Virgil Aldrich

October 13

Category:Grand Slam champions

Category:Grand Slam champions - Template:Lc1

Nominator's rationale: This category has nothing of a significance and currently has no article to correspond with. --  ThinkBlue  (Hit BLUE) 16:33, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Category:Books by William Gibson

Category:Books by William Gibson - Template:Lc1

Nominator's rationale: William Gibson has written no non-fiction books; thus there is no need for this category when Category:Novels by William Gibson exists. The creator of the category has been contacted and has no objection to its deletion. the skomorokh 14:01, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Delete - created on basis of lead sentence that wasn't clear enough to explain a complex publication etc. No objections. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 15:04, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Category:Pseudonyms

Category:Alter egos

Category:Pseudonyms

I'll say up front that technically the latter cat is more a case of needing cleanup than deletion. Per the intorduction note: "Note: This category should not be used for those who merely use a pseudonym, but rather for articles about pseudonyms."

Well, it seems that that hasn't been followed. Both categories are filled with "examples". The problem, of course, is: pseudonyms or alter egos of whom?

So these (at least) need to be depopulated of all examples. (Persons who have used pseudonyms.)

That said, if cleaned up, Category:Alter egos would have 3 members (besides the pseudonym subcat): Alter ego, Author surrogate, and Mary Sue. Alter ego is already a member of the parent Category:Self, and the other two could be easily upmerged. (They are all already cross-linked.) - jc37 11:37, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

• Delete Category:Alter egos and Depopulate Category:Pseudonyms of person examples - as nominator. - jc37 11:37, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Category:Shakespearean plays

Propose renaming Category:Shakespearean plays to Category:William Shakespeare plays

Nominator's rationale: Rename. Per the standard of Category:Plays by author. Otto4711 (talk) 11:02, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

• Support While consistency is not all its cut out to be, In this case the title change would benefit navigation. Alansohn (talk) 13:27, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose category usefully includes sub-cats for apocrhypha & adaptations. One could set up this as a sub-cat but why bother? Authorship is contentious in several cases. Johnbod (talk) 16:02, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Category:Adaptations of Shakespeare

Propose renaming Category:Adaptations of Shakespeare to Category:Adaptations of works by William Shakespeare

Propose renaming Category:Modern adaptations of Shakespeare to Category:Modern adaptations of works by William Shakespeare

Nominator's rationale: Rename - in line with many other similar categories, such as Category:Adaptations of works by Oscar Wilde and Category:Adaptations of works by Victor Hugo. Otto4711 (talk) 10:53, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose This is a standard term supported by ample sources in the web and in the media. As there are only two other similar categories (not "many"), the precedent offers little guidance here. Alansohn (talk) 13:41, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
• Support rename, provides clarity, even if arguably minimal, and there are no problems posed by the proposed renamed categories. Postdlf (talk) 14:31, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Category:Crypto-Jews

Category:Crypto-Jews - Template:Lc1

Nominator's rationale: First, I had no idea what this category was about until I looked at the category page, shouldn't categories be self-explanatory? I came here from Christopher Columbus, and neither it or the Karl Marx article give a clue as to why this category has been used. And 'descendants' of such Jews? "Non-defining or trivial characteristic" seems the case here. Doug Weller (talk) 10:34, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

• Delete - Oy gevalt, such a terrible category! Otto4711 (talk) 10:46, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment We have an article Crypto-Judaism which has a different definition for 'Crypto-Jews', to add to the confusion. Doug Weller (talk) 11:49, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
• Redefine and repopulate Not a typical CfD comment, but the description in this category of Crypto-Jews is at at odds with the more traditional description of groups such as Marranos at Crypto-Judaism, in which Jews retained their faith even after ostensibly converting; this category describes the opposite. I'd like to see better sourcing, but there are already several Famous Crypto-Jews listed in the Crypto-Judaism article -- Christopher Columbus is often said to be one of them -- and those who meet that standard with appropriate sources should be listed here. There might well be a category justified for forced converts who did not retain their faith, as this category currently describes, which should be associated with a proper parent article and recreated. Alansohn (talk) 13:38, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Comment - I also wasn't really sure what the category was supposed to be (Jewish folk who hang out in crypts and mausoleums?, Jews who work on cryptography?), and while some categories are a bit esoteric (MILF, Fingerless Glove Wearers - which was deleted as listcruft), I think that Jews who had to hide their non-goyim-ness to get by is a historical phenomenon which deserves some note. Lots of citation are going to be required, though, not just some ass-clown with a new theory of who's a "former" Jew. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 15:05, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Category:John McCain controversies

Category:John McCain controversies - Template:Lc1

Nominator's rationale: A "controversy" category such as this is completely subjective. Inclusion can only be based on the POV of the editor that adds the category, not objective criteria. Further, there is no navigational need for this category as all topics are covered in the biographical article. Loonymonkey (talk) 01:05, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

• Keep This is a well-defined subcategory of Category:Political controversies, which includes nearly 100 such subcategories. As with all categories and controversies, the objective standard is the rpesence of relaible and verifiable sources to support their existence, a standard that has been met here. Alansohn (talk) 01:46, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
• Upmerge as appropriate to the candidate's eponymous category. Contra the above comment, there are actually just ten subcategories directly within Category:Political controversies, not 100, and even counting those nested within deeper levels, there are only eight person-specific "John Foo controversies" categories: four for U.S. presidents, and the other four for candidates in the current U.S. presidential election (Obama, McCain, Palin, and McCain-Palin jointly). I've always hated the word "controversy" as it's often applied on Wikipedia there is not actually a documented controversy, but rather just something that someone may think is grounds for criticism. But I know I'm not going to get a lot of support for doing away with that word entirely. They are obviously being used to include not just articles that are about such "controversies" specifically (such as Jeremiah Wright controversy, but rather articles that merely relate to such controversies (such as John Hagee). If kept, they should be limited to the latter, but it doesn't appear that there are enough of those to justify keeping. But if there's not an easy consensus to merge or delete these at this time, the issue should just be taken up again after the U.S. presidential election has occurred rather than debated ad nauseum at this time. These categories may just reflect presentist bias; whether there's a need for them will only become more clear over time after the election has passed, when passions have cooled and historical perspective is more established. Postdlf (talk) 14:47, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
• Upmerge per Postdlf - no prejudice to recreation for the winner only, after they have had time to accumulate some more. A sub-cat to Category:United States Presidential controversies is mandatory it seems. Johnbod (talk) 16:05, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Category:Barack Obama controversies

Category:Barack Obama controversies - Template:Lc1

Nominator's rationale: "Controversies" is fairly loaded to begin with but the inclusion of items here is purely subjective and based on the POV of anyone who adds it. Loonymonkey (talk) 00:46, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

• Keep This is a well-defined subcategory of Category:Political controversies, which includes nearly 100 such subcategories. As with all categories and controversies, the objective standard is the rpesence of relaible and verifiable sources to support their existence, a standard that has been met here. Alansohn (talk) 01:46, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
• Upmerge per my comments above for Category:John McCain controversies. Postdlf (talk) 14:48, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
• Upmerge per Postdlf - no prejudice to recreation for the winner only, after they have had time to accumulate some more. Johnbod (talk) 16:05, 13 October 2008 (UTC)