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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Netoholic (talk | contribs) at 02:31, 1 September 2004 (politeness has nothing to do with it). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Read and understand Wikipedia:Categorization before using this page. Add new deletion candidates under the appropriate day. Add {{cfd}} to the category page for deletion. Many editors consider it good practice discuss a category deletion before it is de-populated (category tags removed from articles).

  1. Make sure you add a colon (:) in the link to the category being listed, like [[:Category:Foo]]. This makes the category link a hard link which can be seen on the page (and avoids putting this page into the category you are nominating).
  2. Sign any listing or vote you make by typing ~~~~ after your text.
  3. If the category has more than a few items, edit it and add the template {{cfd}}. (This will add a message to it, and also put the page you are nominating into Category:Categories for deletion.)

Some categories may be listed in Category:Categories for deletion but accidently not listed here.

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Sept 1

Category:Americans

Redundant to Category:American people (37 subcats & 23 articles); has 2 subcats each containing only the same 1 article; in conflict with the common titling style of 125 of 136 other subcats of Category:People by nationality. --Jerzy(t) 01:36, 2004 Sep 1 (UTC)

  • Delete. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (talk)]] 01:57, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • This is so ridiculous. It's an empty category redundant to another with no text. Speedy delete it already. anthony (see warning) 02:16, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

August 31

Category:People by political party

This no-article, single-subcat child of Category:People (with nothing but 3 articles as grand-kids) is redundant to the lower-level cat Category:Politicians by political orientation, since people known for involvement in a party are a kind of politician. If deleted, move its kid Category:Libertarians into its above-mentioned shadow-cat(Category:Politicians by political orientation). --Jerzy(t) 23:05, 2004 Aug 31 (UTC)

Category:Behavior geneticists

[Misplaced nomination by Netoholic @ moved here, since the issues are completely separate from the ones stated in the nomination under which it first appeared.]

  • Delete BOTH.... why are you making categories for only one article? Group together first with existing, more generic ones, and then sub-cat if it becomes too un-wieldy. -- Netoholic @ 02:32, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Why are you flinging around accusations without determining the facts? I did not create Category:Behavior Geneticists. If you're so determined to be the category-size vigilantes, go do that. Don't badger someone who is correcting what was obviously wrong per existing naming standards, and is avoiding involvement in opinionated disputes about issues (like "should tiny categories be 'grown into'?") that IMO will degenerate into a policy only after at least six months of constant bad feeling, and occasional reasoning and fearful but necessary experimentation. --Jerzy(t) 16:51, 2004 Aug 31 (UTC)
  • The suggested category for the article is Category:Geneticists. —Mike 03:37, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)
  • No vote, as my thrust is merely to clean up formal deficiencies. --Jerzy(t) 16:51, 2004 Aug 31 (UTC)

Category:People known in connection with misdeeds or punishment

[Misplaced nomination by Netoholic @ moved here, since the issues are completely separate from the ones stated in the nomination under which it first appeared.]

It was around 100, and growing by several a day, when i started consolidating its kids into these subcats, and some lower descendants of Category:People. Now, i don't especially like any of those names. But that's not the reason we began discussing deletion of any of them. I or you disliking them is relevant only because i've suggested something marginally better for two of them. You do the same, and i'll be silent at worst -- or maybe audibly admiring, if you exceed marginal improvement. --Jerzy(t)
I think you've pointed out an underlying problem here, which is that Category:People as a huge dump bin to collect all the people mentioned in WP is preposterous. It would be like Category:Things or Category: Words. And I appreciate that you are only trying to alleviate that problem. The subcategories under debate are probably no worse than just leaving all the people undifferentiated in the parent category. I could hope there might be better ways to split the subcategories, but perhaps any way we split something as vast and vague as this would introduce arbitrary and unwieldy judgments. I would hope more strongly that we could abandon the whole notion of an omnibus people-listing category as unworkable. WP has not yet appreciated, but I think it will, that successful categories are really about concepts, not about lists. Your efforts are commendable, but, I don't know, maybe if we don't create temporary alleviating subcategories to this monstrosity the misconceived thing will fail under its own weight all the sooner. --Gary D 02:13, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
P.S. Just to see, I took a look at Abraham Lincoln, and found him categorized six times under "people-list" categories. At that, he hasn't yet been categorized as a speechwriter or a tall person or an honest person or a woodsman or a husband or a lawyer, so there could be twenty five more people-list categories coming to cover him, or twenty five hundred more. List taxonomy gone mad. So I'm not complaining about your efforts, Jerzy, you're rushing around trying to put fingers in the dike, and that's an admirable effort. It's just that this sucker's gonna blow completely—as it should. --Gary D 02:23, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

User:Hemanshu strikes again

At this time, he has ignored two postings on his talk page and an e-mail requesting him to refrain from randomly creating categories without regard to existing structure. No response, no change in behavior.

Redundant categories:

Senseless overcategorization:

We're going to have to kill him. Postdlf 14:49, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Not sure what his motivation is, though in the absence of other evidence, I must assume that his heart is in the right place. Me, I go looking for a related category before I create any new ones, and if I later discover an existing category, I take the time to reclassify. It would be helpful if Hemanshu did the same. Delete, I think there's little argument. --[[User:Ardonik|Ardonik(talk)]] 00:29, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC)

Category:People known in connection with crime or punishment

Created by me a few days back. No one else commented on it or did any editing related to it. I came to the opinion that it would work better if slightly broader, so the purpose of this deletion will/would be the final step of effecting the equivalent of a move(rename) operation on it. I orphaned it by recategorizing all 5 subcats (that i had transferred from Category:People into it) into Category:People known in connection with misdeeds or punishment which replaces it; additionally i transferred Category:Impostors from Category:People into Category:People known in connection with misdeeds or punishment.

In the event this CfD results in Keep, i will reverse those operations and put it all back: i'd rather run the small risk of having to undo what i did, than leave my bad initial choice of title standing to mislead and eventually confuse anyone. There is no intent here to present a fait accompli to this page.

--Jerzy(t) 02:18, 2004 Aug 31 (UTC)

Category:People known in connection with miseeds or punishment

I temporarily replaced Category:People known in connection with crime or punishment by this, but it's a typo, and if there were speedy dels recognized for cats, i would have just deleted it as a purely technical operation, and feel no need to mention it to anyone. Now orphaned by me, and Category:People known in connection with misdeeds or punishment replaces them both. --Jerzy(t) 02:18, 2004 Aug 31 (UTC)

  • Delete ALL of Jerzy's categories mentioned above - including Category:People known in connection with misdeeds or punishment. It's far too wordy and doesn't make for good categorization. -- Netoholic @ 02:27, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete I think I have to agree with Netoholic; all of these categories, even the ones Jerzy wants to keep, seem pretty unwieldy, with little categorizing value. Maybe I'm just missing it, though: Is there a specific scenario for readers' beneficial use of these that can be sketched out, here? Otherwise, I would vote to delete all. --Gary D 03:10, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)


Category:Behavior Geneticists

Mis-cased. Now orphaned by me, and replaced by Category:Behavior geneticists. --Jerzy(t) 01:36, 2004 Aug 31 (UTC)

  • Delete BOTH.... why are you making categories for only one article? Group together first with existing, more generic ones, and then sub-cat if it becomes too un-wieldy. -- Netoholic @ 02:32, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

August 30

User:Hemanshu's continuing creation of redundant and useless categories

See previous listings below from August 19th and August 29th for the history of this problem—after creating dozens that we had to clean up and delete and after he was notified twice of these problems on his talk page, he continues to randomly create categories without regard to pre-existing, populated structure, or any regard as to whether it is a senseless overcategorization. I have already left two pointed messages on his talk page, which he has not responded to and is apparently ignoring—I have just e-mailed him as well. If he ignores that, I'm a little clueless as to what to do to stop this chaotic editing practice of his, and I'm a little pissed at having to keep up cleaning up after him. Anyone know how to deal with this kind of carelessness?

The following are redundant:

The following are useless overcategorizations:

And the following I'm merely skeptical as to whether they fit under an existing category system—someone who has worked more in these areas should review these to see if they can be used:

Once again, we need a way to get User:Hemanshu to stop doing this—though I believe he's trying to help, he might as well be trying to vandalize. Postdlf 00:41, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think the problem is that he isn't converting the counties to a new category. He is just creating duplicate categories. Correct me if I'm wrong. —Mike 01:20, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)
You're right. He's creating categories that are redundant with populated ones that already exist. Category:Michigan counties already has 84 articles and 47 subcategories. The naming convention isn't the issue—he's not trying to change those, he's just being careless. See especially his edits deleted below under August 19th. Postdlf 01:52, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Totally agree, creating redundant categories is bad... but now that its brought to our attention, which is the best way to go? -- Netoholic @ 02:43, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
If you're referring to the category naming convention for county subcategories, I believe "(state) counties" is followed in all but one state; I started it in many of them myself because I don't see counties as in a state in the same way that municipalities are. Counties are instead administrative divisions, sections of the map. That's my inclination at least, but not an adamant one. The issue actually came up on the county project talk page awhile ago and there really wasn't much of an urge to change the system. Eventually, that one contrary state should probably be changed to conform to the others. Postdlf 02:57, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)


Please break off the special cases at the end into 3 sections to facilitate considering them individually. Perhaps the earlier ones can be dealt with as a group, but these seem to be more a mixed bag. --Jerzy(t) 01:26, 2004 Aug 31 (UTC)
You wrote

  • Category:19th century people—seems to be one of a kind—no other categories to my knowledge of people by century, and of questionable use

IMO, we know too little yet abt how people cats are going to work to decide this one now. I vote Keep w/o prejudice, i.e., it should be fair game for deletion later, as if it were coming up for the first time. Earlier today (before i knew it was CfD-ed) i recategorized it to Category:People by time of events involving them to get out of the groaningly big Category:People; its two category-mates have been in it a few days longer, but i'd rather wait, with all 3, to see what gets made of them in weeks or maybe months. (One thought is it should really be "people who died in 19th century", with ten by-decade subcats, each with ten by-year subcats; people with varying degrees of vagueness about their death year would go directly in the decade or century cats, but almost everyone would be in one or another by-year cat. And of course a "... born in ..." cat, with the same substructure.) --Jerzy(t) 01:26, 2004 Aug 31 (UTC)

You wrote

but IMO "royalty" or "royals" or "royal families" should be super-cat for the monarchy; e.g. Count Folke Bernadotte, a fairly major figure (of whom i know precious little), perhaps belongs in royalty but not monarchy. --Jerzy(t) 01:26, 2004 Aug 31 (UTC)

One more from his contributions:

  • Category:Shopping malls in South Portland, Maine. Not only is there only one such article—Maine Mall—which is itself a likely deletion candidate, and likely no more to come, but there is not even a parent category for South Portland (nor likely ever a need for one). Postdlf 01:52, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Silliness. Delete. Place Maine Mall in Category:Maine (At least until such time as it can be sub-categorized along with many other related articles. -- Netoholic @ 02:22, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
      • Actually when there is no city category, the article should go in the county category for that city. In this case the article should be in Category:Cumberland County, Maine. —Mike 03:11, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)

Category:Liutenant colonels

Misspelled. Now orphaned by me, and replaced by Category:Lieutenant colonels. --Jerzy(t) 20:16, 2004 Aug 30 (UTC)

Category:Political figures

Why do i delete thee? Let me count the ways: 1) Now orphaned. 2) Was a subcat of (only) Category:Politicians, even tho all politicians are political figures. 3)(And, IMO, essentially all those notable as policital figures are politicians.) 4)Only article was Hunter Scott, apparently bcz of being 'featured in George as "one of the most intruiging political figures" of the year' (I.e., since George focuses on politics, or perhaps politicized readers, 'We wanted to include him in this year's people roundup."). Consider the source: 5) 56% of editor's last 50 edits are Cat additions. 6) The edit that added this one was 1 of 8 added in 5-6 minutes. 7) Of those 8, i re-cat-ed one "in a different direction", and others rec-cat-ed four more to more specific sub-categories. 8) Editor was abusive when asked (not by me) on user-talk page to stop adding red category tags. --Jerzy(t) 18:37, 2004 Aug 30 (UTC)

  • When you say now orphaned do you mean you orphaned it? Please see the top of this page, as the policy is now that you should not depopulate a category prior to listing here. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 19:27, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)
    • I looked at the top of this page, and it said some people think that. They evidently think that about mis-spellings (just above, just below), which makes it obvious to me they haven't thot it thru, and until they do, i don't think their opinion on this is credible. Nor have they thot about the distinction between removing dozens of tags to orphan it (which may impede the possibility of keeping it) and removing the only existing tag, from an article that it badly categorizes. I orphaned it bcz IMO it is a slam dunk, for 8 reasons. (Do you not think there is a slam-dunk among my other 7 reasons?) But even if it weren't a slam dunk, in fact, even if i favored retention, i would still have orphaned it bcz he is not a political figure (as well as bcz he is not a politician). Yes, he is someone who has been called a "political figure" once, in one context. 15 minutes of fame in conection with a political event clearly does not make anyone (e.g. him, or the better known Gary Powers, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Monica Lewinsky) into political figures. On the other hand, he has made a lasting mark as military historian, even tho his political potency is now less than mine (he only gets one vote), bcz his crucial account, of an event that holds continuing interest, still bears his name, and he's got a decent headstart on a career in a higher-visibility line than mine. --Jerzy(t) 20:16, 2004 Aug 30 (UTC)
  • Delete. I was tempted to list this one myself. Postdlf 01:08, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Spys & Category:British spys

Misspelled. Now orphaned. One already duped Category:Spies, other now dupes Category:British spies. --Jerzy(t) 16:14, 2004 Aug 30 (UTC)

Just {{delete}} misspelled categories. ··gracefool |☺ 07:21, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Speedy deletion applies to articles, and has been explicitly extended to certain other pages, not including Categories. Anyone claiming it is vandalism is justified. Deletion is such a loaded issue, that i will continue listing things that on a perfect site would be speedy-del candidates, until there is an explicit inclusion of them; at that point i'll be glad to delete them myself. --Jerzy(t) 20:22, 2004 Aug 31 (UTC)

Just speedy delete it already. anthony (see warning) 02:26, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Category:Books by title

Subcategories are groups of books by the first letter in their title: Category:Books starting with A, Category:Books starting with B, Category:Books starting with C, and so on. This seems to me like a prime candidate for list articles instead, and a prime misuse of categories. This does not help us classify them in anyway because it is an arbitrary fact about the books—that a book title starts with a particular letter tells you nothing more about it, and that two book titles start with the same letter does not indicate any kind of greater relationship between them. Lists are the way to go. This will simply add unnecessary clutter to every article. Delete all. Postdlf 04:12, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Completely agree. Delete them all, and do it with alphabetical lists, which looks already well established starting at List of books. Someone want to program a bot to take care of all these? -- Netoholic @ 04:31, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
One advantage over lists is that it's a lot easier to add a book to a category than to a list. I like the idea of using categories, but I think we only need one, "Books by title". Breaking them up by letter doesn't accomplish anything. Keep books by title, merge the rest. anthony (see warning) 12:32, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
That's essentially the same as dumping every article on a book into the root-level category, "books", indifferent to any subcategorization. Not how we do things. Postdlf 13:40, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Then we should keep the subcategories. By the way, can you point me to a policy on this? anthony (see warning) 13:58, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I can point to the widespread practice of placing things in relevant subcategories rather than in one undifferentiated bottom-level category. Given the talk on this issue in various places, I'm sure it's shortly to become actual policy. Postdlf 23:53, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The point of categories is to find similar articles by subject. Noone is going to click on a category link that reads "Books starting with A". There is no information value in something so arbitrary. If you want "policy", there is non as such, but take a look at Wikipedia:Categorization#When to use categories. The first example of "Not useful" parallels this book discussion. -- Netoholic @ 15:28, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The point of categories is to categorize. One possible categorization is whether or not something is a book. Now, you seem to have something against large categories, for some reason, even though you admit there is no policy against this. So, if you don't want large categories, break it up by letter. I agree this isn't the best solution, and it's not the one I suggested above. If you don't mind large categories, just stick everything into "books by title". At the very least, put all the uncategorized books into Category:Uncategorized books and make that a subcategory of books. Not doing so is destroying useful information. anthony (see warning) 19:02, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
What's so hard about categorizing a book by year of publication, genre, and author? That's an already well-established structure, so there isn't a need for a dumping ground. Postdlf 23:53, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Actually, re large categories, I was not against them in principle, but I learned from the Talk page that categories over 10k are not liked by the developers as they slow things down. If that's true I think that gives us a good, firm reason for taking a dislike to certain categories. I'm willing to take it on trust, but if anyone wants to check with a developer please do and report back. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 19:33, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

Category:Goddesses of Dungeons & Dragons and Category:Gods of Dungeons & Dragons

There is no need to distinguish gender for these articles. (Rant: Categories should be designed from the top down -- general to specific -- and only split apart when they either become naturally too volumous or when some other need for the separation is required.) -- Netoholic @ 03:13, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Discussion about "depopulating before posting for deletion" moved to the Talk page. -- Netoholic @ 00:15, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Fictional gods and Category:Fictional goddesses

We already had the category "Fictional deities" that could contain the elements of both these categories -- especially since those categories weren't that thickly populated (4 or 5 elements in each, I believe). Moreover the rest of the whole Category:Fictional characters structure doesn't tend to use different subcategs to contain male and female characters. Therefore I merged the few elements of Fictional gods and Fictional goddesses back into "Fictional deities" (noone objected since yesterday in their Talk pages I posted comments in either), and here ask the deletion of these two. Aris Katsaris 21:52, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I object (darn, I wasn't watching those pages). Why not split into male & female categories? The sex of pantheistic deities is pretty fundamental to their nature, IMHO. Also, these categories make it easy to distinguish between deities who have a sex and those who don't.
Seems to me that they had a decent amount of articles, especially when you consider their subcategories (gods & goddesses of D&D).
I don't understand why people are so keen to delete categories, when they have a clear purpose.
Oh, and also, from the top of this page: Do not depopulate the category (delete category tags from articles) until it has been voted for deletion. ··gracefool |☺ 22:05, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The gender of *any* character tends to be very fundamental to their nature also, but nonetheless we don't split categories into "Fictional male aliens" and "Fictional female aliens" or "Fictional female detectives" and "Fictional male detectives". Moreover you'd have the additional problem of not knowing whether to put the divinity of a character before its gender (as was now when Fictional deities was split into fictional gods and fictional goddesses) or put its gender before its divinity (Aka have categories of "Female characters" and "Male characters" and then have categories in those that say "Fictional Female deities" and "Fictional Male deities" -- in which case there'd be neuter deities left out.
Interjecting a gender into the category is practically a can of worms, especially since many fictional deities don't have a specific gender. As I said --- no other "fictional" category is segregated into male and female subgroups.
Apologies for depopulating the category -- the change in the rules of category deletion were only recent and I didn't notice them (earlier on depopulation was recommended). But as I said there were only a handful of specimens in each category to be removed. Most gods and goddesses had already been in [:Category:Deities]] already -- that should perhaps tell you something.
Lastly for gods and goddesses of D&D -- don't you think that a single category about these also (Deities of D&D) might even be a way around the naming problem mentioned in those pages? Aris Katsaris 23:27, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Sorry for the harsh tone of my above comment - I was annoyed at something else when I wrote it ;/
Re the potential problem, the answer is simple: Make "Fictional goddesses" a subcategory of "Fictional deities" and "Female characters".
Fictional deities without a specific gender are no problem, they just belong in "Fictional deities". ··gracefool |☺ 00:52, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
There's currently no categories for "Male fictional characters" and "Female fictional characters" -- nor do I believe we need to have ones, same way I don't believe we need to categorize deities by gender.
As a sidenote another problem is that several of the subcategories (e.g. Category:Middle-earth Valar don't care to make that distinction between male and female deities either -- and such is the case with pretty much *all* the fictional characters listed -- e.g. there's no "female Friends characters" and "male Friends characters" there's just Category:Friends characters -- and so forth. I really don't think that's a scheme we need to change. Female characters" would a very horizontal category -- such a thing would include about 50% of all fictional characters and become *very* unwieldy. Aris Katsaris 01:41, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I was responding to a hypothetical problem... To continue, you don't need Category:Female Friends characters, you just add the article to both Category:Friends characters and Category:Female characters. However, this is kinda useless at the moment, since there's no "intersection" tool for categories with which you could do something like "list all fictional female characters who are also Friends characters". So no, Category:Female characters shouldn't be made, at least not yet.
However, I don't think these problems apply to Category:Fictional goddesses, since it is unlikely to ever be the parent of many (if any) categories. ··gracefool |☺ 02:21, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Let them stay Merged into Category:Fictional deities, and delete these. -- Netoholic @ 02:27, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

August 29

Category:Towns in Nevada

Officially, there are no "towns" in Nevada—the only municipalities are cities. Only content was a CDP (now in Category:Unincorporated communities in Nevada), a mislabelled city, and an article on an air force base CDP demographics, now merged with the main article for the base. Postdlf 21:19, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Modern music and Category:Pop music

Not sure if I need to list these, as there's nothing inherently wrong with them. I just fixed some redudancy in the music category, and these are no longer needed. Tuf-Kat 20:54, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

What have you replaced Category:Modern music with? -Seth Mahoney 05:10, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)
Nothing precisely. Some of the articles went to Category:Musical eras, Category:Musical groups by genre or other categories. Tuf-Kat 20:10, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

Category:Counties in Nevada

Redundant with the already populated Category:Nevada counties. User:Hemanshu has struck again—see the extensive list below from August 19th of his many redundant and often senseless categories that had to be deleted (like creating a category specifically for cities in a particular Texas county, of which there was only one). I had already left him a note on his talk page about it which he apparently ignored—I will try leaving a more pointed one. Postdlf 19:33, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

August 28

Category:Fictional characters belonging to minorities

Including subcategories, Category:Black fictional characters, Category:Fictional gays and lesbians, Category:Fictional Jews, and Category:Fictional Native Americans. We don't classify individuals by their race or ethnicity, real or not. I really think we need a strict category policy that limits categories for people to what they've notably done and where they've notably done it. Postdlf 19:22, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I created the Category:Fictional characters belonging to minorities only in the attempt to group the other four (already existing) categories you mention. I have no objection at all to the whole substructure being deleted, but in that case I think it'd be good if individual cfds were placed in the four subcategs. Other than that I'm okay with delete for the bunch of them. Aris Katsaris 20:25, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
One thing that immediately springs to mind is Fagin in Oliver Twist is a Jew, and Dickens calls him "The Jew" etc throughout and he is a stereotype. Dunc_Harris|☺ 23:38, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Do you mean minority in the real world or minority in the fiction? Is Hiawatha in Longfellow's poem Hiawatha a minority character? Are the few Christians and Jews who appear in Arabian Nights stories minority characters? Is Frodo Baggins the Hobbit a minority character? Jallan 23:57, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
When I created the supercategory, I thought that the reason someone had seen fit to create "fictional gays and lesbians", "fictional jews", "black fictional characters" and "fictional native Americans" was that these were real-life minorities according to the perspective of most modern-day Internet users. So Hobbits would probably not apply as it's not a real-life minority, and the fewness of Christians and Jews in Arabic tales would probably not be relevant either, as it's the modern-day (Internet-user) perspective we are seeing.
But as I said I'm not arguing in favour of retaining these categories, I just tried to group them according to the criterion they seemed to have in common, and which seems to made someone want to create them -- I can't think of any other reason to create the "black fictional characters" category. Anyway my vote remains to delete the whole bunch of these 4 categories+supercategory. Aris Katsaris 03:36, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

This category does not fit into existing category structure. Should it be renamed, or should its articles be distributed to other categories? (which ones?) --ssd 03:32, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

August 27

Category:Chronometry

Tagged for speedy deletion - was not a candidate, so relisted here. No real sense of why it got tagged for speedy. Snowspinner 05:23, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

  • Delete. I tagged it for deletion because nobody's found it necessary since I created it a month ago. --Eequor 06:17, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • I find it amazing that such categories are not speedy deletions. Is there a rationale for this or any discussion, or should I take it to the pump? Is there meaningful history? There certainly isn't meaningful content. anthony (see warning) 12:31, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

August 25

Category:Winter Olympics

Merge with Category:Winter Olympic Games -- Chuq 23:15, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I found the category structure here to be a bit strange. This is what it currently looks like: 

  I. Category:Olympics (containing many "Summer Olympics" and "Winter Olympics" articles)
       A. Category:Olympic athletes
       B. Category:Olympic Games
            1. Category:Olympians
            2. Category:Summer Olympic Games
            3. Category:Winter Olympic Games
       C. Category:Olympic sports

All of the miscategorizing of articles aside...what types of articles would go into Category:Olympic Games that wouldn't go into Category:Olympics. Is there enough of a difference between the two categories that they are both needed? Also notice that the only parent category of Category:Olympic Games is Category:Olympics. Could the subcategories under Category:Olympic Games be moved into the Category:Olympics and then have the former category deleted?

Second, what is the difference between Category:Olympians and Category:Olympic athletes? If they are the same, which would be the more appropriately named?

I think a more simplified (and better) structure would appear as follows: 

  I. Category:Olympics
       A. Category:Olympic athletes
       B. Category:Olympic sports
       C. Category:Summer Olympic Games
       D. Category:Winter Olympic Games

Comments and suggestions please. —Mike 05:27, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

Good point Mike. I'm reorganising these as I can. My eventual plan is (unless someone gets in and does it differently first!): 


  Note - this heirachy was changed by Chuq 10:42, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC) 
  I. Category:Olympics
       A. Category:Olympic athletes (merge with Category:Olympians)
       B. Category:Olympic sports
       C. Category:Olympic Games
            1. Category:Summer Olympic Games
                 i. Category:2004 Summer Olympics
                      a. 2004 Summer Olympics
                      b. 2004 Summer Olympics medal count
                      c. Category:Nations at the 2004 Summer Olympics
                           ...
                      d. Category:Events at the 2004 Summer Olympics
                           ...
                      e. Category:Athletes at the 2004 Summer Olympics
                           ...
                 ii. Category:2000 Summer Olympics
                      (etc)
            2. Category:Winter Olympic Games
                 i. Category:2002 Winter Olympics
                      (etc)
                 ii.  Category:1998 Winter Olympics
                      (etc)
       D. Olympic torch
       E. Olympic symbols
       F. Category:Olympic medals (instead of Category:Medals of the Olympic Games)
            1. Category:Recipients of the Pierre de Coubertin medal
                 (removing Category:Pierre de Coubertin medal which seems unnecessary)

Alternatively, Paralympics can be categorised separately. -- Chuq 05:50, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • That looks ok. Though I'm still thinking you could have the categories numbered 1-4 as subcategories of Category:Olympics. The only reasons I would see to have Category:Olympic Games is 1.) if you have articles (or several subcategories) that belong in that category instead of the main Category:Olympics, or 2.) if Category:Olympic Games has other parents besides Category:Olympics. —Mike 06:20, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)
  • I much prefer the more simple structure (I, plus A, B, C, D), rather than having endless categories for each of the individual Games. Noisy 14:42, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • I don't see how four categories is "endless"—right now, at least, I'm not seeing the need for the parent "Olympic games." Postdlf 19:08, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Shouldn't the Category:Olympians include such articles as Zeus, Hera, ect.? Gentgeen 07:40, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    Category:Olympians is too ambiguous and Category:Olympic athletes should be retained as the category name. —Mike 01:32, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)
  • Paralympics is not part of the Olympics organization any more than the Special Olympics, Pan American Games or Gay Games are - and should not be a subcategory of Olympics. Davodd 09:34, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)
  • Ok, I have removed Paralympics articles, and added a few others to the list above, the only other change I would make it what a couple of people here have suggested, move 1. and 2. up to the C, D level. I use 'Games' with a capital G to refer to the event where all the nations gather and compete in sports for a couple of weeks. -- Chuq 10:42, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Considering User:JohnCrawford's new categories, I would suggest adding the structure as shown on letter F above. —Mike 04:12, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)

August 24

World War I people categories

Category:World War I people - Austria-Hungary, Category:World War I people - Australia, Category:World War I people - France, Category:World War I people - Germany, Category:World War I people - United Kingdom, Category:World War I people - Canada have all been replaced by more conventionally named categories. They have been depopulated and can be deleted. Geoff/Gsl 06:36, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

August 22

Dungeons and Dragons planes

Category:Elysium, Category:Gehenna, Category:Limbo, Category:Pandemonium, Category:The Abyss, Category:Ysgard, Category:Bytopia, Category:Baator, Category:Mechanus - All of these are terms D&D has borrowed from elsewhere; they all are empty or have very few articles. The rest of the D&D Plane articles should probably go too; I don't think more than one category on D&D planes of existence is really necessary.

Sure, most terms are borrowed from elsewhere; however, this can be said of thousands of articles - terms are always being used in different contexts. The point is, in which context is the term used most often; a Google search on many of these words will turn up mostly pages on D&D planes.
Deleting these categories is reasonable, but not their parent, or the articles belonging in it. gracefool |☺ 22:53, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Delete - These articles are far too specific to keep, but the articles within should not be removed. They should all be grouped under Category:Planescape or Category:D&D Planes stuff or something similar. -Erolos 23:04, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Delete. I've added 3 categories to the list, now all the subcategories of Category:Outer Planes are listed. I've added {{cfd}} to all of them.
However I don't think Category:Outer Planes should be deleted. It currently contains 10 articles, and this number can be expected to grow. gracefool |☺ 23:22, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Creationism

  • Some kind of half-baked notion of an anon user to combat IZAK's addition of "see also" sections to articles and is unnessecary.

Node 05:22, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Concensus is to keep, but someone emptied it anyway. Would anyone care to refill it? --ssd 21:24, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Repopulated with seven articles—I'm sure that this will eventually fill with more too (much as I hate the subject). ; ) Postdlf 19:14, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. But there should be a superior category to which the [[Category:Creationism]] belongs. The other siblings to [[Category:Creationism]] within this SuperiorCategoryToCreationism would include alchemy which apparently Sir Isaac Newton and John Maynard Keynes thought were important explanations, theories, hypotheses, or studies. Probably Newton believed his own theories of creationism as much as he believed his own theories of gravitation as much as he believed his own theories of alchemy. And probably, if you had asked Newton about the mechanism of burning, he likely would have recited to you his own theory of phlogiston. Perhaps this SuperiorCategoryToCreationism which has the logical children alchemy, phlogiston, creationism, astrology, geocentrism, . . . is named [[Category:Discredited hypotheses]]. But in any case, the [[Category:Creationism]] should remain. ---Rednblu 00:03, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Obviously, we can't have the ridiculously POV Category:Discredited hypotheses - I don't see creationists or evolutionists accepting this as a parent of their respective categories. ··gracefool |☺ 00:41, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
      • Surely in a neutral point of view there are still standards for what is a discredited hypothesis! ---Rednblu 01:00, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
        • Either way, I doubt that creationism would belong there, since it's more of a religious belief, not a scientific hypothesis. One might just as well as call the Olympian gods a "discredited hypothesis" or the fact of Persephone's abduction by Hades as the reason for the seasonal circle. And either way "discredited" seems by a very fuzzy set and as such not particularly well-suited for categorization schemes. Aris Katsaris 01:31, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
          • I doubt that Sir Isaac Newton would have made the distinction that you are making between "scientific hypothesis" and "religious belief." Certainly, Newton's writing on "the nature of God" did not have the religious character of looking for a dogma that would give him comfort. In my opinion, Newton's religious writing had the character of trying to figure out the vast and enormous forces of the universe by the power of his own secular and unsuperstitious insights. ---Rednblu 02:56, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Western art

Some kind of half-baked notion of mine a long time ago to subcategorize Category:Art—it never took off and is unnecessary. Postdlf 19:42, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • Delete. It doesn't look like it fits into the current scheme. -- Solipsist 09:30, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Drugs cheats in athletics

I think Category:Drugs cheats in sport and Category:Drugs cheats in athletics need to be merged. --ssd 16:09, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • Do we really need either of these categories? —Mike 07:58, Aug 23, 2004 (UTC)
  • Sports is one topic I will likely never write on, but the titles alone are pretty awful—"drugs cheats"? If this is going to be kept, shouldn't it be something closer to "Athletes sanctioned for drug use"? As is, it seems to be inviting categorization just based on allegations that perhaps have had no consequence, rather than actual judgments by sports authorities. Postdlf 08:08, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete both. Not only are the category names a problem, their application is also a problem (for example the World Anti-Doping Agency is in there). However, the real problem is one of POV. If you put a sportsperson into this category it implies their whole career was based on taking drugs which may not be true. The List of athletes found guilty of using banned drugs looks like it could handle this better. If it is kept, then merge and rename. Separate subcats for eg athletics shouldn't be necessary as anyone in these categories is presumably also categorised somewhere in Category:Athletes too. -- Solipsist 09:48, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. List, not category. Gdr 13:23, 2004 Aug 24 (UTC)
  • Delete. -- Infrogmation 02:45, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Occupations and all its subcategories

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse... This is a highly wordy collection of subcategories based on the Standard Occupational Classification System (that article has been strangely categorized under every subcategory within Category:Occupations too, which creates a lovely traffic jam at the bottom of that article). I for one cringe at the thought of fundamental articles such as actor and journalist being classifed under Category:Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations, or astronomer being classified under Category:Life, physical, and social science occupations. These are actual examples. Let's kill this, and kill the Dewey Decimal Classifications categories before our articles and categories start reading like the tax code. Postdlf 10:47, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I don't see why Category:Occupations needs to be deleted; it serves as a category of categories. But yes the hierarchy could be trimmed; your tax code comparison is on target. VV 13:07, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Right, "occupations" isn't a problem of course, but I didn't want to list every subcategory individually, and all this contains are these clumsily titled amalgamations, like they were only half-digested conceptually. Maybe I should list them all to make the point. Postdlf 18:48, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Well, my vote is keep them all. Right now there is no formal hierarchy for categorizing occupations themselves. This is useful in other reference media for the purposes of job comparison and research. I considered placing everything under Category:Occupations, but I think that would very quickly grow too large and pretty much require sub-categories at some future point. As such, I took a standarized system devised by the US government (not copyrighted) and created the structure. It is nice because everything is already defined on their website, so classification is a "no-brainer". The reason Standard Occupational Classification System has all the categories is to easily connect the article to the structure. I'm sure that can be changed in the future. Keep in mind, placement of actor in its occupation subcategory is not meant to be a primary classification, but articles on occupations tend to be light and I doubt this would be too intrusive. -- Netoholic 16:25, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
As noted above, Category:Occupations isn't itself the problem—it's all of its subcategories, except for maybe one (Category:Legal occupations seems quite clear and sensible). The government seemed to make some arbitrary choices in trying to minimize the number of categories, grouping together occupations that could be linked otherwise, and under headers that are simply laundry lists of what they contain. If the category needs to list all of its contents in order to properly describe them, it's not a good classification, at least not for our purposes.
As for classification being a "no-brainer", would those in sports medicine fit into Category:Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations or Category:Healthcare practitioners and technical occupations? Both? (that would be pretty) Why is Category:Management occupations separate from Category:Office and administrative support occupations? How is the "maintenance" listed in Category:Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations separate from that listed in Category:Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations? Just because it's done in buildings rather than to objects? What about air conditioning maintenance? Why was architecture linked with engineering in Category:Architecture and engineering occupations rather than included under Category:Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations? Why is it more important that farmers work with flora and fauna (Category:Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations) rather than that they produce goods (Category:Production occupations)? It's no answer to say "read the Standard Occupational Classification System manual", because quite frankly we shouldn't care about the manual, and do you expect wikipedia readers to know the manual so they can figure out which category an occupation article is included under? Categories shouldn't depend on criteria that are external to the subject they are trying to classify, such as what the particular choices of government bureaucrats were in trying to force occupations into a small number of groupings. Nor should categories merely try to group as many things as they can together without regard to whether they form a single, unified concept (and I think as a general rule the most valid categories are ones that are defined by actual articles) rather than a mere listing of subtopics. I can't say that the SOCS doesn't effectively serve the government's need for it, but it won't serve ours. Postdlf 18:48, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I guess I feel that when there is an existing classification system we can use, it is worth exploring. If you would like to propose an alternative, I'd say the community would welcome it, but until that happens, this one should be tried out. I have a feeling though, that the task of coming up with a Wikipedia-grown system will take a long time to hash out, and itself could constantly be debated. I draw the comparison to many other established category schemes in that this one is completely valid for its purposes, and because no other better system has yet been submitted. -- Netoholic 21:57, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Why not break up some of the stuck-together lumps in the SOCS system into simpler and logical groupings, such as "Sports occupations"? "Medical (or health) occupations"? And from there some parents may reveal themselves, like "Medical occupations" may be in "Science occupations" as well as one or two others, "Personal service occupations" (eh), something like that. There are two ways for a category structure to develop—start with a simple parent like Category:People or Category:History, and see what groupings of articles naturally form; or start with a specific article, figure out a specific category that it may belong to of which there are still other articles, and to which it bears a strong and useful relationship (i.e., Category:U.S. Army generals rather than Category:U.S. Army generals whose last name starts with P), and then figure out what parent categories would come together to compose it (Category:United States Army and Category:Generals), then work your way down (Category:United States armed forces --> Category:United States and Category:Militaries, etc.). It's all fairly intuitive, though you will need to know a little about the subjects to categorize them, and to check the preexisting category structure to make sure it fits and isn't redundant. Probably the best indication of how to categorize the occupation articles is the structure for categorizing the subjects of the occupations—see how art, medicine, sport, agriculture are categorized, and the occupations should be rather analogous. Postdlf 00:26, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The system involves only 23 categories. If you're proposing splitting them apart, you'll end up with a hundred in short order, which essentially would mirror other existing topic-based categories, and probably lead to many sub-categories cross-listed all over the place. You'd also have no guidlines for placement in them, so disputes would occur. As I said, this is a research tool for grouping similar occupations, and one that is "off-the-shelf" and ready to use for this relatively small-scale application - articles describing occupations. Don't delete it, just let it grow for a while and make changes (if the need arises) later. -- Netoholic 04:20, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Though it may have "only 23 categories", this reduction isn't a sign of simplicity because the category designations are anything but simple. Having sub-categories cross-listed in multiple places is a good thing if it shows actual relationships. If they show up in too many, however, it probably means that there's another parent category that could be formed to merge some of the connections. But categories shouldn't be merged just to reduce their number, unless of course you're the government simply looking for a method to sort data. As encyclopedists, we are trying to simplify concepts to their fundamentals, to classify an article as to what it is, and create groupings that aid to navigation of like articles. The SOCS categories don't accomplish any of these goals, but paradoxically end up complicating matters more through reduction because the reductions are arbitrary. Postdlf 07:44, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep on the reasoning that trying to replace a system the govt (not my govt by the way ;o) ) probably thought was the best they could do will probably be better than a system several hundred strangers arguing will end up with. Plus I found it fairly intuitive to add some articles to them when I felt the need. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod .....TALKQuietly)]] 21:27, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. There is no one category hierarchy in Wikipedia, nor should there. Categories are merely sets. One just needs to look at the many attempts people have made of "categorizations of everything" in the tech world to see that two or more hierarchies are often equally valid, when they are viewed from different contexts. gracefool |☺ 04:55, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Dewey Decimal Classification

My heart skipped a beat when I saw this and all of its subcategories—this isn't for classifying articles about the Dewey Decimal System, but for classifying everything under it. See, for example, the categorization of Category:Psychology and Category:Philosophy under Category:Dewey Decimal Classification 100 (yes, the subcategories get that specific).

Maybe I'm alone in this sentiment, but this seems an ill-advised project, especially since, best as I can tell, it is the sole work and initiative of only one user. This would logically spread like a virus to every main article on wikipedia (though thus far (from what I've seen) it has only been used to group categories rather than articles themselves). So...we need to have a broader discussion of the pros and cons of having this.

Thoughts? Postdlf 10:07, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It does sound like a hugely ambitious project. If it succeeded though, I think it would a good one. Do you propose deletion on the grounds that it would too big an "if", or because you don't think it would be a good one, assuming it succeeded? Pcb21| Pete 11:09, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I don't think it would be a good one because it would just end up in redundant clutter. Keep in mind that the Dewey Decimal system is supposed to group together like topics...while this sounds like just what we have categories for, that's the point—that's just what we have categories for, categories that should be titled with clear and concise labels so you immediately understand the classification. Dewey Decimal is by nature an arbitrary system of designations. The numbers bear no relationship to the subjects, so seeing "Dewey Decimal 001" or whatever at the bottom of the page would just add esoterica that is utterly useless, unless you're in a library. If clicking on "Dewey Decimal 001" takes you to related articles, it's obviously a category that could have been better served with, say, words as the category title. Postdlf 11:24, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Multiple catagory trees can overlap (to ideally form a Directed acyclic graph if you really wanted to know). This means you can simply have several systems of catagorisation all at once, one of which might be Dewey Decimal. There's simply no problem :-) If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, if it does work it does work. Other systems of catagorisation will stand or fall independantly of there being Dewey Decimal. Kim Bruning 12:25, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Oh look, we already have lots of schemes! See Wikipedia:Category schemes. Ok, dewey decimal is just one more. Kim Bruning 12:47, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Sounds like an excellent project for librarians who are sitting behind their terminals browsing after hours, -once they get word of it, that is. O:-) Kim Bruning 11:22, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
This is a specialty classification, while Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia. It's clutter - this information can be given in the Dewey article, just as the subjects taught at the schools of the University of Oxford can be in that article rather than all categorized. Also, are we going to have a Library of Congress Classification set of categories? How about the New York Public Library classification, which doesn't seem to be even convered in WP yet ;( ? VV 12:39, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The Dewey Decimal system is proprietary, as the article states; the public libraries in the US pay fees to the administrator. It would be unwise to use it for classification in an unfunded project. Probably the one who is attempting to categorize in this way needs to be informed that it is grounds for liability. Ancheta Wis 13:03, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)


I started playing with it because Wikipedia:Dewey Decimal System (which is linked to by the Main Page!) was a mess. A tree of categories (instead of a tree of pages) would be easier to maintain.
I was not the first one to try to do it; User:Falcon Kirtaran also tried to use categories before, and other people tried to complete the tree under Wikipedia:Dewey Decimal System. Most appear to have given up. I recreated the categories (see User talk:Falcon Kirtaran and Wikipedia talk:Dewey Decimal System) because they couldn't be renamed (and Category:Dewey Decimal Classification 100 is better than Category:Dewey Decimal 100).
So, what should be done?
Also notice that the same "possible copyright" notice (which btw was copied from Wikipedia:Dewey Decimal System together with the rest of the information in the categories) says that there is no problem if a sufficiently old version of the DDC is used. Since I'm copying the information from Wikipedia itself (Wikipedia:Dewey Decimal System and subpages), I suppose there is no problem that didn't already exist (I'm just shuffling things around, not copying from external sources. If there wasn't a copyvio before, there isn't one now).
cesarb 13:54, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I just thought of another possibility:
Should be low-maintenance enough to be kept up to date.
cesarb 15:30, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I think that's a great solution. Postdlf 19:44, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I agree. I think the list option would be the best way for this to go, from the point of view of reducing clutter, ease of maintenance, and simplicity. PMcM 19:57, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
OK, what should be done now? Is this like VfD which needs 2/3 majority? If so, should we begin a vote on which of the 4 options should be used (notice that only one of them is "keep" for CfD purposes, the other three are "delete")? My vote would be abstain.
Also, what should be done about the "possible copyright" issue?
cesarb 21:05, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Abstain, since one of my categories is under the knife and about to be cast from paradise. Ancheta Wis 21:26, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Abstain, because I have a headache and have no idea what to do. I think its a worthwhile project that will grow into something useful, especially for those people who are used to browsing under the dewey system (lots of them) which is always used in libraries and so is in fact a fairly standard way of organising and referencing information. Falcon 21:44, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Library classification systems are not right for Wikipedia. These systems provide mappings from subject areas to codes that can be used to put books in a linear order on library shelves. But in Wikipedia there is no need to put articles in a linear order on a shelf. We can link to them or categorize them in any means we like. So we can use systems that are clearer and easier to use. I know I would rather see and use Category:Mathematics than Category: Dewey Decimal Classification 51. Gdr 22:25, 2004 Aug 22 (UTC)

I agree that the Dewey Decimal system is not a good match for WP's categories. I think the list suggestion is a good one. [[User:Bkonrad|older≠wiser]] 00:41, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I also now understand that the list solution will keep everyone happy, for those keen to provide a Dewey solution do so, without it imposing on others. Doesn't really need a vote. Pcb21| Pete 09:05, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I completely support the attempt to keep a Dewey Decimal "window" on WP, whether or not it's a clean alignment. A list or lists would prevent cluttering the category heirarchy with half a dozen numerical classification systems which are similar but not quite the same as each other and the intuitive heirarchy. But the list would have to be so long that it would have to be split into multiple pages, possibly a small heirarchy. Which sound like categories to me. If we were to use the category mechanism to do numerical classification, I think the classification system's name or acronym should be in the names of subcategories, for clarity of navigation. Numerical systems have the advantage that only one backlink per system is necessary from any given category (hopefully). I vote to keep for now and try to make the category approach work and see what happens. No sense in squashing a promising experiment before it can come into its own. There's a possibility that there will be an obvious problem caused by multiple numerical systems at some point in the future, but maybe not. -- Beland 14:40, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The list would not be the same as categories. While with categories one is needed for each separate category, with the list a lot of the categories could share the same list (with the end result being 11 list pages against more than 1000 categories for the DDC).
I currently think the list idea is the best one (not the least of the reasons is that it would take a lot less work to create), but since I'm too involved in the situation my vote is still abstain.
cesarb 19:50, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

We can convert to lists later if this category tree becomes a problem in an obvious way, but I think it will probably be OK.

Let's do the the list thing. --Gary D 19:49, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

August 21

Category:Schedule I, Category:Schedule II, Category:Schedule III, Category:Schedule IV, Category:Schedule V, Category:Schedule VI

These refer to the various drug classifications of the Controlled Substances Act, all parented under Category:United States law. They are mostly empty categories—they appear to each contain one article of the same name, but these are merely redirects to the categories themselves.

These were started with the intention of actually classifying the individual drug articles by these categories, though only a few have actually been categorized under these. I don't believe that drug articles should be categorized based on how they are classified under any one nation's laws, though this should certainly be described in the text of the articles.

Though the categories each contain a brief description of the inclusion criteria for each schedule, the article on the Controlled Substances Act already includes an abundance of this information, and so the articles titled Schedule I, Schedule II, etc., should merely redirect there. Postdlf 21:46, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

While the titles reflect US law, the legal categories in general reflect the saftey, addictivenses, and medical useflness of the drugs. I think this could be a useful thing if the drugs were actually categorized. Categories should be deleted based on their usefulness, not based on how many things have actually managed to be added to the category, otherwise we'd delete 'em all in the first hour. --ssd 11:50, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think we should give this time to grow. anthony (see warning) 02:09, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If kept, I think that the categories should be renamed, perhaps to "Controlled Substances Act Schedule I", etc... A little cumbersome, but "Schedule I" isn't a very self-obvious title. Postdlf 19:16, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:The Enlightenment

There is already a heavily populated (if poorly capitalized) Category:Enlightenment Philosophers. If we did need a parent category to contain all Enlightenment-related topics, it should at least follow the title of the article—The Age of Enlightenment, to which "The Enlightenment" is a redirect. Postdlf 21:24, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Possibly agree on renaming. But it might be too early to tell on the usefulness of the category - it was only created this morning. -- Solipsist 23:03, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
There are other philosophical traditions;Enlightenment Philosophers are western. Some eastern philosophies view enlightenment as a fundamental topic. I was led to create the category in order to encapsulate a period in history. Should I be creating infoboxes instead of attempting to follow categories? Ancheta Wis 06:04, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Now what am I going to do with Eye of Providence? It is a perfect illustration piece for The Enlightenment. And what about its category, no less? Ancheta Wis 06:59, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I thought the Eye was a freemason symbol. As "The Enlightenment" is just a redirect to Age of Enlightenment, that should be the proper title for a category on that period. Furthermore, I just read the description you added to the category, and your focus on the Enlightenment as just something that provided the foundation for the American Revolution is too narrow. The Age of Enlightenment was first and foremost a European phenomenon that had effects in the colonies. Postdlf 09:51, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The difference is that the Americans did something with The Enlightenment; they started a country. That reaction then immediately reflected back to Europe and turned into something more serious, so that not even Thomas Paine could halt the murders of the French Revolution and the succeeding wars over the next two centuries. Category:The Enlightenment presents a supercategory for Category:Enlightenment Philosophers. The article Age of Enlightenment presents both names, btw. "The E, or Age of E" Ancheta Wis 12:43, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
OK, that's just _totaly_ American centric POV ;-) The Americans didn't start anything. The Native Americans had been living in North America quite happily for a fair few centuries. It was the British, French and Spaniards who did all the modern country establishment, the Americans just stole it because they didn't like the taxes and caught Europe on the hop whilst they had some internal problems. You didn't even start the ball rolling on revolutions, as Postdlf says, that was down to Europe. Britain had a revolution over 100 years before the Americans even thought of it (and largely before the Age of Enlightenment) — we were just ahead of our time and didn't make it stick :-)   -- Solipsist 20:03, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I am starting to understand something:Richard Feynman is currently Categorized as a US Philosopher, which is ludicrous, because he despised them. When I worked on this article, I left this categorization alone. Based on my recent experience on this very Category page, I will strike Richard Feynman from the mis-categorization. Ancheta Wis 06:48, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I agree that looks odd. Feynman was added to Category:Philosophers on 16 Jun 2004, which would be quite early on in categorising. Since then a few people have refined the category, but until now no one has had the sense to remove him entirely. -- Solipsist 09:29, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Here's the category's current description, btw: "This category lists factors which aided the rise of the American Revolution. See The Enlightenment for positive factors; there were countervailing factors which led to the violence of the French Revolution, possibly due to social stratification in Europe." Sounds more like the subject of an article than a category. Is this just intended to be the intersection of the Age of Enlightenment with the American Revolution? It's not named as such, and I don't see how that can composed as a proper classification. Postdlf 10:37, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I agree that my writing is more in the spirit of an article, and that the mindset needed for Categorization is new to me. But the very names of Categories are at stake here. Those who wrote the article allowed that both names are used. The administration of the names should not be grounds for deletion. It comes across as an affront. Ancheta Wis 12:43, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
OK, serious hat on now. I've been doing a fair bit of work on Eye of Providence today. As far as I can tell its an interesting subject, but an irrelevance in terms of the current discussion — its really got a long history back to the Eye of Horus and isn't rooted in Age of Enlightenment thinking. As far as I can tell there is no strong connection between the Age of Enlightenment and the Eastern/Buddhist concept of Enlightenment. There is a justification for a category such as Category:Age of Enlightenment to cover a movement of thought wider than Category:Enlightenment Philosophers, including political thought and possibly scientific and artistic developments, but it would probably need a but more more examination. The situation is similar to one I'm looking at in artistic category, where vaious artistic periods and movements affect the visual arts, architecture and music at different times. Its not trivial, but I'm leaning towards 'Keep' under the name Category:Age of Enlightenment. -- Solipsist 20:16, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Then it sounds as if I were to rename the category in the handful of articles, it could survive in a new incarnation? as in Cat:Age of E.? It's funny what comes across on the back of a Dollar bill. The Founders still are affecting the citizens of The Republic, in unconscious subliminal ways. By the way, I am starting to understand that view among the categorizers of Wikipedia is playful, as the category names are merely tags to be shuffled and re-dealt. Ancheta Wis 21:38, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Upon reflection, Category:The Enlightenment has an implicate order, in the words of David Bohm, which is explicitly not implied in Cat:Age of E. In fact Cat:Age of E. implies an end to Enlightenment, whereas there is room for Enlightenment in the past, present and future in Cat:The E. Ancheta Wis 05:55, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
But then it becomes more of a topic rather than a classificatory category, and one that would essentially be the equivalent of a personal essay, unless you can show that the groupings you intend are actually recognized in academia. The Age of Enlightenment is a distinct and recognized period in intellectual history. Enlightenment as a distinct concept reaching across cultures and time periods is significantly less so, and will mostly result in equivocation. Postdlf 22:26, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Actually there is documentation for this universal concept which exposes itself in the Western world, in Art. If you look at Kenneth Clarke's Civilisation, he shows how Enlightenment (he called it the smile of Reason) collided with European social structure (violence was the result in 1800), and we are seeing it now in our own time (terrorism, beheadings, war, 9/11 etc in 2000). But Asian cultures honor the concept. I agree that Age of Enlightenment is a distinct historical period of European intellectual history. That is exactly the point for freeing the implicate order from the explicate order. Ancheta Wis 09:19, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Neo-Psychedelia Groups/Category:Neo-Prog Groups

Both terms are too vague and ill-defined to qualify as real genres. Categorizing bands with such categories is pointless because each band will end up with a dozen different styles, none of which have any set meaning. Also, the categories shouldn't be capitalized (I'm kind of anal -- this upsets me). There was one article Neutral Milk Hotel in both, but I removed it, now they are merely both part of Category:Musical groups by genre. Tuf-Kat 17:44, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

  • Delete both. Genre subcategories should only be kept for broader, more recognized forms. Postdlf 21:31, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep Neo-psychedelia as this is distinct from psychedelic rock and is a term widely used in the British music press. Anyone categorising music whilst flipping through their favourite magazine may come across the term quite often and be tempted to recreate it on that basis. Psychedelic artists include aspects of the Beatles and Pink Floyd whereas neo-psychedelia more commonly refers to much more modern music like The Coral and The Super Furry Animals.... that's the large distinction, between old and new. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod .....TALKQuietly)]] 18:09, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete Neo-Prog Groups - I like a bit of prog rock and rarely listen to psychedelia... yet I've often heard the term Neo-Psychedelia but hardly ever neo-prog. Not to say that I'm a total muso, but I read a fair bit of the music press: this is just IMHO. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod .....TALKQuietly)]] 18:09, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

Category:Literature from Birmingham, England

This category is pointless and not useful. It sole aim appears to be to continue controversy on Talk:The Lord of the Rings. It is not even connected to Category:Literature and no other subcategory of Category:Literature is refined below the country level. Many of the other subcategories of Category:Birmingham, England are also dubious over-categorisation as is Category:Birmingham, England. -- Solipsist 00:19, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • Delete. I just happened to see some of the discussion over this mess over at Wikipedia talk:Categorization. Can't say I've ever seen "civic vanity" of this kind, as one user appropriately termed it. It looks like Category:Birmingham, England itself should stay—while I didn't check to see how many more articles were senselessly added because of a tenuous connection, there were quite a few that had "Birmingham" in their very title. I don't know about the other subcategories yet, but I think a certain Birmingham-obsessed user should be sanctioned if he can't learn how to play well with others and stop editing against clear consensus. Postdlf 01:20, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • I have never edited against "clear consensus". Andy Mabbett 08:41, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
      • The history for The Lord of the Rings around the 20th Aug 2004 and the 21st July 2004 suggests otherwise. And that is not an isolated example. -- Solipsist 10:13, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
        • "Andy Mabbett" (really User:Pigsonthewing despite the clever pipe trick) simply doesn't believe that "clear consensus" means a vast majority of other users expressing a position, oddly enough. Postdlf 10:41, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
          • Quite. I'm surprised that anybody would admit to being ignorant enough to think otherwise. Andy Mabbett 17:15, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
            • My ignorant dictionary says that consensus means "collective opinion" or "general agreement". What does yours say? Postdlf 22:20, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Solipsist's claim for the supposed reason for the existence of this category is fallacious, as his claim about other sub-categories of Birmingham. Andy Mabbett 08:40, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. While I have much sympathy with Andy, being from that general neck of the woods, a) the title is misleading, b) the category is poorly populated, c) the category has conflicting aims: literature by people from Birmingham; written by people who were in Birmingham at the time; and using Birmingham as a setting are three very different categories in themselves, d) I would expect to see an encyclopedic article referenced from within the category which gave a scholarly summary of what the category is about. Sorry, but my opinion is that it has to go. Noisy 16:23, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • It's poorly populated partlly because people keep deleting references to it (someone removed all the articles, recently) and partly because I'm still researching other enteries. Andy Mabbett 17:11, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. "Civic vanity" is an apt description. Noisy's analysis is spot on. [[User:Bkonrad|older≠wiser]] 16:32, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Even for Tolkien, if every person and every place that might have influenced him was made into a category, and every literary motif he used was made into a category the text produced by the number of categories would probably outrun the current text in the article. Imagine the same being done for more prolific authors whose work ranged more widely: Shakespeare, Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, George Bernard Shaw, Rudyard Kipling. An influenced-by-category for every town mentioned, every historical person mentioned, every work at all similar that might have influenced any passage by the author, every place mentioned by the author, every place that might have in any way inspired an imaginary place, every person mentioned who might have in any way inspired an imaginary person. Jallan 17:06, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Thank you. While I don't agree, that's the first reasoned comment against having such a category, that I've seen. Andy Mabbett 17:11, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete for reasons mentioned above. --Conti|✉ 17:27, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Last I checked The Wizard of Oz is not classified in Category:Kansas nor would I expect it to be. —Mike 18:35, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete Although I in part recommended the creation of this category (Category talk:Birmingham, England) as a compromise to avoid having Lord of the Rings and Rip van Winkle inexplicably in Category:Birmingham, England, I still think it's one user's solo quest to over-categorise anything and everything that they are interested in, for no useful reason. PMcM 21:06, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • and... would this make an appropriate list instead? Would allow for annotations of explanation. Much more suited to someone's personal project, rather than hijacking the categorising system. PMcM 22:00, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Yes, list articles are always the more appropriate way to group together information that may have a very trivial relationship to subjects, rather than categorization. As long as the list were annotated and titled properly ("Literature associated with Birmingham, England"?), I certainly wouldn't have a problem with it. Postdlf 22:14, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete, but first either convert into a list or into the article on Birmingham, England. -Sean Curtin 02:03, Aug 22, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Having something to do with Birmingham is not one of the thousand most notable things about "The Lord of the Rings". Whatever next? Category:Literature that has been made into films by Peter Jackson? Gdr 22:31, 2004 Aug 22 (UTC)
  • Delete. Why have a category when "This book was written in birmingham" would suffice? MDCore 20:51, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. I generally agree with Jallan. Most books (or plays, or painting, or....) have been written in and influenced by any of a dozen different places. The connection is just too tenuous. Maastrictian.
  • As consensus to delete after eight days is unanimous but for the author's vote, I went ahead and depopulated this—ready for deletion. Postdlf 19:21, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

August 20

Category:Jewish philosophers (Secular)

A grouping of philosophers who merely happened to be of Jewish ethnicity. Postdlf 22:10, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm sort of torn about this one - I mean, yeah, we're talking about philosophers who just happen to be of Jewish descent, but it is a category you hear used fairly often, and unlike many other ethnicities, if we are talking about people who are raised Jewish and stopped being religious at some point in their life, there is a whole educational background that was likely a part of their growing up Jewish, and which likely affected their philosophy. -Seth Mahoney 01:11, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)
Oppose deletion. Neutrality 03:26, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
If kept, I think it needs to be renamed, perhaps to Jewish secular philosophers, or Secular jewish philosophers. The current name is horrid. Postdlf 03:35, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Secular Jewish philosophers sounds better to me, though Jewish Secular philosophers would alphabetize better. How about [[:Category:Secular Jewish philosophers|Jewish secular philosophers]]? I agree that parenthesis are not so good. -Seth Mahoney 05:13, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)
Either way the title is confusing. Is it secular philosophers on Jewish issues or Jewish philosophers on secular issues? If we're talking about Jewish philosophers in general, they should be in Category:Jewish philosophers. Jewish philosophers whose focus is religious topics should be in something like Category:Jewish theologians. —Mike 06:06, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)
Unless they're philosophizing about Jewish topics, I don't see the use in the category other than to classify individuals by an ethnicity. Postdlf 07:26, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Is the concern here primarily POV problem? In general I'm very impressed with the categorisation of philosophers. This category looks like it was created specifically to handle a distinction with philosophers who were working in the Jewish religious tradition. Much of the history of philosophy is based in religious thought and there are similar Buddhist, Christian and Muslim Philosophers categories. I don't think you can introduce 'theologian' into the mix because many of these philosophers were working on wider issues - see the article on Scholasticism for an example of the interplay of different (religious) traditions of philosophy in metaphysics as well as theology.
I would suspect that the problem was due to not having a separate word for Jewish (religion) and Jewish (ethnicity), but the category description makes it clear that 'Jewish philosophers (Secular)' is seen as a cohesive movement in the broader Jewish tradition. Perhaps ask User:Lucidish and User:IZAK for additional input. -- Solipsist 23:56, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
If the concern is a naming issue, I agree it would be nice to avoid the brackets. Category:Jewish secular philosophers would seem like a good suggestion, but you would also have to handle 'Jewish philosophers (Judaism)' and Category:Jewish Judaism philosophers is awkward. -- Solipsist 23:56, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
If necessary, I'm sure Category:Jewish philosophers or Category:Jewish religious philosophers would do fine. -Seth Mahoney 17:38, Aug 22, 2004 (UTC)

August 19

Airforce categories

Many of the categories are unnecessary and should be deleted until they do become necessary. 

(deleted list of deleted categories)

There are probably a few more of these I didn't get to. Some of the "Military of ..." categories may be questionable due to the small number of articles, but I left them and only went for the sure bets.

C'mon, there are plenty more articles to come on the world-renowned Bangladesh Air Force... ; ) Postdlf 04:02, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
World-renowned what?  :-) —Mike 04:52, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)
Actually, eventually we should have a List of aircraft of the Bangladesh Air Force, to parallel the other inventory lists we have, as well as squadron articles. But I guess the category can wait till they appear... --Rlandmann 04:35, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Still I think it takes more than two articles to make a subcategory! —Mike 04:52, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

I guess I'm an eventualist when it comes to categorisation. Even the smallest air forces have the potential for several articles. Category:Bangladesh Air Force should eventually hold (at least):

3 current bases (and maybe other historic ones)

Other facilities, eg:

Squadrons (just the ones I could easily find on-line - this implies at least 19 more...)

--Rlandmann 05:24, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well hell. Keep, in that case. I agree, categories should be kept if they will eventually be filled—it looks like I need to be even more careful in my assumptions about what has the potential. Postdlf 06:11, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I'm responsible for creating many of the Military of categories. My thinking at the time was that eventually they would have to be created in an ideal world, and that they are a standard part of the article structure for country articles. David Newton 08:59, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I don't really have much of a complaint with the military categories. However some countries only have the single air force article, and that's not much to create a new category. But I could see a lot of room for expansion in this area.
Because Category:Air forces is a member of Category:Militaries along with all the "Military of..." categories, I just don't see a great need for some of the air force categories at this time. When people eventually get around to writing the additional articles then they might be needed. —Mike 21:46, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)
Up until yesterday, air forces were organized in a consistent and logical manner as subcategories of "Category:Air forces" and of their relevant "Category:Military of XYZ" Now we've got some in their own category and some in their parent "Military" category. I preferred it when "Category:Air forces" listed all air forces in the same alphabetical list. --Rlandmann 08:42, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The parent articles of the Category:Air forces subcategories should be included in that category as well as their own subcategory, which would put them all in the same list. Postdlf 19:06, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I suggest we kill the subcategories for now but put the outlines of your consistent and logical scheme into the talk page for the master category(ies), or even onto that page or those pages themselves, to alert later editors so that if and when enough articles were later created to truly merit a new subcategory, it could be created consistently with the system. That way, the system survives, but without premature category clutter.--Gary D 19:45, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

OK, so what's the minimum number of articles needed to keep these categories? I'll be happy to contribute them. --Rlandmann 22:20, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I would say ten to fifteen articles is a good category justification. --Gary D 19:45, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Towns in Idaho

From what I can tell, all municipalities in the state are cities, with a handful of CDPs. No towns, despite what a certain bot told me. Postdlf 00:02, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • Why need we be so concerned with the legal status of each urban centre in each state? Why not just list them all as "Towns of State/County X", where "town" is an English word meaning something like concentration of dwellings, not a legal term. I realise that it would be a lot of work to change everything to this for all the US states and counties, but I'm also adding various "towns" to similar categories in other countries, and frankly I don't want to decide whether I need to separate them out in this sort of way.-gadfium 04:30, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Because "town" means a particular kind of municipality with certain powers and organization in some states, while other states have no such designation, in which case it is an arbitrary informal usage. I can't vouch for other countries, but I have worked quite a bit within the various U.S. categories, and there is definitely a difference between a city, village, township, town, census-designated place, or neighborhood. Municipalities are incorporated in a particular form under state laws, such that "City" or "Village" is part of the municipality's official name. They have different forms of local government, have a differing ability to pass laws, and typically provide different levels of service (such as police or schools) to their residents. Classifications should reflect this, because the differences (and relationships) are significant to their residents as well as academically, especially when comparing municipalities to simple "concentration of dwellings." We gain nothing by obscuring such significant differences through vague categories. Postdlf 06:30, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • It's as inapproriate as having Category:Canadian States or Category:Counties in Louisiana since they would be inaccurate.Davodd 09:28, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Category:Cities in Idaho already exists. Davodd 09:28, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

German companies

Category:German companies and Category:Companies of Germany need merging, in much the same way as Category:Japanese companies and Category:Companies of Japan previously mentioned on August 16th below. Lancevortex 19:58, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)


Category:Suicides

For the same reasons as Category:Alcoholics: "Would anyone honestly answer, if asked what they are reading, that 'it's an article about a person who committed suicide'?" In most, if not all of the examples in the category, the person's having committed suicide is not directly related to their inclusion in wikipedia. -Seth Mahoney 21:21, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

  • Agreed. Compile a list article (if we don't have one) and then delete. Otherwise, why don't we categorize all people by cause of death? Postdlf 21:53, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Disagree Removed my vote - somebody may indeed answer the above question that way, but it's spurious as an argument for deletion anyway. Someone may indeed be interested to read a number of articles about people who have committed suicide...
  • ...In fact the follow up confesses as much by suggesting a list. If it's worth having a list, why not have a category? It's ridiculous to replace one with another - categories are there, in part, to negate the requirement for lists... With other controversial categories lists are proposed as allowing shades of grey - I think there will be plenty of uncontroversial suicides to fill the category.
  • ...Why not categorize people by cause of death? If there's an easy way to find people who have died from a coronary, or in an automobile accident such category pages may well be of interest...
  • ...indeed I've seen many feature articles in magazines that cover famous people by cause of death...
  • ...However, I would suggest that suicide is a special case beyond that as it is a very notable way for a person to die.
  • ...I have a suspicion that the reason this is in danger of going the way of category:alcoholics is that some people are fretful about any category that might be interpreted as tarnishing a person. However, neither alcoholism nor committing suicide are universally perceived as signifying a person has less worth, so this strikes me as somewhat provincial. If anyone can tell me where alcoholics was discussed before being deleted I'd be very pleased to see the debate.
  • some content struck out after reading other debates below - I started the category, I've removed my vote, let the community decide (though I'd like to see more people involved with this page...) --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod .....TALKQuietly)]] 21:18, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Potentially of interest and useful. -- Infrogmation 02:34, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Note: as was pointed out above, I think, this category appears to mirror the List of famous suicides, so moving it to a list is unnecessary. My vote is still delete. -Seth Mahoney 05:14, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)
  • comment - please note, as some people seem to have an itchy trigger finger, that the vote is currently 2/2 and that this is not a consensus to delete. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 03:13, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. I would be more charitable toward a category "suicide" (singular) that collected articles more generally on the topic. --Gary D 03:28, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Towns in Rensselaer County, New York and Category:Towns in Schoharie County, New York

Each had only one entry. I'm all for specific categories, but this was ridiculous. Standard form is to categorize each community by its type within the state, and then also within the category as a whole (i.e., Category:Towns in New York & Category:Rensselaer County, New York), which definitely makes them easier to navigate and is still a totally logical grouping. Many counties wouldn't even allow for such a micro-categorization because of their paltry number of municipalities. Postdlf 08:56, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Add to the list these, all by User:Hemanshu, randomly skipping through states and adding one article to each category: Category:Cities in Nodaway County, Missouri, Category:Villages in Cass County, Nebraska, Category:Cities in Buffalo County, Nebraska (of which there are only 3), Category:Villages in Lincoln County, Nebraska (Lincoln County has only 7 communities total, btw), and Category:Cities in Randolph County, Illinois.

He also created the following redundant categories: Category:Counties in Missouri, Category:Counties in New York, Category:Counties in Nebraska.

I am going through correcting his edits, and will post more as I find them. Postdlf 09:28, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

More redundant categories created by User:Hemanshu:

Category:American actors (redundant with Category:U.S. actors and actresses), Category:Human anatomy (redundant with Category:Anatomy), Category:Physical geography (redundant with Category:Geography), Category:Comic book series (redundant with Category:Comic books), Category:American politicians (redundant with Category:U.S. politicians), and Category:Counties in Texas, Category:Counties in California, Category:Counties in Arkansas, Category:Counties in Iowa, Category:Counties in Michigan.

More to come—still cleaning up after him. Postdlf 11:31, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Make sure you send him a note.... - UtherSRG 11:45, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Yeah, I did, but before I even saw the full extent of it. I started just going through the American city, town, etc., pages, but then realized that he was apparently just hitting the random page link and slapping a category on what he found, without any forethought. It's probably best I don't leave anything further on his talk page because I feel like wringing his neck (however well-intentioned he may have been). Postdlf 11:49, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

More redundancies, per the above:

More to come. Postdlf 11:49, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Counties in Georgia redundant with Category:Georgia counties, Category:Counties in Virginia redundant with...you get the idea.

Ok, back to the utterly useless categories:

That's the last of what I corrected myself. Someone needs to go through and further check his edits, because he slapped categories on far more articles and topics, and I can't say I know enough about Mexican geography, for example, to classify it. Postdlf 11:57, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

One more: Category:Cars, redundant with the heavily populated Category:Automobiles, of which it was inexplicably made a subcategory. (?!) Postdlf 12:06, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

August 17

Category:Atheists

Many of the same reasons why individuals should not be classified by race or sexual preference also applies to religion (or lack thereof). Would anyone honestly answer, if asked what they are reading, that "it's an article about an atheist"? That neither says why the individual has an article, nor anything significant about them. "Atheist thinkers" may be a different story—those who have actively written on the topic of atheism and its justifications. But "atheists" is really no more a valid category than Category:People who believe in reincarnation or Category:People whose favorite movie is Star Wars. Describe it in the article, make annotated lists, but categories are inappropriate. Postdlf 05:44, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think the category is OK, but it shouldn't be applied to everyone who 'happens to be an atheist' or is thought to have been an atheist at some time. Leave that for the List of atheists. If the category is restricted to people who are primarily (and only?) identified as being an atheist or influencial in atheism, then it would be OK - if that implies a change of category name then I'd go along with that. There is an additional problem in that it can often be difficult to draw a distinction between Atheist and Agnostic. -- Solipsist 11:26, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Your comment is a little unclear, because what it seems like what you are saying is that the category is not OK, because currently it is just a grouping of people who happen to be atheists. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you are aiming more towards my suggestion of having a category for "Atheist thinkers"—people have actively advocated for/written about atheism. It is very different to categorize people by what they do rather than what they believe. Postdlf 22:11, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I mean I don't object to the category per se, just the way it is being used. -- Solipsist 22:18, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Right, but how else can we narrow how it is used without replacing it? I have three suggestions:

1. Replace it with one category: Category:Atheist thinkers and activists

I think I favor this one—I don't know if I'd classify Madalyn Murray O'Hair as an atheist "thinker", nor was Bertrand Russell an "activist" per se, to my knowledge, but in many cases, the roles may be difficult to separate.
It should be thinkers or activists to my mind. Noisy 16:40, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

2. Replace it with two categories: Category:Atheist thinkers and Category:Atheist activists.

3. Replace it with one category: Category:Atheist thinkers

My second favorite, because "thinker" may be broad enough to include those who were more atheist activists trying remove the importance of religion from government and society.
If kept, Category:Atheists will just be a dumping ground for every one lacking a belief in
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