Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 April 21

Nominator's rationale: This broad nomination may be the subject of widespread interest due to the number of categories involved, so I'll try to make my preliminary remarks as clear as possible by doing so in point form. If you comment below, it's most helpful if you focus your comments on the specific issues raised:

Rationale. My rationale for proposing deletion of these categories is that an American high school someone attended is, in almost all cases, not a defining characteristic of the person. Although it is common for a biographical article to mention the high school someone attended, it is by no means a requirement for a "good" biographical article and most people reading an article (or even a book!) on someone would not get to the end and think, "Hey, it didn't say where they went to high school!"
Options for retaining information. Attendance at a particular high school is not necessarily completely trivial, however, and I am not suggesting this information necessarily be simply "deleted" from Wikipedia — I believe it could, if desired, be appropriate in most cases to have lists instead of these categories for American high school alumni. A good example of one is List of Alumni of Saint Ignatius High School (Cleveland, Ohio). These lists could be placed in Category:People by high school in the United States, which has not been nominated for deletion. Alternatively, if the article about the school itself is not too long already, a list of alumni could be added to the article about the school.
Motivations. Please don't be offended if I nominated "your" school or a category you created. I nominated all of the alumni-only categories for U.S. high schools and am not acting out a grudge. This nomination was prompted by a previous similar nomination where a number of editors expressed a "keep or delete all or none" sentiment with respect to these categories. After the nomination was closed, I thought a broader nomination and discussion would be useful, especially so the "all or none" people wouldn't feel cheated. Please don't vandalise my user page or leave me nasty messages on my talk page.

Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 00:29, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep "Category:St. Johnsbury Academy alumni". This was underpopulated due to an oversight. I've since populated it. Weak keep on other prep schools. That's what got the person into college and fame, most likely. It is not incidental as implied. Student7 (talk) 00:40, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all and congratulations to Good Olfactory for going to the trouble of this vast cfd. I would myself think it a gross omission in a brief obit or CV or resume to neglect to mention High School, and do consider it defining. Both the actual school and the number of notable alumni are in my view irrelevant (as is WP:ALLORNOTHING, which is about articles). -- roundhouse0 (talk) 00:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- What you say is interesting, because I'm an academic and if I saw the CV of a person applying to come work at our university and they listed their high school or prep school they attended, I would think it was some kind of joke. In the academic world, nobody does it ... Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 00:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So am I. Academics in the UK certainly give their school (or perhaps this is why I never became notable). Oxbridge results give the college and school (eg football match). Or here; see scholarship lists. Or a non-Oxbridge politician here. -- roundhouse0 (talk) 01:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I should temper my remarks and say I have never seen it done in the academic world in the United States, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, which is where I have worked. I've never worked in the UK, which in many ways has a culture of its own when it comes to prep schools and education. Of course, this nom is for American high schools, so I suppose we should perhaps limit our focus to that country. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 01:27, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are 169 schools in Category:People by school in England which does suggest school is more important in the UK. (UK Prep schools are for under-11s.) -- roundhouse0 (talk) 01:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all Which school a person attended is certainly defining for that portion of their life. Bluap (talk) 02:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- My point is that it is generally not for a person at the end of their life or when their biography is written. Sure, it might be defining for someone when they are 16, but the question is — is it still defining when they are 85, or when they are dead? Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 02:39, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all, pointless overcategorization. Categorizing alumni by college, yes. But by high school? No. KleenupKrew (talk) 02:42, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Well, I would have to disagree with Good Ol regarding at least some of these schools that I am familiar with - and I would assume that others on the list are similar. Alumni of the following schools, for example, will frequently include the school on their CVs or resumes, because they represent some kind of distinction or prominence - I have seen them in both academic and business settings: The Bronx High School of Science, Stuyvesant High School, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, Horace Mann School, Dalton School, Ethical Culture Fieldston School- and I don't doubt there are others. So if a major reason for the removal is that high schools aren't notable, that's just not universally correct. As for the point about using lists instead of categories, I have to say that when I've worked on similar lists there have often been loud voices pushing for using categories instead of lists - so it's somewhat of an impasse. My view is that the redundancy of lists and categories is a good thing - they help our readers find the information they need, in whichever way they are most comfortable with. Why would we need to eliminate these alternatives? Tvoz |talk 03:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Tvoz makes a good point about lists vs. categories. Categories are, in no small part, an aid to navigation and discovery, similar to navboxes, "See also" sections, and wikilinks in general. Lists are centralized collections that deliver related information, often with selected details (e.g., class year and field of endeavour). Wikipedia likes them both - if it didn't, we'd have one monster table of contents and no categories at all. RossPatterson (talk) 04:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep some Certain high schools are highly notable and have well-documented impacts on the lives of their alumni. Examples include Stuyvesant High School with 141 categorized alumni including assorted Nobel laureates, Fields medalists, Univerity Presidents, etc., Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, which inspired the movie Fame and has produced famous actors by the score (over 200 of whom have articles that aren't in its category), and Boston Latin School, with 165 alumni articles (but only 32 in its category). RossPatterson (talk) 03:10, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all (and retain information) per nom; For the smaller categories, there is also the option of including the smaller lists into the High School's entry. I'd see classmates as otherwise disassociated. -- Ratarsed (talk) 07:48, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Agree with Tvoz (talk · contribs), many notable alumni have come out of many of the above schools. Also agree with RossPatterson (talk · contribs), these should not be a group deletion discussion but should be discussed one at a time. These categories are useful to readers that may quickly want to find out which other notable alumni graduated from a certain school. Cirt (talk) 11:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all per above --Ryan Delaney ^talk 11:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Listify and delete all - in very few cases is the high school from which one graduated going to be a defining characteristic. While these high school graduates are indeed notable, they are not notable for being high school graduates. Furthermore, some time ago we deleted categories for high school dropouts, which was a subcat of Category:People by educational degree which along with every single one of its subcats was deleted, and I think for people who got a GED. These alumni categories amount to being Category:People who graduated high school. If the people in those categories were not defined by not graduating high school or getting a diploma-equivalent certificate, then the people in these categories are not defined for having graduated high school. Otto4711 (talk) 18:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I think you miss the point of these categories: it's not that the individuals included are notable for being high school graduates, or for being graduates of a particular school, it's that the particular high school they graduated from has its own notability and therefore their association with that school is notable; the category allows one to quickly see which other notable indiviiduals also graduated from that school as Cirt said above. I don't think one would make the same point about geographical categories as you make about high schools, for example: i.e., Christina Aguilera is indeed notable, but she is not notable for being from Staten Island, yet we have her in the category Category:People from Staten Island, presumably because it gives information that Category:People from New York City wouldn't give. She's not defined by being from Staten Island, nor is it from where her notability derives, but it is a valid category for her to be in. Stokley Carmichael is notable by any standards, and it is valuable to see that he is in the same category, Category:Bronx High School of Science alumni, as Bobby Darin or Dominic Chianese. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, Otto, and if so I apologize. Tvoz |talk 19:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I would make a similar point about at least some of the geographical category schemes, as I find the mania for fragmenting people into ever finer and finer location categories to be vastly overdone. Otto4711 (talk) 12:14, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Whatever the outcome, it should be reflected in the guidance over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools#Separate alumni pages, which currently suggests a separate 'List of' style page when the list gets too unwieldy for the school article -- Ratarsed (talk) 20:06, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Most Any empty cats should be deleted, but I completely disagree with the nominator's rationale. Of course what's 'trivial' is completely subjective, but looking at the guideline cited, the high school a person attended is clearly much closer to the non-trivial examples given (career, origin and major accomplishments) than the trivial examples given (someone's tastes in food, their favorite holiday destination, or the number of tattoos they have). In the interest of full disclosure, I am the creator of Category:Woodrow Wilson High School (Virginia) alumni. faithless (^speak) 20:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are these high school graduates categories closer to the non-trivial examples cited or are they closer to the deleted Category:High school dropouts? Otto4711 (talk) 22:04, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - from east of the Atlantic, it seems to me that having notable alumni induicates that a school is a significnat one. Peterkingiron (talk) 22:06, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That a school has notable alumni may serve as the basis for the school's being notable enough to have an article but the significance of the school doesn't mean that a category is warranted. Otto4711 (talk) 03:18, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all It may not be as defining as college since we haven't been tracking what high schools prominent people attend. To only keep the prep schools would be inherent bias toward the wealthier schools. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Wikipedia:OCAT#Non-defining_or_trivial_characteristic, per Roundhouse. Detail of high school attendance is not trivial, and is a standard part of biographical information. Since this issue came up (again, at the Herbert Hoover School discussion, which itself was after a couple of earlier failed "test case" attempts to delete similar categories), I've been keeping an eye on the obituaries in The Times - more often than not, the obituary mentions where they were educated (secondary and tertiary education). Lists can be created without the need to get rid of the categories - they're not mutually exclusive here. Deciding that "this school deserves an alumni cat" (e.g. in the English context, Eton) and "this school doesn't" is invidious and a recipe for chaos. Bencherlite ^Talk 20:28, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In fact the same seems to apply as in the UK: George W Bush and Barak Obama get a high (prep) school categories (Category:Phillips Academy alumni, Category:Punahou School alumni) whereas Bill Clinton, Hilary Clinton (plebs, relatively) don't, although their school is stated in each case. So the first 2 can be found in 'People by school' and the other 2 cannot. This is not democratic. -- roundhouse0 (talk) 21:07, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Female wartime crossdressers

Propose renaming Category:Female wartime crossdressers to Category:Women who crossdressed during wartime

Nominator's rationale: Grouping articles in this category by the individual's biological sex rather than the individual's gender identity is causing confusion and has a potential for abuse. Recently, I removed this category from the Albert Cashier article, because Albert Cashier lived his entire life as a man. Cashier was not "crossdressing"; he was wearing his clothes. Almost immediately, another editor reinstated the category, claiming that since Cashier was biologically female, he belonged in the category. MOS:ID makes it clear that articles are to be written in respect to a person's chosen gender identity, and to use pronouns which relate to their most recent gendered self-identification. Some people do not agree that a person can choose a gender identity, as we see in the media with transmen being referred to as "women".

The problem with using the word "female" in this category name is that "female" can refer to biological sex. In this instance, this was used to justify referring to a man as a "female crossdresser". This is entirely inappropriate. The use of a gendered term is necessary in this instance: we must state that the people who were wearing men's clothes during war were women, not men as Cashier was. This will make a clear statement that what is important is an individual's self-identity, not their biological sex, and help to clear up any confusion. This applies to the subcategory as well. 66.30.20.71 (talk) 22:23, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: I disagree. The article on cross-dressing states: states: The term cross-dressing denotes an action or a behavior without attributing or proposing causes for that behavior. Some people automatically connect cross-dressing behavior to transgender identity or sexual, fetishist, and homosexual behavior, but the term cross-dressing itself does not imply any motives. I would thus argue that the category title is a neutral one, it merely indicates people who were biologically female who presented themselves as men, it does not neccessarily imply that they were mentally female. Futhermore, Cashier is relevant to the category because he passed undetected as biologically female the way the female-identified soliders did, and thus his experience is relevant to the greater subject of female wartime crossdressing as whole. Finally, I would like to point that simply because Cashier lived as male outside of the context of war doesn't neccessarily mean that he truly self-identified as male. He may have simply valued his independence so much that he was willing to live as male regardless of whatever his true gender identity was. If you find that improbable, I would like to direct your attention the article on sworn virgins of the Balkans. These were women who willingly gave up marriage to live and work as men, either out of circumstance or for sake of personal independence. I have seen interviews with these sworn virgins, and although they live, dress, and work as men, they stated that they took the role because they valued their freedom, not out of self-identification as males. It is for these reasons that I do not believe that this category should be changed. Asarelah (talk) 00:12, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support Women who cross-dressed for temporary, undeniably socially-based reasons (such as to be able to fight in a war) and then revert back to their normal lives as women afterward are a very different category from biologically female individuals who live as men for issues of internal, identity-based reasons, whether these individuals happen to fight in a war at some point in their life or not. "Cross-dresser" may sound like a factual, neutral term, and the article on it may not currently fully address the nuances of when it is accurate to use and when it would be considered disrespectful, but to apply it to someone wearing the appropriate clothing for their long-term life and identity is one of those instances where it is disrespectful. Change the definition in the cross-dressing article to accurately represent its use, don't disrespect a person (however unintentionally) based on an incomplete definition. Cashier's experience is relevant, but that does not make this categorization fully accurate. Finally, both MOS:IDENTITY and WP:OR make it clear that such rampant complete speculation as to what may or may not have been this one person's motivation should be given no weight. What other people have said and done in their lives doesn't support or negate anything about this person. For this one person, we can only consider the evidence present for this one person's life. This discussion is about the category, not Cashier, but clearly the current name of the category raises this sort of dispute for individuals. Re-naming it would make it much clearer as to the actual scope of the category. If a broader umbrella category is required, it can be created with a truly neutral name and used for articles such as this. Either way, the current category should be re-named as suggested. --Icarus ^(Hi!) 02:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Suggestion How about this instead...rather than removing all mention of Cashier and the other two individuals (Enrique Favez and James Barry (surgeon)) who lived as men from the category and its articles entirely, we instead put mentions of them into the article Crossdressing during wartime, in seperate section listing them as transmen who happened to serve and emphasizing that they were different from the other individuals in that they were male-identified and lived as men outside of the circumstances of war. Does this sound like a reasonable compromise? Asarelah (talk) 05:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Category:2007/08 in Israeli football

Propose renaming Category:2007/08 in Israeli football to Category:2007-08 in Israeli football

Nominator's rationale: The common punctuation mark used to denote that a season spans two calendar years is a dash. Furthermore, both of the two articles in said category use "2007-08" instead of "2007/08" in their title. – Pee Jay 14:11, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football related page moves. – Pee Jay 14:13, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rename per most in Category:2007 in football (soccer). (There are also Category:2006/07 In Israeli football, Category:2005/06 In Israeli football, Category:2004/05 In Israeli football (2 errors each); and the article 2007-08 in Israeli football uses 2007/08 for its section headings.) Are these not speediable? -- roundhouse0 (talk) 14:21, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't think they're speediable as they don't meet any of the speedy renaming criteria that I can tell. I would think that the other categories you mentioned could be moved too though. – Pee Jay 22:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support rename per nom. AR TYOM 21:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Rename in line with others. пﮟოьεԻ 5 7 13:42, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Naturalization in Australia categories

Category:Mammals naturalised in Tasmania‎ - Template:Lc1

Category:Flora naturalised in Western Australia‎ - Template:Lc1

Category:Flora naturalised in Queensland‎ - Template:Lc1

Category:Flora naturalised in Australia‎‎ - Template:Lc1

Category:Biota naturalised in the Northern Territory‎‎ - Template:Lc1

Category:Fungi naturalized in Australia‎ - Template:Lc1

Category:Amphibians naturalised in Australia‎‎ - Template:Lc1

Category:Birds naturalised in Australia‎‎ - Template:Lc1

Category:Fauna naturalised in Tasmania‎‎ - Template:Lc1

~~Category:Amphibians naturalised in Western Australia‎‎ - Template:Lc1~~

Category:Birds naturalised in Western Australia‎ - Template:Lc1

Category:Fauna naturalised in Western Australia‎‎ - Template:Lc1

Category:Fauna naturalised in the Northern Territory‎‎ - Template:Lc1

Category:Fish naturalised in Australia‎‎ - Template:Lc1

~~Category:Reptiles naturalised in Western Australia‎‎ - Template:Lc1~~

Category:Reptiles naturalised in Australia‎‎ - Template:Lc1

Category:Mammals naturalised in the Northern Territory‎ - Template:Lc1

Category:Mammals naturalised in Western Australia‎‎ - Template:Lc1

Category:Biota naturalised in Australia‎‎ - Template:Lc1

Category:Fauna naturalised in Australia‎ - Template:Lc1

Category:Mammals naturalised in Australia‎ - Template:Lc1

Nominator's rationale: Over-categorization, and sets a very bad precedent. This came to my notice when Dog, Cat, and several other extremely common animals were placed into Category:Mammals naturalised in Tasmania this morning. This is categorizing non-native animals by where they have been introduced to. For some common animals like Dog and Cat, if this precedent were to stand and be continued, we could quickly see hundreds of such categories added to these common animals. So, again, this seems to be majorly over-categorization to me. Where do we draw the line? If any of the Naturalization categories above Cat are let to exist, then Cat would logically belong in it, and we are still at potentially many, many categories if we thus keep any of the mammal categories. And if we do not keep mammal categories, does it make any sense to have Flora and Fungi without Mammals. So I cannot see keeping certain of these because they would set up for massive category bloat, and I cannot see keeping the rest without the missing ones, so I have nominated the whole batch.

Do note that there is a parallel set of categories, for Native species in Australia, which I have not nominated. These do not have the same potential for bloat/over-categorization, so I have left them un-nominated. - TexasAndroid (talk) 12:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC) (UTC)[reply]

comment I think the purpose is more in depth in that the Flora/Fauna are consider pests and cause some form of enviromental damage that requires specific controls and eradication programs. The distinction between a native and introduced species is a relevant categorisation. The question is how do we handle such categories. Gnan garra 13:07, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. There's no question that these are valid and coherent categories; they are interesting in the real world; and they are not over-categorisation if over-categorisation is measured in the only meaningful way, which is category size.

Personally I think categories should be judged on their merits, not on some thin-edge-of-the-wedge argument about how many categories an article will end up in. Or, to put it another way, I don't think deleting valid, coherent and interesting categories is the solution to the problem of how to manage the number of categories an article is in. One possibly alternative is to make some of these categories {{HIDDENCAT}}s, so that articles like cat do not end up appearing over-categorised. Another solution is to create articles such as feral cats in Australia, and categorise that article instead of cat. Yet another solution is to place the categories on Felis catus, where they don't bother anyone. Yet another solution is to create categories like Category:Mammals naturalised throughout Australia, and make this a subcategory of each of the "Mammals naturalised in" categories. And yet another solution is simply to omit articles like cat. Any of these solution is better than removing an entire subtree of interesting categories simply to solve a problem of overcategorisation on a couple of articles. Hesperian 13:24, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's more than a couple of articles. Cat and Dog are likely the worst, but if this is carried forward as-is, most of the contents of Category:Mammals naturalized in Tasmania will be subject to the mass-categorization problem. I don't know plants that well, but a quick glance at the Reptile, Fish, and Bird categories show a number of others that look fairly common to me. I would guestimate we are looking as a couple of dozen articles with the problems, at least, if not several dozen. And I would classify an article as a potential problem if, assuming that this structure is carried out world-wide, is likely to get more than 3 or 4 of these categories. And considering that this is sectioning down to the state/territory level, not just the country level, it would be quite easy for a species to reach 4 or more locations where it is naturalized.

I'm not adverse to another option. Let me respond to your separate proposals:

Hidden categories. Not sure I like this one, as you still need to list the hidden categories on the articles. Cat could still end up with a list of hundreds of categories having to be listed on the article. Again, Cat is the extreme case, but even the ones needing a bit less would still become unwieldy quite easily.
Separate articles on naturalized species. Again, I'm trying to look at where this would lead once expanded. Are we really wanting hundreds of "Feral cat in the nation of Foo" or "state of Foo" articles? Because again, that's what we would be setting up for if this was to be properly expanded.
Categorizing redirects. Bad idea. With a few exceptions, article categories do not belong on redirects. I'll look up the appropriate style guideline if I need to do so to show it, but this is not the way to go.
Category:Mammals naturalized throughout Australia. This would still lead to many such categories for animals that are in many countries. It's one order of magnitude less of a problem, being limited to countries instead of states/territories, but again with Cat, just how many countries in the world are cats naturalized into? A lot.
Omitting the problem articles from the categories. First, I think that, for mammals at least, most of the articles are problem articles, as mentioned above. And I think that in general we are going to have a lot of problems down the road if we have categories where we expressly say that some of the logical members are not allowed to be in the categories. People will put them in, others will take them out, and you will have both sides making good arguments for why the categories should/should not be used on particular articles. Would need very specific limits for defining at what point an article cannot be in any naturalization categories, and whatever those limits are, they will be fairly arbitrary. An animal in 3 countries can be listed by country, but an animal in 4 cannot? If 4 can be listed, why not 5? Etc. This would be setting up for causing edit wars and hard feelings. Also, if we omit most or all of the articles in a category as problem articles, we are soon left with empty categories. I could easily see that with the mammal categories.

To sum up, I still am not adverse to a workable alternate solution. But I don't see any of these as being such a solution. - TexasAndroid (talk) 13:58, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

~~Maybe a solution is List articles for each type and state with one category Category:Biota naturalized in Australia~~ Gnan garra 16:27, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as per nom. --WikiCats (talk) 14:31, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It would lead to many animals being in as many categories as there are countries/districts, in that animals such as pig/cow/goat are present in nearly all countries and thus either indigenous or naturalised. Ditto the potato for flora. (Red Fox is already in a most impressive collection of categories, by the way.) Lists would seem the way to go - List of placental mammals introduced to Australia could be extended to indicate regions as well. -- roundhouse0 (talk) 16:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

comment the Potato is furphy in this as the cats are about pest and weed rather than food sources, inclusion of pigs is because they are a pest in the wild no because they are domesticated. Gnan garra 00:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. These should be lists, as others have suggested. Quale (talk) 17:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Not generally defining and perfect candidates for lists. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:12, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Cane Toad is one of Australia's most damaging introduced species. Millions of dollars are spent annually to try to contain its spread, but still it is spreading at a rapid rate. It is a big problem in Australia, and it gets a lot of press. Indeed, Cane Toad is far more relevant to Australia than it is to its countries of origin. But if these categories are deleted, it will be impossible to categorise Cane Toad into the Category:Australia subtree. Hesperian 23:37, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: that's not necessarily the case. It may be possible for some variation of a "non-indigenous pests" subcategory to find its way under Category:Australia, and Cane Toad could be put in it. After all, the fact that the chicken is not indigenous to Australia is not very interesting and is certainly not a defining characteristic, which suggests that the fact that the Cane Toad is also an introduced species to Australia is not the important aspect to emphasize with a category. This narrower focus might deal with the very real problem that common farm animals would get dozens to maybe a hundred or more categories under the current scheme being discussed. Perhaps this wouldn't really work either, as I fear weeds and some insect pests could get rather a lot of categories even if restricted to non-indigenous cases. It may be that this is an insteance where categories really won't do what you want, and lists are better. Quale (talk) 02:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- The chicken isn't naturalised, nor is it a pest. The cane toad is both. The cat is both. Any category you come up with to catch the cane toad, will catch the cat as well, and we'll end up back where we started. Hesperian 02:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I've made a couple of comments in relation to this discussion but given no position because I was open to possibilities and alternatives. Yet as the discussion progressed clearly the issue of how to categorise introduced Biota that are causing significant environmental impact with out including Felines, Canines, just isnt possible. The purpose of Categories is to group together likes that would be of interest to the readers, what ever solution is found the article cat and dog are both going to be impacted in some way. Whether the impact is a category link, a see also link to lists or some other format the result is going to be similar to current situation. Maybe consideration is needed to using higher level categories where ever possible ie Category:Fauna naturalised in Australia‎ rather than a state by state process though the separation between animalia and plantae is necessary. I suggested list at one stage but like the category they need to be included in the article as a see also link or a see main in the section on feral cats, and then the same issue of multiple regions having similar such article needing to also be included. For want of a better solution retaining the categories is the cleanest of the options, maybe there is a need in articles like cat, dog, pig etc to create specific sub-articles on feral and enviromental issues then these can become the one that carries these category tags, in the mean time made the categories will encourage editors/articles to be moved beyond the cute and cuddle status and give reasonable weight to the problems these are causing especially in environments where they have introduced. Gnan garra 15:43, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Hesperian, without those, like dog, cat & rat, that are in Category:Cosmopolitan species (sounds sooo much nicer), per precedent I can't find. Why that isn't integrated with the invasive hierarchy I don't know. Johnbod (talk) 04:24, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's a *very* interesting category, and looks to potentially be at least a partial solution to this whole situation. I'll get back to that, but first let me address another issue.

Hesperian, the creator of the Austrailia categories at the heart of this debate, has DB-authored most of them, including all the animal categories. He has left some of the plant categories, and has expressed on his talk page a desire to keep them and not have an CFD hanging over them down the road. I'm OK with compromising this far, and will thus change to Keep on the five remaining categories.

Back to Category:Cosmopolitan species. I see this as potentially helping with a lot of the issue. I would think that it should be explicitly stated on Category:Cosmopolitan species that, if an animal is in that category, it should not be also placed in any specific location categories. That would take away the worst-case articles that started this whole debate, as ones like Dog and Cat are already in there. Red Fox might very well also belong in there. Does anyone know where the proper place would be to hold a debate my "proposal" that if an animal is in Category:Cosmopolitan species , it should not also be in any specific location categories? - TexasAndroid (talk) 13:16, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

try Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) Gnan garra 13:30, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe, but I'm not too certain. This would be a debate about the usage of certain categories, not the naming of them. Hmm, hmm, hmm. - TexasAndroid (talk) 14:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Or do it here. There is I think a previous discussion that covered this, but I can't remember what. On Hesperian's point below, marine species should also be excluded (or the cat split into two for land & marine) I think - there are large numbers of marine examples. I would support adding a note to the category stating both points. Johnbod (talk) 14:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I'm going to depopulate and remove Category:Flora naturalised in Western Australia too; I just haven't gotten around to it yet. The remaining categories will be retained not for generic articles like European Rabbit, but for Australia-specific articles like Rabbits in Australia. I count about 15 such articles, with the potential for many more, and these really do need a home. The exception to all of this is Category:Fungi naturalized in Australia, which I didn't create so am not at liberty to delete without further discussion.

As for cosmopolitan species, I for one will oppose your proposal if it fails to distinguish between species with a cosmopolitan natural distribution, and species with a cosmopolitan naturalised distribution. Examples of the former are (perhaps) the Common Dolphin and Oxalis corniculata. Possible examples of the latter (I could be wrong) are the House Mouse and the Western Honeybee. I doubt if the cat is an example of the latter, as (speaking in ignorance here) I doubt if it is capable of naturalising in areas with bitterly cold winters. (I suspect what I'm saying here is a preview into the can of worms you're about to open).

Hesperian 13:43, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article that describes Cosmopolitan distribution, the core concept behind Category:Cosmopolitan species, expressly explains that the term implies suitible habitat, not expressly *everywhere*. So the core term already covers the situation.

The differences for natural and naturalised could be potentially handled by sub-categories of Category:Cosmopolitan species, except that we get to the problem of some species being natural in some locations, and naturalised in others. Which puts things right back to a multi-location basis, which is exactly what I'm trying to get away from. Hmm, hmm, hmm. - TexasAndroid (talk) 14:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep (for the moment) Western Australia is a biological hotspot with more species of flowering plant than Europe and Asia combined. For more general categories like the fungi naturalised in Australia (which I created), there is no other easy way to define this. I have seen categories deleted to make way for lists, and lists deleted to make way for categories. This seems like a bit of a pointless merry-go-round and I am unhappy with the idea of scurrying around making new pages which may be deleted in a years' time if someone decides a category is a way to go. Invasive species are a huge problem worldwide and this needs to be highlighted somewhere somehow. You going to chip in and help recreate the pages as lists? Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Can we rename Category:Fungi naturalized in Australia (has an invasive zee) while we are here? Secondly, are 'invasive', 'pest' etc implicit in 'naturalised'? Many of the comments are about pests, weeds, etc, but I for one see no mention of these in the category names or descriptions. -- roundhouse0 (talk) 14:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

yes they are implicit as once naturalised they in some way disrupt the natural biota to quote[1] Over 27,000 known alien plant species have been introduced to Australia. Of these, 2,779 or about 10% are now established in Australia’s environment. This number is rising by about 10 species per year, and the rate is increasing.. and further on For example, rubbervine (Cryptostegia grandiflora), an escaped garden plant, has been recorded across 34.6 million hectares, or 20% of Queensland alone. Weed competition is the primary cause for the extinction of at least 4 native plant species,.. add to this the loss of frog species caused by cane toads, the near extinction of the Numbat. Some scary numbers there they demostarte the need for regionalised categories where possible. Gnan garra 14:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Per Gnangarra & Hesperian. Five Years 15:16, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Question Why are so many of the categories listed red (i.e. non-existent) categories. Has some one wbeen jumping the gun in deleting them? If so, please reverse the deletion pending the outcome of this discussion. Peterkingiron (talk) 22:13, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hesperian, the creator, is an admin, and has been deleting them under CSD DB-Author, in essence conceding for now on a number of the issues raised. He asked mr on my talk to withdraw this nomination, which I really could not do once it had other Delete opinions. But I did a ways above compromise on the remaining ones and change to a Keep for them. - TexasAndroid (talk) 00:08, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - the status of a species as introduced is clearly a notable characteristic. However, I would suggest that domestic animals should NOT appear, unless there are significnat numbers of feral members of the species. Note I am in Europe. Peterkingiron (talk) 22:13, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep While I acknowledge that there are potential overcategorisation problems to overcome, I think the concept of "naturalised in" categories is too important to abandon in the "too hard basket". Melburnian (talk) 23:06, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for the reasons mentioned. Although these, along with other biota categories, will need some fine-tuning, the alternative of "Fauna of X" (with no qualifiers) allows the lumping of endemic, widespread native, naturalized, and even domestic biota in the same category.--Curtis Clark (talk) 04:12, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Although I admire the original research and thinking going on all over Wikipedia, this is a categorization scheme used in plant and animal encyclopedias, in floras and faunas, in natural history books. Plants that are naturalized to various geographical areas can have a lot more in common than lack of native predators, and the naturalized flora and fauna of various geographical areas are studied in such groups. I would tend toward greater specificity, historically naturalized, or pre-flight naturalized. But there's no reason to think we can do better than the researchers studying the flora and fauna. It's a used categorization scheme for plants of a geographical area. --Blechnic (talk) 04:58, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Cinema of Georgia

Suggest merging Category:Cinema of Georgia to Category:Cinema of Georgia (country)

Nominator's rationale: Merge. Merge into correctly named category. Vegaswikian (talk) 07:35, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge.Vice regent 22:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Merge per nom, and create a dab at current name. 70.55.89.211 (talk) 04:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Merge per nom.--Lenticel ^(talk) 12:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
merge per nom to match all other all other cats for this country Hmains (talk) 02:29, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Demographics of Georgia

Propose renaming Category:Demographics of Georgia to Category:Demographics of Georgia (country)

Category:Ports and harbours of Georgia to Category:Ports and harbours of Georgia (country)

Nominator's rationale: Rename. Use standard disambiguation for the country vs. the U.S. state. (This is another common issue for which it would be helpful to allow speedy renaming.) Notified creators with {{subst:cfd-notify}} Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 06:18, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the proposal is rigth David1955 (talk) 07:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

rename per nom to match all categories for this country Hmains (talk) 01:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
rename per nom, and create dabs at the "Georgia" location. 70.55.89.211 (talk) 04:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Photos by Somebody in the WWW

Category:Photos by Somebody in the WWW - Template:Lc1

Nominator's rationale: Delete - Category for individual user's photos, if allowed would set precedent to keep a similiar type of category for every user. Galleries are usually found on user subpages, no need to make a category for this. VegaDark (talk) 05:38, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. KleenupKrew (talk) 02:44, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. -Pete (talk) 16:44, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Shania Twain

Category:Shania Twain - Template:Lc1

Nominator's rationale: Eponymous category for a singer; overcategorization per WP:CAT. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps)} 04:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: There are so many articles that need to be grouped together involving the singer including; singles, albums, DVDs, movies, buildings and so on. Many of her contemporaries have similar categories, that are not listed for deletion, for example: Category:Mariah Carey and Category:Janet Jackson --Thankyoubaby (talk) 04:39, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per WP:CAT - the first line of General Guidelines states "Categories are mainly used to browse through similar articles. Make decisions about the structure of categories and subcategories that make it easy for users to browse through similar articles." Given that Live (Shania Twain DVD) and Come on Over (Shania Twain album) are "similar articles" (in different subcats) the presence of this long-established and well-populated (over 100 items, nicely subcatted) eponymous category facilitates browsing and its deletion would be greatly detrimental to browsing (within category space). -- roundhouse0 (talk) 10:06, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Slam dunk keep - Frankly, I'm astonished that this was even brought to CFD, given the extensive array of sub-categories and articles that are grouped together here. The mere fact that it happens to be an "eponymous category" is hardly a reason to throw common sense out the window. Cgingold (talk) 11:04, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Eponymous categories for people describes conditions where an eponymous category may be appropriate; this seems to fall easily within that description. -Pete (talk) 16:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Mormon War

Propose renaming Category:Mormon War to Category:1838 Mormon War

Nominator's rationale: Rename. The main article was recently moved from Mormon War to 1838 Mormon War due to the ambiguity of the term "Mormon War", which is used to refer to one of three different conflicts in the nineteenth century (see Mormon War, which is now a disambiguation page). Proposal is to change the category name to conform with the now-unambiguous main article name. Notified creator with {{subst:cfd-notify}} Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 03:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rename per nom. I wonder if cases like this should be added to the eligibility criteria for Speedy renaming. Cgingold (talk) 03:46, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Rename. Sounds good.Vice regent 22:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Don Imus

Category:Don Imus - Template:Lc1

Nominator's rationale: underpopulated category. Do we really need a category for a single radio personality? Rtphokie (talk) 00:56, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The answer is: Delete - overcategorical overkill. Cgingold (talk) 03:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - a categorical 'no'. -- roundhouse0 (talk) 10:10, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - per Wikipedia:OC#Eponymous_categories_for_people. The material here is easily and extensively interlinked and the main article Don Imus serves as an appropriate navigational hub. Otto4711 (talk) 14:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

radio personalities by city/state

Category:Atlanta radio personalities - Template:Lc1

Category:Oregon radio personalities - Template:Lc1

Category:Cincinnati radio personalities - Template:Lc1

Nominator's rationale: Radio personalities move around so frequently that categorization geographically will be far too difficult to maintain. Rtphokie (talk) 00:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I'm open to alternatives, but when there are 14 items in a category it's tough for me to understand how it's over-categorization. (The Oregon category is very new, and will likely grow past that number.) I would like to see a nomination that has more than just a one-word justification. What alternative categorization scheme do you propose? What should a reader do who's interested in exploring what notable persons have radio broadcasters in Oregon? -Pete (talk) 20:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and populate, at least the Oregon one (with a declaration of possible bias towards Oregon-related topics), I haven't looked at the others. Though I think the cat for an entire state is not overcategorization, again, not sure about the cities, but that's more likely. Anyway, I believe thirty articles is the rough threshold for justifying a specialized stub tag, so 14 doesn't seem too low for something to have its own subcategory. I know that WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, but I've seen experienced categorizers create sub categories for a single (and unlikely to expand) Oregon-related topic. Can the nominator point us to the guideline that shows the threshold for "overcategorization"? Thanks. Katr67 (talk) 20:37, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Radio personalities move around constantly, geographical categorization will be very difficult to keep up to date. What determines inclusion in one of these categories (or one like it), currently working in that area? Having previously worked in that area? Is anyone interested in keeping these things up to date? These categories seem to me to add more problems than value. Rationale updated.--Rtphokie (talk) 12:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about inclusion criteria, but I do know that we keep pretty good tabs on Oregon-related content, so it shouldn't get too out of date. Again, can you point us to the relevant categorization guidelines regarding people moving and the category needing to be updated? Again, OTHERSTUFF, but we do also have categories for television anchors, for which there are similar issues. Katr67 (talk) 20:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply: Thanks for giving more detail. Like anything else, documentation in reliable sources determines inclusion. In the cases of broadcasters who move around a lot, there is no harm in multiple categories. I can't speak to Atlanta or Cincinnati (which are cities not states, and may be less desirable on that basis), but WikiProject Oregon has done an excellent job of maintaining categories, and I am sure we will continue to do so in the future. We have lots of Category:People from Oregon by occupation (which are well-maintained); not sure why broadcasters should be disallowed. -Pete (talk) 16:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question - are these categories intended to capture the people on the basis of where they are from or on the basis of where they work? Otto4711 (talk) 19:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply: I'd consider that a non-issue; seems to me that Wikipedia convention says that if somebody works somewhere, they're from there. They might be from somewhere else, too. (If they only worked there briefly, there might be a legitimate question whether they belong in the category, which could be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.) I am sure I read the conventions around the word "from" somewhere, like the WP:MOS, but I can't find it now. -Pete (talk) 21:22, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is a relevant issue. If this is supposed to be for where they work then I say delete. Radio personalities move town to town, up and down the dial. Categorizing them on the basis of which state or city they worked in will quickly become clutterful. I certainly hope that the guideline is not as you describe, especially for such transient professions as this. The question arises as to how long a person must work in a particular city or state to be considered "from" there and that sort of judgment call strikes me as POV/OR. Consider Clint Eastwood. He worked in Italy and Spain for a good length of time while making his spaghetti westerns. Under the "you're from where you work" guideline he could legitimately be placed in Category:Italian actors and Category:Spanish actors. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton lived for years in Italy filming Cleopatra and by this standard could also both be in the Italian actors category. Otto4711 (talk) 22:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this is as widespread an issue as you propose. Of the broadcasters currently in the category, I don't think any but Thom Hartmann has actually moved laterally from one market to another. In his case, describing him as being "from" Vermont and "from" Oregon would certainly be accurate. More often, people move from a local market to a national or international market (like Luis Palau, Colin Cowherd, etc.) Certainly some radio broadcasters move around a lot, but I believe they are the exception, not the rule, and can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. -Pete (talk) 22:22, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Forgot to say: thanks for the WKRP reference. Brought a good smile :) -Pete (talk) 08:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

keep, populate and make more sister categories of the same type; the parent Category:American radio personalities has 1500+ articles and this is a very appropriate method of subcats: by state to be sure and sometimes by city within state when where are multiple large radio cities. Hmains (talk) 02:40, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]