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Wikipedia:Historical archive/Categories for deletion/unresolved

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Beland (talk | contribs) at 10:23, 7 November 2004 (→Terrorism: Added more). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

These issues were not quite resolved in Categories for Deletion. Summary at top of each discussion and on the main page.

Misc.

Terrorism

Category: Terrorist organizations

  • Is redundant with Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Terrorist is value-laden politicized term not suitable for Wikipedia category. Violates NPOV policies, is vague and undefined. The person or authority attributing the title of terrorist should be identified. Alberuni 18:08, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Already listed; see Oct. 24 Jayjg 18:21, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • Very clever - so by definition there cannot be any American terrorist organisations. And that (together with the description of 'foreign' as meaning 'not US') is meant to be NPOV? Maybe I'll work it all out one day:) jguk 23:51, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep the category. However, the article Foreign Terrorist Organizations ought to be renamed and/or merged with another article.--Josiah 14:54, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Category:Northern Ireland terrorists

  • Terrorist is value-laden politicized term not suitable for Wikipedia category. Violates NPOV policies, is vague and undefined. The person or authority attributing the title of terrorist should be identified. Replace with British Government Designated Irish Terrorists? Alberuni 17:50, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Terrorist is a well understood term that applies to both loyalist and republican terrorists. Keep useful designation. jguk 23:53, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • DELETE. Obviously POV title. (Would you like "Category:Jewish terrorists"?) HistoryBuffEr 03:01, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)
  • Keep. Obviously NOT POV title. Stereotek 12:24, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, unless there is suddenly a "NPOV" "alternative" for an understood term. -- user:zanimum
  • Delete - Obviously POV title unless all these organisations clearly refer to themselves as terrorists. --Axon 14:01, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep--Josiah 14:55, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. - the usual NPOV term here in Ireland is "paramilitaries". zoney ♣ talk 17:00, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. 'terrorists' never call themselves as such, we label them for a POV.--Hooperbloob 02:39, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Category:Middle East terrorists

  • Terrorist is value-laden politicized term not suitable for Wikipedia category. Violates NPOV policies, is vague and undefined. The person or authority attributing the title of terrorist should be identified. Replace with Middle East Militants? Alberuni 17:48, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Useful term and an interesting category. Keep. jguk 23:56, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • DELETE. Obviously POV title. (Would you like "Category:Jewish terrorists"?) HistoryBuffEr 03:00, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)
  • Keep, (heard of any Jews blowing themselves up in buses or restaurants lately?) IZAK 10:57, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • KEEP. Terrorist is not undefined. Wikipedia has a clear definition of terrorism. In short, somebody that indiscriminately attacks civilian targets with violence that ends in deaths, is a terrorist.--AAAAA 12:26, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • KEEP Stereotek 12:28, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, unless there is suddenly a "NPOV" "alternative" for an understood term. -- user:zanimum
  • Keep. Changing terrorists in activists or something of the sort is Newspeak with respect to the victims of their actions. Also, this category provides important information.Gidonb 13:38, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. keep the whitewash in the bucket not on the pages at Wikipedia. Lance6Wins 13:52, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete - Obviously POV title unless all these organisations clearly refer to themselves as terrorists. --Axon 14:02, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep--Josiah 14:58, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • DELETE. xxx Terrorist is a POV of their targets, never a self-appelation.

--Hooperbloob 03:16, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Category:German terrorists

  • Terrorist is value-laden politicized term not suitable for Wikipedia category. Violates NPOV policies, is vague and undefined. The person or authority attributing the title of terrorist should be identified. Interpol Most Wanted Terrorists? Alberuni 17:47, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Useful term and an interesting category. Keep. jguk 23:56, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • DELETE. Obviously POV title. (Would you like "Category:Jewish terrorists"?) HistoryBuffEr 03:00, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)
  • Keep. Stereotek 12:30, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, unless there is suddenly a "NPOV" "alternative" for an understood term. -- user:zanimum
  • Delete - Obviously POV title unless all these organisations clearly refer to themselves as terrorists. --Axon 14:03, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep--Josiah 14:58, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Category:Canadian terrorists

  • Terrorist is value-laden politicized term not suitable for Wikipedia category. Violates NPOV policies, is vague and undefined. The person or authority attributing the title of terrorist should be identified. RCMP Most Wanted Terrorists? Alberuni 17:45, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Useful term and an interesting category. Keep. jguk 23:56, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • DELETE. Obviously POV title. (Would you like "Category:Jewish terrorists"?) HistoryBuffEr 02:59, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)
  • Keep. Stereotek 12:32, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, unless there is suddenly a "NPOV" "alternative" for an understood term. -- user:zanimum
  • Delete - Obviously POV title unless all these organisations clearly refer to themselves as terrorists. --Axon 14:03, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep--Josiah 14:57, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Category:American terrorists

  • Terrorist is value-laden politicized term not suitable for Wikipedia category. Violates NPOV policies, is vague and undefined. The person or authority attributing the title of terrorist should be identified. FBI Most Wanted Terrorists Alberuni 17:44, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Useful term and an interesting category. Keep. jguk 23:56, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • DELETE. Obviously POV title. (Would you like "Category:Jewish terrorists"?) HistoryBuffEr 02:59, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)
  • Keep. Stereotek 12:33, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, unless there is suddenly a "NPOV" "alternative" for an understood term. -- user:zanimum
  • Delete - Obviously POV title unless all these organisations clearly refer to themselves as terrorists. --Axon 14:04, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Category:Palestinian terrorists

  • Terrorist is value-laden politicized term not suitable for Wikipedia category. Violates NPOV policies, is vague and undefined. The person or authority attributing the title of terrorist should be identified. FBI Most Wanted Terrorists or Israeli Government Designated Terrorists. Perhaps could be replaced by Palestinian militants Alberuni 17:41, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Useful term and an interesting category. Keep. jguk 23:56, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • DELETE. Obviously POV title. (Would you like "Category:Jewish terrorists"?) HistoryBuffEr 02:56, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)
  • Keep, (BTW, if you know of Jewish ones let's hear about it.) IZAK 10:05, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete, Terrorist is a loaded word. One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. Changing to Palestinian Militants wouldn't be a bad idea though. Sillydragon 10:26, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • KEEP. Terrorist has a definition and it is not the same as militant, though some terrorists are militants. There are individuals who clearly fall into this category. And yes there are Jewish terrorists too -- I would support such a category with members like Baruch Goldstein and Kahane. Jewbacca 10:33, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)
  • KEEP. A suicide bomber or the leader of an organization that sends suicide bombers is a terrorist. Palestinians have many of them. Therefore, a category is totally suitable. Having a category for Palestinian terrorists doesn't mean that all Palestinians are terrorists. In general, a category is always suitable if there are many of anything and you can group them. KEEP.--AAAAA 11:59, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Abstain The term "terrorist" runs into POV problems. Should be renamed Category:Palestinian militants. 172 12:29, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Suicide bombers and people who devore their live for a wholesale murders of civilians, are terrorists. They cannot be called in another name and should not. Since there a are lot of famous Palestinians who decided to dedicate their live to the extermination of Jews (Ahmed Yasin, Hanadi Jaradat, Ahmed Qawasameh and even the brainwashed child Hussam Abdo) a "category" list of them is a must. MathKnight 12:34, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, unless there is suddenly a "NPOV" "alternative" for an understood term. -- user:zanimum
  • Keep. Stereotek 12:54, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Changing terrorists in activists or something of the sort is Newspeak with respect to the victims of their actions. Also, this page provides important information.Gidonb 13:35, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. keep the whitewash in the bucket not on the pages at Wikipedia. Lance6Wins 13:50, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete - Obviously POV title unless all these organisations clearly refer to themselves as terrorists. --Axon 14:05, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, as we have , or alternatively Rename to Palestinian Militants.--Josiah 14:45, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Abstain. This just demonstrates the problem with categories that I projected when they started. Consider for example Arafat. A text paragraph can say something like "Arafat is a man of contradictions - the elected political leader of the Palestenians, but also once headed the militant PLO; A nobel peace prize winner but also considered by many to be a terrorist.". The categories fail to capture the subtle "is a", "also a", "is considered a", "was in his past a" and similar relationship of the article's subject to the categories. So I don't think that for practical reasons, the category "Palestenian Terrorist" is very useful. Nyh 09:51, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. The term militants as an alternate cannot be disputed by either side.--Hooperbloob 03:12, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Category:Terrorist organizations

The mere existence violates NPOV policies. Dori | Talk 20:39, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)

  • Delete; probably a good number of these would belong in a legitimate Category:Paramilitary organizations, but some would not. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:56, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete; replace with Category:Groups designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the U.S. Department of State. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (hopefully!)]] 20:51, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)
  • DeleteAlberuni 18:39, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • DeleteJayjg 19:38, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete Terrapin 21:02, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep all "terrorist" categories if the presence of the word terrorist is the only criterion for deletion. Our task is not to reform the way people actually use their language. Smerdis of Tlön 21:42, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep--Josiah 23:37, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep--Viriditas 09:06, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Like obscenity, it's hard to define, but as (Mencken, was it?) said, I know it when I see it! But mostly, my "keep" vote is based on the clear fact that the terrorists themselves speak of perpetrating terror: so if those against terrorism and those for terrorism both call it that, what's the point of smothering it in pablum-type language? — Bill 09:34, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep - but attribute on individual pages who designated them "Terrorists" Alkivar 03:05, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep - attribution of accusation/designation would be good though --ChrisRuvolo 16:33, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
also, see Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/List_of_terrorist_groups --ChrisRuvolo 16:42, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep - If you take NPOV in categorization to the extreme, do we delete Category:Criminals, Category:Art? Riddley 00:25, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep - Terrorism is well defined, and these categories are a natural extension. Nominations is part of extreme agenda-pushing and POV warring within WP. -- Netoholic @ 07:05, 2004 Oct 31 (UTC)
  • Keep Agree with Netoholic. Neutrality's idea, that we should allow the US State Department to be the determinant, is perverse. Finally, it's an interesting category. Let's keep it.jguk 00:01, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • DELETE. Obviously POV title. (Would you like "Category:Jewish terrorist organizations"?) HistoryBuffEr 03:02, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)
I'm Jewish and I wouldnt see a problem with that, as long as the person who LABELLED it a terrorist organization is mentioned. Alkivar 03:34, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Sarge Baldy 15:06, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Tired of those not willing to call terrorism by what it is. They're purposely targetting children and we're mincing words so not to offend them. Jewbacca 10:49, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, why do people have trouble with these monsters, they do exist. IZAK 10:51, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • KEEP. There are many organizations that can clearly be defined as terrorists. Since there are many, a category to group them is totally appropriate.--AAAAA 12:28, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Changing terrorist organizations in other terms is Newspeak with respect to the victims of their actions. Also, this category provides important information.Gidonb 13:40, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. keep the whitewash in the bucket not on the pages at Wikipedia. Lance6Wins 13:52, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete - Obviously POV title unless all these organisations clearly refer to themselves as terrorists. --Axon 14:05, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete - The term terrorism is not at all well-defined. It might arguably be possible to determine that an individual meets any reasonable criterion as a terrorist, but for a group it will be nearly impossible. The fact that state actors are excluded is blatantly un-NPOV. I don't think this category can be rehabilitated to facilitate NPOV. - Nat Krause 14:33, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. "Terrorist" is never a self-appellation. Therefore the term is always POV. Despite arguments to the contrary, the criteria for defining terrorism are also always POV. We are drawn into this controversy only because national leaders and pundits have been able to project the term as a form of argument in itself. POV. It is a clever idea to define the adversary's violence as "terrorism", but one's own violence as "collateral damage". But it is hardly NPOV. As one seeks to exclude oneself from the category of evil-doer that is being prepared for ones adversaries, the definitions always become strained. Terrorism is not an ideology. Rather it is an interpretation of a tactic. Any attempt to define it objectively will be unsatisfactory to one side or the other in a conflict -- the very definition of Point of View. It can be objective to list organizations that have been declared to be "terrorists" by one side or the other, but there must be an attribution or who made the declaration. But to stand at the side of a conflict and simply present one side's declarations as objective truth, is very much to take a Point of View. John Tinker 21:01, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. "Terrorist" non self-appelation (previous comment). Nice insight, I couldn't have said it better.--Hooperbloob 02:30, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Category:Terrorist organizations in Northern Ireland

  • Again, the mere existence violates NPOV policies. There probably would be a useful Category:Paramilitary organizations in Northern Ireland. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:09, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
  • DeleteAlberuni 18:39, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • DeleteJayjg 19:39, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, as above. — Bill 09:39, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep --ChrisRuvolo 16:42, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep - Terrorism is well defined, and these categories are a natural extension. Nominations is part of extreme agenda-pushing and POV warring within WP. -- Netoholic @ 07:05, 2004 Oct 31 (UTC)
  • Keepjguk 00:01, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • DELETE. Obviously POV title. (Would you like "Category:Jewish terrorists"?) HistoryBuffEr 03:03, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)
  • Delete. Sarge Baldy 15:06, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete - Obviously POV title unless all these organisations clearly refer to themselves as terrorists. --Axon 14:09, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Paramilitaries is to be preferred in an NPOV context, and is frequently used here in Ireland. zoney ♣ talk 17:02, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. The term "terrorist" expresses a POV in all cases. John Tinker 22:52, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Category:Leftist terrorist organizations

  • The mere existence violates NPOV policies. I'm perversely amused that whoever saw fit to create this category didn't see fit to create a Category:Rightist terrorist organizations -- Jmabel | Talk 02:09, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
  • DeleteAlberuni 18:39, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • DeleteJayjg 19:39, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete--Josiah 23:36, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, as above. (And yes, someone should add rightist groups) — Bill 09:39, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep --ChrisRuvolo 16:42, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep - Terrorism is well defined, and these categories are a natural extension. Nominations is part of extreme agenda-pushing and POV warring within WP. -- Netoholic @ 07:05, 2004 Oct 31 (UTC)
  • Keepjguk 00:01, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • DELETE. Obviously POV title. (How do you like "Category:Jewish terrorist organizations"?) HistoryBuffEr 03:04, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)
  • Keep. What is wrong with with a category called Jewish terrorist organizations? I don't think that would be a POV problem. NeoJustin 01:00, Nov. 2, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Sarge Baldy 15:06, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete - Obviously POV title unless all these organisations clearly refer to themselves as terrorists. --Axon 14:10, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. The term "terrorist" expresses a POV in all cases. John Tinker 22:53, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Category:Islamic terrorist organizations

  • The mere existence violates NPOV policies. And apparently, whoever created this category didn't think we needed a Category:Hindu terrorist organizations or a Category:Christian terrorist organizations -- Jmabel | Talk 02:09, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
  • DeleteAlberuni 18:39, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • DeleteJayjg 19:40, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete--Josiah 23:35, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, as above. (And yes, a complete picture of terrorism would be useful to have.) — Bill 09:39, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep --ChrisRuvolo 16:42, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep - Terrorism is well defined, and these categories are a natural extension. Nominations is part of extreme agenda-pushing and POV warring within WP. -- Netoholic @ 07:05, 2004 Oct 31 (UTC)
  • Keep Interesting category jguk 00:01, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • DELETE. Obviously POV title. (How do you like "Category:Jewish terrorist organizations"?) HistoryBuffEr 03:05, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)
  • Keep. NeoJustin 01:07 Nov. 2, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Sarge Baldy 15:06, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, (Question:Is it not happening?) IZAK 10:43, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep Jewbacca 10:46, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)
  • KEEP. How can somebody want to delet this category now that 9/11 happened?--AAAAA 12:29, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Abstain Important category, but should be renamed Category:Islamic militant organizations. 172 12:49, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Changing terrorists in activists or militants is Newspeak with respect to the victims of their actions. Also, this category provides important information.Gidonb 13:43, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. keep the whitewash in the bucket not on the pages at Wikipedia. Muslim Terrorist Organizations would be preferrable. Lance6Wins 13:53, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Whilst there's some subjectivity at the fringes, the category as a whole is factual and the membership of any group within it can be tested NPOV with relevant sources. FT2 16:18, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete - Obviously POV title unless all these organisations clearly refer to themselves as terrorists.--Axon 17:18, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. The term "terrorist" expresses a POV in all cases. John Tinker 22:53, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. →Raul654 04:40, Nov 7, 2004 (UTC)

Category:Jewish terrorist organizations

Keep or Move to "Zionist" / "Israeli" / "Nationalist" as needed. 172 makes good points. I believe a category like this is necessary under some heading. --ChrisRuvolo 16:39, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Strong keep - Terrorism is well defined, and these categories are a natural extension. Nominations are part of extreme agenda-pushing and POV warring within WP. -- Netoholic @ 14:59, 2004 Nov 5 (UTC)
  • Keep jguk 00:01, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • DELETE. Obviously POV title. HistoryBuffEr 03:06, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)
  • Delete. Sarge Baldy 15:06, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete as they are either defunct, or are political organizations and do NOT have militias. IZAK
  • Delete Along with the problems mentioned above by IZAK, in what sense can an encyclopedia identify these political organizations as "Jewish"? The Stern Gang, e.g., founded in 1940 following a split in the rightwing underground movement Irgun, has been referred to as a terrorist organization. But it is inappropriate for an encyclopedia to identify this group as a "Jewish" group. Other labels are simply more precise. The Stern Gang was a political-- not a religious-- group, adopting the revisionist views of Vladimir Jabotinsky, which were secular and nationalist. The same goes for every organization listed in this category (unlike those under Category:Islamic terrorist organizations, which all profess to be organized under an Islamist banner).... If this POV list has to exist (depending on how the vote turns out on this page), the category should at least lump these groups under the more appropriate labels "Zionist," "Israeli," or "nationalist." 172 12:25, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • DELETE. I agree with 172. --AAAAA 12:31, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Only the morally blind would want to remove this. - Xed 13:11, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Huh? Did you read the specific objections to this category? 172 13:18, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Changing terrorists in activists or something of the sort is Newspeak with respect to the victims of their actions. Also, this category provides important information.Gidonb 13:45, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Populate with organizations that have committed terrorist attacks as we have defined them under terrorism. Lance6Wins 13:56, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete - Obviously POV title unless all these organisations clearly refer to themselves as terrorists. --Axon 14:10, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete, there aren't defined groups, just small groups of settlers without an overall organization. Terrapin 16:12, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. The term "terrorist" expresses a POV in all cases. John Tinker 22:54, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. →Raul654 04:40, Nov 7, 2004 (UTC)

Category:Palestinian terrorist organizations

  • The mere existence violates NPOV policies. And apparently, whoever created this category didn't think we needed a Category:Israeli terrorist organizations. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:09, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
  • DeleteAlberuni 18:39, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • DeleteJayjg 19:41, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete--Josiah 23:34, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, as above. (And if there are loose groups of Israel terrorists cannoning about, they do should be added.) — Bill 09:39, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep --ChrisRuvolo 16:42, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep - Terrorism is well defined, and these categories are a natural extension. Nominations is part of extreme agenda-pushing and POV warring within WP. -- Netoholic @ 07:05, 2004 Oct 31 (UTC)
  • Keep jguk 00:01, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • DELETE. Obviously POV title. (How do you like "Category:Jewish terrorist organizations"?) HistoryBuffEr 03:06, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)
  • keep. NeoJustin 01:06 Nov. 2, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Sarge Baldy 15:06, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, as these organizations are very active. IZAK 10:29, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • KEEP. If there are several of anything, they can be grouped into a category. This applies for Palestinian Terrorist Organizations. So KEEP.--AAAAA 12:23, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. MathKnight 12:26, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Abstain Could be renamed Category:Palestinian terrorist organizations. Otherwise support keeping category. 172 12:31, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Changing terrorists in activists or something of the sort is Newspeak with respect to the victims of their actions. Also, this page provides important information.Gidonb 13:37, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. keep the whitewash in the bucket not on the pages at Wikipedia. Lance6Wins 13:51, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete - Obviously POV title unless all these organisations clearly refer to themselves as terrorists. --Axon 14:11, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. This is one of the few that should be kept. Pretty well-defined term, in a very small area. There's only a few group, and you can link to Hamas, Al Aqsa Brigades, etc for more detail on both sides of the issue. Terrapin 16:10, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. The term "terrorist" expresses a POV in all cases. John Tinker 22:55, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. terrorists never call themselves as such. Pure POV --Hooperbloob 02:42, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Category:Terrorist organizations based in the United States

  • Again, the mere existence violates NPOV policies. Would probably be acceptable to me if "terrorist" were changed to paramilitary, for those where it is applicable. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:09, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
  • DeleteAlberuni 18:39, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete Jayjg 19:42, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep--Josiah 23:34, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, as above. — Bill 09:39, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep --ChrisRuvolo 16:42, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep - Terrorism is well defined, and these categories are a natural extension. Nominations is part of extreme agenda-pushing and POV warring within WP. -- Netoholic @ 07:05, 2004 Oct 31 (UTC)
  • Keepjguk 00:01, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • DELETE. Obviously POV title. (How do you like "Category:Jewish terrorist organizations"?) HistoryBuffEr 03:07, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)
  • keep. NeoJustin 01:05 Nov. 2, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Sarge Baldy 15:06, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete.--Axon 14:12, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. The term "terrorist" expresses a POV in all cases. John Tinker 22:56, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

August 30

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)
It's not hard to categorize one book. What's hard is to categorize lots of them at once. For instance, recategorizing all of the articles under these. anthony (see warning) 02:32, 1 Sep 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)
I don't think we should cater our categorization schemes to bugs in the software. anthony (see warning) 02:32, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete all. --Gary D 02:37, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • I oppose deletion of these unless the developers add a feature to automatically create divided pages, as with Special:Allpages/a --ssd 10:12, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I vote for deletion. I appreciate that the category of books by name is going to be enormous if one doesn't have divisions like "books beginning with A".

However, that is why this situation appeals for a list. Rather than having a Category:People whose names starts with A with a subcategory of Category:People whose names start with Aa, we have a List of people by name:A, which does an admirable job of structurally organizing the data.

Wikipedia:Categorization even gives an an example of a 'not useful' category a hypothetical category called Category:Musicians whose first name starts with M.

Anything one can do with a category, you can do with a plain old page; the category system just makes it easier. So we should use the category system for what it was intended, which is arranging related objects in a natural hierarchy. Category:Books starting with A is not part of such a hierarchy. --Saforrest 23:25, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

August 22

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)
  • Keep and populate. Category:Asian art seems to be doing quite well. This would seem to be a logical parallel. Shouldn't there be American art, Dutch art, etc? And shouldn't those be grouped here? -- Beland 04:08, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
If you think this is worth keeping, perhaps you should populate it. Otherwise, it gets deleted on Sept 11. --ssd 04:56, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Category populated (1 subcategory) - could somebody do some more? --Francis Schonken 16:39, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If this goes, then Category:Western_art_movements_and_periods should go, too. -- Beland

August 21

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)
  • Keep or rename. It's a valid and useful category to have. -- Beland 02:01, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep or rename. There are figures associated with the Enlightenment who are not philosophers -- notably the various Enlightened Despots -- and we kept having people stick the Category:Enlightenment Philosophers tag on them and having to remove it. -- Jmabel 07:43, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)
  • (--Francis Schonken 16:47, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)):
    • Added "Classic era composers" as subcategory;
    • Categorized under "History by periods" and "Western art"
    • Rewrote category intro (NPOV: "as well...., as well.....,...")
    • Could some admin change category name to "age of enlightenment", as nobody seems to object to this? Oops, some do mind. In that case, I vote for keeping "The Enlightenment" as category name, with the new extended intro. Aditionally I created "Age of Enlightenment" as a REDIRECT category to "The Enlightenment" category (Is this allowed? It seems to work & it seems to solve any remaining problem from the discussion...)

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)

Usage questions

13 Sept 2004

U.S. vs. American

--Beland 04:50, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No, re US: move both
Category:United_States_sportspeople
and
Category:Sportspeople of the United States
to
Category:American sportspeople
since "U.S." is not appropriate to activities that are almost entirely independent of the U.S. government (decentralized phenomena of American society). The only contexts where it's proper to say either "U.S. athletes" or "U.S. sportspeople" is where there is a formal national team, e.g. in the Olympics.
--Jerzy(t) 05:42, 2004 Sep 15 (UTC)
I have never heard anyone make such a distinction before. I think it has more to do with whether the phrase works better with a noun or an adjective. Like "American invasion" or "Rivers of the United States" vs. "U.S. invasion" and "Rivers of America". There are 103 "sportspeople" categories, and the only other one that has "Sportpeople of Foo" is Category:Sportspeople_of_the_Dominican_Republic, so I agree that "American sportspeople" is best. Hopefully non-U.S. North, South, and Central Americans are not offended. -- Beland 05:42, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
BTW, we currently have 250 U.S. categories, from Category:Art_galleries_and_museums_in_the_U.S. to

Category:Women's_universities_and_colleges_in_the_U.S., 208 United States categories, from Category:1950s_TV_shows_in_the_United_States to Category:Zoos_in_the_United_States, and 131 or so American categories, from Category:1951_American_League_All-Stars to Category:World_War_II_American_vehicles. -- Beland 05:42, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In deference to non-US people (ie. non-Americans), the categories should say "United States of America" or "USA", and not just US, and definitely not America/American. Note that the feminine form of America/American is Columbia/Columbian (yep, there's a feminine form, even though English doesn't genderize most words, and almost no one uses Columbia/Columbian). So if we use America/American, then any female category should say Columbia/Columbian, which would be very confusing indeed. * 132.205.15.4 05:41, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
We'll call our country what we feel like calling it, thank you. RickK 06:11, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

Well, at least United States sportspeople has been deleted. Upon more consideration, I think "United States" is better, to prevent USA/The Americas ambiguity. We still have to decide between Sportspeople of the United States and American sportspeople. -- Beland 01:41, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Not realizing there was an open discussion on this, I moved everything over to Category:American sportspeople. As a newbie making my first attempts at categorizing articles I received a nice little slap on the hands for breaking with the general naming conventions that were already present. (see my talk page) So as a result I try to maintain consistency with other categories. In this specific case because all of the other categories are named "xxx sportspeople", the category should be named "American sportspeople" and not "Sportspeople of the United States" unless you are prepared to change all of the other categories too. —Mike 21:26, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)

  • I'm not understanding the continuing debate on this—when is "American" ever used to mean something other than "of the United States"? Do Venezuelans and Colombians really say that they're Americans? Also, keep in mind we're dealing with the english wikipedia, so only the conventions in english are relevant, and "American" exlusively means U.S. in english usage. If something is Central American or South American, then Central or South is used as a qualifier. The only time that it is used as a general term to include North, South, and Central America, it is always plural—"the Americas". There is no ambiguity. Postdlf 02:50, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I myself am not understanding the debate, either. The U.S. is called the U.S. This side of the world is called 'The Americas'. In my own speech (Canadian) I certainly use 'America' in place of 'the U.S.', but in the context of biology, 'American' means the continent. The acurate term is U.S and every non USian knows it, IMHO. 'American' also means something different to native americans.
jericho4.0 03:08, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (U.S. vs American).

6 Sept 2004

Category:Football venues

Contains one article, might be better within the other categories' Category:Football (soccer) by country -gadfium 04:10, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Are you proposing "Football (soccer) venues in the United States"? If so, "Football (soccer) venues" should probably unify them, but this category would still need to be deleted. -- Beland 04:49, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The article it contains is not a soccer venue, it's a football/baseball stadium (or, was, it has since been demolished). Don't delete it. anthony (see warning) 02:39, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Ah, then this should probably be deleted and reincarnated as "Category:Football (American) venues". (Hmm, Category:Stadiums needs subcategorization.) -- Beland
I've thought about this, and I think the best solution is to keep all football stadiums in the category, regardless of the style. If it gets big enough, then we can break up into American football vs. soccer, but that's not necessary at this point (and doesn't require deletion anyway). anthony (see warning) 19:19, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

POV questions

9 Sept 2004

Category:Ontologically uncertain

This category defines its purpose as, "there is some uncertainty of the existance of the things in this catagory. It may sound odd to have a catagory with members that may or may not exist, but the various beliefs regarding their existance is the cause of many great cultural events." Category is inherently POV, and includes such miscellaneous items as God, Aryan race, and unicorns. Smerdis of Tln 13:33, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

  • I kind of like the idea behind this category: all things about whose existence we are uncertain, though I think the title could use some tweaking. I don't think it represents a problematic POV to say, for example, that we are, as a species, not certain that God or races in general (not just the Aryan) exist. The topic is heavily debated. Unicorns, I think, we are agreed don't exist. But yeah! I kinda jive with the category its self. Maybe it just needs some cleanup. -Seth Mahoney 22:48, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Highly POV. The idea can be preserved by making sure that all of the contents are in some way subcategorized under categories that make their status as beliefs apparent (Category:Belief, Category:Theories, etc). -Sean Curtin 01:53, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)
    • As everything ultimately comes down to a belief, theory, or assumption, not so good an idea. Postdlf 06:54, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
      • I was going to make the obvious argument that there is a difference between my believing, say, in you and my believing in, say, God, when I realized the category should be deleted for an entirely different reason. God should be its only member, or at least is the only member I can think of off the top of my head. Then I realized that other things can be put there, if we're talking strictly philosophy, like numbers, ideas, thoughts, and so on. Now I'm going back to keep, but maybe with a different title and as a subcategory of Ontology. Also, remove the mythical beasts. I still don't think their ontological status is uncertain. -Seth Mahoney 07:03, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)
        • Hi, I've never used this part of Wikipedia before, as I am rather new. I actually created the catagory after discussion with some people on http://www.belief.net (a website where people from a few dozen different religions come together to talk). I was asking them about faries, elves, and the like and the forum posters thought the article was insulting because it assumed that these things didn't exist. All the people in that particular forum do believe (at least some of) the creatures exist. So I attempted to make it more NPOV by putting it in a catagory that says some people believe in this, some people down't. I understand how people can dispute teh existance of anything, but I thought to catagory was useful to show that a significant number of people believe that a thing exists while another significant amount don't believe it does. Sorry if my use of catagorization wasn't apropo. I lean toward keep, but I understand the reasons for wanting to delete. I also don't believe those reasons are good enough. You say that there are too many things that COULD be entered. Lets look at other things in Wikipedia for example. Blue for example. There are an infinite number of colours that could be considered a type of blue. Blue is a part of a spectrum that stops at the equally arbitrary colours green and violet. But the article is useful because it gives a basic concept. Another arbitrary concept is Determinism because it is no more externally verifiable than free will. Yet it is still useful to discuss both because there is human discussion (significant) about both. Similarly there is significant discussion about whether certain things are or are not. It is useful to group the things because a person searching for a way to attempt to prove the existance of (or disprove the existance of) one thing can reference another thing that has been similarly debated. They also gain the advantage of seeing the other sides' rebuttles. I suppose that if you are going to take it down, so be it. But I think it has as much (could have as much) significance as many many other articles and catagories. Dustin Asby 10:34, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Note: could one of you who think this category is POV explain why? It doesn't seem POV at all to me to say "the existence of this thing is contested". -Seth Mahoney 07:04, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)
    • Contested by whom? After all, if we really want to remain NPOV we'd have to include Holocaust in this category - the vocal minority of Holocaust deniers probably outnumbers the people who believe in unicorns. And there are still Flat Earthers and non-heliocentrists out there, so all articles relating to space travel and the circumnavigation of the globe should be given this tag. -Sean Curtin 23:23, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)
      • Gotcha. Yeah, I can see where you see the POViness now. It seems to me, though, that there is a difference between saying, as Postdlf does below, that this category will have to contain anything anyone ever doubted and things which are actually contested, that is, things over which there is honest-to-goodness debate on. Unfortunately, I think the dividing line would end up being arbitrary, so I change my vote to delete. -Seth Mahoney 22:25, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete with extreme prejudice. There is no way to make this a meaningful classification, no way to remove POV problems. Do we really want to categorize subjects based on whether some people, somewhere, at some time, had doubted their existence? Postdlf 17:37, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. I doubt this category will every grow to be large, but strange as it seems, looking at the items within it, this weirdo catch-all bucket is actually pretty well suited to them, and substantially more useful for holding them than other categories. --Gary D 06:10, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)
  • In a philosophical sense, isn't everything ontologically uncertain? Delete, one person's uncertainty is another person's offense at even noting it (i.e. Holocaust, as mentioned, or even Gulf War Syndrome, or ADD, or whatever), no need to add to that by creating a catch-all category. Anyway, in terms of categories, how is it helpful to have God and Unicorns in the same category unless you are trying to be controversial/pick an argument? It's a bad idea, it will not help anybody find anything ("Hmm, where can I find a list of things which may not exist?" is not, I think, something that comes up very often), and it's name is a tad pretentious at that (again, if we're going to start talking about ontology and Being, we're going to have to include a whole lot of things in this category!). Delete!-Fastfission 02:51, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • That's insulting. How is it pretentious? I couldn't think of a better (and shorter) way to say the same thing. Dustin Asby 10:34, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • How on earth is this a useful category? Delete - David Gerard 15:38, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Non-wikipedia classification systems

See Wikipedia talk:Category schemes.

Sept 21

SOC Occupation categories

Category:Life, physical, and social science occupations

Has been divided in more sensible Category:Science occupations and Category:Social science occupations. - SimonP 03:18, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Category:Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations

As there is no reason to cram four different things into one non-intutive category it has been replaced with Category:Sports occupations. Category:Entertainment occupations. Category:Media occupations, and Category:Arts occupations. - SimonP 03:05, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep - This was already discussed here on CFD (Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/unresolved#Category:Occupations and all its subcategories) and the majority at the time prefer a "pre-packaged" system of top-level Occupation categories. The "new ones" Simon created can be housed with no conflict under that system, using only slightly different names. More discussion is being held at Category talk:Occupations. -- Netoholic @ 03:39, 2004 Sep 21 (UTC)
    • Comment, I am combining these related items. I'd also like to point out that User:SimonP has gone ahead and jumbled the entire Category:Occupations tree - before allowing sufficient consensus to be reached. Only two people disagreed with the SOC system (now at Category:SOC occupations, thanks to Simon). I feel the formal SOC system, with its built-in occupation->category look-up, is a far better candidate to occupy the root "Occupations" category - and it's an excellent fit for WP. -- Netoholic @ 22:25, 2004 Sep 21 (UTC)
    • I wouldn't say that Category:Occupations is "jumbled"—there are only 36 subcategories of it, and it's much easier to find everything by not having arbitrary conglomerate subcategories. BTW, consensus on this page means that a category is deleted or not deleted—if it is not deleted, that doesn't mean that its contents are forever locked in. SimonP was bold and fixed the system. Kudos. Postdlf 20:33, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. This is an arbitrary grouping of categories, whether or not it's an arbitrary grouping that the U.S. government happens to use. It's much more helpful to see the variety of subcategories all at once under Category:Occupations than it is to submerge and obscure them under these undigested lumps. Postdlf 06:30, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Don't see the harm. Keep. anthony (see warning) 13:01, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • I do see the harm, delete. Arbitrary groupings serve no real purpose. Gentgeen 04:09, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Arbitrary grouping. Andris 07:26, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
Comments
There are 23 categories defined as part of the SOC groupings (Category:SOC occupations). To arbitrarily pick two to delete makes the whole categorization scheme break. The SOC categories (all 23) were already posted on CFD and survived. -- Netoholic @ 19:17, 2004 Sep 26 (UTC)
And now someone has wisely bypassed them with better categories—surviving CFD in no way prevents that. Postdlf 22:12, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sept 22

Category:Occupations and all its subcategories

This topic has some overlap with what is going on on wikipedia:categorization of people (e.g. "The Business Card principle") - as this discussion is however centered on a specific non-wikipedia classification system, I don't think useful to merge with "problematic categorization of persons" section --Francis Schonken 14:08, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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)
Agreed, would eliminate the duplication of categories under 'DDC' and be easier to navigate. porge 23:25, 7 Sep 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)

I'd say that classifying articles by Dewey Decimal would be worthwhile (if daunting): it would be a boon to librarians. I see no problem with this base category. I would suggest that it would be very useful to put most categories under the most precise Dewey Decimal number possible (or even under more than one, as applicable). I doubt it would be useful to put most articles directly into a Dewey-decimal-based category.

If this is going to be useful, it will need an associated WikiProject and a team willing to elaborate how it can be made to work, but it's not inherently impossible, and it could be very appropriate. -- Jmabel 07:38, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

Aug 21

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

Probably also a "non-wikipedia classification system" problem? --Francis Schonken 14:08, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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)

Delete. This strikes me as something that would better be done by Lists than Categories. We have categories of narcotics in the UK too and I find it unlikely that most (Western) countries don't similarly differentiate between cannabis and heroin, for example. The articles of each narcotic could rapidly get very untidy. Ssd's justification is a relatively good one, but this is a very US-centric way of categorising the "dangerousness" of drugs, especially given that decisions by politicians on narcotics aren't solely based on their medical effects and that some relatively-dangerous substances might not be illegal at all.

I think this is quite a silly way of categorising articles, if only for the abundance of categories that could end up on articles and the US-centric-ness. If we're gonna put drugs into categories to try to imply their dangerousness, why use the US way? Why not the British way, or the Australian way? I don't like the idea at all. — OwenBlacker 22:26, Sep 5, 2004 (UTC)

Agree that the current categories are wrong, but also that the proposed names are no better. I know NZ also has a "Schedule II", and many other countries probably use the same term, so these should be something along the lines of "US Schedule X Controlled Substances". porge 05:31, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Categories relating to fiction

I regrouped some topics here (some of them formerly in "problematic categorization of people" section), while

  • Top text of "people" category is clear that fictional characters are out of the "people" categorization tree;
  • Discussion of these topics is closer to what presently is going on on wikipedia:importance (see also discussion page of that topic) than what is going on on categorization of people page.

--Francis Schonken 14:08, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sept 1

Category:Fictional fairies

All fairies are fictional. RickK 23:04, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC)

  • delete - I agree --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod .....TALKQuietly)]] 00:09, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)
  • comment—isn't there still a difference between fairies that people once believed were real (Queen Mab?) and fairies that were presented from the start as fictional? Just as there's a difference between deities first described in a self-labelled work of fiction and those that are simply no longer believed in? Postdlf 02:20, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • Seems like something that might lead to problems, though. The only NPOV distinction I can think of would be people who were verifiably real but were considered fairies, and I can't think of any examples of that. Merge and delete. anthony (see warning) 10:24, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Agreed. Delete. -- Beland 04:33, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Let me make a point here -- in the category Category:Fictional characters by nature there are many subcategories such as Category:Fictional ghosts, Category:Fictional dragons, Category:Fictional vampires and so forth... Now *all* ghosts are fictional, all dragons are fictional and all vampires are fictional... But at this point I don't think it's really so significant to nitpick about the usage of the word "Fictional" (Moreover I think it might help show that we are not talking about articles that refer to dragons, vampires, ghosts in general, but rather to individual characters). On the other hand in the case of fairies the distinction between fictional and non-fictional (mythological) ones tends to be much more fluid as not having a religion of their own to canonically define them, tended to make their characters much more influencable from works of fiction -- Puck may be mythological, but most people nowadays remember that of Shakespeare or of Gargoyles or of Gaiman or some other version.

And then there's the other point, that the "fairy" category is sometimes very fluid, e.g. in the case of Ariel or of Puck himself (fairies or sprites?) So in short -- okay delete for "fictional fairies", replace with a "Fairy and sprite characters" Aris Katsaris 22:28, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

  • I dispute the evidence above. I've seen some non-fictional dragons, and I'm not so sure about ghosts either. The only vampires I'm aware of are either bats or rabid. --ssd 02:48, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Disagree with deletion - we need to distinguish between "X comes from mythology and traditional folklore" and "X comes from a book/movie/TV show" (qv Category:Fictional deities). -Sean Curtin 19:14, Sep 5, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. At least keep the idea. Morgan le Fay comes from legend (and in some texts it is said that the "ignorant" people called her a goddess). Melusine is from legend. So is Alberich. So is the Tooth Fairy, in a way. But Tinkerbell and the Blue Fairy are purely fiction. That most people think of Puck in respect to Shakespeare's play is probably true. But most people also think of Hamlet or King Lear mostly in respect to Shakespeare's plays. Legends and old tales can be novelized or dramatized and folk of legend, both natural and supernatural, can be novelized or dramatized. But I don't like the word fairy. It is out of style and especially doesn't work well for similar supernatural entities outside of European culture, supernatural beings who are not quite the same as gods (though there is often overlap) and who are generally thought of in a mass. Unfortunately we don't have a good English word. Sprite is too fay, too twee. Daemones might do, referring to various mysterious women who appear at birth to bless and curse, to Rumpelstiltskin, to the little people of some native American legends, to the Gandharvas, Yakshas and Apsaras of India, to the satyrs and nymphs of Greece, to Valkyries who choose mortal lovers or are forced to take one when their swan garments are stolen, and to all the various giants and boggles and goblins and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night. But are the lesser Tuatha D Danaan of Irish legend and folklore to be counted as gods or daemones? The Greek Circe is called a goddess, but she is in fact what medieval romances would call a Fay. Classification of supernatural entities is very difficult, especially as in many tales part of the point is that they are mysterious entities, are just there. The little man met in the forest is not explained. But one does want to distinguish beings known from folklore and older legend (whether or not also used in fiction) from beings known to be created for fiction. There are edge cases. I don't believe use of the name Titania as a fairy name predates Shakespeare, but Titania obviously is the traditional fairy queen more normally called Mab in Elizabethan literature. But the "King of the Golden River" is a fictonal creation as is the goblin in Davy and the Goblin. The fairies in Lewis Carrol's Bruno and Sylvie are certainly fictional. Many of those who appear in Neil Gaiman's Sandman series are not in origin fictional, any more than are Shakespere or Caliph Haroun Al Rashid or the god Loki, if by fictional we mean invented for literary fiction. Jallan 18:18, 7 Sep 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)
This should be renamed. The characters don't exactly "belong" to minorities. They are minorities. anthony (see warning) 01:47, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think this should be included in the /unresolved debate on problematic aspects of classifying people. -- Beland 06:08, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think the word "minorities" here creates a series of potential paradoxes (e.g. looking at a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood of a predominantly Anglo city in a predominantly Hispanic state of the predominantly Anglo U.S. in the predominantly Hispanic Americas, who is the minority?) so the name is poorly chosen, but we have tons of lists of people by ethnicity (often masquerading as lists by nationality, but listing many people whose ethnicity matches the nation-state in question, but whose citizenship does not) so what's the problem with having categories, too, and I must be very tired to write a sentence this long, or reading too much German. -- Jmabel 07:26, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)



Problematic categorization of persons

See Wikipedia:Categorization of people.

11 Sept 2004

Category:Mysterious people

Hopelessly vague and subjective. Lunchboxhero 23:02, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)

  • It's POV. Who's to say what makes a person "mysterious?" What criteria were used? Most importantly, why is this distinction considered significant to begin with? Delete. --Ardonik.talk() 23:10, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)
  • It may be POV, but it's a nice collection of interesting people, ranging from clearly very mysterious to somewhat mysterious. I vote Keep'. --ssd 04:48, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Highly inappropriate as a classification. Postdlf 17:34, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Propose to approach this in a more wikipedia:categorization of people way. E.g.:
    • Give user:ssd (who created the category), and others, the opportunity to insert a workable definition of what mysterious people should be in this category;
      • I didn't create it. I just looked at it and thought at least three of them were certainly very mysterious,and possibly only notable because of their mysteriousness. Some others probably don't belong there. --ssd 05:03, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • Consider whether some kind of merging with List of borderline fictional characters (that contains several definitions of why people can be mysterious/partly fictional) would be useful. (--Francis Schonken 14:35, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC):)
      I don't think the mysterious people I saw were even slightly fictional. Not sure how that fits a merge. --ssd 05:03, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Please sign *after* your posts, Francis, not before them. And the reason we add the cfd notice, is exactly in order to give people the opportunity to give a reasoning for the category and why they feel the name is appropriate. This process currently taking place is the "opportunity" given. Aris Katsaris 14:40, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC) (I posted a reply to this comment on user talk:Aris Katsaris --Francis Schonken 19:13, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC))
  • Delete. --Gary D 19:18, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, I don't see any harm in keeping it. It's light hearted and interesting. -- KneeLess 22:42, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete, the name is vague to the point of being inane. -Sean Curtin 00:58, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)
  • Definite Keep. This is an interesting little clearing house for all sorts of anomalous individuals. Sjc 04:48, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. It is too vague at the moment, but I think that can be mostly cleared up by adding appropriate guidance to the category page. I would suggest this:
This category is for people about whom there is, or was for a long period, an unusual lack of knowledge as to their identity or immediate origins. It should not include people who simply have few facts known about their lives, as, for instance, because they are reclusive.
By these criteria, Pynchon and Salinger should be removed from the category. R. S. Shaw


10 Sept 2004

Category:Anderson; Category:Bauer; Category:Cole; Category:Collins; Category:Fischer; Category:Farmer; Category:Schmitt

Sorry, but these all seem completely stupid. The guy seems to want to make a different category for each single surname in the English language that there ever existed, or atleast ones that he can find more than two people sharing the name!! This is as much a definition of categorization scheme gone wild as one can hope to find. Please delete. Aris Katsaris 22:11, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC).

  • Delete all. Postdlf 22:38, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Wow this is an ambitious project! I wouldn't imagine it will end up being so useful, though. Delete. -Seth Mahoney 22:41, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Tempted to vote "keep", but for the headache of linking and listing similar-sounding and otherwies linked names. -Sean Curtin 01:47, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Quadell (talk) 04:44, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)
  • The Wikipedia is not a geneology or surname list; I'm surprised that the creator of these articles was User:Jerzy (one of the admins!) This stuff makes better sense in the Wiktionary, where the etymology and origin of specific names can be discussed. I don't envision people trying to find out who the world's most notable Smiths were by typing "Smith" in the search box.
    Delete. --Ardonik.talk() 00:26, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
  • (I am the guy adding the stupid cats.) It has been stated, i think repeatedly, that lists are suitable for things like countries, or states/provinces of countries, that have a definite number, whereas cats are suitable instead for things that expand freely; arguments against that should be directed to that policy, not to instances of compliance with it.
    • The scenario of seeing the famous Smiths together is not absurd, just backwards: you don't add them one at a time in order to see them together; you see them together to find the one you want. I was doing something finicky at List of people by name: Bra#Brady a night or two ago, and just by looking without any conscious thought, noticed that Jim Brady wasn't there. While looking more focusedly at the other four Bradys there, it occurred to me neither was his wife the activist, nor Diamond Jim. (A text search didn't turn up Monica Brady (because she's Sarah!), but i didn't waste time text-searching "Brady": this is a wiki, so i followed Jim to the gun-control lobby and found her proper name there. Diamond Jim is a well-targetted text search. Jim/James has an article, and the other two are red links.) My point is that looking at lists quickly does things for the brain that text searching can't. So don't think Museum of the Bradys, think disambiguation. If you look on a dab page for Monica Brady, you find Sarah Brady right quick. To the extent this is about pages to look at, those pages are dabs: what's Hegel's first name? Or Dalton's? (No matter which Dalton you have in mind.)
    • These cats are all responses to corresponding articles (often explicit dab pages but i think sometimes also doing etymology/origin stuff) that others have linked to, from pages in the List of people by name tree. I find these editors generally object to incorporating the list portion of, e.g. Anderson, into List of people by name: And#People named Anderson, with that link taking over the corresponding position in Anderson, and the additions and corrections to Andersons being made in that one place instead of having two lists that need to be either harmonized with each change or (more likely) cross-checked by every reader of them. My outlook is that therefore
      • A standardized link format is desirable. (And the recent spurt in my creation of children of Category:People by surname is the result of another editor's automated LoPbN traverser choking on the free-form versions of such links within LoPbN: when i came to a link in the exception list from the traverser, i standardized the link within LoPbN into a format linking to both the article and a newly created cat.)
      • A category is easier to update than a list:
        • Cat: Look at the bottom of the rendered page to see if it's included, and edit the same page to add the cat tag, just above the language links, if it isn't.
        • LoPbN list: Link to this pages "What links here" page, sequentially search the unalphabetized list there; if you don't find "List of people" there, link to List of people by name, hit End, within-page-click the first letter of the surname, then within-page-click that list's longest leading substring of the surname, which links you to the page where the surname belongs; find a longer leading substring in the ToC of that page and within-page-click on it, sequentially search for the adjacent names it belongs between (but of course it may be already there if you searched the "What links here" page poorly, or if it has the full 500 page-names listed), remember the two; back up and click the "[edit]" link for the section, find the two names again (being careful, because they're in the confusing piped-markup format now), and do your edit.
So it's the better way of raising the likelihood that a bio article gets linked into a single means (not 10,000 unlinked dab pages) of gathering all the bio articles.
    • IMO, you should vote "del" on this if you have a better way of facilitating the ultimate recognition of bio articles. But IMO it will be three to twelve months before we really have much idea of how to make the cat system work long term, and for now, you and i just have theories about it. (Not to mention that the software support for cats is not done. I assume that one upcoming feature is the ability to list not just the children of a cat, but other descendents as well, say three generations, or all of them. And that that is impossible until the system can hunt down cycles, e.g. the 3 cats including "category:computer terminology" that last week worked together to accomplish the trick of each being its own great-grandparent. Probably someone else found it by hand, as i did, but fixed it.
    • If, on the other hand, all you're sure about is that it's conceptually ugly, you should vote "keep" for now, and see what it accomplishes, and how ugly it looks when the cat software is complete. It can still be deleted later on, when its work is done, or when there is evidence that it's simply categories gone wild.
    • My maximum vision for it is influenced by the likelihood that Category:People will have the largest set of descendants that have as much structural similarity as they will. At present, the best guess is that LoPbN has about 25,000 names. IMO more than half of them are live links, and IMO there are another 10,000 to 100,000 bio articles that are not linked by LoPbN. (We know there are 385,000 articles -- tho i don't know whether that counts redirects.) That's significant enough a part of WP that i'd like to think that once we have advanced category support:
      • Tagging an article Jones or maybe even Surname:Jones will have the same effect as Category:Jones (if the cat already exists) or that plus editing Category:Jones and tagging it Category:People by surname (if it doesn't).
      • Having such a tag will
        • guarantee the system will add a (hand-editable) corresponding link to a dab named Jones if such a link doesn't already exist, and
        • suppress the display of "Jones" and display a single-character-sized stick-figure icon in the "Categories" box,
        • incidentally, also do things like suppressing rendering of redundant categories that lack some kind of override qualifier field.
      • Now that i've seen the technique of adding to categories (or their talk pages?) red links for non-existant articles that belong in the cat, i'm getting ready to admit that the end of the manual LoPbN is foreseeable, with various kinds of sublists of the grand list of existing bios' respective people automatically compiled, and even better places to list needed bios (and perhaps generate "shadow stubs", with just name and dates that are visible only when an editor tries to create a new page with the same name)).
      • That turns LoPbN into scaffolding for getting its current contents into the Cat system in an orderly and hopefully automated way. It may still be important to keep it usable in the interim (and make it moreso), by editors who are intimidtated by categories, and perhaps even maintain it through a few cycles of automatic replacement by an autmatically generated similar list.
    • Coming back to the current moment, the surname cats i created all have two or three people in them, but are straightforwardly expandable, in some cases to dozens, just by doing the clerical work of going to the appropriate LoPbN page and following each one's respective link to edit the tag into its corresponding article. Even if manual creation of Surname tags fails to catch on beyond my standardizing links that anyone adds in LoPbN to a surname-dab page, i think the logical extension of it is for bots and/or the future cat system to ensure every article linked from LoPbN or another List of People has at least one "real" cat tab, or a surname-based tag if there are more than 2 (or 20, or however many) sharing the surname, or a "Category:Rare surname" tag for the rest. With a stick-figure icon (maybe at the top rather than the bottom of the page) for those and any other descendants of Category:People, tagging by hand the residue of icon-less bios may become doable -- especially when pages in the town/city/county/state/country hierarchy are tagged with, say, a street-grid icon. And a "Random uncategorized page" link could focus that work further.
    • I'm not very committed to the surname tags, and i'm more interested in this as an object lesson on the Category:People problem. But i do think the opposition to these cats is shortsighted and premature, and i hope they are kept.
--Jerzy(t) 13:55, 2004 Sep 15 (UTC)
Could you synopsize your argument to three paragraphs or less? And please don't use so many bullets in discussions, because bullets are normally used here to indicate a new post, not subpoints of the same post. It makes it extremely confusing to know when each post ends and the other begins. Thank you. Aris Katsaris 01:07, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

(--Francis Schonken 14:02, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC):)

  • Added this as a topic to wikipedia:categorization of people (first and, thus far only, example of "problematic" "BC style").
  • My first thought: this is rather a "non-wikipedia classification" topic, but then I thought: hey, wait, all classification at wikipedia is in alphabetical order, so are all surnames. When people are in categories they should be there with a category tag that looks like "category:Topic|Surname, First Names" - then you get the names alphabetically by surname. Don't know whether there is a general problem of not correctly applying the "category" tag?
  • Seems to me a lot of work with only a marginal "bonus" effect to other, already existing systems for grouping people with the same surname at wikipedia.
  • Personally, I'd see disambiguation pages as the best place to do this kind of grouping of surnames. Note that some time ago I put quite some work in finding all Eponym, all First name and all Surname uses of Orlando included in wikipedia, and made nice separate lists about these on the Orlando disambiguation page. Well, someone removed these lists from the Orlando disambig page. Still think what I wanted to do there, more effective than doing this with categorization. Disambiguation pages have both the advantage of being expandable, when new articles are added to wikipedia that need disambiguation in this sense, and the advantage of attempting completeness in a list-like manner. See Singer (linking to Singer (disambiguation)) for an example of how this is starting to work out right. In short, I propose to mention disambiguation pages as a specific listing technique on Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes.
  • However, I have no opinion on whether the "people by surname" category, and its "surname" subcategories, should be kept or not ("people by eponym" subcategory should be kept by all means in my opinion, but could, as far as I'm concerned, be a direct subcategory of "people" category).

August 31

Category:People by political party

For a general discussion on how to apply categorization to people: see: Wikipedia:Categorization of people (and its discussion page).

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)

  • Keep. This is a logical subcategory of People, and there are many potentially useful subcategories. Not all members of a political party are "politicians"; I understand this term to refer only to people who seek public office, not just anyone affiliated with a given party. Each political party should have a category (or perhaps preferably a list-article) in which to put members of that party. There should be a standard name, such as, "Members of Country X Party Y". I think political party affiliation can easily go beyond simple membership into fuzzy, disputed, and controversial territory. Consider, for example, the question of membership in the US Communist Party in the 1950s, or membership in political parties advocating terrorism. In these situations, annotated lists are preferable. (By analogy to the unfortunately unresolved "Gay, lesbian or bisexual people" question.) Constructing category trees of people who have run for office on a given party ticket is a little easier and well-defined, thus suited for categories.
A logical tree should be built to connect the party-level articles to this category. Valid subcategories of this category might be things like "Politicians by political party" or the even more meta "Members of political parties by occupation" (if actors, writers, etc. get their own articles or subcategories) or "Members of political parties by country". The scope and organization of this category scheme should probably be discussed somewhere else, like a Wikiproject on this category's Talk page. After thinking about it for a little bit, it's not obvious to me what the best scheme is, and a quick poke around gives me the impression that the categorization of this genre is just beginning. In any case, it should be harmonized with Category:Political parties by nationality and Category:Politicians. -- Beland 07:08, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Category:People known in connection with misdeeds or punishment

For a general discussion on how to apply categorization to people: see: Wikipedia:Categorization of people (and its discussion page).

[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 (P.S.: or Category:Books—see listing below). 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)
  • Support keeping this one unless or until a better scheme comes along. Jerzy is doing good work. Yes, we can probably improve this even more, but deleting this category without improving it would be a step backward. anthony (see warning) 22:04, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
(OOPS just discovered this suggestion by Beland, after having created a new "wikipedia:" article: Wikipedia:Categorization of people- Beland, could you say what to do best now?) --Francis Schonken 13:24, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Cool; Wikipedia:Categorization of people is a good place. -- Beland 05:44, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • In the meantime, "Justice system people" might be more concise (though Pirates would be booted out; maybe they could join Defectors, who were apparently but not suprisingly not invited in the first place). But the long, flowing category names are so cool. -- Beland 06:50, 3 Sep 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)

August 30

User:Hemanshu - People-Related

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:

Category:19th century people

  • 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)

Category:Swedish royalty


August 22

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)
  • From listening to the BBC lately, "drug cheats" seems to be a perfectly mainstream British English phrase. I do agree that when it comes to identifying individual "drug cheats", a list (like List of athletes found guilty of using banned drugs) is a superior format, because annotations are important to qualify potentially fuzzy classifications. However, there should be a category along the lines of "Drugs in sport(s)", possibly a subcategory of "Cheating in sport(s)". So I vote to reorganize and delete both -- Beland 05:46, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

August 21

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)
  • Meta: I think this question is an integral part of the "Problematic categorization of persons" argument. This discussion should probably get moved to /unresolved. It seems to me we need to have a dedicated policy discussion on this topic, and we'll need to attract attention from the wider community somehow. -- Beland 01:11, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • I think the category is useful. I'd rename it Category:Secular Jewish philosophers and parallel it with Category:Religious Jewish philosophers. -- Jmabel 07:48, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)


August 19

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)
  • Merge into list and delete. List of suicides is better (because it is annotated and less intrusive for articles on people who only happen to have committed suicide), and this is redundant with that. As a side note, the list is very long; it would be nice if it were sorted by occupation or precise means of death if known, or something other than alphabetical. -- Beland 14:50, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. (I'll admit I'm one of the people who's been working on this category.) A year ago, there were people who wanted to delete every list article. One of the purposes of creating categories was to minimize the need for list pages. Now we have people saying we should eliminate categories in favor of lists. MK 17:33, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • I'd also like to remind people that if you're proposing to delete an article or category, you should add this information to the article itself so people are aware there is a debate occurring. I have done so with this article. MK 17:41, 5 Sep 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


  • Meta comment: I propose moving this discussion to /unresolved. There's a lot of overlap with the debate over GLB people, and we should probably come up with a uniform policy that covers all of these controversial people-related categorizations. -- Beland 07:12, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)


Category:Gay, lesbian or bisexual people

Detailed discussion

So right after we got rid of Category:Gay people, this popped up. I'm not going to restate the reasons as to why this should be deleted—see discussion below under both Category:Gay people and Category:African Americans. I will give one illustration of another reason why this category is so problematic...I noticed Marlon Brando was included. Not only have I never in my life heard anything about his homosexuality, but the article itself includes no such information (it doesn't even give a description of the one movie I know of in which he played a gay character). Despite the category author's attempt to limit the criteria for inclusion, it appears that this will just be another rumor dumping ground. But see especially the reasons given below. Postdlf 16:44, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Are you saying we should get rid of List of famous gay, lesbian or bisexual people? This category is almost identical to the list of "confirmed" gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. If someone is miscategorized, it's because someone incorrectly listed the person. Guanaco 18:51, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
No. Lists are definitely less problematic than categories. Lists can explain the rationale for inclusion (i.e., self-identification), while categories are unannotated and can't offer support or explanation for inclusion. Furthermore, lists don't function to brand the subject like a category does. Categories classify. We shouldn't be classifying people by their sexuality (or race), however proper it may be to list who has self-identified themselves a certain way. Postdlf 19:31, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Categories link to the individual articles which do explain why they are categorized in a certain way. Most of the listings at List of famous gay, lesbian or bisexual people have no explanation beyond "American painter" or "actress, bisexual". This category is no worse than the list. Guanaco 19:37, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
If the list is broken, then fix the list. The category is not needed. - UtherSRG 19:49, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The same argument could be used to delete all categories. Do you think we should do that? Guanaco 20:07, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Most categories are purely objective—it's rather clear who was or wasn't a U.S. Senator or whether something is a city in Ohio, and these are the most banal and uncontroversial ways of categorizing something or someone. Valid categories may have boundary issues as to who gets included, but when there are distinct policy concerns over such a category, as have been expressed on this page numerous times, then it is better not to have it and to include the information in article-form where it can be qualified and contextualized. Postdlf 20:28, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I agree that a list like this can be problematic, but I don't think that is necessarily reason to delete it. It is more a reason to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't get out of hand. I do think, however, that a category like this is more likely to be vandalized than, say, a category of baseball players. This isn't due to an inherent property of the categories in question, but due to people's immaturity, which again isn't a good reason to delete the category - we shouldn't give in to the immature whims of vandals. I also, as a gay person, don't think it is necessarily wrong or offensive, as stated below on this page, to classify people based on their sexuality. There can be good reasons for doing so. A category like this can be helpful to anyone researching gay history, social identity, gay and gender issues, queer studies, and so on. The reason a category like Category: Straight people isn't necessary, and the reason the existence of a category like the one being discussed here doesn't warrant one, is because in our society heterosexuality is the presumed default. Putting self-identified gay people (the category shouldn't be used to try to out people) in a category like this helps to identify them to those who are interested. -Seth Mahoney 20:20, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)

We classify people all the time, but whenever Wikipedia touches anything gay with a 10 foot stick it gets listed for deletion. There is no reason that we can't classify people by one category if we categorize them by any. Classifications only become non-neutral when they are false (I am of course discounting here the fact that, for example, we would use "Category:People who like pie" rather than "Category:People who are dumb enough to like pie"). Hyacinth 20:43, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree 100%. For the record, I vote keep. Another option is to keep this category but with no articles, only subcategories like Category:Gay activists, Category:Gay philosophers, Category:Gay historians, etc., and fill those categories with articles. -Seth Mahoney 20:52, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)
If their sexuality is a (significant?) part of their notoriety then I agree, but categorizing for categorizing's sake is not valid. Noting their sexuality in the article, and listing why in the full list suffices for the resst. And then those categories should go in Category:LGBT. - UtherSRG 22:55, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In case anyone is thinking that I'm some kind of jerk homophobe: I may be a jerk, but I'm an out bi man. - UtherSRG 23:09, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I don't think you're a jerk homophobe just because we don't so much agree. I'm more ambivalent about this category than I let on, but ultimately I think we should keep it. I also totally agree with what you said above, and there are many philosophers, filmmakers, writers, poets, and so on whose work is clearly and definately affected by their being gay. The reason I propose the subcategory idea is because there are fields of study in, say, queer literature and gay history. Hell, in some colleges you can major in queer studies, which covers all that and more. Basically, the idea is that if we subcategorize rigorously it will be obvious that we aren't just categorizing for the sake of categorizing. -Seth Mahoney 23:58, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)
Delete - hello? We just got rid of Category:Gay people for a reason. Are we now going to be categorising Category:Fat people? Or Category:Black people? Or Category:People who stand out. This is ridiculous. As said before, the list is sufficient - it shows a clearly defined list of people who identify as gay and are also famous, and those who are speculated as such. Not only is it offensive, but Category: Gay, lesbian and bisexual people is far too vague. -Erolos 23:19, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
"Fat people" has no standard definition. "Black people" has a different meaning in different places. And "people who stand out" is just POV nonsense. If the name of the category is the problem, it can easily be renamed. Guanaco 23:30, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
No the name is not the problem. The category is the problem. Gay is POV nonsense, then. People's sexuality cannot always be defined, in case you didn't know. It's a completely POV and no-encyclopedia-relevence category.-Erolos 23:33, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
My sexuality is very easily defined, as are many of the people who would be categorized. Thanks. Hyacinth 23:45, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Good for you. Some people's sexuality isn't. Those who sexuality is defined - who are famous and have publicly announced or let it be known what sexuality they are - are clearly listed with those notes in the List. The category is irrelevent. -Erolos 23:47, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
All things on wikipedia are hard to prove, most are vague. They just aren't gay, so they don't get listed for deletion. Hyacinth 23:55, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Why does it make a difference if it is in a category or a list? They are both equally managable, they serve pretty much the same purpose, they have pretty much the same titles. The only difference is that categories give the reader more access. -Seth Mahoney 23:58, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)
I disagree. There is a difference. The list stands alone and can have a rationalization for why the person is included in the list, right at their name. The category method puts the label at the top/bottom of the article, without any explanation. Any explanation would have to be in te article, but would not be able to be included in the category's page, which become the replacement for the list. - UtherSRG 01:53, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I think that a list gives editors (like me) an excuse to not bother rationalizing the inclusion in the main article itself. Categories (all categories) should be rationalized in the article, or we should expect that someone will come along and remove the category tag in question. For example, if I add someone to Category:Painters the article should already have some mention of the new member's status as a painter, or I should add it. Same with Category:Gay, lesbian or bisexual people. Just wondering, is your main issue with people being added to the list who aren't clearly gay, lesbian, or bisexual? -Seth Mahoney 01:59, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
After considering it for all the three seconds it took my edit to save, it seems to me that it is also better to have the article in a category than on a list, because that way it is more obvious to every reader of the article that it is included in a list, and thus the inclusion is more open for debate. Consider: scroll to the bottom of the page and look at the categories, or scroll through the sometimes several pages of "what links here" articles. -Seth Mahoney 02:02, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
Why should you force a person to care about the characteristic of a person that's not significant enough to warrant mention in the primary article itself? Aris Katsaris 03:11, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I never said anything about forcing anyone to do anything. What I said was that we shouldn't include people in Category:Gay, lesbian or bisexual people when it isn't listed in the article, or we should edit the article so that an explanation is included before categorization. In other words, for the people it would be appropriate to include in this category, their sexuality does warrant mention in the article. -Seth Mahoney 07:54, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
If a person's sexuality is not easily defined, the person won't be listed as "gay, lesbian or bisexual". It's very simple and NPOV. If we were to list and/or categorize Adolf Hitler as gay, that would be biased. He could, however, be in a "People of questioned sexual orientation" or similar category. You have not given any reason why the category is inherently POV except that "gay is POV nonsense". Guanaco 00:01, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC) (3 edit conflicts)
This category is inherently POV because nobody has proposed creating a category of "Straight People", it therefore is used as a sort of "beacon" where gayness is signified as categorizing a person but straightness not so. It's also inherently POV because it groups bisexuals alongside gay people. It's also rude because it categorizes people by something belonging in their *personal sphere* and therefore it would be like having a "Presumably virgin people" or "People that have claimed participation in orgies" categories: it reduces Wikipedia to the kind of gossip that only tabloid rags care about. Categorizing a person by the career that made him famous is one thing, categorizing him by his personal life seems quite another. If there was a category about "Gay-rights activists" or something like that, meaning the ones who've made it part of their lives to strive for gay rights, that'd be a different thing: because then you'd be moving to the political sphere of the issue, not just the gossipy sphere.Aris Katsaris 03:11, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
It is not a POV category, inherently or otherwise, because being gay, unlike being straight, places the gay person in a cultural minority, by default in a subculture. It is no more POV than a category of any other subculture would be. Further, as far as it becoming a rumor mill goes, we've already covered that above. -Seth Mahoney 07:54, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
Subculture? You are being too modern-day Westerner about this. What about e.g. ancient Greeks who may have had relationships with both genders because it was what their culture suggested as the norm, and we have no way of knowing whether they were "gay" or "bisexual" by our current attitudes about these things -- aka as a natural inclination? And either way it was no "subculture" back then. Which ones would you be listing as "gay and bisexual"? Aris Katsaris 15:07, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Actually, I'm not being too anything. You're presuming I'm being too modern-day Westerner. I wouldn't argue for including, say, Socrates in the category, or many other historical figures, for two reasons: one, sexuality has been defined differently in different eras, and two: it can be difficult to find good, reliable information on individuals' sexual practices for most of recorded history. What I am arguing for is inclusion of those people who identify or identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual in a specific category for those who are interested. -Seth Mahoney 22:01, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

The basic objections are:

  • It is to hard to figure out if people are gay
    • Thus the list is hard to create and make accurate
  • It is not neutral to point out that people are gay
    • Because being called gay is insulting, and thus non-neutral
    • Because gay doesn't mean anything/Because no one really is gay

Am I close or way off here? Hyacinth 00:03, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The distinctions of a list versus a category. Whether someones sexuality is a part of their notoriety, or just another facet of their being. - UtherSRG 01:53, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Yes. Please reread the comments above (and below) on why categories are different than lists, particularly in the context of an individual's race or sexual orientation. It is very different to describe a supposed trait of someone than to classify them by that trait. Articles explain and describe. Categories merely classify. Postdlf 02:00, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
This cuts to the heart of it: lists are pseudo-articles, but categories are meta-text inserted into articles. I vote to merge and delete, for reasons noted in the other discussion. If a self-avowed heterosexual is revealed to have had one or more same-sex sexual experiences, do we add this category to their article despite their not being gay or bi? If we add the person to the list, we can explain in the list that they self-identified as heterosexual despite their apparent bisexuality. A category isn't equipped to do that; it can only flag a person up as belonging to that category or people. Disputes like this are why lists and categories need to remain separate sorting systems. -Sean Curtin 05:36, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Definitely delete --- there's no category called "Straight people", and therefore there should be no category called "Gay People" and definitely no category that says "Gay and bisexual" as if the categories belong together more than "Bisexual and straight" people do. Categories impose themselves upon the articles in a way that lists do not. If a list uses a trivial criterion then nobody minds because no one will care to read the list either way --- but a category *imposes* itself on the article in an intrusive rude way that says "This is one of the most important things you should know about the person in question". *NO*. The presence of such a category is offensive. DELETE. Aris Katsaris 02:58, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)


Do you think we should have a list of straight people? I believe "list of heterosexuals" or something similar was deleted on VfD a while back. Guanaco 03:43, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Delete. The category is too broad to be meaningful, and it could attract attention to a person for the wrong reason. For instance Bjorn Lomborg happens to be gay but he is known for is environmental views, not for his sexual orientation. : Vincent 06:27, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Why should being gay be "the wrong reason"? What if, for example, someone is researching gay people with particular environmental views? Its perfectly plausable, and something that including a category for gay people would facilitate. And how is this category more broad than, say, Category:1949 books? Or, say, Category:Culture? -Seth Mahoney 07:49, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
It's the difference between causal and accidental co-incidence. To expand my example, Bjorn Lomborg's sexual orientation has nothing to do with his environmental views. BL's homosexuality is as relevant to the world as my brother-in-law's and my brother-in-law Claude is not famous. On the other hand, BL's environmental views are well known and influence the world more than do Claude's (or mine for that matter). Therefore BL is included in Wikipedia on the strength of his environmental, which matter to the world, and not on the strength of his gayness, which does not matter to the world any more than does Claude's, or than does my own heterosexuality. In Lomborg, there is only an accidental relationship between his sexual orientation and his environmental views, not a causal one.
On the other hand, you could have a category that links two apparently accidental attributes. For example, the British mathematician and computer theorist Alan Turing could be included in a category called "notable people persecuted for being gay" because he lost his government post and his security clearance when his sexual orientation became known. In contrast, Lomborg lives in a time and place that views sexual orientation as irrelevant to one's professional qualification, and Alan Turing did not. In this case Alan Turing's sexual orientation contributed to his fame because it is, justifiably, a cause celebre for gay activism. Vincent 08:18, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Right, but you still haven't answered my main question: why is looking up someone for being gay the wrong reason to look them up? It may not be obviously connected to the main reason for the person's celebrity, but who are we to judge the way people may or may not want to look up their information? We are, on the other hand, people who should be facilitating every reasonable route we can, and it is perfectly reasonable to believe that someone will come along, click on Category:Gay, lesbian or bisexual people and browse the list, maybe learning something new in the process. I have heard no real reason, other than a POV against categorizing people as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, for preventing this sort of browsing. For the record, the BL article states that he is openly gay under a section titled "Trivia" - how is this fundamentally different from a link on the bottom of the page saying "Gay, lesbian or bisexual people" - its not justified, its just text included in the article, and people can still find the article on an environmentalist who happens to be gay through that text. -Seth Mahoney 20:19, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
I did answer it: the category is too broad. Classfiying Lomborg within a Gay People category is wrong because 1) the Gay People category is too broad and 2) Lomborg is not famous for being gay. By your argument we should create a "Blond People" category. After all, Lomborg is a fine example of a blond man, and many many people are very attracted to blond hair. It would be interesting for them to read a list of people who are blond and to come to discover Lomborg on it, thus finding an example of a blond person who isn't dumb. Right? Vincent 04:39, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Actually, you haven't answered it. You made a value judgement: "attracting attention to someone for being gay is the wrong reason to attract attention", with no explanation attached. You then tried to justify that statement by saying that the Gay, etc. people category is too broad, but never explained why it is more broad than, say, Category:Culture. You then further justified it by saying that Lomborg, for example, is not famous for being gay, though you don't seem to mind a brief mention that he is openly gay in his article, with no further explanation or justification in the article for its inclusion. You also haven't voiced any objections to, say, Category:1932 books, though I'd wager none of the books in that category are famous for having been published in 1932. You then suggested that by my reasoning we should create a category for all blond people (which I don't really have an opinion on one way or the other - if someone wants to do it, they're welcome to), explaining that many people are attracted to people with blond hair and might be interested in reading about blond people, but this has nothing to do with my reasoning, which is centered around the fact that, unlike blond people, gay people and gay culture are an object of study. That someone can take classes on gay culture and gay identity, that someone can even major in the field, suggests (to me, at least) that such a category is useful for an encyclopedia. -Seth Mahoney 21:57, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)
(sigh) I did answer the objection and your problem is that you assume the word wrong implies a moral judgment when it simply means a factual evaluation. In an encyclopedia, we list people because knowledge of them matters to the world, therefore Lomborg can be listed as an environmental activist because his environmental views matter to the world, while he should not be listed as a gay person because his gayness is irrelevant to the world. In Scandinavia and Canada, the battle for gay rights has been won. Gays are accepted, they're normal everyday people, they're dull even, and their sex lives don't matter anymore outside their own bedrooms. On the other hand, Lomborg's gayness is relevant to him, so it can be mentioned in an article about HIM. So including him in a list on the basis of his sexual orientation is wrong, incorrect, and meaningless.
Now Books published in 1932 is in fact encyclopedic. The publishing date of a book is an important and defining characteristic of a literary work. Listing books in terms of date helps analyze their influence on one another. The category might be incomplete in which case it needs expanding, not deleting.
Lastly, blonds. Wot? Not a topic of study? I'm sure that many papers have been written on hair colour and that companies such as L'Oreal have sponsored numerous studies on blond hair and how people perceive blond hair. That still doesn't justify a blond category.
A last thought on "wrong". An encyclopedia seeks to turn raw data into meaningful information by establishing relevant relationships between facts. When the relationship is accidental (co-incidental, non-causal) it should be ignored. Vincent 05:01, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Delete. I'm happy with a category that is something to do with gay topics, but this one is too much of a mixed bag. Even then it should only be used on articles where that person is predominantly connect with gay issues, not just because they happen to be gay. If you add too many parenthetical categories to an article, they stop being useful. -- Solipsist 07:32, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Useful information people will want to have. We only need list uncontroversial cases, as we do now. VV 22:23, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Lists not only allow for explanations, they acknowledge different subsections with varying degrees of certainty or significance. For a much narrower subset of cases than is currently included, you could use categories such as "Queer culture" or "Queer historical figures" -- people who were actively involved in queer activist culture in their era, rather than anyone who publicly acknowledged their sexuality. +sj+ 02:17, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In order to make a GLB People (and expanding to consider transgendered and intersex people, for which this will no doubt come up for as well) category of manageable size and reasonably accurate, a variety of subcategories would need to be created. Each of the following might need to be created for each letter in GLBTI:

  • People who publicly and primarily self-identify as GLBTI
  • People who incidentally self-identify as GLBTI
  • People who consider their sexuality unclassifiable
  • People who are suspected of being GLBTI but we aren't sure
  • People who are commonly thought to be GLBTI but who aren't
  • People who engage in same-sex sexual behavior but don't self-identify as GLBTI
  • People who are GLBTI activists, writers, filmmakers, etc. and GLBTI themselves
  • People who are GLBTI activists, writers, filmmakers, etc but not GLBTI themselves
  • People who are GLB but don't know it yet (har, har)
  • People who are still in the closet (har, har, har)
  • Etc.

Obviously there's a lot of overlap there. I think it'd be easier to manage these distinctions in list format, because then you can annotate each entry with whatever information is necessary from giving the wrong impression and thus unnecessarily causing offense and POV problems. Though it might be a little less machine-readable. And yeah, for people who only happen to be gay, it's a little odd to have the category link at the bottom of their bios. Anyone can check the "What links here" page. Backreferences to the lists might be useful for articles on subject that are primarily LBGTI-related. One way to do this is when someone is mentioned as being a "gay activist", those words could be linked to the appropriate list or category of lists. Another inobtrusive way is to add a "See also" link. This would put the backreference closer to the Categories box, which is good. (We don't want to obscure associations with LBGTI topics, as compared with other topics, just because the former are too complex to handle with categories.)

I disagree that the lack of a category or list of straight people is a good objection. Anyone who thinks there should be one for balance is invited to create one. Personally, I don't think that being straight, unto itself, is a very remarkable fact, and the list will be very unwieldy, but it's possible to do. Consider that we have the List of famous left-handed people, but no particular list of right-handed people. Big deal.

Whether or not someone is GLBTI, by most reasonable measures, is an ascertainable fact, at least as much as most other historical and personal facts are ascertainable. Having a list of GLBTI people, by whatever measure, is critical to debating GLBTI issues in the political realm, for discussing stereotypes and culture, and topical lists by field and whatnot are very useful for specialized research. Choosing a particular measure of GLBTI-ness and applying that to everyone might be considered to endorse a particular POV, but creating lists that incorporate multiple measures (including self-identification or non-identification) is sufficiently NPOV in my view.

As for glomming together gay, lesbian, and bisexual, well...they are very closely related topics, and most people interested in looking at a list of one are also interested in looking at a list of the others, possibly in a unified fashion. I think the primary consideration here is ease of use. I think that's a good enough justification for any small amount of offense which might be generated by making an association which most pro-GLB groups make all the time.

But that is not the issue under consideration here; we can talk about the existing lists under Category:LGBT somewhere else.

So for now I'll just vote to delete and merge into annotated list(s).

  • Delete. --Gary D 23:17, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Jeez, that was a lot to read through. I'm with Hyacinth and Seth Mahoney on this one. Lists are gradually being converted to categories; not least because they're more useful. I'm very much in favor of keeping it. Oh, and what Guanaco said… ;o) Keep — OwenBlacker 23:47, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. I find it to be a very pertinent category. Mike H 19:38, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (talk)]] 23:04, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Votes

Vote

Delete (11): Postdlf, UtherSRG, Erolos, Aris Katsaris, Gtrmp(Sean Curtin), Vfp15(Vincent), Solipsist, Sj, Beland, Gary D, Neutrality

Keep (9): Guanaco, Hyacinth, VV, Seth Mahoney, Owen Blacker, Mike H, Bearcat, Bodnotbod (no comment), Francis Schonken



Validity of this particular vote challenged by Francis

Exec. Summary:
Francis does not question Wikipedia votes in general, only this particular vote, because it is tainted in several ways, which are explained in this subsection

I suppose the argument above somewhere boils down to two arguments:

  • General discussion on how to make use of categories most efficiently
Maybe it would be better to stop using delicate subjects like GLB as the theatre of such battles. Surely Wikipedia has enough "rooms" that are more fit for treating the "how to improve use of categories" subject more efficiently, and more to the interest of everybody using categories. And there is work to be done: "categories" as such is as yet not a "stable" device, in the sense that in a Wikipedia/Printed Encyclopedia comparison it has few examples for attaching oneself to, if considering the more elaborate possibilities of WIKI techniques, that are so much more than a reflection of the possibilties of former printed examples. In spite of what some use as a reference in the discussion above (namely the instructions published by Wikipedia regarding the use of categories), I think the "GLB people category" discussion shows that there is still a lot to be said about how categories are to be used most efficiently: but please, if having no natural interest in GLB topics as such move over to other places where to discuss this.
  • Whether or not to allow people having knowledge about GLB topics to use the techniques provided by Wikipedia (categories, lists, etc...) most fittingly for organising the knowledge base contained in Wikipedia about these topics.
In other words: you don't let Microsoft organise the next Linux convention.

The fact that information should be "correct" and that Wikipedia instructions should be applied "correctly" is not considered by me as an "argument" in the discussion whether or not the category should exist. Correctness is just plain common sense, but the information resulting from that part of the discussion can in my eyes only be used to improve the "GLB people category", not to abolish it ("renaming" the category COULD be argued to be such improvement, but most "contra"'s seemingly only use the renaming argument in order to get rid of the category in another way, e.g. by making it totally ineffective). I can see no "incorrectness" w.r.t. present Wikipedia rules governing categories in having a "GLB people category", and assigning people like Duncan Grant to such category. Neither an exclusively "gay" nor a "bisexual" category would fit this person without discussion, GLB is perfect (and while he was no T, better than GLBT or any other larger category). If Wikipedia prescriptions re. categories are updated, or become more detailed, I'd be happy to oblige.

The vote above proves few things in my view: only that there are more straight people than GLB people (was proof needed?) and that the inconsistencies regarding the present use of categories in Wikipedia are fought over on the back of GLB people.

  • PS1: re-reading the whole topic (and the Category:Gay discussion below), I start to fear something worse. Some people just don't want to be reminded of some things, like e.g. that the Bayreuth Festival is linked to Nazism. The present article only mentions "The Festival was closed during World War II" which is not true, except if you want to exclude notions about Richard Wagner descendants serving tea to high Nazi officials during the war-year Bayreuth Festivals, and cleanse e.g. Richard Strauss from all Nazi involvement. Sorry for reminding, Wikipedia is about scholar-like NPOV. Not including information because somebody might not be "pleased" knowing his favourite author has a certain label, etc... does not help in an Encyclopedia-like undertaking. Why is Lytton Strachey not labelled as a GLB in Wikipedia? I simply can't swallow that: there is some vaguish sentence indicating that his "private life is described in a book"... I fear that people that make no secret of wanting to fight any gay-related category (not in a constructive way like how can we make use of categories better regarding GLB-related topics, but in a destructive way, stating that every new category in this sense will be put up for deletion), that there maybe will not be much of another choice than to put such people up for Wikipedia ban. If homosexuality has a negative connotation in your head, this has nothing to do with people that are glad to be gay. And whether "glad" or "disappointed", this has nothing to do with NPOV.
  • PS2: I intend to categorise Harold Nicolson as "GLB people", without further changing the article itself (which does not refer in any way to his GLB nature). I feel not needing to explain on that. Only that people reading the Orlando: A Biography article and clicking through to Harold Nicolson might be interested to have this information (even if they didn't read the Violet Trefusis article that gives a few details on Harold Nicolson's GLB nature, including a book reference - similar info can be found in the Vita Sackville-West article, clickable from the Harold Nicolson article).
  • PS3: Other way of looking at the votes:

I'm afraid the original vote above is of few value, as I already suggested above. There is another reason why this particular vote should not be deemed to be valid in my opinion, and that is that the discussion is supposed to be about whether or not the GLB category should be kept or deleted (that is the title of the discussion topic). The discussion above is for many of the discutants about whether or not categories can be used for GLB related topics in general. However, some people have voted delete because they rather want to do some minor or major adaptations to the "tree" of transgender related categories. Others because they don't want ANY persons categorised in GLB-like categories, not now, not ever (in fact the initiator of putting up for deletion belongs, according to his own words, to this group). In a way such initiative is misguiding: there should be a general discussion first whether or not categorizing can be used for GLB-kind topics. This might attract other people, that have an opinion on whether or not this should be possible IN GENERAL, but would not join in on a discussion of how the "category tree" is organised in detail. Anyway how that "category tree" is organised is for me a first responsibility of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Sexology and Sexuality people, and is also best not hampered by trying to cut of branches individually as separate "categories for deletion". (No problem to have the whole put up for public scrutiny at regular intervals!)

My impression is that "GLB people" is chosen out of 12 LGBT categories, as this is the most commonly and successfully used in Wikipedia articles, and that giving in on this one is seen by some as only a first step to do away with LGBT and all other subcategories too. There MIGHT be a problem whether or not a category can be used if by definition not every Wikipedia article can be disambiguated to belong to this category or not. In my eyes there is none such problem, if a relevant group can be designated IN the category. But I've seen no discussion about that. And there are many more discussion points mentioned above that have to be sorted out, before I would allow the GLBT (sub)categories to be put out for somebody taking his opinion as the Wikipedia prescription. In other words: if putting away GLB category on such shallow grounds, the day after I start BLG category, without taking part in the deletion discussion over that article, and a month later GBL category, and by the time I ran out of every combination, I'm sure to have found something new. I MEAN: I rather avoid nastiness, I would do such thing only if we keep avoiding the fundamental discussions regarding when *exactly* categories can be used and when they can't.

(new proposed) Vote N 1

I think that the results of this vote N 1 are not useable either, because this was not the published topic of this discussion, and not all made clear what their stand on this point is:

People who think that categories can by definition not be used for designation of GLB people (under whatever category name):

  • NO CATEGORIES CAN BE USED: Postdlf, UtherSRG, Aris Katsaris, Gtrmp(Sean Curtin) (4)
  • AT LEAST SOME CATEGORIES CAN BE USED: Erolos, Vfp15(Vincent), Solipsist, Sj, Beland, Guanaco, Hyacinth, VV, Seth Mahoney, Owen Blacker, Mike H, Bearcat, Bodnotbod (no comment), Francis Schonken (14)

(new proposed) Vote N 2

Under the (presently not really confirmed) supposition that Vote N 1 would give the same result, if following a broader discussion, I suppose the next step would be to have a vote on name suggestions for categories in the GLBT department. Of course still under the same disclaimer that this was not the announced topic, so no validity to this vote either up till now:

  • A combination of categories in the sense of: People who publicly and primarily self-identify as GLBTI; People who incidentally self-identify as GLBTI; People who consider their sexuality unclassifiable; People who are suspected of being GLBTI but we aren't sure; People who are commonly thought to be GLBTI but who aren't; People who engage in same-sex sexual behavior but don't self-identify as GLBTI; People who are GLBTI activists, writers, filmmakers, etc. and GLBTI themselves; People who are GLBTI activists, writers, filmmakers, etc but not GLBTI themselves; People who are GLB but don't know it yet; People who are still in the closet; Etc... - UP TILL NOW: 1 vote (Beland)
  • A combination of categories in the sense of: Category:Famous people who identify as homosexual', 'Category:Famous people who identify as heterosexual', 'Category:Famous people who identify as bisexual', 'Category:Famous people who do not define their sexuality', etc... - UP TILL NOW: 1 vote (Erolos)
  • Categories in the sense of: "Queer culture" or "Queer historical figures" - UP TILL NOW: 1 vote (Sj)
  • Categories in the sense of: "notable people persecuted for being gay" - UP TILL NOW: 1 vote (Vincent)
  • Keep "GLB people" - UP TILL NOW: 9 votes (Guanaco, Hyacinth, VV, Seth Mahoney, Owen Blacker, Mike H, Bearcat, Bodnotbod, Francis Schonken)
  • Keep "GLB people", and add SUBcategories in the sense of: "Category:Gay activists", "Category:Gay philosophers", "Category:Gay historians" - Does anyone really sport this now, or was it just an intermediate suggestion?

(New, more polite version (sorry for the distress I may have caused) --Francis Schonken 07:22, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC))

Why does wikipedia discriminate against minorities?

This makes no sense to me.

Why, when this category was voted for deletion does it remain? It might be a close margin, but there is still a majority vote. Putting this in 'unresolved' allows the Keep to win. Where is the sense in this? If it was won marginally by Keep I'd understand. It is not - it is won marginally by Delete. Therefore, whether or not it is unresolved, the category should be (temporarily) removed. Who gives Francis Schonken the right to decide that the votes were 'tainted'? Consensus was that it should be deleted.

I'm gay, and I find the inclusion of this category offensive. Reasons above constantly state the reasons why - the inclusion of an article in this category is not something that will always be explained. It serves only to tempt vandalism as is so much harder to reverse this vandalism than in a clearly defined list. At this moment the category includes Wanda, a place, and various normal heterosexual people, and doesn't include various other homosexual people.

If this category is to remain, in order for NPOV to be maintained, a Category:Straight people MUST be created and managed. If not, the GLB people category will always remain POV. As will other categories that single out minorities simply because for many people a 'normal' person exists - and is a straight white American male.

I've said before that it would be better to have clearly defined categories - Category:Famous people who identify as homosexual, Category:Famous people who identify as heterosexual, Category:Famous people who identify as bisexual, Category:Famous people who do not define their sexuality - at least there the explanation is somewhat done in the names of the categories. Category:GLB people is too vague and too assuming.

I can't fight this without other people recognising the inherent POV of this category and that is unnacceptable to have a vote where the result is utterly ignored, and will leave wikipedia permanently if nobody tries to recognise that the category must be modified if it continues to exist.

-Erolos

For people interested in this topic, I put a communication about it on User talk:Erolos --Francis Schonken 08:50, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

August 12

Category:Gay icons

Stereotyping is not encyclopedic. - UtherSRG 21:30, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • Delete. This is a good illustration of why categories need to be managed according to strict criteria. First, the name is confusing, because while the content is supposed cultural icons of gay people, it could easily be read instead as "icons that are gay." Second, the status of being a gay icon is not something that can really be verified (however little argument the inclusion of Judy Garland and Madonna would get). Third, being a gay icon is not necessarily anything inherent about the subjects of these articles—it is about how others have possibly perceived them rather than something integral to the subjects themselves. There is valid information on this subject, but it should be included in an article's text as "Some consider _____ a "gay icon", because..." This is an inappropriate use of the unannotated classifications that are categories. Postdlf 21:43, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete, for all of Postdlf's reasons. --Gary D 22:03, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Ditto. - UtherSRG 22:30, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • I was going to oppose, as I think it's quite an important aspect of "gay culture" who we idolise and who we don't, but the arguments above are relatively persuasive, so I can be convinced… — OwenBlacker 11:30, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)
    • Ok. Here's more. *grins* Not all gay people idolize "gay icons". Not all gay people are in "gay culture". Not all people in the gay community (where gay culture is more relevant vice outside of the community) subscribe to all aspects of gay culture, including idolizing "gay icons". The category is inherently POV - it doesn't give recognition to these facts, which aids in stereotyping all gay people as idolizing these people. It would be more apprpriate to make note of each person's impact on gay culture in the individual articles. Some are seen more as icons for their political work, some for being associated with Judy Garland, etc. - UtherSRG 11:45, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
      • I can see your point completely (pticly as a non-scene, alternative culture kinda guy), but just because I myself don't idolise Judy Garland doesn't mean she's not a gay idol. There's shitloads of gay culture to which I don't subscribe (the hellhole that is G-A-Y being but one part of it), but that doesn't mean that that culture doesn't not exist. Just because some readers don't understand the nature of subcultures and stereotypes doesn't mean articles and categories can't be accurate and NPOV. I'm still minded to vote keep, I think. — OwenBlacker 23:52, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)
  • Convert. It's useful to have in one place a list of all things which some people consider to be gay icons. But given the controversial nature of the issue, perhaps a unifying article would be better than a category structure. -- Beland 02:53, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Convert/merge into a list and delete. -Sean Curtin 06:56, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Gay icon article accomplishes what this Cat wants to do. Davodd 21:05, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

Category:Gay icons

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the category above. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the category's talk page (if any). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was no consensus (keep) --Kbdank71 14:13, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Current totals D-11 K-8 L/d-7 (for those interested) 11:27, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

The category is contentious and superfluous at best. There is no definitive way, in my opinion, to concretely qualify one as a "gay icon". As the category stands now, there are over 200 biographical articles placed under this category, nearly all of which have little-to-nothing to do with the gay community. This category should be deleted and the articles should not be moved into any of the parent categories if they are not there already. Hall Monitor 19:21, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Previous CFDs here (no consensus from 2004 August 12 listing, keep from 2004 October 17 listing). -- Rick Block (talk) 16:56, July 30, 2005 (UTC)
Comment: I'm beginning to wonder if maybe it would be worthwhile to limit the number of times per four month period or per year or whatever a category or article can be nominated for deletion. It seems like every other week this category or some other LGBT-related category is nominated. (This isn't a criticism of your comments or nomination, Hall Monitor, just an observation and a little speculation.) -Seth Mahoney 19:30, July 29, 2005 (UTC)
You might want to drop by Wikipedia:Vfd renomination limits. -Splash 20:18, 29 July 2005 (UTC) fixed red link ∞Who?¿? 21:45, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
There was a proposal along these lines with regard to the GNAA article being nominated for deletion 6 times, but I do not believe a consensus was ever achieved. Hall Monitor 21:49, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • There were several strong objections to any strict limit, because it would allow for gaming the system either way around. It is a rare case for an article to be re-nominated, and those that are tend to be well influenced by the previous case. Radiant_>|< 09:23, July 30, 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment I am inclined to agree that a portion of the articles may not belong, however, I do think that some of the biographies of those who support gay/lesbian rights should be kept in this cat, because they are noted for being "gay icons". Assuming that's what it means. ∞Who?¿? 21:45, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and cleanup I think there is a clear definition of what a gay icon is, and if the ones can be weeded out that are clearly not, it would be fine. Remember, mis-categorization is not a category problem. ∞Who?¿? 11:27, 3 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete unless there is a way to define what qualifies one as a "gay icon". Hall Monitor 21:49, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. First of all, the fact this category has appeared on Rowan Atkinson, Ashanti (singer) and many other non-gay icon-related articles prompted me to get involved in cleaning it up. You remove about 10, and another 20 get added. Some are backed up, but the category simply isn't needed. I think this should go. Cleaning it up has been tried by several people; We all failed. Hedley 21:54, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep While the category is somewhat subjective, there are some clear gay icons, people who owe the success or longevity of their careers in large part to gays and lesbians (and they will admit it - Cher, Madonna, etc.) Sure there are some names that don't belong, but those can be trimmed. I've trimmed some of them myself. To delete all this work while keeping so many other worthless categories seems strange to me. --JamesB3 23:09, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and cleanup The category isn't unnecessary, just overpopulated. Most of the articles in this category do not actually state anything about their being a gay icon, and, as a result, shouldn't be there. It should be a rule for this category: Do not include articles that contain nothing about their iconic status in this category. (I apologise for the overuse of 'category' here.) --JB Adder | Talk 23:59, July 29, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete overly arbitrary. A well annotated list would be far more useful. - SimonP 00:55, July 30, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete Category is clearly a matter of opinion, not fact, so it breaches the neutrality rule. Osomec 02:26, 30 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as arbitrary, possibly listify. Radiant_>|< 09:23, July 30, 2005 (UTC)
  • keep Far more useful than yet another stupid, ugly unusable list. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 16:30, 30 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete (perhaps relistify) - Fails to satisfy (from Wikipedia:Categorization) If you go to the article from the category, will it be obvious why it's there? Is the category subject prominently discussed in the article?. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:56, July 30, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, possibly listify (a list can provide more context). Pavel Vozenilek 18:06, 30 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, the category is too "fuzzy" and not based in fact. —RaD Man (talk) 17:41, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Arbitrary. It's better to use a list where the place of each "gay icon" in the gay subculture can be motivated, exemplified and put in some kind of context. Uppland 19:41, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. POV, arbitrary. - Aaron Hill 00:28, August 1, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete Inherently POV and unverifiable. Giving it more time, just means ever more celebs will be added to it; and worse it sets a precident for every "Group X" to have "Category:Group X Icons". --rob 03:56, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and cleanup Lots of people have been labeled one, and that labeling is sure verifiable, too. -- AlexR 10:09, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. None of the comments I've seen seem to justify the need for a category, that could not be served by having a list. To that end, I added all the names from this category to Gay icon and renamed the article List of gay icons. I did this because I think people put a fair amount of work into making the category, and I don't like deleting peoples' work if it has the potential to become something worthwhile. All the articles can be linked by mentioning that the person is a Gay icon. I think this article is similar to Films that have been considered the greatest ever. Lists and articles about POV classifications can be made into something legit. I'm skeptical that the same can be done with a category. Too much explanation is needed for it to be just a category tag. It is important to explain why and how someone is considered a gay icon and include a credible source. That can be done with a link within text. -- Samuel Wantman 11:20, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. As per my votes in the previous CFD's. BlankVerse ∅ 13:00, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I see no reason to delete: it doesn't seem POV to me unless there is controversy over individual gay icon status, which can be easily resolved by removal. However, it's not hard to verify (check gay press) to determine what is and isn't considered a gay icon. Much nicer than a nasty old list. Leave the Gay icon page for discussion of the itneresting phenomena of gay icons. Axon (talk|contribs) 14:45, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Listify per Samuel Wantman. Jonathunder 18:57, 2005 August 1 (UTC)
  • Keep. There are some pages that definitely belong in the category, so I don't see it as inherently POV. Individual article's categorization might be, but they should be explained in the articles like any other categorization. --Mairi 21:43, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
And while we are at it, can we have a vote to delete the word listify? Or rather, in Wikipedia language, should we votify the issue by listifying opinions to enable use to decisionify the issue and communify the information those who implementify the decision? FearÉIREANN\(caint) 00:47, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
You don't have to be gay to be a gay icon. Many gay icons are straight (Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, etc.) --JamesB3 06:34, 4 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep then. It is a useful listing to some degree, but extremely prone to NPOV disputes. CrazyC83 21:26, 4 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the category's talk page (if any). No further edits should be made to this page.


(For an archive of previous discussions, see: Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Category:Gay icons (2004))

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