Misplaced Pages talk:Categorization

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Is there a way to list all the subcategory articles in the parent category?

I apologize if this is mentioned somewhere, but I have read this article and done some searches and can't find the answer. I have the need to not only list the subcategories of a parent category, but also do crawl down to each subcategory and generate a list of all the articles there (assuming no loops). Is there such a control/program?

Order of listing of categories within an article

There is a general convention that the categories within an article are listed from most to least important. I can't find this mentioned on Misplaced Pages:Categorization or this talk: page, though I haven't searched the archives. I do seem to recall people complaining about a bot that was sorting categories alphabetically. Anyway, I think listing by importance is a good enough idea to be formally added as a guideline. There would be a couple of further consequences:

it would lessen the force of the argument about the dangers of overcategorization. Hunting for the important categories in a large unsorted list is hard. But if the important ones are first, then you can just stop reading when you reach mundane categories. IMO the test for including a category in an article should be "am I cluttering up the Category page", not "am I cluttering up the Article page".
someone has suggested at Misplaced Pages talk:Guide to layout#Order of templates, categories, and interwiki links that stub templates should be listed after Categories, so that the stub categories appear after other categories (which would include the stub category's supercategory). I already do this for that very purpose, but am often frustrated to see this being "fixed" by other editors. Having a policy to point to would prevent us working at cross-purposes.

There are some downsides I could see:

it could be an excuse for lazy category inclusionism.
there could be lame edit wars about which category is more important.

As ever, policies and guidelines are no substitute for common sense. jnestorius 23:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

If we are to have an order, I would favour alphabetical. There can be no argument as to the order then. If, for example a film wins a BAFTA and an Oscar, which is more important? Do we add a rule that it depends on the country of origin of the film? Far easier to say Academy Award is alphabetically before BAFTA. Malla nox 00:01, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Can we adopt the important to less important guideline in a looser fashion that perhaps says that similar categories should be grouped together, and that categories or groups of categories should be ordered roughly from more important to less important? I'd also add that since this is going to be a matter of opinion, there is no need to quibble over this. There can also be room to have conventions about categories that always come first, and that all of this should probably be discussed at wikiprojects. -- Samuel Wantman 00:25, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, if I can just say, let's not lose sight of the fact that Misplaced Pages is intended as a reference work. Cross referencing would be easiest with alphabetical categories. Malla nox 00:31, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

"Academy Award is alphabetically before BAFTA."...Until "Academy Award" is renamed "Oscar". Presumably numerals come after letters? The names of categories are difficult to predict (Quick, is it "Singers from Denmark" or "Danish Singers"? No peeking!), making alphabetical order little more than random order. Whatever, if it's not obvious which category is more important, I would say either is fine. If it becomes controversial, there are Projects that can establish consensus (Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Films in your example). Currently Shakespeare in Love has the following categories, in the listed order:

I would order these as follows, where categories listed together are "equally important" and order is arbitrary:

Shakespeare on film | 1990s Romantic comedy films
Best Picture Academy Award winners | Films featuring a Best Actress Academy Award winning performance | Best Musical or Comedy Picture Golden Globe | Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award winning performance | Films shot in Super 35 | Miramax films | Universal Pictures films
Drama films | 1998 films

"importance" I understand as "significant to the topic" rather than "objectively important", based on:

central aspects listed before incidental aspects
specific before vague
prestigious/famous before obscure

As I hope my example makes clear, I envisage only a few broad bands of importance, I guess like SamuelWantman. I would never see this coming down to detailed calculations of priority. The current absence of policy would be far preferable to that. jnestorius 00:48, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I would like the freedom to use either method as the article warrants. Leaving it open also allows ordering a large crop of categories by putting similar topics together. Like putting all of the people from..." cats together. -Freekee 05:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's true. If I understand SamuelWantman's idea, I like it: group similar categories together; then arrange the groups in descending order of importance, and within each group arrange its categories in descending order of importance. Without getting too anal about it, of course; it could only be a guideline rather than a policy. But I do think for example categories like Category:Living people and Category:1978 establishments are peripheral to almost any applicable article. jnestorius 23:01, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm probably going to dissent on this particular "consensus". The reason is that, as a reader and editor, I find it easier to locate categories in an article if they are presented in alphabetical order. Ordering by "importance" actually makes it more difficult for me to navigate categories in an article that has numerous categories. So, me personally, I definitely prefer when articles sort their categories alphabetically.

As a side note, when sorting alphabetically, the one exception is that I think "YYYY births" and "Year of birth missing" should always appear in the same place in the category structure, either at the very beginning of the category list or the very end. That's because those two categories are intricately linked, and so you are always expecting to find the birthyear (or lack thereof) in the same place in the category block. Likewise, year of death or "year of death missing" should always appear immediately following the year of birth.

Anyway, that's all just my opinion of what makes article categories easiest for me personally to use. I can't really speak to other people, but I can't imagine I'm alone in preferring alphabetical order to subjectively based "importance" grouping. Dugwiki 23:56, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Having said that, though, I'll say that I do support some sort of guideline for category order. Even if the guideline ended up being something I don't like, at least it would help make the ordering consistent across articles. Right now it's a bit of a random hodgepodge. Dugwiki 00:01, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

This has probably been asked before, but...

on the automatically generated category lists, is there any way to correct for single-handedly long titles so that they don't screw up the entire table and "squish" the other columns aside? —Lenoxus 17:43, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

The only way I can think of is rather odd, and I don't know what reaction you'd get if you tried it.

Remove the categories from the article with the long name.
Manually make a section that lists the categories as links, for example, ] adds Category:Bridges to the list.
Create a redirect with a shorter name, and add the removed categories immediately following the redirect and make everything -- redirect and categories -- part of the first paragraph.

I've never actually done this for the problem you mention, but I've done each of the steps, so I think it will work. Whether this is or isn't a good way to handle the problem is a different question. -- Samuel Wantman 20:28, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Redirect pages should not contain main namespace categories. They either duplicate those on the target page (if those are kept) or else (if they're moved from the target page as you suggest) they are not visible on the target page. Having an article-category link that only works in one direction defeats the purpose of categories, which are meant to be bidirectional. Adding the include-not-transclude hack will only be transparent in (at most) one particular skin; everyone else will be confused.

Yes this is a hack, but the link you mention about redirects says that redirects should not "normally" contain categories. There are some instances where they have been routinely used. One example is when there are two equally good titles for an article that are not close alphabetically. By categorizing both the article and alternate name (the redirect), both appear in the category, which aids browsing. For the question posed here, if a name 's length is causing real problems, the article could be renamed to something shorter, and there can be a note at the top of the article with an explanation. For an example, see Marat/Sade. -- Samuel Wantman 20:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, those two ways are both different from your previous "only way I can think of" :) The two-titles-Categorized suggestion intrigues me. Have you an example to point to? I think it should be teased out and perhaps added to the guidelines, rather than expecting people to extrapolate an exception out of the aforementioned "normally", which to me reads as allowing Template:R with possibilities type categories, not main namespace categories. How widely used is this? It's not on any of the aliases of Led Zeppelin IV for example; nor should it be IMO in that instance: my feeling is that, if you don't find Zoso in Category:Led Zeppelin albums, then so what? You already know what you're looking for, just type Zoso in the search box. And if you don't know anything about LedZep, you'll be annoyed to click six links and get to the same page from each. However, it would aid browsing from Category:World War II national military histories to list The Emergency via a redirect Irish state during World War II. How about a convention that in such cases the main article would have a special sortkey, akin to the μ used for Templates; thus in The Emergency: ]? OTOH, if bugzilla:491 is fixed, it's all moot anyway. jnestorius 23:15, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I can't find an example, but I thought this was used so something that has two or more well known names can be in a category under both or just either name, as appropriate. For example, both English and German titles for operas could be made to show up in Category:German-language operas. Another use would be for authors with pseudonyms or performers with stage names, where different names are better known in selected contexts. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:37, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

There's Vertical lift bridge and the redirect Lift bridge which I created to solve a problem from this CFD. Since both ended up categorized, and there's a redirect, it really didn't matter which name was used for the article. I think categorizing redirects for alternate names is very useful, like the normal practice of having "see blah blah blah" in a paper directory. I've never attempted writing it into guidelines because the practice does not seem to be widespread. -- Samuel Wantman 09:55, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that bridge example solves much. I would certainly oppose this practice in "complete" categories which list (or aim to list) all applicable entities, since listing some entities multiple times will give an incorrect impression of how many there are in total. Unless you segregate duplicates under sortkey ξ as I suggested above, which would defeat the purpose of double-listing in your cases. As regards "See blah blah", that's what the redirect page does. We seem to have different conceptions of what a Category is for, or of what a Category page is for. jnestorius 11:54, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Is there a real problem here? In my browser, My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair... But Now They're Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows is split across several rows of Category:1968 albums and doesn't make the column unduly wide; wider than the others, but not ridiculously so. jnestorius 17:36, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I do something like this quite a lot when merging stubby little articles that have little hope of every being expanded, but have a different name than the target article. For example Category:Unincorporated communities in Michigan has quite a lot of entries, but many of these are redirects to a target article with a different name (usually the township). Without being able to do this sort of categorization of the redirects, I would be inclined to keep all the little stubby articles as separate. older ≠ wiser 15:23, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like this could be handled at List of unincorporated communities in Michigan. See Misplaced Pages:Categories, lists, and series boxes. jnestorius 16:07, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

It could, I suppose, although it is a very dynamic list because there is no single authoritative source for such a list. Such stubs are frequently created and the category is a useful catchall for them. The category would need to exist in any case, and it might seem odd that some communities appear there while others do not. I don't really see any problem with categorizing the redirects though. That category would generally be completely inappropriate for the target merged articles. older ≠ wiser 19:03, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I very much like what you have done with Category:Unincorporated communities in Michigan. I don't see a downside in what you have done. Categorizing the redirects in this case makes the category very useful for finding articles. People are unlikely to know the name of the township, and hence the name of the article where the information can be found. Without the redirect being categorized, it is very possible that a user might think that no article exists and proceed to create a duplication. Categories are Misplaced Pages's index. Many articles contain sections which are linked to by redirects. In a book, these sections would all appear in the index. Shouldn't they also appear in our index? -- Samuel Wantman 08:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree with the index analogy. Indexes are what people used before Search buttons were invented; I never use Categories that way. But in any case, I don't have a problem with others doing so: I don't see it as any better than a list, but if others do I have no objection. Moving forward:

If this is to be an agreed except to the "redirects should not normally contain categories" guideline, then it should be incorporated and explained in the guidelines
For lists, there are templates {{expand list}} and {{complete}}; if Categories are to be used in a similar way, then similar templates should be added as needed to the relevant Category pages to help those unwary readers we all worry about.
Since category–article links are intended to be bidirectional, some way of emulating that will be needed. You can click to Huron Bay, Michigan from Category:Unincorporated communities in Michigan, but not vice-versa.

I think simply adding ] or ] at the bottom of Arvon Township, Michigan is clearly inadequate
better would be to add the wikilink in the relevant section; in Arvon Township, Michigan#Communities this might be:

There are no incorporated municipalities within the township. There are several ]:

better still IMO would be to add a page List of unincorporated communities in Michigan, which initially would redirect to the Category. In the various articles, link to this page rather than directly to the category. If someone subsequently goes to the trouble of adding, say, a list of the communities grouped by county, or depicted on a map, then value will be added to those links; in the meantime the Category supplies an alphabetical list. jnestorius 22:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Name with a ' in them

What is the correct way to deal with them is it

You're specifying the sort order, so how do you want them to sort? (1) makes all the O'anythings sort before any other name starting with O. (2) sorts them as if the ' is not there. (3) sorts them like 1, but unless everyone else does the same thing they'll probably be haphazardly mixed. My phonebook (in the US) does #2. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:44, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Retroactive application of a category

A question has come up recently regarding an actor with dual Canadian-U.S. citizenship. He was previously categorised as a "Canadian expat actor in the U.S." Then he became a U.S. citizen, which means he stopped being an expat. Does his past status as an expat mean that he should still be included in Category:Canadian expatriate actors in the United States? Are there guidelines on retroactive application of categories?--Vbd | (talk) 22:28, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Generally speaking categories aren't supposed to differentiate between "current" and "former" status. So if he was an expat in the past, then he would still probably be categorized as an expat. Dugwiki 18:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The distinction between an immigrant and an expat is determined by citizenship status. Once he becomes a U.S. citizen, he is no longer an expat. He can then be categorised as an "American actor," but it seems odd to also continue to classify him by his former status as an expat.--Vbd | (talk) 22:47, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see anything in the definition of "expatriate" which would suggest that an expat who becomes a citizen of the place they've moved to ceases to be an expatriate. An expatriate is someone who either resides in a foreign country or has renounced their native country. john k 09:38, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Total article count

Could we display the total number of articles in a category? For instance, it would be nice to know the total number of disambig pages. This total might include or exclude articles in subcategories, or maybe we could get both counts. --Smack (talk) 06:11, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

You can generate it with WP:AWB. Last I checked, the disambig category had 60,000+ entries. it would be nice if the server software generated more useful category statistics though, but this isn't a likely place to get the attention of developers. --W.marsh 06:40, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Interested users, please see WP:VPT#Counting articles in categories. --Smack (talk) 06:12, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Advice requested

I've been attempting to overview and tidy up the geography cats which involve the places where people live. From the top level down to local neighbourhoods. There has been some overlapping and various mis-routings. It's been interesting looking at it all. However, there appear to be two useful ways of doing it - by region, and by size. And these can operate side by side quite usefully. The by region isn't a problem. But the by size has become difficult because User:Hmains wishes to use the term settlements to cover all sizes of communities, and has altered dictionary definitions to fit his own understanding of the term - . Community appears to be the term used most often to describe the places where people live, regardless of size. This is the definition of community - . I did some sorting, placing the cat Human communities under Human geography. Human communities splitting into Urban geography and Rural geography. And those splitting into appropriate sized communities - cities, districts, neighbourhoods, villages, settlements, etc. Hmains has reverted much of my work, and insists on settlements being the term we should use - basing it on this decision, which was a declined proposal to rename Settlements by region to Populated places by region. What do people think? Is settlement an acceptable term for covering human communities ranging from well established cities down to refuge camps. Is Human community a viable alternative? Are there other choices (apart from populated places of course!)? I have started a discussion here and here, with the above wording, but no response as yet. I have left this message on the talk pages of active Geography Project members. And now I have discovered this page. Is this the right place to raise this issue? SilkTork 19:27, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

While I'm not sure I like using "settlement" as the catchall term, I somewhat grudgingly acknowledge that I don't think any other better term has been suggested (at least not one that didn't have it's own shortcomings). Regarding usage of the term, I might note that the United Nations Human Settlements Programme apparently subsumes the entire range of human habitat. older ≠ wiser 20:47, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that the Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (settlements) would be the proper single place for discussion with pointers to it from other places. Hmains 22:02, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Discussion moved to Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (settlements)#Settlements SilkTork 11:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

PROPOSAL: A moratorium and a new categorization procedure

Many new categories quickly find their way to CFD and get deleted. Many more remain that probably should be listified. I don't have statistics to back me up, but I suspect that well less than half of the categories currently being created are without problems. As the categorization system matures this will only get worse not better.

It is also difficult to create a new category. You have to visit and edit every article you want added to the category.

Category management at CFD continues to require more and more effort by an increasing number of people. It is not scaling well.

The categorization system, and the guidelines we have created are imperfect. It is hard to understand the intricacies of how it is set up, and there are competing visions of what belongs and what does not. This increases the likeliness that categories will be nominated for deletion.

To deal with these problems I propose a change the way that categories come into existence:

Proposal

A moratorium on the creation of any new categories. This means that creation of category pages would be fully protected. The moratorium would apply to administrators as well, except for the process outlined below. Once created, anyone could edit a category page, same as now.

Articles could still be categorized, but red category links would be removed automatically by bots.

Anyone who wants a new category would first create a simple list that has the text to be posted on the category page and a list of links to the articles that belong in the category arranged in alphabetical order.

CFD would remain, but would also become the forum where category creation is discussed. If someone wants to create a category, they would be propose that a list be converted into a category. If it is decided that the list would make a useful category that is in keeping with the categorization guidelines it would be approved. Otherwise, it would remain as a list.

Approved categories could be turned into a category by a bot or an admin.

Criteria could clarified to better explain when a list should and should not be turned into a category.

By reforming the process this way, there would be several advantages:

Categories would be populated as soon as they are created.

Clear criteria for article inclusion could be established from the start.

The category would be named according to guidelines from the start.

It would be easier to create a fully populated category (bots could do most of the work)

There would be consensus that a category should exist before it is created.

There would be less contentious debates about removing categories.

The work put into creating a list and proposing a category would not be destroyed because the list would remain if the category is not approved.

The number of CFD discussions would decrease dramatically. Categories would not be created capriciously because the bar would be much higher. You'd have to put the work into creating a list, as well as nominating and discussing it.

The only disadvantage that I can think of is that it would take time to get your category approved. Some might see this as being contrary to the spirit of a wiki, but I see this similar to other mechanisms that we have where we nominate before approval (admins, featured articles, portals, DYN, etc...)

Any opinions, comments? -- Samuel Wantman 07:07, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I completely disagree. As an editor who focuses on article diffusion, your proposed process would grind to a halt the work that other editors and I do on a regular basis. Also, the reason we have approval mechanisms behind DYNs, portals and featured articles is because these are highly-frequented parts of Misplaced Pages; we have approval mechanisms for admins so that we can ensure only the finest contributors are trusted with those tools. --Hemlock Martinis 08:45, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
There would be no problem diffusing categories into existing categories, and entire families of categories could be approved at once. As it is now, people are working at cross purposes. Categories get created by one group and deleted by another. Categories cannot be reverted, so if someone decides to diffuse some long established categories into subdivisions that others disagree with it is not easily reverted. Considering all the work involved in diffusing and undoing the diffusion of categories, wouldn't it be better if they were all discussed first? -- Samuel Wantman 08:54, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I really don't think it would. It is important not to overestimate the amount of trouble that people are prepared to go to to get things done on Misplaced Pages. When I want to do something on Misplaced Pages, I want to see instant results - indeed that immediacy is one of the main incentives to contribute. ReeseM 01:51, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Overall, I like the idea. A couple of quick reactions: (1) I'm not sure that making CFD the forum where category creation would be discussed is such a good idea. Although the number of CFD discussions may decrease over time, it may take awhile; there are plenty of existing categories that need to be re-considered. CFD is busy enough, so I would suggest creating a new area for Category Creation that can parallel CFD. (2) "Criteria could clarified to better explain when a list should and should not be turned into a category." -- Please say more!! I lean toward "listifying" rather than categorizing (see my current effort to err on the side of lists), but I know others don't. What are the current criteria (are there any?) and what changes do you have in mind? Thanks for your efforts!--Vbd | (talk) 09:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
There is Misplaced Pages:Categories, lists, and series boxes which is good at explaining the pluses and minuses of each, but it not not do a good job explaining when a list should not be turned into a category, or when a category should be turned into a list. The categorization guidelines do mention things related to category vs. list criteria like when it mentions that category entries are made without annotation so they should be NPOV, As part of this new process, we could bring all these things together. Since the criteria would be directly part of the process of creating a category they would be much better implemented. -- Samuel Wantman 09:47, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I think this approach is needed. The category system is currently the a major part of the infrastructure in Misplaced Pages. Unlike the creation of individual articles, the creation of new categories has major effects on Misplaced Pages as a whole. Novice users and belligerent users have wreaked havoc by creating new categories or even new category trees in the system. Moreover, many novices are prone to unintentionally recreating deleted content. Some changes are needed to the system. (I think that some changes to the category software are also needed, but that is another subject.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr. Submillimeter (talk • contribs)

Completely disagree. This is contrary to WP:BOLD and in any case unnecessary. I don't see much wrong with the present situation. —Ashley Y 10:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it is fair to assert that this proposal is contrary to WP:BOLD. A careful reading of the guideline reveals that it encourages users "to be bold in updating articles" (emphasis added). But further on, under the heading "Exceptions," it states: "being bold in updating or creating categories ... can often be a bad thing." (emphasis in the original).--Vbd | (talk) 14:52, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea (in fact I proposed the same about two years ago) but I believe the community will reject it as unwiki. Failing this, there was a suggestion on the OCAT talk page about "approved" categories, and some mechanism for flagging them as such. Both this and that would counter the kudzu of cat wildgrowth we have now. >Radiant< 13:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm probably ok with this approach overall. However, I do want to point out that one thing that's so far been overlooked above is that it might not save as much editorial time as desired. The reason is because you are in part simply shifting the tasks from discussing new categories on cfd to discussing new list articles on afd. Thus you're not really saving much time in those instances where an editor might have made a category without a list but instead is now making a list and not a category. So you're decreasing the workload for cfd but that's mitigated by increasing the workload for afd. Still, in balance, it sounds like the proposal would probably make things a little more efficient.Dugwiki 16:15, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

As the number of categories listed on CFD per day is far less than the number of categories created per day, it is clear that there is not really such a problem as the one described by Samuel Wantman, making this overly complex scheme totally unnecessary. Tim! 17:23, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Um . . . I'm not sure I follow your reasoning. There are fewer cats listed daily on CFD than there are created daily? That's because it is easy for users to create categories; it takes a lot more effort to identify and post CFDs. I think that is exactly the problem Wantman is trying to address.--Vbd | (talk) 01:40, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

You can compare the number of categories created per day through Special:Newpages to the numbers listed at WP:CFD. With 2000 categories created in less than four days, and only about 100 cfd nominations, this is nowhere near the "I suspect that well less than half of the categories currently being created are without problems", and not even all those CFDs will end in a delete result. Tim! 18:04, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I've been scratching my head trying to understand your response. Part of the problem was that it took me a few minutes to figure out where your quoted sentence came from. I didn't write it -- SamuelWantman did. As I noted before, it is precisely the situation that you describe that Wantman's proposal is aimed at remedying. That is, the unneccessary creation of large numbers of categories (see some of the examples given below) with which the Cfd process does not -- and cannot -- possibly keep up. Right now, it takes little effort to create categories; it takes a lot more effort to go through the CFD process to clean them up. As I understand it, Wantman is suggesting that more effort be made up front so that 2000 categories do not get created in four days. However, if you don't think that the excessive, willy-nilly creation of categories is a bad thing, then I can understand why you question the need for change raised by this proposal.--Vbd (talk) 18:55, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

"That is, the unneccessary creation of large numbers of categories (see some of the examples given below) with which the Cfd process does not -- and cannot -- possibly keep up." (from you rather than Wantman) - you assert that most of the categories are unnecessary but this is unprovable and the fact that so few relatively are listed at CFD make it it likely false. "excessive, willy-nilly creation of categories" (you, rather than wantman). Again a false assertion that most of these categories are incorrectly created bordering on a strawman. Tim! 07:16, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Please consider the examples provided below by Dr. Submillimeter and Radiant (and CovenantD) of excessive category creation. I'll say it again -- it is easy to create categories; it is much harder to get rid of them. That more of them don't end up at Cfd is likely a function of these categories not being identified by users who know or care enough to use the Cfd process.--Vbd (talk) 14:34, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I just took a look through recently created categories and they seem to fall into three big groups. The first group is good categories many of which are created by the same person, and often all part of the same hierarchy. The ones I just saw were all categorizing wetland areas by US state. The second group is categories created as a result of CFD renames. The third group, a random assortment seems to be mostly junk -- mis-named, pov, multiple intersections, trivia. My proposal will not impede the first group. They come to CFD (or whatever the page is) and tell us their plan and it quickly gets approved perhaps with a naming suggestion or something. An entire hierarchy could be approved and created at once. The second group is not affected. The third group would be affected, as is the intent of the proposal. They'd have to put some thought into what they were doing, and get it approved. By going through the process, they'd hopefully learn why some categories are acceptable and some are not. If they don't have the patience to learn how we do things they should probably not be creating categories. -- Samuel Wantman 06:50, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

How would you even be able to differentiate between the three groups you describe, and who would make the decisisions? Who appoints who makes the decisions? Isn't this far too bureaucratic - Misplaced Pages is not a bureucracy? CFD is backlogged with the discussions on whether to delete the small number of malformed categories, a process which would need to approve 20x as many categories simply could not handle the throughput. Tim! 07:16, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

No, though I agree with some of the premise, this isn't the solution. SchmuckyTheCat 17:42, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
What do you think the solution is? -- Samuel Wantman 01:01, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Well defined CSD criteria for categories? SchmuckyTheCat 01:29, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm all in favor. I'd also be amenable to having a similar process for creating categories (such as you ask an admin to create a category from a well defined criteria for speedy creation), for example, if you are adding a category of professionals from a country in a well established existing hierarchy. --Samuel Wantman 02:07, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Any solution that involves asking someone to create a category is a non-starter. SchmuckyTheCat 04:15, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Why? -- Samuel Wantman 06:38, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

It destroys the momentum and enthusiasm of volunteers. SchmuckyTheCat 02:06, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I think much of the "CfD" problem could be solved if people don't bother with it so much. If there's a consensus that a category should be removed or renamed, of if you think it's unlikely that anyone will object, then forget CfD and just go ahead and do it. Only if there's a big argument about it is CfD necessary. —Ashley Y 00:36, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

You seem to spend about one day a month at CFD. I suspect that I'll be spending about one day a month (or less) at CFD if things don't change! Making changes to the categorization structure take quite a bit of effort. If category changes were as simple as the process of making edits and reverts is for articles, discussions beforehand would be unneeded. But it is far more difficult. A single bad article can go unnoticed for months, it does little harm. Eventually someone notices it and it gets prod'ed or listed at AFD. A single procedure deletes it. A bad category can put a blemish on hundreds of articles. Editors get very defensive when they are nominated for deletion (probably because of all the good intentioned work that went into creating the category). Once a decision is made it takes a bit of effort to delete. If we were to bother with CFD less, it would mean that we are abandoning the system we have been creating and allowing it to become a pure tagging system. This is a possibility, and perhaps I will resign myself toward this result eventually, but for now I'm hoping we can continue to create something more encyclopedic. -- Samuel Wantman 01:01, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

In further support of this proposal: I just came across an example of a well-intentioned user creating an empty category. On the Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Biography page, the user (who has been on WP for years and is actually an admin) posted the following:

Deaths by poisoning

Hi all. I wasn't sure which WikiProject might be most involved or concerned with this subject, but I noticed the lack of a category for people who were killed by poison. Thus, I created the category, and would like to notify people who might be interested in helping populate it properly. Thanks.

This new category is populated by one entry. The user failed to take note of List of poisonings, which provides an extensive list of people killed by poison. The creation of this empty (and thus useless) category would not have happened under this proposal. Instead, if there was consensus that such a category should exist, it would be generated from a developed list (which happens to already exist in this case). That seems to be a much more efficient way of creating a useful category than posting a random request for assistance in populating an empty category.--Vbd | (talk) 03:39, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

And gosh, the solution is to move the article into the correct category, and blank the incorrect category. That's all of two edits. People create duplicate articles all the time, and yet no-one is suggesting approval before creating articles. —Ashley Y 07:10, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Two edits and an article that was missing from a category is in the category, which sounds like a success to me. And what is more the duplicate category should be redirected with categoryredirect rather than blanked, so the same thing won't happen again. Any further articles added to the duplicate category will be moved by bot. Two edits and two pieces of progress. It's a good system. ReeseM 02:28, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that, as Ashley suggested above, we could definitely do with more speedy-renames, speedy-merges and speedy-deletes regarding categories. The death-by-poisoning, above, I could make a plausible case for speedying it as a user test, because there's already a better alternative in the list. >Radiant< 10:18, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

And it's worth mentioning that you don't need to be an admin to do them (though it does leave empty blank categories floating around). —Ashley Y 18:45, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

People reading this discussion may want to look at the edit history of Srstorey. This is a novice user with less than 50 edits. In the past week, the user has created several categories that have all ended up in WP:CFD. Some of the user's categories meet the criteria for speedy deletion. This is the type of editor who can easily wreak havoc on the category system. This is why better regulation of the category system is needed. Samuel Wantman's approach would be preferable to the status quo. Dr. Submillimeter 10:58, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
- Indeed. Nor is that rare. In the past month there was also this guy who made tons of religion- and missionary-related cats, and this other guy who started classifying all Simpsons episodes based on which characters appear in them. I'm sure there are other examples. >Radiant< 11:37, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
  - Pastorwayne was the person creating religious categories, He created over 100 categories in Dec 2006 alone. As a consequence of these actions, administrative action was used on multiple occasions to stop him from creating more categories. (At the moment, Pastorwayne is blocked.) Dr. Submillimeter 16:21, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe there is any kind of "wreaking havoc" here that cannot be undone with the same number of edits that the havoc wreaker did. This is a wiki problem with a wiki solution. —Ashley Y 18:49, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Ashley, I'd agree with you if categorization was a wiki problem with a wiki solution. I don't think that is the case. I could spend weeks categorizing hundreds of articles into a structure that is clean and follows guidelines just to return some time later and find that someone has totally screwed it up. If there were a wiki solution I could just revert the change back to my version. But since it involves hundreds of articles (and even in individual articles cannot usually be fixed with a revert) this is a huge effort. Considering that there is no assurance that things will get mucked up a second, third or fourth time, I'll just give up. I think that this is the reason that categories continue to get divided up into microscopic sub-categories. It is a nearly impossible trend to stop without going to CFD. That means that the process is such that categories get created in a wiki process but can only be reverted or deleted through a CFD process. When the categorization system was just starting it made sense to create the categories first and discuss when there are problems. As it matures, there will be less and less valid categories and more and more junk. I see the switch to discussing first as an inevitable part of the maturation of the categorization structure. -- Samuel Wantman 20:27, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

It's no more a "huge effort" than whatever effort the "someone has totally screwed it up" represents. Sounds exactly like a wiki problem with a wiki solution to me. Someone can expend a huge effort screwing up Misplaced Pages in all kinds of ways, and the effort to fix it is no more than the effort they went to, in categorisation or anything else. It is simply not true that categories can only be reverted or deleted through CfD: anyone at all can do it. I've done it myself. Sure, if there's an argument about it that's different, but that's the same with any edit dispute.

Also, I like fine sub-categories. If I find at least three articles or categories with something in common, I'll create a new category. I'm really not seeing a problem here. —Ashley Y 22:59, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I think what you are describing is a tagging system, and not the categorization system as it has evolved, and as many of us here see it. We can all resign ourselves to categories becoming a tagging system, that is a possibility if all else fails. Also, when I talk about reverting I am talking about the difference between the work involved when someone screws up an article (you revert to the last version that was ok which is just one edit) and the work involved tracking down all the categories that have been removed from a category (there's no history of what used to be in the category), and adding and removing scores of categories. There's no comparison between the wiki process for articles and the process for category changes. There's no history and no way to easily revert. If someone spends hours rewriting an article I can revert it in a few seconds. If someone spends hours trashing a category, it will take hours to fix it. We can let anyone make any ridiculous change to an article because it is so easy to undo. But it is not easy to undo ridiculous changes to categories.-- Samuel Wantman 06:33, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

No, I'm describing a fine-grained categorisation system: indeed, exactly the fine-grained categorisation system that has evolved and is currently in use. If you have some plan to delete large numbers of categories, you'd better put it in your proposal. If you're not willing to put in the necessary effort to fix problems (and indeed, just yesterday I manually changed Category:Religious Demographics to Category:Religious demographics) you still have the option of using a bot. —Ashley Y 18:29, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Ashley, I'll be sure to go to you the next time the Batman Fan/Dr. McGrew/Creepy Crawler/EJBanks/LedgerJoker sockpuppet gets going again with categories like Soap Opera Characters and Batman Actors (complete with caps errors). Those two alone can (and have) encompass hundreds of articles and take hours to correct, especially when s/he is recategorizing and not just adding. This may not be a perfect proposal but SOMETHING has to change. I'd rather put the effort into educating new editors before the fact than have to do it in the middle of a CfD. It only fuels the "You're deleting my work!" complaints. CovenantD 09:48, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Stop whining and do the work. Or use a bot. —Ashley Y 18:29, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Stop whining? In other words, shut up and don't participate in consensus? Thanks. Glad to know that people are encouraged to be mindless, silent drones. CovenantD 00:46, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, "stop whining" was out of line, and I apologise. —Ashley Y 05:57, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

No problem :) CovenantD 06:35, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings about the proposal. However I think if we do something like what is suggested that continuing a series should not need additional approval. When the decision is made to subdivide a category, there may only be content for some categories. There is no reason to create all of the possible subcats at the start since some would be empty. Vegaswikian 07:09, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

This is an utterly terrible idea The category system is still grossly incomplete, and over focussed on the main Western and English speaking countries. I am currently creating many missing national symbol categories. There is no way that I, or most other people I should think, would go to the trouble of making lists first (which in this case I don't see the need for) and then begging to be allowed to convert them into a category at a later date. The underlying idea that we need to clamp down on category creation is completely wrong. We need thousands and thousands more categories and it would be destructive to make the process any harder. Haddiscoe 14:54, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

This simply isn't necessary. There may be a small closure backlog on categories for discussion at the moment, but the solution for that is for a few admins to pull their fingers out. The number of discussions per day is little or no higher than it was when I first started categorising in 2005, and the proportion of them which are highly contentious is certainly lower than it was then. I am finding problematic categories less frequently since my return than I was back in 2005. On the other hand there are still vast numbers of categories that need to be created. CalJW 18:15, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

There are fatal problems with almost every line of the proposal. To name a few:

The claim that things will only get worse not better is unsupported by any evidence, and is not compatible with my observations. What I see is that more and more conventions have become established and once they are in place most people respect them.
The claim that less than half of categories created are without problems is not credible. The number that end up on cfd is miniscule relative to the number that are created.
Making lists is more trouble than starting or adding to a categories, which is one of the main reasons why categories are more widely used than lists. I would feel that if I wanted to make a list it would have to be a damn good one, or the category proposal would be rejected and the list deleted. We would lose the ability to do things in stages and the collaborative dynamic that contributes so much to the development of categories.
The idea that the list would be safe even if the category was rejected is simply wrong. Lists are often deleted.
It would be harder to create a fully populated category. Bots would only do the work when they had been given a manually prepared list.
Categories that didn't get created because of the increased obstacles wouldn't get populated at all.
Whenever it was necessary to use the pipe trick one would have to type out a list of instructions on how it was to be done, or the bot would botch the category creation - assuming it could handle the pipe trick at all. One would also have to write the introduction to the category, and write out the list of parent categories. It could all add up to a lot of work, and as one would not know if and when it would see the light of day it would be very tempting not to bother.
There has been a backlog on Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion for a few days. It has happened before and it isn't very important. What other evidence is there that the process isn't scaling well? I would say it is scaling just fine.
One of the implied problems that this proposal supposedly addresses is a shortage of admins to close debates, yet it would require more admin input, not less. If a user's first category creation proposal had to wait a fortnight, they most likely would never try again.
This proposal would undermine the credibility of the claim that Misplaced Pages is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

ReeseM 02:04, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Are there other alternatives?

I appreciate the concerns of those that want to make categories easy to create while not encumbering the voluntary feel of our wiki. I ask everyone for suggestions as to how to create the minimum mechanism possible to stem the proliferation of poorly conceived categories. I have no desire for a bureaucracy complicated with rules and procedures. I can imagine many different ways of creating a new system for creating categories such:

A way to distinguish between "encyclopedic" categories and user categories. Perhaps they could be in different colors, or listed in different sections (I'd call the user category "tags"). Anyone could add user categories and they'd only be removed for the most egregious of offenses. "Encyclopedic" categories would be promoted from the user categories after discussion.

Allow users to create categories after they have been approved by some mechanism. This would be an interim step between general user and admin.

Restrict category creation to admins.

Restrict category creation and deletion to a categorization WikiProject.

Restrict category creation, but have a simpler way than outlined above to create a category. This could be a simple quick review process (discussion would only be necessary if something is questionable, all others would be created speedily). The review process could be a centralized page, or by asking any admin.

Modify the software so that all empty categories do not appear in the categorization hierarchy. This way pages could be created for an entire hierarchy with a single request, but the categories would only appear as subcategories when they are populated.

A software modification so that redlinks for categories never appear in the category listings of articles. This would mean that by deleting a category page an entire category would disappear. Recreating the category would restore all the links from the articles so categorized. This change would mean that creating and deleting categories could happen with a single edit. Bots could remove redlinks from any articles that have been red for a certain amount of time (a month?). This would move the system to being more of a pure wiki system. This would make it harder to make categories because there would not be a red link to follow when an article is put in a non-existent category. To get to the category, you'd have to type the name in the search box or follow some other procedure.

Any other ideas? Wikis are great for collaboration. It was not my intention to present a fully formed proposal and have everyone state their opinions pro and con, but to collaboratively come up with solutions to problems that can find consensus. -- Samuel Wantman 10:53, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I think category creation should be restricted to administrators or pseudo-administrators. I would also suggest, if possible, modifying the software to show more than 200 articles in a category at one time. I also suggest somehow incorporating this category intersection tool (with credit to the tool's creator, Duesentrieb) into Misplaced Pages. With this tool, people can then look up odd cross-sections that are impractical for categorization. Dr. Submillimeter 11:34, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm currently working on a policy/action proposal that will hopefully make categorization a lot easier. As soon as I hammer it out into a fully understandable essay, I'll post it for discussion. --Hemlock Martinis 00:50, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

A multi-leveled approach might be best. Increase the time an editor has to be registered before they can create categories, say to a month or so. That would take care of overenthusiastic but ignorant newcomers. Throw in a mechanism to turn off category creation on established accounts, say as an admin function handled at AN/I. That would mitigate the cycle of blocking somebody only for them to return as a sock, because they can still edit articles. Couple those two with a bot that removes redlinked categories, no waiting, so modifications made to articles aren't perpetuated. I'm sure there are other ideas that could be incorporated as well. CovenantD 06:35, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

None of these proposals are necessary or acceptable. The basic premise that too many categories are created is the opposite of the real problem - I am disappointed that the best part of two years after first started doing my bit for the category system it remains in a highly incomplete state. Anything that involves creating more complex hierarchies of users will just create more politics and induce some people to concentrate on enhancing their status rather than improving Misplaced Pages. The idea of giving yet more privileges to admins is just offensive. In so far as there is any issue at all at present, and it's a very minor matter that there is a backlog on categories for discussion, that is the admins fault, and the idea that the way to respond to it is to give more rights to admins and take away some of mine, when I have created thousands of categories, not one of which has been deleted that I know of, shows just how unappreciative some people are to the contributions made to the project by non-admins. CalJW 18:29, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

- The issue isn't too many categories; it's poorly thought out categories and pernicious category-creators. There are ways of adjusting the process to weed out those without having an impact on those who are doing good work. I hope you noted that none of the ideas I suggested would have any impact on you, based on your self-described habits. CovenantD 19:29, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Is category creation on new accounts restricted for a few days, as it is article creation? If not that could be introduced. But only for a few days, as anything more restrictive will discourage the volunteers Misplaced Pages needs from getting involved. Long bans on category creation should be available for vandals - months rather than days. ReeseM 02:16, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I think what we need here is more than just a policy change. What does everyone think about a large-scale project to tackle the incongruity of categories? One thought I've been tinkering with is subtly tag all articles edited before a certain date, and then go through all of those one by one to create a uniform tree. --Hemlock Martinis 06:18, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
- I don't think that is a very practical suggestion, firstly because of the number of articles involved, and secondly because the category system needs to remain dynamic to respond to the growth of Misplaced Pages. The level of detail required changes over time, and sometimes changes in the real world require new types of category. It is an illusion to think that a set of "correct" category decisions can be made at one point in time and fixed in stone. Anyway, we already have an increasing number of conventions, and generally the category system is getting more accurate, complete and consistent. The existing mechanisms work well, but they would be implemented faster if more people contributed to them. That is what we need: more people working within the existing tried and tested methodology, not duplicative additional bureaucracy. CalJW 14:58, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Orthogonality of categories

I recently came across the categories Category:Free computer algebra systems, which surprised me, because it seems to be the combination of two orthogonal categories, Category:Free software and Category:Computer algebra systems. In fact, there is a whole tree under Category:Free software of subcategories of free software by domain. It seems like a really bad idea to combine orthogonal categories like this. Should this have a subcategory Category:GPL-licensed computer algebra software written in Lisp or Category:Computer algebra software on Sourceforge? How about Category:Arabic-speaking constitutional republics? Any chance we can change this? --Macrakis 22:48, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Mass-tag them for CfD? Xiner (talk, email) 23:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

This is done all the time for people categories: for instance Category: Russian-American Jews is a subcat of Category:Jewish Americans, Category:Russian-Americans, and Category:Russian Jews. I don't think it's always a bad idea. —Ashley Y 23:02, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the real problem here is that we currently have no tools (as far as I know) for exploring the Category hierarchy and looking for the intersection of two categories, e.g. Category:Asian countries and Category:Constitutional monarchies rather than having a non-orthogonal category Category:Constitutional monarchies in Asia, which would have subcategories Category:Constitutional monarchies in East Asia, etc. Is anyone working on such tools? --Macrakis 15:43, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

China categorisation: People's Republic/Mainland revisited

Previously, I mooted some categorisation issues relating to China, here. I won't pretend there was exactly a clear-cut outcome, and since then there's been renewed edit-warring, a large dose of arbcom apathy, and a general lack of resolution either way. Currently, the stub categories do one thing (or did until the last round of reversion), and the permcats do another. I suggest we either: create additional permanent categories for "Mainland China" such-and-such; or delete the MC stub cats in favour of their PRC parents. If you have a preference either way, or a meta-preference for consistency one way or the other (or for a cessation of edit-hostilities along some sort of defined line, at the worst), please contribute your thoughts at SFD. Alai 02:25, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks so much Alai for bringing the matter to discussion. But please let us know if you'd actually read the information posted in the discussion archived. — Insta ntnood 11:55, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Requesting 3rd opinions for illuminated manuscripts

Please see Talk:Illuminated manuscript. We are discussing a categorization scheme and are just about ready, but there is one last issue that needs settling. So I am requesting help from editors familiar with categorization. What it boils down to: should we have a Category:Christian illuminated manuscripts to group the existing 3 subcategories (Psalters, Gospel Books, and Illuminated Bibles) and the literally hundreds of other Christian illuminated manuscripts (and possibly create new subcategories for the Books of Hours, Prayer books, and apocalypses). Does this create an unnecessary layer of hierarchy, and the Christian subcats (Psalters, Gospel Books, etc) belong in the main "Illuminated manuscripts" category? The main argument for the former is there are a lot of Christian illuminated manuscripts and subcategories that logically should be grouped together to clear up the clutter from the parent cat. The main argument for the latter is Christian works like the Book of Kells are the most notable Illuminated manuscript, so they shouldn't by buried in subcats, but should instead be as close to the parent cat as possible. See the talk page for further discussion. I support the former, so people be aware of my possible bias in posting this. Thanks for your consideration.-Andrew c 22:09, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

`DEFAULTSORT` question

Ok, the variable DEFAULTSORT sets our sortkey, but is there a corresponding variable that templates can use instead of PAGENAME, such as something like PAGESORT? The idea being here that PAGESORT would display what DEFAULTSORT is set to on the calling article or just use DEFAULTSORT on it's own. I bring this up because templates don't inherit the page sorting. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 01:08, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your question, so apologies in advance. Do you want PAGESORT to be equal to the sortkey defined by DEFAULTSORT? If so, that wouldn't be needed as DEFAULTSORT sets the sortkey for any category without a sortkey (ie ] not ]) even if the category is defined in a template. Is there a sort key defined for the category defined in the templates in question? matt br 23:50, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorting names in categories: special considerations, a proposal

I've been dealing with some categories like Category:Fairchild family, where most members have the same surname. Sorting by surname tends to overload one index, F in this case. User 139.55.214.153 has set these pages up with the sort as ], which puts all the names under the * index. This is a nice idea, except they should be appear in sort order there.

So here is a proposal for a convention: In cases where a category is chiefly populated with names having the same surname (as with the family cats), these should be sorted into the asterisk index, then by given name, like this:

   Category:Fairchild family|*David 
   Category:Fairchild family|*Grandison 
   Category:Fairchild family|*James

This places the important members, i.e. with the target surname, first in the list, and then sorted by given name. Sorting by surname places these folks in different places in every cat, depending on the spelling of the surname.

What say y'all? -dav4is 02:03, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I say no. You'd just be overloading the * header rather than overloading some letter, no improvement whatsoever. Just sort everybody in that category given-name first. In other words, for your examples, Category:Fairchild family|David Fairchild for example. And also by first name even for those who might not have that surname in the name of their Misplaced Pages article. Most surname catgories are already sorted that way. Gene Nygaard 21:00, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

"Categories that should not be created" section?

Back in February, the decision was made that all "Actors by series" categories would eventually be removed. The reasoning given in that CfD made perfect sense when you get down to it, but given how popular that cat type was, I see it as one that will be created again and again. This brings up the following: since there are many other cats not allowed that may not directly violate any specific guidelines outside of a CfD, should a section added to this article to address those category-types as they arise to make it more clear? — CobraWiki 21:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The guideline Misplaced Pages:Overcategorization is pretty much intended to cover this sort of thing. In fact, Performers by Performance is one of the sections, and the topic of actors by series was discussed in the talk archives. WP:OCAT seems to cover a lot of the common problem categories. Dugwiki 22:12, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Useful magic word not yet mentioned at Misplaced Pages:Categorization

I think it would be a good idea to add a description of the use of the {{PAGENAME}} magic word to the section which currently describes the use of {{DEFAULTSORT}}. It's useful when categorization is done with a template (such as a WikiProject notice) placed on talk pages. This prevents all the talk pages from being sorted into one huge "T" section, since they will share the format "Talk:Somearticle" . If there aren't any objections, I'm happy to add that description myself. -Tobogganoggin 01:27, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Er, I added a section about this (here), then noticed it has already been mentioned at Help:Category. I apologize for the duplication. I'm leaving it in, but if anyone would like to revert my edits, have at it - I won't take offense. -Tobogganoggin 22:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Sources

I have a question about the citations required to insert a Cat. I know it might be answered in the archives, but.... maybe someone would be kind enough to give a quick answer?

Do you need to have sources for a Cat the same as you do for other parts of an article?

I am currently having trouble on the Parapsychology page. I have good sources which call parapsychology a science. There are also some sources for calling it pseudoscience (though not nearly as WP:V as for calling it science). However, some editors are deleting the cat:science, and putting the cat:pseudoscience in. This seems to be only because they believe parapsychology is a pseudoscience. Since the sources for calling it science are much better, I think it should be either 1) in the science cat, 2) in both the pseudoscience and science Cat, or 3) in neither (example sources for calling it science: James Randi, Ray Hyman James Alcock, and the AAAS; many of these are skeptics of the subject. Example source for calling it pseudoscience: skepdic.com) Any enlightenment on this issue would be appreciated. Martin _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 02:10, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Moving a category

Hello. Is there a way or procedure to move a category? The move tab does not appear on the category page. For example, I created Category:Early Middle Japanese. It is for texts of the period so I would like to rename it Category:Early Middle Japanese texts. I could create a new category and nominate the old one for deletion, but I figured I would ask first. Regards. Bendono 00:17, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Helpful - Misplaced Pages:Category_renaming#Speedy_renaming_and_speedy_merging SchmuckyTheCat 00:19, 5 April 2007 (UTC)