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== Living people have become people who were born in 569 and died in 570, somehow ==
== Redirects ==


Someone has done something to a category affecting some pages I watch - e.g. ], ]. These used to be in Living people date of birth unknown. Now they (and some others) are somehow in the categories for people born in 569 and died in 570. There is no change recorded in their page history though. This is clearly a mistake and if someone can figure out what happened and how to stop it continuing to happen (other than just deleting the category from their pages and reapplying living people with date of birth unknown) that would be great. ] (]) 21:56, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
I'm relatively new to looking at categories, so please excuse me if this problem has been addressed before. One problem I've noticed is that redirects don't appear under the categories of the page to which they are redirected. For example, I looked for ] under ], but it's not there, since it redirects (incorrectly in my view, but that's another matter) to ]. I can see the undesirability of having lots of marginal variations appearing under the category page, but there must also be a lot of cases like this. Is it possible to add categories to a redirect page? ] 04:59, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
:Yes it is possible, and I have done so for ]. I believe you have to add the categorization to the redirect on the same line as the redirect because nothing is processed on the page after the first paragraph. I think this is not recommended, but I don't remember off-hand where this is discussed. I don't remember the details, but I'm guessing this should only be done for redirects that ''could'' and ''should'' eventually become articles, or in cases where there are multiple fairly different names for the same subject, and both are equally likely to be used. Certainly, most redirects should not be categorized to keep categories from getting cluttered with minor variations of the same name. -- ] 08:07, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


:Those were added by ] (pinging) for some reason: ], ] ] (]) 22:18, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
::I've now done the same for Type II error, and this seems like an adequate solution. I didn't know how to edit a redirect page, but now that I can do that, it's just a matter of adding the categories where necessary. I agree that this should be done where there are two alternative titles for the same article, but not for minor variations on the same name. Of course, that's a matter of judgement. Thanks for your help on this ] 12:15, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
::Welp we found a fun bug in AWB! Thanks for pinging me, the issue is mildly amusing. If you look at the infobox you have what appears to be a link to Wikidata for their birthday <nowiki>{{#statements:P569}}</nowiki>. Since the template isn't being picked up by AWB (or something like that) it put their birthday as 569. And the date of death property is P570. I'll go and check some of the other WP:CHECKWIKI edits from others and see if this has accidently spread. Feel free to correct the pages that were affected, I'll try and make some time tonight after work or tomorrow to address this issue on the affected pages. ''']''' ] 23:30, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
:::Ah! I see. That's quite funny (and also reassuring that its probably only those two odd categories that i need to check). Cheers! ] (]) 23:42, 7 November 2024 (UTC)


And at the basis of these lie rather terrible edits like . I don't know if only one editor makes these or if more people do the same, but we have a few hundred articles that probably need reverting. ] (]) 12:02, 8 November 2024 (UTC)
:There are a series of templates which essentially add categories to redirects.These categories generally include only redirects though, see ]. When creating a series of redirects it's generally a good idea to add also a specific template, e.g. {{tl|Redir from US postal ab}}. Note that such categorization didn't work in all previous versions of Mediawiki. -- User:Docu


:Does that usage fall within the outcome of ]? If yes, the AWB (and other tools) should be updated; if not, perhaps some clarification on appropriate usage is needed at pages such as ]. ] ≠ ] 12:25, 8 November 2024 (UTC)
==Subcategories==


== Tension between ] vs. ] and ] ==
Another newbie question. At least on the skin I'm using, the number of subcategories that are displayed for a category page is quite small (variable, but as few as 10), with the rest going on to a subsequent page. I think it would be better to display all the subcategories. If there are too many, that should be addressed by changing the hierarchy or something. ] 04:59, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


'''Executive Summary''': ] says "Don't have subjective categories!" but ] and ] say "An article should include a category for all its defining characteristics!" What if a category is both? What to do?! (And, rare-but-happens, what if the ''only'' defining category for an article is (arguably) subjective? Can we have an article with no defining characteristic, even if it meets ]?)
:This is a recurrent issue. There are (at least) four ways to deal with this:
#Depopulate the category into smaller subcategories so that there are only subcategories to display. Personally, I think this is the worst option, and should only be done as a last resort.
#Display all the subcategories first by piping them with a space or an asterisk. This option is a quick fix, and I would only recommend this if there are a small number of subcategories (a dozen or so), and they are all major subcategories. There is no need to pipe subcategories when they have eponymous articles which also get displayed. Often, those eponymous subcategories do not belong and should be removed from the category.
#Create a new subcategory to contain all or most of the articles. For example ] has a subcategory ] so that the articles about specific Operas do not clutter the category. This is a good option if there is a natural name for the new category, but it is quite a bit of work to set this up.
#Create one or more new subcategories to contain all or most of the existing subcategories. Categories with :more than just a few subcategories usually have some relationship to each other. They may be "xxx by nationality", "xxx by language", etc... All or most of the numerous subcategories may be organized into just ::a few new subcategories (or even just one). When each new subcategory gets displayed, there won't be any articles to break up the list of subcategories. Since there are likely many less subcategories than articles, this is an easier option to set up than the previous one.
Does this help? If you have a specific problem category, mention it so we can discuss the best option for that category. -- ] 07:56, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


{{hidden begin
::I'm working on ], and I think any reasonable listing of subfields, along with some list categories that belong at the top level (economists, economic journals and so on) will get you up to around 20 subcategories. There were more top-level when I started, but I tried to put most of them under subfields As far as I can see, there's no better option that running over to a second page in this case. Your advice would be welcome on this.
|title = <big>Drilling down into details/examples/questions, lot of words but very useful if you want to engage on the subject in much depth IMO</big>
::I know it's easy to call for a software fix and hard to implement it, but I think displaying more subcategories on the first page is the optimal solution here ] 20:52, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
|titlestyle = background:#CEE6F2;
}}
----
] says


{{talkquote|Adjectives which imply a subjective, vague, or ] inclusion criterion should not be used in naming/defining a category. Examples include ] (''famous'', ''popular'', ''notable'', ''great'', ''important''), any reference to relative size (''large'', ''small'', ''tall'', ''short''), relative distance (''near'', ''far''), or personal trait (''beautiful'', ''evil'', ''friendly'', ''greedy'', ''honest'', ''intelligent'', ''old'', ''ugly'', ''young'').}}
The problem in ] isn't the subcategories, its the article pages. I think that creating a logical subcategory scheme and re-categorizing most of the articles to be under those pages would make it easier to find whatever you're looking for. Fixing your subcategory problem would be a side benefit. --] 21:05, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


And fine, but then ] has
:I'm hard at work on that very project. I'm currently working mostly on ] and I'll report back here when I have something worth looking at.] 21:48, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


{{talkquote|Be sure to include categories for all defining characteristics}}
== Show documents that fall within several categories ==


and ] has
I'm trying to show documents that fall within two categories, does anyone know if there is an easy way to provide this?


{{talkquote|One of the central goals of the categorization system is to categorize articles by their defining characteristics}}
I have a lot of design documents and want to be able to create a set of pages that contain only matches that are assigned to a set of categories.


And for further elucidation has "A defining characteristic is one that reliable, secondary sources commonly and consistently define, in prose, the subject as having. For example: 'Subject is an adjective noun ...' or 'Subject, an adjective noun'. If such examples are common, each of adjective and noun may be deemed to be "defining" for subject" and also "If the characteristic would not be appropriate to mention in the lead section of an article (regardless of whether it is currently mentioned in the lead), it is probably not defining"
For example, I have document types in categories of "Design Docs", "Test Docs", "V1", "V2" etc. Users want to be able to quickly bring up a list of V2 Design documents.


The last being a negative, but obviously flippable to a positive I would say. (FWIW note that it doesn't define "defining characteristic" as important or notable or necessary, but rather something that sources "commonly and consistently" mention. Could be the person's ], while her having been a Corn Goddess being the reason she killed all those people isn't. That's what it says, athho that's silly, and an actual definition might be "Something that the reader would find important in understanding, finding, or sorting the entity properly" or something. Mostly a defining category would be both, so I'll use that.)
Is there a better way I should be categorising my documents for this type of groupings?


OK. '''But what if an article has both?''' Maybe you don't see it a lot, but I have some articles about people who only have an article because they did something(s) heroic, which certainly could be considered subjecive usually, and it's a bone of contention. So I made a category something like ]. For instance ]'s lede is "Thomas Beloat ... was an American sheriff of Gibson County, Indiana at the turn of the 20th century noted for stopping a lynching". The rest is like "In 1919, he was named as deputy fish and game warden...". Stopping the lynching (clearly heroic) is his defining characteristic.
Apologies if this is a simple request!


But there's no ref with "Beloat, a hero, did such-and-so". But then, one ref is characterized as "Beloat was one of two law enforcement officials whose '''bravery''' in preventing lynchings in early 20th-century America was noted by ]..." (emphasis added). "Bravery", not "heroism", and the particular word "hero" is not used in any the refs (AFAIK), altho "bravery" may just be the editors choice of word.
(Just checked archive and will look into some more of the search options...someone mentioned using that for multi-cat searching)


Beloat's in ] etc. but that is not why he has an article. The closest to anything defining ], which is broad and throws him in with victims, perpetrators, towns, gangs (KKK), laws, museums, and more. Beloat should absolutely be in that category, but ] was also notable only for being heroic but had nothing to do with lynchings, and there are others. ''When there's some people who only have an article because of one characteristic, it'd be quite useful for navigation to have a category for that characteristic, yes?'' I'd think so. This's the crux of the matter.
*I'm not really sure what you're asking, and from your description I'm not sure that it's something that belongs in Misplaced Pages, but I'll take a stab at your question. An article is put into a category by putting a category tag on it, i.e. <nowiki>]</nowiki>, and there is no reason that you can't put more than one category tag on an article. Does that help? --] 18:48, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


So, wanting to think about this tension between ] vs. ] and ] I am thinking of these questions:
Jeff, thanks for the reply, I actually meant to ask this in the MediaWiki site, not the Misplaced Pages site, guess a link took me further than planned! Anyway, yup I've got a lot of document that are assigned to multiple categories, but wanted a way to list documents that were in several specific categories. So at the moment I could go to the "Example Category" page to see all documents within the category "Example Category". If I say tagged 3 documents with an extra category of "Draft", I would want a page that just returned documents that contained both category tags. I could create a new tag "Draft-Example Category" but I dont really want to do this.
I'm working on a few other customisations at the moment to a local Wiki, so I'll probably just make some advanced search screens for the users.
:Category intersection is not currently supported by the MediaWiki software. There is a tool called ''catscan'' that runs on the toolserver copy of Misplaced Pages content, see ]. -- ] <small>(])</small> 13:23, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


*Should categories like ] exist? (such as "Imposters", "Misers", "Rebels", "Hoaxers", "Individualists", "Heroes" (for mythic/fictional persons), "Skeptics", etc)?
== Births and deaths ==
*If not, then if the subject of an article doesn't have a defining category (it being deleted) should the article continue to exist? (Cos why would it?)
*If so, should an article be in, for instance, the (somewhat-subjective) ] only if two or more sources use that exact word (with pinchpenny, tightwad, stingy, etc. not counting)? Or should editors have some leeway here?
*If so, should an article be in, for instance, the (somewhat-subjective) ] only if it's mentioned in the lede, even if there are other reasons for the article to exist? Or only if it's the only reason the article exists?
*Or only in the articles where it the ''only'' important defining characteristic, cos otherwise you have an article with no defining characteristic?


(FWIW, all of these are in ] which is a cesspool of this stuff, because that is where I looked; there are probably other places.)
For the hundreds of categories that organize by year of birth and year of death, what are the membership criteria? Is it only for real humans? In other words, what about:
*organizations?
*fictional characters?
*famous animals?
--]]]]] 14:10, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


If this class of category is not (all) deleted, in theory we'd want go thru all these articles and decategorize the ones that don't have two+ references specifically saying the person's a "Bibliophile" OR that don't obviously belong in the category "Bibliophile" (if we're allowing editor leeway) OR if "Bibliophile" is not a defining characteristic and not in the lede, whichever people want. More than half are like this it seems. This'd be a huge effort and don't advocate it, but I mean in theory, and I'm thinking about in the future.
:Subcategories of ]/] are only for people. See ]. BTW for organizations there is ]. -- User:Docu
:I agree. In a stretch, I would probably allow these categories for famous animals, but not organisations, and '''certainly''' not for anything fictional. It's best to keep it for real people only. ] | ] 20:57, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


The reason I'm thinking about this is, I hate to see stuff like this picked off at random (somebody comes across "Skeptics" and has it deleted, while "Miser" etc happens to remain, luck of the draw). This leaves a gap-toothed smile, and that is not excellent, and we should strive for excellence. Have an RfC to decide if we want to this ''class'' of categories (that is, categories where many or most articles in it are because of a subjective editor opinion) or something, I'm thinking. Yeah decisions on which categories should fit in the "Not that subjective, keep this cat" and "Too subjective, dump this cat" (e.g. keep "Hoaxers", delete "Heroes" and whatever.) Oh well that is Misplaced Pages.
==Economics categories==
----

{{hidden end}}
As discussed above, I've been working on ] using the ]. I've gone furthest with ] including a lot of links to relevant articles at ]. The process showed up a lot of gaps in article coverage. Kevin ] made a nice template, which improved the look. I'd appreciate comments, suggestions and criticism. ] 07:20, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
] (]) 18:53, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

:I honestly don't disagree that there are people defined by their heroism. The challenge for a neutral encyclopedia is what one person sees as a hero, the other side might see as a villain. The best way around that is to categorize people by the objective actions that made them heroic: being a civil rights activistis, or soldier, etc. And, even though I think most awards reflect the pre-existing fame, the very ''top'' national award for heroism can work too.{{pb}}Balancing what's defining with what's objective can indeed be a narrow path. I'm not sure what, if any, improvements could be made here but if there are specific proposals for rewording, I'm open minded. ] (]) 20:47, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
== Category Flattening ==
: This is an attempt of forumshopping. The actual discussion is taking place here: ]. Everyone is very welcome to contribute to that discussion. ] (]) 06:58, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

::C'mon, there's no reason to be insulting. This is a ''general'' question that ''rose in my mind'' because of that thread, yes. But as you saw, over there I wrote
A good number of the above discussions involve whether articles should be placed in a certain category ''and'' its parent category or categories. This is becoming more and more of a problem for me. I recently got yelled at for removing redundant categories from some articles (i.e. I removed (real name not used) from articles that were in ).
::{{talkquote|It's a big global question. I posted just where people might be interested, WP:Categorization, I have no idea what there would think either way, and I deliberately avoided mentioning this thread or even the exact category name just so that people would have to dig to find us here, so it's as non-forumshopping as I could possibly do}}

::I deliberately worked to keep those threads -- which are about different things, one specific and one general -- separated to avoid confusing the two issues. I know that that other thread will close soon, and fine. You decided to give a pointer to that different thread. Why. I really wish you hadn't done that. ] (]) 08:05, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
I think that this would no longer be a problem if it were possible to "flatten" categories: to have the option to list all articles in a given category, ''including the ones in its subcategories''. on the toolserver <strike>does that</strike> used to do that before it stopped being updated, but it's not a part of Misplaced Pages itself. The feature request on Bugzilla is the closest thing that I could find there. ] 02:38, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
:::I don't question your good faith here but, in order for this global conversation to be productive we'd really need specific changes proposed to the wording of ]. If you don't have that right now that's okay, but it would bring this conversation to an end, at least for me. ] (]) 19:49, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

== Categorizing sub-lists ==

I think I brought this up before but I can't find it. When a list becomes too long, a natural thing to do is to make individual pages for sub-ranges and link to them from the main page. When this is done, often it is undesirable to have the subpages be categorized in the same category as the master page. Logically, they're just extensions of the master page and operationally, all access to them should be through the master page.

So, is it ok to leave the sub-pages uncategorized? If I do, they'll get picked up on someones list of uncategorized pages and someone will attempt to add categories to them. Should I create ]? If I did, what category would I put it in? --] 02:58, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

:Personally, I have no problem with leaving subpages uncatgegorized. They should have a link to the main article prominently displayed. Another possibility is to make it truly a subpage like ]. I don't know if there is any policy about this, but there are already many Misplaced Pages pages that already do this like ]. So be bold and suggest a new guideline about subpages and see what type of reaction you get. -- ] 07:20, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

::I'm pretty sure that I saw a policy stating that true subpages aren't allowed in the main space. Do you mean to edit an existing guideline page and see what happens, or create a new page and put it on WP:RFC? I'm not sure what the best way is to propose a new guideline. --] 13:58, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

:::Yes, subpages are deprecated. I have no idea where that policy is, maybe ]. -] 20:49, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

::::See ], True subpages are not functional in the main namespace. However, you can have article with slashes in the title, which can ''look'' exactly like a sub-page, but without the associated functionality. ] ≠ ] 21:01, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

== Ethnic categorization and ] ==

I would like to know where it is possible to discuss the policies about ethnicity? Categorizing the ] as an ], although it clearly is not (see the entry and the talk page: France is a ] historically founded on various ethnic groups and which considers this indifferent; it only cares about the individuals', not about their alleged memberships to this or that ethnic group). This is plain confusion between ] and ]. Such confusion may lead, in certain type of situations, to ]. Therefore, I think we should discuss this, and limit the ethnic categorization stuff to articles in which it is really necessary. Concerning biographies about living people, I'm sure many living people dislike being categorized like this. To categorize people is to divide them, this is not a goal for an ] like Misplaced Pages. We must be careful, lest an encyclopedia, instrument of ], becomes a hate-monger propagandist. ] 02:28, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

== Page split of Category:Misplaced Pages categories in need of attention ==

I've proposed we split some of the text for the header of ] into a Misplaced Pages: page. Please discuss or leave your oppinions at the ] page. ]<sup>(])</sup> 01:14, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

== cat vs. article in cat==

If an article has its own category, should that cat always be put in a higher level cat, in place of the article itself? For example, if Mick Jagger were to have his own category, should the category or the article go in the Rolling Stones's cat? Would this rule always apply, or only in certain circumstances? Like, would we also put Mick's cat in the English singers cat, or might it be more appropriate to use his article in this (or any) instance? Is there consensus (or even majority) opinion on this? -] 01:20, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


== List “hierarchy”(?) of categories ==
:This causes many disagreements. Unfortunately, I avoid messing with things like that, because people who have been working with certain subjects have their own special way of doing things. Often, I get reverted or yelled at when I try to change something. See ], too. ] 02:09, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


Hello, could you please tell me how to sort categories in the correct order at the footer of a page, if there is such a thing? Or is there a guide page I can consult?
== Categorising redirects ==
Many thanks. ] (]) 10:48, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
:{{replyto|ChrisAdair}} ] says {{tq|Eponymous categories should appear first. Beyond that, the order in which categories are placed on a page is not governed by any single rule (for example, it does not need to be alphabetical, although partially alphabetical ordering can sometimes be helpful). Normally the most essential, significant categories appear first.}}
:You don't say which page this concerns, so I can't make suggestions. But an article that I created fairly recently is ]. From the article title, we have three key elements: (i) Cambrian Railways; (ii) 4-4-0; and (iii) locomotives. There is no category covering all three of these at once, so I looked for categories for the overlap of any two of the three elements: {{cl|Cambrian Railways locomotives}} exists, as does {{cl|4-4-0 locomotives}}, so I put those first. There is no category covering the other combination (Cambrian Railways 4-4-0), so I skipped that. Next, I looked for other things mentioned in the article for which a category exists, and found those for the year of introduction (which I added chronologically) and also the manufacturers (which I also added chronologically), so put those in next. Lastly came what might be called "miscellaneous" categories - {{cl|Scrapped locomotives}} and {{cl|Standard gauge steam locomotives of Great Britain}}, which I added alphabetically.
:Anyway, some people try to sort the whole list alphabetically: but there is no consensus for this, see: ]; ]; and ]. --] &#x1f339; (]) 13:18, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
::This is great. Thank you so much! ] (]) 17:55, 8 December 2024 (UTC)


== Preventing unintended hierarchization ==
Has categorising redirects been discussed here? I've started a debate on this at the Village Pump. Please add your comments ], or ask for the discussion to move here. Thanks. ] 13:15, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


Is there an established way to prevent/reverse incorrect categorization of subcategories of categories named after people? E.g. a way to prevent ] from being a subcategory of ] via ]? ] (]) 21:53, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
== Naming categories help ==
:{{replyto|Star Garnet}} I don't see any of these three categories inside either of the other two. --] &#x1f339; (]) 22:21, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
I would like to subcategorize the entries in ] by nationality. What is the proper name for the resultant categories? Would it be ] with subcategories such as ]? The idea of the "(people)" part is, presumably, to separate these categories from publishing companies, which are categorized under ] and its subcategories with no disambiguator. This leads to the question of whether the "(people)" disambiguator is necessary on further subcategories of ] at all, as these will, if I'm not mistaken, follow the ''Fooian foos'' convention, whereas categories for the companies will follow the ''Xes in Foo'' convention. Is this correct? — ] 19:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
::Of course it's not directly categorized as such; the tree here is Actresses from Dayton, Ohio → Actors from Dayton, Ohio → People from Dayton, Ohio, by occupation → People from Dayton, Ohio → Dayton, Ohio → Jonathan Dayton → Members of the New Jersey Legislative Council → Members of the New Jersey Legislature → State legislators of the United States ] (]) 22:27, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
: Re ], I'm not sure that disambiguation parantheses are encouraged... in which case, perhaps names such as ] and ] needed...? &nbsp;Regards, ] 01:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
:::] should only be categorized as ] (and possibly other eponymous category holders). Dayton's personal categories belong to his article; none apply to his category. -- ] (]) 00:51, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::The problem was that ] had been put into ] instead of the otger way round, and same with the "History of ..." category. I've reverted both. ]] 08:09, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::The problem still is that ] is in 5 categories that don't apply to 18 out of 19 members of that category. To illustrate: ] doesn't belong in ]. -- ] (]) 13:13, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::You are correct Michael. See ]. ]<sup>]</sup> 13:33, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:<table class="infobox vcard; width=200px;"><tr><th colspan="2" class="infobox-above summary">New Jersey's at-large congressional district</th></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="infobox-subheader"><i>]</i></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="infobox-label" style="white-space: nowrap;">Created</th><td class="infobox-data">1789<br>1801<br>1815</td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="infobox-label" style="white-space: nowrap;">Eliminated</th><td class="infobox-data">1799<br>1813<br>1843</td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="infobox-label" style="white-space: nowrap;">Years active</th><td class="infobox-data">1789-1799<br>1801-1813<br>1815-1843</td></tr></table>
:Taking a step back, does ] need to exist ''at all''? It feels sort of borderline to have a category that collects:
:# Articles about places named after him
:# Articles about his relatives
:# The majority of the category's pages, articles about elections in which he ran <small>(sidenote: Do we ''really'' have separate articles for ] '''and''' ]?)</small>
:# ] (in which he was implicated)
:# ] (to which he was elected)
:That last page also contains this masterpiece of an infobox → , presumably constructed by the Misplaced Pages Cabal of Misplaced Pages Redundancy Cabal. ] (]) 03:44, 15 December 2024 (UTC)


== Removal of "First-run syndicated television programs in the United States" category ==
==Categories to delete==
On the 'categories to delete' page, I see what I view as abuse of the page. An editor list one category name, says he does not like it, proposes to delete an entire class (perhaps hundreds) of categories that are named in the same fashion.
A half dozen or so editors come on the page to agree; a few disagree and then presumably all the hundreds of categories will soon be deleted. Some of the dislike of these categories are stated in POV terms--no matter, right? Is this how things are supposed to be? Thanks ] 02:14, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
: Hi Harold! &nbsp;I think ''deleting'' a whole raft of categories must be very rare; I don't recall such an event since I began following ] a few months ago. But I guess that, yes, if such a vote was successful, that's what would happen. There could always be a subsequent vote to reinstate deleted categories if/when people realised what had happened, which yes, if successful, would nullify the original action. I guess that's Misplaced Pages's "modified consensus system". If such an event perturbed enough people, I'd hope it would then become less likely to be repeated; also, there are people like yourself trying to flag potentially undesirable outcomes before time and effort is spent on them. Thanks! &nbsp;Regards, ] 14:29, 26 May 2006 (UTC)


Recently I have noticed several edits of articles about television shows that removed "First-run syndicated television programs in the United States" and replaced it with "First-run syndicated game shows" (as in ]) or "First-run syndicated dramas" (where appropriate). Shouldn't the original category be left in place, since the new category does not mention "United States"? ] (]) 14:49, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
==Deaths by cause==
Input is requested in a discussion taking place on ], which was created as a subcategory of ]. &mdash;] | ] 12:10, 26 May 2006 (UTC)


:Yes - this looks to be a very new editor who perhaps does not have that understanding, so would suggest addressing that directly with them. ] (]) 15:40, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
:Most deaths are not important enough to warrant categorisation. Please see my responses on that talkpage. ]&nbsp;|&nbsp;] 12:20, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
::Thank you, @]. ] (]) 19:48, 14 December 2024 (UTC)


== Massacres categories debate == == Excessive ancestry categories for royals ==


Royals, especially Medieval royals, will almost always have a mother from elsewhere, sometimes a different place each generation. This leads to lots of categories. On top of this sometimes the statement of their nationality is questionable. We have many pre-1479 royals from the Crown of Castile in 4 or more Spanish people of y descent categories. Calling anyone Spanish that early is open to question, and that many categories bring defining is questionable. Especially when their ancestry is really part of a tran-western Europe royals order, not clearly belonging to any specific "ethnic" group. This seems like a set of categories that is imposing a later understand on people in a way that dies not make sense. These categories might make sense for some post-1700 or so royals, but I think we should exclude all royals from about that year and back from descent categories. They make progressively less sense as we go further back. I think descent categories are in some cases justified, but we have placed them on way too many articles where the information is not defining. In a number of articles it is not based on any text in the article itself.] (]) 23:07, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
In case anyone else is interested, there is a debate on categorising massacres (or not) going on at ]. Thanks. ] 13:02, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 13:38, 15 December 2024

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Living people have become people who were born in 569 and died in 570, somehow

Someone has done something to a category affecting some pages I watch - e.g. Sara Walton, Naomi Cogger. These used to be in Living people date of birth unknown. Now they (and some others) are somehow in the categories for people born in 569 and died in 570. There is no change recorded in their page history though. This is clearly a mistake and if someone can figure out what happened and how to stop it continuing to happen (other than just deleting the category from their pages and reapplying living people with date of birth unknown) that would be great. DrThneed (talk) 21:56, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Those were added by User:Dr vulpes (pinging) for some reason: special:diff/1243396802, special:diff/1243406640 2001:14BA:9C0B:AC00:D6A:195F:D996:A791 (talk) 22:18, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
Welp we found a fun bug in AWB! Thanks for pinging me, the issue is mildly amusing. If you look at the infobox you have what appears to be a link to Wikidata for their birthday {{#statements:P569}}. Since the template isn't being picked up by AWB (or something like that) it put their birthday as 569. And the date of death property is P570. I'll go and check some of the other WP:CHECKWIKI edits from others and see if this has accidently spread. Feel free to correct the pages that were affected, I'll try and make some time tonight after work or tomorrow to address this issue on the affected pages. Dr vulpes (Talk) 23:30, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
Ah! I see. That's quite funny (and also reassuring that its probably only those two odd categories that i need to check). Cheers! DrThneed (talk) 23:42, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

And at the basis of these lie rather terrible edits like this one. I don't know if only one editor makes these or if more people do the same, but we have a few hundred articles that probably need reverting. Fram (talk) 12:02, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Does that usage fall within the outcome of Misplaced Pages:Wikidata/2018 Infobox RfC? If yes, the AWB (and other tools) should be updated; if not, perhaps some clarification on appropriate usage is needed at pages such as Misplaced Pages:Wikidata. older ≠ wiser 12:25, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Tension between WP:NONDEFINING vs. WP:SUBJECTIVECAT and WP:CATDEF

Executive Summary: WP:SUBJECTIVECAT says "Don't have subjective categories!" but WP:CATDEF and WP:NONDEFINING say "An article should include a category for all its defining characteristics!" What if a category is both? What to do?! (And, rare-but-happens, what if the only defining category for an article is (arguably) subjective? Can we have an article with no defining characteristic, even if it meets WP:GNG?)

Drilling down into details/examples/questions, lot of words but very useful if you want to engage on the subject in much depth IMO

WP:SUBJECTIVECAT says

Adjectives which imply a subjective, vague, or inherently non-neutral inclusion criterion should not be used in naming/defining a category. Examples include subjective descriptions (famous, popular, notable, great, important), any reference to relative size (large, small, tall, short), relative distance (near, far), or personal trait (beautiful, evil, friendly, greedy, honest, intelligent, old, ugly, young).

And fine, but then WP:CATDEF has

Be sure to include categories for all defining characteristics

and WP:NONDEFINING has

One of the central goals of the categorization system is to categorize articles by their defining characteristics

And for further elucidation has "A defining characteristic is one that reliable, secondary sources commonly and consistently define, in prose, the subject as having. For example: 'Subject is an adjective noun ...' or 'Subject, an adjective noun'. If such examples are common, each of adjective and noun may be deemed to be "defining" for subject" and also "If the characteristic would not be appropriate to mention in the lead section of an article (regardless of whether it is currently mentioned in the lead), it is probably not defining"

The last being a negative, but obviously flippable to a positive I would say. (FWIW note that it doesn't define "defining characteristic" as important or notable or necessary, but rather something that sources "commonly and consistently" mention. Could be the person's diastema, while her having been a Corn Goddess being the reason she killed all those people isn't. That's what it says, athho that's silly, and an actual definition might be "Something that the reader would find important in understanding, finding, or sorting the entity properly" or something. Mostly a defining category would be both, so I'll use that.)

OK. But what if an article has both? Maybe you don't see it a lot, but I have some articles about people who only have an article because they did something(s) heroic, which certainly could be considered subjecive usually, and it's a bone of contention. So I made a category something like Category:Individual Heroes. For instance Thomas Beloat's lede is "Thomas Beloat ... was an American sheriff of Gibson County, Indiana at the turn of the 20th century noted for stopping a lynching". The rest is like "In 1919, he was named as deputy fish and game warden...". Stopping the lynching (clearly heroic) is his defining characteristic.

But there's no ref with "Beloat, a hero, did such-and-so". But then, one ref is characterized as "Beloat was one of two law enforcement officials whose bravery in preventing lynchings in early 20th-century America was noted by Mark Twain..." (emphasis added). "Bravery", not "heroism", and the particular word "hero" is not used in any the refs (AFAIK), altho "bravery" may just be the editors choice of word.

Beloat's in Category:Indiana sheriffs etc. but that is not why he has an article. The closest to anything defining Category:Lynching in the United States, which is broad and throws him in with victims, perpetrators, towns, gangs (KKK), laws, museums, and more. Beloat should absolutely be in that category, but Gabriele von Lutzau was also notable only for being heroic but had nothing to do with lynchings, and there are others. When there's some people who only have an article because of one characteristic, it'd be quite useful for navigation to have a category for that characteristic, yes? I'd think so. This's the crux of the matter.

So, wanting to think about this tension between WP:NONDEFINING vs. WP:SUBJECTIVECAT and WP:CATDEF I am thinking of these questions:

  • Should categories like Category:Individual heroes exist? (such as "Imposters", "Misers", "Rebels", "Hoaxers", "Individualists", "Heroes" (for mythic/fictional persons), "Skeptics", etc)?
  • If not, then if the subject of an article doesn't have a defining category (it being deleted) should the article continue to exist? (Cos why would it?)
  • If so, should an article be in, for instance, the (somewhat-subjective) Category:Misers only if two or more sources use that exact word (with pinchpenny, tightwad, stingy, etc. not counting)? Or should editors have some leeway here?
  • If so, should an article be in, for instance, the (somewhat-subjective) Category:Misers only if it's mentioned in the lede, even if there are other reasons for the article to exist? Or only if it's the only reason the article exists?
  • Or only in the articles where it the only important defining characteristic, cos otherwise you have an article with no defining characteristic?

(FWIW, all of these are in Category:People by behavior which is a cesspool of this stuff, because that is where I looked; there are probably other places.)

If this class of category is not (all) deleted, in theory we'd want go thru all these articles and decategorize the ones that don't have two+ references specifically saying the person's a "Bibliophile" OR that don't obviously belong in the category "Bibliophile" (if we're allowing editor leeway) OR if "Bibliophile" is not a defining characteristic and not in the lede, whichever people want. More than half are like this it seems. This'd be a huge effort and don't advocate it, but I mean in theory, and I'm thinking about in the future.

The reason I'm thinking about this is, I hate to see stuff like this picked off at random (somebody comes across "Skeptics" and has it deleted, while "Miser" etc happens to remain, luck of the draw). This leaves a gap-toothed smile, and that is not excellent, and we should strive for excellence. Have an RfC to decide if we want to this class of categories (that is, categories where many or most articles in it are because of a subjective editor opinion) or something, I'm thinking. Yeah decisions on which categories should fit in the "Not that subjective, keep this cat" and "Too subjective, dump this cat" (e.g. keep "Hoaxers", delete "Heroes" and whatever.) Oh well that is Misplaced Pages.

Herostratus (talk) 18:53, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I honestly don't disagree that there are people defined by their heroism. The challenge for a neutral encyclopedia is what one person sees as a hero, the other side might see as a villain. The best way around that is to categorize people by the objective actions that made them heroic: being a civil rights activistis, or soldier, etc. And, even though I think most awards reflect the pre-existing fame, the very top national award for heroism can work too.Balancing what's defining with what's objective can indeed be a narrow path. I'm not sure what, if any, improvements could be made here but if there are specific proposals for rewording, I'm open minded. RevelationDirect (talk) 20:47, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
This is an attempt of forumshopping. The actual discussion is taking place here: Misplaced Pages:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2024_November_17#Category:Individual_heroes_and_heroines. Everyone is very welcome to contribute to that discussion. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:58, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
C'mon, there's no reason to be insulting. This is a general question that rose in my mind because of that thread, yes. But as you saw, over there I wrote

It's a big global question. I posted just where people might be interested, WP:Categorization, I have no idea what there would think either way, and I deliberately avoided mentioning this thread or even the exact category name just so that people would have to dig to find us here, so it's as non-forumshopping as I could possibly do

I deliberately worked to keep those threads -- which are about different things, one specific and one general -- separated to avoid confusing the two issues. I know that that other thread will close soon, and fine. You decided to give a pointer to that different thread. Why. I really wish you hadn't done that. Herostratus (talk) 08:05, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
I don't question your good faith here but, in order for this global conversation to be productive we'd really need specific changes proposed to the wording of WP:SUBJECTIVECAT. If you don't have that right now that's okay, but it would bring this conversation to an end, at least for me. RevelationDirect (talk) 19:49, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

List “hierarchy”(?) of categories

Hello, could you please tell me how to sort categories in the correct order at the footer of a page, if there is such a thing? Or is there a guide page I can consult? Many thanks. ChrisAdair (talk) 10:48, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

@ChrisAdair: MOS:CATORDER says Eponymous categories should appear first. Beyond that, the order in which categories are placed on a page is not governed by any single rule (for example, it does not need to be alphabetical, although partially alphabetical ordering can sometimes be helpful). Normally the most essential, significant categories appear first.
You don't say which page this concerns, so I can't make suggestions. But an article that I created fairly recently is Cambrian Railways 4-4-0 locomotives. From the article title, we have three key elements: (i) Cambrian Railways; (ii) 4-4-0; and (iii) locomotives. There is no category covering all three of these at once, so I looked for categories for the overlap of any two of the three elements: Category:Cambrian Railways locomotives exists, as does Category:4-4-0 locomotives, so I put those first. There is no category covering the other combination (Cambrian Railways 4-4-0), so I skipped that. Next, I looked for other things mentioned in the article for which a category exists, and found those for the year of introduction (which I added chronologically) and also the manufacturers (which I also added chronologically), so put those in next. Lastly came what might be called "miscellaneous" categories - Category:Scrapped locomotives and Category:Standard gauge steam locomotives of Great Britain, which I added alphabetically.
Anyway, some people try to sort the whole list alphabetically: but there is no consensus for this, see: Misplaced Pages:Bot requests/Archive 61#Create a BOT to alphabetize and organize categories automatically; Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Categories/Archive 4#re alphabetizing categories on the article pages; and Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)/Archive 114#Create a BOT to alphabetize and organize categories automatically. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:18, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
This is great. Thank you so much! ChrisAdair (talk) 17:55, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Preventing unintended hierarchization

Is there an established way to prevent/reverse incorrect categorization of subcategories of categories named after people? E.g. a way to prevent Category:Actresses from Dayton, Ohio from being a subcategory of Category:State legislators of the United States via Category:Jonathan Dayton? Star Garnet (talk) 21:53, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

@Star Garnet: I don't see any of these three categories inside either of the other two. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:21, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Of course it's not directly categorized as such; the tree here is Actresses from Dayton, Ohio → Actors from Dayton, Ohio → People from Dayton, Ohio, by occupation → People from Dayton, Ohio → Dayton, Ohio → Jonathan Dayton → Members of the New Jersey Legislative Council → Members of the New Jersey Legislature → State legislators of the United States Star Garnet (talk) 22:27, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Category:Jonathan Dayton should only be categorized as Category:Misplaced Pages categories named after speakers of the United States House of Representatives (and possibly other eponymous category holders). Dayton's personal categories belong to his article; none apply to his category. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:51, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
The problem was that Category:Dayton, Ohio had been put into Category:Jonathan Dayton instead of the otger way round, and same with the "History of ..." category. I've reverted both. PamD 08:09, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
The problem still is that Category:Jonathan Dayton is in 5 categories that don't apply to 18 out of 19 members of that category. To illustrate: Jonathan Dayton High School doesn't belong in Category:Continental Congressmen from New Jersey. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:13, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
You are correct Michael. See WP:EPONYMOUS. DB1729 13:33, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
New Jersey's at-large congressional district
Obsolete district
Created1789
1801
1815
Eliminated1799
1813
1843
Years active1789-1799
1801-1813
1815-1843
Taking a step back, does Category:Jonathan Dayton need to exist at all? It feels sort of borderline to have a category that collects:
  1. Articles about places named after him
  2. Articles about his relatives
  3. The majority of the category's pages, articles about elections in which he ran (sidenote: Do we really have separate articles for 1794 United States House of Representatives election in New Jersey and 1794–95 United States House of Representatives elections?)
  4. Burr conspiracy (in which he was implicated)
  5. New Jersey's at-large congressional district (to which he was elected)
That last page also contains this masterpiece of an infobox → , presumably constructed by the Misplaced Pages Cabal of Misplaced Pages Redundancy Cabal. FeRDNYC (talk) 03:44, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Removal of "First-run syndicated television programs in the United States" category

Recently I have noticed several edits of articles about television shows that removed "First-run syndicated television programs in the United States" and replaced it with "First-run syndicated game shows" (as in Juvenile Jury) or "First-run syndicated dramas" (where appropriate). Shouldn't the original category be left in place, since the new category does not mention "United States"? Eddie Blick (talk) 14:49, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes - this looks to be a very new editor who perhaps does not have that understanding, so would suggest addressing that directly with them. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:40, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
Thank you, @Nikkimaria. Eddie Blick (talk) 19:48, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Excessive ancestry categories for royals

Royals, especially Medieval royals, will almost always have a mother from elsewhere, sometimes a different place each generation. This leads to lots of categories. On top of this sometimes the statement of their nationality is questionable. We have many pre-1479 royals from the Crown of Castile in 4 or more Spanish people of y descent categories. Calling anyone Spanish that early is open to question, and that many categories bring defining is questionable. Especially when their ancestry is really part of a tran-western Europe royals order, not clearly belonging to any specific "ethnic" group. This seems like a set of categories that is imposing a later understand on people in a way that dies not make sense. These categories might make sense for some post-1700 or so royals, but I think we should exclude all royals from about that year and back from descent categories. They make progressively less sense as we go further back. I think descent categories are in some cases justified, but we have placed them on way too many articles where the information is not defining. In a number of articles it is not based on any text in the article itself.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:07, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Category: