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User:Ferien/WikiProject TBA/Phase III

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Phase III

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Category

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Category:Underpopulated categories

Instructions for fixing

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Each category on our wiki must have at least three entries. There are multiple ways to address this issue.

  1. Check the equivalent category on the English Wikipedia and see if there are pages that exist here in that category. If they don't have the category in, add those pages to the category to build it up to three - or more if you are able to get more articles into the category!
  2. Check the parent categories to see if there are pages that could go inside the underpopulated subcategory instead.
  3. Search for categories with a similar name; there may already be an existing category about the same topic, and you could turn one of them into a redirect category using {{Category redirect}}. For example: "Category:Asian foods" and "Category:Asian cuisine".
  4. Create (start) new articles that go into the category. Steps for creating articles in Simple English are available at WP:HOW.
  5. There are some categories that will likely never reach 3 articles and are not defining enough to be an exclusion to the rule. These should be deleted; however I'd prefer this to be a last resort in this cleanup exercise.

To get more people involved in the project, please link to this page in the edit summary. You can use the shorter link: [[User:Ferien/TBA/P3]]

Starting count

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114

As of 14:00, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

 Update this page

Updated count

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119

As of 11:03, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Participants

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Comments

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Note: Sign comments like this ~~~~.

This is actually pretty hard. So far, I've only been able to remove three categories from the list, and it is just shocking how the list could enlargen so much over a few months. 🪐 Haumeon the Adventurer 🪐 05:10, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

@Haumeon: People are constantly creating new categories with too few entries. Just ask MathXplore. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:13, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
@Haumeon: I usually populate the food categories, maybe you got a specific topic in mind? --Cactus🌵 spiky ouch 11:23, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
There used to be 80 now it doubled lol--Cactus🌵 spiky ouch 11:25, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
We should divide this big task into sections, like 200,175,150,125, and down to zero. Like now the task should be: Reduce the backlog to 200. It's very daunting like the way it is now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Haumeon (talk • contribs) 19:46, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
Haumeon, decomposition is always the best way to solve problems, so long as we keep in mind our final aim is to reduce the backlog to zero (or I guess "annihilate" it entirely!). I must say, when I initially chose this category to work on, I was not anticipating for it to almost double in size from the starting count. Although the count now is 211 while the starting count was 114, it doesn't show the work that has been put in so far by many editors, and I'd like to thank everyone for contributing so far. --Ferien (talk) 19:55, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
Yes. I agree. I know we all put so much work, but there are just so many tiny categories being discovered at the minute, and while we all are doing our best, the numbers are just going up. Only a few days ago it was at 174. I think everybody here knows the goal is zero, but over two hundred categories, some easy and some downright hard, seems a bit too much when not divided into sections. 🪐 Haumeon the Adventurer 🪐 20:01, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
Looking now, I think some of the categories could be deleted. This is a last resort as I've said already, but a few of these categories I am seeing are way too specific to a point they would never get to three entries on this Wikipedia. --Ferien (talk) 20:02, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
 And its case it helps, it seems a lot of these categories have been created by a single editor which in some ways makes this slightly easier to deal with and explains why the amount has increased so much over recent days. --Ferien (talk) 20:12, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, some of these are so specific it doesn't seem possible that they could ever reach three articles. Well, you are an admin (and a bureaucrat, at that) after all, so I guess you could delete the ones that can't be fully populated. Checking the list, it looks like there are more than fifty categories that meet the constraints of deletion. If you could do that, then it would be easier for us as there would only be the fixable ones left, and we could finish it a lot faster. Also, it's a good thing that now we have another member, so it can be finished even faster. 🪐 Haumeon the Adventurer 🪐 21:53, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
And the problem is: Even if we manage to annihilate the backlog, it'll just grow back sooner or later, and more tiny categories are created and are discovered.
I guess lets start looking into the article to see which one should be deleted, anyone want to do this? --Cactus🌵 spiky ouch 12:29, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
@Cactusisme: What do you mean by "the article"? Just to be clear, no one is suggesting that any articles be deleted. --Auntof6 (talk) 12:37, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
@Auntof6: Category*Cactus🌵 spiky ouch 12:39, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
One problem is that thousands of categories are created for things like (dis)establishments in a year, then that can be broken down by continent or country, and various events that happened or things that were produced in a year. In the normal course of events, I don't know if a category like "794 establishments" or "1814 books" would ever reach three entries. There should be some guidelines on when these categories are created, or otherwise just open it up to anything like "1394 disestablishments in Japan" without regard to the number of entries. 2601:644:9083:5730:A5EC:3EA7:BA0F:AAE3 (talk) 19:07, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
You are right. I am too afraid to nominate any of these for deletion, as I don't know which to, but this is a real problem. I'll create another heading in this page for all the deletable categories instead. 🪐 Haumeon the Adventurer 🪐 19:29, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
Haumeon, feel free to add messages here of any categories you think may be eligible for deletion. I'm happy to give my second opinion on it! --Ferien (talk) 22:41, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
@Ferien and Haumeon: There are quite a few categories for things in specific years. Examples are:
  • 1517 establishments
  • 1851 books
  • 1973 in American television
  • 1978 video games
There may be more -- I haven't looked at everything. The content of those could be moved up to the related decade categories. I'd be more cautious about doing similar moves for things already in decade categories, because moving their content to century categories would put them with things from a wider time frame.
If you agree with this, let me know if you'd like me to help with it. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:12, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
Auntof6, I'd definitely agree merging those ones makes sense. I had personally been looking at ones like Paralympic alpine skiers for Poland, which felt too specific for the time being, but thinking now those should probably be deleted for now as well. They can always be recreated when there are more entries and are easy to notice in their parent categories. --Ferien (talk) 23:16, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
@Ferien: OK, I'll work on those after dinner. I guess I should put myself on the participant list! --Auntof6 (talk) 23:36, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
@Ferien: It does occur to me, though, that many of those categories are assigned by templates, so they might not be easy to move, but I'll see what's possible. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:38, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
 OK, we're now down to 137. (I took care of a few other than the year-related ones discussed above.) I left quite a few where the underpopulated category is being assigned by a template. We may or may not want to revive the discussion we had a while back about whether to have templates assign categories.

I see another opportunity for resolving more underpopulated categories. It involves the "Category:<year> events by month" categories. (I'm not writing these as links because I don't want them to show up as wanted categories.) We don't have any general "Category:<year> events" or "Category:Events in <year>" categories, maybe because somebody wanted to copy enwiki's structure, and they don't have them. Of course, enwiki probably has enough event articles to populate all the months, whereas we sometimes don't. If we had "Category:<year> events" categories, we could consolidate the events-by-month categories and add events that currently aren't in any event category (due to the restriction of tying them to a month). For example, "Category:1996 events by month" contains two things: a category for March events and a category for July events. "Category:UEFA Euro 1996" would go in a June category if we had one, but it could also go into a general category. What do y'all think? --Auntof6 (talk) 03:26, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

I think that's a great idea. I think it should still be done by month where we have the ability to do it, but yes, a "Year events" category would work better than "Year events by month" where there aren't enough entries for separate months. --Ferien (talk) 11:59, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
I   Support this. --Cactus🌵 spiky ouch 12:01, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
Now we're down to 115, almost back to the original count. Placing pages into general categories has significantly helped reduce the number of underpopulated categories. – Cyber.Eyes.2005Talk 17:04, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
110 now--Cactus🌵 spiky ouch —Comment without a date added on 06:28, 29 August 2024‎ (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
 I've gone through a few today, particularly the events categories Auntof6 mentioned, and we're now down to 88. We're now at a point where most of the categories that are underpopulated relate to decades, works, establishments and the like. --Ferien (talk) 23:42, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Increade to 94 :(--Cactus🌵 spiky ouch 11:01, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
It's ok, the reason it's increased is because of categories being created without any entries at all, that will end up being deleted in four days. The progress on this project will never be entirely linear because categories like this end up being created regularly. --Ferien (talk) 11:03, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
Wow, I am amazed at the progress while I was gone! We are down to 88 now.🪐 Haumeon the Adventurer 🪐 17:08, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
We haven't been getting much activity, and the backlog has grown to nearly a hundred. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SolarX (talk • contribs) 03:28, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Exceptions

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I'd like to point out that not every category has to have three entries. Here are some exceptions:

  • Maintenance and administrative categories
  • Categories for births and deaths by year, and the usual higher-level categories that they need
  • Categories that get created to complete a set that is defined and not likely to change. This one can be tricky. As an example, I created Category:Hawaii counties back when there were only 2 entries for it, so that there would be a county category for every US state -- it's rare that there's a new US state. (This does not mean it would be OK to create just any category for a US state (or for a country, etc.); it depends on the topic.) I also created one of the categories for species by conservation status (I forget which one) so that there would be a category for each status -- the defined conservation statuses are pretty well set and not likely to change.

There might be others I'm not thinking of. Exception categories should not be tagged as underpopulated, even if they have fewer than 3 entries. I don't see any of these in the underpopulated category right now. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:36, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

If you agree, I would add everything inside Category:Establishments by country and century and Category:Disestablishments by country and century to the exception list, because some countries were established in the 20th century and there is not going to be a third category in 76 years. In 76 years, Simple English Wikipedia might have different rules or it might even cease to exist. ✩ Dream Indigo ✩ 13:16, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
@Dream Indigo: There isn't an official list, but I don't think I'd agree to that. For countries that don't have at least three centuries of history, or that just don't happen to have at least three century categories, they can just not have a by-century category. We don't have to have every country there. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:37, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Prevention work

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Since many categories are populated by templates, I added {{Category if exists}} to those templates (only to the less "common" categories). This might prevent the creation of many new underpopulated categories with only one category inside. ✩ Dream Indigo ✩ 00:24, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Doing that might keep the categories from ever being created. Here's the scenario:
  • The article "Tinky Winky" gets created, with "Category:Teletubbies by name" inside the category-if-exists template. The category doesn't show on the article because it doesn't exist.
  • The article "Po" gets created, with "Category:Teletubbies by name" inside the category-if-exists template, same as above. The category doesn't show here, either, because it doesn't exist.
  • Now we get a 3rd article for Laa-Laa, with "Category:Teletubbies by name" inside the category-if-exists template, same as above. We now have 3 entries that could be in the category, but it still doesn't show because the category still doesn't exist.
So how do we ever find out that we have enough entries to create the category? --Auntof6 (talk) 00:59, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
So do we just keep all those red categories almost forever? (Genuine and calm tone) Like the ones "Establishments in country by century" that won't likely have a 3rd entry any time soon. I actually prefer it that way, I have always liked red-categories, they are very useful in my opinion. I am just asking to be sure I understood correctly, because I thought that the community didn't like red categories.
The thing I love about templates is that you can undo any change in seconds without editing a thousand categories, so we can remove {{Category if exists}} in a few seconds and everything will be back to normal. By the way I added "Category if exists" only to the templates, not to any article. I got "inspired" by how {{songs category/core}} and {{albums category/core}} work regarding the parent category about their artists. Sorry, I don't know any better way to word my thoughts. ✩ Dream Indigo ✩ 01:44, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
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