structure of alumni affiliations, appears to demonstrate a point of WP:DEFCAT and WP:NONDEF requiring clarification. The proposition of the deletion proposal was that people are not "known for" what institutions they have attended. The same concern likely applies to year of birth and year of death categories, as people are not "known for" being born or having died in a particular year. I propose some revision to the standard (if appropriate language does not exist elsewhere) indicating that fundamental biographical details such as year of birth and being an alumni of an academic institution (at least at the collegiate level or higher) are appropriate for categorization, even if they are not what the subject is "known for" in the most pedantic sense of that phrase. BD2412 T 05:03, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
Sorry for being late to the discussion. I am fine with some clarifying text, it would be helpful, and talking about year of birth, year of death, and profession. I do not support "collegiate or post-collegiate alumni status". I am glad to exclude school alumni status, but I don't think even collegiate/post-collegiate alumni status should be included. They frequently fail DEFCAT and I see no reason to override DEFCAT. Bondegezou ( talk) 15:30, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
Substantive additions to policy should generally be rejected unless there is a real problem that needs solving, not just a hypothetical or perceived problem.Colin M ( talk) 20:05, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
essential characteristics of a subject, not something that is an essential characteristic to its subject; and further, that categories should be something that can help in constructing
sets of pages on topics that are defined by those characteristics, not "sets of pages on topics that share one random characteristic".
primarily known for being the founder and director of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir., not for having studied at the Amsterdam conservatory (although being faculty [as opposed to alumnus] at the University of Leiden might be a more compelling categorisation. Händel is known for quite a lot of things, a fair few of which might be looked up by readers (and be interesting and valid categories), but not for having studied law at the University of Halle (although that is an undeniable fact). John Eliot Gardiner is known for his conducting and his recordings, but I most certainly can't think of anyone that would search for him as an "alumni of King's College London" or as being amongst the "people educated at Bryanston School" (although those are both, again, undeniable facts).
Syson received a Bachelor of Arts from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London and would continue studying there for 3 years in the PhD program [...];
Leatherman earned his Ph.D. in environmental (coastal) sciences [i.e. subject] from the University of Virginia [place] in 1976 and a B.S. degree in geosciences [subject] from North Carolina State University [place] in 1970.;
Blatteis continued his education, earning a BA from Rutgers University [place] in 1954, and an MS and a PhD in physiology [subject] under the mentorship of Dr. Steven M. Horvath in 1955 and 1957, respectively, from the University of Iowa. [place].
in "Caravaggio, an Italian artist of the Baroque movement", Italian, artist, and Baroque may all be considered to be defining characteristics of the subject Caravaggio.. Guidelines as written make clear that
Categorization by non-defining characteristics should be avoided. It is sometimes difficult to know whether or not a particular characteristic is "defining" for any given topic.As to the quip about eliminating American golfers, that is yet another strawman, and it's not particularly enlightening for you to keep trying such cheap tricks just to "win" the debate. RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 19:46, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
Telling me that McGehee was in Category:Justices of the Mississippi Supreme Court and Category:Mississippi state senators would have gotten me all the information I needed": this betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what categories are for. They are not for people who have already found the article and want to understand more about the subject. That's what the article text is for, or maybe the infobox if you're a lazy reader. They are for collecting together groups of articles that are similar under some defining characteristic. — David Eppstein ( talk) 05:57, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
We could go around in circles repeating the same arguments, but it is incumbent upon us to try to move towards WP:CONSENSUS. An RfC has been suggested, but what would the RfC be on? I'm not certain we need any change to the text at WP:CAT or WP:OVERCAT, but maybe we do and sometimes a clarifying RfC can still have value even if no text is changed.
I would like to see (a) agreement that WP:DEFCAT is still a guiding principle; (b) agreement that educational alumni categories are defining (meet DEFCAT) for some articles, but not other articles; (c) tertiary-level education is more like to be defining than secondary, and primary is generally unlikely to do so. I hope we could get agreement on those. The trickier thing is to decide the details of (b), but maybe we start with the things we can agree on. Just a suggestion -- ignore if unhelpful! Bondegezou ( talk) 21:52, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
The mere factual accuracy of a category does not mean it is a defining characteristic for every subject where such a category could be added.RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 01:34, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
As a general principal, I would say yes, if a category exists, and a reliable source reports that the subject of an article belongs in that category, then the subject of the article should be so categorized., are not clarifying WP:CATDEF. That would be abandoning WP:CATDEF. I don't see support for that position. You have also suggested some more minor changes that would tinker with WP:CATDEF. Bondegezou ( talk) 10:05, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
The discussion is rather going around in circles, so I was thinking if there's some different approach we could take. One thing I noticed in this recent affair is the role of categories for discussion. RandomCanadian started with a proposal at CfD, and BD2412 was motivated by concern about that CfD proposal. Past CfD decisions have been used in the discussion above to justify the widespread use of certain categories. WP:NONDEF explicitly says, "In disputed cases, the categories for discussion process may be used to determine whether a particular characteristic is defining or not."
However, most of us agree that a category (including, I think, educational alumni categories) can be defining for some articles, but not others. That is a necessary consequence of WP:DEFCAT. (Shout out if you disagree.) That makes CfD a poor route to settle some disputed cases. I would say that the application of WP:CATDEF is often something that should be tackled on an article's Talk page.
Maybe we should make that clear on WP:NONDEF? What about: The categories for discussion process may be used to determine whether a particular characteristic is ever defining or not. Disputes about whether a category is defining for a particular article should be discussed on the article's Talk page. Would that help stop unnecessary CfDs and push discussion to where it should be? Bondegezou ( talk) 10:19, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
think there should be a presumption- no. Alumni categories are bound by WP:DEFCAT just as everything else. They don't or shouldn't get an automatic pass just because they're alumni cats and they might have had an important impact on a person's private life. The same way that religion [which can be defining for some subjects, but not others] categories don't get an automatic pass (in some cases even if there's some coverage of that in a few sources). RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 20:02, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
a very different thing from being a Republican. If someone is a member of the party, then they are a member of the party -- no haziness. But we don't put people in that category, even when such information is reliably sourced, if it's not defining, when it's just some incidental fact about a reality TV star or the like. Likewise, it may be very clear that this reality TV star went to Wayne State College, but that information may also not be defining, it's just some incidental fact. Bondegezou ( talk) 20:48, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
I'd like to find what the sort order is of pre-alphanumeric charaters (those that sort before 0–9A–Z). I sometimes use them in maintenance categories. In Wikipedia:Categorization § Sort keys, I've only been able to order some. Can we expand that list
(space) * _ % $ # ! ? ( ) + -
...?A discussion related to categorization has been opened at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography#Meaning of "from". Please feel free to express your views there. Cbl62 ( talk) 13:47, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
I had a discussion with Johnpacklambert on his talk page about emigrant and expatriate categories. Many of his recent edits have added or changed these categories. I do not see these categories as "defining categories" (as laid out in WP:Defining). I think the emigrant and expatriate categories are useful if they relate to a person's notability. As an example from that talk page discussion, if a basketball player spends a single season playing in a foreign country, Johnpacklambert would add them to some expatriate category. I would not, based on my belief that it is not a defining characteristic of that player. I am not disputing that biographies of the player will likely mention the simple fact that they played in a foreign country, but it would be unusual for them to comment on their status as an expatriate. If they did, the category would certainly apply. If they did not, is the category applicable (and desirable)? Frangible Round ( talk) 22:20, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
FeanorStar7 and I have run into the question of how to determine sortkeys for people with initialized names, such as R. Nelson Smith or F. W. de Klerk.
Our current guidance doesn't appear to address this directly, and to the extent it does, it's a little inconsistent:
WP:SORTKEY advises Spell out abbreviations and characters used in place of words so that they can be found easily in categories. For example, the sort key for
Mr. Bean should be {{DEFAULTSORT:Mister Bean}} and
Dungeons & Dragons should be sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Dungeons And Dragons}}.
but at
WP:PEOPLECAT de Klerk is used as an example on an unrelated point with {{DEFAULTSORT:De Klerk, F. W.}}.
We should discuss to reach a consensus here on the best approach and then update our guidance accordingly. Personally, I think spelling out is preferable, as it can resolve instances where people have the same initialization, fits better with our broader approach, and eliminates tricky questions of whether an initialism is common enough to be used in sorting or not. Thoughts? {{u| Sdkb}} talk 20:26, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
Looking for input about subcategories. Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 15:16, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
Hi. What tools are normally used for automating the conversion of a category into a list ("listification")? Thanks. fgnievinski ( talk) 23:05, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at
phab:T299286. {{u|
Sdkb}}
talk 22:24, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
I encourage folks here to go support Limit which namespaces are allowed in a category on the category page itself. Cheers, {{u| Sdkb}} talk 22:53, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
I'm looking to create a category, disaggregated by year, for articles that are specifically about an individual's death (frequently notable event, not notable person). Category:2021 deaths is for people, not events (this has always been inconsistently enforced, leading to my desire for clarity, and has been the source of plenty of edit wars), so perhaps a subcategory would be appropriate? These articles go by a range of names, including 'Death of X', 'Killing of X', 'Assassination of X', 'Execution of X', 'Murder of X', 'Shooting of X' (sometimes fatal), 'Disappearance of X' (sometimes fatal), 'Suicide of X', 'Beheading of X', 'Crucifixion of X', 'Stoning of X', and perhaps others. There are somewhere around 30 articles like this per year (currently; there are relatively few prior to the 1950s), so grouping them by type and year seems like overcategorization. Some fit cleanly in 'Category:2021 suicides' or 'Category:Murder in 2021', but most do not. Would 'Category:2021 fatal events' be the solution, also encapsulating massacres, bombings, plane crashes, Death and funeral of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, etc.? Or is something else appropriate? Star Garnet ( talk) 20:30, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
Hi. I am trying to created Category:SafeSport. But as an IP, cannot. I tried Article Wizard, but it just send me in a circle.
Articles that might be considered for it include SafeSport for starters, and some of the articles that link to SafeSport.
A parent category might be Category:Child sexual abuse in the United States. Also Category:Sexual assaults in the United States and Category:United States at the Olympics.
Thanks! -- 2603:7000:2143:8500:2C09:2EA2:B7CB:B4F7 ( talk) 17:27, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
Template:Cats2 has been
nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at
the entry on the Templates for discussion page.
65.92.246.142 (
talk) 03:17, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
I'm not at all well versed in category discussions and understand it might be controversial, so I'm gonna put this here for others' input before being WP:BOLD. In line with e.g. Category:American anti-abortion activists and others, I feel there is justification for something like Category:American anti-same sex marriage activists. Something like Category:American anti-gay activists would probably be tricky because while those do of course exist that does differ meaningfully from just opponents of gay marriage. (For context, this isn't apologia; I'm a gay guy in the middle of rewriting the article of one of the Federal Marriage Amendment's principal authors, Matthew Daniels, but putting someone like him in the same group as e.g. Westboro Baptist Church seems misleading and not useful for readers.) Any input on wording or other aspects of the potential category, which I figure would include people like Maggie Gallagher, Brian S. Brown, Anita Bryant, etc., is appreciated. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)( talk, contribs) 20:36, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
the distinction between holding an opinion and being an activist, the latter of which may be a defining characteristicin WP:OPINIONCAT. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)( talk, contribs) 20:44, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
I may have missed it, but is there a rule governing the minimum number of articles to justify creation of a category? The whole purpose of categories is to find other related articles, so a category with one entry (see Talk:Donald Trump#Arbitrary break) makes no sense (other than promotion). I suggest at least three articles. -- Valjean ( talk) 02:39, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
Please add Tasmin Jahan to your listings. Thank you. 2A01:4C8:1C80:60DF:60C4:EABE:22D3:B30F ( talk) 11:24, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
User:FieldMarine has removed Category:United States Army personnel of World War I because of WP:CATDEFINING. See Talk:Ian Wolfe#World War I service, where I have easily found people in that category who have their service less sourced (or unsourced) than him (Los Angeles Times obituary and other sources). I have also brought up categories that are not defining by any stretch of the imagination. FieldMarine refuses to budge, so here I am to solicit others' comments. (Frankly, it may be time to reconsider whether CATDEFINING should even exist. Vast numbers of categories, much less entries in those categories, don't qualify.) Clarityfiend ( talk) 08:59, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
Hi all, I removed Category:Asian anthems from Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata using HotCat. But neither the article not the category shows any change. Meanwhile, the other category I removed later, did get removed from the article. Why is this happening? I already tried purging and null edit. Thanks! — CX Zoom[he/him] ( let's talk • { C• X}) 06:47, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
|below=
at that template with a colon (:) shyould fix it. --
Michael Bednarek (
talk) 09:18, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
I'd like to create a category for articles about Ben Aaronovitch's Peter Grant series but I'm not sure if I should put it in Category:Fantasy books by series or category:Fantasy novel series.
There're already a few articles on some of the books in the series as well as the main one I linked to. KaraLG84 ( talk) 16:44, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
Hyphens, apostrophes and periods/full stops are the only punctuation marks that should be kept in sort values. The only exception is the apostrophe in names beginning with O', which should be removed. For example, Eugene O'Neill is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Oneill, Eugene}}. All other punctuation marks should be removed.
The first and last sentences are in conflict. Fuddle ( talk) 02:04, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
Hyphens, apostrophes (except the apostrophe in Irish names beginning with O') and periods/full stops are the only punctuation marks that should be kept in sort values. All other punctuation marks should be removed.
I posted these questions first at the teahouse (see
here), but was told to go here. So, I'm copy/pasting from there.
Dutchy45 ( talk) 11:42, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
Would it be ok if I alerted WikiProject Netherlands to this discussion, or would that be considered canvassing? Dutchy45 ( talk) 00:23, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
... at Talk:Robert Schumann#Recent category edits. I'd appreciate any comments there. Graham 87 07:54, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Hallo, I noticed that @ Fuddle: has changed the DEFAULTSORT of St Chad's Church, Far Headingley from "Far Headingley, Saint Chad's Church" to "Saint Chad's Church, Far Headingley". Digging into the page history I find that you established the "Far Headingley..." sortkey in 2018. Fuddle has changed many such sortkeys today. Is there a guideline, policy, discussion, anywhere about this which establishes our practice for DEFAULTSORT for (UK?) churches one way or the other? I've asked Fuddle to stop making these changes while I look into this. I was going to ask at Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography and Wikipedia:WikiProject Architecture, then managed to track you down as the editor who'd set this sortkey, so thought I'd start here.
My own view is that while the placename may be appropriate for categories comprising churches only, and can of course be added within those categories in the article, it might be better to leave the DEFAULTSORT at the article title (but with "St(.)" expanded to "Saint"), so that in general categories the article files in an unsurprising place, but I'd be interested to know where it's been discussed in the past. Practice seems pretty inconsistent: see Category:Grade II* listed churches in West Yorkshire and Category:Anglican Diocese of Leeds (though some of those may, like St Chad's, have been changed today). Thanks. Pam D 08:01, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
However, we seems to have inherited a system from en:WP of default sorting churches and pubs by location first, then name. So "St Bernard's church, Sometown" is defsorted so that it appears under "S" rather than "B" (obviously sorting under "St" is unhelpful because most would then sort under "S", which would be overwhelmed and thus useless).". Pam D 08:57, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
I thought that the well-established consensus was to sort by the name of the church rather than location. See previous discussions here and here. There may be more recent discussions. RAF stations are not a close parallel - unlike names of churches, names of RAF stations have a standard format, perhaps more akin to a ship (SS), and sorting follows the guidance in WP:SORTKEY ("In some categories, sort keys are used to exclude prefixes that are common to all or many of the entries"). If churches are sorted by location, why not schools or hospitals?
But where a church article has the title Church of St X, rather than St X's Church, I would sort by Saint X's Church.-- Mhockey ( talk) 03:30, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
There seem to me to be perhaps three issues:
It would be possible to have churches with DEFAULTSORT the article title, expanding "St" to "Saint" etc, and with a location sortkey specified for church-specific categories - or to have a location-specific DEFAULTSORT and then specify the natural title for general categories. An argument for the DEFAULTSORT being the natural article title (give or take St/Saint), is that articles appear in various other listings (maintenance categories etc) for editors, who may be surprised/baffled if the order is by location. But the main needs seem to be firstly that we should have consistent sorting within any one category, and secondly that we avoid edit wars by reaching a consensus. At present an editor is systematically changing location-based defaultsorts to natural-title-based defaultsorts, and there seems to be no policy or guideline to say whether or not this is a good thing to do. Pam D 18:45, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
More prior discussion, both 2021: Talk:Old_St._Peter's_Basilica#Defaultsort and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Christianity/Noticeboard/Archive_11#RFC:_sortkeys_for_church_articles. Pam D 18:45, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
( edit conflict)Taking a concrete example, consider two churches in Frindsbury.
Now considering some chapels:
Many nonconformist churches do not have a dedication and just take their name from the street or settlement they are in. If we are wanting to establish some sort of convention for all churches and chapels (and sensibly this can be extended to other places of worship) then I would suggest that the only common factor is the place name and this should be the basis of the default sort. The default, after all, has to apply to all the categories it could be in. Martin of Sheffield ( talk) 20:58, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
There seem to me to be perhaps three issues- covers pretty much everything, but at the risk of duplication:
{{DEFAULTSORT:...}}
should be the name of the page, adjusted in line with
WP:SORTKEY. So an article titled "St Foo's Church, Barton" would get {{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Foos Church Barton}}
[[Category:Churches in Barton|Foo, Saint]]
[[Category:Churches dedicated to St Foo|Barton]]
[[Category:16th century architecture]]
[[Category:Churches in Bartonshire|Barton, Saint Foos Church]]
Those are the names they have.Point taken. But I'd refer you back to my surname/first name analogy. I see categories as analogous to the index of a book. And in the index of a (hypothetical) book about churches, I would expect to find the churches listed by place, which I personally would find much more usable than your solution. In reality, hardly anyone would look up a church by its dedication. Dave.Dunford ( talk) 09:34, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
Is there a guideline, policy, discussion, anywhere about this which establishes our practice for DEFAULTSORT for (UK?) churches one way or the other?". The answer seems to be "No guideline or policy, several previous inconclusive discussions". Would an RfC be useful at this stage: an RfC which actually closes with a consensus? With the consensus arrived at then recorded in some appropriate place or places so that we don't go round the loop again? Or, otherwise, how do we get to have consistently-sorted categories? Pam D 20:09, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
For info: The previous en.wiki discussions people have found and mentioned above are:
Pam D 20:22, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
1. I agree with Dave.Dunford's wise comment earlier that people are more likely to know a church by the name of its location than by its dedication, if it has one. Further, some Anglican churches currently have no dedication. They may have had one centuries ago, but it is long lost. And cathedrals all have dedications, but relatively few people know them and even fewer use them in normal conversation, with a few exceptions such as "St Paul's" in London and "St Peter's Basilica" in Rome. Normal usage is to say "Chichester Cathedral" or "Durham Cathedral", without having a clue what patron saint or saints it may have. Where the same place has more than one cathedral, common practice is to distinguish them by denomination, not dedication. People say "Liverpool Anglican Cathedral" or "Liverpool Catholic Cathedral".
2. In places that have more than one church of the same denomination, such as cities or large towns, people are more likely to know the dedications of churches in order to tell them apart. For example, I would expect people in Henley-on-Thames to refer to "St Mary's" or "Holy Trinity", to tell the two parishes apart. But in a large town, practice may be mixed. For Example, in Worthing one would refer to "St Paul's" or "Christ Church" in the town centre, but further out one would say "Broadwater Church" or "Tarring Church".
3. Some previous comments have referred to the discussion of this topic on Wikimedia Commons. Some users had been alphasorting churches on Commons by place rather than dedication, before I even joined the project, more than a decade ago. I saw the practice, saw the good sense in it and copied it. But one user, who lives in a large city (see point 2. above), launched a long, aggressive and intimidating cyber-bullying campaign against me to stop me from following established practice. Only after a year or two did he seek, and get, a community consensus. That consensus was reached on strength of numbers, not strength of argument. And in the discussion, it was asserted that Commons should do its own thing, regardless of what English Wikipedia does.
4. The same church will appear in several categories. In, for example, a list of "Grade II listed churches", or "19th-century churches", or "Gothic Revival churches", "Anytown Baptist Church", "Anytown Methodist Church" and "Anytown URC Church" will all be consecutive. Do you want Anglican and Roman Catholic churches in the same town to be consecutive with them, or scattered elsewhere in the list?
5. On Commons this controversy cost me a mental health crisis and thousands of pounds worth of private mental health care. Since then I have all but given up donating photos of churches (or pubs, for that matter) to Commons, let alone sorting them. I look forward to the matter being resolved more respectfully and to a higher standard here on Wikipedia. Motacilla ( talk) 07:58, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
@ Fuddle, The joy of all things, Peter I. Vardy, Crouch, Swale, Mhockey, Mhockey, Bkonrad, Martin of Sheffield, Redrose64, Cardofk, and Motacilla: (ie, I hope, everyone who has contributed to this discussion)
Rather than start an RfC and then find there are further points to discuss, I've drafted one at User:PamD/rfc draft. Please comment on its talk page if you think it should be amended - this is the first time I've started an RfC, but as the initiator of this lengthy discussion I think it's probably my job to do so now, in the hopes that we can come to a consensus and move forward together to improve the encyclopedia. All being well I'd expect to launch the RfC tomorrow, and will notify the five main relevant WikiProjects to whose editors it may be of interest (Christianity, Architecture, UK, UK geography, Categories) I hope we can calmly reach a closure of the RfC which will enable us to move towards consistent sorting in categories, and to avoid future to-and-fro good-faith editing of DEFAULTSORTs Thanks. Pam D 10:01, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
I've come across a few categories which contain only one member article (e.g. Category:Montreal Royales players). I can't seem to find whether there is anything requiring that a category contain a certain number of articles in order to justify its existence. If that criterion exists somewhere, I would appreciate being directed to it. Thanks. Dennis C. Abrams ( talk) 13:04, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
So the page Canada Soccer National Development Centres is a soccer/football program that has teams competing in different leagues under various names based on the province they're in (NDC Ontario, PEF Quebec, Vancouver Whitecaps Girls Elite). I have their various leagues in the category, but when you go to the category it shows the main article name. For example, in Category:League1 British Columbia clubs, is there any way to make it appear as Vancouver Whitecaps Girls Elite instead of Canada Soccer National Development Centres? RedPatch ( talk) 01:01, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
At Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2022 June 18#Category:Langley Park, County Durham it was claimed by User:Marcocapelle that Category:People from Langley Park, County Durham can exist without Category:Langley Park, County Durham. Later the delete !vote was withdrawn because more articles had been added to the topic category. As far as I was aware as long as a set category for a topic category exists then a topic category is generally presumed to be suitable for inclusion though there is nothing specifically stating this as far as I'm aware. The reasons are:
I'm wandering what people think, I don't think we need a RFC but I may start one if needed. Crouch, Swale ( talk) 16:37, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
We have some categories like Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States and Category:Emigrants from the Ottoman Empire to France and some related to Nazi Germany that use this form, but most use the form Category:Spanish emigrants to Mexico. I am beginning to think that the former one is a better form. We want to focus on these categories as those who are subject to the starting place going to the ending place. In the case of Spain, some people who feel they are Catalan may object at times to being called "Spanish" but they are clearly from Spain. It would also make the scope of Category:British emigrants to France more clear if it was Category:Emigrants from the United Kingdom to France. Category:Emigrants from British India is one case where 3 use British India emigrants to and 4 use emigrants from British India to. One possibility is to for the time being continue to use xian emigrants to y as the main form, but review some broderline cases for consideration of renaming. Probably the two top candidates for review at this time are Category:Austro-Hungarian Emigrants, which was a clearly multi-ethnic state, and so using "Austro-Hungarian" as a denonym seems less than idea, and Category:Austrian Empire emigrants which has the same issues. We even have Category:Habsburg Monarchy emigrants which would almost certainly be better as Emigrants from the Hapsburg Monarchy to. Category:Emigrants from the Holy Roman Empire is another category that uses Emigrants from x to y. We also have Category:Emigrants from Nazi Germany. In fact 5 of the 12 entries under Category:Emigrants from former countries use this format. Well, now 5 of 13 since I just added Category:Mandatory Palestine emigrants, but that may be a strong candidate for rename. I also wonder if defectors might be better as defectors from x to y. Caegory:Armenian emigrants may have strong reasons for renaming. Also New Zealand and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as any other case where a form is not used. I think both US and UK would be more clear if named to Category:Emigrants from the United States and Category:Emigrants from the United Kingdom. Category:Cypriot emigrants may also have issues about Cyprus and its history that may make it a strong candidate for renaming. I really think Category:Emirati emigrants would be better as Category:Emigrants from the United Arab Emirates. Category:German emigrants already has a sub-cat Category:Emigrants from Nazi Germany, I think we would be best off if we also have Category:Emigrants from the German Empire, and at least renamed the East and West German Emigrants cats to Emigrants from East Germany and Emigrants from West Germany. Category:Hawaiian emigrants really needs to be renamed Category:Emigrants from the Kingdom of Hawaii. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 13:05, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
Hi, I could use some help with International Magicians Society. It appears to be a real organization, with a lot of grandiose claims on its website about having tens of thousands of members, being written up in Guinness World Records, etc. Where I'm having trouble with a category though is that the "real" founding date is probably 1994, but the society is claiming it goes back to 1968. Or maybe 1964. So which year should I put in the category? Or should I just remove them for now, and sort things out later? -- El on ka 01:55, 20 August 2022 (UTC)
I recommend that we change all categories with "Countries" in them, to "Sovereign states". That way, we won't have any disputes about whether England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, should be included or not. GoodDay ( talk) 05:54, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
@ DeFacto: & @ Titus Gold:, I think my proposal will help solve some problems. I know years ago, changing the page List of countries to List of sovereign states, did. GoodDay ( talk) 06:04, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
@ Matt Lunker:, what's your take on the inclusion/exclusion for these categories? GoodDay ( talk) 21:32, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
How should UK churches be sorted in categories in en.wiki? For background, including links to previous inconclusive discussions, please see the section #DEFAULTSORT for churches above. Note that articles on UK churches have a wide variety of title formats. Consider St Chad's Church, Far Headingley, but also:
(It is of course possible that some of these should have other article titles).
The practice of expanding "St" or "St." to "Saint" is mandated by WP:SORTKEY and appears uncontroversial, so "Sort by article title" or similar, in this RfC, can be taken to mean "Sort by title with "St" expanded to "Saint" (and with a leading "The" removed in rare cases)".
The only existing guidance on sortkeys appears to be that at
WP:SORTKEY, which includes the option that "Systematic sort keys are also used in other categories where the logical sort order is not alphabetical (for example, individual month articles in year categories such as Category:2004 use sort keys like "*2004-04" for April). Again, such systems must be used consistently within a category.
". There is no one Wikiproject dedicated to UK churches, though they come within the interests of many Wikiprojects:
Christianity and its denominational subprojects;
Architecture;
United Kingdom; and
UK geography and its country, county or regional subprojects.
Categories is also relevant. There seems no obvious place to record the consensus with which this RfC will close, but an archived RfC lodged in the wiki-memory of a variety of editors will be useful. If agreement can be reached, we can (a) move towards consistent sorting within categories and (b) avoid conflict between editors and time wasted in changing DEFAULTSORTs.
Pam
D 06:46, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
Please express your preference within each of the three groups of options below:
WP:CAT#T states "Templates are not articles, and thus do not belong in content categories." While templates are certainly not articles, they often contain content, in some cases content that appears in no other place on Wikipedia, e.g.
Template:1933 Southeastern Conference football standings. From a practical standpoint, it may useful to navigate directly from a content category like
Category:Southeastern Conference football to a category like
Category:Southeastern Conference football templates and its subcats like
Category:Southeastern Conference football standings templates, which contain templates related the subject of Southeastern Conference football. After all, the point of categories is to organize things by batching related things together and helping users find them, right?
In late 2020, we had a discussion on this talk page concerning this issue; see Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Archive 18#procedure makes the category tree worse, both coming and going. Participants included Tahc, Dr Greg, Michael Bednarek, andrybak, Oculi, Fayenatic london, DexDor, and me. We had substantial support there for changing the existing policy. What does the wider community think? Should we change this policy?
Thanks, Jweiss11 ( talk) 20:30, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
This page is part of Wikipedia's administration and not part of the encyclopediasince 2008. Content categories are for readers, template categories are for editors to find a template they are looking for.
a subject-related templatethere exists an extensive tree of categories under Category:Wikipedia templates by topic. — andrybak ( talk) 03:08, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
@ Isabelle Belato: I would like a clarification on this. Would a category named like "Foo stubs" be considered a content category? If so, is it appropriate to make a category named like "Foo stub templates" a subcategory of it? Specific examples: do Category:Argentina stub templates and Category:Uruguay stub templates belong in Category:Argentina stubs and Category:Uruguay stubs respectively? Other examples may be provided upon request. -- Redrose64 🌹 ( talk) 08:18, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:Overcategorization#Categorizing events by venue
Having lost at Categories for Discussion repeatedly, and opposed again on the Talk, the user has attempted a non-conforming RFC.
William Allen Simpson (
talk) 08:42, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
The "Articles" subsection says, in part, "Categorization of articles must be verifiable. It should be clear from verifiable information in the article why it was placed in each of its categories." I assumed that "in the article" refers to the text (or body) of the article, so I removed a category and an infobox parameter from Constance Talmadge. Another editor reverted the removal, commenting "please check 'EXTERNAL LINKS'" in the edit summary. Should external links be considered in deciding whether categories are supported? Eddie Blick ( talk) 01:24, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
Hello! I have a question related to WP:CATV—that is, this quotation from the guideline:
Does WP:SYNTH apply to the use of categories? That is, does there need to be a reliable source directly describing an article's subject as being of the category type?
To make the question more concrete, a little while back a user added
Category:1984 mass shootings in the United States and
Category:Mass shootings in New York City to
1984 New York City Subway shooting. (Diffs, including re-additions after removal:
[5]
[6]
[7]; related:
[8]). According to the Wikipedia article
Mass shootings in the United States: Mass shootings are incidents involving multiple victims of firearm-related violence. Definitions vary, with no single, broadly accepted definition.
So, the question becomes "does 'the article give [a] clear indication for inclusion in [those] categor[ies]'?" On the one hand, there is obviously verifiable information indicating that there were "multiple victims of firearm-related violence
". But I cannot seem to find many sources clearly calling the Goetz shooting a "mass shooting." So, if
WP:SYNTH applies, then the inclusion isn't appropriate. OTOH, to some extent, Wikipedia users define and create their own categories, and, while I can't quite put my finger on it, something seems potentially off about saying that a reliable source must describe an article's subject as belonging to a category that Wikipedia users invented.--
Jerome Frank Disciple (
talk) 17:00, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
For anyone willing to provide input, there's an RFC related to this question
here, and any input would be greatly appreciated. The question is: "Should this article, concerning firearm-related violence with multiple persons injured, be included in the mass-shooting category, even though no sources directly refer to it as a mass shooting?"
The key debate concerns whether "mass shooting" is a special term that requires labelling by a reliable source. Thanks in advance!--
Jerome Frank Disciple (
talk) 17:05, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
How does one move the subcategories on a page to a different spot? Specifically, In the Category:Trap music songs, I'm trying to put Category:Cloud rap songs closer to the top, with the other subgenres but not sure how to do that. 4TheLuvOfFax ( talk) 00:18, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
Unlike all the other European country main categories, Category:Russia is not in Category:Countries in Europe. Instead it's in Category:Russian Federation, which is then within Category:Eastern European countries, which is within Category:Countries in Europe by region, which is within Category:Countries in Europe. — Lights and freedom ( talk ~ contribs) 01:34, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
I have noticed that stub templates are included within their relevant category, for example {{ Music-stub}} is included within Category:Music stubs. This is done automatically by Template:Asbox. However, as Category:Music stubs is a subcategory of Category:Music, these templates then become part of the content category tree. Is this something that should be changed? As an aside, while the wording at WP:PROJCATS is not the clearest, it seems that stub categories, though classified as administrative, are acceptable to be subcats of content categories? Thanks, S.A. Julio ( talk) 06:50, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
My instinct is that when you have an example like " Gladys Knight & the Pips" to sort it under "G", as I think of the band name like a title of a legal fiction or persons doing business as some name. As of this writing, an example of this is at The Alan Parsons Project, we have the sort key {{DEFAULTSORT:Alan Parsons Project, The}}. But, in the example I gave at the beginning, they are presently sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Knight, Gladys and the Pips}} and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Petty and the Heartbreakers, Tom}}. On the other hand, Ben Folds Five has no sortkey, so it's under "B". I searched this page and its archives and I don't see discussion of how we want to handle this. See, e.g. this example on StackExchange if I'm not explaining myself: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/361423/alphabetizing-band-names-when-the-name-includes-a-members-name. Thoughts? ― Justin (koavf)❤ T☮ C☺ M☯ 07:27, 14 May 2023 (UTC)
Hi, I'd like to know what the difference is between sortkeys | ]], |*]], and |+]].
WP:SORTKEY does not explain the function or usage of |+]].
Why is it, for example,
Category:Monarchs in Asia sorted like this?:
I've just given Category:Women monarchs in Asia the sortkey |+]], but actually I have no idea whether that is correct or incorrect. Shouldn't it be |*]], for example? And why is Category:Middle Eastern monarchs given the sortkey |+]]? Could somebody please explain? Thanks! Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 13:02, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
Your opinion is welcome. Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 16:33, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
In an article about a geographical location (ex. town), can we add a category related to an event that happened there (a battle, massacre, disaster, etc.) if that event is mentioned in the article but doesn't have a stand-alone subarticle yet? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:38, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
I was suggested that I ask here for comment on the categorization of comedian, pranker and performance artist Sam Hyde under Category:Alt-right. RockabillyRaccoon ( talk) 20:28, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
Is there anyway that only subpages display in a category page without the names of the main pages? Yoosef ( talk) 20:04, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
Not sure what the guidelines have to say about this, but I think there are some cases where an article should maybe be in a category, as well as its parent. Take Liburna, a type of ancient ship extensively used by the ancient Romans. But, it's not in Category:Ancient Roman ships. Why not? Because, I conjecture, it is in its parent cat Category:Ancient ships. As pointed out in the lead of Liburna:
I think in a case like this, it should be in both. Its kind of shocking *not* to see it in "Ancient Roman ships". What do you think? What's the right way to do this? There are other ships the Romans used, that either the Phoenicians or somebody else invented and used first; what should happen in these cases? Mathglot ( talk) 00:48, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
The Cherokee Nation has gained official recognition over several counties in Oklahoma, though this appears to be mostly ceremonial, as many communities within its boundaries have little connection to it. There is a content dispute at Talk:Taylor Ferry, Oklahoma, regarding the addition of Category:Cherokee Nation, to hundreds of populated places within the Nation's huge boundaries--despite many communities not even mentioning Cherokee Nation in its text. Your input is welcome. -- Magnolia677 ( talk) 14:00, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Fractions in category names. -- Redrose64 🌹 ( talk) 20:45, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
There has been a proliferation of categories for people by century, ethnicity, and profession which I believe are basically category clutter. In many cases, they are so massive as to be not useful. Many articles have 5-10 such categories, which impedes navigation. Examples: there are ten "by century" categories at Kamala Harris. Even relatively short articles have a plethora of such categories. Violet King Henry has 6. There are over 24,000 articles in Category:21st-century American women, 5,906 articles in Category:20th-century African-American sportspeople, and 8,761 in Category:20th-century African-American people. If articles were fully populated with all of those which apply, I believe some articles could have 20 or more such categories. Do you find this schema useful? What can we do to avoid category clutter here?-- User:Namiba 16:38, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
Editors are invited to join a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Aviation accident task force § Accidents and incidents are not necessarily disasters about whether "accident/incident" categories should be sub-categories of "disaster" categories. Mitch Ames ( talk) 12:50, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
The articles categorized under Category:Hoaxers are a real motley bunch. We have the authors of literary hoaxes like H. L. Mencken and Mike McGrady, orchestrators of academic hoaxes like Alan Sokal, satirists and "punkers" like Sacha Baron Cohen, mixed with Jussie Smollett, who was was found criminally guilty of a fraudulent police report, and Sabrina Erdely who was found liable in civil court for a defamatory piece of journalism. Doesn't seem quote right that bio articles are united under this category by the broad concept of a "hoax". Thoughts? Jweiss11 ( talk) 23:17, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
In the case of politicians, soldiers, diplomats, judges, government officials and a few related categories there is an assumption that we categorize people by the country they did such things for.
So for example, it is thought that Category:American diplomats is for people who were diplomats employed by the US, Fench diplomats were diplomats employed by France, Yugoslav diplomats were employed by Yugoslavia, Diplomats of the Russian Empire were employed by the Russian Empire, etc.
The issue is though some people were nationals of the US, France, Yugoslavia, the Russian Empire or another place, but diplomats not for those counties.
This leads to 3 solutions.
1-French diplomats are diplomats who were nationals of or subjects of France, regardless of what country they served.
2-French diplomats were diplomats who were agents of or employed by France regardless of if they were nationals of France.
3-French diplomats are anyone who is either 1 or 2.
For the most part though almost all employees or or agents of a country are in some sense nationals of that country. So 3 is almost identical as 1.
We have 4 which is create both diplomats of France and French diplomats, where French diplomats by nationality would be that and non-nationals who served in the interet of France would be seperate.
Or 5, we default put people in diplomats of France, except if they are French nationals representing some other entity as a diplomat than France.
It might be worth considering who a French diplomats not a Diplomat of France would be. The most obvious choice is a diplomat for the UN. The next most obvious choice is a diplomat gor another country, say Spain, who was at least at some point a French national.
I am thinking that it would make .our sense to say for diplomats the person must have been an agent of the country mentioned. If they were an agent of a non-national entity we put the in UN diplomats etc. If they were an agent of another country, we put them in a diplomat cat for that country.
A person born in France as a French national, who works gor France, but later switches to working as a diplomat gor Italy would go in French diplomats and Italian diplomats. However if they only were a diplomat for Italy and never for France thry only belong in Italian diplomats.
If they are a diplomat for France, then move yo Italy, become an Italian national, but only work as a painter, writer, wine merchant or any other non-diplomat profession the only diplomat cat they belong in is French di9lomats.
This also means that basically all cases Italian diplomats are the same as diplomats of Italy, French diplomats are the same as Diplomats of France, New Zealand diplomats as the same as diplomats of New Zealand, etc.
This is my solution for diplomats. I do not think it is 100% how categories currently work, but it is probably the closest yo how we currently use categories. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 02:06, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
with writers we treat nationality as the main default category, so that French-language writers does not include French writers. I think we need to clearly apply this rule to ethnicity. So that people in the Albanians category, which is a nationality Category, are not also in the Ethnic Albanians category. The one exception might be if they are in a subcat of Ethnic Albanians like Albanians in the Ottoman Empire, but not for by occupation subcats. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 03:39, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
Judges, politicians, spies, diplomats, and military personnel are normally categorized by the government that they worked for. I think the way we should do this is 1-agree that French military personnel, French judges, Albanian diplomats, etc are for people who operated as such for the relevant country, 2-where possible use clear names, 3-if there are enough people who were nationals 9f a,country who did a linked occupation not for that country, create a by nationality category, but exclude the people who were employed by that country. For example maybe we would have Category:Diplomats of the United States, and then have Category:American diplomats and in the lead say this is for Americans who were diplomats, but only those who were not employed by the US. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 03:48, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
I would say that in general it is best to have only actually recognized States use nationality names. Places that are not recognized as country entities we generally want to use people from X forms, like musicians from Michigan. I think we should avoid denonyms even when universally accepted. Thus we have people from Bavaria, not Bavarian people. However if a form is widely used, like Bavaria, we need to assume that any Category that says Bavarian would include Bavarians doing that. If, as in the case of emigration, we want to exclude current Bavarians who fall under the Gean category for this from it, we need wording that makes that clear. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 05:20, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
I would say we should limit demonyms to national entities. Sub-national entities we most often use X people from Y from. I think in cases where the national level entity lacks a clear and unambiguous demonym that is widely known, we should also use X people from Y. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 05:25, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
It's quite confusing and unhelpful to post essentially the same topic a three separate discussion threads, and then fill them with replies to yourself. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 08:21, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
This is a,place where I think our current naming conventions are poor. I think, based on having reviewed this, that there are two rules. We have agelreed since we have British Emigrants to the British Empire, that we recognize movement from the controlling country to a clearly distinct Colony as emigration. We have odd precedents here though French emigrants to French Polynesia was killed because ostensibly movement from France to an oversees collective is not defining, but for past Colonies it is? I have yet to see someone clearly explain why they think this distinction makes sense. It might be a theory of ease of movement increasing over time, but British emigrants to British Hong Kong were happening until the end of 1996 or so. We do however have lots of people I ple who were clearly nationals of the controlling country who lived in a Colony but went back to the controlling country. They are not really expatriates though. I think ad long as there are enough articles on such people to justify a catehory we should call the category X people in Y country. So British people in British India. French people in French Algeria, German people in German East Africa, Belgian people in the Brlgian Congo, Dutch people in the Dutch East Indies etc. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 22:34, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
I think we have come to agree that our categories are French people, Spanish people, American people, People from the Ottoman Empire etc. We still have some gaps in actually appliances this. Especially with Booian fooers. So the best form would be Category:Greek people from the Ottoman Empire, etc. We do not universally do this. We still have I think Serbians from the Ottoman Empire. We also have some of these categories that use in. This is my guess where we want to go. A-People from X country by ethnicity should have as subcats things name Y people from X. I think that maybe should be universal. B- this is district from X people of Y descent. Whether we really want both is case by case. In the US we have American people of Greek descent. I do not think we need Greek people from the United States. On the other hand we have Greek people from the Ottoman Empire but I am not sure we want to have People from the Ottoman Empitlre of Greek descent. The thing is at present when we go to occupations we drop people. So we have French people, French artists, French scientists, French chefs, French artists, French writers, etc. However we have Frwnch people of Ranian descent. We may need to make sure all the places we do not currently use people it is acceptable yo not use it. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 22:18, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
I have been thinking about nationality, ethnicity and related categories. I have a few thoughts. First we start by accepting that we categorize people by the nnation they are subjects or nationals of. That brings up some key questions. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 04:54, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
Regarding WP:SUBCAT, something I see quite often is that a category like Category:Cities in France will have subcats for many (sometimes all) of the cities (eg, Category:Paris), but also the topic article of that subcat ( Paris). So this means this article is not diffused. I assume this is against principle, but I see it soooo often that I wonder that maybe my presumption is wrong?
I imagine it would be very easy for a novice editor to see that Paris is not in Category:Cities in France, and want to correct that. Likewise, the guidance seems to require the opposite, so removing it would seem sensible to many people. Either way, it would probably be good to explicitly make clear what to do one way or another. — HTGS ( talk) 00:01, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
The use of prepositions in categories seems fairly messy. I am trying to see if my proposal below might help things.
1- for various reasons some groups do not have a demonym or some demonym forms are too ambiguous. The following would apply where we do not gave a common and unambiguous demonym, or where a demonym is not clear what the group means.
2- the primary way we divide people in Wikipedia, at least those who lived in places where there were organized governments resulting in something like a nation, country, Kingdom, state etc. Is by the polity that they were nationals or subjects of. How narrowly or broadly this polity is defined, and what to call it when it changes name, or if it remains the same polity after a name change, are issues that may need discussion. When we do not have a good demonym form I think we should use People from Foo. Such as People from Bihemia, and People from the Russian Empire. Etc. I think this is preferably to treating the entity name as a demonym, so Russian Empire people is not in my view a good form. There may be some cases by case discussion needed. I think especially when a demonym exists in the name the from form is best. So People from the Dutch East Indies is better than Dutch East Indies people. That becomes hard to parse, is it Dutch people from the East Indies, or is it People from the Dutch East Indies? It is best to be explicit.
3. For by descent categories the form is People from Foo of Bar descent. People from the Russian Empire of French descent.
4- For ethnicity, the ethnic group needs to be long established and clearly resident in the place, or one who is not connected with a country. So in the Russian Empire example even if someone's parents left France a year before they were born, spoke French, and in every way were ethnically French, but they were clearly nationals of the Russian Empire they still go in People from the Russian Empire of French descent. If they were a national of France born in the Russian Empire who was in defining ways still a national of France they could go in French expatriates in the Russian Empire. That is a separate issue. However for some ethnic groups, in the Russian Empire case Ukrainians, Tatars, and Armenians come to mind we would have the category names Armenian people from the Russian Empire, Ukrainian people from the Russian Empire, Tatar people from the Russian Empire etc. While almost all these people would have lived in the Russian Empire that is not actually needed. If the person is clearly a national of the Russian Empire even though never living there are clearly identified as part of an ethnic group thry fit. However the later falls under ERGS rules and so should be reliably sourced and not just assumed. So a child of a diplomat for the Russian Empire born in France, who lived all their life in France, but was never considered to be French, whose family was ethnically Tatar, woukf fit in Tatar people from the Russian Empire. As I said I doubt there are many such cases. Another case of acceptable ethnic group categorization is Romani people. So we have Romani peiple from the Russian Empire etc. I am not even sure if there is a good way to put two demonyms in a category title, but if someone can fi d it that is a seperare issue.
5-most occupations will fit as Xians from Boo. This Writers from Austria-Hungary, historians from the Russian Empire, etc. We already use this form even in some demonym cases where it is not clear, thus Linguists from France.
6-In should be used for a-expatriates from one place elsewhere, this French expatriates in Germany or Expatriates from the Russian Empire in Switzerland. For expatriates and emigration/immigration categories a could solution to small cat is just having one side. So Expatriates in the Russian Empire or Immigrants to Yugoslavia can have direct contents, and we do not need to create every subcat we have at least one article for.
6a. In the case of people from the main country in a colony, we can use the in form, but they are not truly expatriates. Thus I think we should have for example British people in British Kenya. I know there has been a lot of back and forth, but I think in this case expatriates is not the right term.
6b. The other place we use in is where the catehory includes people regardless of what their connection to the country is. The most obvious is deaths in. We categorize people mainly by place of death. We do not care if they lived their all their life or were there for 2 hours before it happened. For example Deaths by cancer in Mexico includes people if they were in Mexico when thry died, no matter anything else. There are a few occupations we categorize this way as well. The test is that we need yo be grouping all the people who did the occupation in a certain country.
7. I think we need to move away from ever using of to connect someone to a place they were a subject/national of. We already have exploers of foo, like Exploers of Australia, that means they explorered there without regard to where they were a national of, hostorians of foo, like historians of France, which means their study of history focused on France,be they French, Russian, American, Malian or any other nationality, and there are others. I think the only cases we should use of to connect a person to a place is when that is their title, this Grand Dukes of Hesse, Kings of France, Queens of Denmark, Presidents of the United States, Attorneys General of North Dakota, Prime Ministers of Israel etc. I think it would be best to avoid other uses of of because it can be ambiguous.
8. I think in so.e cases we do need to link people in a category not by what country they were nationals or subjects of, but by what country they did the activity on the behalf of. If the issue is just thry did it in that country than we can use in. However for a wide variety of cases mantmy people do the thing for country X on country Y, but what mattwrs is they are agents acting for country X, much more than thry are in country Y. Examples of this are military persilonnel, some of which are called soldiers, diplomats and spies. So I think we would benefot from naming categories Soldiers for Italy, diplomats from the Russian Empire, military personnel for Mali, spies for Germany, etc. We might want to in some cases have intersect caregories which would be x for foo in y, but in many of these cases the people moved to so many countries, or operated in areas where what country they were in was not clear, so there is ambiguity. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 14:55, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
These questions follow a discussion I had with Sitush on their talk page about removals of caste-related categories from articles.
Overall, I have two distinct questions:
1) Could caste-related category pages have text added to clarify when these categories can be added to biographical articles? For example, text could be added to emphasize reliable sources are required, and per
WP:CASTEID, that these sources should indicate caste self-identification and impact on the subject's life, and/or per
WP:CAAP#DEFINING, that these sources should commonly and consistently refer to
the subject's self-identification.
2) Should there be no caste-related categories added to biographical articles, regardless of whether reliable sources exist for self-identification, and regardless of whether these sources indicate caste is impactful or defining in a biography? In other words, is there currently a broad consensus against the use of all caste-related categories for biography subjects?
I plan to notify WikiProject Categories and WikiProject India of this discussion after posting this. I have posted here because it may be beneficial to expand the Sensitive categories or other sections of the WP:PEOPLECAT guideline with clarification. Thank you, Beccaynr ( talk) 14:44, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
I am thinking we should end most categories that intersect nationality, gender, profession and century. Way to many people lived and worked in more than one century for this quadruple intersection scheme to make sense. Per ERGS rules all these people also need to be in a gender neurmtral parent, so by having 20th and 21st century Salvadoran women's writers categories we Mandate its contents brme in 4 categories if they overlap. It would only be 3 if we did not have the by gender categories, Salvadoran women writers, 20th-century Salvadoran writers and 21st-century women writers. At least we should say to create an intersection of profession, nationality, crnt6ry and occupation, we have to have more specific gender neutral sub-cats. So in the example above if there were 20th-century Salvadoran journalists, 21st-century Salvadoran novelists, etc, than the 21stcentury Salvador women writers could work, but not without those gender neutral subdivisions of the 21st-century writers category. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 02:49, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
WP:SORTKEY gives a good list of the meanings of Greek sort-key prefixes that sort items after the alphabet. Is there / should there be a similar list for prefixes that bring items to the beginning of the list? I'm looking at Category:Diseases and disorders, where three items are listed under [space], one under !, two under *, and one under +. I can't work out why they are under these separate keys. For some, I can't see why they aren't simply placed in normal alphabetical order. It looks to be a bit of a mess. So I wonder,
Thanks, Mgp28 ( talk) 13:23, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
Use other sort keys beginning with a space (or an asterisk or a plus sign) for any "List of ..." and other pages that should appear after the key article and before the main alphabetical listings, including "Outline of" and "Index of" pages. The same technique is sometimes used to bring particular subcategories to the start of the list.-- are you suggesting this needs some more explicit explanation about when to use these and what they mean? older ≠ wiser 13:37, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
and *
seem to be used for main article(s), including lists, and +
for diffusion based on gender or geography, depending of the cases. I find it counter-productive when a dozen different non-alphabetical sort keys, and tend to regroup them when I find such a situation. Actually, that's a reason why a single consistent rule for the meaning of each sort key can't be applied: there a so many different logics of diffusion that if we assign a different predefined sort key to each of them, you will get categories with too many different sort keys used that it won't be practical. Better aim for local consistency.
Place Clichy (
talk) 15:43, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
G'day, despite having been on here for a while, I've never really "got" diffusing subcategories, and wondered if someone could explain the following to me in layperson's terms. Why would you need to categorise an article like Olivia Savvas in both Category:Members of the South Australian House of Assembly AND Category:Women members of the South Australian House of Assembly? I assumed that the latter is a subcategory of the former, and therefore covers it? Would you also categorise that article in Category:Women members of the Parliament of South Australia? Thanks in anticipation. Cheers, Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 10:40, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
Hello, on a recurring ( 2006, 2012, 2019, 2019, 2021) debate on this subject, I'd like to make a few points :
The European Union defines ‘Immigration’ and ‘Immigrant’ as follows:
‘Immigration’ means an action by which a person establishes his or her usual residence in the territory of the country for a period that is, or is expected to be, of at least twelve months, having previously been usually resident in another country.
‘Immigrant’ means a person undertaking an immigration. It applies to all nationalities including nationals of the country of destination. In the current analysis it does not apply to persons already living in the country who migrated in the past.
They do not have a distinct definition for the word ‘expatriate’, which is elitist.
The relative share of immigrants who hold the citizenship of the EU Member State to which they were migrating is variable and around 30% on average : Figure : Distribution of immigrants by citizenship, 2021, complete article here.
This goes against what we've been reading here to justify retaining the current tree, namely that "most of these people do take citizenship". Frenchl ( talk) 07:33, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
There is a discussion that may be of your interest about a Request for comment on replacement to SmallCat guideline. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 05:43, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
Hello,
What is your opinion about such categories ? Is this overcategorization ?
There have already been these discussions about this subject: August 2015.
It seems to me that it is triple intersection that should be avoided according to WP:OCNARROW. Frenchl ( talk) 21:59, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Dabulamanzi kaMpande died in 1886. South Africa was not formed until 1910. Another editor us trying to force placement in a South Africa Category because "former countries are nested in current categories". This is a very bad plan. This treats boundaries as natural instead of what they really are, politically determined. It is a bad plan. It only makes sense to limit a deaths in a particular country Category to people who died in the country in question. We should not be retroactively applying countries onto the past. This is a very, very, very bad plan. It will cause way more drama in the long run. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 01:12, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
I am thinking for most people the place of burial is not defining to the biography. I think unless we can show that it is, we should limit placement of biographical articles into burial categories to cemetery. I do not think that the group of people buried in Michigan, or Montana, or Argentina, or anywhere else is a defining group, I think the only defining groups are people buried in specific cemeteries, with each cemetery basically someone having to show how being buried there is considered a defining case, or a few other cases, such as British monarchs buried abroad, maybe people buried in a battlefield that was later declared a cemetery, and maybe some other specific cases that can be shown to be defining. However I do not think we should bog down biographical articles with a category for what place the person is buried in, if the place is something less specific than a specific cemetery. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 01:17, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
|location=UK
or |location=California
in citation templates, despite the parameter being strictly defined as only for a city. People do not read documentation (and will fairly often defy it even after they've read it). —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 00:13, 4 January 2024 (UTC)Category:People from Austria-Hungary and its subcategories have been placed as sub-cats of Category:Austrian people and Category:Hungarian people. I do not think this makes sense. This is a category for people from a specific country, Austria-Hungary. I think they should be directly placed under People by nationality, and sub-cats should be directly placed under Writers by nationality, scientists by nationality, etc. They are not a sub-cat of either Austrian or Hungarian people, but people who were nationals of a dual named country, that included many more ethnic groups and much more land than either of the modern countires, let alone the modern countries combined. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 17:47, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
I have been working through some categories and navboxes with the intention of checking that the listed articles are correctly categorised, and while I have found quite a lot of categories that seem obviously right or wrong, I have also found a lot that seem dubious. I apply the test: Is "topic" an instance of "category"? using the short description or scope definition of the article and the scope definition or a best guess at it for the category. I find that a large number of categories have no scope definition, and there are often a significant proportion of articles in categories where it is not clear why they have been put there. There are also a lot of cases where categories appear to have been chosen the wrong way round, as in a breathing gas being in the category oxygen, whereas it makes more sense for oxygen to be in the category breathing gases. All breathing gases must contain oxygen, but only oxygen is oxygen. Is there useful guidance on sorting this sort of thing out? There are other cases where it is less obvious which way it should go.
One of the problems is that an article may have a title that suggests one category as defining, but also contains content, which, on its own, would suggest a different category. For example an article on a medical condition is likely to contain content on treatment of the condition, so it also gets categorised as a medical treatment. Based on the title it is not a treatment, but there may be a redirect to the treatment section which if expanded into an article, would be categorised as a treatment not a condition. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 16:52, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
I am thinking that we are overcategorizing people by death. I think we need to take a look and determine if all the articles in the cause of death tree are actually cases where the cause of death is notable. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 13:39, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
Is Pneumonia really a cause of death that is defining enough for people to justify categorizing people by having died this way? John Pack Lambert ( talk) 13:02, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
Hello! I initially posted this on the Help desk. I'll copy my original text here.
While doing some stubsorting, I encountered a curious paradox. From WP:SUBCAT:
If logical membership of one category implies logical membership of a second (an is-a relationship), then the first category should be made a subcategory (directly or indirectly) of the second. When making one category a subcategory of another, ensure that the members of the subcategory really can be expected (with possibly a few exceptions) to belong to the parent also.So autobiographers is a subcategory of biographers (they write biographies), and biographers is a subcategory of historians (which is logical, since they deal with a history of other people), then autobiographers is a subcategory of historians - and this is where it falls apart, since almost all autobiographers do not study history, they just write a biography about themselves.If this were to be changed, then all categories like autobiographers by nationality, by century etc. needs to be recategorized, so it would be a major change across many categories which I don't want to do without discussing it first. And I don't feel like nominating them to CfD since I think it is for deleting, merging and all that stuff and here it is just about changing the parent category.
So, should autobiographers not be considered a subcategory of biographers? What do you think?
As to why I think that Category:Biographers should stay subcategory of Category:Historians, my logic is as follows (also copied from the Help desk thread):
I would think that, from purely logical perspective, while autobiographies should be considered a subset of the biographies, autobiographers might not necessarily be a subset of biographers because all autobiographers need is a good memory of their life and biographers need to work with documents and other stuff to reconstruct the life of other people, and this is pretty much what historians do. On the other hand, it seems counterintuitive to just exclude autobiographers from biographers.
Deltaspace42 ( talk • contribs) 16:20, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
Is this actually a problem? Although not marked as one, Category:Historians is in practice a Wikipedia:Container category: it has very few individual articles. The true historians are found among its subcategories. They could still be found there, among the same subcategories, even if they are also autobiographers. — David Eppstein ( talk) 17:53, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
Want to flag this issue and ping @ Gonnym and @ Mvcg66b3r. This category has seen two speedy renames in a week, and I'm not sure whether a full discussion is merited. The parent category is Category:Public Broadcasting Service, but the subcategories all use PBS. I suspect a CfD discussion is coming one way or the other, but first I think it's worth talking through where this one cat should be. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 22:39, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
I have two questions, which are not really related:
Kk.urban ( talk) 20:34, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Hello, I think categories like "Countries in Europe", should be renamed to "Sovereign states in Europe". At the very least, if not re-named, then limited to having only independent countries in them. The terminology "country", has multiple meanings & so may be confusing. GoodDay ( talk) 08:26, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
An editor is actively getting around to remove Macau categories from parent categories for dependent territories or other similar categories and charging others for unconstructive editing. [14] [15] I recognize that dependent territories are part of the scope of WikiProject Countries and there is a tree for dependent territories under that for countries. What people like them are doing is real unconstructive. Could anything be done to stop them? 113.52.112.27 ( talk) 14:18, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
Moved from Help talk:Category
I've been editing WP assiduously for over 20 years, in which time I have corrected literally thousands of Defsorts that have been incorrectly specified.
The main offender is personal names, where we typically need the article to be sorted by surname, not by given name. For ex, Mervyn Jones would be Defsorted as "Jones, Mervyn". Simple, right? Well, it seems many, many editors just don't get it. They Defsort it as "Mervyn Jones", not realising that that produces exactly the same result as if Defaultsort were not used at all. In other words, whatever order the words are in the article title, will dictate the sorting of the article in its categories. That's UNLESS we use a Defaultsort using a parameter that is something OTHER than an exact copy of the article title.
What I'm getting to is this: The default sorting will be the article title, yet to change it to something else, we must use a magic word that includes the word "Default". That has always, always, always seemed counterintuitive to me. If you had a choice to either Keep or Change something in any sort of app, and you wanted to change it, you'd click the Change button, not the Keep button. Right? Same with Defaultsort, which is used when you actually want something OTHER than the actual default, which is the article title.
I'm certain that this simple bit of infelicitous nomenclature is the root cause of so many editors getting so wrong what to experienced editors is the simplest concept imagineable.
Is there any prospect of changing the name to something more likely to produce better outcomes? One idea might be CHANGESORT. I'm sure there are many others. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 04:08, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
[[Category:Singers|Donna the Voice]]
[[Category:Wrestlers|Dynamite Donna]]
[[Category:Flight attendants]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Farkle, Donna}}
tag, then she'll be sorted on the third category page as "Farkle, Donna", appearing under the Fs, because that's now the custom default category sort key for her.
Largoplazo (
talk) 22:07, 10 April 2024 (UTC)JackofOz, I feel your pain! I mostly sort within list categories. I can't tell you how many time I've seen {{DEFAULTSORT:List of...}}
in an article titled "List of...". Completely pointless. I see it so much, I usually don't even bother to fix it any more (as long as the cats are individually sorted correctly). It took me just a couple minutes to find an example at
List of power stations in New South Wales:
{{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Power Stations In New South Wales}}
[[Category:Lists of power stations in Australia|New South Wales]]
[[Category:Power stations in New South Wales| ]]
[[Category:Lists of buildings and structures in New South Wales|Power stations]]
I also often see situations where there is a plausible DEFAULTSORT, but it's only really doing work on a single cat. The others have correct overrides — individually sorted with standard sorting keys — which is almost just as pointless use of DEFAULTSORT because the only cat without its own sort key, might as well have one and lose the DEFAULTSORT. Honestly I'm not a huge fan of DEFAULTSORT in general. I use it on occasion, for people's names, but other than that I usually just sort individually. Also note, when using HotCat you don't see the existing DEFAULTSORT code anyway, so there are times where I've added the sort key along with a new category, unaware if it's already defaultsorted the same way or not.
As for what it should be called, I see your point, but the name "DEFAULTSORT" does hint that it is overridden by the standard sort keys. With another name, that may be even less clear. DB1729 talk 00:56, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
I think DEFAULTSORT is clear enough: it's the way in which the article will be sorted, by default; a sortkey which can be over-ridden for any particular category. Yes, some editors get it wrong, but editors get a lot of things wrong. If they add an unnecessary DEFAULTSORT equalling the article title, no harm is done.
Someone said above that DEFAULTSORT mostly applies to personal names; the other huge category is titles which start with an article - names of books, newspapers, films, paintings, etc - where we need to sort on the words after the article: "Night Manager, The". Pam D 23:07, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 15 | Archive 16 | Archive 17 | Archive 18 |
You are invited to join the discussion at
User talk:SDZeroBot/Category cycles. —
andrybak (
talk) 18:07, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#MOS:GENDERID being used in place of WP:Article titles and for category arguments. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 20:47, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality#The piece about the subject's sexual orientation being relevant to their public life. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 01:50, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Templates § Naming of navbox categories. — andrybak ( talk) 14:26, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
The navigation buttons are not working appropriately on Category pages. For example: in Category:Upcoming films, when clicking Next page, it jumps to entries beginning with F. This is not what the url says, but it skips over 16 articles that started with E. You can see them if you adjust the url to start the pagefrom argument with D. Is anyone else having this issue? Is there a solution known to fix this? BOVINEBOY 2008 10:18, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
“ | Templates are not articles, and thus do not belong in content categories. | ” |
With no explanation, this one sentence labels most categories as article-only categories for no reason related to the five pillars, that I can imagine. Since most possible types of template-specific categories would have one or fewer templates in them (if were to exist) there are rightly very few template-specific categories, but if you try to keep templates out of all the other categories, it defeats the whole purpose of the categories system: to help users find things.
When looking for a templates in the category tree, allowing templates in normal categories would make it much much more possible for users to find the template they are looking for. But when looking for articles and other non-templates in the category tree, allowing templates in normal categories also does not hinder users from finding the articles they are looking for. Rather, it very likely that having templates in the category tree would make it even easier to find articles you are looking for, since that is also the purpose of many templates. This procedure makes the category tree a worse tool, both coming and going. tahc chat 18:16, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
Just seeing this thread now. I raised this same issue here in September; see Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Archive 17#Template categories as subcategories of content categories. I'm in agreement with tahc and Michael Bednarek. I think we'd be better off with templates and categories for templates integrated into the main category tree at the subject level. "Templates are not articles, and thus do not belong in content categories" isn't much of rationale. Images aren't articles either, and yet we see them integrated into the main tree. Compare Category:Images of Colorado to Category:Colorado templates. Only the image category rolls up into Category:Colorado. What's also misleading is Wikipedia:SORTKEY, which defines "τ" (tau, displays as "Τ") is for templates". I see that andrybak has recently added an addendum to this line reading "Keep in mind, template categories should not be added to content categories per WP:CAT#T." When and where is the tau sort key supposed to be used then? Jweiss11 ( talk) 04:05, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
... prevent the use of category tools to detect templates placed in topic categoriesis a circular argument – those tools (which are they?) would not be needed. There's no added complexity, instead categorization will become simpler. Hypothetical scenarios are not a valid argument. For the record, I support that subject-related templates are categorized in the subject's main category, e.g. Template:Albert Einstein belongs in Category:Albert Einstein, Template:Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Category:Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Template:Mozart symphonies in Category:Symphonies by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and a dozen other similar Mozart-related templates in similar categories. -- Michael Bednarek ( talk) 02:27, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
we have clear support here for inclusion of templates and category templates in the main category tree at the topic level from Tahc, Michael Bednarek, Oculi, Fayenatic london, and me with DexDor opposing. Not sure if Dr Greg has a clear position here. Is this enough of a consensus to move forward with changing the policy? Jweiss11 ( talk) 13:58, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
Please see:
Template talk:R to project namespace#RfC: Should we categorize redirects to the same namespace?
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 19:15, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
Maybe an example should be added for islands in that Isle of Wight is sorted as "Wight, Isle of" when referring to the island but as "Isle of Wight" when the referring to the county/district, Isle of Mull is a good example of one that doesn't have this variation. Crouch, Swale ( talk) 18:01, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
I would like the possibility to list childless and childfree people.
This topic is not covered in Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality. There are "involuntary" and "voluntary" childlessness. "Involuntary Childlessness" links to "infertility" ( source) but it could also be due to mental problems, so they are not the same.
"Should I create Category "Childless with the sub-categories "Childfree", and "Involuntary Childlessness" or "Infertility" ?
I have never created a category and feel a bit overwhelmed browsing all the category help pages. So how should I go about creating, naming and branching these topics? In advance : thanks. - Cy21 ➜ discuss 10:42, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
A few editors and I have had some discussions about the categorization structure and relationship between four different category types that categorize according to various countries/origins:
The central issue is how category types 1–3 should relate to type 4.
Question 1: Should 1–3 be subcategories of 4?
In favour—having a parent–child relationship between the four categories eases category navigation between subjects that are closely related. For example, France has an interest in expatriates of France being in Germany, and this interest and concern will affect the bilateral relationship between the two countries. In opposition—perhaps the connection is too tenuous or not universally relevant.
Question 2: Should #2 and/or #3 be a subcategory of #1?
In favour—a "BARian emigrant to FOO" is clearly (by definition almost) "of BARian descent", and they could be said to be a "FOOian person" insofar as "FOOian person" can mean a "person from FOO". In opposition—it could be argued that a "BARian person" is not of "BARian descent". Or that "FOOian" means nationality (or even citizenship), and that a person does not necessarily obtain nationality upon emigration. (Complicating the issue is that citizenship and nationality are two separate but related concepts—a person can be a national of a country but not be a citizen, such as in permanent residency.)
I am not unbiased in my opinion. I think that the answer to both questions is "yes", mainly for ease of navigation between these topics. As long as category types 1–3 exist (and there are good arguments that they should not), I do not think we should be overly strict in applying a relationship between them all for what are at best fuzzy concepts. But, I am interested in getting a wider discussion going on these issues. Good Ol’factory (talk) 02:25, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
bilateralism is the conduct of political, economic, or cultural relations between two sovereign states", so those "relations" categories may also contain something that's not directly about goverments/politics; i.e. also content about economic or cultural (sports = culture) relations between two countries. 87.95.206.253 ( talk) 13:29, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
Question 1: Yes. Ideally, these would be altogether in a category called BARian diaspora in FOO (e.g. Category:Russian diaspora in Germany) or in some cases BARian FOOian society (e.g. Category:European-American society, emphasized by thic CfD started by Fayenatic london which was unfortunately not yet extended to the subcategories). That way, they do not clog the parent BAR–FOO relations category. To refine even more how I usually structure these categories when I come upon them, there is often a BARian ambassadors in FOO category as a child of the expatriates category (which is correct). As an exception to WP:SUBCAT, I consider that the Ambassadors category deserves to be placed directly in the FOO-BAR relations category in addition to being a 3rd-level child through Relations→Diaspora→Expatriates→Ambassadors precisely because they manage the diplomatic relationship and have therefore a direct and defining link to it.
Question 2: Yes for emigrants (#2) but No for expatriates (#3). Emigrants to Foo are Fooian people while expatriates to Foo are not. Indeed the very difference between an emigrant and an expatriate is that they make the new country their permanent place of living. Place Clichy ( talk) 19:22, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
I've made some changes to the wording of the guideline to improve clarity and cut some redundancy. Specifically, i moved a paragraph out of § Subcategorization that was mainly about categorizing articles rather than subcategories. Feel free to make any necessary adjustments. — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 11:24, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
My proposal is to have a configurable bot that keeps track of the size of categories over time, such that you can create charts like {{
Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog chart}}
. You can then display these at the top of the category page or in a WikiProject, for example to invite editors to help reduce backlogs and to show off your progress. It doesn't have to be for backlogs, either. For instance we could have a chart showing the growth of
Category:All WikiProject Women in Red pages over time.
How it works
Administrators can add new categories to the bot's configuration page. I've created User:MusikBot/CategoryCounter/config as an example. Each entry should have the category name, granularity ("daily", "weekly" or "monthly"), and the title of wherever the data should be stored (probably a subpage of the chart template). There is also a 'cutoff' option, which specifies the number of days after which the dataset should be truncated (so older data is removed as new data is added). This may be necessary especially for the "daily" granularity because after several years the dataset can become too large.
The bot would go off of this category to populate another JSON page with the data, for example Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog chart/daily. You can then make charts that display this data, such as with Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog chart. The bot won't create the chart for you, only populate the data, however there will be thorough documentation on how to set it all up.
Any concerns?
Does the above system make sense? Any thoughts or concerns? I thought about using templates as some archiving bots do, but this is a fairly fragile system compared to JSON, and I'd prefer administrators maintain the configuration so as to prevent additions of very small categories that unnecessarily strain the system. That said, getting the size of a category is a pretty cheap query, so I imagine we could have many hundreds if not thousands of categories set up before the bot would run into scaling problems. If the bot ever does break or stops running, the dataset pages can still be manually edited (by anyone) and the chart will update accordingly.
Let me know what you think! — MusikAnimal talk 04:45, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
For example, this biography: [1]. Had about 25 categories, and an IP added 10 more. Should we try to limit the # of categories to a certain number, or should we always add a person to the categories that they fit into? – Novem Linguae ( talk) 12:48, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
The "defining characteristics" rule seems to be widely ignored — or perhaps I don't understand it. I've included two examples below. My point is not to litigate particular cases of categorization in these examples, but to try to clarify the rule.
For example, I'm not sure how Category:Jeffrey Epstein is supposed to work. Many of the articles categorized under it are clearly related to Epstein and unproblematic: TV series about him, properties he owned, people primarily known as his accusers, etc.
But others are only tangentially associated with him: Eva Andersson-Dubin's relationship with him is that she dated him and socialized with him; Leon Black used him as a financial advisor and put him on his charity's board; Peggy Siegal worked as a publicist for him; Space Relations is a novel that supposedly inspired his crimes.
Then there are several people who were named by Virginia Roberts Giuffre as "participants" in Epstein's sex trafficking scheme with whom she was "directed to have sex" ( Jean-Luc Brunel, Glenn Dubin, George J. Mitchell, Bill Richardson). Giuffre's allegations are of course shocking, but so far they are just uncorroborated allegations by one person, these people deny them, and in fact she didn't even allege that she had sex with these people — the deposition was about the actions of Ghislaine Maxwell. It may well turn out that all these people are guilty of horrible crimes, but in the meantime, adding them to the Jeffrey Epstein category functions primarily as a sort of character assassination by association. It seems quite a stretch to say that these allegations are a "defining characteristic" of these people.
Category:Christmas food certainly includes some foods which are specifically associated with Christmas, such as Christmas cookies and panettone, but also a long list of things which are consumed on Christmas, but also on many other occasions, in a variety of cuisines.
In what way is apple pie "defined" as a Christmas food? — the article don't even mention Christmas. Chicken and dumplings doesn't even say it is a holiday food, let alone specifically a Christmas food; the same for nut (food). Apple cider is mentioned as traditional for various winter holidays, among which Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas — does that make "Christmas food" a "defining characteristic"? Kourabiedes in Greek cuisine are popular for all special occasions, not just Christmas. King cake with a fève inside is generally served for the Christian holiday of Epiphany (holiday) (also known as "the twelfth day of Christmas") — is that enough to associate them with Christmas foods? The Menudo (soup) article mentions menudo as traditional for wedding receptions and for hangovers, and "in the 1930s, among migrant workers in Arizona, menudo parties were held regularly to celebrate births, Christmas, and other occasions" — can we really say that being a Christmas food is a defining characteristic of menudo because it was a celebratory food among some Mexican migrant workers in the 1930s? Sarma (food) (sarmale) is apparently served year-round, but "especially for holidays like Christmas and Easter" in Romania; but in the rest of the formerly Ottoman world where they are widely eaten, they have no special association with Christmas. And so on.
How specific does the association between a food and Christmas have to be before it is a "defining characteristic" of the food? It seems to me that the minimal criterion to be mentioned as a "Christmas food" is that some reliable source should explicitly say that it is "common" or "traditional" or "characteristic" of Christmas specifically, not just that it is served on many holidays. Beyond that, I'm not sure what "defining category" means. How broadly known does the association have to be?
In summary, how indirect can a supposedly "essential", "defining" characteristic be? — Macrakis ( talk) 15:29, 25 November 2020 (UTC)
{{find sources}}
template to generate a bunch of links that might help, for the "apple pie" example:
Notes
Please see Category talk:Faculty by university or college#Request for comment on naming. -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 15:30, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Should people in Category:Sportspeople from Denver be in Category:People from Denver? I'm picking sportspeople and Denver as an example. In general, are occupations from place treated as WP:DUPCAT or not? Carlossuarez46 ( talk) 18:26, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
Are too many categories for recipients of state honours and awards being deleted? Please see Wikipedia talk:Overcategorization#RfC on WP:OCAWARD. -- Necrothesp ( talk) 12:22, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Categories § Prioritizing search results. --
Trialpears (
talk) 20:45, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
Input would be gratefully received at User talk:Rathfelder#People from Foo. Thanks. — Brigade Piron ( talk) 17:25, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
For those who don't hang out at Template talk:Title year, I've created some new templates that will hopefully be useful to editors working on categories - {{ Title year+1}}, {{ Title year-1}}, {{ Title year2range}}, {{ Title year2range+1}} and {{ Title year2range-1}}, the latter using the new {{ Year2range}} template. I've also fixed {{ Copycat}} so it works off the sidebar again, and it now looks for year ranges as well (although doesn't work quite the same way for them). I've been on a Wikibreak for a bit so I don't think I thanked Pppery for sorting out all the safesubsts on Copycat, I'd got as far as thinking that safesubst might be useful but the documentation was particularly opaque! Le Deluge ( talk) 00:12, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
Request for input: In a widespread and repeated fashion, Helpfulwikieditoryay has been removing categories for erotic photographers by nationality from the general categories for photographers by nationality and removing categories for pornographic actors by nationality from the general categories for actors by nationality. For instance, here they removed Category:American photographers as a parent category of Category:American erotic photographers. Similarly, here they removed Category:Canadian male film actors as a parent category of Category:Canadian male pornographic film actors. There are dozens more. Place Clichy and I have both inquired about this on the user's talk page here, but we haven't really made much progress. Things are venturing into the land of edit warring (me included), so I thought I would bring this here for comment. Who is correctly categorizing? Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:24, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Category:fooian photographers
as parent to Category:fooian erotic photographers
is clearly against the principles of
WP:SUBCAT. Helpfulwikieditoryay's remark, "I'd rather be correct than just take mob rule", doesn't bode well. --
Michael Bednarek (
talk) 03:36, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Category:British people by occupation
. Not having Category:American photographers by genre
doesn't mean that American erotic photographers are not American photographers. --
Michael Bednarek (
talk) 05:33, 22 June 2021 (UTC)not for genre" while the removed category contains e.g. List of action film actors. This came after the same edit was reverted together with a talk page message explaining the revert. This pattern is repeated on dozens of pages and categories.
I recently created the eponymous cat Category:Allie X. In this edit, Robby added it to Category:Canadian singers. This doesn't seem unreasonable. But in practice, all other eponymous categories in the hidden cat Category:Wikipedia categories named after Canadian musicians have no non-hidden parent category. This seems to be true of musician categories more widely, e.g. none of the categories in Category:Wikipedia categories named after Australian musicians or Category:Wikipedia categories named after American musicians have non-hidden parents.
WP:OCEPON refers to the guidance at
WP:SEPARATE: Keep people categories separate: categories with a title indicating that the contents are people should normally only contain biographical articles and lists of people, and perhaps a non-biographical main article
}. This would seem to be a good reason to not include an eponymous cat like
Category:Celine Dion under a "people category" like
Category:Canadian singers, since it contains e.g.
Category:Celine Dion songs, and songs aren't people.
But on the other hand, WP:OCEPON points to Category:Barack Obama, Category:John Maynard Keynes, and Category:Albert Einstein as examples of eponymous cats, and all three of these are placed in people categories like Category:Scientists from Munich and Category:Presidents of the United States.
The more generic guidance about eponymous category parentage at
WP:EPONYMOUS is a little hand-wavey: eponymous category should have only the categories of its article that are relevant to the category's content
.
So I'm pretty confused. We seem to uniformly follow one practice for musician eponymous cats, and another for eponymous cats for presidents and Nobel laureates. The WP:SEPARATE guideline seems to favour the former practice, but it's not entirely clear.
I'm wondering if maybe this is just a pragmatic choice related to the size of these categories and navigation? e.g. there's a small, finite number of US presidents, so adding their eponymous categories under Category:Presidents of the United States doesn't render the subcategory list too intractable. But we have 500 eponymous categories for American musicians, so dumping them all directly into Category:American musicians would make navigation hard, with all the non-eponymous categories like Category:American session musicians getting lost in the fray? But that's just a guess.
Help? Colin M ( talk) 14:51, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
There is a content dispute at Talk:Lincoln, Nebraska#Ukrainian refugees in Lincoln about the addition of Category:Ukrainian communities in the United States to a city where 0.09 percent of the city's population is Ukrainian. Your input would be appreciated. Magnolia677 ( talk) 19:27, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Categories#Category:State government in Nigeria — Lights and freedom ( talk ~ contribs) 00:10, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Hello! Advice seems to indicate that categories like Category:Irish male actors and Category:Irish actresses should be non-diffusing with Category:Irish actors but they are. Can anyone help me understand this? Usedtobecool ☎️ 02:19, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
Your feedback would be appreciated at Cfd#Category:Historical figures with ambiguous or disputed gender identity. Thanks, Mathglot ( talk) 20:33, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
The ninth bullet point under general naming conventions states: When an article topic requires disambiguation, any category eponymously named for that topic should include the same form of disambiguation, even if no other articles are likely to have an eponymous category. This seems to result in unnecessarily clunky category titles that incorporate redundancies. If there are several articles that could be titled Schplug, such that there are various Schplug articles with brackets indicating which entity is meant, then is it really necessary that, if one of these is Schplug (band), the categories for that band's recordings be Category:Schplug (band) albums and Category:Schplug (band) songs, and for its musicians Category:Schplug (band) members (hopefully no-one will insist on Category:Schplug (band) band members). If the other putative Schplugs are white goods, breeds of cattle or traditional Swiss footwear, (they are not: I made the word up) then none of them are going to be releasing singles or albums, or have an evolving personnel, and the disambiguation is redundant and unsightly.
I would suggest rewriting that ninth bullet point as When an article topic requires disambiguation, any category eponymously named for that topic need only include disambiguation if there is a danger of confusion. Thus the assumption is that there need not be the parenthetical addition, but that it can be required by anyone claiming reasonable danger of confusion. Kevin McE ( talk) 13:42, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
See this discussion. Marcocapelle ( talk) 10:38, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
Is there such a thing as overdoing the categorization of an article? I'm looking at this pair of edits at Félix Guattari, which raised the number of categories on the article from about 15 to over 75. Largoplazo ( talk) 15:47, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
Yes. Lots of articles about philosphers are like that. I dont think its helpful. Rathfelder ( talk) 16:26, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
This query is triggered by the recent placing of Thomas Aikenhead (hanged for blaspheming against Christianity) into a Criminals from Edinburgh category. It returns to a topic which I recall attempting to raise before, without response, I think in a WikiProject that no longer exists, after Richard Carlile (jailed many times while campaigning for freedom of the press in the UK) was placed into a criminal category. Many figures in history either suffered penalties as criminals or would have so suffered had they fallen into the hands of their adversaries. Obvious examples range from philosophers and historians to the founders of religious schisms or political secessions. I can also think of playwrights, actors and mathematicians convicted because of their sexuality. For all of these, I would regard use of the "criminal" categorisation as unhelpful (whereas something like Category:People prosecuted under anti-homosexuality laws provides a categorised view without carrying that negativity). Looking in the archives I see Wikipedia_talk:Categorization/Archive_17#Criminal_categories touched briefly on this question, but I would like to explore consensus on when a "criminal" categorisation is appropriate. My view (expanding on the exchange in the edit comments in the Carlile article) is that it should be limited to individuals or organised groups who sought financial gain and/or exercised violence against others, though I appreciate that may also be woolly as a definition. AllyD ( talk) 09:07, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
Examples ranging from Socrates to Martin Luther King
|
---|
|
I'd encourage interested editors to review this ANI thread regarding Kanghuitari ( talk · contribs)'s extensive creation of categories, many of which have resulted in CfDs, and chime in if they desire. DonIago ( talk) 19:06, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
@ UnitedStatesian, RandomCanadian, Oculi, Jpbowen, Necrothesp, DuncanHill, Mathsci, Brigade Piron, 14GTR, and DanielRigal: Pinging participants in the below-referenced discussion. BD2412 T 05:07, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
The recent discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2021 December 5#Category:Alumni by educational institution, which proposed to do away with the entire category structure of alumni affiliations, appears to demonstrate a point of WP:DEFCAT and WP:NONDEF requiring clarification. The proposition of the deletion proposal was that people are not "known for" what institutions they have attended. The same concern likely applies to year of birth and year of death categories, as people are not "known for" being born or having died in a particular year. I propose some revision to the standard (if appropriate language does not exist elsewhere) indicating that fundamental biographical details such as year of birth and being an alumni of an academic institution (at least at the collegiate level or higher) are appropriate for categorization, even if they are not what the subject is "known for" in the most pedantic sense of that phrase. BD2412 T 05:03, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
Sorry for being late to the discussion. I am fine with some clarifying text, it would be helpful, and talking about year of birth, year of death, and profession. I do not support "collegiate or post-collegiate alumni status". I am glad to exclude school alumni status, but I don't think even collegiate/post-collegiate alumni status should be included. They frequently fail DEFCAT and I see no reason to override DEFCAT. Bondegezou ( talk) 15:30, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
Substantive additions to policy should generally be rejected unless there is a real problem that needs solving, not just a hypothetical or perceived problem.Colin M ( talk) 20:05, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
essential characteristics of a subject, not something that is an essential characteristic to its subject; and further, that categories should be something that can help in constructing
sets of pages on topics that are defined by those characteristics, not "sets of pages on topics that share one random characteristic".
primarily known for being the founder and director of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir., not for having studied at the Amsterdam conservatory (although being faculty [as opposed to alumnus] at the University of Leiden might be a more compelling categorisation. Händel is known for quite a lot of things, a fair few of which might be looked up by readers (and be interesting and valid categories), but not for having studied law at the University of Halle (although that is an undeniable fact). John Eliot Gardiner is known for his conducting and his recordings, but I most certainly can't think of anyone that would search for him as an "alumni of King's College London" or as being amongst the "people educated at Bryanston School" (although those are both, again, undeniable facts).
Syson received a Bachelor of Arts from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London and would continue studying there for 3 years in the PhD program [...];
Leatherman earned his Ph.D. in environmental (coastal) sciences [i.e. subject] from the University of Virginia [place] in 1976 and a B.S. degree in geosciences [subject] from North Carolina State University [place] in 1970.;
Blatteis continued his education, earning a BA from Rutgers University [place] in 1954, and an MS and a PhD in physiology [subject] under the mentorship of Dr. Steven M. Horvath in 1955 and 1957, respectively, from the University of Iowa. [place].
in "Caravaggio, an Italian artist of the Baroque movement", Italian, artist, and Baroque may all be considered to be defining characteristics of the subject Caravaggio.. Guidelines as written make clear that
Categorization by non-defining characteristics should be avoided. It is sometimes difficult to know whether or not a particular characteristic is "defining" for any given topic.As to the quip about eliminating American golfers, that is yet another strawman, and it's not particularly enlightening for you to keep trying such cheap tricks just to "win" the debate. RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 19:46, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
Telling me that McGehee was in Category:Justices of the Mississippi Supreme Court and Category:Mississippi state senators would have gotten me all the information I needed": this betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what categories are for. They are not for people who have already found the article and want to understand more about the subject. That's what the article text is for, or maybe the infobox if you're a lazy reader. They are for collecting together groups of articles that are similar under some defining characteristic. — David Eppstein ( talk) 05:57, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
We could go around in circles repeating the same arguments, but it is incumbent upon us to try to move towards WP:CONSENSUS. An RfC has been suggested, but what would the RfC be on? I'm not certain we need any change to the text at WP:CAT or WP:OVERCAT, but maybe we do and sometimes a clarifying RfC can still have value even if no text is changed.
I would like to see (a) agreement that WP:DEFCAT is still a guiding principle; (b) agreement that educational alumni categories are defining (meet DEFCAT) for some articles, but not other articles; (c) tertiary-level education is more like to be defining than secondary, and primary is generally unlikely to do so. I hope we could get agreement on those. The trickier thing is to decide the details of (b), but maybe we start with the things we can agree on. Just a suggestion -- ignore if unhelpful! Bondegezou ( talk) 21:52, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
The mere factual accuracy of a category does not mean it is a defining characteristic for every subject where such a category could be added.RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 01:34, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
As a general principal, I would say yes, if a category exists, and a reliable source reports that the subject of an article belongs in that category, then the subject of the article should be so categorized., are not clarifying WP:CATDEF. That would be abandoning WP:CATDEF. I don't see support for that position. You have also suggested some more minor changes that would tinker with WP:CATDEF. Bondegezou ( talk) 10:05, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
The discussion is rather going around in circles, so I was thinking if there's some different approach we could take. One thing I noticed in this recent affair is the role of categories for discussion. RandomCanadian started with a proposal at CfD, and BD2412 was motivated by concern about that CfD proposal. Past CfD decisions have been used in the discussion above to justify the widespread use of certain categories. WP:NONDEF explicitly says, "In disputed cases, the categories for discussion process may be used to determine whether a particular characteristic is defining or not."
However, most of us agree that a category (including, I think, educational alumni categories) can be defining for some articles, but not others. That is a necessary consequence of WP:DEFCAT. (Shout out if you disagree.) That makes CfD a poor route to settle some disputed cases. I would say that the application of WP:CATDEF is often something that should be tackled on an article's Talk page.
Maybe we should make that clear on WP:NONDEF? What about: The categories for discussion process may be used to determine whether a particular characteristic is ever defining or not. Disputes about whether a category is defining for a particular article should be discussed on the article's Talk page. Would that help stop unnecessary CfDs and push discussion to where it should be? Bondegezou ( talk) 10:19, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
think there should be a presumption- no. Alumni categories are bound by WP:DEFCAT just as everything else. They don't or shouldn't get an automatic pass just because they're alumni cats and they might have had an important impact on a person's private life. The same way that religion [which can be defining for some subjects, but not others] categories don't get an automatic pass (in some cases even if there's some coverage of that in a few sources). RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 20:02, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
a very different thing from being a Republican. If someone is a member of the party, then they are a member of the party -- no haziness. But we don't put people in that category, even when such information is reliably sourced, if it's not defining, when it's just some incidental fact about a reality TV star or the like. Likewise, it may be very clear that this reality TV star went to Wayne State College, but that information may also not be defining, it's just some incidental fact. Bondegezou ( talk) 20:48, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
I'd like to find what the sort order is of pre-alphanumeric charaters (those that sort before 0–9A–Z). I sometimes use them in maintenance categories. In Wikipedia:Categorization § Sort keys, I've only been able to order some. Can we expand that list
(space) * _ % $ # ! ? ( ) + -
...?A discussion related to categorization has been opened at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography#Meaning of "from". Please feel free to express your views there. Cbl62 ( talk) 13:47, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
I had a discussion with Johnpacklambert on his talk page about emigrant and expatriate categories. Many of his recent edits have added or changed these categories. I do not see these categories as "defining categories" (as laid out in WP:Defining). I think the emigrant and expatriate categories are useful if they relate to a person's notability. As an example from that talk page discussion, if a basketball player spends a single season playing in a foreign country, Johnpacklambert would add them to some expatriate category. I would not, based on my belief that it is not a defining characteristic of that player. I am not disputing that biographies of the player will likely mention the simple fact that they played in a foreign country, but it would be unusual for them to comment on their status as an expatriate. If they did, the category would certainly apply. If they did not, is the category applicable (and desirable)? Frangible Round ( talk) 22:20, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
FeanorStar7 and I have run into the question of how to determine sortkeys for people with initialized names, such as R. Nelson Smith or F. W. de Klerk.
Our current guidance doesn't appear to address this directly, and to the extent it does, it's a little inconsistent:
WP:SORTKEY advises Spell out abbreviations and characters used in place of words so that they can be found easily in categories. For example, the sort key for
Mr. Bean should be {{DEFAULTSORT:Mister Bean}} and
Dungeons & Dragons should be sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Dungeons And Dragons}}.
but at
WP:PEOPLECAT de Klerk is used as an example on an unrelated point with {{DEFAULTSORT:De Klerk, F. W.}}.
We should discuss to reach a consensus here on the best approach and then update our guidance accordingly. Personally, I think spelling out is preferable, as it can resolve instances where people have the same initialization, fits better with our broader approach, and eliminates tricky questions of whether an initialism is common enough to be used in sorting or not. Thoughts? {{u| Sdkb}} talk 20:26, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
Looking for input about subcategories. Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 15:16, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
Hi. What tools are normally used for automating the conversion of a category into a list ("listification")? Thanks. fgnievinski ( talk) 23:05, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at
phab:T299286. {{u|
Sdkb}}
talk 22:24, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
I encourage folks here to go support Limit which namespaces are allowed in a category on the category page itself. Cheers, {{u| Sdkb}} talk 22:53, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
I'm looking to create a category, disaggregated by year, for articles that are specifically about an individual's death (frequently notable event, not notable person). Category:2021 deaths is for people, not events (this has always been inconsistently enforced, leading to my desire for clarity, and has been the source of plenty of edit wars), so perhaps a subcategory would be appropriate? These articles go by a range of names, including 'Death of X', 'Killing of X', 'Assassination of X', 'Execution of X', 'Murder of X', 'Shooting of X' (sometimes fatal), 'Disappearance of X' (sometimes fatal), 'Suicide of X', 'Beheading of X', 'Crucifixion of X', 'Stoning of X', and perhaps others. There are somewhere around 30 articles like this per year (currently; there are relatively few prior to the 1950s), so grouping them by type and year seems like overcategorization. Some fit cleanly in 'Category:2021 suicides' or 'Category:Murder in 2021', but most do not. Would 'Category:2021 fatal events' be the solution, also encapsulating massacres, bombings, plane crashes, Death and funeral of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, etc.? Or is something else appropriate? Star Garnet ( talk) 20:30, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
Hi. I am trying to created Category:SafeSport. But as an IP, cannot. I tried Article Wizard, but it just send me in a circle.
Articles that might be considered for it include SafeSport for starters, and some of the articles that link to SafeSport.
A parent category might be Category:Child sexual abuse in the United States. Also Category:Sexual assaults in the United States and Category:United States at the Olympics.
Thanks! -- 2603:7000:2143:8500:2C09:2EA2:B7CB:B4F7 ( talk) 17:27, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
Template:Cats2 has been
nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at
the entry on the Templates for discussion page.
65.92.246.142 (
talk) 03:17, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
I'm not at all well versed in category discussions and understand it might be controversial, so I'm gonna put this here for others' input before being WP:BOLD. In line with e.g. Category:American anti-abortion activists and others, I feel there is justification for something like Category:American anti-same sex marriage activists. Something like Category:American anti-gay activists would probably be tricky because while those do of course exist that does differ meaningfully from just opponents of gay marriage. (For context, this isn't apologia; I'm a gay guy in the middle of rewriting the article of one of the Federal Marriage Amendment's principal authors, Matthew Daniels, but putting someone like him in the same group as e.g. Westboro Baptist Church seems misleading and not useful for readers.) Any input on wording or other aspects of the potential category, which I figure would include people like Maggie Gallagher, Brian S. Brown, Anita Bryant, etc., is appreciated. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)( talk, contribs) 20:36, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
the distinction between holding an opinion and being an activist, the latter of which may be a defining characteristicin WP:OPINIONCAT. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)( talk, contribs) 20:44, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
I may have missed it, but is there a rule governing the minimum number of articles to justify creation of a category? The whole purpose of categories is to find other related articles, so a category with one entry (see Talk:Donald Trump#Arbitrary break) makes no sense (other than promotion). I suggest at least three articles. -- Valjean ( talk) 02:39, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
Please add Tasmin Jahan to your listings. Thank you. 2A01:4C8:1C80:60DF:60C4:EABE:22D3:B30F ( talk) 11:24, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
User:FieldMarine has removed Category:United States Army personnel of World War I because of WP:CATDEFINING. See Talk:Ian Wolfe#World War I service, where I have easily found people in that category who have their service less sourced (or unsourced) than him (Los Angeles Times obituary and other sources). I have also brought up categories that are not defining by any stretch of the imagination. FieldMarine refuses to budge, so here I am to solicit others' comments. (Frankly, it may be time to reconsider whether CATDEFINING should even exist. Vast numbers of categories, much less entries in those categories, don't qualify.) Clarityfiend ( talk) 08:59, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
Hi all, I removed Category:Asian anthems from Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata using HotCat. But neither the article not the category shows any change. Meanwhile, the other category I removed later, did get removed from the article. Why is this happening? I already tried purging and null edit. Thanks! — CX Zoom[he/him] ( let's talk • { C• X}) 06:47, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
|below=
at that template with a colon (:) shyould fix it. --
Michael Bednarek (
talk) 09:18, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
I'd like to create a category for articles about Ben Aaronovitch's Peter Grant series but I'm not sure if I should put it in Category:Fantasy books by series or category:Fantasy novel series.
There're already a few articles on some of the books in the series as well as the main one I linked to. KaraLG84 ( talk) 16:44, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
Hyphens, apostrophes and periods/full stops are the only punctuation marks that should be kept in sort values. The only exception is the apostrophe in names beginning with O', which should be removed. For example, Eugene O'Neill is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Oneill, Eugene}}. All other punctuation marks should be removed.
The first and last sentences are in conflict. Fuddle ( talk) 02:04, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
Hyphens, apostrophes (except the apostrophe in Irish names beginning with O') and periods/full stops are the only punctuation marks that should be kept in sort values. All other punctuation marks should be removed.
I posted these questions first at the teahouse (see
here), but was told to go here. So, I'm copy/pasting from there.
Dutchy45 ( talk) 11:42, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
Would it be ok if I alerted WikiProject Netherlands to this discussion, or would that be considered canvassing? Dutchy45 ( talk) 00:23, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
... at Talk:Robert Schumann#Recent category edits. I'd appreciate any comments there. Graham 87 07:54, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Hallo, I noticed that @ Fuddle: has changed the DEFAULTSORT of St Chad's Church, Far Headingley from "Far Headingley, Saint Chad's Church" to "Saint Chad's Church, Far Headingley". Digging into the page history I find that you established the "Far Headingley..." sortkey in 2018. Fuddle has changed many such sortkeys today. Is there a guideline, policy, discussion, anywhere about this which establishes our practice for DEFAULTSORT for (UK?) churches one way or the other? I've asked Fuddle to stop making these changes while I look into this. I was going to ask at Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography and Wikipedia:WikiProject Architecture, then managed to track you down as the editor who'd set this sortkey, so thought I'd start here.
My own view is that while the placename may be appropriate for categories comprising churches only, and can of course be added within those categories in the article, it might be better to leave the DEFAULTSORT at the article title (but with "St(.)" expanded to "Saint"), so that in general categories the article files in an unsurprising place, but I'd be interested to know where it's been discussed in the past. Practice seems pretty inconsistent: see Category:Grade II* listed churches in West Yorkshire and Category:Anglican Diocese of Leeds (though some of those may, like St Chad's, have been changed today). Thanks. Pam D 08:01, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
However, we seems to have inherited a system from en:WP of default sorting churches and pubs by location first, then name. So "St Bernard's church, Sometown" is defsorted so that it appears under "S" rather than "B" (obviously sorting under "St" is unhelpful because most would then sort under "S", which would be overwhelmed and thus useless).". Pam D 08:57, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
I thought that the well-established consensus was to sort by the name of the church rather than location. See previous discussions here and here. There may be more recent discussions. RAF stations are not a close parallel - unlike names of churches, names of RAF stations have a standard format, perhaps more akin to a ship (SS), and sorting follows the guidance in WP:SORTKEY ("In some categories, sort keys are used to exclude prefixes that are common to all or many of the entries"). If churches are sorted by location, why not schools or hospitals?
But where a church article has the title Church of St X, rather than St X's Church, I would sort by Saint X's Church.-- Mhockey ( talk) 03:30, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
There seem to me to be perhaps three issues:
It would be possible to have churches with DEFAULTSORT the article title, expanding "St" to "Saint" etc, and with a location sortkey specified for church-specific categories - or to have a location-specific DEFAULTSORT and then specify the natural title for general categories. An argument for the DEFAULTSORT being the natural article title (give or take St/Saint), is that articles appear in various other listings (maintenance categories etc) for editors, who may be surprised/baffled if the order is by location. But the main needs seem to be firstly that we should have consistent sorting within any one category, and secondly that we avoid edit wars by reaching a consensus. At present an editor is systematically changing location-based defaultsorts to natural-title-based defaultsorts, and there seems to be no policy or guideline to say whether or not this is a good thing to do. Pam D 18:45, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
More prior discussion, both 2021: Talk:Old_St._Peter's_Basilica#Defaultsort and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Christianity/Noticeboard/Archive_11#RFC:_sortkeys_for_church_articles. Pam D 18:45, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
( edit conflict)Taking a concrete example, consider two churches in Frindsbury.
Now considering some chapels:
Many nonconformist churches do not have a dedication and just take their name from the street or settlement they are in. If we are wanting to establish some sort of convention for all churches and chapels (and sensibly this can be extended to other places of worship) then I would suggest that the only common factor is the place name and this should be the basis of the default sort. The default, after all, has to apply to all the categories it could be in. Martin of Sheffield ( talk) 20:58, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
There seem to me to be perhaps three issues- covers pretty much everything, but at the risk of duplication:
{{DEFAULTSORT:...}}
should be the name of the page, adjusted in line with
WP:SORTKEY. So an article titled "St Foo's Church, Barton" would get {{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Foos Church Barton}}
[[Category:Churches in Barton|Foo, Saint]]
[[Category:Churches dedicated to St Foo|Barton]]
[[Category:16th century architecture]]
[[Category:Churches in Bartonshire|Barton, Saint Foos Church]]
Those are the names they have.Point taken. But I'd refer you back to my surname/first name analogy. I see categories as analogous to the index of a book. And in the index of a (hypothetical) book about churches, I would expect to find the churches listed by place, which I personally would find much more usable than your solution. In reality, hardly anyone would look up a church by its dedication. Dave.Dunford ( talk) 09:34, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
Is there a guideline, policy, discussion, anywhere about this which establishes our practice for DEFAULTSORT for (UK?) churches one way or the other?". The answer seems to be "No guideline or policy, several previous inconclusive discussions". Would an RfC be useful at this stage: an RfC which actually closes with a consensus? With the consensus arrived at then recorded in some appropriate place or places so that we don't go round the loop again? Or, otherwise, how do we get to have consistently-sorted categories? Pam D 20:09, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
For info: The previous en.wiki discussions people have found and mentioned above are:
Pam D 20:22, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
1. I agree with Dave.Dunford's wise comment earlier that people are more likely to know a church by the name of its location than by its dedication, if it has one. Further, some Anglican churches currently have no dedication. They may have had one centuries ago, but it is long lost. And cathedrals all have dedications, but relatively few people know them and even fewer use them in normal conversation, with a few exceptions such as "St Paul's" in London and "St Peter's Basilica" in Rome. Normal usage is to say "Chichester Cathedral" or "Durham Cathedral", without having a clue what patron saint or saints it may have. Where the same place has more than one cathedral, common practice is to distinguish them by denomination, not dedication. People say "Liverpool Anglican Cathedral" or "Liverpool Catholic Cathedral".
2. In places that have more than one church of the same denomination, such as cities or large towns, people are more likely to know the dedications of churches in order to tell them apart. For example, I would expect people in Henley-on-Thames to refer to "St Mary's" or "Holy Trinity", to tell the two parishes apart. But in a large town, practice may be mixed. For Example, in Worthing one would refer to "St Paul's" or "Christ Church" in the town centre, but further out one would say "Broadwater Church" or "Tarring Church".
3. Some previous comments have referred to the discussion of this topic on Wikimedia Commons. Some users had been alphasorting churches on Commons by place rather than dedication, before I even joined the project, more than a decade ago. I saw the practice, saw the good sense in it and copied it. But one user, who lives in a large city (see point 2. above), launched a long, aggressive and intimidating cyber-bullying campaign against me to stop me from following established practice. Only after a year or two did he seek, and get, a community consensus. That consensus was reached on strength of numbers, not strength of argument. And in the discussion, it was asserted that Commons should do its own thing, regardless of what English Wikipedia does.
4. The same church will appear in several categories. In, for example, a list of "Grade II listed churches", or "19th-century churches", or "Gothic Revival churches", "Anytown Baptist Church", "Anytown Methodist Church" and "Anytown URC Church" will all be consecutive. Do you want Anglican and Roman Catholic churches in the same town to be consecutive with them, or scattered elsewhere in the list?
5. On Commons this controversy cost me a mental health crisis and thousands of pounds worth of private mental health care. Since then I have all but given up donating photos of churches (or pubs, for that matter) to Commons, let alone sorting them. I look forward to the matter being resolved more respectfully and to a higher standard here on Wikipedia. Motacilla ( talk) 07:58, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
@ Fuddle, The joy of all things, Peter I. Vardy, Crouch, Swale, Mhockey, Mhockey, Bkonrad, Martin of Sheffield, Redrose64, Cardofk, and Motacilla: (ie, I hope, everyone who has contributed to this discussion)
Rather than start an RfC and then find there are further points to discuss, I've drafted one at User:PamD/rfc draft. Please comment on its talk page if you think it should be amended - this is the first time I've started an RfC, but as the initiator of this lengthy discussion I think it's probably my job to do so now, in the hopes that we can come to a consensus and move forward together to improve the encyclopedia. All being well I'd expect to launch the RfC tomorrow, and will notify the five main relevant WikiProjects to whose editors it may be of interest (Christianity, Architecture, UK, UK geography, Categories) I hope we can calmly reach a closure of the RfC which will enable us to move towards consistent sorting in categories, and to avoid future to-and-fro good-faith editing of DEFAULTSORTs Thanks. Pam D 10:01, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
I've come across a few categories which contain only one member article (e.g. Category:Montreal Royales players). I can't seem to find whether there is anything requiring that a category contain a certain number of articles in order to justify its existence. If that criterion exists somewhere, I would appreciate being directed to it. Thanks. Dennis C. Abrams ( talk) 13:04, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
So the page Canada Soccer National Development Centres is a soccer/football program that has teams competing in different leagues under various names based on the province they're in (NDC Ontario, PEF Quebec, Vancouver Whitecaps Girls Elite). I have their various leagues in the category, but when you go to the category it shows the main article name. For example, in Category:League1 British Columbia clubs, is there any way to make it appear as Vancouver Whitecaps Girls Elite instead of Canada Soccer National Development Centres? RedPatch ( talk) 01:01, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
At Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2022 June 18#Category:Langley Park, County Durham it was claimed by User:Marcocapelle that Category:People from Langley Park, County Durham can exist without Category:Langley Park, County Durham. Later the delete !vote was withdrawn because more articles had been added to the topic category. As far as I was aware as long as a set category for a topic category exists then a topic category is generally presumed to be suitable for inclusion though there is nothing specifically stating this as far as I'm aware. The reasons are:
I'm wandering what people think, I don't think we need a RFC but I may start one if needed. Crouch, Swale ( talk) 16:37, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
We have some categories like Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States and Category:Emigrants from the Ottoman Empire to France and some related to Nazi Germany that use this form, but most use the form Category:Spanish emigrants to Mexico. I am beginning to think that the former one is a better form. We want to focus on these categories as those who are subject to the starting place going to the ending place. In the case of Spain, some people who feel they are Catalan may object at times to being called "Spanish" but they are clearly from Spain. It would also make the scope of Category:British emigrants to France more clear if it was Category:Emigrants from the United Kingdom to France. Category:Emigrants from British India is one case where 3 use British India emigrants to and 4 use emigrants from British India to. One possibility is to for the time being continue to use xian emigrants to y as the main form, but review some broderline cases for consideration of renaming. Probably the two top candidates for review at this time are Category:Austro-Hungarian Emigrants, which was a clearly multi-ethnic state, and so using "Austro-Hungarian" as a denonym seems less than idea, and Category:Austrian Empire emigrants which has the same issues. We even have Category:Habsburg Monarchy emigrants which would almost certainly be better as Emigrants from the Hapsburg Monarchy to. Category:Emigrants from the Holy Roman Empire is another category that uses Emigrants from x to y. We also have Category:Emigrants from Nazi Germany. In fact 5 of the 12 entries under Category:Emigrants from former countries use this format. Well, now 5 of 13 since I just added Category:Mandatory Palestine emigrants, but that may be a strong candidate for rename. I also wonder if defectors might be better as defectors from x to y. Caegory:Armenian emigrants may have strong reasons for renaming. Also New Zealand and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as any other case where a form is not used. I think both US and UK would be more clear if named to Category:Emigrants from the United States and Category:Emigrants from the United Kingdom. Category:Cypriot emigrants may also have issues about Cyprus and its history that may make it a strong candidate for renaming. I really think Category:Emirati emigrants would be better as Category:Emigrants from the United Arab Emirates. Category:German emigrants already has a sub-cat Category:Emigrants from Nazi Germany, I think we would be best off if we also have Category:Emigrants from the German Empire, and at least renamed the East and West German Emigrants cats to Emigrants from East Germany and Emigrants from West Germany. Category:Hawaiian emigrants really needs to be renamed Category:Emigrants from the Kingdom of Hawaii. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 13:05, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
Hi, I could use some help with International Magicians Society. It appears to be a real organization, with a lot of grandiose claims on its website about having tens of thousands of members, being written up in Guinness World Records, etc. Where I'm having trouble with a category though is that the "real" founding date is probably 1994, but the society is claiming it goes back to 1968. Or maybe 1964. So which year should I put in the category? Or should I just remove them for now, and sort things out later? -- El on ka 01:55, 20 August 2022 (UTC)
I recommend that we change all categories with "Countries" in them, to "Sovereign states". That way, we won't have any disputes about whether England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, should be included or not. GoodDay ( talk) 05:54, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
@ DeFacto: & @ Titus Gold:, I think my proposal will help solve some problems. I know years ago, changing the page List of countries to List of sovereign states, did. GoodDay ( talk) 06:04, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
@ Matt Lunker:, what's your take on the inclusion/exclusion for these categories? GoodDay ( talk) 21:32, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
How should UK churches be sorted in categories in en.wiki? For background, including links to previous inconclusive discussions, please see the section #DEFAULTSORT for churches above. Note that articles on UK churches have a wide variety of title formats. Consider St Chad's Church, Far Headingley, but also:
(It is of course possible that some of these should have other article titles).
The practice of expanding "St" or "St." to "Saint" is mandated by WP:SORTKEY and appears uncontroversial, so "Sort by article title" or similar, in this RfC, can be taken to mean "Sort by title with "St" expanded to "Saint" (and with a leading "The" removed in rare cases)".
The only existing guidance on sortkeys appears to be that at
WP:SORTKEY, which includes the option that "Systematic sort keys are also used in other categories where the logical sort order is not alphabetical (for example, individual month articles in year categories such as Category:2004 use sort keys like "*2004-04" for April). Again, such systems must be used consistently within a category.
". There is no one Wikiproject dedicated to UK churches, though they come within the interests of many Wikiprojects:
Christianity and its denominational subprojects;
Architecture;
United Kingdom; and
UK geography and its country, county or regional subprojects.
Categories is also relevant. There seems no obvious place to record the consensus with which this RfC will close, but an archived RfC lodged in the wiki-memory of a variety of editors will be useful. If agreement can be reached, we can (a) move towards consistent sorting within categories and (b) avoid conflict between editors and time wasted in changing DEFAULTSORTs.
Pam
D 06:46, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
Please express your preference within each of the three groups of options below:
WP:CAT#T states "Templates are not articles, and thus do not belong in content categories." While templates are certainly not articles, they often contain content, in some cases content that appears in no other place on Wikipedia, e.g.
Template:1933 Southeastern Conference football standings. From a practical standpoint, it may useful to navigate directly from a content category like
Category:Southeastern Conference football to a category like
Category:Southeastern Conference football templates and its subcats like
Category:Southeastern Conference football standings templates, which contain templates related the subject of Southeastern Conference football. After all, the point of categories is to organize things by batching related things together and helping users find them, right?
In late 2020, we had a discussion on this talk page concerning this issue; see Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Archive 18#procedure makes the category tree worse, both coming and going. Participants included Tahc, Dr Greg, Michael Bednarek, andrybak, Oculi, Fayenatic london, DexDor, and me. We had substantial support there for changing the existing policy. What does the wider community think? Should we change this policy?
Thanks, Jweiss11 ( talk) 20:30, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
This page is part of Wikipedia's administration and not part of the encyclopediasince 2008. Content categories are for readers, template categories are for editors to find a template they are looking for.
a subject-related templatethere exists an extensive tree of categories under Category:Wikipedia templates by topic. — andrybak ( talk) 03:08, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
@ Isabelle Belato: I would like a clarification on this. Would a category named like "Foo stubs" be considered a content category? If so, is it appropriate to make a category named like "Foo stub templates" a subcategory of it? Specific examples: do Category:Argentina stub templates and Category:Uruguay stub templates belong in Category:Argentina stubs and Category:Uruguay stubs respectively? Other examples may be provided upon request. -- Redrose64 🌹 ( talk) 08:18, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:Overcategorization#Categorizing events by venue
Having lost at Categories for Discussion repeatedly, and opposed again on the Talk, the user has attempted a non-conforming RFC.
William Allen Simpson (
talk) 08:42, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
The "Articles" subsection says, in part, "Categorization of articles must be verifiable. It should be clear from verifiable information in the article why it was placed in each of its categories." I assumed that "in the article" refers to the text (or body) of the article, so I removed a category and an infobox parameter from Constance Talmadge. Another editor reverted the removal, commenting "please check 'EXTERNAL LINKS'" in the edit summary. Should external links be considered in deciding whether categories are supported? Eddie Blick ( talk) 01:24, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
Hello! I have a question related to WP:CATV—that is, this quotation from the guideline:
Does WP:SYNTH apply to the use of categories? That is, does there need to be a reliable source directly describing an article's subject as being of the category type?
To make the question more concrete, a little while back a user added
Category:1984 mass shootings in the United States and
Category:Mass shootings in New York City to
1984 New York City Subway shooting. (Diffs, including re-additions after removal:
[5]
[6]
[7]; related:
[8]). According to the Wikipedia article
Mass shootings in the United States: Mass shootings are incidents involving multiple victims of firearm-related violence. Definitions vary, with no single, broadly accepted definition.
So, the question becomes "does 'the article give [a] clear indication for inclusion in [those] categor[ies]'?" On the one hand, there is obviously verifiable information indicating that there were "multiple victims of firearm-related violence
". But I cannot seem to find many sources clearly calling the Goetz shooting a "mass shooting." So, if
WP:SYNTH applies, then the inclusion isn't appropriate. OTOH, to some extent, Wikipedia users define and create their own categories, and, while I can't quite put my finger on it, something seems potentially off about saying that a reliable source must describe an article's subject as belonging to a category that Wikipedia users invented.--
Jerome Frank Disciple (
talk) 17:00, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
For anyone willing to provide input, there's an RFC related to this question
here, and any input would be greatly appreciated. The question is: "Should this article, concerning firearm-related violence with multiple persons injured, be included in the mass-shooting category, even though no sources directly refer to it as a mass shooting?"
The key debate concerns whether "mass shooting" is a special term that requires labelling by a reliable source. Thanks in advance!--
Jerome Frank Disciple (
talk) 17:05, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
How does one move the subcategories on a page to a different spot? Specifically, In the Category:Trap music songs, I'm trying to put Category:Cloud rap songs closer to the top, with the other subgenres but not sure how to do that. 4TheLuvOfFax ( talk) 00:18, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
Unlike all the other European country main categories, Category:Russia is not in Category:Countries in Europe. Instead it's in Category:Russian Federation, which is then within Category:Eastern European countries, which is within Category:Countries in Europe by region, which is within Category:Countries in Europe. — Lights and freedom ( talk ~ contribs) 01:34, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
I have noticed that stub templates are included within their relevant category, for example {{ Music-stub}} is included within Category:Music stubs. This is done automatically by Template:Asbox. However, as Category:Music stubs is a subcategory of Category:Music, these templates then become part of the content category tree. Is this something that should be changed? As an aside, while the wording at WP:PROJCATS is not the clearest, it seems that stub categories, though classified as administrative, are acceptable to be subcats of content categories? Thanks, S.A. Julio ( talk) 06:50, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
My instinct is that when you have an example like " Gladys Knight & the Pips" to sort it under "G", as I think of the band name like a title of a legal fiction or persons doing business as some name. As of this writing, an example of this is at The Alan Parsons Project, we have the sort key {{DEFAULTSORT:Alan Parsons Project, The}}. But, in the example I gave at the beginning, they are presently sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Knight, Gladys and the Pips}} and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Petty and the Heartbreakers, Tom}}. On the other hand, Ben Folds Five has no sortkey, so it's under "B". I searched this page and its archives and I don't see discussion of how we want to handle this. See, e.g. this example on StackExchange if I'm not explaining myself: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/361423/alphabetizing-band-names-when-the-name-includes-a-members-name. Thoughts? ― Justin (koavf)❤ T☮ C☺ M☯ 07:27, 14 May 2023 (UTC)
Hi, I'd like to know what the difference is between sortkeys | ]], |*]], and |+]].
WP:SORTKEY does not explain the function or usage of |+]].
Why is it, for example,
Category:Monarchs in Asia sorted like this?:
I've just given Category:Women monarchs in Asia the sortkey |+]], but actually I have no idea whether that is correct or incorrect. Shouldn't it be |*]], for example? And why is Category:Middle Eastern monarchs given the sortkey |+]]? Could somebody please explain? Thanks! Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 13:02, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
Your opinion is welcome. Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 16:33, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
In an article about a geographical location (ex. town), can we add a category related to an event that happened there (a battle, massacre, disaster, etc.) if that event is mentioned in the article but doesn't have a stand-alone subarticle yet? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:38, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
I was suggested that I ask here for comment on the categorization of comedian, pranker and performance artist Sam Hyde under Category:Alt-right. RockabillyRaccoon ( talk) 20:28, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
Is there anyway that only subpages display in a category page without the names of the main pages? Yoosef ( talk) 20:04, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
Not sure what the guidelines have to say about this, but I think there are some cases where an article should maybe be in a category, as well as its parent. Take Liburna, a type of ancient ship extensively used by the ancient Romans. But, it's not in Category:Ancient Roman ships. Why not? Because, I conjecture, it is in its parent cat Category:Ancient ships. As pointed out in the lead of Liburna:
I think in a case like this, it should be in both. Its kind of shocking *not* to see it in "Ancient Roman ships". What do you think? What's the right way to do this? There are other ships the Romans used, that either the Phoenicians or somebody else invented and used first; what should happen in these cases? Mathglot ( talk) 00:48, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
The Cherokee Nation has gained official recognition over several counties in Oklahoma, though this appears to be mostly ceremonial, as many communities within its boundaries have little connection to it. There is a content dispute at Talk:Taylor Ferry, Oklahoma, regarding the addition of Category:Cherokee Nation, to hundreds of populated places within the Nation's huge boundaries--despite many communities not even mentioning Cherokee Nation in its text. Your input is welcome. -- Magnolia677 ( talk) 14:00, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Fractions in category names. -- Redrose64 🌹 ( talk) 20:45, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
There has been a proliferation of categories for people by century, ethnicity, and profession which I believe are basically category clutter. In many cases, they are so massive as to be not useful. Many articles have 5-10 such categories, which impedes navigation. Examples: there are ten "by century" categories at Kamala Harris. Even relatively short articles have a plethora of such categories. Violet King Henry has 6. There are over 24,000 articles in Category:21st-century American women, 5,906 articles in Category:20th-century African-American sportspeople, and 8,761 in Category:20th-century African-American people. If articles were fully populated with all of those which apply, I believe some articles could have 20 or more such categories. Do you find this schema useful? What can we do to avoid category clutter here?-- User:Namiba 16:38, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
Editors are invited to join a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Aviation accident task force § Accidents and incidents are not necessarily disasters about whether "accident/incident" categories should be sub-categories of "disaster" categories. Mitch Ames ( talk) 12:50, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
The articles categorized under Category:Hoaxers are a real motley bunch. We have the authors of literary hoaxes like H. L. Mencken and Mike McGrady, orchestrators of academic hoaxes like Alan Sokal, satirists and "punkers" like Sacha Baron Cohen, mixed with Jussie Smollett, who was was found criminally guilty of a fraudulent police report, and Sabrina Erdely who was found liable in civil court for a defamatory piece of journalism. Doesn't seem quote right that bio articles are united under this category by the broad concept of a "hoax". Thoughts? Jweiss11 ( talk) 23:17, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
In the case of politicians, soldiers, diplomats, judges, government officials and a few related categories there is an assumption that we categorize people by the country they did such things for.
So for example, it is thought that Category:American diplomats is for people who were diplomats employed by the US, Fench diplomats were diplomats employed by France, Yugoslav diplomats were employed by Yugoslavia, Diplomats of the Russian Empire were employed by the Russian Empire, etc.
The issue is though some people were nationals of the US, France, Yugoslavia, the Russian Empire or another place, but diplomats not for those counties.
This leads to 3 solutions.
1-French diplomats are diplomats who were nationals of or subjects of France, regardless of what country they served.
2-French diplomats were diplomats who were agents of or employed by France regardless of if they were nationals of France.
3-French diplomats are anyone who is either 1 or 2.
For the most part though almost all employees or or agents of a country are in some sense nationals of that country. So 3 is almost identical as 1.
We have 4 which is create both diplomats of France and French diplomats, where French diplomats by nationality would be that and non-nationals who served in the interet of France would be seperate.
Or 5, we default put people in diplomats of France, except if they are French nationals representing some other entity as a diplomat than France.
It might be worth considering who a French diplomats not a Diplomat of France would be. The most obvious choice is a diplomat for the UN. The next most obvious choice is a diplomat gor another country, say Spain, who was at least at some point a French national.
I am thinking that it would make .our sense to say for diplomats the person must have been an agent of the country mentioned. If they were an agent of a non-national entity we put the in UN diplomats etc. If they were an agent of another country, we put them in a diplomat cat for that country.
A person born in France as a French national, who works gor France, but later switches to working as a diplomat gor Italy would go in French diplomats and Italian diplomats. However if they only were a diplomat for Italy and never for France thry only belong in Italian diplomats.
If they are a diplomat for France, then move yo Italy, become an Italian national, but only work as a painter, writer, wine merchant or any other non-diplomat profession the only diplomat cat they belong in is French di9lomats.
This also means that basically all cases Italian diplomats are the same as diplomats of Italy, French diplomats are the same as Diplomats of France, New Zealand diplomats as the same as diplomats of New Zealand, etc.
This is my solution for diplomats. I do not think it is 100% how categories currently work, but it is probably the closest yo how we currently use categories. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 02:06, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
with writers we treat nationality as the main default category, so that French-language writers does not include French writers. I think we need to clearly apply this rule to ethnicity. So that people in the Albanians category, which is a nationality Category, are not also in the Ethnic Albanians category. The one exception might be if they are in a subcat of Ethnic Albanians like Albanians in the Ottoman Empire, but not for by occupation subcats. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 03:39, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
Judges, politicians, spies, diplomats, and military personnel are normally categorized by the government that they worked for. I think the way we should do this is 1-agree that French military personnel, French judges, Albanian diplomats, etc are for people who operated as such for the relevant country, 2-where possible use clear names, 3-if there are enough people who were nationals 9f a,country who did a linked occupation not for that country, create a by nationality category, but exclude the people who were employed by that country. For example maybe we would have Category:Diplomats of the United States, and then have Category:American diplomats and in the lead say this is for Americans who were diplomats, but only those who were not employed by the US. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 03:48, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
I would say that in general it is best to have only actually recognized States use nationality names. Places that are not recognized as country entities we generally want to use people from X forms, like musicians from Michigan. I think we should avoid denonyms even when universally accepted. Thus we have people from Bavaria, not Bavarian people. However if a form is widely used, like Bavaria, we need to assume that any Category that says Bavarian would include Bavarians doing that. If, as in the case of emigration, we want to exclude current Bavarians who fall under the Gean category for this from it, we need wording that makes that clear. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 05:20, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
I would say we should limit demonyms to national entities. Sub-national entities we most often use X people from Y from. I think in cases where the national level entity lacks a clear and unambiguous demonym that is widely known, we should also use X people from Y. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 05:25, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
It's quite confusing and unhelpful to post essentially the same topic a three separate discussion threads, and then fill them with replies to yourself. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 08:21, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
This is a,place where I think our current naming conventions are poor. I think, based on having reviewed this, that there are two rules. We have agelreed since we have British Emigrants to the British Empire, that we recognize movement from the controlling country to a clearly distinct Colony as emigration. We have odd precedents here though French emigrants to French Polynesia was killed because ostensibly movement from France to an oversees collective is not defining, but for past Colonies it is? I have yet to see someone clearly explain why they think this distinction makes sense. It might be a theory of ease of movement increasing over time, but British emigrants to British Hong Kong were happening until the end of 1996 or so. We do however have lots of people I ple who were clearly nationals of the controlling country who lived in a Colony but went back to the controlling country. They are not really expatriates though. I think ad long as there are enough articles on such people to justify a catehory we should call the category X people in Y country. So British people in British India. French people in French Algeria, German people in German East Africa, Belgian people in the Brlgian Congo, Dutch people in the Dutch East Indies etc. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 22:34, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
I think we have come to agree that our categories are French people, Spanish people, American people, People from the Ottoman Empire etc. We still have some gaps in actually appliances this. Especially with Booian fooers. So the best form would be Category:Greek people from the Ottoman Empire, etc. We do not universally do this. We still have I think Serbians from the Ottoman Empire. We also have some of these categories that use in. This is my guess where we want to go. A-People from X country by ethnicity should have as subcats things name Y people from X. I think that maybe should be universal. B- this is district from X people of Y descent. Whether we really want both is case by case. In the US we have American people of Greek descent. I do not think we need Greek people from the United States. On the other hand we have Greek people from the Ottoman Empire but I am not sure we want to have People from the Ottoman Empitlre of Greek descent. The thing is at present when we go to occupations we drop people. So we have French people, French artists, French scientists, French chefs, French artists, French writers, etc. However we have Frwnch people of Ranian descent. We may need to make sure all the places we do not currently use people it is acceptable yo not use it. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 22:18, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
I have been thinking about nationality, ethnicity and related categories. I have a few thoughts. First we start by accepting that we categorize people by the nnation they are subjects or nationals of. That brings up some key questions. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 04:54, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
Regarding WP:SUBCAT, something I see quite often is that a category like Category:Cities in France will have subcats for many (sometimes all) of the cities (eg, Category:Paris), but also the topic article of that subcat ( Paris). So this means this article is not diffused. I assume this is against principle, but I see it soooo often that I wonder that maybe my presumption is wrong?
I imagine it would be very easy for a novice editor to see that Paris is not in Category:Cities in France, and want to correct that. Likewise, the guidance seems to require the opposite, so removing it would seem sensible to many people. Either way, it would probably be good to explicitly make clear what to do one way or another. — HTGS ( talk) 00:01, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
The use of prepositions in categories seems fairly messy. I am trying to see if my proposal below might help things.
1- for various reasons some groups do not have a demonym or some demonym forms are too ambiguous. The following would apply where we do not gave a common and unambiguous demonym, or where a demonym is not clear what the group means.
2- the primary way we divide people in Wikipedia, at least those who lived in places where there were organized governments resulting in something like a nation, country, Kingdom, state etc. Is by the polity that they were nationals or subjects of. How narrowly or broadly this polity is defined, and what to call it when it changes name, or if it remains the same polity after a name change, are issues that may need discussion. When we do not have a good demonym form I think we should use People from Foo. Such as People from Bihemia, and People from the Russian Empire. Etc. I think this is preferably to treating the entity name as a demonym, so Russian Empire people is not in my view a good form. There may be some cases by case discussion needed. I think especially when a demonym exists in the name the from form is best. So People from the Dutch East Indies is better than Dutch East Indies people. That becomes hard to parse, is it Dutch people from the East Indies, or is it People from the Dutch East Indies? It is best to be explicit.
3. For by descent categories the form is People from Foo of Bar descent. People from the Russian Empire of French descent.
4- For ethnicity, the ethnic group needs to be long established and clearly resident in the place, or one who is not connected with a country. So in the Russian Empire example even if someone's parents left France a year before they were born, spoke French, and in every way were ethnically French, but they were clearly nationals of the Russian Empire they still go in People from the Russian Empire of French descent. If they were a national of France born in the Russian Empire who was in defining ways still a national of France they could go in French expatriates in the Russian Empire. That is a separate issue. However for some ethnic groups, in the Russian Empire case Ukrainians, Tatars, and Armenians come to mind we would have the category names Armenian people from the Russian Empire, Ukrainian people from the Russian Empire, Tatar people from the Russian Empire etc. While almost all these people would have lived in the Russian Empire that is not actually needed. If the person is clearly a national of the Russian Empire even though never living there are clearly identified as part of an ethnic group thry fit. However the later falls under ERGS rules and so should be reliably sourced and not just assumed. So a child of a diplomat for the Russian Empire born in France, who lived all their life in France, but was never considered to be French, whose family was ethnically Tatar, woukf fit in Tatar people from the Russian Empire. As I said I doubt there are many such cases. Another case of acceptable ethnic group categorization is Romani people. So we have Romani peiple from the Russian Empire etc. I am not even sure if there is a good way to put two demonyms in a category title, but if someone can fi d it that is a seperare issue.
5-most occupations will fit as Xians from Boo. This Writers from Austria-Hungary, historians from the Russian Empire, etc. We already use this form even in some demonym cases where it is not clear, thus Linguists from France.
6-In should be used for a-expatriates from one place elsewhere, this French expatriates in Germany or Expatriates from the Russian Empire in Switzerland. For expatriates and emigration/immigration categories a could solution to small cat is just having one side. So Expatriates in the Russian Empire or Immigrants to Yugoslavia can have direct contents, and we do not need to create every subcat we have at least one article for.
6a. In the case of people from the main country in a colony, we can use the in form, but they are not truly expatriates. Thus I think we should have for example British people in British Kenya. I know there has been a lot of back and forth, but I think in this case expatriates is not the right term.
6b. The other place we use in is where the catehory includes people regardless of what their connection to the country is. The most obvious is deaths in. We categorize people mainly by place of death. We do not care if they lived their all their life or were there for 2 hours before it happened. For example Deaths by cancer in Mexico includes people if they were in Mexico when thry died, no matter anything else. There are a few occupations we categorize this way as well. The test is that we need yo be grouping all the people who did the occupation in a certain country.
7. I think we need to move away from ever using of to connect someone to a place they were a subject/national of. We already have exploers of foo, like Exploers of Australia, that means they explorered there without regard to where they were a national of, hostorians of foo, like historians of France, which means their study of history focused on France,be they French, Russian, American, Malian or any other nationality, and there are others. I think the only cases we should use of to connect a person to a place is when that is their title, this Grand Dukes of Hesse, Kings of France, Queens of Denmark, Presidents of the United States, Attorneys General of North Dakota, Prime Ministers of Israel etc. I think it would be best to avoid other uses of of because it can be ambiguous.
8. I think in so.e cases we do need to link people in a category not by what country they were nationals or subjects of, but by what country they did the activity on the behalf of. If the issue is just thry did it in that country than we can use in. However for a wide variety of cases mantmy people do the thing for country X on country Y, but what mattwrs is they are agents acting for country X, much more than thry are in country Y. Examples of this are military persilonnel, some of which are called soldiers, diplomats and spies. So I think we would benefot from naming categories Soldiers for Italy, diplomats from the Russian Empire, military personnel for Mali, spies for Germany, etc. We might want to in some cases have intersect caregories which would be x for foo in y, but in many of these cases the people moved to so many countries, or operated in areas where what country they were in was not clear, so there is ambiguity. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 14:55, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
These questions follow a discussion I had with Sitush on their talk page about removals of caste-related categories from articles.
Overall, I have two distinct questions:
1) Could caste-related category pages have text added to clarify when these categories can be added to biographical articles? For example, text could be added to emphasize reliable sources are required, and per
WP:CASTEID, that these sources should indicate caste self-identification and impact on the subject's life, and/or per
WP:CAAP#DEFINING, that these sources should commonly and consistently refer to
the subject's self-identification.
2) Should there be no caste-related categories added to biographical articles, regardless of whether reliable sources exist for self-identification, and regardless of whether these sources indicate caste is impactful or defining in a biography? In other words, is there currently a broad consensus against the use of all caste-related categories for biography subjects?
I plan to notify WikiProject Categories and WikiProject India of this discussion after posting this. I have posted here because it may be beneficial to expand the Sensitive categories or other sections of the WP:PEOPLECAT guideline with clarification. Thank you, Beccaynr ( talk) 14:44, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
I am thinking we should end most categories that intersect nationality, gender, profession and century. Way to many people lived and worked in more than one century for this quadruple intersection scheme to make sense. Per ERGS rules all these people also need to be in a gender neurmtral parent, so by having 20th and 21st century Salvadoran women's writers categories we Mandate its contents brme in 4 categories if they overlap. It would only be 3 if we did not have the by gender categories, Salvadoran women writers, 20th-century Salvadoran writers and 21st-century women writers. At least we should say to create an intersection of profession, nationality, crnt6ry and occupation, we have to have more specific gender neutral sub-cats. So in the example above if there were 20th-century Salvadoran journalists, 21st-century Salvadoran novelists, etc, than the 21stcentury Salvador women writers could work, but not without those gender neutral subdivisions of the 21st-century writers category. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 02:49, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
WP:SORTKEY gives a good list of the meanings of Greek sort-key prefixes that sort items after the alphabet. Is there / should there be a similar list for prefixes that bring items to the beginning of the list? I'm looking at Category:Diseases and disorders, where three items are listed under [space], one under !, two under *, and one under +. I can't work out why they are under these separate keys. For some, I can't see why they aren't simply placed in normal alphabetical order. It looks to be a bit of a mess. So I wonder,
Thanks, Mgp28 ( talk) 13:23, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
Use other sort keys beginning with a space (or an asterisk or a plus sign) for any "List of ..." and other pages that should appear after the key article and before the main alphabetical listings, including "Outline of" and "Index of" pages. The same technique is sometimes used to bring particular subcategories to the start of the list.-- are you suggesting this needs some more explicit explanation about when to use these and what they mean? older ≠ wiser 13:37, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
and *
seem to be used for main article(s), including lists, and +
for diffusion based on gender or geography, depending of the cases. I find it counter-productive when a dozen different non-alphabetical sort keys, and tend to regroup them when I find such a situation. Actually, that's a reason why a single consistent rule for the meaning of each sort key can't be applied: there a so many different logics of diffusion that if we assign a different predefined sort key to each of them, you will get categories with too many different sort keys used that it won't be practical. Better aim for local consistency.
Place Clichy (
talk) 15:43, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
G'day, despite having been on here for a while, I've never really "got" diffusing subcategories, and wondered if someone could explain the following to me in layperson's terms. Why would you need to categorise an article like Olivia Savvas in both Category:Members of the South Australian House of Assembly AND Category:Women members of the South Australian House of Assembly? I assumed that the latter is a subcategory of the former, and therefore covers it? Would you also categorise that article in Category:Women members of the Parliament of South Australia? Thanks in anticipation. Cheers, Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 10:40, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
Hello, on a recurring ( 2006, 2012, 2019, 2019, 2021) debate on this subject, I'd like to make a few points :
The European Union defines ‘Immigration’ and ‘Immigrant’ as follows:
‘Immigration’ means an action by which a person establishes his or her usual residence in the territory of the country for a period that is, or is expected to be, of at least twelve months, having previously been usually resident in another country.
‘Immigrant’ means a person undertaking an immigration. It applies to all nationalities including nationals of the country of destination. In the current analysis it does not apply to persons already living in the country who migrated in the past.
They do not have a distinct definition for the word ‘expatriate’, which is elitist.
The relative share of immigrants who hold the citizenship of the EU Member State to which they were migrating is variable and around 30% on average : Figure : Distribution of immigrants by citizenship, 2021, complete article here.
This goes against what we've been reading here to justify retaining the current tree, namely that "most of these people do take citizenship". Frenchl ( talk) 07:33, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
There is a discussion that may be of your interest about a Request for comment on replacement to SmallCat guideline. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 05:43, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
Hello,
What is your opinion about such categories ? Is this overcategorization ?
There have already been these discussions about this subject: August 2015.
It seems to me that it is triple intersection that should be avoided according to WP:OCNARROW. Frenchl ( talk) 21:59, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Dabulamanzi kaMpande died in 1886. South Africa was not formed until 1910. Another editor us trying to force placement in a South Africa Category because "former countries are nested in current categories". This is a very bad plan. This treats boundaries as natural instead of what they really are, politically determined. It is a bad plan. It only makes sense to limit a deaths in a particular country Category to people who died in the country in question. We should not be retroactively applying countries onto the past. This is a very, very, very bad plan. It will cause way more drama in the long run. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 01:12, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
I am thinking for most people the place of burial is not defining to the biography. I think unless we can show that it is, we should limit placement of biographical articles into burial categories to cemetery. I do not think that the group of people buried in Michigan, or Montana, or Argentina, or anywhere else is a defining group, I think the only defining groups are people buried in specific cemeteries, with each cemetery basically someone having to show how being buried there is considered a defining case, or a few other cases, such as British monarchs buried abroad, maybe people buried in a battlefield that was later declared a cemetery, and maybe some other specific cases that can be shown to be defining. However I do not think we should bog down biographical articles with a category for what place the person is buried in, if the place is something less specific than a specific cemetery. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 01:17, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
|location=UK
or |location=California
in citation templates, despite the parameter being strictly defined as only for a city. People do not read documentation (and will fairly often defy it even after they've read it). —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 00:13, 4 January 2024 (UTC)Category:People from Austria-Hungary and its subcategories have been placed as sub-cats of Category:Austrian people and Category:Hungarian people. I do not think this makes sense. This is a category for people from a specific country, Austria-Hungary. I think they should be directly placed under People by nationality, and sub-cats should be directly placed under Writers by nationality, scientists by nationality, etc. They are not a sub-cat of either Austrian or Hungarian people, but people who were nationals of a dual named country, that included many more ethnic groups and much more land than either of the modern countires, let alone the modern countries combined. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 17:47, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
I have been working through some categories and navboxes with the intention of checking that the listed articles are correctly categorised, and while I have found quite a lot of categories that seem obviously right or wrong, I have also found a lot that seem dubious. I apply the test: Is "topic" an instance of "category"? using the short description or scope definition of the article and the scope definition or a best guess at it for the category. I find that a large number of categories have no scope definition, and there are often a significant proportion of articles in categories where it is not clear why they have been put there. There are also a lot of cases where categories appear to have been chosen the wrong way round, as in a breathing gas being in the category oxygen, whereas it makes more sense for oxygen to be in the category breathing gases. All breathing gases must contain oxygen, but only oxygen is oxygen. Is there useful guidance on sorting this sort of thing out? There are other cases where it is less obvious which way it should go.
One of the problems is that an article may have a title that suggests one category as defining, but also contains content, which, on its own, would suggest a different category. For example an article on a medical condition is likely to contain content on treatment of the condition, so it also gets categorised as a medical treatment. Based on the title it is not a treatment, but there may be a redirect to the treatment section which if expanded into an article, would be categorised as a treatment not a condition. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 16:52, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
I am thinking that we are overcategorizing people by death. I think we need to take a look and determine if all the articles in the cause of death tree are actually cases where the cause of death is notable. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 13:39, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
Is Pneumonia really a cause of death that is defining enough for people to justify categorizing people by having died this way? John Pack Lambert ( talk) 13:02, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
Hello! I initially posted this on the Help desk. I'll copy my original text here.
While doing some stubsorting, I encountered a curious paradox. From WP:SUBCAT:
If logical membership of one category implies logical membership of a second (an is-a relationship), then the first category should be made a subcategory (directly or indirectly) of the second. When making one category a subcategory of another, ensure that the members of the subcategory really can be expected (with possibly a few exceptions) to belong to the parent also.So autobiographers is a subcategory of biographers (they write biographies), and biographers is a subcategory of historians (which is logical, since they deal with a history of other people), then autobiographers is a subcategory of historians - and this is where it falls apart, since almost all autobiographers do not study history, they just write a biography about themselves.If this were to be changed, then all categories like autobiographers by nationality, by century etc. needs to be recategorized, so it would be a major change across many categories which I don't want to do without discussing it first. And I don't feel like nominating them to CfD since I think it is for deleting, merging and all that stuff and here it is just about changing the parent category.
So, should autobiographers not be considered a subcategory of biographers? What do you think?
As to why I think that Category:Biographers should stay subcategory of Category:Historians, my logic is as follows (also copied from the Help desk thread):
I would think that, from purely logical perspective, while autobiographies should be considered a subset of the biographies, autobiographers might not necessarily be a subset of biographers because all autobiographers need is a good memory of their life and biographers need to work with documents and other stuff to reconstruct the life of other people, and this is pretty much what historians do. On the other hand, it seems counterintuitive to just exclude autobiographers from biographers.
Deltaspace42 ( talk • contribs) 16:20, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
Is this actually a problem? Although not marked as one, Category:Historians is in practice a Wikipedia:Container category: it has very few individual articles. The true historians are found among its subcategories. They could still be found there, among the same subcategories, even if they are also autobiographers. — David Eppstein ( talk) 17:53, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
Want to flag this issue and ping @ Gonnym and @ Mvcg66b3r. This category has seen two speedy renames in a week, and I'm not sure whether a full discussion is merited. The parent category is Category:Public Broadcasting Service, but the subcategories all use PBS. I suspect a CfD discussion is coming one way or the other, but first I think it's worth talking through where this one cat should be. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 22:39, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
I have two questions, which are not really related:
Kk.urban ( talk) 20:34, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Hello, I think categories like "Countries in Europe", should be renamed to "Sovereign states in Europe". At the very least, if not re-named, then limited to having only independent countries in them. The terminology "country", has multiple meanings & so may be confusing. GoodDay ( talk) 08:26, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
An editor is actively getting around to remove Macau categories from parent categories for dependent territories or other similar categories and charging others for unconstructive editing. [14] [15] I recognize that dependent territories are part of the scope of WikiProject Countries and there is a tree for dependent territories under that for countries. What people like them are doing is real unconstructive. Could anything be done to stop them? 113.52.112.27 ( talk) 14:18, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
Moved from Help talk:Category
I've been editing WP assiduously for over 20 years, in which time I have corrected literally thousands of Defsorts that have been incorrectly specified.
The main offender is personal names, where we typically need the article to be sorted by surname, not by given name. For ex, Mervyn Jones would be Defsorted as "Jones, Mervyn". Simple, right? Well, it seems many, many editors just don't get it. They Defsort it as "Mervyn Jones", not realising that that produces exactly the same result as if Defaultsort were not used at all. In other words, whatever order the words are in the article title, will dictate the sorting of the article in its categories. That's UNLESS we use a Defaultsort using a parameter that is something OTHER than an exact copy of the article title.
What I'm getting to is this: The default sorting will be the article title, yet to change it to something else, we must use a magic word that includes the word "Default". That has always, always, always seemed counterintuitive to me. If you had a choice to either Keep or Change something in any sort of app, and you wanted to change it, you'd click the Change button, not the Keep button. Right? Same with Defaultsort, which is used when you actually want something OTHER than the actual default, which is the article title.
I'm certain that this simple bit of infelicitous nomenclature is the root cause of so many editors getting so wrong what to experienced editors is the simplest concept imagineable.
Is there any prospect of changing the name to something more likely to produce better outcomes? One idea might be CHANGESORT. I'm sure there are many others. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 04:08, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
[[Category:Singers|Donna the Voice]]
[[Category:Wrestlers|Dynamite Donna]]
[[Category:Flight attendants]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Farkle, Donna}}
tag, then she'll be sorted on the third category page as "Farkle, Donna", appearing under the Fs, because that's now the custom default category sort key for her.
Largoplazo (
talk) 22:07, 10 April 2024 (UTC)JackofOz, I feel your pain! I mostly sort within list categories. I can't tell you how many time I've seen {{DEFAULTSORT:List of...}}
in an article titled "List of...". Completely pointless. I see it so much, I usually don't even bother to fix it any more (as long as the cats are individually sorted correctly). It took me just a couple minutes to find an example at
List of power stations in New South Wales:
{{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Power Stations In New South Wales}}
[[Category:Lists of power stations in Australia|New South Wales]]
[[Category:Power stations in New South Wales| ]]
[[Category:Lists of buildings and structures in New South Wales|Power stations]]
I also often see situations where there is a plausible DEFAULTSORT, but it's only really doing work on a single cat. The others have correct overrides — individually sorted with standard sorting keys — which is almost just as pointless use of DEFAULTSORT because the only cat without its own sort key, might as well have one and lose the DEFAULTSORT. Honestly I'm not a huge fan of DEFAULTSORT in general. I use it on occasion, for people's names, but other than that I usually just sort individually. Also note, when using HotCat you don't see the existing DEFAULTSORT code anyway, so there are times where I've added the sort key along with a new category, unaware if it's already defaultsorted the same way or not.
As for what it should be called, I see your point, but the name "DEFAULTSORT" does hint that it is overridden by the standard sort keys. With another name, that may be even less clear. DB1729 talk 00:56, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
I think DEFAULTSORT is clear enough: it's the way in which the article will be sorted, by default; a sortkey which can be over-ridden for any particular category. Yes, some editors get it wrong, but editors get a lot of things wrong. If they add an unnecessary DEFAULTSORT equalling the article title, no harm is done.
Someone said above that DEFAULTSORT mostly applies to personal names; the other huge category is titles which start with an article - names of books, newspapers, films, paintings, etc - where we need to sort on the words after the article: "Night Manager, The". Pam D 23:07, 12 April 2024 (UTC)