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Criteria for speedy deletion of user categories
As user categories are used slightly differently than general categories, user cats should have their own criteria for speedy deletion. However, we should not attempt to overload the CSD criteria with things similar to what can be found at Wikipedia:Overcategorization.
The following is the proposed text for addition to CSD:
User categories
For any user categories that are not speedy deletion candidates, use Wikipedia:User categories for discussion.
- Empty categories (no Wikipedian user pages or sub-categories for at least four days) whose only content has consisted of links to parent categories or related articles. This does not apply to categories being discussed on WP:UCFD, WP:CFD, or WP:SFD, or disambiguation categories. If the category isn't relatively new, it possibly contained articles earlier, and deeper investigation is needed. (This criteria should match C1.)
- Speedy renaming. Categories that have qualified for speedy renaming. (This criteria - 1 through 5 - should match C2.)
- Typo fixes (e.g., Wikipeians -> Wikipedians), but not changes between British and American spelling.
- Capitalization fixes (e.g., Wikipedians Who like star Wars -> Wikipedians who like Star Wars).
- Conversions from singular to plural, or back (e.g., Wikipedian -> Wikipedians).
- Renaming to conform with the "by country" categorization conventions.
- Abbreviation expanding for country names, e.g. changing "U.S." to "United States."
- Any category intended for Wikipedians that has no indication it is a Wikipedian category can be speedy renamed. "Indications" include, but are not limited to: "Wikipedians", "WikiProject", or a name of a Wikipedia-specific organization or grouping.
- User categories using "users" may be speedily renamed to replace "users" with "Wikipedians", except in the case of Babel-specific user categories.
- Template categories. If a category is solely populated from a template (e.g. Category:Wikipedia cleanup from {{cleanup}}) and the template is deleted per deletion policy, the category can also be deleted without further discussion. (This criteria should match C3.)
- User categories that are divisive or inflammatory. (This criteria should match T1.)
Comments
- Please note UC2.4 (which matches C2.4) - This may be a potential solution to the in/of/from discussion. See also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories)#Categories by nationality and specifically, Category:People by nationality which is apparently the standard for people. We can just substitute Wikipedian for people in usage.
- Also, 2.6 and 2.7 are new, per previous consensus. - jc37 12:14, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
Looks pretty good. I might add that user categories populated solely by userbox templates should be treated as empty, and be speedyable (regardless of if the template was deleted) after 4 days, and possibly add in a speedy rename criteria such as "Uncontroversial renames to conform with currently established naming conventions" - That would allow alma mater cats and other such obvious renames to be speedied. Also might want to change #4 to say divisive or inflammatory. I can just see someone arguing that the category they made was only 1 of the two, so it wouldn't be speedyable. VegaDark 09:10, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- Taking them in order:
- "...categories populated solely by userbox templates should be treated as empty..." - This could be rather controversial.
- "Uncontroversial renames to conform with currently established naming conventions" - I like this, especially if we define it similar to WP:RM#Uncontroversial proposals.
- "...or..." - changed.
- Any other thoughts? - jc37 09:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- Not that I can think of. I know the first could be controversial but I don't really see the point of categories where the only member is a userbox template, seems like doing that is just a loophole so your cat doesn't get speedied after 4 days when nobody joins. If someone can't be arsed to join a Wikipedian category they created, they shouldn't have made it in the first place IMO. VegaDark 09:40, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- Oh, I see what you're saying. How about any category that has only the creator (and possibly the creator's transcluded subpages), and associated userbox(es), may be speedily deleted? - jc37 09:51, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- I was thinking about that, but I can forsee people complaining about 4 days not being long enough for people to notice the category. It also might encourage sockpuppetry just so their category won't be deleted. I can somewhat have sympathy for user cat creators if they actually add themselves to the category, but when they create a user cat and don't even add themselves I don't buy the "not enough time" excuse. I'd say allow it even if only the creator is in the cat (but can certainly be brought to UCFD if this is the case), it's just when they don't add themselves that irks me. VegaDark 10:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- Oh, I see. Creating a category just because you created a "cool" userbox that "somebody" may use, but you're not interested in? Makes sense : ) - jc37 10:10, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- I was thinking about that, but I can forsee people complaining about 4 days not being long enough for people to notice the category. It also might encourage sockpuppetry just so their category won't be deleted. I can somewhat have sympathy for user cat creators if they actually add themselves to the category, but when they create a user cat and don't even add themselves I don't buy the "not enough time" excuse. I'd say allow it even if only the creator is in the cat (but can certainly be brought to UCFD if this is the case), it's just when they don't add themselves that irks me. VegaDark 10:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- Oh, I see what you're saying. How about any category that has only the creator (and possibly the creator's transcluded subpages), and associated userbox(es), may be speedily deleted? - jc37 09:51, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- Not that I can think of. I know the first could be controversial but I don't really see the point of categories where the only member is a userbox template, seems like doing that is just a loophole so your cat doesn't get speedied after 4 days when nobody joins. If someone can't be arsed to join a Wikipedian category they created, they shouldn't have made it in the first place IMO. VegaDark 09:40, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I just noticed: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Category:Wikipedians_born_between_1995_and_1999. Perhaps I should add something about this in the speedy criteria? - jc37 10:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- I think there are still many who disagree with deletion of categories like that, and deleting them is more of a de facto standard rather than something official, as I doubt adding in that to speedy criteria would get a consensus, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to try. VegaDark 20:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
UC4
- I'm fine with all of the listed criteria, though #4 seems like its execution will be problematic. Nonetheless, it's a nice stick to have.--Mike Selinker 04:18, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- I'm not sure I understood/understand "...though #4 seems like its execution will be problematic." Are you meaning T1, and by corrolary UC4? (In other words, problematic to generally apply.) or that UC4 is problematic on its own? - jc37 07:20, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- A concern might be speedy nominations of support/anti- categories as editors' own judgment of what is divisive or inflammatory. User categories seen as "divisive" by some, a word used often, can lead to no consensus through discussion (e.g. global warming). This has no clear analogy with T1 that I know of, because there is more leeway with user cats. POV templates are taken to TfD, while inflammatory templates are pretty clear as to their intent; there isn't really an "in between" area. Truly inflammatory stuff can be deleted with G10 anyway, right? –Pomte 17:59, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
- I'm not sure I understood/understand "...though #4 seems like its execution will be problematic." Are you meaning T1, and by corrolary UC4? (In other words, problematic to generally apply.) or that UC4 is problematic on its own? - jc37 07:20, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- I'm fine with all of the listed criteria, though #4 seems like its execution will be problematic. Nonetheless, it's a nice stick to have.--Mike Selinker 04:18, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Naming conventions (categories)
Perhaps the way to go about this is simply to develop a naming convention (and by corrollary, an inclusion convention) for user categories.
I'm going to spend some time going through every user category (ugh @ me for volunteering), and take some notes along the way. There are subcats of subcats of subcats.
Comments are welcome : ) - jc37 09:46, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- Before you do the tedious job of clicking through categories, why not get a bot to dump them all into an easy-to-read indented-by-hierarchy list somewhere? –Pomte 14:33, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Code for a dynamic tree listing of categories
–Pomte 08:05, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Parent categories
One thing that I would like discussed in the meantime is the creation of a template for "parent categories" which should not have Wikipedian userpages as members, but are only organisational catgegories, designed to hold only sub-categories (and possibly historical lists). It should not be garish, or huge, but should be clearly evident by the casual reader.
Once we decide on that, then we'll decide which categories should have it.
And after that, in one action, we'll depopulate those categories. (In one action, so that we don't rack up a zillion page changes to user pages, so to, hopefully, minimise confusion, and possible disruption.) - jc37 09:46, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- For the template, I've made a draft at User:Pomte/Template:ucfdepop, copying the look of {{Category redirect}}. –Pomte 14:33, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- Nice work on the template. It should probably be comparable to {{catdiffuse}}. - jc37 19:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- I edited the text to make it a bit more generic for usage, and moved it to template space - Template:Parent category. - jc37 00:20, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- I just found {{Metacategory}}. Merge? –Pomte 00:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- At first, I was thinking yes, but there's a possibility that there is a subtle of semantic difference in usage that we're unaware of. But if not, then yes, some sort of merger could be appropriate, unless we want to less generalise the parent category notice back into being user category-only. - jc37 01:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- Whatlinkshere doesn't suggest any difference. –Pomte 02:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- At first, I was thinking yes, but there's a possibility that there is a subtle of semantic difference in usage that we're unaware of. But if not, then yes, some sort of merger could be appropriate, unless we want to less generalise the parent category notice back into being user category-only. - jc37 01:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- I just found {{Metacategory}}. Merge? –Pomte 00:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- I edited the text to make it a bit more generic for usage, and moved it to template space - Template:Parent category. - jc37 00:20, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- Nice work on the template. It should probably be comparable to {{catdiffuse}}. - jc37 19:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- Are they widely called "super-categories"? What about ditching the a.k.a's and just describe the function like {{Metacategory}}? –Pomte 00:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- They're called all three terms on WP:CFD. The least useful descriptive name is probably meta-category. They've also been called "overcats" as well. But parent cat and super cat seem to be the most common usage. (I didn't call the template supercat simply because it doesn't need a cape : ) - jc37 01:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- Rename to Template:Parent category for brevity, and it does more than notify: it tracks! If you agree, I'll redirect {{Metacategory}} to this new name and post a notice at WT:CAT. –Pomte 02:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- Done, and done (as I note that you spotted the change before I could post here, and followed through on the above : ) - jc37 11:02, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- Rename to Template:Parent category for brevity, and it does more than notify: it tracks! If you agree, I'll redirect {{Metacategory}} to this new name and post a notice at WT:CAT. –Pomte 02:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- They're called all three terms on WP:CFD. The least useful descriptive name is probably meta-category. They've also been called "overcats" as well. But parent cat and super cat seem to be the most common usage. (I didn't call the template supercat simply because it doesn't need a cape : ) - jc37 01:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- Are they widely called "super-categories"? What about ditching the a.k.a's and just describe the function like {{Metacategory}}? –Pomte 00:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- In Category:Parent categories, do we really want every single parent category inside it? Alternatively, it can be subcategorized by type to distinguish between article categories and user categories. For bot and maintenance purposes though, one single huge category should work. –Pomte 00:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- I thought about that, and had removed the cat entirely, but then I remembered this page and thought that it might be useful. We could split the category by namespace, I suppose (since there are Wikipedia:space cats as well). But just keeping in mind that the main (if possibly only) reason for the category's existance is for maintenance, typically bot maintenance. - jc37 01:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- In Category:Parent categories, do we really want every single parent category inside it? Alternatively, it can be subcategorized by type to distinguish between article categories and user categories. For bot and maintenance purposes though, one single huge category should work. –Pomte 00:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Userbox links in category introductions
Another thing is that I think we're going to have to require is that there must be a link in a category introduction to every userbox which transcludes the category. This is rather necessary especially in light of the large amount of userboxes being subst: and/or userfied due to recent "migration" actions. It's making it more and more difficult to find populating templates, and such. - jc37 09:46, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- The userbox linking is going to be hard to enforce. From now on at UCFDiscussions once I find the userbox, I'll link and transclude it in the category. –Pomte 14:33, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- Note that if you transclude a userbox to a category, it typically adds the category to itself : ) - jc37 19:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- I think we can risk having the category include itself, and if not,
use <includeonly>. I've made a template at User:Pomte/Template:usercat that does this in one line. –Pomte 00:03, 19 April 2007 (UTC)- Personally, I hate it when a category is a subcategory of itself (usually due to the userbox being on the page), and would support removing any such occurances. VegaDark 01:18, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
- A way to uncategorize any non-user pages that transclude the userbox is {{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|User|[[Category:Wikipedians ...]]}} –Pomte 02:32, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
- We went through this process at Wikipedia:Userboxes/Education/United_States. We now have a "nocat" switch which allows each userbox to be displayed without cat'ing the page. It is incorporated into {{educat}} so that none of the userboxes create parent-child problems in the categories. It also allows the userbox to be displayed on sandbox and other pages without cat'ing them. --NThurston 13:25, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
- A way to uncategorize any non-user pages that transclude the userbox is {{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|User|[[Category:Wikipedians ...]]}} –Pomte 02:32, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
- Personally, I hate it when a category is a subcategory of itself (usually due to the userbox being on the page), and would support removing any such occurances. VegaDark 01:18, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
- I think we can risk having the category include itself, and if not,
- Note that if you transclude a userbox to a category, it typically adds the category to itself : ) - jc37 19:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Category inclusion syntax
After having had to correct quite a few userpages due to others' unintentional code breaking, and seeing so many userboxes (including subst ones) with incorrectly coded category inclusion, I've added some syntax information at Wikipedia:Userboxes#Syntax for including categories.
I think that Wikipedia:Userboxes#Designing a userbox and it's subsections (of which the above link is one) should be required reading for anyone working on userboxes with category inclusion. Hoping this helps. - jc37 08:53, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
...interested in...
Per the recent discussions, I've updated Wikipedia:Userboxes to reflect what did at least have consensus. Essentially preference verbs, such as "like, love, enjoy" should be changed to a more specific verb, or at least, "interested in". - jc37 23:19, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Proposed move
I'd like to suggest that this page be moved.
I think the reasons are obvious? : ) - jc37 17:05, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
- Fine by me. Might want to take this higher than just a few of us agreeing on this talk page first, though I'm not sure where. VegaDark (talk) 17:07, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
- Ambiguous. All categories are Wikipedian categories, i.e. categories within Wikipedia. User categories corresponds with userboxes and userpages. –Pomte 17:38, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
- Actually no. All categories may be Wikipedia categories, (or rather categories of Wikipedia - let's hear it for the genitive case : ) - But only the subcats of Category:Wikipedians are Wikipedian categories. - jc37 18:31, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
- The overwhelming genetive case means that a Wikipedian is also known as a Wikipedia user, which means "Wikipedia:User categories for discussion", when neglecting the conventional colon, reads as "Wikipedia User categories for discussion", which is a lot more intuitive to a newcomer than prefixing "Wikipedian" with "Wikipedia:" as in the case of your proposal. When choosing between two alternatives with nearly identical meaning, the user-friendly case ought to prevail. –Pomte 02:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
- "Wikipedia:" should be ignored, except as a namespace convention, the same way we ignore "Template" or "Category:" in naming discussions. Incidentally, on other wikis, what we call the Wikipedia namespace, is called the "Project:" namespace. - jc37 12:20, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
- The overwhelming genetive case means that a Wikipedian is also known as a Wikipedia user, which means "Wikipedia:User categories for discussion", when neglecting the conventional colon, reads as "Wikipedia User categories for discussion", which is a lot more intuitive to a newcomer than prefixing "Wikipedian" with "Wikipedia:" as in the case of your proposal. When choosing between two alternatives with nearly identical meaning, the user-friendly case ought to prevail. –Pomte 02:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
- Actually no. All categories may be Wikipedia categories, (or rather categories of Wikipedia - let's hear it for the genitive case : ) - But only the subcats of Category:Wikipedians are Wikipedian categories. - jc37 18:31, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
- Are you going to propose renaming Wikipedia:User categorisation as well? –Pomte 02:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
- I hadn't thought about it, but in looking it over, it should probably be renamed to Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians by location or something similar, since it seems to be only about the location cats. - jc37 12:20, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
- Are you going to propose renaming Wikipedia:User categorisation as well? –Pomte 02:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
- I agree that this page should be moved, and as for Wikipedia:User categorisation, that is so ancient it should just be deleted.--Mike Selinker 18:30, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
- {{User category}} would have to be renamed as well, if not deleted. –Pomte 23:34, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Instruments categories
- Wikipedia:Instruments - The categories were named after the userboxes. I've adjusted the main templates' coding changing the naming convention from:
- User <instrument abbreviation>-#
to:
- Wikipedian <instrument+ist>-#
per several UCFD discussions.
Which leaves us with more than several redlinks. If anyone knows a bot owner who might like to help with this, drop me a note here or on my talk page. - jc37 14:59, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
It's only Wikipedia:Instruments that needs to be updated, right? I've edited the template to default to linking "Category:Wikipedian X players" and the other suffixes can be set manually. –Pomte 20:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)Userboxes like {{User mvx-2}} need to be fixed. –Pomte 21:13, 15 May 2007 (UTC)- I'm pretty sure what is going on now. See the subcats of Category:Wikipedian saxophonists for an example of the switch-over. Delete all the user sax-#, right? The users still in those will have to be switched over, and that can be done with a bot or AWB. I think the actual category renaming will require a little more than bot work considering some templates/cats I've seen are coded improperly, and the
istsparameter has to be figured out by a human. –Pomte 23:02, 15 May 2007 (UTC)- I don't mind starting hunting the templates down, I just want to do it with little pause between it and the bot depopulation, in order to reduce confusion as much as possible. And all the "new" categories need to have Category:Wikipedians by musical instrument added (which will likely create the cat page). - jc37 07:03, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- I've created all the red Cat:Wikipedian ist-# categories I could find, so now they coexist with Cat:User code-#, which can be depopulated all at once. Also rewrote Wikipedia:Instruments/Adding to prevent new additions from messing it up. I don't like how user pages are in both Cat:Wikipedian ist and Cat:Wikipedian ist-#, but I can't think of a better solution. –Pomte 08:23, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- I don't mind starting hunting the templates down, I just want to do it with little pause between it and the bot depopulation, in order to reduce confusion as much as possible. And all the "new" categories need to have Category:Wikipedians by musical instrument added (which will likely create the cat page). - jc37 07:03, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Category:Wikipedians by number of edits
Aren't Category:Wikipedians by number of edits and all subcategories speedy deletable per this CFD? It has been almost a year, however, and consensus can change. Would UCFD'ing this be be better? VegaDark (talk) 04:12, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Renominating seems like a better idea. In this August 06 CfD, the category got renamed without scrutiny. Category:Wikipedian edit archive appears useful in grouping those historic lists, unless you'd prefer a template for navigation between them. –Pomte 03:51, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Unspeakable trash
Even a single visit to this page fills me with disgust. How have we amassed such a heap of unspeakable crap? Why is it considered acceptable that this cruft--and most of the categories listed here are cruft if not worst--should remain on Wikipedia unless there is consensus to delete it? The creators certainly didn't wait for consensus before inflicting their monstrous idiocies upon us. --Tony Sidaway 23:24, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
- I am under the impression that people don't browse these categories. The few who do don't care for deleting them. –Pomte 23:34, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
- Actually, several of us (myself included) have been going through and proposing a good number of deletions. As you have noted, though, few others bother; the UCfD discussion area has little traffic, and even fewer admins who bother to check in and close discussions once they are eligible for closing. (in fact, there is a codified policy that allows admins to close discussions in which they have participated, as a way of reducing the backlog that exists here.) I have been holding back on a large number of deletions for the languages cats, seeing if we can hammer out some sort of consensus on deleting bogus cats added by userboxen, but with only four commenters on the CfD for Category:User en-us-ca it is not likely that a consensus is going to be forged. Perhaps if a few more users actually participated in the discussions, we might make some progress in clearing the 60+ different categories of Enlgish that currently exist. Horologium t-c 00:25, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
- This seems to indicate we have the need for a new speedy deletion policy. —ptk✰fgs 00:08, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
- Speedy deletion is problematic with populated categories because it can leave behind hundreds of redlinks, which makes recreation of categories likely. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 00:21, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
- There are bots that take care of this. User:AMbot, for instance. --Tony Sidaway 00:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
- Speedy deletion is problematic with populated categories because it can leave behind hundreds of redlinks, which makes recreation of categories likely. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 00:21, 18 June 2007 (UTC)