Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/Archive 7

message: Somebody has deleted all the "Suspected sockpuppet of X" and "Sockpuppets of X" categories without redirecting them; therefore, it has created a WP-wide systemic issue - all the lists of socks of a given user are gone, and the lists are important to show patterns of behavior for persistent vandals.  Could this either be a) reversed, or b) wildcard redirected in all instances?
I forone think that something as important as this should have been communicated to the entire community.  I personally was unaware of anything happening until it was too late. MSJapan 22:55, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category:Wikipedia:... 

message: I thought I followed the directions, but :Category:Ophthalmologic inflammations doesn't show up here. It does show up at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 June 5, though. Could someone check my work, please. Thanks! -AED 01:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Help

message: I have created a template,  and a category, :Category:Protected deleted categories, to protect categories which are deleted as being too ambiguous, point of view or unencyclopedic, and suffer recreation.  The only problem I can see is that some people may still add the category to articles.  I believe there are bots that run and remove categories which are redirected to other categories, and wonder if someone could add this category to their meanderings? Hiding Talk 21:45, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  recreated categories which have been deleted as too ambiguous 

message: ;Problems regarding the commons new top down heirarchial image categories
:*Apologies on that, I was trying to bring it into conformance with the way it's used on the Wikimedia Commons, and should have read through the talk... didn't realize the BOT patrols and auto-moves things here. (I'm trying to take a wikibreak on top of all that!)
:I've created template:Category redirect2 to do the same task (Just warn of correct 'new category' and placehold the old name pending later deletion), but the bigger issue from the 'standpoint of the project' is the commons image categories are being deleted despite correctly showing images reflected from the commons sister-category. 
:Further, in email, user:AllyUnion is advising me on a BOT to tag images for automatic upload across-the-sister project databases (He says such a BOT is feasible), so copyright qualified images as we recategorize them here will begin moving into the commons as the general rule, rather than the exception (purpose of the commons, after all! <g>)... which creates even more zero pages in category situations here, or will. 
:Also, heirarchial 'Parent' and 'sub-parent' administrative categories (example—there won't be a lot of such overall) will need to remain unmolested (undeleted) as the navigation links in the system. Such allow our editors to find the media they need for our articles, and the zero pages in category speedy deletion criteria is thus a dagger at the throat of all the effort to make this system work so that things are easy to find. (It also wastes the time of three of us, as I note in that link.)
:Pending a 'formal project page' I'd ask that any category tagged with one of the {CommonscatX} series of templates (temporary list pending target page  completion) be off limits for speedy-deletion of such categories. I should also note, that since the images will necessarily include periodization as well as geographical and 'Old' versus 'Modern' cross-references, that human intervention will necessarily be involved for each image, hence  and it's BOT relocation is contraindicated, thus the '2' version. Best regards // <B>Fra</B>nkB 16:23, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Disappearing categories

message: Orphan category, and I am not sure if it needs renaming (certainly) or just deletion.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 06:42, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[:Category:Street Names List]]

message: *
What are we supposed to do about this?  Somebody who's been around long enough to know better, failing to follow the standard procedures, created a sub=page, and then transcluded it.
:--William Allen Simpson 02:01, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 June 19 subpage  

message: Based on my understanding of the recent discussion over at Wikipedia talk:Categories for deletion/Working#Speedy moves, it appears that having the /Working transcluded may be confusing to some editors.  
When I created it, I was following the "Holding cell" model of TfD.  Only a few short months ago, there were far more TfD than CfD, but we were catching up in volume, our existing bot had stopped working, and we needed a bit of organization to help coordinate the hand-work.
Now, we have more activity than TfD, and are seeing nearly daily incorrect listings, listings in the wrong day, and (rare) listings directly in /Working.  
Also, we had an earlier complaint about the floating box "Archive and Indices" up at the top.  It doesn't always display correctly.
Noting that AfD has gone all the way to no transclusion, and just has a list of links to daily pages, I don't think we need to go that far (yet, and hopefully never).
I have some other ideas on how to make things cleaner and easier, but first I'd like a simple proposal, making it a bit easier to hand maintain the daily links (and perhaps easier for the bot reincarnation).
(I've checked, and there are no current or recent links to the old Cleanup overhead section heading, so it should be safe to eliminate.)
:--William Allen Simpson 04:38, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: --William Allen Simpson 20:06, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing /Working transclusion 

message: Hi folks!
An editor has come to AfD to announce that s/he has finished work on :Category:Wikipedia articles whose topics' importance is unclear. I think you people wanted it deleted when empty. If you'd like to check it over, I think it can be deleted. If it can, and you've not got an admin handy, drop me a line and I'll do it. ➨ ЯEDVERS 20:19, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I've been tracking down all the stray links, but Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup still shows up in :Category:Wikipedia articles of unclear importance and :Category: Wikipedia articles whose topics' importance is unclear.  Checked all the obvious templates that might be doing it, but can't seem to find the culprit.  A cookie to whoever can.  — Laura Scudder ☎ 20:51, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category:Wikipedia articles whose topics' importance is unclear 

message: As I was cleaning, I noticed a significant number of old nominations that were tagged months ago.  In some cases, they were leftover from previous nominations (the closer forgot to remove them), or were not properly affixed (for example, adding  to both categories, or  to one and  or  on the other).
However, I've found a large number where the template was added to the page, but never added to the daily discussion.  Probably because the article space templates don't have that requirement. 
I propose that we take a page from AfD and the new Deletion Review, and use , , and . 
The revised templates could have a big "click here", and that would automagically add the , , and  to the discussion page, using the &preload as was cleverly done at Deletion Review.
I'm going to play with , as it doesn't yet exist, to provide a working example.  That will help make the discussion here more concrete, and provide testing before mucking with the others.
:--William Allen Simpson 19:19, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: --William Allen Simpson 15:08, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

text: --William Allen Simpson 15:08, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clearer nomination process 

message: For posterity, I thought I should mention that my first attempted magic didn't work.  Turns out that "§ion=new&preload=template:cfd2" will work (putting them at the bottom of the daily page rather than our current practice at the top), but I could not figure out how to preload the section subject/headline with the category or umbrella name.  The &default= from the Inputbox extension didn't work for me, and I couldn't find any other documentation.
Besides, tradition here is to add them at the top of the page.  So, my magic trick below was my somewhat less perfect solution to the problem.
:--William Allen Simpson 15:08, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  new nomination preload not yet possible 

message: OK, for my first successful magic trick, I added a NEW NOMINATIONS section at the top of each daily page, and changed THIS LINK on Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Howto (and the Cfd, Cfm, and Cfr templates) to "action=edit§ion=2".  This should speed new listings and reduce edit conflicts on busy days, as the subst:cfd2 (or cfr2) into this tiny new section will always result in a new section just below itself. 
Of course, this is something that could/should be removed after concluding each day.  The (currently non-working) Templates for Deletion bot edits its previous day page after creating the current day page, and I'm sure we can handle the minor edit until we get a new bot, too.  
However, as the THIS LINK edit is by day and section number, it won't hurt to leave them there until somebody gets around to it.
:--William Allen Simpson 15:08, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NEW NOMINATIONS 

message: ...and where's the consensus? --kingboyk 09:38, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion#Reorganizing_CfD above... -- nae'blis (talk) 18:46, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's with the new page name... 

message: has been innovating on the nominations, listing only the original template in the section heading on merging/renaming, instead of both templates.  Then, the proposed merger starts immediately after the heading.
See Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 July 1#Category:Buttonquails, and many others.
Under the current nomination format, when the target is changed during discussion, all the links to the section stop working.
I'd like to adopt the ProveIt innovation.  Easy template changes, although probably not exactly the same resulting format.
:--William Allen Simpson 06:59, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Single category in section heading 

message: For the past few weeks (see #Clearer nomination process), I've been experimenting with subst'able templates that add the date automatically, among other things.  I'm confident that they work reasonably well:
*
*
*
Unlike AfD, they do not result in massive subst'd template HTML CSS cruft all over the page.  Instead, they just make our current templates with automated and sometimes fancier parameters than most folks seem to do by hand.
Since our process uses a 1 week period, after a week or so, everything should have moved painlessly to having a date, and a direct link to the daily page.
Warning:  without the 1 does not work well, it makes a horrid mess, much like .  I've always disliked cleaning up after an AfD.
In short, 
#smart folks use  instead of , etc.  
#the regular  will continue to work as usual.  
#the old  will be deprecated.
Any objections to making these the standard instructions at /Howto?
:--William Allen Simpson 19:02, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: --William Allen Simpson 15:10, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  cfd1, cfm1, cfr1 

message: This page is now using , and should adjust to the next day without intervention.
Use the link at the top to purge the local cache for those times that an old version is stuck in an apache or squid cache.  This has happened from time to time ever since the change to daily subpages, and is not related to this change.
I am still generating the daily pages by hand in advance, as the template is not subst'able.  I've written code for Mediawiki to handle offsets, but it has not yet been accepted.  http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6692 and http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6693. 
I am still updating "Closing in progress" each day, and removing the previous day's NEW NOMINATIONS section.  
:--William Allen Simpson 01:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe we should change back. This is totally unreadable.--Mike Selinker 23:10, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

text: --William Allen Simpson 21:07, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  daily pages should adjust automagically 

message: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#William Allen Simpson trying to make CFR a vote --SPUI (T - C) 01:35, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: cfd2, cfr2 and cfm2

message: I think we should go back to the old versions (pre July 23) without the extra data and to make clear what the nomination is for.  The current rename is totally confusing. Having to search to find the target does not seem to be a good move.  These are discussions and the results can be different then suggested, but that fact should not force us to use confusing nomination headings.  Vegaswikian 02:11, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I hate the presentation of a CfD discussion with "lc" template. When people use it, it takes a fairly clean and organized discussion and makes it unreadable. I suggest it not ever be used on this page.--Mike Selinker 02:59, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the changes make the page more difficult to scan. It would have been nice if the changes were discussed here before they were implemented. - EurekaLott 02:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Failing anyone supporting it, I think the "lc" template should be changed so this page can be returned to readability.--Mike Selinker 23:08, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Do we need to wait longer before reverting to a version before the changes or can it be done now?  Vegaswikian 18:52, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

text: --William Allen Simpson 20:43, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, we are still not back to the old version that was Category whatever to Category whatever 2.  Vegaswikian 05:15, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

text: --William Allen Simpson 20:56, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I just looked at  and it's more then I want to chance messing up to restore it back to the old format.  Vegaswikian 05:27, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  xxx2 templates 

message: Reviewing today's nominations (Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 July 26) I suddenly realised various votes and a section of the page was missing; I've just reinstated them. There may be other votes/sections still missing. Is something broken somewhere?  Hoping it's not my sanity, David Kernow 00:00, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Something odd occurring...? 

message: Above has a CfD tag on it but I cannot find a related discussion.  The page history has only one entry also which has me confused.  Can anyone help? -- I@n 02:24, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the tag, which seems to have been placed there by mistake. The category was recently created as the result of this discussion, and the tag should not have been copied to the new category. Thanks for pointing it out. - EurekaLott 04:20, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[:Category:Sports lore]]

message: :Category:Preteen Wikipedians has been blanked. The userbox? Dead. Everyone on the list? Wiped. We had a contact system going, this is terrible. There is no explanation. Someone just wiped us. Tell us why! User:Wizkid357/Wiki Preteen and discussion page. Tell us. We want it back. We were effectavly gaining members and we're using the catagory to help recruit and gain contact with our preteens. I, for one, want it back. Thank you. Julz
:The category was deleted after this discussion.  Because of the discussion there, an admin (User:Drini) decided to delete the  template used for the userbox. You can discuss it with him, or post comments for all admins to see on this page.
:BTW, if you want to create a link that points to a category, you have to use a colon ":".  For example, :Category:Preteen Wikipedians will create :Category:Preteen Wikipedians -- Samuel Wantman 07:36, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  We're not gonna take this!!!! 

message: * and 
*
are ready to be deleted.
They have been superceded by  
*
:--William Allen Simpson 11:18, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: William, is there an update to How to use this page regarding the use of this?  I thought I ran across your link to the discussion on this, but maybe this is all there is. Syrthiss 14:35, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

text: --William Allen Simpson 17:54, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Except thats talking about cfd1 not cfdu.  Are they just the same template with different names? Syrthiss 11:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

text: --William Allen Simpson 11:55, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Retiring cfdu and cfdud 

message: What happens if a category has two "delete" votes after two days? Can it be deleted? How do I go about alerting an administrator to delete the category? (I'm referring to :Category:WikiProject EastEnders by the way) Trampikey (talk to me)(contribs) 14:45, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops, sorry, didn't know it had to be seven days! Trampikey (talk to me)(contribs) 15:17, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What happens if...? 

message: A number of the subcategories within :Category:Fictional characters by nature are based almost entirely on POV, and I'm not really sure how to go about addressing the issue. Would anyone more experienced be willing to help me? --Chris Griswold 10:19, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category:Fictional characters by nature 

message: This is re: the aftermath of the switch of :Category:Singles by artist to :Category:Songs by artist, which resulted in the creation of a :Category:Foetus songs with no parent categories.  I've temproarily subcategorized it under :Category:J. G. Thirlwell albums, the home of :Category:Foetus albums, among others (J. G. Thirlwell is the musican who records as Foetus as well as other pseudonyms).
This temporary state isn't right, because songs are not subcategories of albums.  I figured that I could either create a new :Category:J. G. Thirlwell and place :Category:J. G. Thirlwell albums and :Category:Foetus songs as subcategories, or nominate to rename the current :Category:J. G. Thirlwell albums to simply become :Category:J. G. Thirlwell.  Which would be preferable? -- Rynne 20:18, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Should I nominate [[:Category:J. G. Thirlwell albums]] for renaming?

message: See:
Filipino people by ethnic or national origin
The result of the debate was no consensus --Kbdank71 14:23, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There may have been no consensus, but the fact still remains that the categorizations of those people in those categories is still inaccurate and not in accordance with the criterion outlined in Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(categories)#Heritage. And I quote "Heritage categories should not be used to record people based on deduction, inference, residence, surname, nor any partial derivation from one or more ancestors." Many of these people were categorized in this way. Others were categorized by a drop of blood, as in the case of the Philippine President and the Philippine national hero. Please note that I did not delete the categories, but the categories will be eligible for speedy deletion after four days. The issues had to do with the actual articles themselves and not the categories per se. --Chris S. 05:51, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I kind of disagree with that move myself.  Sometimes, though, consensus (or lack thereof) doesn't mean jack here.  Chris was right in one respect: it was the articles in question, not the categories.  If you can populate them correctly, they'll stay.  --Kbdank71 10:41, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

text: So if you don't like the result of the articles for deletion voting, just go do it yourself?  The deleting editor made no effort to research any facts or allow others to research them.  The article contents remain the same, saying the person was of 'such and such ethnic background'.  The deleting editor simply decided on his own that the article information was invalid and proceeded to make mass deletes of all articles from their ethnic/national origin categories.  This is not trying to improve WP by fact finding and discussion; it is simply mass destruction of the work of others.  I have no facts to counter what this editor did; I just think that the material in these and every WP article should be taken as 'true' until proved otherwise.  And that this 'true' information be the basis of categorization of articles until, or if, the material in the article has been changed by normal WP processes.  What other possible basis can there be for assigning articles to categories other than the content of the articles themselves?  Do we each just add and delete categories for articles on our own whims?  Thanks Hmains 03:36, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  mass deletion without discussion or consensus 

message: Templates for deletion states:
:If a template is part of (the functioning of) a Wikipedia policy or guideline, the template cannot be listed for deletion on TfD separately, the template should be discussed where the discussion for that guideline is taking place.
Is it reasonable to expect that the same process should take place here, with respect to maintenance categories? (also posted to Wikipedia talk:Category deletion policy). -- nae'blis 16:06, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  categories used in policies/guidelines 

message: CFD seems to be getting really bogged down recently on fixing up user categories.  I suggest that it is not worth it, and that our time is better spent dealing with encyclopedic content.  User categories don't really matter that much anyway.  If one is messed up, I would say just deleted it.  Don't spend the time trying to figure out the exact right name for it.  --Cyde Weys 04:21, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While the attention to user categories may be a bit of a distraction from more encyclopedic concerns, on the whole, I think it's a positive effort. If left unattended, the user categories would likely resemble the userbox morass, packed full of unfunny in-jokes and other nonsense. User:Cswrye has prepared a set of proposed guidelines for dealing with user categories. If accepted, it would make dealing with these categories much easier. - EurekaLott 04:48, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand your point, Cyde, and I've thought about it myself. There are different philosophies about user categories, ranging from people who think that they are a waste of time and should be done away with completely to people who think that they should be allowed to do whatever they want with them. My own philosophy is that they do have value, but only if there are some boundaries to provide some consistency in how people use them. That's what my proposal is all about. I've used these categories in the past to help me find people who can assist me with articles, and I'm sure that they can have value to others as well. In any case, there was a bit of carelessness in developing these categories in the past (most of which has been resolved since the German userbox solution, so I see the current user CFDs as being a temporary thing. Mike Selinker has been doing a great job sorting through them, and once we have gone though them, future CFDs for them will probably be much rarer. --Cswrye 18:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Can we maybe establish a process separate from CFD to handle user categories?  Cydebot is choking to death on user categories.  pyWikipediaBot was only ever written to handle categories in articles.  --Cyde Weys 18:19, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I think I'm going to agree with Cyde here.  Either leave them the way they are or offload them to a non-cfd area.  I've found myself manually making a lot of these moves because the bots can't handle them.  --Kbdank71 19:09, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Same, I tried to AWB my way through a bunch of them yesterday while working on other things...and ended up having to do a bunch by hand (which I can't do while working on other things).  I don't mind trying to unify them, but maybe a separate process would be beneficial. Syrthiss 19:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't know that this was causing problems with the bot. Is it just the number of categories being nominated at once, or does it have something to do with the categories themselves? We can slow down on the number of nominations if it's causing that much of a problem. I wouldn't mind creating a separate process for Wikipedian categories. Just keep in mind that this will be a temporary process (we hope) while we are correcting the existing categories. Once most of them are renamed, they will probably just be nominated one or a few at at time instead of the mass renamings that we are doing now. --Cswrye 00:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too many user categories