Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/Archive 1

message: There do not seem to be any firm policies for category deletion, so let me suggest some... If you object to anything here, feel free to add comments and/or suggest alternatives, especially if you disagree with the time lengths I've randomly chosen. --ssd 22:59, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I have below proposed merging CFD and VFD. Barring that, categories whose deletion the lister thinks might provoke substantive debate should be deemed welcome on VFD by WP policy. I agree that the category should not be emptied first.--Gary D 23:20, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: New policies for category deletion

message: What about delisting? As per speedy deletion, too? Or x days? Any archiving? - UtherSRG 23:00, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Delisting process

message: Ummm... I think I might have made a mistake.  a lot of the categories listed in vfd said that they should be moved to cfd, so I did.  But now that I read the heading at the top of cfd, I notice that it's only for categories that are emptied... Is there an official policy on this page?  I can't find it. - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 16:54, Jun 4, 2004 (UTC)
:I don't think there is one, at least not yet. My suggestion: Listing pages that are not yet emptied is okay, but not recommended, and if the category is not empty at the time, the person listing the category should say so at the time. A non-empty category (i.e. one with articles linking to it) should not be deleted without first having the relevant articles amended to the proper category (or to no category if it's determined that the category is wholly spurious). On consideration, a category should be empty before it gets listed. Although if new articles find their way into the category between listing and when a consensus to delete is reached, then the newly linking articles wil need to be edited first. -Sean Curtin 17:43, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think non-empty categories should be listed for deletion. You should get a consensus on the category's talk page to remove the links to it before deleting it. Non-empty ones should not be deleted, so these links would have to be removed anyway. It will surprise people less if they are removed before deletion rather than after and gives them a chance to object without having to go to Wikipedia:votes for undeletion. Angela. 01:04, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  vfd 

message: As I understand it, CFD operates parallel to VFD, in that candidate categories are voted on and may be either kept or deleted, rather than this being a maintenance page with listed categories being automatically deleted. For that reason, I suggest listed categories not be emptied before being listed, so that if they are voted to be retained, all the emptying work does not need to be undone. --Gary D 23:11, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Listing categories for deletion before emptying them

message: Discussion on Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/FHM110sexiest.
===Sexy Ladies, according to FHM, who may be entirely correct===
The FHM sexy ladies list raises an issue for me due to its inclusion of a particular media opinion as a category in Wikipedia. Besides that, its too damn long IMHO. -Stevertigo 19:38, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  FHM110sexiest 

message: The FHM sexy ladies list raises an issue for me due to its inclusion of a particular media opinion as a category in Wikipedia. Besides that, its too damn long IMHO. -Stevertigo 19:38, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Sexy Ladies, according to FHM, who may be entirely correct

message: I think that, contrary to VfD policies, a category should be kept only if there is a consensus in favor of keeping it.  Because of the impact that categories have in classifying articles, only those that have substantial, noncontroversial support should remain.  There should be some guiding principles to assess whether a category should be kept:
* It must not be controversial or POV.  Duh.
* It should not be trivial.  :Category:People with blue eyes should never happen, nor should :Category:Russian novelists who had more than two children.  Someone making a list article of trivial facts is entirely other matter, and may be appropriate.  Categories should be held to a higher standard of relevance than article content by far.
* It must not misconstrue the nature of an article.  By this, I mean that categories operate as a shorthand for what an article is about and even why an article was written about that subject.  This goes to the triviality issue above as well, in relation to whether an article's relationship to the category is trivial rather than whether the category itself is trivial.
Categories are important because they function to classify the subjects of articles—they appear with an even greater claim of factuality and objectivity than the content of articles. They should be limited to what is somehow integral to understanding a subject, rather than something that simply happens to be true about it. Trivial information can be buried at the bottom of an article with no problem, but trivial categories bury the article itself.  Postdlf 23:29, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: These are all good ideas when talking about guidelines for categories, and probably should be listed on the category creation page.  However, they don't address what to do with categories about which there is some debate. My goal here is to formulate a rule to allow me to delete the debates currently on this page after they are sufficently stale. --ssd 16:09, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: If there is not an overwhelming and well-reasoned consensus in favor of keeping the category, it should be deleted.  I would even suggest weighting votes of admins who are more familiar with wikipedia content as a whole, and have a better idea of how the content should better interrelate and be classified.  I'm reluctant to say at any rate that this should proceed purely along the numbers in the way that VfD does.  Postdlf 21:21, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I would invert the above; if there is not a clear consensus to delete, a category should be kept.  If a category has contains less than two entries after a reasonable amount of time (on the order of months) then it isn't really a category and should be put up for deletion.   Certainly keeping possibly-marginal categories around for a while is less harmful than, say, incorrect articles.  Jgm 02:36, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: An incorrect article can be corrected by editing the article.  An irrelevant category may marr hundreds of articles that it poorly classifies.  Categories are not mere content, a bit of text subsumed into an article.  They function to classify an article, to tell a reader what its subject is.  What does it mean to "keep" a category?  Does that mean simply not deleting it, or does it mean maintaining its category tag on every article that has been placed under it?  If :Category:Women who wear C-cup bras is created, should that mean that applicable articles should remain classified under it as long as it exists?  That's quite a lot of power for the category's creator to exercise over a potentially large number of articles.  And if a category survives CfD, then does that mean that removing those category tags is vandalism?  If not, then "keeping" a category doesn't mean much, because editors who don't like it can simply remove all of its content.  I certainly would if someone started classifying articles on women by their breast size.  But if keeping a category means that articles must remain categorized under it, then we better be damn sure we are only keeping the most sensible, and the most overwhelmingly supported categories.  Postdlf 03:16, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you are blowing it out of proportion.  A category with "hundreds" of items in it obviously already has overwhelming support, and most likely shouldn't be deleted; renamed or split perhaps, but not deleted.  Categories with one or two items are the ones that are the problem here.  Deleting them after a month of non-growth is an interesting idea. --ssd 03:49, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I've seen stupid and trivial categories with hundreds of items in it get populated entirely by one errant editor—it isn't necessarily any indication of community support or consensus, just that one person wants to spend a lot of time on a bad idea.  And I think there are many categories with one or two items that may grow as more articles of a kind are created.  It doesn't make any sense to delete a category that is a highly logical classification and holds a place for a series of articles of which there are obviously many more to come, just because those articles haven't all been created yet.  The amount of content in a category shouldn't determine whether it gets kept, but rather the logic of its classification.  Postdlf 05:13, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I've seen this, and I had to think about it.  I think the short answer is that by allowing stupid categories, no permanent harm is done.  If one editor can put hundreds of articles in a category, one editor can remove them too.  If anything, more harm is done by not having the category, as you may end up with hundreds of articles in scattered categories which might all really be the same category spelled several ways.  If hundreds of articles are all in one wrong category, at least we know where they are so we can move them easily. I agree the name of a category should be carefully selected.  I agree that some categories are just silly or overly narrow (or overly broad) or overly trivial.  Many existing categories have one item; I'm not sure if this is because they are too narrow (or otherwise worthless), or if people just haven't (yet) done the work to put articles into the categories.  These are all policy questions I will not try to answer right now.  What I'd like to answer here now is this: What policy for category deletion would best help answer these questions?  What conditions would best finish an on going discussion about a category? --ssd 21:14, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: I agree that its not clear. Categories can be extremely well populated in no time, and its not proper to delete them before its clear they should be, to say nothing of the difficulty of reverting these without a bot. So, we need a bot to remove these. Part of it is just the fact that WP:RC goes by so quickly now; it used to be the place to see whats going on; now you blink and 500 edits have slipped through... -Stevertigo 05:14, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: There are currently no standards on speedy deletes that fit categories.  The categories that get deleted here without any contest are already empty.  Almost all of those are empty because the articles in them were moved to a better category--usually with a more consistent spelling or capitalization, and they are usually listed as such.  If you put them up on speedy delete, there would be no standards at all, and a lot of placeholder categories that are currently emtpy (easily in the 100's) could end up on speedy deletes and deleted.  If you disband this page, you may as well make emptying a category and blanking its article equivalent to deleting the category, as nobody will ever find it again anyway.  I think if redirects and page move worked with categories, there would not be nearly so many categories wanting deleting. --ssd 22:04, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The same situation still seems to pertain as when I asked my original question... have we advanced at all? --bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)</span> 22:00, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)
I think this should move to a subsection of RfC, as it's really for category disputes, not category deletions. anthony (see warning) 11:38, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: What to do with controversial categories?

message: There seems to me to be a confusion about what the page is for.  The top of the page states that categories should be empty.  However, some people are - as with the FHM 100 - effectively taking it to mean "votes for category deletion".  The page seems designed to draw admins attention to orphaned categories that are no longer useful.  But the community seems to see it as a VfD for categories.  I think this needs to be cleared up. --bodnotbod 22:42, Jul 11, 2004 (UTC)
:I agree that its not clear. Categories can be extremely well populated in no time, and its not proper to delete them before its clear they should be, to say nothing of the difficulty of reverting these without a bot. So, we need a bot to remove these. Part of it is just the fact that WP:RC goes by so quickly now; it used to be the place to see whats going on; now you blink and 500 edits have slipped through... -Stevertigo 05:14, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: There are currently no standards on speedy deletes that fit categories.  The categories that get deleted here without any contest are already empty.  Almost all of those are empty because the articles in them were moved to a better category--usually with a more consistent spelling or capitalization, and they are usually listed as such.  If you put them up on speedy delete, there would be no standards at all, and a lot of placeholder categories that are currently emtpy (easily in the 100's) could end up on speedy deletes and deleted.  If you disband this page, you may as well make emptying a category and blanking its article equivalent to deleting the category, as nobody will ever find it again anyway.  I think if redirects and page move worked with categories, there would not be nearly so many categories wanting deleting. --ssd 22:04, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The same situation still seems to pertain as when I asked my original question... have we advanced at all? --bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)</span> 22:00, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)
I think this should move to a subsection of RfC, as it's really for category disputes, not category deletions. anthony (see warning) 11:38, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: What is this page for?

message: I think this problem would be best solved in the long term by taking this information out of the articles and putting it into the categories.  Instead of storing the category information in the child pages, you'd store it in the parents.  Marking a category in the old style would still work, but this information would be moved to the category page itself.  Thus we'd get history, we'd be able to make moves, standardization of sort keys would be easier, renaming of links would be possible, we'd have a good notion of redirects, we'd be able to mass add lots of articles at once, and we'd be able to include articles which haven't yet been created. In the mean time, as I'm not sure how much work this would be, we'd still need to work on these interim solutions. anthony (see warning) 11:57, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like a good idea. Although it would be slightly harder to add add a single article to a category, it would be quicker when adding many articles. And it would make reverts etc. possible, rather than ridiculously time-consuming as now. ··gracefool |☺ 23:29, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Long term proposal

message: Here's an example to ponder, :Category:Air forces. It has thirty entries, but not thirty articles—instead, it contains thirty subcategories, one each for the air force of a particular country. Each of these thirty subcategories contains just one article, identically titled with the subcategory, on that country's air force. Each of those subcategories is also assigned to a second parent category on the military of that particular country. I have not checked all those country military categories, but the ones I checked, and I suspect all the rest, contain only one entry, that country's air force subcategory. All in all, a boatload of subcategories for not too many articles. Even if articles are eventually added on other military branches of those countries, it makes far more sense to assign those two parent categories to the article on each country's air force, rather than inserting these myriad doomed intermediate subcategories. By "doomed," I mean that by definition these thirty subcategories will never have more than one article. Sure, taxonomy is fun, and we can busy our days drawing smaller and smaller boxes until there is only one angel dancing on the head of each pin. For the reader, though, it means extra steps drilling up and down to see what could be conveniently collected into larger logical groups for easy perusal. Let us take pity on the poor reader. --Gary D 09:45, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree there is a trend for overcategorization.  Perhaps this should be brought up on the Village Pump or Votes for Deletion to get a wider audience. --ssd 12:42, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree - why assume that categorization must follow article development. Can't category development lead to articles being written? It might even be a good idea if new articles can be created via a category listing, to auto-include the category tag. The only issue is wether those categories are properly named (:Category:Rebel Alliance was previously :Category:Rebellion ;) and that the categories are NPOV. With article pages, we can let things develop a bit in a wrong direction before changing them. With cats, misclassification can quickly seed more misclassification and POV, and needs to be dealt with quickly, otherwise it gets overpopulated and then nobody wants to do anything about it. Bots. -SV 15:32, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: An example driving my bloodlust for category deletion

message: I got sick of this page being huge.  I deleted some stuff that was resolved simply, and archived both interesting resolved issues and unresolved issues more than two weeks old.  I believe I left placeholders on the page for unresolved issues.  I hope I didn't step on anyone's toes, but the page was just too big. --ssd 22:13, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archived old material 

message: ===Summary===
Ending in September, 2004, there was a poll about whether or not to merge WP:CFD and WP:VFD.  The final result was no merger with the following final tally:
* No merger: 11
* Merge CFD with VFD: 1
* Merge with RfC: 1
The issues of unresolved votes and getting enough people to pay attention to WP:CFD were also raised.
===Full archive===
This debate has been listed on Wikipedia:Requests for comment
Poll opened August 30, 2004 ~ Poll to close 23.59 September 12, 2004
The proposal is that both categories and articles be listed on the same page.  
===Vote yes: list both categories and articles on VfD (or a single, newly named page)===
#--bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)</span> 19:14, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)
# Yes, because this would expose category deletion questions to the presumably larger VfD group, and the considerations behind article deletion and category deletion are somewhat similar. --Gary D 02:00, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poll: Should Categories for Deletion be merged with [[WP:VfD|Votes for deletion]]? 

message: #--bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)</span> 19:14, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)
# Yes, because this would expose category deletion questions to the presumably larger VfD group, and the considerations behind article deletion and category deletion are somewhat similar. --Gary D 02:00, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Vote yes: list both categories and articles on VfD (or a single, newly named page)

message: #I would say no; VfD is huge and slow-loading as it is.  I like the idea of separate project page types going to separate chopping blocks: IfD, VfD, TfD, CfD.  If VfD has the most traffic, it's only because we need to advertise the other project pages more.  --Ardonik(talk) 23:26, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)
#I also think no; people involved in categorisation are not necessarily the same community as are involved in new pages patrol. I do think that Speedy Delete should be allowed for non-controversial category deletion, e.g. misspellings.-gadfium 23:40, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Vote no: categories and pages should be dealt with separately

message: *I feel this would lead to more community input/a broader consensus.  There is a risk of confusion, so I am open to other avenues to generate more input into category deletion discussions. --bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)</span> 19:14, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)
*Since it currently looks like my proposal is going to be voted down, I would plead with anyone who is interested to put the project page on their watchlist and take part in category deletion discussions.  My proposal was really an attempt to get more debate going on CfD - I care little how exactly this is achieved. --bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)</span> 03:00, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)
*No vote yet.  I agree that we need more people participating in CfD, but I don't think that VfD is the place to do it - its already busy enough, and handling categories there could lead to a little confusion.  I'm also not sure of a better way to get more people involved, though.  Maybe we should do some brainstorming...  -Seth Mahoney 23:43, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)
*I just realised I hadn't included an end date for this poll.  It is looking very much like a done deal anyway, but I figured one should be included.  I set it to be 14 days after the poll opened - this was rather arbitrary, but it's a straight 2 weeks.  If it seems a little long it's primarily because not many people seem to be coming here.  If my decision offends you, I'd please ask that you consider the fact that the status quo is almost certainly going to win out, and I think we all have better things to do than argue about a closing date that will - in all likelihood - effect nothing. --bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)</span> 10:30, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)
*No, it should be merged with RfC. anthony (see warning) 11:41, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: comments

message: Thanks so much for the much-needed cleanup, Ssd...
I've proposed that when there's a consensus to keep, we put the discussion on the Category's talk page.  I did that for "German economy" with the following note:
"This category was nominated for deletion, but no clear consensus to delete was reached.  The discussion is recorded below for future reference."
--Beland 05:48, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Documentation of consensus to keep 

message: * I vote for 2C.  Controversial categories should get wider attention.  It's fine for a smaller community of people interested in categories to decide the less controversial cases.  -- Beland 21:18, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Based on further discussion, I'm thinking a staged approach might be good.  We could move to /unresolved 7 days after nomination.  We would then post a link on VFD and/or RFC, and ask people whether 1.) this is simply a matter of coming up with an appropriate compromise from a complex discussion, and implementing it (and asking people to do either of those things), or 2.) there are broader, underlying principles at stake.  If (2), there may be other categories in /unresolved that should be grouped together, or un-nominated examples; these would be collected in a thinktank page and interest whipped up if there are no other major Categorization discussions going on at the time.  If after, say, 60 days, a dispute has not been resolved and has not been made part of a broader discussion, it should be declared "keep" and documented on /resolved and/or the category's talk page.  So, more like 2B + 2C + 4. -- Beland 04:20, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Votes

message: Listed on Wikipedia:Requests for comment.
Start: 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Finish: 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
If there is still no clear consensus to delete or keep after closure has been reached, what should be done about the category?
# Keep the category (documenting the decision on the category's talk page; also documenting on /resolved if the discussion was of general interest)
# Delete the category (documenting on /resolved if the discussion was interesting)
===Summary of votes===
Keep: 4 + 1 from previous poll = 5
Delete: 0
===Votes to keep===
* Keep.  Not all categorization schemes will be useful to all people, but as long as there's a sizable minority that finds them useful, they should be kept. -- Beland 21:20, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Poll: What do to with controversial categories after closure?

message: * Keep.  Not all categorization schemes will be useful to all people, but as long as there's a sizable minority that finds them useful, they should be kept. -- Beland 21:20, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Votes to keep

message: * I vote for 3.  It both helps determine whether or not the category is currently needed, and helps categorize articles that need it. -- Beland 21:18, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Votes

message: An accidental entry could confuse someone looking for Computational Fluid Dynamics, hence the entry at the top of the page. 132.205.15.4 06:48, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Links into encylcopedic space 

message: * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion_phrases&oldid=6375574
* Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion_phrases
* http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Template:Cfd&oldid=6419602
* Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_deletion_phrases
Shouldn't there be a mirroring policy page here, like VfD has?
132.205.15.4 00:31, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  CfD Policy Page 

message: It was pointed out during the recent polling process that we need a new home for categories that need resorting, subcategorization, etc.  I think we should just go ahead and create one.  I can see a few possibilities...Wikipedia:Category cleanup, :Category:Category cleanup, or adding these tasks to Wikipedia:Cleanup.  :Category:Orphaned categories and :Category:Underpopulated categories already exist.  What do you think?  
Places to note this new page: Wikipedia:Categorization projects (current), Template:Resources for collaboration, WP:CFD -- Beland 02:55, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Hearing no comment, Wikipedia:Category cleanup has been created.  Post away. -- Beland 22:45, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dedicated page for category cleanup 

message: This page is a mess! The policies specify that nothing should be here for longer than seven days, but that clearly is not happening. I've been trying to do some cleaning up. 
I don't think it is particularly helpful to dump huge blocks of text at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/unresolved, so I've been trying to somehow figure out how to resolve as many older issues as I can. Because there aren't very many folks voting here, there often is no consensus, not because consensus couldn't be reached fairly easily, but simply because there were only two voters and one of them voted keep and the other delete. 
With that in mind, I would appreciate it if those who are keeping an eye on this page would look at discussions for listings from October (or earlier) and comment wherever possible. Any other suggestions? -Aranel ("Sarah") 23:22, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleaning up this page 

message: ===Olympics===
:Another note: Is it necessary to post such detailed logs here? -Aranel ("Sarah") 18:03, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I just wanted folks to see what I did, since different subcategories got different treatment.  Since no one has made any complaints, I've deleted the spew (and yeah, it does bulk up the page). -- Beland 02:32, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moved from main page 

message: :Another note: Is it necessary to post such detailed logs here? -Aranel ("Sarah") 18:03, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I just wanted folks to see what I did, since different subcategories got different treatment.  Since no one has made any complaints, I've deleted the spew (and yeah, it does bulk up the page). -- Beland 02:32, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Olympics

message: Whoa!  I guess I wasn't paying attention but could someone please explain what the new system is supposed to be for comics writer/artist article categorization?  The MOVE_ commands above appear to indicate that "artists" are being moved to the "writers" category, which makes no sense to me. And I don't see any explanation or discussion on the talk pages of any of those categories. ←Hob 00:07, 2004 Nov 25 (UTC)
Sorry, I mistyped...both :Category:Comics artists and :Category:Comics writers have been moved to :Category:Comic strip creators.  The first two are ready for deletion now. -- Beland 04:56, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Comics

message: I will be posting stuff about renaming articles and fixing body text (so that "prefecture" is capitalized when part of a proper noun) on Wikipedia:Cleanup. Pearle is working on the category titles as I type. -- Beland 00:41, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Japanese prefectures