Wikipedia talk:Overcategorization/Archive 2

message: I did a general cleanup, including: 
*Added headers for easier reference (in a CfD discussion, for example)
*Attempted to streamline the header names (since they will be linked to)
*Re-ordered the entries so that similar concepts were adjacent
Several of the entries could use some general wording cleanup, especially the first one. - jc37 06:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  CleanUp 

message: To try and substantiate Jeff's claims that
#the community wasn't told
#consensus isn't respected
I've posted a new notice to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Circeus 14:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I tossed it over in proposals, too. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:21, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  While it was advertised - you guys didn't get much comment. Only a single dissenter Francis Schonken. Advertising is not the issue here, outside *comment* is at issue. We need more, hands down. If more advertising will suffice to bring us that comment, so be it. Fresheneesz 11:19, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  WP:VPP repost 

message: Is :Category:School massacres overcategorized? It has been split up into "by country" categories, which generally have one or two articles, and sometimes five or six articles in them. This category used to be helpful in that you could see at a glance the 20-30 school massacre articles, but now they are hidden away in the "by country" categories. If I undid all this, and put the categories up for deletion, would that be the right procedure, or should I go to CFD? Carcharoth 16:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you should leave it be.  I don't believe it's overcategorized at the moment, and an argument could be made that it's undercategorized.  --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:50, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Why not have both the general category for school massacres, and the country by country categories? It serves both needs. Fresheneesz 11:20, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Really... the pages in subcategories should be automatically added to the supercategories.... Someone needs to bring that up somewhere - dunno where to suggest that. `Fresheneesz 11:29, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perennial proposal. If you think it through, you'll notice why it becomes widely unpractical. For one, it would make such categories as :Category:Actors entirely unwieldy if they contain everything in all subcategories (this also touches on performance issues). For another, it would lead to redundancy, in that articles will indicate "This guy is an American actor. He's also American. And he's also an actor". >Radiant< 11:44, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I've nominated them all for deletion. There are not enough articles to warrant a split on any sort right now. Circeus 14:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  So would you rather that "american actors" NOT be american, and NOT be actors? That makes no sense. Performance issues aren't an issue for policy - as has been told to us by the people that run wikipedia. What is *really* at issue is usability. If you have to search through every subcategory of a category to find something, that might take hours. If its all there in the category you're looking for - well... much easier. It wouldn't even be a performance issue if there was a button to press to load a list of all items in every subcategory in the supercategory. Then only the people that really wanted a huge list would get it. Fresheneesz 00:14, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

text: *Actally it would be, which is the precise reason why that button does not exist. >Radiant< 23:48, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:Category:School massacres]] overcategorized? 

message: Okay. This likely does have the support of the CFD regulars, and may or may not have the general support of Wikipedia as a whole.
So. Who doesn't like this? Why? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:37, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't.  It makes our categorization system less useful by suggesting to lessen the categories, when it's a great way to expand the information.  The essay is based on the opinion that a wealth of categories is unhelpful, which I strongly disagree with. I take the opposite tack - the fewer the categories, the less helpful they can be due to people looking for specific information. --badlydrawnjeff talk 05:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds fair. Does anyone, to your knowledge, agree with you? (Feel free to speak for other people here, BDJ, I'm just trying to figure out what's going on.) - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:03, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I provided a link to a mailing list discussion where a similar discussion took place.  Radiant falsely believes it takes the opposite tack of my own opinion, but i'm not the only one who thinks that overcategorization isn't a problem, or at least doesn't reflect this. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:39, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Where is this link? Forgive me, this talk page is a mess. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:10, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: here. And I think at some point I'll archive some of it. It's pretty needed by now. Circeus 05:14, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

text: So far, most users have agreed that it started with a comment indirectly related to the topic at hand (a user lament that articles are being moved into more specific categories, which is exactly what BDJ wants to be allowed to do!) and complains people are reverting the duplication of parent/child duplicate categorization). Ensues a a long technical/philosphical/historical discussion of categories in Wikipedia. Overall, it has to do with WP:SUBCAT, not WP:OC.Circeus 05:26, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm not understanding you, Jeff.  Further up the page, when I made the comment "There is a basic decision that we all have to make about categorization. It is whether we see categorization as a system of tagging in which a tag may be trivial or important, or as multiple taxonomies in which we are trying to construct an intelligent map of knowledge. As this is a project to create an encyclopedia I think we are doing the second..." you replied, "I'm with you on the second."  I am all in favor of adding more categories, and I think we all agree that the issue is not really about the number of the categories, but the quality of the categories.  I'm not understanding what you want as an alternative to this page?  How do we prevent the situation when instead of having the categories "American actors", "People from Georgia", "Methodists", and "Political activists" for a hypothetical article, we allow categories to expand until we have "American actresses", "Women from Georgia", "Methodists", and "Political activists", "Left-handed people", "People convicted of speeding", "Members of the Methodist hall of fame", "Political activists arrested in 2001", "Political activists arrested in 2002", "Political activists arrested in 2004", "Left-handed American Methodists", "Political activists from Georgia", "Left-handed political activist actresses from Georgia convicted of speeding", etc...? -- Samuel Wantman 08:35, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what there is to prevent, honestly.  If a category can be useful, why are we worrying about it? --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:39, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Jeff, you're basically saying "any factual categorization is good categorization and must be kept," How 'bout you actually look at WP:CFD and see how that work out? Circeus 14:36, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cut to the quick 

message: This guideline does not explain why overcategorization is a problem. I think everyone knows that wikipedia isn't a paper encyclopedia, but perhaps have different ideas as to what constitutes useful information on wikipedia. I'd like comment on the hypothetical situation in which Semantic MediaWiki becomes a reality. This would enable people to search for things that *we* may think aren't good criteria - but obviously they do. For example, if I wanted to know if there were any bald effeminate fictional male characters... well this guideline would prevent my ability to find such a thing. 
While articles need to be verifiable, categories do not have such restrictions. People who make categories do so with their own hard work - the effort going into destroying people's work is not justified in my mind. Well, i'm glad I finally read the guideline and can make a relevant comment - I'd very much appreciate a (civil) discussion of my points. Fresheneesz 11:07, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I had to read that several times to make certain I just read what I read. (Please pardon my stunned shock.) Categories very much do have to be verifiable, and in some ways are actually held to a higher standard, since, unlike lists, each entry's inclusion cannot be explained individually. See WP:CLS for at least one set of examples. - jc37 11:19, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

text: In terms of astronomy categories, I have seen categories that describe objects that do not exist or categories where the objects are misnamed.  See my recent nomination of :Category:Local Filament galaxies, for example.  Leaving such categories in Wikipedia gives the impression that the objects exist, and it encourages people to create articles for the objects.  It is much better to destroy such categories before they cause more problems.  Dr. Submillimeter 12:27, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems with this guideline 

message: RE: Fictional Black African-American DC animated Superheroes with the power to manipulate electricity
I think it's a real howler--I followed the link because I couldn't believe it was real--but, I might have nominated the cat at CfD for the redundant Black African-American!
Maybe submillimeter could supply a different example for this section--something just as crazy but otherwise correct?  Also, remember to (re)place it in the parenthetical too: "(e.g. "Fictional Black African-American DC animated Superheroes with the power to change shape")"
:Keep up the good work! --RCEberwein | Talk 17:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If I see a better narrow intersection category, I will insert it into the guideline.  (I think other users would do this, too.) Dr. Submillimeter 23:14, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Narrow intersection 

message: I've started a mediation request between myself and BDJ, since we're the one mainly arguing each side, and can't seem to come to anything even close to an agreement. I don't know if it is relevant to add anybody else (except possibly User:Radiant!), but I think it,s fit people know about it.Circeus 21:58, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Related Mediation request 

message: In looking over this section, and searching for good precedents, I notice that this topic may not have been clearly decided.  Most minor and not-well-known award categories do get deleted.  But there is more than just the Academy Award as an exception, most notably the Golden Globes.  The section says this:
:In general, the winners of all but the most internationally well-known awards should be put in a list rather than a category. It may nevertheless be useful to note the awards in the article. If an award doesn't have an article, it certainly doesn't need a category (and not every award that has an article needs a category). (The sole exception to this is the Academy Awards, which is currently under debate.) Nominees should not be categorized.
I suspect that in not too much time virtually every award of note will have an article written about it, and these categories will start to proliferate.  If there are to be distinctions about which remain and which don't, this paragraph does not make those distinctions.  I'm not certain that this has been hashed out yet.  If it has, can anyone suggest a CfD discussion that makes this point well, and the result was delete?  If it hasn't, we should probably discuss this more and nominate a test case for deletion.  How do people feel about having these categories for the Golden Globes?  If the Golden Globe categories were deleted, how can we justify the Academy Award categories?  If the Golden Globe categories are to be kept, where is the line to be drawn? -- Samuel Wantman 04:49, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I seem to recall several semi-recent CfDs resulting in "Keep the award, remove the nominees". So this shouldn't be a problem (Any one who can find the examples would be greatly appreciated : ) - jc37 11:49, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Maybe, however there needs to be two rules. 1)Only candidates who have officially announced their intention to run so we don't have a category filled with people who might run based solely on media speculation. 2)Separate by country. There is no reason to have the candidates for say the US presidential election with the candidates for the Ecuadorian presidential election. Koweja 00:43, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

text: *In general I'm not too happy with cats for people who ran (or even intended to run but didn't) for a political function but failed to get elected, but it'd be reasonable to make an exception for presidents. Just not for the literally dozens of candidates for some function in some town. >Radiant< 10:01, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Awards and nominations 

message: User:A Man In Black said above:
*"Okay. [...] So. Who doesn't like this? Why?"
Other than User:Badlydrawnjeff, I don't think we've seen any other direct responses to this. So I'd like to voice the question again. Anyone else out there who's been possibly just reading and not commenting, who perhaps disagrees even in part? - jc37 10:49, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Another attempt

message: I've been thinking about this a little bit.  I initially found the idea very appealing, and everything on the page seemed like good sense to me.  Badlydrawnjeff has raised some arguments that I think are worth considering, whether or not I agree with him in the final analysis.
When I think about the idea that any "potentially useful" category is a good category, the image that comes to my mind is that of an article with 60 categories at the bottom.  It sometimes happens with user pages, and we know what it looks like on the screen.  I think it looks quite bad, and is bad for readers, because the categories are all just listed together in that box, with no sub-organization in their presentation.
The human mind has a hard time dealing with any information that exceeds a certain threshhold without being arranged in some way.  I think it's important to keep the list of categories brief, so a reader may scan through them easily, or else to come up with a completely different way to present categories, as some kind of meta-data that can be worked with, and not just a soup of phrases like "Left-handed people", "Hungarians", "Left-handed Hungarians", "Men", "Hungarian men", "Architects", "Left-handed architects", "Left-handed Hungarian men", etc, etc.
What I'm really thinking of is that there should be some kind of economy of categorization.  Perhaps thinking of this page, not negatively in terms of "overcategorization" to avoid, but positively in terms of "economy" to pursue, then we can better focus on what "economy" should mean in this context, and how to achieve that.
Opinions? -GTBacchus(talk) 23:18, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Different angle 

message: May I suggest a new entry: Categories based on names.  It seems like this is done frequently, but it often fails to work well.  Take, for example, the WP:CFD nominations of :Category:North, :Category:South, :Category:East, and :Category:West, which discuss articles with one of these words (or variants on these words) in their name.  This is also not the first instance where this has happened; many other inappropriate categories based on the surnames of unrelated people or based on the names of unrelated places have been created in the past.  (My personal favorite was Churches named for St. Dunstan.)  An exception should be made when the category refers to articles that are directly related (such as :Category:Brahe).
What do other people think?  Should I draft a guideline on this?  Dr. Submillimeter 09:48, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Of some interest might be Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Names, a forgotten subpage which nonetheless seems to have been consistently upheld (most recently in the outcome of the bitter Chinese-surname CfD, which I dearly wish someone else had started).  Although these are covered by the "trivial characteristic" heading, they come up often enough (and their triviality is contested frequently enough) that a separate heading would not be amiss. -- Visviva 11:11, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

text: *Added, please copyed. >Radiant< 14:37, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

text: **This came up quite recently, see US State Related Ships. -- ProveIt (talk) 15:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

text: ***That one was based mostly on WP:ILIKEIT arguments, or so it seems. >Radiant< 15:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categories based on names 

message: Template: has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. --Samuel Wantman 02:26, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  TfD nomination of Template:{{ucfirst:CatDiffuse}} 

message: Some examples:
*Performers who have performed <action>
*Performers who have portrayed <character name>
*Performers who have portrayed <a type of character>
*Performers who have performed <a specific work>
-
*"Performers" can include actors/actresses (including porn), models, singers, dancers, comedians, etc.
*"Action" examples: a "spit take", "anal sex", a "pirouette", a "runway walk", a "pratfall", a "sword fight", etc.
*"Character name" examples: Darth vader, or Hamlet. This includes voicing animated characters, such as Donald Duck. This also includes doing "impressions".
*"A type of character" examples: wealthy, poor, religious, homeless, gay, female, politician, Scottish, dead, etc.
*"A specific work" examples: "Amazing Grace", "Swan Lake", "Hamlet" (the play), "Why did the chicken cross the road?" (a joke), etc.
-
;Discussion
*I agree that there are pretty much no exceptions I can think of to the general rule against performer-by-performance.  Actors portray so many different individual roles during their career that this could easily be unwieldy.  Use lists if there is a strong desire to sort out actors who played a particular role. Dugwiki 16:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's true that inclusion on a list doesn't necessarily provide obvious navigational cues from the list member's page to the list.  I'm still processing through whether it's desirable to have that -- because if the subject of the list is significant to the  list member, then it will be separately mentioned on the page, and can be linked from there; and in other cases, "What links here" might suffice.  But, that aside, it might be possible to set up a standard subhead structure within "See also"; like, "See also relevant lists".  The problem is that such a solution would end up replicating the "What links here" feature, I fear, as many people started adding marginally useful items. --lquilter 23:25, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Performers by performance 

message: As I commented above, the notion that all performers by performance categories must be eliminated from Wikipedia seems to me an overreaction to the problem.  I will grant that it's silly to have categories for everyone who's provided a voice for an episode of The Simpsons, and the "actor by television series" categories are generally overpopulated.  But the consensus in recent CfD debates on the subject is to restrict these to the main cast of a series, a determination which is not difficult to make.  The slippery-slope argument Samuel Wantman makes above has some merit, but I see this as an argument for caution, not elimination.  The fact is that for many actors, a role in a television series will be a significant part of their biography.  For many other categories, we use whether there is explicit mention of the category in the article as a criterion for inclusion.  Why can't we just use a slightly more stringent criterion for performers: add a category only if there is significant mention of the role in the article.  "Significant mention" would not include mention in a filmography, or even the bald statement "so-and-so appeared in such-and-such in 19xx".  It would include any article that has a section devoted to the actor's work on the series, or notes about awards received for it.
Let me be clear: overpopulated and/or excessively applied categories are a problem.  But eliminating an entire class of useful categories is not the solution to it.  Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:24, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Categorizing an article is not an isolated event.  If anything, we need broaden all of our discussions about categories to discuss entire classes of categories.  When considering a category, we should think about what the category will look like fully populated, which articles belong, and which don't.  We also need to consider what the category does to an article.  Adding one category often implies several others that belong.  So it is more than just adding a category because there is a section devoted to the subject, we need to consider the eventual outcome of the entire categorization scheme.  If we make a distinction that X belongs in category Y, we also need to consider all the other categories that may be created if the scheme is complete, all the categories the article will be in if the article is complete, and all the articles that will accompany that article when every stub reaches FA status.  It is easier to say "no" to these categories when they are small, and not part of a massive hierarchy.  That is why I've been pushing this argument.   We need to make very clear distinctions and strictly enforce them.  Otherwise, I'm afraid we may all be wasting our time trying to make the categorization system make any sense. -- Samuel Wantman 20:47, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Overreaction

message: Support or Oppose: Should Performers by performance (proposed above) be more broadly expanded to include:
*Persons by <creative work>
-
*"Persons" in this context are those who create the creative works. Examples: Artisans, blacksmiths, violin makers, bakers, artists, sculptors,  producers, cinematographers, jewellers, engravers, brewers, etc.
*"Creative work" examples: a sculpture, a painting, a diagram, a blueprint, a theory of mathematics, a novel, a dictionary, an article, a blog, a web site, a cake, a carpet, a bookshelf, a bridge, a galley, a pocket watch, a bell, a computer, a video game program, a programming language, a slide show presentation, a log cabin, an igloo, etc.
;Discussion
*Agree.  The reasoning here is the same as actor-by-performance.  Game developers or architechts might work on numerous projects over the years, and if each project had its own category you could end up with tons of categories in each person's article.  Dugwiki 16:19, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Persons by creative work

message: *Support or oppose? Is this... a poll? Tim! 19:08, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I'm pretty sure he's just asking for feedback on his suggestion. I posted my responses to his various proposals for the guideline above. Dugwiki 16:21, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I generally agree, Sam, but I think you picked a bad example with "Star Trek".  The main exception would be when you have a category that covers a variety of individual works, such as :Category:Star Trek actors which covers regular cast from all the different Star Trek spinoffs.  In that case, it's a little more unwieldly and harder to use for a reader to collect information from multiple articles in one list.  Using a category to cover a franchise of related shows does, I think, make sense. So a better example using William Shatner would be "Category:T. J. Hooker actors" or "Category:Over the Hedge (film) actors", neither of which I think would be necessary. Dugwiki 16:29, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I picked Shatner because hes was the most borderline actor I could think of, by which I mean if there is any TV actor closely associated with a show it would be him.  And even in his case I don't think he should be be in :Category:Star Trek, if for no reason besides the slippery slope of putting more actors in performance categories.  We probably need a template for all such categories that says "For actors appearing in this show see List of cast members of XXX".  This seems to be one case where we need a hard an fast rule that performers by performance should NEVER happen.  If we allow Shatner, next it will be Nimoy, and then Stallone, etc... etc... until every actor that appeared twice in the same character gets categorized.  By that time, people will say "if him, why not her?", and it will all fall apart. -- Samuel Wantman 02:56, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: By the way, on a related tangent, note that currently we have :Category:William Shatner which received a "no consensus" result on a cfd discussion July 3 2006.  The topic of whether or not eponymous categories for individual people is a good idea is another ball of wax entirely.  For example, since Category:William Shatner exists, should that category also be applied to every actor, director, film, TV show, book and cartoon he's notably worked with?  Now take that process, and do the same for not only every actor who is popular and prolific, and imagine how many categories and cross-categories you'd have.  Films and TV series would have up to one category per actor and important crew member, and actors and directors could have up to one category per actor they've ever co-worked with. Imagine how many categories and articles that might be for, say, Steven Spielberg when you add a new category for every major actor and director and producer he's ever done signifacant work with. Dugwiki 16:39, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon -- Donald Albury 23:00, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: And fortunately, no one has created :Category:Kevin Bacon, yet. -- Donald Albury 23:11, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  General Discussion 

message: First, I did some (relatively) minor wordsmithing on award winners to try to clarify the second sentence, which was talking about what to do with an award if categorization is inappropriate. --lquilter 15:58, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I generally agree with your argument. My caveat is that, without objective criteria, "extremely important" is open-ended. Another issue is that we can't prescribe here. I'm concerned about being able to demonstrate a consensus for this guideline if it is too detailed and restrictive. I know that what I would like to see in policies and guidelines and what there is general consensus for is not necessarily the same. --Donald Albury 14:03, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Dugwiki lays out many of my concerns; Donald Albury points out another of my general principles--which is not to have a hidden "super-notability" criteria for categories.  ... This keeps leading me to thinking that we should have a general rule of "no categories for award winners" with a short list of pre-approved exceptions, like Nobel (maybe Academy--I've started rethinking my position about whether it is really that defining; but that's another discussion).  But that runs smack-dab into another principle: no unnecessary bureaucracies, and no requirements to seek pre-approval for doing something.  ?? How to balance?  Or is there a third way?  ... This must have come up before, as there are other "guidelines" about what to do or not to do, and there must be exceptions; are there other guidelines/discussions we could look to as examples of rules-with-exceptions? --lquilter 19:48, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

text: *While having common-sensical exceptions is acceptable, explicitly enumerating exceptions is not good (as this encourages people to add to the list, ultimately defying the point). >Radiant< 13:57, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with all the replies above.  The only reason I mentioned the possibility of a "super-notability" exception is that I'm pretty sure there are editors who want to make an exception for categories for Academy Award winner and  Nobel Prize winners.  I don't like the somewhat subjective nature of what it would mean to be "super-notable", though, so I could accept having no award winner categories at all, even for top industry awards.  Both possible methods have their own benefit and downside. (If you allow the exception, it acts as a useful flag and is something readers are likely to use, but exceptions can be abused.  If you don't allow the exception, you lose some search utility that readers might want. )Dugwiki 18:35, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I could go with no award winners categories at all, too. I initially thought we probably needed, say, Nobel and Academy (but what Pulitzer? and ...). But then if you just applied those two categories, it would be irresistible to subdivide them by the more specific award won or the year won.  If they weren't subdivided, then it's really a big mix of unlike things; if we do subdivide them, then they're small enough sets to be adequately handled by a list. So the advantage, I think, is nill. ... --lquilter 13:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Award winners 

message: Is :Category:Disasters by year overcategorized? I started (or at least greatly expanded) the idea of categorising the articles in :Category:Disasters by year. My intention was to see all the disasters for a particular year lined up in its own category. For example, :Category:1990 disasters. I didn't intend to subcategorise any further, as :Category:Disasters is already split up fairly logically (eg. :Category:Transportation disasters; :Category:Natural disasters). But recently I noticed someone created the categories :Category:Transportation disasters by year and :Category:Natural disasters by year. Now it is no longer possible to see a category with all the disasters from a single year. Instead you have to click up and down through many levels to see what is even there. Can we please stop this relentless overcategorization? I used to be able to navigate around the Disasters category system and find logical categories with 5-20 articles that would make interesting reading. Now I find these articles have been dispersed over innumerable tiny subcategories and the result is painful to try and navigate through. What can we do to avoid the end result of having each article in its own category, and how can we get the right balance between this and having all the articles in one category? Carcharoth 00:42, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is Category:Disasters by year overcategorized? 

message: My understanding is that this page is a reflection of consensus already determined on CfD. As far as I know, we are not adding any examples to the page, except as a result of existing consensus. (For one thing, I don't think we should pre-empt CfD that way).
I'd like some comments from the other page regulars (and any other interested parties) about this. - jc37 13:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intent of this guideline