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This is an archive of Wikipedia talk:Categorization. It was created on 4 September 2004. Some discussion dated on or after 20 August 2004 was left on that page instead of being moved to this archive.

Bugs, malfeatures, and RFEs

RFE: Blue/red issues

The blue/red confusion seems to be a recurring issue. Should the system show categories that contain no text, but do have articles or subcategories, as blue, not red? Or should new categories just have by default the text [[Category:Orphaned categories]] or [[Category:New categories]] or something? -- Beland 03:41, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think the red provides a good visual cue. —Mike 04:57, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

Category talk page

When starting a new talk page I was presented with this slightly erroneous message: "Wikipedia does not have an entry on Geography of King County, Washington yet. ..." Robin Patterson 20:16, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

RFE: Auto-move category

(Can I add that it would be desperately useful to have a bot that shifted all articles from one category to another - if we had this, we could switch categories by creating a new and deleting the old - the history of a category probably isn't importantenough to retain). DJ Clayworth 16:56, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Confused categorisation of "Kelvin"

Kelvin is tagged as belonging to the category SI base units but SI base units does not list Kelvin. Any ideas on what's going on here? -- Grunt 03:16, 2004 Jun 13 (UTC)

Categories have problems with slow updating. I don't know why. -- Cyrius|✎ 04:42, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I can see that, but the other articles I tagged with SI base units (Mole (unit), Metre, Candela, Second, and Ampere were all added immediately to the category... -- Grunt 15:06, 2004 Jun 13 (UTC)

I went to Kelvin and did an "Edit" and "Save". Since I didn't modify anything, nothing shows up in History. But lo and behold, Kelvin now appears in Category:SI base units. -- Curps 15:52, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

A related issue is some items bizarrely sorted under "C". For instance Atom was listed under "C" in Category:Chemistry. Doing the no-modification Edit+Save trick on Atom fixed this too. An actual modification will also fix it. -- Curps 16:02, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)


Query - finding pre-existing categories

(moved from project page)

Is there any way of finding out what categories already exist without trawling through the category list a few hundred at a time? i.e. it would be nice to be able to have a list of categories subdivided alphabetically or a way of searching the list. Is this available already and I've just missed it? If not, is there any likelihood of it happening in the future? Harry R 09:33, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree, it would be very helpful if there were a better category search or browse mechanism. I can see it's going to take time to implement something that can keep up with the fluid nature of categorization, though.
The best defense is probably to get to know your favorite categories as well as you can; browse through the various trees and branches from time to time, help reorganize or prune as necessary, and just generally get to know the names and preferred formats of the categories you use most. I know this isn't helpful when you're trying to find a category in an area you're not familiar with, though.
In the meantime, one useful method I've found is to go ahead and edit the article or subcategory you'd like to classify. Type in your best guess at the name of the proper category/ies, AND the name of a larger category that you're sure exists, which could be a (grand)parent (i.e. Category:Medicine or Category:Music, or Category:Musical groups by genre, as specific as you can get). Then use the SHOW PREVIEW, not the Save page button. Look for the previewed categories at the very bottom of the page (it may be below the Preview edit box, depending on your Preferences settings). If your best guess is blue, you've hit upon an existing category tree; if red, it doesn't exist or is spelled or worded differently. Remember to use plurals, and to use lower case for all words that not proper nouns.
If you can't find your best guess, Shift-Click on the blue link to the larger category (or right-click and select "Open in new window/tab" or equivalent). This will open the larger category in a new window so you can browse down through the branches to the proper place where you will either find a useful existing category, or discover that an important one is missing, and most importantly, you'll see what the naming convention is for the category.
Even if your best guess is blue, it's usually a good idea to shift-click on the Previewed link to browse other category members anyway -- you might find your article doesn't really fit, or that there is a more specific subcategory already available (i.e, Category:Cross-country skiing within Category:Winter sports, to name one where I had to clean up after myself recently).
Now you can go back to your other window or tab, which should still be open to the Preview page. Put the proper category name into the Edit box, and delete the larger category you used as a tool in Preview. If the necessary category doesn't exist, add the category name according to convention anyway, and Save. Click on the new category link to check that the assigned category has a parent and a description. Please assign newly created categories to their proper place in the tree right away -- finding and fixing Orphaned categories is a pain! Please add a description too if you find one missing or stubbish.
Good luck! Catherine | talk 06:14, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)
From the phrasing, I think they are looking at the alphabetical list of all categories. Probably because that is the destination of the word "Category" which is in front of all category entries. It would be better if that anchor pointed at a page which tends to be of wider use. Perhaps Category:Main page, but that omits other views such as Category:Fundamental. (SEWilco 18:26, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC))
Or Category:Categories (User:SEWilco)
Yes, you're right, was looking at the alphabetical list. And you're also right, starting from Category:Main page/fundamental I wouldh have found what I was looking for much quicker. Thanks for the tip. I still think a way of searching the list would be useful, but I appreciate everyone's help. Cheers Harry R 19:45, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)


Wanting to Start a Category

I would like to start a Category. First there are no directions anywhere on how one starts a category. I put a new Category and it shows up in red. I can't firgure out how to make it blue. Second I found directions at mediwiki but there is nothing about starting a new name category. Third, For the Classics for topics like that of Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece. I know they have a category already but "Classics" needs their own category and ancient Greece and Ancient Rome need to be sub-categories for this one. And what should it be named "Classics", "Classical", "Classical Dept." (my choice), "Western Classics", ...??? If I am a classical scholar and want to go to all subjects dealing with the Classics what should be the category name?WHEELER 22:47, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Put in the [[category:types of shoe]] kind of thing which will give you the red thing at the top. All the articles in the category should be listed there. Then enter some text and a categorisation for that e.g. [[category:human]], which will appear at the top right, and since you've created the new category, it should then appear blue. Don't be shy to have a fiddle round; you can always nominate them for speedy deletion if you cock it up. Dunc_Harris|☺ 00:08, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It still appears red. I added [Category:Human] to vice and I have added Category:Vice to the Human category and it still appears red. So I am still not doing something right. I also added a sentence in it and it still appears red.WHEELER 18:48, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
You've got it the wrong way around: Don't add Category:Vice to Category:Human, you do the other way around, you add Category:Human to Category:Vice (so that Category:Vice is a subcategory of Category:Human). Adding Category:Vice to Category:Human would make Category:Human a subcategory of Category:Vice, which would still not have a parent or any text, and would therefore still be red. --Lexor|Talk 00:58, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Okay, I have a similar problem with creating a new category, specifically "Category:Texans". When I insert [[Category:Texans|McCulloch, Benjamin]] on the page for the "Benjamin McCulloch" article, the category-link at the bottom of the saved page leads to the edit page for the "Texans" category -- not to the page itself. Yet, "Benjamin McCulloch" also appears on that page, just above the edit box. OTOH, when I wrote the McCulloch article and added the same kind of line for a pre-existing category (Confederate generals), it appeared on that category page just the way it's supposed to do. Obviously, even having read everything I could find about category creation, there's something here I'm just not getting. --Michael K. Smith 21:59, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

UPDATE: I went back and made "Texans" a subcategory of "People". Now, if I go directly to the Texans category page, it looks fine. But if you click to any of the people listed on it, the category links at the bottom of those pages still send you to the edit page! --Michael K. Smith 22:39, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Whether or not the category is red or blue depends on whether or not there is content in the category itself, above and beyond having articles that are members. Since every category should be a category of some other category, all categories should have content, and hence blue. If you don't know what category to put a new category in, edit it and add [[Category:Orphaned categories]] and someone else will deal. If it's still red after that, hit Reload in your browser. -- Beland 07:10, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Well, I finally got it to work, but I don't know why it worked. I had already put text in the edit box (explaining who should be included), but that had no effect. Finally, I went back and moved the category tags to the bottom of the article, and that seemed to do it -- even though a previous category had been listed at the top of the article and was working just fine. And even though all the categories I've added to new pages at WikiQuote work okay at the top of the page. All of which sounds like squirrely wikicode to me. --Michael K. Smith 15:30, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The quickest way I have found to deal with this problem is this: In any articles assigned to the category before the category was created 1) delete the category link, 2) save the article, 3) paste the category link back into the article, and 4) save the article. This technique forces everything to update. But you have to do it for each pre-existing article that was already linked into the category. Mike 17:45, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

I don't know if this is a bug or a caching problem or what. I have noticed that when I delete items from a category, they don't always show up right away, but adding seems to be pretty reliable. It seems to get worse if I obsessively hit Reload in the category in a vain attempt to make things deleted go away. In this situation, I would recommend doing something else for an hour or two and see if it fixes itself, rather than doing lots of work to force it. -- Beland 03:41, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)


Bug - non-existant page in category?

Check out Category:Airports_of_Australia - the link to Launceston Airport at the bottom appears non-existant (ie. question mark, or red underline, depending on your settings).. however, the page does exists, as you see if you click on it. -- Chuq 12:34, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've noticed that the category links, interwiki headers, and carriage returns before the first line of visible text in an article cause extra whitespace to show up if they are placed at the top of the page. This is just a heads up request that people take a sec in their edits to move cat and interwiki links to bottom and remove any unncessessary carriage returns at top. See George W. Bush article as an example. -SV

But if the categories and interwiki links are moved to the bottom, then extra whitespace shows up at the bottom! This is a bug in mediawiki: report it and get it fixed instead of asking people to change all the articles. Gdr 22:45, 2004 Jul 25 (UTC)
It's been reported already. Dysprosia 01:17, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
It's less ugly at the bottom, and putting categories and interlanguage links at the bottom is standard style. -- Cyrius|✎ 02:30, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
But for how long? if you move it to the bottom it will just slowly creep up again as people start adding new sections which will be written below the content in place, so sure, do that, but it will be back up again next week. -- var Arnfjr Bjarmason 03:09, 2004 Jul 26 (UTC)
I have never seen this happen. It'd be an issue on talk-like pages like this one, but on a regular article? -- Cyrius|✎ 03:53, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Me neither. Johnleemk | Talk 12:58, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I've discovered that if you put the Categories and Interwiki links at the bottom and fill in the blank lines with HTML comments like this:
... last line of article
<!-- Categories -->
[[Category:...]]
<!-- Interwiki links -->
[ca:...]
[gd:...]
then the blank space is usually cancelled out. I also find this aesthetically satisfying because I believe in commenting everything to heck and back :-). A slimmer stretch for justification is that if (as I sincerely hope) this meta-information is eventually explicitly separated from the main text, a bot will find it easier if said meta-information is nicely tagged. --Phil | Talk 13:05, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)

Categories issues

I'm putting this here because I couldn't figure out one logical place among all the categorization/category pages to put this request.

  • First, every page that is a member of a category has a link at the bottom of the form Categories:categoryName. One would expect that clicking on Categories would give you something useful--but NOooo, it takes you to Special:Categories, which gives you the first 50 alphabetically of all existing categories and subcategories, which is useless in almost all cases. This link needs to go either to a page that explains what categories are and gives some options on where to go (such as Wikipedia:Category) or else simply to the top-level hierarchical category, either Category:Categories or Category:Fundamental.
  • Second, the top of Special:Categories needs to display text that helps you to get someplace useful from there--first, tells you what it's a list of ("all existing categories and subcategories") and, next, tells you how to get someplace useful (see first point).

Thoughts? Elf | Talk 05:40, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You are quite correct. The Categories link is pretty useless for the average user in this context. older≠wiser 15:48, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
OK--good--now, how do these get changed? I think I remember seeing a page for text that appears on "special" pages but I can't find it; and I have no clue where the destination for the Categories link is defined. Elf | Talk 01:05, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In the Mind subcategory - Category:Conscious - Is there a way to move a category page, so as to rename this category? Conscious is an adjective in current English usage. It is not used as is the Unconscious of the psychology field. It appears that the sense of this category is the Conscious mind. Thus I am interested in learning how to replace the category Category:Conscious with Category:Conscious mind. Ancheta Wis 08:48, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Categories broken

###Note:### See the thread below #Categories with sort keys are not sorted properly for discussion of related alphasort issues.

Is it just me or are categories broken? I just went to Category:Political divisions of the United States and the list was empty and saw the same thing with a quick sampling of several other categories. older≠wiser 14:39, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Not just you, all categories I checked are broken. The breakage occured less than an hour ago. Anárion 14:41, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I thought it was me too. They're still broken now. Is anyone looking it or should we post something about it somewhere? Guess I'll wait before adding List of supercars to Category:Supercars now anyway. [[User:Akadruid|akaDruid (Talk)]] 15:26, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
There's at least one developer on the job at the moment. -- Cyrius|✎ 18:56, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
The bug has been found, we're working on a fix. -- JeLuF 19:22, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)
Gabriel has fixed the bug. Should be fine now. -- JeLuF 20:22, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)
Still not fixed, Category:Athletes for example show all the athletes in alphabetical order but just in one long sentence instead of under sections A, B, C etc Scraggy4 20:38, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
All categories I found that were broken have been fixed, and I can't find any new ones. However, there are so many that there may well be more out there and I'm not going to be able to find them all. So assistance is welcomed/needed. Also, if they really are all fixed, could Tech support give me a confirmation?
Ones that have been fixed since I mentioned them = (Category:Films by year), (Category:Celebrities), (Category:Feminists), (Category:Ballet), (Category:Antenna teminology), (Category:Clear Channel radio stations), (Category:Clear Channel Communications), (Category:Mosques), (Category:Sportspeople), (Category: Fictional Jews), (Category:Fictional gays and lesbians), (Category:Islamic mythology), (Category:Christian music), (Category:Aliens), (Category:English athletes), (Category:Environmental law), (Category:English actors), and (Category:Campaign settings). -Erolos 12:55, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Categories with sort keys are not sorted properly

The Category:todo have articles with sort keys (i.e. [[category:todo|<sort key>]] or piped format), but it does not look correct to me. For example, "Talk:One-time pad" has a "T5" sort key, but comes before "Talk:Train station" that has a "T1" sort key. (these codes are meant to sort the articles by priority). Strangely, others are sorted correctly though, so that it is not a repeatable problem.

Has this problem been seen before ? Is someone working on it ? Should I report it somewhere else ? Pcarbonn 20:07, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

"Categories broken", above, has drifted onto this topic. --rbrwrˆ 20:33, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
###Note:### The relevant subthread of "Categories broken" has now been moved here, see below.
Great! Category:todo works now. However, Category:to-do of popular articles still does not work... Could anybody help ? Pcarbonn 19:39, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Moved from "Categories broken":

Is this bug also responsible for the stuff I've been seeing the last couple of days, which is that several categories have more than one section for a given alphabetical letter? For example, Category:Software has two separate occurrences of "F", with some subcats living under one section and the rest under the other. Same trouble with several other categories above/below/"to-the-side-of" the Software one (the part of the category tree where I've been working lately). I really, really, really hope that this bug (or maybe bug complex) is generally fixable ¹ -- i.e. that one doesn't have to redo stuff ad aeternum...? --Wernher 02:15, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

( ¹ not at all having studied the wiki-software, I would nevertheless strongly assume that the category pages are regenerated regularly -- and that, if the wiki was a small one, they could in fact be regenerated on demand, i.e. per visit )

If you mean when one letter is shown at the bottom of one column, and again at the top of the next column along, that isn't a bug - it is just about fitting the articles in alphabetically. -Erolos 12:55, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
No there are actually two "F" sections in the sub-category list: one in the normal place and another at the end. --Phil | Talk 13:20, Jul 30, 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't follow the link before. I don't think it's part of the same problem, but it is a problem. Do you have links to the others? -Erolos 13:37, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I notice the misplaced sub-categories both use the "piped" syntax: [[Category:Software|File formats]]. I wonder if that's something to do with it? --rbrwrˆ 13:56, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Good point. I removed the piped File formats, and the two subcategories went into "C" without creating a new "C". Putting them under "F" was illogical, anyway. But, still, they shouldn't have done that; even piped they should have gone under the first "F". -Erolos 15:33, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Putting them under "F" was illogical, anyway. Nope, it was in fact very logical -- the word "computer" in those cases, and inside that category, is of no informational value whatsoever, so 'pipe-sorting' the subcats was the only sensible thing to do. I will therefore put it back. However, we agree of course on the main thing here: such alphabetical category sorting is most probably meant to work! :-) --Wernher 21:45, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I tried to put "Computer file formats" back into cat Software in the -eh- sorted mode, i.e. I put the 'pipe-sort'-inclusive code "[[Category:Software|File formats]]" into the "Computer file formats" category page. But, alas, it still doesn't work, instead spawning a separate "F" at the end of the list and filing the item there. Argh. I do hope someone is working to fix this. Does somebody here know the correct way of raising such an issue to the developers/maintainers? (or is so already done, but not gotten to the head of the "needs fixing soon" queue? :-) --Wernher 23:04, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

To answer the original question: This isn't a new bug, I've seen it mentioned somewhere before, and I have also encountered it. Piped and non-piped category references are sorted separately. The only way to fix it is to add the piped sort key to every entry. I don't know if this bug is on a developer's to-do list. Mike 03:02, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think the bug's as clear-cut as that. See, for example, Category:Mountains. In the subcategory list, Category:Mountains of Canada appears in the correct place, thanks to a piped sort key. But Category:Mountains of France appears in the wrong place, even though it has a piped sort key. So it doesn't necessarily follow that if you use piped sort keys everywhere then you get the desired result (though that might be true, depending on the precise nature of the bug). -- Avaragado 19:53, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I wouldn't say the bug and the cause of the bug are clear-cut, but the work-around really is that simple. If you added piped sort keys to all subcategories in Category:Mountains, you would have a properly sorted list. The reason the list isn't currently sorted correctly is because some subcategories (not the ones you mentioned, but see Category:Seven Summits) are not piped. Mike 04:34, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC)
I repeat that I hope the responsible developer(s) will notice and fix this bug, if at all possible. It's really quite annoying (*sigh*). Sorry for not being constructive. I should go to bed. --Wernher 04:23, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:History by nation is just chaos. There are two "c" sections, but both are piped. And one is before "B" (unpiped) and the other is after "Q" (unpiped). The unpiped stuff must be trying to sort under "Category", and it only shows up when we start piping. Just figured that out. TOO 08:02, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

Naming Issues

Disambiguation of Categories

Actually not disambiguation, strictly speaking, but Categories whose names are too general in the world's namespace. The specific example is Category:The Republic which turns out to contain information about Star Wars characters and not a reference to either governmental systems or Plato.

My question is this: are we following the same system we do with the main articles, i.e. should this category be Category:The Republic (Star Wars) or should it be something else?

I think the system of government would probably appear as Category:Republics while Plato's Republic would be a single article somewhere more appropriate. I don't see a need for redirection in this case. Mike 06:24, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
You shouldn't add an article to a category you've never seen before, so AFAIK that kind of disambiguation is unnecessary. It would also be redundant, since the information is already contained in the category itself (the list of its parent categories). The name of Category:The Republic would only have to be changed if another category arose that was more deserving of the name. ··gracefool |☺ 22:42, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Conceptual categories

The present Category system seems tied to words, not to concepts. Category:The Republic carries all the meanings of that term and subcategories are required for disambiguation. This does not support multiple languages well — "The Republic" of Plato and Star Wars may have different names in other languages, so that disambiguation category does not exist in other languages. There may be a language where the literal retranslation (back to english) of those two Republics might be "Republic Thought" and "Republican Galaxy". Each category should be a concept. I suggest Category Namespaces, so the names of subcategories can be the same as other subcategories. So Category:Art:Movies:Star Wars:The Republic is different from Category:Philosophy:Philosophers:Plato:The Republic. Any similarities between the two Republics should be by concepts, not by names. (SEWilco 21:22, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC))

  • Wouldn't that be extremely unweildy? ··gracefool |☺ 22:46, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

dee dus vons and vans

I vote for du Preez to be listed as [[...|Preez, Frik du Preez]] as the du meaning of is essentially meaningless. Dunc_Harris|☺ 21:24, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

See Talk:Lists_of_people#.27Von.27_as_part_of_German_names. While the above may work for certain German surnames, it does not for other similar looking surnames - Afrikaans language surnames like Du Preez are listed under D. -- Jeandré du Toit, 2004-06-29t18:35z

naming convention for Cities by Country

I was about to add Fallujah either to Iraqi Cities or Cities in Iraq, neither of which exist. I ended up finding Category:Cities_by_country and, as can be seen, there are the seeds here of an unhappy inconsistency. How can this be resolved? --bodnotbod 20:26, Jun 28, 2004 (UTC)

Ooops.. see Wikipedia talk:Categorization#Categorization_Naming_Conventions below -- Chuq 23:01, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Categorization Naming Conventions

I was wondering what people thought of the current categorization scheme. Most of the categories seem to be created (Somewhere) (Something). I think it looks better and is more formal to use (Something) of/in (Somewhere). Ie. Canadian Banks vs Banks of Canada. Burgundavia 11:40, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)

On an unrelated note, I saw you inserting Category:Banks of the People's Republic of China and similarly titled articles. I would prefer it be Category:Banks of mainland China as that would be more politically neutral. It's clearer to keep Hong Kong and Macau separate and won't cause NPOV issues on whether to include Taiwan. --Jiang 11:44, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Jiang, while I see your point about trying to keep it NPOV as far as Taiwan is concerned, I don't feel like this change is needed. When someone comes along (like that'll ever happen) looking for info on Banks in Taiwan, they're going to look in Category:Banks of Taiwan or something of the like, not Category:Banks of the People's Republic of China. I understand your concern, but I really don't think we should but Taiwanese banks under Category:Banks of the People's Republic of China. blankfaze | •• 12:55, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)
As for the thing about China, that is a landmine I am not going to step on. Do you have examples for your idea? As for Hong Kong and Macau, they ARE part of the People's Republic. Just as Puerto Rico and the Bermuda are part of the US and the UK respectively, a dependent, not an independent country. Any, the issue at hand is that of naming conventions regarding about order, not countries and NPOV. Burgundavia 12:37, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)

I'm well aware that HK and Macau are part of the PRC. However, Hong Kong and Macau are governed under a distinctly different economic systems than the mainland. When it comes to banks and companies, it really helps the reader to keep these regions separate. They're considered separate countries for economic purposes (APEC, WTO, etc). Economic topics for separate economies deserve separate categories.

We use the combinations Mainland China/Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau for neutrality when politics is not the subject so the territorial claims are left ambiguous. see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese). While there is little room for confusion (other than using political labels that are rarely used in economics), it's not NPOV to assert that there are two countries each consisting of their current jurisdictions. I know this is really the case, but saying so is making a politcal statement. I don't see what's wrong with using non-political titles. --Jiang 13:04, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

From naming conventions (chinese) In particular, the word "China" should not be used to be synonymously with areas under the current administration of the People's Republic of China or with Mainland China. Similarly, the word "Taiwan" should not be used if the term "Republic of China" is more accurate. What in my naming scheme conflicts with this? There is a note in the Category:Airports of the Republic of China and Category:Airports of the People's Republic of China about the other. Burgundavia 13:12, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)
I can add a note to the bank articles on a similar line, as I think that would help. Burgundavia 13:17, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)

Neither you nor I am proposing a Category:Banks of China to cover only the PRC. We didn't even propose Category:Banks of China at all. In this case, "Republic of China" is not more accurate. It's only more accurate in a political context ("President of the Republic of China" vs. "President of Taiwan"). We're now implying that the ROC and PRC are separate countries limited to their current jurisdictions. Instead, I cite The term "Mainland China" is a term which can used when a comparison is to be made with Taiwan for non-political purposes. Hong Kong and Macau are generally not considered part of Mainland China, but are under the jurisdiction of the PRC. Thus, it is appropriate to write "many tourists from Hong Kong and Taiwan are visiting Mainland China." A non-political subject deserves a non-political description. Yes, a description within the category helps, but still... And why not separate the economies when people would like to see them separate? --Jiang 14:24, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It's too bad we can't define [[:Category:Banks:Location]] or [[:Category:Banks {location:countries}]] so someone could define the generic category because banks tend to behave differently in various countries, and then Wiki could combine categories. There are two interpretations: automatically include all articles which have both Category:Banks and a country category, or this merely enables support for articles which include Category:Banks:Mexico(country). A side issue is renaming - the name of a country might change, and if Category:Mexico(country) is used for all references to that country then it would be possible to have a tool for renaming...or just use language support to hide the database name and easily change what we see as the country category name. (SEWilco 15:16, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC))


"(items) of (area)" categories

Regarding Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Archive 3#Category naming conventions - it doesn't appear that anything was decided one way or the other. I've just started some categorising Tasmanian rivers - I created Tasmanian geography, made it a sub-category of the existing Australian rivers, which I then added to Australian geography. Unfortunately, I then found Geography of Australia already existed.

I think it should be decided one way or another. Should it be done differently with people?

I think Australian sportspeople, Australian musicians, sounds better than Sportspeople of Australia, Musicians of Australia. But I think Islands of Australia, Bridges of Australia, sounds better than Australian islands, Australian bridges.

Informal vote? Chuq 02:34, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Problem is that they are not always the same, because someone could be "of Australia" but not be an Australian, no? And what about those for which the nationality and ethnicity are mixed up? Chinese sportspeople and Sportspeople of China are very very different. So I would vote for the X of Y option to be the clearest. Fuzheado | Talk 04:36, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

  • Maybe with countries it is different than with other political divisions. We don't use "Vermontian geography" or "Californian rivers". To be consistent it would have to be "Australia rivers" or "Australia bridges". That is why I would vote for your 2nd option: "(items) of (area)".

    Maybe this is one of the few places that subpages would actually work for indicating subsets: "Rivers/Australia" or "Sportspeople/Australia". Mike 04:48, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)


  • People
    • Australian sportspeople
      1. Chuq 02:33, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
      2. bodnotbod 23:01, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)
      3. Postdlf 23:03, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
    • Sportspeople of Australia
      1. Mike 04:31, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)
      2. Fuzheado | Talk 04:36, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
    • Other
  • Places
    • Australian rivers
      1. Postdlf 23:03, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
    • Rivers of Australia
      1. Chuq 02:33, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
      2. Mike 04:31, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)
      3. Fuzheado | Talk 04:36, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
    • Other

Years

Category:2004

Discussion moved to Category talk:Years. -Sean Curtin 22:35, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[Category:As of 2004] ?

On a related note, it may be worthwhile to do Category:As of 2004 (as a subset of the Category:Wikipedia maintenance pages), to replace As of 2004 and related pages....this is an easy way to find articles that may become dated over time. What do you think? Catherine | talk 20:51, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

If this is done, it should be placed on the talk page. It isn't really something random readers need to see. anthony (see warning) 14:52, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Years (again)

Please see Category talk:Years#Years 40 to 1788 about the creation of categories for years 1 to 1788. -- User:Docu

Should templates be used to add articles to categories?

(There are also active discussions of this on Category talk:Stub and Template talk:Stub.)

There are a number of templates that are inserted into articles that need some kind of special attension. Specifically:

I have proposed adding these templates to appropriate categories, which will slowly cause the articles they are inserted into to join the categories, as the articles are edited. As with everything wiki, there is disagreement.

Pros:

  • This will cause an alphabetical list (category) to be automatically generated which does not need direct maintenance of all the articles with the template.
  • The category format is better than the format in What links here and lists all articles, rather than just the first several.
  • Pages renamed would be updated in the category list. Redirects don't always stay pointing to the correct article.
  • If the template is removed from the article, the page is instantly removed from the category, and won't linger until someone discovers it.
  • There are a lot of lingering stubs in wikipedia. Perhaps if there was a somewhat unified list in an easily browsable form, people would pick more of them off and expand more articles.

Cons:

  • This duplicates the functionality of What links here which could be enhanced.
  • "It is not the point of categories and is just plain silly." --Maximus Rex
  • It is bad to mix things which are in the encyclopedia with maintaince material
  • The categories could get huge and the category system might not be ready for that.
  • Adds the stub message twice, first the template text, then a tall line with Cat:Stub.

Apparently there are technical performance issues with modifying the template that is included in so many articles, so this should be decided once, and not unilaterally decided by one or two people. I would appreciate it if anyone could add to the arguments above (pro or con!). Perhaps we could have a vote or something later. --ssd 04:41, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I think the Cons are very strong, and not matched with the pros. My preferred solution is "This duplicates the functionality of What links here which could be enhanced". ✏ Sverdrup 12:47, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I'm not really much in favor of using temporary categories like Category:cleanup or category:stub on articles. See category talk:stub for alternatives for stubs. In regards to Category:disambig see my comment further up on (here on Village pump). -- User:Docu
However, does it work? Does including a cat: on a template cause all pages to which it is added to belong to the category also? This is of course useful for maintaining other pages with categories.
It may be a good thing, to present a back-link to other pages needing cleanup prominently on the page, but it may be redundant to go about this through means of a category, however.
I don't know... Dysprosia
Yes, it works, but I think a page has to be purged/touched before the cat shows up. ✏ Sverdrup 13:28, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

User:Docu has suggested several alternatives to categories, but none of them work. I will list them on category talk:stub. --ssd 04:36, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC) them

Alternatives to using Category:stub that is. Did you try? I'm much in favor of adding Category:Disambiguation to Template:Disambig. -- User:Docu
I agree, but Disambig is scary. The best alternative to it is a huge list in a page that takes forever to load even on my high speed connection. Do people actually edit that list or is it automatically maintained already?? If the category is added to the disambig page, I think it might eventually force implementation of the one-letter-per-page breakup of category pages that are huge... --ssd 04:21, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
It has to be manually maintained. I did a bit of work on that a few months back, and it's a bit of a pain; I'd love to see some method of automating it developed, either by categories or by fixing "what links here" to show all the pages that link there (currently it cuts off after a few thousand or so). Bryan 18:17, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I just discovered the vfd link above. (and others) Great idea, I really like browsing the deletable articles this way. --ssd 15:06, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I note that 6 out of 7 of these templates include categories now. I'm sure that more of them out there do not (but I have not found them). This in itself is sort of a consensus. The question remaining is if it should be added to the remining templates. --ssd 02:37, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This experiment is progressing with the largest of these, Category:Stub. Concerns have been raised that the size of the category may impair server performance, although I have not noticed this--does a large category slow down wikipedia significantly more than an equivalently large article would? Can a developer comment on this? Probably we should wait and see how it works out with this category before adding it to the much larger disambiguation template. --ssd 17:57, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I like the idea of templates linking to Categories for maintenence. Kevin Rector 15:47, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

When category browsing supports combinations of categories, having these categories might make it easier for people to fill in details. Someone with veterinarian knowledge could look in appropriate categories to find stub articles. (SEWilco 15:06, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC))

Categories and lists

It's most unclear to me, how lists and categories covering the same area should be handled. I stumbled about this problem at List of writing systems. In addition to this list, the Category:Writing systems and sub-categories like Category:Abugida writing systems exist, and an additional list embedded at Abugida. It's all a mess and all lists/categories slightly differ.

It seems not wise to remove List of writing systems, as long as Category:Writing systems won't display subcategories inline. Is there a possibility or plan, to pull in subcategories inline below some threshold of number of entries?

Also note Category:Abugida writing systems and Abugida - should these be merged?

Pjacobi 11:49, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The categories Category:Abugida writing systems and Category:Writing systems would probably want to be consistent with each other.
If you plan to remove the annotations on Abugida#List_of_abugidas anyways, Category:Abugida writing systems is probably equivalent, except that you can't use the category as on Special:Recentchangeslinked/Abugida.
If List of writing systems is fairly complete and a finite group, you probably want to keep the structured list rather than Category:Writing systems. We might want to build a tool to enable synchronization of the two. -- User:Docu

I guess Wikipedia:When to create a category is trying to answer this question directly. If this policy is approved, it should be linked from the project page. -- Beland 03:41, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Categorising Wikipedians

I wondered whether we could have categories for wikipedians? To prevent abuse all categories should be self assigned and categorisation of others an offence. One benefit would be that Wikipedians could then form groups of interests. For example, I'm interested in comedy and if a category Wikipedian comedy fans (for eg) were created I could then contact them in some way on issues of interest.

Has anyone else floated this idea? Any thoughts? --bodnotbod 02:03, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)

I don't particularly care for the idea, but if it is done, it should be in the wikipedia: name space, not in the main namespace. Your choice of title is also a bit long and redundant. --ssd 06:10, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I guess I was thinking it would be Wikipedians:Comedy fans - which would take it out of the main namespace (I completely agree it can't be part of the main namespace)... and that leads me to think that perhaps any registered user would come under category:wikipedians automatically. --bodnotbod 14:12, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)
I don't have an opinion on if we should do it, but I know it can be done, as I categorized my Wikibooks user page. (categories are not very popular over there we've only got 6, and I started them all) Gentgeen 09:01, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
That link doesn't seem to work for me Gentgeen. And it raises the question for me whether people feel that you should have done what you've done...? Or is it, horror of horrors, frowned upon. --bodnotbod 14:12, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, sometime in the last day or two the syntax to make links to wikibooks changed. This one should work. b:en:User:Gentgeen
Um. Nope! --bodnotbod 22:37, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)
Both links work for me. ··gracefool |☺ 23:08, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

POV/Dispute Issues

Category Painters

I've been doing some work in filling out some articles on artists and appear to have run into an edit war whilst rationalising Category:Painters where I found a couple of people whom I feel should not be in this category. Can some other editors take a look at the discussion on Talk:Bill Oddie and give some additional input as to whether Bill Oddie and/or Winston Churchill should be included or not. I've offered the solution of inserting Category:Amateur painters but that doesn't seem to have been accepted. -- Solipsist 19:18, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

How should disputes be handled?

What should be the procedure for handling disputes over whether or not an article should be in a category when consensus cannot be reached? On a regular article page you can compromise, but with categories the article is either included or it isn't. See Talk:Bowling_for_Columbine#Category:Propaganda.

List of possibly POV categories

We as a group have begun in a few different places around WP to identify a potential problem with POV in categorization. It seems this is happening when a category is created that has a negative connotation and no self-evident criteria for inclusion/exclusion. (It probably could also happen with a category having an extreme positive connotation, but I haven't seen that come up yet.) I think it may be useful to understand more fully just which actual, current categories are subject to this phenomenon, so that we may draw better-grounded conclusions after inspecting a more full set of actual examples. To that end, I'm starting an alphabetical list here (feel free to chip in) of categories I think are likely to cause POV controversy. --Gary D 01:37, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Comments

I've started adding to the list, but really there are a whole lot more, more than I care to waste my time enumerating. anthony (see warning) 14:22, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • I don't understand how Category:Sports is POV at all—that's the only perplexing addition to me. Here's my take on the rest:
    • The ones that I agree definitely have irredeemable POV problems and should be deleted are: Category:Alcoholics, Category:Computer pioneers, Category:Eccentrics, Category:Imposters, Category:Mysterious people (?!), Category:Propaganda, Category:Pseudoarchaeology, Category:Pseudoscience, and Category:Wealthy people. I don't believe there can be an objective agreement on the inclusion of most people in any of these. True, some people may be self-described alcoholics, but that says more about the willingness of that person to declare that they have a problem than it does any objective fact about them. Too much possibility for abuse. The only "Wealthy people" category that I think would have any merit would be Category:Billionaires. It's an objective, verifiable fact whether someone is one or not, and it's a notable accomplishment. Category:Millionaires I think would be too large and not very interesting—it's just not all that notable of an accomplishment anymore, however far beyond my reach it is.  ; )
      • I don't see these all as "irredeemable". As a spot check in Category:Computer pioneers, I selected a number of people I didn't know of, and every one had made major contributions to the field. Category:Mysterious people only lists two people, both of which have articles that read as quite mysterious. Category:Pseudoscience is controvertial, but not POV. Strict criteria (lack of application of scientific method) make this quite clear. --ssd 21:34, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
        • Don't get me wrong, I'm all for separating pseudo- science and archaeology from the legitimate practice of each. I just don't know how easy it is to get a consensus as to what falls in those categories. Postdlf 23:38, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
        • The appliation of scientific method can be trickier and less strict than we might think. In John Edward for instance, we have scientists arguing with each other. --Gary D 01:30, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
      • I don't think even billionaires could be NPOV. Presumably you're talking about net worth, converted to American dollars, but that's not something which can be determined in an objective way. As for sports, did you read the link? There is a lot of disagreement over what constitutes a sport. anthony (see warning) 10:29, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • I think Category:Assassinated people, Category:Crime victims, and Category:Criminals can all be policed properly by the right limiting definition. Assassinations, in my understanding, are the purposeful killings of political figures, though I could be wrong on how easy this is to identify. The latter two can also be limited by reliance on defined legal crimes and especially convictions. No one who has not been convicted should be included in Criminals, and neither should anyone who is not notable because of their crime and conviction. In other words, convicted murderer Charles Manson or even convicted rapist Mike Tyson should be included, but not someone who merely happened to get locked up for one or two minor charges with little comparative impact on their lives or careers. A matter of degree, perhaps. Category:Crime victims should be limited to those who are notable because they were victims, such as Laci Peterson, who regardless of whether her husband did it, was undeniably murdered and so was objectively a crime victim. As long as the legal system is actually supplying the definitions, then the categories can be NPOV.
    • As long as the subjects included in Category:Fictional characters and Category:Fictional religions have originated in culture of any form clearly intended to be fictional, I don't see a problem with these. We would just have to watch to make sure that no smartasses include Jesus Christ or Buddha, and I think gods that are no longer worshipped should also be rightfully excluded too—these are all properly categorized under their appropriate religions or mythology, which have very different connotations from "fictional" even if you are an atheist. Category:Fictional religions should be easy to constrain—if a religion and accompanying mythology have clearly originated in a novel rather than actual real-world practice, then it objectively fits. Bokononism, a religion that exists only in a Kurt Vonnegut novel, is an appropriate inclusion. I don't know if there are any cases where a real-world religion has started based on the practices of fictional characters in an Anne Rice or Stephen King novel, which might cause a problem when a fictional religion then becomes a practiced one. I also don't know that I would classify "Jedi" as a religion either, but the definitional problem of what is or isn't a religion doesn't necessarily render religion a POV categorization.
      • A good criteria for Fictional X is that it must be depicted in a work of fiction, and not exist outside of that fiction, i.e, orignial depiction in fiction. -_ssd 21:34, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
        • Fictional X isn't POV but part of a scheme to make it possible (in the future) to exclude fictional X from searches, so that you don't get chemical elements, planets, religions which only exists in works of fiction. Some care must be taken in maintaining these, and it shouldn't be extended to cover religious X, even if it sounds as fictional as StarTrek to atheists. Also some distinction from traditional mythology is called for. There is a Category:Fictional fragons, not to claim the existence of real dragons. Further discussion at Category_talk:Fictional. -- Pjacobi 20:43, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • I really don't like the idea of categorizing people by race, religion, or sexual orientation, so Category:Gay people should go, and Category:Jews and Judaism should be just Category:Judaism. Gay rights activists would be a proper category, however, as would Jewish religious leaders, as long as it is categorized by something someone does rather than what they supposedly are. I think categorizing people under Category:African Americans or Category:Asian Americans is highly offensive and POV. Whether someone is one or not is largely a matter of self-identification (how do you label yourself if you are multiracial?), and it is inherently POV to think that people are appropriately classified based on what race they are, as if that is a defining trait. It is much less offensive but still problematic to merely include this...information in list articles, because at least that way you're not slapping a classification on the subject of an article, saying "this is what he is."
    • I think Category:People by nationality has the potential to be just as problematic, but not if we merely rename it to Category:People by country. I think it's appropriate to categorize people based on the country they are notable in (i.e., Category:U.S. politicians or Category:U.S. actors and actresses, and then have a parent category more appropriately named Category:People by country, so it's more about where they are or where they have done notable things rather than their birth origin or ethnicity. The problem I see even with this, however, is that in our cosmopolitan modern world, many people are truly of international notability and not identified in the public mind with a particular country. But I don't think that argues for eliminating the whole idea of country classifications, however.
  • Once again, I think many of the above should be listed on Wikipedia:Categories for deletion (and if I see them there, I will vote as such), but others are definitely redeemable as long as we police them under proper definitions. I don't know if I have a strong opinion one way or another on the listed categories that I didn't discuss. Postdlf 16:18, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Category:Pseudoarchaeology does not seem POV to me. In recent years, there have been many "discoveries" that later turned out to be fraudulent or otherwise faked. --ssd
    • There's no problem in discussing all that in the context of an article. The problem is the stark labelling that a category standing alone imposes. Von Daniken, for example, may be discredited by most, but until essentially the whole world is in agreement, there just isn't the requisite certainty for WP to join the bandwagon with a stand-alone label. --Gary D 01:30, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Category:Social Justice contains a collection of articles all with a common theme. Perhaps the category title is POV, but that does not make it a bad category if all the articles are related. --ssd 21:39, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

New category policy

After some suggestions and tinkering, I think Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes is ready for prime time. Does anyone have any last objections before it gets merged into the category policy and becomes Holy Law as it were? Snowspinner 19:56, Aug 1, 2004 (UTC)

I think the material in that page on NPOV and categories got trimmed back too far, and is no longer sufficient. In the current version, it warns against article inclusion in a category unless inclusion is "self-evident and uncontroversial," but it no longer discusses creation of categories whose very nature will make it impossible to know by self-evident and uncontroversial criteria whether articles should or should not be included, and whose negative or positive connotations will make inclusion/exclusion a POV heated issue. I would re-insert at least some of my earlier material using the hypothetical example Category:Cruel people. --Gary D 21:33, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
This got trimmed for two reasons. First, it was trimmed to avoid m:instruction creep. Second, it was trimmed because the real purpose of this policy is to determine whether one should choose a category, a list, or a series box for a given classification. I think that NPOV and categories is a much, much larger topic than this, and that it should get its own policy, which I would eagerly get behind. But I think that it's slightly tangental to this policy, and that the main thrust of this policy - which is to determine the appropriate uses for the three methods of classification - gets dulled somewhat by its inclusion. So I'd much rather see Wikipedia:NPOV and categories created at wonderful length. :) Snowspinner 21:39, Aug 1, 2004 (UTC)
Ahh, I see your point, and agree fully. However, since I already bothered to gin up the following while you were adding your comment (and am in love with all my own prose), I will anyway as a placeholder propose the paragraph on POV categories be temporarily reconstituted to include an NPOV aside as follows, until we can move it to Wikipedia:NPOV and categories: (--Gary D 21:59, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC))
Categories appear without annotations, so be careful of NPOV when creating or filling categories. Categories that implicate judgment or POV, particularly those with subjective boundaries and an especially negative (or positive) connotation, should be avoided. For instance, Category:Cruel people would be undesirable, as it carries a negative connotation, can only be populated through subjective judgment, and implies Wikipedia has made the damning judgment that the people featured in articles within it are cruel. Further, unless it is self-evident and uncontroversial that an article belongs in a potentially POV category, it should not be included.
If we must have an example in this policy, I'd like it to be a real one instead of a hypothetical... Snowspinner 22:17, Aug 1, 2004 (UTC)
One more thing: I think the "rule" against an article appearing in both a category and one of its subcategories should be softened to a "usually" status. It is usually true. However, there may be times when an article represents such a major item that it belongs in a larger category as well as being classed with its categorical siblings. An example off the top of my head might be including the article Protestant Reformation in both Christianity and Protestantism. Or maybe Jesus in both Christianity and People in Christianity. Maybe those are not the best examples, I'll see if I can think of better ones. --Gary D 22:10, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
On a further read of the page, I see you essentially already have this exception in place, so...nevermind... --Gary D 22:13, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I was just about to point that out, so good to hear. :) Snowspinner 22:19, Aug 1, 2004 (UTC)

Speaking of NPOV categories...

... am I the only one who finds Category:Gay people odd, and slightly 'point finger'-ish. We have a List of famous gay, lesbian or bisexual people, which is fair enough as a clearly explained article about those who identify themselves as homosexual, and are famous. The (very incomplete) 'Gay people' category strikes me as mildly offensive. Afterall, think of the upset Category:Black people, Category:Posh people, or Category:Fat people, categories would have. -Erolos 22:22, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think the point is coming, and probably soon, when a great many of the POV Categories listed a few sections above this one will be ready for Wikipedia:Categories for deletion, and will be voted off en masse as a unified policy move. --Gary D 22:25, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I'd list them separately - en masse means that if people disagree with one they have to disagree with them all. Snowspinner 22:36, Aug 1, 2004 (UTC)
Indeed they should all be listed and voted on separately. En masse was my shorthand prediction of the outcome of all of those (essentially simultaneous) votes. --Gary D 23:24, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It is anti-gay that "Category:Gay people" has been deleted, but "Category:African Americans", even "Category:Mysterious people", have been kept. Hyacinth 22:16, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's anti-gay to have a category for gay people but not for straights. I think all the individuals classified under African Americans should be removed too, and I'm in favor of deleting Mysterious people. Postdlf 22:26, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree, but am unable to find where the decision to remove "Category:Gay people" was made. Hyacinth 22:55, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Listed ten days ago on Wikipedia:Categories for deletion, no support to keep. Postdlf 23:04, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"What belongs in a category" guideline?

After some discussion at Category talk:Birmingham, England I think a "What belongs in a category"-guideline would be a very nice thing. What belongs in Category:Birmingham, England? Every band that was formed there and every thing that has to do with Birmingham? What belongs in Category:Painters? Everyone who has painted some pictures, or just people everyone "knows" is a painter? So do Charles, Prince of Wales and Adolf Hitler belong to the category, because they painted some pictures, or do they not belong there, because they are not very well known for their paintings? A guideline that answers these questions would really come in handy in my opinion. What do you think? --Conti|✉ 15:00, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

Ahh, I'm guessing that this is a question prompted after a couple of rounds with User:Pigsonthewing - Andy Mabbitt appears to prefer a very broad church approach when it comes to putting articles into categories, and he rather defends that position with some rapid reverting. I for one feel this has resulted in some rather inappropriate articles being put into the Category:Painters (and now subcategories), and I'm sure there are other problem areas. A good example can be seen in the discussion at Talk:Tracey_Emin. Emin is perhaps most famous for specifically _not_ being a painter, but Andy's argument appears to be that she's a painter whether she likes it or not, because she did in fact paint some pictures in her student days. The problem is that this can result in almost anyone and everything being put into every category, including contradictory categories for the same person.
I prefer to see categories in the OOP sense of an IsA relationship. That is, if you can say the phrase
  • X is a Category:Y
without particularly wanting to qualify it, the X probably IsA Y. So
So far I've found about half a dozen articles with category problems under Category:Arts, but I will discuss them over on those talk pages. Of course in truth the boundaries on any category are always going to be a bit fuzzy, so it isn't always clear cut. Rolf Harris is a painter, is a tricky one for me - I wouldn't argue with Rolf Harris is an artist though. -- Solipsist 16:44, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Your (Conti's) comemnt is full of red herrings and straw men - no-one has suggested putting "ervythoing that has to do with Birmingham" in that category; nor have Charlie Windsor or Hitler been categorised as painters "because they painted some pictures". To suggest either is at best disingeneous and further suggests that you can't support your arguements with anything mroe reasnable. Andy Mabbett
So why have you put Prince Charles in Category:Painters then [2]?--Conti|✉ 17:02, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)
Beacuse he is a painter. Andy Mabbett 18:29, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Of course people would suggest Emin is (or at least was) a painter. Have you read her article, or any biography? And please don't make statements about what you think my arguents are, without fiorst checking with me - taht way, you won;t make errors such as the above. Rolf Harris categorically (excuse the pun) is a painter. Andy Mabbett 16:51, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
P.S. "Andy Mabbitt" - who's he? Andy Mabbett 18:09, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Hmm, "X is a Category:Y" cannot apply to things like Category:Birmingham, England tho. It must be discussed what belongs in such a category, and in my opinion articles like Black Sabbath do not belong there just because they started their career there. --Conti|✉ 17:02, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)
"in my opinion articles like Black Sabbath do not belong there just because they started their career there" - they didn't "just start their career there". Perhaps it is this ignorance of the subjects concerned, which leads you to be so mistaken regarding their categorisation? Andy Mabbett 18:06, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
If so, the article is missing the information why Birmingham was so important to Black Sabbath. It seems you know what you're talking about, so maybe you could add some information about the connection between Birmingham and Black Sabbath to the Black Sabbath article? --Conti|✉ 18:15, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)
Well you can in a way. The problem is that the category in this case is not so well phrased. You can say
But both those categories are too specific, so you might prefer to incorporate them both in Category:Places in Birmingham.
You can also say
You then have to decide whether that is a useful category, or whether we would be better off with just Category:Heavy metal musical groups or Category:Musical groups from Birmingham. Several categories have been sub-divided by nationality when they get too big, few (any?) have been further sub-divided by city within a nation.
Then both Category:Places in Birmingham and Category:Musical groups from Birmingham could be subcategories of Category:Birmingham, England. -- Solipsist 17:57, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Solihull is a not "suburb of Birmingham" Andy Mabbett 18:06, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
As I say its a fuzzy case and up for debate. Pop over to Google and search for the phrases "Solihull" "suburb of Birmingham" [3] and you will find 112 references that say it is. So "Solihull is a suburb of Birmingham" can be a true statement. Now try "Tracey Emin" "painter" [4] and you will get some 1800 hits, but in every one I've checked it is not Emin who is being described as the painter. Try it with "Conceptual artist" and you will get plenty of positive results. That is because "Tracey Emin is a painter" is currently not a true statement. -- Solipsist 18:23, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
You will find more than 112 enteries saying that the Holocaust never happened; that the Earth was created ~6,000 years ago, or that we never put men on the Moon. Nevertheless, Solihul is not a suburb of Birmingham. Emin may not be a painter; but then again neither is van Gough. Both were painters. Andy Mabbett 18:29, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Andy, it's funny how you can accuse Conti of being "at best disingeneous" and you yourself can will come back with the same type of remarks. In fact I dare say you may have just proved Solipsist correct! You will find far more references to men walking on the moon than to men never walking on the moon. Likewise if you find so few references to Emin painting, maybe she isn't really known as a painter. You can however refer to her as a British artist since some people would view what she does as real art. —Mike 19:40, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)
And also it would be good to get back to alternative ways of 'drawing the boundaries for' or 'methods of defining' a category. The IsA method might be a good starting point, but it can't be the only approach. Andy, in particular, I would like to hear your views if I haven't defined the broad church correctly. -- Solipsist 20:23, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Note there is now some additional guidance on the main Categorization page.
  • If you go to the article from the category, will it be obvious why it's there? Is the category subject prominently discussed in the article? -- Solipsist 11:40, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)


Here is another idea for deciding whether an article whould go in a particularly category. (I'm mainly thinking biographies here.) We already have guidelines on whether a person is considered relevant for an encyclopedia article -Wikipedia:Criteria_for_Inclusion_of_Biographies. Now look at the category you are considering. Would we have an encyclopedia article on this person, if they had only done the things relating to that category. If not, don't put them in that category.

So for example Richard Feynman is a world renown Physicist. That is why we have an article on him - so no problem with Category:Physicists. He is also well known for playing the bongos, possibly the only person known for playing the bongos that I can think of (although not mentioned in the article). However, if that is all he had done, we wouldn't have an article about him - so don't put him in Category:Bongo players or even Category:Percussionists.

Similarly Syd Barrett is known for being a member of the band Pink Floyd - so Category:British musicians is verifiably correct. Apparently he has spent much more of his life painting. Never-the-less he is not particularly well known for painting and if that is all he had done he wouldn't pass the guidelines in Wikipedia:Criteria_for_Inclusion_of_Biographies and there would be no article - so don't put him Category:British painters.

This rule would also work for some of the contentious categories like Category:Atheists and Category:Gay people (see Wikipedia:Categories for deletion) which would then only include people who are in Wikipedia because they are famous as Atheists or for being Gay (using the above 'IsA' rule, would tend to be more inclusive.) We then wouldn't have to go through contortions thinking up narrowly defined category names. Although POV issues may still remain with these particular categories.

Further it helps mark the difference between Categories and the List of xxx articles. -- Solipsist 11:40, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think that is a very helpful criteria Solipsist. older≠wiser 11:58, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
That sounds incredibly sensible Solipsist, and I think would be a good rule of thumb for settling cases where there is disagreement. PMcM 16:45, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
This would make an extremely helpful guideline. :) --Conti|✉ 17:01, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)

So is there a way we can make this policy, or a proposed policy, or whatever is appropriate. -- Solipsist 19:21, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Ready for archiving?

Art categories

For those who are interested, I'm trying to drum up interest in organising the visual arts categories at Category talk:Art -- Solipsist 21:20, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Added to Wikipedia:Categorization projects (current) -- Beland 03:41, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Knowledge representation

A lot of the issues with the new Wiki Categories have been encountered before. I found related pages were poorly interconnected... so I created Category:Knowledge representation. Take a look there for some concepts which you might not be aware of. (SEWilco 07:37, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC))

Now listed on project page. -- Beland 03:41, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Important discussion at Categories for Deletion

At Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/FHM110sexiest, there has been an ongoing discussion over whether around 300 articles on everyone from Marge Simpson to Paula Zahn to Diana, Princess of Wales should all be categorized according to their being listed in FHM magazine's annual poll of the 100 sexiest women. So far, only several people have taken part in this, which I think is too few to resolve the fate of how so many articles will be classified, and to decide an issue that cuts to the heart of what purpose categories serve on wikipedia and the power they have in branding an article as to what it is. I'd love to see a lot more people joining in over there so we can better weigh whether such a category has a place on here. Postdlf 14:08, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)


Problems with all Categories

At the moment, whenever I access any Category I am seeing a blank space between the title and the links to other categories. Is this just me? If so, what is going on? And if not WHAT IS GOING ON?

Thanks. Erolos 18:15, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It's not just you, but I have not seen anything about what is causing this. older≠wiser 18:19, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. It's worrying stuff. I've alerted some admin. Erolos 18:28, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
All categories I found that were broken have been fixed, and I can't find any new ones. However, there are so many that there may well be more out there and I'm not going to be able to find them all. So assistance is welcomed/needed. Also, if they really are all fixed, could Tech support give me a confirmation?
Ones that have been fixed since I mentioned them = (Category:Films by year), (Category:Celebrities), (Category:Feminists), (Category:Ballet), (Category:Antenna teminology), (Category:Clear Channel radio stations), (Category:Clear Channel Communications), (Category:Mosques), (Category:Sportspeople), (Category: Fictional Jews), (Category:Fictional gays and lesbians), (Category:Islamic mythology), (Category:Christian music), (Category:Aliens), (Category:English athletes), (Category:Environmental law), (Category:English actors), and (Category:Campaign settings). -Erolos 12:59, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I saw this too, but I think it was a transient problem and seems to be OK now, something to do with the parsing and/or caching engine on the server, but I really have no idea why. If anybody has a proper explanation it would be nice to hear it, so we know that we can be reassured that nothing is lost. --Lexor|Talk 15:29, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
But it isn't OK now. Some have been fixed, but loads haven't and some have only been fixed since I mentioned them. I can't find all the broken categories, especially not alone. -Erolos 16:21, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

When to create a category

I've got a draft of a proposed policy at Wikipedia:When to create a category. It covers some other things too, but I wanted some comments on it. Thoughts? Snowspinner 00:31, Jul 24, 2004 (UTC)

Note: This article has been moved to Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes.

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