Wikipedia talk:Categories

Latest comment: 1 year ago by Eptalon in topic Gender-related categorization...

January 2008 change

As scary as it is, we can probably take large chunks of my userpage (and the one subpage) to use to help expand this page. A sizable section of my page is dedicated to categories for people and places. It should make a good basis for expanding. -- Creol(talk) 18:16, 16 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Good idea. Go for it! · Tygrrr... 01:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Areas to expand or include change

Here is a list of things to be worked out for inclusion. Several just need a basic write-up, several need to have a consistant plan worked up on dealing with them.

  1. Placement of categories on pages (at the bottom, after all templates, before iw's)   Done
  2. Placement of Articles in categories   Done
    • Categories in pages do not overlap; If an article is in Cats A and B, A is neither a child or a parent of B
    • This is also true for several levels of hierarchies
    • Push the article down as far as possible in the cat tree
  3. Creating new categories   Done
    • Three or more articles before creating
    • Category naming conventions - of County, in County, etc
    • Proper categorizing of the category
    • Proper labeling / help text for the category (use {{catmore}})
    • Categories with more than (20?) articles in them, should be split further
  4. Sorting -   Done
    • Sorting for people
    • Sorting with specific titles - The Doors, List of British Astronomers
    • Special sorting practices - (Space), *, !, etc
  5. Special cat tree layouts
    • General geographic layout - Something along the lines of this   Done
    • Musical entertainers   Done
    • Writers/subcats - Problems occur with a person who is a novelist and a poet as poets are almost always a subcat.
  6. People who are included mainly because they are part of an organisation should have their own category in that organisation (as soon as there are more than 2 entries)   Done
  7. Other points to be added..

People change

Categorization guidelines for doing people is done. -- Creol(talk) 14:32, 17 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Simplify change

I think the name should be simplified. I suggest Wikipedia:Putting articls in categories. - Huji reply 21:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Good idea! Even simpler than that would be Wikipedia:Categories or Wikipedia:Category. Right now, WP:Categories redirects to WP:Category and that page really only has general info on cats which could serve as an intro to the information on WP:Categorization. I would suggest merging the pages and having it located at Wikipedia:Categories (which I like better than WP:Category - singular - for some reason). · Tygrrr... 21:40, 22 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

  Done - moved to Wikipedia:Categories. I tried to merge in the WP:Category information, but it was just repeating the "Using categories" section here so I split off the discription of categories from that section to use as the lead in and renamed the remaining part of the section "Uncat template" to cover the information left behind. -- Creol(talk) 17:05, 7 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Renaming categories change

I'm an administrator from Wikipedia and was somewhat surprirsed to see that there was no WP:CFD. The category I want changed is Category:Nintendo GBA video games (to Category:Game Boy Advance games). Since there are four games now, do I just do it myself and ask an admin to delete the empty cat, or should I wait for a procedure? Cassandra (talk) 23:42, 5 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Go for it. -- Creol(talk) 23:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
Maybe, but I was wondering if there were any simple bots around to do some of this work...any approved for category moving? Cassandra (talk) 05:22, 8 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
We tend to do it by hand for the most part. Larger jobs are usually handled with AWB rather than contacting a bot user to schedule the job. -- Creol(talk) 05:44, 8 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Simple English considerations change

I've been evaluating Category:Nintendo video games for a little bit now. I've noticed that all the platform categories (Nintendo DS, etc.) are labeled "x video games," where as over on en they are "x games." Were they categorized "x video games" because it's simpler and makes the category less ambiguous? I should have brought this up earlier; I just emptied the Nintendo 64 one, and Creol did the Game Boy Advance one for me. Cassandra (talk) 03:34, 10 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Category:Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila change

I wanted to change this category to Category:University of the City of Manila, because I thought the name should be in English. However, I see that there was a category with that name and it was deleted in 2009 because it was empty. Does anyone see a reason not to make the change now? If I change it, I will change the articles that are in the current category. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 13:16, 20 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

Getting categories renamed change

What's the policy for requesting the renaming of categories (where on English Wikipedia we would use {{subst:cfr|target name}})? Od Mishehu (talk) 05:13, 27 September 2011 (UTC)Reply

I've been doing a lot of category work. I've gotten some categories renamed by requesting it at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. With some categories that didn't have many entries, I've gotten it done by creating the new category and manually moving the entries. HotCat is a big help with that. Does that help? --Auntof6 (talk) 14:43, 27 September 2011 (UTC)Reply
One more note: some categories are added to articles with templates. To get those changed, you need to change the templates as well. Would you care to give an example of a category you'd like renamed? --Auntof6 (talk) 14:45, 27 September 2011 (UTC)Reply

Is there a need for a new category? change

The present rubric treats this question in terms of number of entries (see 'Is there a need for a new category?'). It does not treat the obvious idea that a category should be something meaningful and useful (except tangentially in the introduction). Meaningful means: deals with a notable and interesting issue which editors might reasonable want to search. So a category "Men who wore brown shoes" would be silly unless there was some real significance to wearing brown shoes. A category "Married people" would be lunatic (I think) but it may be hard to say why. I think because it's not notable... Well, I protest against categories like "Septuagenarian" which I think are just as silly. It is not notable or interesting. Why do we have it? If we think centenarians are interesting and notable and useful (which I'm sure we do) it doesn't mean we should go on down the line. I can see a case for nonagenarians, but everything else is just normal. Categories below nonagenarians should be deprecated, only to be used when that particular person's age at death is significant. "Dates of birth and death are accidental" and I would add length of life is normally not a significant element in a biography. We should not drift towards the situation in English wiki, where biographies of important people carry an unwieldly number of categories. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:47, 23 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I agree. I guess I can see keeping centenarians, even though I'm not sure why it's notable that someone reaches an age that happens to have three digits in it. --Auntof6 (talk) 09:09, 23 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
On a related topic, meaningful categories and subcategories should not be arbitrarily deleted because there are not yet 3 examples. This Wiki is a work in progress and there should be no need to have to hunt around for 2 extra stubs when creating the category in the first place was helpful enough.

One example would be that it is much more helpful to divide the contents of overbroad categories like Category:Geography of China into Category:Mountains in China, Category:Rivers of China, Category:Islands of China, etc. Not doing so will eventually produce such swamped cats that they're helpful to no one. However, the existing policy permits WP:POINTy deletions, such as that recently undertaken against Category:Plains of China. Similarly, if I were to add the needful Category:Rulers of QIn to First Emperor of China, I could expect a deletion... or maybe not, since the same editor had no problem congratulating me for creating Category:260 BC births, which only had one entry... or deleting Category:Plains by country despite the time involved in formatting six or seven pages to flesh it out completely.

Really, WP:POINT should already cover this territory but, if some active editors are going to abuse use this rule to make completely arbitrary deletions of useful content, the guideline they're using to shield their edits should simply be removed to protect them from themselves. — LlywelynII 07:50, 6 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

First course change

An experienced editor has brought "appetizers" as a sub-food category. We do need something for first course dishes, but I would say 'appetizer' is seldom used in Britain. I would say "starters" is most commonly used. Also candidates are the French "entrées" (quite common in England also) or "hors d'œvres". Italian restaurants use "antipasto". I wonder if editors from other English-speaking countries could tell us their local usage. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:35, 19 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

If "appetizers" is seldom used in Britain, "starters" is seldom used in the US. I would say to follow the standard practice we use in articles: we use the form of English that was first presented. In this case, I would say keep "Appetizers", but we could create a category redirect called "Starters". I would say any of the non-English words are more complex than necessary. By the way, this discussion might have been better placed on the talk page of the category being discussed. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:10, 19 October 2014 (UTC)Reply
Just curious: It is my understanding that the naming convention here is to follow whatever enwiki does. Did I get this wrong? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 23:58, 30 June 2019 (UTC)Reply
I don't think that's official. We can name categories however we like. However, as we transwiki more and more articles and templates, it can cause issues if we have different names than enwiki. (Templates assign categories to pages that invoke them, and the templates themselves are categorized.) We do need to use simple language in our names (such as "movies" instead of "films"), but aside from that I would say that it's helpful to use enwiki's names for new categories. When renaming existing categories, your fellow editors might appreciate a heads up first. --Auntof6 (talk) 00:15, 1 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

Deletion discussions guidelines change

Are there any guidelines that say what can be done to a category during the period when there is a deletion discussion (see for example) is going on? Ottawahitech (talk) 15:10, 15 May 2019 (UTC)Reply

There are no specific guidelines, but its generally considered disruptive to continue creating articles/categories whatever of a type that is being discussed in an Rfd. -DJSasso (talk) 17:10, 15 May 2019 (UTC)Reply
It would also be disruptive to move (rename) such a category during a discussion. That has happened before. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:49, 15 May 2019 (UTC)Reply

Category:[year] video games change

Category:[year] video games is within Category:[year] in entertainment, should it also be within Category:[year] works? For example, Category:2002 video games. Lights and freedom (talk) 05:49, 3 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Establishment categories for cities change

@Auntof6 If a city has its own category, should the establishment categories be listed on the city's article, or the city's category, or both? Lights and freedom (talk) 20:49, 12 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Lights and freedom: I'm not sure what you're asking. Can you give an example? -- Auntof6 (talk) 22:38, 12 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
@Auntof6 Should Ulan Bator be in Category:1639 establishments, or should Category:Ulan Bator be in Category:1639 establishments? Lights and freedom (talk) 22:41, 12 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
@Lights and freedom: Oh, I get it! The first one: the article should be in the establishment category. That's because other things in Category:Ulan Bator aren't related to when the city was established. -- Auntof6 (talk) 22:44, 12 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Consistency in naming change

These categories should probably be renamed to all use the same word, for consistency:

Unless there's a reason to use different words. Lights and freedom (talk) 01:42, 25 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Lights and freedom While there is a bit of difference in meaning (e.g. you can say "His field of expertise is Pre-Qin Chinese history", but not "His branch of expertise is Pre-Qin Chinese history" or maybe you can...), they are all referring to the same idea in these categories - a specific part of an area of study. This seems to have stemmed from the categories in Enwiki (see en:Category:Subfields by academic discipline) and even internally they're not consistent (see the main article of en:Category:Subfields_of_physics). I support making these names consistent, perhaps they all should be Branches of <subject>? — *Fehufangą✉ Talk page 04:13, 27 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
I agree, and I also think "branches" is a good term to use. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:47, 27 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

British nobility and United Kingdom nobility change

@Eptalon, your closure of Wikipedia:Requests for deletion/Requests/2022/Category:British nobility doesn't solve the question of why there are two separate categories. As @Macdonald-ross said, there are no peerages from the Channel of Islands or other British properties. Lights and freedom (talk) 04:00, 27 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

I was under the impression it was a historical thing. The Channel Islands are a crown dependency, they are not part of the United Kingdom. About 166.000 people live there. Same goes for the Isle of Man (85.000 people). Falklands (3.000 people) and St.Helena (Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, 5.000 people) are British overseas territories. What do we do if there's nobility there? Eptalon (talk) 06:24, 27 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
Well, there are no peerages for overseas Crown dependencies (etc). There are a whole lot of honours which can be given to people whom the Crown esteems. All the European powers did that kind of thing, and most still do.
Another angle is the existence of the House of Lords, which is composed of peers who are a strangely mixed group. Some of them are hereditary, but many are "Life Peers" whose title disappears when they die. Although most systems of government have two tiers, only the British have such a peculiar system, and of course it is due to our being a parliamentary democracy much earlier than most other countries. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:20, 27 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
@Eptalon, Macdonald-ross, Auntof6, Ferien, Fehufanga, and PotsdamLamb: What if we just keep "British nobility" and then have subcategories under it for "Peers of England", "Peers of Scotland", "Peers of Great Britain", "Peers of Ireland", and "Peers of the United Kingdom". en:Peerages in the United Kingdom explains the reasoning for this. Each title is specifically part of one of these peerages, which are all separate from each other. For example, a noble title from Scotland could be part of "Peerage of Scotland", "Peerage of Great Britain", or "Peerage of the United Kingdom". (There isn't one for Wales.) These all depend on when the noble title is created.
Alternatively, there could be no subcategories, and everything would just be a part of "British nobility"; "United Kingdom nobility" would be redirected to this title. Lights and freedom (talk) 18:15, 27 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
The first option would work for me, as long as it is populated with articles about people. I haven't looked to see if we have any articles about titles; if we do, they should be categorized differently. (A peer is a person, a peerage -- dukedom, earldom, etc. -- is a title.) -- Auntof6 (talk) 18:30, 27 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
The ideas above may already be too complicated, and yet it leaves out Life Peers, who are eligible for the House of Lords. Re-read our and En wiki on House of Lords! The page reminds me of the 26 most senior bishops. Macdonald-ross (talk) 19:19, 27 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
@Macdonald-ross If that's too complicated, then wouldn't it be best to have just one category for all nobility from the UK? The life peers and Lords Spiritual(?) can be subcategories (if they're considered to be nobility). Lights and freedom (talk) 21:38, 27 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
Whatever we do, we need to distinguish between temporary political fixes (like life peers) and proper nobility, which was based on defending Britain against assorted foes (usually from mainland Europe). We can't simply say they're all nobility because they are in one sense, but not in another. That's the root of the problem. I begin to think we are talking about two articles. Macdonald-ross (talk) 22:49, 27 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
I know this is a boring and annoying topic, so bear with me. I think the basic difference is between life peers and hereditary peers. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:45, 6 November 2022 (UTC)Reply
That seems like a good reason to merge "British nobility" and "United Kingdom nobility", and then make a new category for "Life peers". Lights and freedom (talk) 17:29, 6 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Documenting exceptions to 3-entry rule change

I'd like to add the text below (or something like it) at Wikipedia:Categories#Is there a need for the new category?. The purpose is to document practices we have followed in the past. I'm making this proposal because some users are not familiar with the exceptions, and the category structure has at times been disrupted by users who didn't know about them.

I've tried to list all the exceptions I can think of. Please comment on:

  • Do you think anything should be added to or removed from the list?
  • Do you approve of adding this information to the guideline, subject to any changes that come out of the discussion?
  • Anything else you think is relevant

What this discussion is not:

  • A discussion of new exceptions we might add
  • A discussion of whether the 3-entry rule should exist

Proposed text follows

The following are exceptions to this rule:

  • Administrative categories, including maintenance categories
  • Subcategories of Category:Wikipedians
  • Categories for years
  • Categories for births and deaths for a given year (for example, Category:2000 births)
  • Some categories that complete a limited finite set, if only a small number of categories need to be created. Examples of finite sets where this applied include:
  • Categories for species in a given conservation status, because there is a limited number of defined conservation statuses
  • Category:Hawaii counties was created when there were only two entries in it, because it was the only US state without a counties category. (This should not be taken to mean that all United States "by state" categories can be created.)
  • Categories needed to put any of the above into a normal category structure. Examples:
  • If a category for a year is created, the category for its decade can also be created.
  • If a category for births in a certain year is created, the category for the year can also be created.

End of proposed text

Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:58, 30 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

  •   Comment: - It would be good if this documentation is included. Since new pages are created every day, we need to expand our guidelines. Many users do categorization but they must be aware of what category should be fit in the particular article/page. I won't hesitate to go with it. --Dibyojyotilet's chat 16:16, 30 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • My only comment to this would be to keep it short. As this entire thing is just a guideline and I created it to provide concepts on how to categorize things, I don't think there should be stead fast rules on doing so. (I intended it to be more of an essay but it was widely accepted from the start as I was the one doing most of the cat tree design in the early days.) As written, there should be 3 not there must be three. Emphasizing the "should" would not be out of line, of course. A few examples on exception also would be helpful but a complete list would be over kill. I would suggest limiting it to something along the lines of "In some cases, categories may be created with less than 3 entries. Categories on years, births, deaths and those with a limited set of entries are common examples of this." Leaving it a bit vague also leaves it open to situational interpretation which can also make it more flexible. It may lead to Admins needing to make the call and readjust and prune the branches (clean out the cat and then qd it as empty) occasionally, but that is why they are trusted with the mop in the first place. If they can't be trusted to make the call or to make a call that is wrong but learn from that mistake, should they have it in the first place? --Creol(talk) 07:48, 31 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
    @Creol: Thanks, that's helpful. I might change "those with a limited set of entries" to something describing them as part of a limited set rather than themselves containing such a set.
    Just as a point of historical interest, I remember hearing "three to five entries" when I was new here, which of course got interpreted as "three entries" because that satisfied the requirement. -- Auntof6 (talk) 10:41, 31 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

Gender-related categorization... change

Hello all,

following our discussion on Simple talk (TODO:Add reference, when it is archived) I propose the following (in a section on its own):

  1. This is only about the split into male and female; at the moment, we think that non-binary genders are too complex to handle for our category system.
  2. Gender-related categories should be avoided. - There is little to no extra information in classifying people by gender. Categories such as male politicians/female politicians add little to no information, and should be avoided
  3. In some cases, classifying by gender is unavoidable - In these cases, the issue will be discussed, and there will be a vote. The proposed terms are "male", or "female", rather than "men" or "women".
  4. Categories for awards that only apply to one gender are an exception to the rules above. It is possible to create categories such as "Academy Award winners of best supporting actress", even though no man will ever be given this award.
  5. The other rules of this guideline apply to the newly-created category.

Voting:

  1. The page where the vote is to occur should have an archive section, so that the vote can be found in the future.
  2. If a vote for a split is to occur, and it does not occur on Simple Talk, it should be announced there.
  3. The vote runs for a week. Minimum acceptable results: two-thirds of the named editors in favor, with a minimum of five valid votes. Any admin can close the vote.
  4. Usual procedure: One vote per named editor, standard procedure for sockpuppet-voters, no neutral votes, votes of people with very few other edits can be disregarded.

What do you think? Eptalon (talk) 10:29, 27 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

As there has been no feedback, I guess these changes are Ok. I have therefore added them in a section in the guideline. Eptalon (talk) 11:09, 12 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

Cities and towns in India change

@Auntof6 and InfernoGaming46: I want to help clean up the Settlements in India categories. en:List of cities in India by population suggests that in India, a city has at least 100,000 people, and a town has fewer. I am thinking of replacing all the "cities and towns" categories for each state/territory with separate categories for "cities" and "towns". Does this make sense to you? Lights and freedom (talk) 21:53, 7 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, I was originally doing that but instead decided to go per enwiki and make the cities and towns cats. I'll start working on making the separate categories. InfernoGaming46 (IG46) (talk / changes) 22:37, 7 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
I think having them separate makes more sense. InfernoGaming46 (IG46) (talk / changes) 22:47, 7 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
I've separated all the "Cities and towns in" categories except for the two largest ones (Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh) which are going to be a lot of work (especially Tamil Nadu since it has district categories to separate as well). InfernoGaming46 (IG46) (talk / changes) 00:03, 8 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
Thanks! I will work on the other ones. Lights and freedom (talk) 00:17, 8 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
Uttar Pradesh is done InfernoGaming46 (IG46) (talk / changes) 00:32, 8 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
Now it's just Tamil Nadu left InfernoGaming46 (IG46) (talk / changes) 00:57, 8 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
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