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Archive 10 ← Archive 15 Archive 16 Archive 17 Archive 18 Archive 19

Being silenced on this talkpage

I posted on this talkpage earlier but my edit was reverted, twice. I have also been accused of disruptive editing for simply restoring my edit. Is this talkpage exempt from ordinary talkpage guidelines? Ottawahitech (talk) 10:27, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

I am one of those who reverted your edit here. And I admit I was tempted to do it again. But I decided to reply instead. Your edit was removed because the material you posted is not relevant to this talkpage. I even explained that in the edit summary. Put your comments where they belong, please! If you don't know where that is, look at the article and its talkpage for clues. Debresser (talk) 10:51, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
I am puzzled by the above comment. A complaint about the move of a category should be replied to, and the reason explained, not removed. Categories are a little specialized and not everyone knows the procedures. DGG ( talk ) 16:00, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
The problem is this user knows full well where the appropriate place to reply is. They have been active and vocal in catagoery creation and discussion for years now. Continuing to play ignorant isn't an excuse.2605:8D80:687:8040:E50B:A21E:AF0D:66AB (talk) 16:04, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
This is the question that is under discussion. @Ottawahitech: It wasn't speedy deleted by Hugo999 (talk · contribs), it was speedy moved, following a request placed at WP:CFDS by Hugo999. Immediately before doing so, this user added a template to the category page, which gives information as follows:
If you disagree with its speedy renaming/merging, please explain at this category's entry on the speedy section of the Categories for discussion page.
Apparently you did not do that (to give an example of where that was done by another user for a different category, see this edit).
Since the speedy move of Category:Companies of Canada established in 1972 has now been processed, then in order to get it reverted, you should raise a formal WP:CFR requesting that Category:Canadian companies established in 1972 be moved back, giving your reasoning, and also a link to the first move request. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:18, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

@Debresser, DGG, Redrose64, and Hugo999: Just in case you are assuming that I was being disruptive: I posted my now reverted original edit here after clicking the talk-page link at the top of Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy when I could not figure out how one could object there to a speedy deletion. Ottawahitech (talk) 14:24, 21 January 2017 (UTC)please ping me

You mean speedy renaming. It was posted to your talk page which you seem to ignore. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Ottawahitech&oldid=759650176 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.114.50.185 (talk) 16:13, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
The problem with this post by Hugo999 (talk · contribs) is that although they wrote "see my proposal", they didn't actually provide any link to the proposal itself, or even to the page where the proposal was made. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:32, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
@RevelationDirect: Thanks for trying to help. However, I still don't know how one is expected to object to speedy CFDs without spending too much time. I am also disappointed that the editor who silenced me originally has not commented here at all. Does this mean they will continue reverting legitimate talk-page comments that they simply do not like? Ottawahitech (talk) 18:47, 28 January 2017 (UTC)please ping me
You posted a post in the wrong place. Now you post blatant lies as well? I did post here, just a few lines above. And why do you assume I didn't like your post? You could do better things on Wikipedia than antagonizing experienced editors with lies and bad faith assumptions? The problem with you seems to be, that your burden others with your issues. That doesn't work in real life, and not on Wikipedia either. Debresser (talk) 18:54, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
  • @Debresser: I did not post in the wrong place. the talk-page for wp:CFDS has been redirected here since 25 September 2005. I am also not lying. In my opinion Flaming is unbecoming of those posting here. Ottawahitech (talk) 14:56, 29 January 2017 (UTC)please ping me
It was the wrong place to oppose a speedy rename, which is what you were doing despite your incorrect use of the word "deletion" (deletion was not proposed by Hugo999, nor was deletion carried out until more than two days after your post). The correct place is not at a talk page, but at WP:CFDS itself. The page move occurred nearly five hours after your first post here, but those who process CFDS do not consider opposition posts on any page other than WP:CFDS itself, and it is unreasonable to expect them to look elsewhere. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:30, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
@Ottawahitech: Here's a recent example: Brandmeister (talk · contribs) made this edit to a category, and also listed it at CFDS; then Armbrust (talk · contribs) made this post in opposition. Something similar to that last post is all you needed to do when Hugo999 marked the cat for speedy rename. Just one edit: and it needn't be long, just sufficient to demonstrate that speedy renaming is inapplicable. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:40, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Bad edits by Cydebot

I'm certain that this has come up before - I created a thread about it some years ago, but I can't find it. Among the things mentioned were that Cyde (talk · contribs) isn't very active.

The problem is that sometimes a category discussion closes as merge, where one of the two cats involved is the parent of the other. Then when Cydebot (talk · contribs) processes it, it puts the category inside itself (examples: Category:Cultural depictions of Christopher Columbus; Category:Cultural depictions of Jesus; Category:Cultural depictions of John the Baptist; Category:Cultural depictions of Mary (mother of Jesus); Category:Cultural depictions of William Shakespeare). Is there no way that this can be prevented? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:14, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Shortcuts to CFD log pages

In the course of discussions, I often pipe the link to a CFD daily log page, e.g. "WP:CFD 2017 February 10" is a lot easier to read than Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2017 February 10. The piped link looks like [[Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2017 February 10#Category:FooBar|WP:CFD 2017 February 10]]

I also like to use the abbreviated form in edit summaries, e.g. when tagging pages or removing tags after a keep outcome.

It struck me that there didn't seem to be any reason not to create a redirect, so I created WP:CFD 2017 February 10 as a redirect to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2017 February 10.

Can anyone see any problems with this?

If not, how about I ask Anomie whether they could add this task to the great work which AnomieBOT is doing in creating the log pages? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:24, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

I'd have done WP:CFD/2017 February 10 or WP:CFD/2017-02-10, personally. If there's consensus the bot could certainly create redirects. Anomie⚔ 21:28, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
I've wanted to do similar to BHG, but that seems like a lot of redirects for no large gain. Either way, I would definitely prefer WP:CFD/2017 February 10 if we go forward with something like this (and it might be nice to do this for the other XFD). --Izno (talk) 00:25, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

RfC on User Categories guidelines

This is a notice that there is an RfC about our guidelines reflecting user categories at Wikipedia talk:User categories#Request for Comment on the guidelines regarding "joke" categories. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:14, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Notification

The continued failure to post notification of these CfDs onto articles affected by these discussions tarnishes the consensus achieved in the limited environment. Trackinfo (talk) 08:03, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

You raised this matter in May 2016 and we explained why it was not a good idea. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:35, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
The problem continues. You are deliberately eliminating comment from editors knowledgeable of the subjects you affect by not informing them of the discussion until a decision is rendered. Trackinfo (talk) 09:41, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
The article alerts system still exists, and moreover, still works. See for example Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Article alerts#CfD. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:52, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

RfC "The Gambia" or "the Gambia"

It has been six years since this discussion ended with no consensus. Since then Categories are consistently named "...of the Gambia" or "The Gambia..." Some articles use "of The Gambia": Embassy of The Gambia, London, National Library of The Gambia. While others use "of the Gambia": History of the Gambia, Demographics of the Gambia.

I would like to settle this once and for all. The country enjoys a lot more internet access now and we should now be able to reach a consensus. Please join the discussion at the Is it "The Gambia" or "the Gambia" in the middle of a sentence.—አቤል ዳዊት?(Janweh64) (talk) 03:07, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Removal of atheist categories

Jobas (talk · contribs) has removed all entries from atheist categories "per WP:Overcategorization, WP:CATGRS", presumably prior to deleting the categories. I don't see the discussion of this. Last time I am aware of it being debated, the categories were kept. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:01, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

My edit was based on Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality, which cited: Categories regarding religious beliefs or lack of such beliefs of a living person should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief in questionand WP:NONDEF: which cited Categorization by non-defining characteristics should be avoided. It is sometimes difficult to know whether or not a particular characteristic is "defining" for any given topic, and there is no one definition that can apply to all situations. However, the following suggestions or rules-of-thumb may be helpful:. Hope my edit wasn't a controversial. It can be verified that the subject was an atheist, but it should also be that key defining trait that the subject was prominently noted for or defining characteristic.--Jobas (talk) 13:18, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Bosniak descent vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina descent

I think these two categories should be joined, as it seems they failed to make a clear separation: Category:People of Bosniak descent — Category:People of Bosnia and Herzegovina descent. I've mentioned this issue on Category talk:People of Bosniak descent too. —  Ark25  (talk) 23:50, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

I do agree about this.--Jobas (talk) 13:19, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
Don't object to creating a Bozniak category... but what about those who have Herzegovinan ancestry or who are of mixed Bozniak and Herzegovinan ancestry? Blueboar (talk) 13:47, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
They seem to be Bosniak people who live in Herzegovina. Just like Texans are the Americans living in Texas - Herzegovinians: Regardless of ethnicity, the ethnic groups which compose Herzegovina's population tend to identify as Herzegovinian at a regional rather than an ethno-religious level. —  Ark25  (talk) 08:42, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
I get what you are saying, but your analogy isn't quite apt... "Texan" is a purely political, and not an ethnic description. A Texan who moves to (say) California may shift his self-identification to "Californian"... and his children will certainly say they are "Californians" not "Texans". A more apt analogy might be the "Texicanos" (those who are descended from the Spanish settlers who lived in Texas prior to it's independence from Mexico). Someone may continue to self-identify as "Texicano" no matter where they subsequently live.
The thing is, categorization is not limited to just ethnic divisions... we can also categorize people by political heritage. Let's say the subject of an article has a father who is Texicano and a mother who is Bozniak... but he lives in California. We (appropriately) take an inclusive approach... we can certainly categorize him as being both "Texicano" and "Bozniak" (ethnically) ... but we can also categorize him as "Californian" and "American" (politically). Blueboar (talk) 14:26, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Category:Chinese memoirs et al.

Hopefully a quick question...is this and related categories for memoirs about China, or memoirs written by Chinese people? Someone recently added Twilight in the Forbidden City, but that's a British book about China. My instinct is that the category should be renamed for clarity...but if so, there's a lot of related categories that may also need renaming. Thanks! DonIago (talk) 17:14, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Technical help needed .... Category:Perpetrators of the July 2005 London bombings

I'm not sure how 'nesting' and overlapping of cats works, but the cat "Category:Perpetrators of the July 2005 London bombings" is inside "Category:British al-Qaeda members". There is no indication that I can see that any of these individuals have been linked to 'al Qaeda', I checked their individual articles, though quickly. My suspicion is that at that time anything 'terrorist' was synonymous with 'al Qaeda'.

These perps are also (properly) in the 'Category:July 2005 London bombings', which sits inside 'Category:Islamic terrorism in England‎', inside 'Islamic terrorism in the United Kingdom'. I suspect that this is an uncontroversial change, but lack the technical know-how to achieve it. Please ping if replying. Pincrete (talk) 20:25, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Actually, it turns out to be more complex than I thought, the 'perps' definitely should not be in 'Category:British al-Qaeda members. But inside the 'perps' category are both the perps of the successful 7th July bombings, and also the unsuccessful 21 July 2005 London bombings, some of these do not record any conviction, I wonder if this is a useful 'mixing'? Pincrete (talk) 20:55, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

The Al-Qaeda category was added by user:GCarty when he created the category. I agree that it seems unjustified, so I have removed it, with a related one. The remaining parent categories look correct. – Fayenatic London 22:49, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Merge

I'm just going to WP:SNOW-close this. Proposer is welcome to inquire at the WP:Teahouse or WP:Help desk about why this is unlikely to occur. --Izno (talk) 18:07, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Maybe this should be merged with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Then the backlog could disappear.Burning Pillar (talk) 12:19, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

  • Oppose WP:AFD gets upwards of 100 new entries almost every day. The backlog would be much worse. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:01, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
    • WP:AFD doesn't have any long backlog, so no. Just two days right now. It makes sense to merge.Burning Pillar (talk) 16:49, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Whuh? Categories are quite different from articles. The arguments and closing concerns are just as different. Lumping them together would 1. not clear the backlog, as they'd get either lost in the AfD flood or ignored, and 2. create lots of confusion with people applying article standards on categories. Keeping them separate is clearly a better option. ansh666 19:45, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose The backlog wouldn't disappear, it'd just move to the AfD log. Exemplo347 (talk) 17:25, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Ansh666: the criteria are very different. In addition, at Afd they relist a lot of articles. That is a way of hiding the backlog. Also keep in mind that categories are the backbone of the project, and oftentimes the arguments are quite abstruse. Debresser (talk) 19:33, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Comparison with AIV for unregistereds

So here it says, 'Users without accounts (unregistered users) may nominate and comment on proceedings, just as in Articles for Deletion (AfD).' But that is not now the case at AIV: IPs can comment and !vote in the discussion, but their nominations have to be filled out on the article talk and transposed to AIV by a logged-in account. Should this text be changed to reflect that? Yes, i think so. — O Fortuna semper crescis, aut decrescis 09:42, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm confused. WP:AIV? Beeblebrox (talk) 19:01, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
Pretty sure they meant AFD, not AIV. DonIago (talk) 19:26, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 Done OK, I updated this section of the CFD instructions to 'Users without accounts (unregistered users) may comment on proceedings, just as in Articles for Deletion (AfD). Unlike AfD, they may also directly nominate categories for discussion.' – Fayenatic London 21:06, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Notice of Request for comment

I have started a formal Request for comment that may affect Wikipedia:Categories for discussion. It is at Wikipedia talk:Deletion process#RfC on holding RfCs within XfDs. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:50, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2012_March_28#Category:Healthcare_by_country

Quite a few categories from this have been recreated. Should we merge/redirect them again and could we salt them somehow (protection)? Should we have another discussion? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:48, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Admin instructions

Would it be possible to add some instructions for processing nominations here? Every time User:Od Mishehu posts a notice about a backlog at AN, I come to have a look - but it takes me all the time I have available just to figure out what I'm supposed to do. As far as I can tell, the main workflow is to check that the nomination does actually fall within the speedy criteria and then move the nomination to WP:CFD/W#Speedy moves where a bot will process it; but what do we do if we disagree that it fits into the criteria or think it needs discussion? A short note at the top of WP:CFDS would help me out when I (infrequently) come to mop here. GoldenRing (talk) 11:43, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

How does Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy#dmin instructions for handling listed entries look? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:00, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

About Category:Gurugram and restoring original category name

Hello. I just happened to notice that Category:Gurgaon has been renamed to Category:Gurugram. The same has happened for Category:Gurugram district. However, the main articles are still at the long known original names. There also doesn't seem to be any discussions. I would like to know how to revert this so that the categories are restored on all the affected pages. Thank you.--DreamLinker (talk) 15:08, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

There was no discussion but there's a lot of tidying-up required to get back to the status quo. I've started moving subcategories of Category:Gurugram back to Category:Gurgaon but I'm not sure I'll have time to finish the job just now. Can anyone else help? BencherliteTalk 15:27, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
I will try to help. Does everything have to be done manually?--DreamLinker (talk) 17:34, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
@DreamLinker and Bencherlite: It appears that 1997kB (talk · contribs) has made a lot more category moves on or since 9 September (plus one on 14 August):
I can't find evidence that they had been discussed at WP:CFR or even notified to WP:CFR/S the requisite two days in advance. Some of the moves have since been reverted (all by other people), and 1997kB has now filed a request for just one of these at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2017 September 11#Gurgaon, Yamuna Nagar and associated subcategories. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:27, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
Redrose64, Bencherlite, DreamLinker At that time i dont know about that we have to discuss before renaming a category. Now I would like to discuss about all these categories. — 1997kB 08:23, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Auto listing previous discussions

Noting Wikipedia:Deletion_review#10_September_2017 and Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2017_September_16#Category:Undrafted_National_Basketball_Association_players, there is a call for CfD to improve with respect to automated listing of previous CfDs for repeat nominations. I imagine that this is easy, does someone know.

I also note a broad expectation that in cases of poor participation and/or contested discussions, more effort should be made to attack attract participants. Methods would include: notifying previous participants in the previous CfDs; notifying the related WikiProjects, by post on the main WikiProject's talk page. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:14, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

It's quite simple at AFD because that operates on the principle of one article per discussion page, these being transcluded to the relevant daily page. So for example at the top of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul Robinett (3rd nomination) there is the code 
<div class="infobox" style="width:50%">AfDs for this article:<ul class="listify">{{Special:Prefixindex/Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul Robinett}}</ul></div>
However, at CFD there is one page per day without subpages, so the prefixindex technique simply won't work. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:19, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
Perhaps a bot could find and link previous discussions (e.g. by looking for {{old cfd}} on the category talk page). - Evad37 [talk] 08:33, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
@Anomie: Would AnomieBOT be able to do something like this as part of it's CfD clerking? - Evad37 [talk] 03:36, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
I think "attack" in the OP was meant to be "attract". :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:57, 22 September 2017 (UTC). Definitely, autocorrect error, thanks for catching 😀 --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:08, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Subcategory sorting RfC

Please see RfC at Category talk:World championships#Subcategory sorting, which might have implications for some other categories.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  22:53, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Question about debate closes (merge/recategorization)

Hello there, I am wondering, how are Category for Deletion discussions closed when the outcome is a merge/recategorization of the enclosed pages? Is a bot used to recategorize all the pages within (if that is deemed to be the consensus) or are they all gone through manually? I assume that there is a bot, but am curious. Thank you for your time. --TheSandDoctor (talk) 06:09, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

@TheSandDoctor: Usually it's done by Cydebot (talk · contribs), following a suitably-formatted request in the appropriate subsection of WP:CFD/W. This should be explained at WP:CFDAI#Process, item 6 (If the decision is Delete, Merge, or Rename). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:31, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for the response @Redrose64:. For some reason I didn't see it there last night when I left this, sorry. --TheSandDoctor (talk) 13:15, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 October 2017

Please change Category:Anime companies to Category:Japanese animation companies - as it creates a broader range for Japanese companies who animate not only Japanese animations but other cohesive topics and natures as well. As the term "Anime" is a Japanese abbreviation on the word "animation", which is acceptable. HungryHouse (talk) 14:24, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Wikipedia:Categories for discussion. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:20, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Speedy speedy?

Is there a tool for multi-listing yet? I want to speedily move Category:Domesticated pigeon breeds by country of origin to Category:Pigeon breeds by country of origin, and the same with all is subcats, as was done with the parent Category:Pigeon breeds long ago (to match all the other breed categories, and because the current name is silly and redundant; "breed" only applies to domesticates, otherwise you're talking about subspecies or some other categorization).

I don't relish having to individually tag all of the ~30 subcategories.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:05, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I don't know a tool, but I have nominated this set at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2017 November 4. I used a spreadsheet to help prepare the text for tagging and listing. – Fayenatic London 21:04, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
You rawk. And I hate spreadsheets so much I would have done it manually. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  08:58, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Notifying stakeholders and natural justice

...from...Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2017_October_31#Category:Wikipedians_who_have_had_the_appearance_of_their_user_page_modified_against_their_will

  • VegaDark wrote:

    Comment I find it striking that both @Floquenbeam: and @No such user:, two users who happen to be members of the category in quesiton both suddenly decided to participate in this discussion. I would like to assume good faith, but my brain tells me otherwise. @SmokeyJoe:, I would be foolish not to ask if you have any insight into this after your history of proclaiming that such discussions are a violation of "natural justice" and pinging category members in the past. VegaDark (talk) 23:45, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Coming back here, because we are having too many interesting conversations buried CfD logs. These conversations involve me, and especially VegaDark, User:Black Falcon and User:BrownHairedGirl (who seems inactive). Also sadly missing from these entertaining category-philosophy forays are User:Good Olfactory, and User:Kbdank71 (who doesn’t like to be pinged)

  • CANVASSING? I think it is rich to call notification of members of a usercategory “canvassing”. Instead, I consider them to be active and overt stakeholders who should be notified of a formal discussion directly involving their actions.
  • Are all non-collaborative usercategories the same here? No.
    • Joke categories, whether pathetic of hilarious, I don’t worry about. A joke has value in its delivery; it is not for plastering on walls indefinitely, although some do do this. I don’t feel a desire to invite jokers to CfDs. The best jokers know that a good joke is told in the moment and then we move on. Only the bad jokers would turn up.
    • Borderline project-related philosophy (eg humourless, or autistic, or adventurous Wikipedians) and potential resource (eg multilingual Wikipedians). I am unhappy, almost upset, at the cavalier willingness to simply delete, to discard possible poorly articulated but genuine efforts to volunteer help to the project. Some of these philosophical people have useful perspectives that can contribute to the community and project. Many of them need (I note from real world experience) need a little assistance and welcome to get this working. Self-categorising multilingual Wikipedians, they should be invited to volunteers-willing-to-help-with-translations sign up pages, they should not be subjected to a hidden formal discussion that decides a bot is to remove their userpage edit along with zero other communication.
    • Protest categories. Here, is gets really interestingly complicated. While there is a WP:POINT angle, the “disruption” is exaggerated. Notice that these categories are populated by knowledgeable experienced Wikipedians? For these, it is downright offensive to hold a formal decision-making discussion about their protest without inviting them.
  • Natural justice. Read the article. Why does it not apply? For me, it applies particularly upon someone saying (BHG I think it was) that users who put deleted categories back on their userpage should be WP:Blocked. Per natural justice, if a decision is taken that chastises you or binds your future allowed behaviour, and you were not invited to explain/defend yourself, that decision demands to be repudiated. The Wikipedia-textbook answer here is WP:DR. CfD does WP:DR very poorly.
--SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:44, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Moi aussi, je suis Floq. Drmies (talk) 00:49, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Last time this was discussed, you agreed that users who are members of a category are more likely to !vote keeping that category. I highly doubt anyone would disagree with that assertion. That says just about all that needs to be said in my view. You are never going to get a neutral CfD when this occurs. Leaving discussion for the people who choose to visit CfD is far more likely to achieve a neutral cross section of the Wikipedia community rather than people personally invested in the categories. Most of the time people notified don't give a damn about WP:USERCAT and support keeping because they like it, or sometimes an incredibly far-fetched claim about how it can support collaboration (because they have caught on to that being what user categories live or die by, in general). I think you've actually agreed with this recently, suggesting that the closing admin will discount such !votes when closing. Put another way, if there was a public city council meeting about a decision to ban guns (we will pretend for a minute that this is something that a city council could do), on average you are only going to get those interested in community council decisions in general to show up to these type of meetings. Now, let's pretend that someone is really pissed that the city council is considering that idea, so they tell the local NRA branch that the council is going to have a hearing on this. At the council meeting, you are going to have a disproportionate amount of pro-gun people than what is reflected from the average community member because only the pro-gun people were specifically notified. And, because the pro-gun people are the loudest and sizable group at the meeting, the city council ultimately decides that not banning guns is a good idea. If the NRA were never notified you would have far less biased people show up, their voice would not be as loud, and the city council might decide to ban guns based on the group that normally shows up to these meetings. While this certainly is allowable in a democracy, it is not desirable on Wikipedia due to our WP:CANVASSING guideline. There is no group to notify to counter-balance the disproportionate addition of those category members being specifically notified. The result is a huge uphill battle to delete any user category out of the gate - basically you have to have a slam dunk to get a deletion because you have to count on every non-canvassed person who comes across the CfD to agree with you. This will (and already has) resulted in categories being kept that should have been deleted under our guidelines. And then, when those categories are kept, it gives ammunition for others to point to that category to say "See! We kept that one! So we should keep this one too!". It's incredibly harmful for those of us who care about the integrity of our user category system to be only contacting a group who are disproportionately predisposed towards keeping. What you call natural justice, I say ultimately results in harming the encyclopedia. I would support a list somewhere of people who wish to receive a ping when a user category is discussed, because people who self-select for such a list are presumed neutral going in. Alternatively, we could ping a group of self-described deletionists in proportion to the number of category members pinged as a sort of counter-balance, but I'm unsure if that would solve the issue either. VegaDark (talk) 01:30, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
Last time this was discussed, you agreed that users who are members of a category are more likely to !vote keeping that category. I highly doubt anyone would disagree with that assertion. That says just about all that needs to be said in my view. You are never going to get a neutral CfD when this occurs. This is akin to suggesting that parents should not make decisions on behalf of their children, because parents are too close to their kids to be objective. It's like suggesting that American's shouldn't be permitted to vote in American elections, because they're not neutral about it. It's like suggesting that Wikipedians should not be able to contribute to discussions on Wikipedia because we're vested in the outcome. I mean, this is truly one of -if not the- most shockingly ignorant suggestions I have ever seen in my entire life, on Wikipedia or elsewhere. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:42, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
Nothing of what you said actually addresses my central point that such notifications disproportionately affect the outcomes of the discussions in question. To use one of your own examples, it's more like saying that society as a whole should be making laws about vaccinating children rather than the actually affected parents becoming the decision makers directly. Anti-vax parents are going to make laws so one-sided that the rest of society will suffer from their biased decisions regarding vaccination laws. If you reach out to a specific group more likely to be anti-vax when drafting up the laws, you are ultimately going to have laws slanted in that direction. This has been a clever attempt to try and push this idea as added transparency from the crew that undoubtedly knows it will result in their real goal of it being harder to delete user categories, to try and get around the existing guideline that they disagree with (and failed to change at the last RfC). While we are here, perhaps we can discuss use of the {{fmbox}} to display categories instead of repopulating them as redlinks? Why have you refused to even discuss this solution that was proposed nicely on your talk page? As I said there, it's a great commonsense solution that allows you to display whatever joke/nonsense category you want without disrupting the work of those that work on redlinks. It gives those that work on categories everything they want while those that like joke categories about 99% of what they want (an idential userpage, just the category itself would not be populated with other users who placed that on their page). Is that 1% so important to you to defy consensus and disrupt those who work with populating redlinks? VegaDark (talk) 03:00, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
I take back what I said above. You've now managed an even more fundamentally ignorant statement, and tossed a healthy heaping of sanctimonious hypocrisy in there, too. I'm not arguing with an editor who's going to whine about consensus as he defies it himself, and I ain't explaining shit to anyone I think is incapable of understanding it, so fuck you; I'm done. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:30, 3 November 2017 (UTC)


Last time this was discussed, you agreed that users who are members of a category are more likely to !vote keeping that category.
Right, that’s a fairly safe expectation, for first contact between category-misunderstanding Wikipedians and CfD. Key points are WP:!Vote; and in CfD D is for “discussion”. It may be difficult for all involved, given the gulf between perspectives on these members. You were maybe right, I said, meaning that it may be chaos, too much chaos to suddenly invite all stakeholders for the first time.
That says just about all that needs to be said in my view.
No, I can’t agree there. There is a dispute. It has been there a long time. On one side are CfD regulars like you with a strong focused view on the purpose of categories. On the other are non-category experienced editors with a much more relaxed view. There is a dispute, dispute resolution requires dialogue. It may be unpredictable chaos to jump into it my preferred way (invite all stakeholders), but it is still a dispute and dispute resolution requires dialogue, and dialogue requires participation in the discussions by the stakeholders.
You are never going to get a neutral CfD when this occurs.
You’re probably right. I agree. Is “neutral” necessary? Maybe CfD is the wrong venue. I think an RfC here, WT:CfD is a better idea. However, RfCs have their own big problems. I feel they are handicapped by their usual poorly phrased, non-productive opening question. I have tried, here for example, to discuss ways to improve RfCs in practice. I think the answer might be a pre-RfC staging discussion to agree on the facts, on the question, and on a useful wording of the question.
Leaving discussion for the people who choose to visit CfD is far more likely to achieve a neutral cross section of the Wikipedia community ….
Your sentence is defendable, but the one altered by me, absolutely not. CfD regulars are a particularly extreme of a biased set of Wikipedians. There are many nice things I can say about that set, but definitely still biased.
I agree that most of the people notified about a their nominated USERCAT open their contributions to the CfD with quite policy-contrary !votes. Inexperienced Wikipedians with ILIKEIT. Experienced Wikipedians with subtle satire, with an underlying self-referential acknowledgement of the non-policy-compliance of their !vote. I wonder if you read their !votes like me. I am still working on an understanding of your astounding sense of humor.
I’m waiting to see if an expert closer can make a good close of Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2017_October_8#Category:Wikipedians_without_a_sense_of_humor, noting my comment “As the CfD non-regulars are putting unusual rationales, to avoid possible perceptions of the CfD clique at play, I suggest getting an outside admin to close this one. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:18, 17 October 2017 (UTC)”.
Wikipedia is not like public city council meeting. We close by WP:Consensus, on by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy. Let’s give it a go?
huge uphill battle to delete any user category out of the gate
Yes! I have noted the battle mentality. I have noted the pick-your-battles mentality. Delete the low hanging fruit first. Be surreptitious (don’t notify interested parties; don’t explain anything to the miscreants; execute the userpage edits by bot). While I understand that your intentions are completely honest and believed to be entirely in the interest of the product, it irks.
This will (and already has) resulted in categories being kept that should have been deleted under our guidelines.
I read this as proof the something is broken, one of (a) CfD; (b) the guidelines; (c) WP:Consensus.
"See! We kept that one! So we should keep this one too!"
Evidence for need for policy-level discussion.
What you call natural justice, I say ultimately results in harming the encyclopedia.
Argument for oligarchy. No. There is disagreement calling for resolution by discussion. Continuing usercat CfDs without notification of stakeholders is to take the wrong direction. I think the answer is probably an RfC on this page on an agreed set of facts and question. My preferred outcome is that inappropriate usercatories should be listified before being deleted.
--SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:02, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
I appreciate your actual thoughtful comments on the issue as opposed to the above exchange. We can agree that more policy level discussion should be had, and we can agree that something is broken along the way. There's no way we should have a guideline that is only followed most of the time, with exceptions for things a big enough group of people like. We wouldn't tolerate a joke page in mainspace just because it was funny. Not to mention when we try to actually enforce this we are decried as category police - We shouldn't have a guideline that so many people tolerate disrespect for. I'm not saying get rid of the guideline, I'm saying we need to have a discussion that makes it abundantly clear that what we are doing is reflecting consensus so people will respect that and will support backing up sanctions against a user who won't abide by that consensus. It's pointless to have a guideline when so many are prepared to support turning the other cheek on enforcing it. I would have expected that the latest RfC resulting in no change to the guideline would mean that people would start respecting this more, and perhaps it has to a small degree, but there's still a long way to go. As for your oligarchy comments, it's not some sort of closed system that people have no control over - Anybody can make their way to CfD if they so choose. If it's an oligarchy then it's an oligarchy by virtue of choosing not to care enough to participate in this area of the encyclopedia. I'd like to think that the majority of neutral people will see the wisdom of the guideline and the arguments put forth and make arguments in furtherance of the guideline. If people thought our category system was broken, more people would probably come participate to help address that. One might wonder if the lack of participants at CfD is at least partially due to us doing a good job and people trusting us to continue doing a good job without feeling the need to step in themselves. I remember when user categories reached a boiling point and you had admins speedy deleting them per IAR and later the deletion being upheld at DRV. I've often felt after that like the only thing separating us from returning to those days is our good work of keeping the unencyclopedic categories down to a minimum since. The current climate has me wondering what the new boiling point would be, if any. VegaDark (talk) 07:45, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
FWIW, I agree with VegaDark's generalized concern about editorial "rebellion" against guidelines. This problem has been worsening and it needs to be curtailed, on multiple fronts and with regard to multiple guidelines, because it is disruptive and corrosive. But I also agree with most of SmokeyJoe's take on the specifics – i.e., VegaDark's concerns are real, but the don't map too well onto these specific category (and category-discussion) concerns. That SJ part I didn't agree with (if I may add my own little wiki-philosophical text wall here) was his take on "protest" categories. Their direct effect is not particularly disruptive, but the long-term effect is terribly so, because it's a WP:CANVASSING and WP:GANG farm for WP:POV / WP:SOAPBOX and WP:OR problems. Same goes for "advocacy" userboxes, and "campaigning" pseudo-wikiprojects, like the "WikiProject English" that was deleted twice for being a cabal of anti-consensus lobbying against diacritics. A lot of dysfunctional wikiprojects (two or three WP:OWN freaks acting as a tagteam) need to get nuked as well. As WP has become one of the most important information sources in the world and one of the most-used websites, by billions, the external pressure to warp our content, and literal control over it, by third parties who are here to advance a particular viewpoint or to promote something for monetary gain, increases inexorably. You think vandalism's a problem? "Civil PoV", "slow editwar", undisclosed political COI, and conspiratorial infiltration of the admin ranks are going the be the real collective threat to WP's long-term survival. So, death to advocacy and viewpoint user categories (aside from strictly-wiki ones like inclusionism, yadda yadda).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  08:46, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
Thanks VG and SMcC. Protest categories. What if we could write a line into WP:Policy “You may protest in essays, but you may not make protest-categories”. (Protest essays will be categorised). And make a new WP:CSD#C criterion for “protest categories”. That would be clear. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:06, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
Wouldn't that encourage more WP:NOTHERE essay writing? I'd prefer we just quietly delete protest categories without suggesting an alternative on-WP venue for the sentiment, as a generalized WP:NOTFORUM / WP:SOAPBOX matter.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  07:54, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
Protest categories are too few-and-far-between to warrant a new CSD criterion. They are already covered under WP:USERCAT. -- Black Falcon (talk) 21:14, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
SMcCandlish. WP:NOTHERE essay writing? I have never heard of this being a problem, and I get involved in all the userspace essay deletion nominations. You'd prefer to just quietly delete...? Isn't that the oligarchy star chamber problem that will always upset people? WP:NOTFORUM/ WP:SOAPBOX most definitely does not apply to criticism of or relating to the project by experienced Wikipedians.
Black Falcon, I would argue for it. Past IAR deletions approved at DRV is evidence for existing community agreement. However, even short of a CSD criterion, if anyone doesn't agree to inviting all stakeholders to deletion discussions, there had better be CSD-style tight objective and uncontestable reason for deletion written into policy. This is definitely not the case with USERCAT. While I don't want to share in the language of others here, I definitely agree that since 2007, USERCAT policy has developed outside community involvement, thus, its claim to consensus is weak. WP:Silence certainly doesn't apply. I only came to know about usercategory issues due to many upheld valid claims at DRV. Bottom line, if protest and nonsense categories are not deleteable per policy to the standards of CSD, then stakeholders must be invited to the decision making discussions. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:01, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
The USERCAT guideline was spawned from community involvement (I've shared stats on participation levels below) and has been upheld in thousands of discussions since then, so the statement that "its claim to consensus is weak" is simply unfounded. I certainly have no objection to inviting stakeholders but we appear to disagree on who is a stakeholder.
Also, after reading the informative exchange above between you and User:VegaDark, I think we ought to distinguish between different types of user category disagreements. It is natural that reasonable editors disagree in some cases about the utility of a particular user category, or about the application of the guideline, and of course it is good to have some healthy disagreement. We should not, however, encourage or kowtow to disputes that arise from an ownership complex (i.e. I don't care what you do to categories A, B and C, but nobody touches my category.) or something approaching narcissistic megalomania (i.e. Fuck off, the rules don't apply to me!). -- Black Falcon (talk) 05:39, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
Black Falcon, it's not as if categories already has too many speedy criteria is it?
The thousands of discussions upholding USERCAT is a failing argument because: (1) redundancy in the participants; and (2) if it were resolved, there would not have been thousands of follow-up discussions.
I have not before read your opinion on who might be a stakeholder. I hold that anyone who might be chastised for repeating a previous action (namely, adding a category line to their userpage), is obviously a stakeholder. Were you disagreeing there?
distinguish between different types of user category disagreements? Absolutely. Do you like my three types: (1) Joke categories; (2) Borderline project-related philosophy (eg humourless, or autistic, or adventurous Wikipedians) and potential resource (eg multilingual Wikipedians); (3) Protest categories? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:27, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
Black Falcon, it's not as if categories already has too many speedy criteria is it? No, but do we really need a speedy criterion that will be used perhaps 10 times a year?
The advantage of a CSD is that it demands a much higher level of objectivity, and of consensus, than any other policy, let alone guideline. Just an idea. I would probably be sufficient to try to tighten or better define the USERCAT guideline. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:34, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
I wouldn't object to a new CSD that makes it easier to delete bad categories, but per Black Falcon I also don't think it would be used very often/would be necessary. VegaDark (talk) 08:02, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
The thousands of discussions upholding USERCAT is a failing argument because: (1) redundancy in the participants; and (2) if it were resolved, there would not have been thousands of follow-up discussions. (1) The "redundancy" claim is both inaccurate (see participation stats below) and a red herring—yes, a relatively small group of several dozen editors are common participants in most CfD discussions, but the exact same could be said of discussions at FfD, MfD, RfD, TfD, ... really, any discussion venue that focuses on more technical (i.e. non-article) part of Wikipedia. (2) Not so. There are thousands of deletion discussions revolving around notability, encyclopedic content, and original research, but that does not call into question Wikipedia:Notability, WP:NOT or WP:OR. I could provide a dozen examples of "it is well-established that editors should not do [X]", where people (usually unaware of guidelines/policies) nevertheless do [X] on a daily basis. -- Black Falcon (talk) 22:59, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
I have not before read your opinion on who might be a stakeholder. I hold that anyone who might be chastised for repeating a previous action (namely, adding a category line to their userpage), is obviously a stakeholder. Were you disagreeing there? Ah, you're right there... sorry about that! :) In my view, a stakeholder is one who had an active role in creating the category—i.e. the category's creator or, in the case of a single-user category, the sole editor in the category. Someone who just happened to come across an existing category and thought it would be neat to add to their user page is not a stakeholder.
OK. I definitely disagree. Someone who self identifies as something (albeit by a non-recommended method), who then sees that self-identifying declaration edit reverted, and reverts, and is nominally subject to chastisement for edits on their own userpage, their a stakeholder. I'm a long way from being persuaded otherwise. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:34, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Do you like my three types: (1) Joke categories; (2) Borderline project-related philosophy (eg humourless, or autistic, or adventurous Wikipedians) and potential resource (eg multilingual Wikipedians); (3) Protest categories? I was looking at it more from the standpoint of the tone of the disagreement, not the type of category. I admit the ones you've listed are currently the ones causing the most consternation, but really any category could become the locus of a dispute if an editor chooses to start one. Cheers, -- Black Falcon (talk) 22:59, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
This "stakeholder" stuff strikes me as a non-helpful analysis, anyway. Reader-facing categories are for content classification and navigation. Internal categories are for getting stuff done. If a usercat doesn't serve an encyclopedia-building purpose (broadly construed, and we do construe it really broadly), then it should go. The person who created the category isn't really a "stakeholder", per WP:OWN and WP:VESTED; rather, we want their input because they're the one person most likely to be able to provide the rationale for the category's creation, and this helps us determine whether it should be kept and renamed, or whatever. People using the questionable category aren't "stakeholders" in any sense that's meaningful. Exactly how strongly they want to declare that they're autodidacts, that they wish they had more cats, that they're trilled Trump is the US president, or that they have a short attention span, this has no effect at all on whether this is best expressed with a category (which it is not); they have other means of expressing this such as userboxes, fake categorization, a big {{Notice}} on their user page, writing a user essay, etc., etc. If every means were being closed to them, then they'd be stakeholders, against a censorious position that it's impermissible to declare at all on Wikipedia one's love of Legolas, hatred of spaghetti, fear of clowns in wet clothing, refusal to use periods/stops with abbreviations, or opposition to the civility policy existing. When it comes to categories that have nothing to do with collaboration – or worse yet are anti-collaboration, anti-consensus, or anti-Wikipedia – it's just noise. No amount of "fan" emotional desire to keep such a category has any real bearing on the question. The alleged stake is illusory. By way of example, I'd be opposed to someone trying to nuke my The Fifth Element "meat popsicle" joke userbox (which is also a disguised objection to idiosyncratic identity politics interfering with Wikipedia), but it would be utterly sensible for CfD to delete – without my input – any category I created for it, and I'd be engaging in a tiny bit of WP:NOTHERE if I went on the warpath to keep the category. We don't need input like that at CfD.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  10:59, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Declaring the unworthy to be not stakeholders, not worth inviting to the discussion, as before, that’s called oligarchy, and is extremely upsetting to the excluded. If your right, in discussion your arguments will persuade. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:39, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
And in an argument where attempts at persuasion will not change the facts, we don't need the heat.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  13:40, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
My reading if the problem is that CfD-ers responding to ill-advised attempts at expression or networking through use of usercatgories by knee-jerk deletion and cutting of lines on userpages is what generates the upset. If feel it personally. There are better ways to respond. Theses have been mentioned many times, but you were not involved. Ideas include: Inserting a leading colon, so that not text added to the userpage is removed. Advising users attempting to participate in usercat networking of better ways to network. Asking nicely before making decisions in the star-chamber-like practice of CfD. Adhering to the principles of natural justice, noting that several people think CfD decisions are binding on people knowingly not invited to the discussions. The heat comes from the injustice, not from any actual need to have certain categories. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:27, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
No one is being tried, and no one is being biased against for their particular viewpoints, be they pro or con, so I don't see the natural justice angle. The heat I'm referring to is that of advocacy to keep using WP for advocacy (and using inappropriate parts of it for humor and trivia). There may also be some other kind(s) of heat, like being angry about the loss of category, yes. But all these alternative you list above are not really alternatives, but alsos. We do not have to retain a pointless category to suggest any/all of these alternatives to the "stakeholders". How hard is it to say "this category has been deleted, but you can put the same thing in a userbox", or whatever. Maybe the solution is to take your list of also/alternative things and write them up with pointers, and put that into a page somewhere with a convenient shortcut. WP:USERCATALT? I'm not trying to filibuster practical, user-assuaging ends, by any means. Am trying to help clean up the category system. I got rid of a bunch of user categories last year or maybe it was earlier this year, so I'm not uninvolved entirely; I'm just not part of what you call a star chamber (more unhelpful mischaracterization, like the "censorship" comments in a particular ongoing MfD). This XfD is a site-wide cleanup process like the rest of them; the fact that few editors really care much about it doesn't make it a secretive court of unaccountable injustice intended to protect the powerful.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  01:17, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
"No one is being tried, and no one is being biased against"? Review Wikipedia_talk:User_categories/Archive_1#Request_for_comment_on_our_proposed_policy_for_users_remaining_in_redlinked_categories, namely "Option 1" VegaDark (talk) 22:03, 6 January 2017 (UTC) and worse: "Propose new Option 0" -BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:46, 8 January 2017 (UTC). Formal chastisements are on the cards. I have even felt personally affronted, referring to my userpage: 02:28, 15 May 2007‎; 05:01, 27 October 2009‎; and still annoyed at 11:48, 12 September 2012‎; noting the similarly useless 09:36, 13 May 2010‎; which proves sporadic application of unclear usercate principles. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:29, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Much of the rest of what you say I think we are headed towards agreement. I will wait for Black Falcon to propose some details, anticipating something very sensible.
"This XfD is a site-wide cleanup process"? Well no, it is not like the rest is some ways, but it is unlikely to be worth the time trying to explain.
Censorship and star chambers? These are perceptions often held by people who feel subjected to injustice. It doesn't matter that on close examination it is not strictly true, the perception and the reaction is real. The answer is not to argue definitions of emotive words, but to adjust practice and procedure to make more people feel more welcome. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:38, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Well, I can hardly mount any argument that what you feel isn't what you really feel, but if we're all about feels now, I'm not sure what there is to talk about. Probably said more than enough already. Not my intent to bludgeon the discussion (or you in particular). We just seem to have irreconcilable differences of viewpoint, on multiple things. I'll repeat that I support the idea of being clearer and more helpful to users with regard to alternatives to user categories that aren't likely to survive CfD.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  01:43, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

The "consensus" for removing joke categories

The first time on WP which I could find where "joke" categories were deprecated was on August 10, 2006 when the page Wikipedia:Guidelines for user categories was written as a policy proposal by Cswrye. By September 5th, with only two edits to the talk page (meaning no appreciable discussion of the proposal) and with no subsequent disagreement with the edit, Radiant! marked the page as {{historical}}, or not a seriously considered policy proposal.

Almost two years later on Ferbruary 9, 2008, Black Falcon created Wikipedia:Overcategorization/User categories, purporting to "...clarify consensus and precedent regarding user categories;". It can be seen during a number of edits over the course of the next day or so that BF recreated the proposed list of appropriate/inappropriate user categories from the failed policy proposal above. Note that this list has never appeared on Wikipedia:Overcategorization, despite the claim of consensus in the page creation edit summary. I can find no record of any discussion that might have produced any such consensus at the talk page.

Years later, on November 8, 2010 Jc37 merged content from that page to Wikipedia:User categories based entirely upon a brief discussion between themself and ...drumroll please... Black Falcon.

So in short: the "consensus" that keeps getting thrown out as evidence that these discussions are simply following a well-established policy is a consensus of TWO editors. I suppose it's possible to claim that two people form a "community" but I wouldn't be surprised if no-one takes that seriously. I sure as hell don't.

The repeated harassment of me on my talk page was also in direct defiance of this consensus, which one might note contains a lot more than two editors and is quite clear that one should not continue to beat the dead horse of emptying categories that have been deleted. One might also note that there is no consensus anywhere that a handful of editors working on an obscure page without notifying other editors with a vested interest have any right to lay claim to a consensus. Indeed, there is a very clear consensus that this is a bullshit assertion. And of course, there's a (somewhat less so, but still clear) consensus that picking fights over what cats a user put on their page is pretty fucking disruptive. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:05, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

But we regularly remove joke categories, so it seems to be a consensus. How it arose isn't a particularly meaningful thing to research. I would ask, what encyclopedic purpose (or for a user category, more specifically encyclopedia-building purpose) do you think joke categories have? What's the point? If someone wants to make a joke, they can do by adding the joke to their userpage, even with {{Userbox|info=My joke here|other parameters}}.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  08:05, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: How many people participate in those deletion discussions? Five? Six? A dozen, at most. And how many of those would change their minds if joke cats weren't deprecated on a policy page? I might point out that the mere fact that they are deprecated on a policy page is a problem (almost certainly a policy vio; I seem to recall reading that changes should never be made to a policy page that substantially affect it's meaning without gaining a consensus first), as there was never any consensus to do so. There certainly was no consensus to keep them listed as inappropriate the last time there was a large community discussion. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:20, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
Or even better, users can replicate the exact category box at the bottom of pages using {{fmbox}}, only that it won't actually populate the categories. The fact there is resistance to this solution suggests to me this isn't even about making jokes on a userpage so much as it is about making a point about disagreement with the guideline. VegaDark (talk) 08:17, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
It's clearly any calling out a bullshit claim to be acting on behalf of the community is what it is. — fortunavelut luna 08:26, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
Huh? I'm still having trouble parsing that.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  09:25, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
@MjolnirPants: There is no rule that "changes should never be made to a policy page that substantially affect it's meaning without gaining a consensus first". The actual rule is "Talk page discussion typically precedes substantive changes to policy." (at WP:PGBOLD). Making a bold change to P&G page is is almost always WP:BRDed, and it's probably how we develop most policy, to the extent we're still even doing that. Someone makes a well-meaning change, it gets reverted, a discussion ensues, and it either emerges why it was a bad idea, or an adjusted version of it gains consensus and is added; usually the former, because 16+ years on we already have most of the policy we need, and should probably delete a lot of that we don't regularly use (see WP:AJR). When an bold substantive change to a P&G page goes unreverted, it's either because it makes sense and is accepted, or the page is so unwatched and un-cared-about no one noticed or bothered. It can be difficult to tell these apart for pages that aren't "major" (like the WP:CCPOLs and WP:MOS). The usual method is to open an RfC. It's about 100 × more productive to open an RfC about the substance of the wording at issue than about whether the addition had/has consensus. I also don't see any productive purpose in playing "what if" games about whether people would change their minds if we deleted the line-item about joke categories, though to answer your question, I suspect not, because such categories don't serve an encyclopedic or collaboration purpose, and are just trivial noise.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  09:29, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
Perhaps I read it in an essay, but I can't help but notice that the header of that bullet point is "Talk first", not "It can be helpful to talk first, but feel free to make changes to your hearts content, so long as you follow WP:BRD". Second; the "what-if games" aren't games, it's me pointing out a weakness in the argument that the precedent establishes a consensus. My whole point is that the question is unanswerable. Finally; yes, this is one of those policy pages that doesn't get a lot of traffic. See the page view statistics. Notice how a discussion with four or five editors involved managed to triple the average daily views. Compare that to the page views for BRD, which averages the same number of views as this one spiked to. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:14, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
There would be no need to have a heading that said that, since it really is permissible to make a change without asking first, per WP:EDITING policy; it'll just likely get reverted. You're fishing in the wrong pond if you want to change that; try WT:EDITING if you want to seek to carve out an exception for P&G pages. The same kind of question you pose is answerable whatever variables you plug in. "How many RfC respondents would change their mind about diacritics if we had a policy or guideline that actually stated something firm instead of throwing up its hands?" "How many RM posters would say something different if COMMONNAME really was a style policy?" yadda yadda. It's not illustrative of anything. I don't doubt that this is a poorly watched guideline. The normal way to assess the consensus of something iffy in a rather "insular" P&G page is to open an RfC about the point in question at WP:VPPOL, or at the talk page of P/G in question and advertise the discussion at VPPOL, and in either case advertise it at other relevant talk pages. I do it all the time, and it works fine (though don't expect a huge flood of input; there are so many RfCs, attendance is usually thin, though more diverse that would be the case otherwise. I.e., there's no need or point to be kind of wandering in a land of I Dunno But I Wonder. Just find out. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  16:42, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
No, it's a guideline, and the guidance says "Talk first". That's good guidance. But it wasn't followed in this case. I'm okay with using BRD on policy pages, actually. What I have a problem with is when a specific section of policy is written by a very small group of editors on a little-trafficked page, who then use those elements of policy as an excuse to continue pushing a POV that obviously (else we wouldn't be here) disrupts the project. Vega has been reported to ANI twice over this, and almost got topic banned from CfD over it (I actually opposed that on the grounds that Vega hadn't had a chance to change their behavior at that time; predictably enough I'd have a different view now). BHG and BF have both alienated dozens of editors with their own support for this tactic. And an RfC has already been opened (by me, see Wikipedia talk:User categories) which resulted in "no consensus"; a result which you might recognize as being remarkably different from "there is a consensus to maintain this as policy". And yes, I'm aware that RfC was whether or not to change the policy as written, but notice how the close completely fails to address the arguments? That's understandable, given the length of the discussion, but it fails to acknowledge the fact that a large number of editors wanted this change, and the arguments against it ranged from the demonstrably wrong (claiming that permitting it wouldn't foster a sense of camaraderie in the face of scientific evidence that it would) to the demonstrably ignorant (claiming that it would result in more red-linked categories and thus more work for those who work in cat space), and concluded that the major problem was actually that categories are "in article space" which is itself demonstrably wrong (they're in category space, and some are used in article space, though none of the newly permitted ones would be). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:11, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
  • If there actually is a consensus to ban joke cats anywhere on WP, I would like to see it. If not, I'm going to be removing that category from the "list" and possibly removing the entire list, and returning the guideline page to what it looked like before two editors decided to dictate new rules to the rest of us. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:44, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
Policies supersede guidelines, the end. No amount of love for two words in a guideline (your hyper-literal interpretation of which is directlycontradicted by the actual sentence in the guideline) is going to magically get around that fact. Not going to circularly argue with you about this. You've been pointed at the proper venue for a) changing the policy and/or b) contesting the consensus for a line-item in this guideline. I've had way more than my fill of venty proof by assertion from people this week. Please give it a rest.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  19:02, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
Policies supersede guidelines, but as far as I know there is no policy against joke user categories, at least not as such. I was trying to figure out what "policies" you were talking about, and based on a scan of the earlier text I'm guessing that your mentions of NOTFORUM and NOTSOAPBOX are what you meant? But to take those as banning user categories requires, well, interpretation. --Trovatore (talk) 20:12, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
We'll just have to disagree then. Why would categories be immune to those two particular aspects of WP:NOT? Are they exempt from others? Is it okay for me to use categories for soapboxing about a social justice issue? for arranging content into a how-to guide? to promote my company? to build a personal categorization system that means nothing to anyone but me? Anyway, we've been talking about two different things here for some reason. There does seem to be a consensus against joke categories. And someone is upset that this apparent consensus has formed and is questioning whether it's legit. The way to find out is to RfC it – the actual question about the joke categories, not silliness like whether its permissible at all to boldly edit a P&G page, which of course it is. If someone wants to change that, that'll also be an RfC, but a very different one, and it has nothing to do with categories.  — SMcCandlish ☏¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  21:49, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
So here's something we can agree on, I think: WP:NOT does not say "no joke user categories". You can argue that it implies it, but the burden is on you to make the argument. So far I haven't seen it.
Honestly I think WP:NOT is mostly written with article space in mind. There are lots of things that are not allowed in article space that are generally tolerated in other spaces. There are limits, but you have to make a case that something is causing a problem. --Trovatore (talk) 01:40, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish:You can complain about my "hyper literal" interpretation all you want; it doesn't change the fact that a more literal interpretation is usually a better one when it comes to guidelines which, themselves, don't rely on any sort of similes or metaphors. Your claim that the following sentence "directly contradicts" my interpretation is just flatly wrong: it doesn't, and the only way to conclude that it does is to read every indefinite article with an eye towards hyper-literalism while simultaneously ignoring the actual header. In truth, it's quite common to use indefinite articles when writing rigid rules. Try searching any sort of digital law or statute library for the words "may", "could", "might" and other indefinite articles. You will find quite a few of them.
Also, your claim that WP:NOT contraindicates the use of joke categories is questionable at best, and flat out wrong according to most common readings. WP:NOTFORUM advises against using WP for publishing original thought, opinions or discussions unrelated to the project. WP:NOTSOAPBOX prohibits the use of WP for activism of any sort. Joke categories represent neither activism nor original thought, opinions or discussions unrelated to the project. Your accusation that I'm relying on "proof by assertion" is bizarre, ignorant and without basis: Do I need to re-list every peer-reviewed article studying the effects of humor on workplaces and online communities I've posted already? Do I need to re-post all of the links I provided above? You haven't even said specifically what you think I'm asserting without evidence or argument. One begins to suspect that you're starting to play the "accuse them of fallacies to cover the fact that I can't respond to their arguments" game. Considering the fact that you haven't actually responded to the majority of the points I raised, this would not be a conclusion unsupported by the evidence.
Also, if you still can't understand what Fortuna said after the little clarity edit I made; please work on your reading comprehension. It's quite common and readily understandable English. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:44, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
Repeat: [1]. You're also across the the WP:ASPERSIONS and WP:JERK threshold now. I don't know why you think this is going to help you get what you want, but it's not.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  14:36, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
  • well parsed, MjolnirPants :D  ;) — fortunavelut luna 18:47, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
    Before you congratulate him, you may want to ask if he also intends to take everything listed at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/User/Archive/Topical index (including its very own, albeit woefully incomplete section on joke categories... if completed, it would be 10 times as long) to WP:DRV. -- Black Falcon (talk) 21:12, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
    Since you obviously missed my reply to SMcCandlish; how many editors in total were involved in those discussions? And how many of them might change their !votes if they knew the "policy" against it was invented out of whole cloth by you? I'm still waiting for that consensus, by the way. You know, the place where a discussion involving a not-insignificant number of editors came to the conclusion that the rules you made up should be policy, instead of just two editors (one of whom may well have been under the impression that it already was policy) deciding to impose rules on the rest of us. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:15, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
    Missed it? No, I deemed it unworthy of reply, because your belligerent and contemptuous tone thus far has convinced me that you've already made up your mind, the facts be damned! However, for everyone else in this discussion, here is some data for the record. Between September 2006 and April 2009, all user category discussions were centralized at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/User. During this 2.5-year period, the page was edited by 1,285 unique editors. Roughly 200 editors made 10 edits or more, and nearly 400 editors made 5 edits or more. Looking at a more recent time period, 64 unique editors participated in one or more user category discussions during the month of October 2017.
    As VegaDark notes below, the consensus for Wikipedia:User categories is reflected in the thousands of user category discussions involving hundreds of editors over time. The guideline was crafted merely as a way of summarizing the consensus across thousands of discussions, so that there would be a short-hand way of referring to accepted arguments without having to rewrite them every single time. -- Black Falcon (talk) 04:19, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
    First off, no amount of "arrogant, belligerent and contemptuous conduct" invalidates an argument. Welcome to grade school logic. Second: You're in no position to whine about another editor's "arrogant, belligerent and contemptuous conduct thus far". Your behavior thus far has been no better than mine in any way, and much worse in several ways. I haven't taken it upon myself to dictate what policy should be without any appreciable discussion. I sure haven't run off to ANI instead of leaving someone the fuck alone when they made it clear they wanted to be left the fuck alone. And I sure as shit haven't thrown a temper tantrum when another admin told me to just leave that guy the fuck alone. The worst thing I've done is tell a bunch of annoying editors to stay the fuck off my talk, and expose an oft-repeated line of bullshit of theirs, all while employing a lexicon that apparently offends your delicate sensibilities. Except when it doesn't.
    I've already explained the problem with your claims about the discussions, and your numbers are about as unimpressive as they get: How many editors have made a dozen edits to that page? What about a hundred? What percentage of !votes is from editors who have made more than 100? And you know what? When I start looking through the actual jokes in that list, guess what three editors I see dominating virtually every thread? How many editors have made as many as you and what percentage of !votes do you account for? Those numbers mean a hell of a lot more than "how many editors have shown up for CfD discussions over the course of 4 years." And finally, how many editors !voted because they believed one of those two bullshit "policies" actually had consensus? The first one predates every single discussion on that page, your version predates another large chunk of them. You can't show me that number; it's impossible. The closest thing you could do is count the number of !votes that make explicit or obvious implicit references to it, something which I started and quickly abandoned as it happened in virtually every discussion. At best, that's a vaguely relevant link that could be used to crunch a shit ton of numbers that might or might not indicate which way an actual consensus might go. You can find vaguely relevant links and wave your hands at them all fucking day, but I know you can't find an actual consensus, or anything that could be reasonably construed as one. Hmm, I wonder why?
    I bet it has something to do with the fact that there have been at least three ANI threads, two RfCs and the serious threat of sanctions made multiple times over the category police deleting joke cats. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 05:43, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
    First off, no amount of "arrogant, belligerent and contemptuous conduct" invalidates an argument. Of course not, and it wasn't meant to. It does, however, explain why I ignored your comment. Welcome to logic.
    Except when it doesn't. My delicate sensibilities were not offended by your use of "fuck". They were offended by your open contempt for consensus, and by the arrogance of the other admin in refusing to discuss his close and telling another editor to, basically, fuck off.
    I've already explained the problem with your claims about the discussions, and your numbers are about as unimpressive as they get. To quote my previous comment, "you've already made up your mind, the facts be damned!"
    How many editors have made a dozen edits to that page? What about a hundred? 174 and 26, respectively. What's the point? Is 12 or 100 edits in a single venue suddenly the new standard when it comes to having a voice?
    What percentage of !votes is from editors who have made more than 100? I haven't a fucking clue, but the fact is nearly 1,300 editors voiced an opinion at some point. I'm more interested in the strength of arguments and in outcomes than pointless counts of votes.
    When I start looking through the actual jokes in that list, guess what three editors I see dominating virtually every thread? It's almost as if there's some sort of correlation or even causal link between level of interest in categorization and level of activity at CfD (and UCfD). Well, my mind is blown...
    You can find vaguely relevant links and wave your hands at them all fucking day, but I know you can't find an actual consensus, or anything that could be reasonably construed as one. I think I prefer a consensus that stands the test of time through thousands of discussions over a one-time discussion with, to paraphrase your earlier comment, five, six or a dozen participants.
    I don't know you personally or the quality of your content contributions, and so I won't judge you as a person or editor. Furthermore, you are in Category:Wikipedians who like Firefly, so you have at least one redeeming quality. However, at the moment, nothing I've seen (except possibly this) helps me to believe you are willing to have a good-faith conversation. And in case there's any confusion, let me make it plain: I care far less about a handful of user categories than about your conduct (at your talk page and here), which I find simply abhorrent. -- Black Falcon (talk) 06:38, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
It does, however, explain why I ignored your comment. Welcome to logic. That's not logic. That's an emotional reaction. And it undermines your own position, making it counter-logical.
They were offended by your open contempt for consensus, You forgot to put "consensus" in the scare quotes that absolutely belong to a "consensus" that at best comprises a handful of editors with a specific focus on categories, and at worst is an attempt to dictate rules to the project by one or two editors. Yes, I have a lot of contempt for those sorts of consensuses, and even more contempt for editors who insist upon throwing a hissy fit when someone is rude to them, in response to their own rudeness.
To quote my previous comment, "you've already made up your mind, the facts be damned!" Facts my ass, you hypocrite. I've shown Vega literally dozens of examples of peer reviewed science demonstrating that jokes and humor increase productivity and collaboration, in a thread you participated in. The facts are that joke categories would improve the project, and that your behavior surrounding them is a disruption. But god forbid you admit to being wrong about jack-shit.
174 and 26, respectively. What's the point? Do you really need me to explain what the point is? Only 26 editors made a significant number of contributions to that page over the course of 4 years, and you can't grasp the notion that this implies that it's not something that the wider community has much to do with? Really? Why do I keep having to explain the most basic, fundamental shit to you?
I'm more interested in the strength of arguments and in outcomes than pointless counts of votes. Ha! The results say; that is a lie. You're the one who decided to start counting edits when you thought they helped you, now you don't care about edit counts when they don't?
I think I prefer a consensus that stands the test of time Yes, when editors who "enforce" this "consensus" end up dragged to ANI, when RfC's regarding this "consensus" end in "no consensus", when they go to ANI for help enforcing this "consensus" and get shot down in record time, when essentially retired editors come back just to cuss them out and show how full of shit they are... That's a "consensus that stands the test of time".
I don't know you personally or the quality of your content contributions, This little spiel about me is informed entirely by the ignorance of the fact that I don't give a shit what you think about me. (It's also a blatant policy violation and incredibly rude, two things you claim to care about.) But the phrase "I care far less about a handful of user categories than about your conduct" is pure lie: If you didn't care about the user categories you could have backed off when you saw the numerous problems that deleting them causes. But you keep going like the energizer bunny of self-righteousness. You want to see my conduct improve? Try engaging me the way SMcCandlish did above: by calmly disagreeing and explaining why, not arrogantly dictating your own views as if they were carved in stone in the WP:TOS and proclaiming anyone who disagrees with them a problem to be handled. Try approaching the problem with an eye to helping improve the project (as I did the first time I got involved in this reoccurring discussion: offering to help develop tools and volunteering to help in cat space), instead of a focus on punishing editors who were mean to you. Hell, the objection to having joke categories is, itself disrespectful to everyone who wants them (and there are a lot of us, including many editors who've !voted to delete specific joke cats). Try working with editors who disagree with you to find a solution, instead of trying to bend them to your view of the rules.
In other words, try following the behavioral P&Gs you keep telling me I'm failing to live up to yourself. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:51, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
Try working with editors who disagree with you to find a solution, instead of trying to bend them to your view of the rules. You mean, like this? What was the outcome of that, again? Oh, yes... you ignored me and two others, and told us all to fuck off. Respect has to be reciprocated, and so far you have not shown yourself capable only of returning it. Also, it's not "my view of the rules", it's just the rules. It's one thing to think the guideline is wrong and should be changed, but I challenge you to read Wikipedia:User categories#jokes/nonsense and reach a different view. I find your statement, that the objection to having joke categories is, itself disrespectful to everyone who wants them, to be quite informative—knowing that you are offended and/or feel disrespected when someone wants or thinks differently than you do, I can more easily understand your behavior.
Look, I'm an urbanite, so I'm not used to wading through so much bullshit. I couldn't find two consecutive sentences in your comment without a logical fallacy, gross exaggeration, insult, or outright lie. So, when your comments are indistinguishable from either intentional trolling or chronic WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, then no, I will no longer try to engage you. Let's just do each other a favor and stop conversing. -- Black Falcon (talk) 00:32, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
What was the outcome of that, again? Are you seriously contending that making unwanted changes to an editor's talk page, pretending to not get the jokey response you fucking obviously actually got, and throwing a hissy fit about it when it doesn't go your way is an example of how you seek solutions? Well shit, that explains a lot, including the (once again) unsupported bullshit that comprises the rest of your comment. If there were fallacies and lies in my comments you'd point them out, and the fact that you don't is quite telling. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:44, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
The consensus you are searching for is over a decade's worth of user category discussions at UCFD, CFD, and DRV. It is true that we did not always have a user category guideline to cite to editors to make it easier to convey that the category is a bad idea for the encyclopedia. Instead we used arguments that are now codified in that guideline. Those arguments became the de facto consensus by virtue of discussions repeatedly reflecting results consistent with that consensus, and eventually those edits were made to make it an actual guideline, which absolutely reflected consensus at the time and in my view still does. VegaDark (talk) 03:31, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
Didn't I already tell you I was done with you? Yup, just like I already shot down this stupid argument twice. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 05:43, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
VegaDark, he's done with you! What will become of you? How will you ever face another day?!?
Seriously, though, I indented your comment as I thought it was a reply to MP's above. Apologies if I was mistaken. -- Black Falcon (talk) 06:38, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
Evidence of frequency or age of practice is not evidence that the practice is a good idea. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:04, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
Not necessarily, but it is evidence of consensus. -- Black Falcon (talk) 05:18, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
Evidence yes. It has been objected to. Wikipedia:User_categories#Appropriate_types_of_user_categories is challenged, often. I am not objecting to it, but I am objecting to the methods of its enforcement. It was written with a participation by few, and it is enforced by a process involving few, and the formal discussions don't invite the stakeholders. I recommend a clarification of the method of enforcement. Probably an RfC, but as per my comments at WT:RFC, it needs to be started with much more care than the recent RfCs at Wikipedia talk:User categories. Alternatively, invite stakeholders. Alternative again, follow WP:ATD. Edit templates to stop them autocategorizing inappropriately. Assist the protestors in expressing themselves more effectively, probably through ProjectSpace essays and petitions, or UserSpace essays if they mostly want to let off steam. Verbalising what upsets you can be very helpful. Having someone removed your poorly-verbalised statement exacerbates. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:35, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
Consensus can change, certainly. However, change should be based on a reasoned consideration of pros and cons, not bad-faith (or plainly false) accusations and distortions (as in the case of MP's comments above). We can have a meaningful conversation about any user category as long as it is civil and part of the conversation considers utility—i.e. addresses the question, What is the value of grouping users on this basis? Unfortunately, the most vocal challenges to the guideline take the form a few paragraphs above, i.e. insults, insinuations, or just plain contempt (for the guideline and/or the editors following it).
I am not objecting to it, but I am objecting to the methods of its enforcement. It's fine, of course, to have conversation on this, but (the status of) the guideline itself and methods of implementation are separate issues and should be discussed separately.
It was written with a participation by few, and it is enforced by a process involving few ... . Written by a few, yes, but based on discussions involving many. As I noted above, nearly 1,300 unique editors participated in UCfD discussions over a 2.5-year period, and 64 unique editors participated in user category discussions at CfD in just the month of October 2017.
I recommend a clarification of the method of enforcement. ... Alternative again, follow WP:ATD. While an RfC may ultimately be necessary, let's try something a little less time-consuming and stressful. Tomorrow, I will try to draft and propose a version of WP:ATD specifically for user categories (aimed at nominators) as well as an "alternatives to user categorization" (aimed at users more broadly). If there is support for the language, we could incorporate it into the guideline.
Cheers, and thanks again, -- Black Falcon (talk) 06:01, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
However, change should be based on a reasoned consideration of pros and cons, not bad-faith (or plainly false) accusations and distortions (as in the case of MP's comments above). We can have a meaningful conversation about any user category as long as it is civil and part of the conversation considers utility—i.e. addresses the question, What is the value of grouping users on this basis? Unfortunately, the most vocal challenges to the guideline take the form a few paragraphs above, i.e. insults, insinuations, or just plain contempt (for the guideline and/or the editors following it). Bullshit. Your unwillingness to acknowledge arguments (that you've clearly understood and responded to already) is not an argument, itself. Unless one is arguing that you have no business participating here. Jesus H Christ, you can't even confine your own contempt to the subject of it; you've got to make sure everyone involved knows that you're engaging in the same exact behavior you find so appalling. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:51, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
Not necessarily, but it is evidence of consensus. No, it's not. It's the place to go to look for evidence of consensus. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 05:46, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
"The consensus you are searching for is over a decade's worth of user category discussions" is correct. Guidelines (when we bother to have them) codify actual practice. The practice has to exist first; that's the consensus. WP:RM, for example, operates almost entirely on this basis; there is no corresponding single page. (There are lots of topical naming conventions pages, and lots of applicable MoS rules, and the WP:CRITERIA, but these just front-load the debates; what emerges is very often an RM-specific evolved consensus about a particular class of article titles.) Precedent matters a lot of XfD-style processes, whether people like that or not. People who demand to see a policy or guideline line item, and demand to see the RfC that put that line item in there, are failing to understand how WP actually lives and breathes. The guideline stuff we bother to write down is largely just that which we're damned tired of rehashing. These codified bits are just the tip of the consensus iceberg.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  21:59, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
Curious... Complaining about "proof by assertion" in one comment, then repeating the same already-responded-to talking point for the fifth time in another. There's a word for that. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:44, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
When you've been pointed to the proper venues for asking the questions and proposing the changes you want to see happen (about this guideline and its consensus level in particular, or P&G editing process in general) and just return to presenting the same demands and rationales as if no one had addressed them (substantively and with a pointer to where they belong), that's a WP:IDHT problem. This is a waste of everyone's time.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  06:20, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

In order to move forward

In the interests of moving forward, and of not scratching at old sores, could we agree that certain editors’ posts to this page are undeniable evidence that some editors are upset? Let’s work on improving, not denying, certain things. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:08, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

If you are asking for a concession that "some editors are upset" it would be foolish to dispute that. The legitimacy of those concerns is another matter, but I have no qualms in admitting that some editors are upset. VegaDark (talk) 07:50, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
Ditto. Separately, I have started but not yet finished drafting the USERCAT equivalent of WP:BEFORE and 'Alternatives to user categorization'. I expect to be able to propose these within the next 2 days, by 10 October November at the latest. Apologies for the delay, and cheers, -- Black Falcon (talk) 06:21, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Great. You alluded to this 06:01, 5 November 2017. No apology necessary. Thanks. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:23, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Does sound like a good plan to try out, though devils could be in the details. The main reason AFD has become so moribund when it was once among the most active processes, with broad involvement from innumerable editors, is that BEFORE is over-strict, to the "insanely burdensome" level. AfD used to be a process by which multiple editors came together to determine whether an article was sourceable enough to keep. Today, the onus has been put onto a single editor, the nom, who usually has nothing to do with the article and may not have the background, to source it well or determine that it's not well-sourceable. It's also resulting in a tremendous number of crap articles being kept, especially on actors who are competent (have credits in notable films/shows) and who have brief mentions in numerous sources but no in-depth coverage in multiple, INDY RS; it's too much work for the average editor with a WP:N concern to review all available sources and show that there's insufficient in-depth coverage in any of them. I.e., BEFORE is a massive WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY failure. Many of us have pretty much just stopped using AfD.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  10:59, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
AfD is very different, being swamped with nominators. CfD only has a few usercat nominators. If we can agree on a more orderly way to redirect ill-advised attempts at networking and project-advocacy, I think it would be good. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:44, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
I've finished with one of the two sections, and proposed it here. -- Black Falcon (talk) 03:50, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Some borderline potential resource categories

From Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2017_October_8#Category:Wikipedians_without_a_sense_of_humor...

Toddy1 & VegaDark are discussing Category:Wikipedian feeling discouraged, Category:Disabled Wikipedians and Category:Disabled Wikipedians. These are what I call "borderline". VG thinks they should be deleted. Please don't just simply delete them. To do so will upset a lot of people, not just me, but most of the membership, and many of the community who feel affinity for the membership. They will likely say unkind things about the CfD regulars, and the CfD regulars will take these things unkindly. It has happened before. Do the same thing and it will happen again.
{{small|1=[Two of those are links to the same category.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  12:55, 9 November 2017 (UTC)]
I call it a borderline potential resource, because it is a collection of self-identifying people by a similar characteristic. This characteristic has impact on their ability to edit, and possible on their style of editing. The category is sort of a resource for identifying editors who may benefit from help, and in obtaining that help. The category experts are right, though, in that it is not a useful category. For whatever resource potential it has, as a category it is neither defining nor very useful. It would be much more useful listified. No two members are exactly the same, on the signup list some statement will want to be made by most. If the members are first listified, I predict confidently that moves to subsequently delete the category, post all information having been transferred, will be far less upsetting to certain Wikipedians. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:05, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
I believe lots of categories should be deleted that I'm not readily prepared to nominate. I agree with you that these particular categories have a higher risk of conflict should I nominate them. I will also bring to your attention that Category:Disabled Wikipedians is eligible for a G4 speedy deletion per this discussion. There's already been a consensus that this isn't helpful to the encyclopedia, as well as a massive amount of other similar categories. Perhaps you could take the lead on these categories and nominate them with a "Listify" suggestion as nominator, and you may get consensus on that. VegaDark (talk) 05:26, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
That is my idea. I am encouraged if you think it could work. Black Falcon has been offering useful comments and alternatives to the specifics of my ideas. I think it will be readily agreed by most that these categories are not ideal methods for networking. I think we agree that the continued existence of categories like this are very confusing to creators of other not so dissimilar categories. And confused creators are prone to saying unkind things. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:53, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Works for me, too, but with caveats. The first: Do not listify if there's already a page for them; just direct the category members to the pre-existing resource(s), usually wikiprojects (the participants list is the "list" already). There already are some in both example cases above. For those with disabilities, we have WP:WikiProject Accessibility, WP:WikiProject Disability and maybe more. For the discouraged, we have WP:WikiProject Editor Retention, WP:Teahouse, and probably other stuff I'm not thinking off right off-hand. And of course people can have userboxes, etc. The fact that these wikiprojects even have their own categories (almost all wikiprojects do, and they certainly can when they don't yet) automatically provides category space for "compatible" userboxes and stuff to use, instead of a new, dedicated one. Second caveat: It is not the responsibility of the nominator to identify alternative resources; that's the responsibility of the minority of respondents convinced that "there's some there there" in a particular case but that a category isn't quite the right fit.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  12:55, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
All sensible points. "Devils could be in the details" as people sometimes say.
"Do not listify if there's already a page for them"? I think "Listify" includes listifying to a section, not necessarily to a new page. It can also mean listifying to a section on the pre-exciting list talk page. It is likely that these categories contain people who may not want to be listed. Let's not forget that we agree the categories are already judged to be ill-considered. I was previously upset years ago when my attempts to find a middle ground by listifying to the category talk page, explicitly as an intermediate step, was met by admins seemingly unthinkingly hitting G8 buttons.
Autocagegorising userboxes, I think need to come under the purview of categorisation policies and guidelines. The userbox guideline currently gives empty lipservice, on top if being old and dusty.
"It is not the responsibility of the nominator to identify alternative resources". Well, here again we are at an irreconcilable difference? I think there has to be a higher onus on the backrooms editors who seek to undo, with deletions that hide information from normal editors, the work, including self-identifications, of the general community of editors. I think you have an oddly low opinion of BEFORE. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:04, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
If you would like to develop some language for me to include in my nominations insofar as "alternative resources", I am happy to include that language in my nominations, if you think that will make people less frustrated at the process. Bottom line, my only goal is for the categories that don't help the encyclopedia get deleted. And if addressing the concerns you raise will make people more open to that possibility in nominations and less hostile, then there's no drawback to taking your approach, so long as I am not bending over backwards to accommodate by actually creating these alternative resources or otherwise putting in more effort than I deem necessary for a nomination. VegaDark (talk) 01:33, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Did you read my 06:27, 3 November 2017 (UTC) comment at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2017_October_30#Category:Multilingual_Wikipedians: "Bottom line is to do something to help direct possible misguided actions intended to volunteer to help, unless there is a stated reason not to (like it was all a joke), and to not make hard work of it."
I think we are on the same page here. Some bending is asked for, but not over backwards.
Maybe a repository of memberships of Wikipedians who inappropriately used categorisation to self indentify by a characteristic that has borderline potential as a resource. (not very concise I know). As with "Multilingual Wikipedians", it is not very easy to identify the existing resources. It is not realistic to expect the nominator to do that before nomination. It is not realistic even for hoping it can be done during the discussion periof of a CfD, and for many dubiously borderline potential characterisations, it may even be impossible. Just becuase it is hard doesn't mean that that nothing should be done. General listifying to to a new WikiProject's subpages isn't hard, and can't be that objectionable. I am sure it will be easier on you than the possible repurcussions of pressing the G4 button on emotive usercategories that would do better as sign-up pages.
Skimming Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/User/Archive/Topical_index#Wikipedians_by_medical_condition, I see a number of junk joke categories, I see that all are not good categories, and I see that in the discussions, the same group of category-expert Wikipedians consistently overwhelm reasonable objections without appropriately engaging them. Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2014_October_14#Category:Wikipedians_with_autism is a good example of you being right, but doing it wrong. You seem to be non-engaging to objections like "but I also think it's important to keep a friendly atmosphere" and "I am not comfortable deleting this category". You suggested an alternative category, but I think the answer is to relocate to a WikiProject of Wikipedian associations. Probably a new WikiProject solely for this purpose. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:13, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
I just don't see any encyclopedia-building purpose in a "repository of memberships of Wikipedians who inappropriately used categorisation to self indentify by a characteristic that has borderline potential as a resource" thing. That just ends up sounding like a mild-WP:POLEMIC form of shaming. I would certainly not want to be added to such a list (but would actually qualify for it, based on goofy categories I created back around 2006). This whole thing just seems pretty WP:NOT#SOCIALNETWORK. I just don't get the will-not-go-away urge to pander to editors' WP-unrelated and WP-work-unrelated self-labeling exercises in categoryspace. It's just not relevant to our purpose here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  04:29, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
The encyclopedia-building purpose of what should be done is indirect and per Wikipedia:Editors matter.
IF the ill-considered category does have a plausible claim to be intended for editor networking (like disabled Wikipedians), or was an intention to volunteer for something, and was not a joke, and was not userbox autocategorisation, then the membership can be listified to a page, to which they can be pinged or invited to sign up. The list can then be blanked.
The decision to listify requires judgement. I would listify the membership of Category:Wikipedian feeling discouraged, Category:Disabled Wikipedians, after eliminating the auto-categorised membership. I would definitely listify as the membership of the the Wikipedia-protest categories, as not doing so when deleting has a smell of censorship and suppression. I would not listify joke or offensive categories.
WP:NOT#SOCIALNETWORK doesn't apply to networking Wikipedians.
I don't get why you are so grumpy about this. Do you enjoy seeing the regular rounds of flaming abusive arguments that follow from the normal practice of clearing out USERCAT-violating categories, like that which you participated in above? Something is broken, as VegaDark agreed somewhere. So let's try something else. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:41, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
I decline to continue this circular argumentation. This is just a continuation of the same "all that matters is how people feel, never mind the purpose and rules of the project" stuff you're advocating over here. I don't know how or why it cannot be clear to you that WP does not exist for masturbatory (or, if you prefer, omphaloskeptic) memorializing of users' encyclopedia-improvement-unrelated personal, trivial noise just to make them feel heard. WP:NOT#WEBHOST is clear about this. I've never encountered a single other editor in 12 years here who shares your belief that it somehow only applies to Wikipedians misusing WP as a webhost/social network outward to the general public (That is covered by WP:NOT#OTHOUGHT). There are more practical ways for people to be heard, when WP actually needs to hear it. They're already available and we don't need to do anything other than point people to those places. No weird, pointless, and maybe creepy lists need to be created.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  16:22, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

"It is likely that these categories contain people who may not want to be listed" and the 'admins may just speedily delete a list page' points amount to arguments against listifying: Yeah, just point them to the existing appropriate resources and people can list themselves (or whatever is appropriate) if they feel like it. If they're still active, which often they are not. Nothing special needs to be done with userboxes that pertain to categories we're deleting. Just remove the category code from the u'box. If we're sure that the u'box is a solid match for a wikiproject, then use the wikiproject category, just like extant wikiproject-related u'boxes do. No special consensus is needed to have a template use a wikiproject category. PS: My opinion of BEFORE cannot be oddly low when BEFORE is clearly directly responsible for people abandoning AfD in droves. I just talk about it and most other BEFORE-disgruntled editors don't bother, while its hyper-inclusionist fans talk it up positively. Analogy: lots of people think pro wrestling and rodeo are stupid, but few of them bother saying much about it, meanwhile there's are whole industry around both of them that makes them out to be fantastic.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  04:03, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

There will often be reasons to not listify.
Pointing the membership means notifying the membership, whether by ping on a list, or message on their talk page.
Inappropriate userbox autocategorisation should be fixed by cutting the parameter from the template *BEFORE* going to CfD.
"BEFORE is clearly directly responsible for people abandoning AfD in droves"? Says who? I can offer alternative theories. WP:BEFORE is not onerous. AfD would be much easier if nominators would understand the simple requests of WP:BEFORE and improve their nominations. Also, if nominators would please be aware of WP:ATD.
"pro wrestling and rodeo"? I think live and let live, short of animal cruelty like bull fighting. Do you call me "hyper-inclusionist"? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:22, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
I'm skeptical there are ever reasons to listify. Can you give us some scenarios, where doing so serves the interests of Wikipedia at large, in concrete terms, not just a perception of the interests of those who'd be listed, or diffuse suppositions about feel-good stuff? Cutting the parameter: I think many would disagree; it's essentially the same kind of WP:FAITACCOMPLI action as pre-emptively clearing out a category before CfDing it. If the category ended up being kept, then the template would have to be repaired. Various other kinds of templates do categorization, and we don't strip the cat. code out of the templates before doing CfD. AfD and BEFORE: I have no problem with the idea that BEFORE isn't the only factor. But it definitely is one. All it takes is one castigation for not doing enough BEFORE (especially if one actually did make an effort and inclusionists deemed it not enough), to inspire one to be very reluctant to come back to AfD. I'm not in the habit of labeling peoplem and I don't read minds. The arguments you've presented here and at this MfD do strike me as hyper-inclusionistic, but they may just be a blip triggered by your "natural justice" kick for all I know, and not representative of a general over-inclusionism bent. I don't stalk your XfD edits or anything. Anyway, you can have the last word on this if you want. I agree with you that we need to be gentler with people when it comes to categories like those under discussion here, but we need no bureaucracy of any kind added in order do that. No new rules, processes, list types, etc., etc., etc. That's my stance, it's well explained, and I don't need to keep trying to re-explain it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  16:35, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Ill-advised userbox autocategorisations.

I just found this written somewhere:

[Is it] not straightforward to remove the autocategorisation from userboxes, and especially from userbox used to create new userboxes? I would love something commented out in the code in the area for a userbox such as "Stop! Just because this has the ability to create a user category does not mean that it should automatically include one! Before entering a new category here, please review our guidelines at WP:USERCAT to ensure the new category meets the standards in place there!" VegaDark (talk) 07:55, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

I agree. This is a good idea. I think using a shortcut to a new paragraph at WP:USERCAT that directly speaks to this issue, is a good idea. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:40, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Same here. This has actually bugged me for a long time. (Aside: We probably need something like this as a shared template documentation transclude for all userboxes, or at least the meta-boxes, because way way too often have people desperately trying to put something in every parameter even when not pertinent, and various topical i-boxes have parameters they don't actually need, as if "just in case" of ... something. The first of these two problems has much to do with why there's a strong anti-infobox camp.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  05:07, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
I agree. On my early experience with templates, I thought they would break if there wasn't data for every called parameter. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:13, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Malformed CfD

I found this. 108.210.218.199 (talk) 02:55, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

The category was later nominated and upmerged at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2017 August 30#Category:Fictional sponges. Not quite sure what to do with the subpage, though... ℯxplicit 03:28, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
I deleted the subpage as routine housekeeping, since the 30 August 2017 nomination was unrelated (similar rationale, but a different user). -- Black Falcon (talk) 05:35, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Stub types

CfD covers discussions of categories and, since 2012, stub types. In spite of that, the various CfD documentation pages contain virtually no guidance for nominating stub types and closing such discussions. Therefore, I propose to add the below guidance for nominators and closers.

Nomination procedure

Add the following at WP:CFD#HOWTO, in a new subsection "Stub types":

I
Preliminary steps.

In general, a stub type consists of a stub template and a dedicated stub category. Before nominating a stub type for deletion, merging or renaming:

  • Read and understand guidance for creating stub types and stub type naming conventions.
  • Review the list of existing stub types—be advised, this list may not be comprehensive.
  • If you wish to:
    • Create a new stub type—follow the procedure for proposing new stub types.
    • Delete, merge or rename a stub category only, without deleting or renaming the associated stub template—follow the instructions above this section.
    • Delete or rename a stub template—continue to section II.
II
Edit the template.

Add one of the following tags at the beginning of the template to be discussed.

  • For deletion, {{subst:Sfd-t|Year Month Day|Section name}}, where Year Month Day is entered as 2024 06 8
  • For renaming, {{subst:Sfr-t|Proposed name|Year Month Day|Section name}}
  • Please include "SFD" or "SFR" in the edit summary, and don't mark the edit as minor. Preview before saving.
  • Consider notifying the template's creator on their talk page. To find the contributor, check the page history of the stub template.
III
Create the CFD section.

Click on THIS LINK to edit the section of CFD for today's entries.

Follow the instructions in the comments (visible during edit), and paste the following text (remember to update TemplateName, ProposedName and Reason):

For {{Sfd-t}}, use: 

==== Template:TemplateName ====
:* '''Propose deleting''' {{lt|TemplateName}}
:'''Nominator's rationale:''' Reason. ~~~~

For {{Sfd-r}}, use: 

==== Template:TemplateName ====
:* '''Propose renaming''' [[Template:TemplateName]] to [[Template:ProposedName]] 
:'''Nominator's rationale:''' Reason. ~~~~
  • In your rationale, mention how many articles currently use the template to help other editors. When linking to a category in your rationale, always add a colon (:) to the beginning of the link, like [[:Category:Foo]]. This makes a category link that can be seen on the page, and avoids putting this page into the category you are nominating.
  • Preview before saving to check that your nomination is formatted correctly.

Closing procedure

Add the following (sans quote frame) at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Administrator instructions#Stub types:

In general, a stub type consists of a stub template and a dedicated stub category. Before closing a discussion about a stub type:

When documenting the close, add:

{{subst:cfd top|stub=yes}} '''result'''. ~~~~
(where result is usually either Delete, Merge, Rename, Keep or No consensus)
At the end of the discussion, but before the next section header, add:
{{subst:cfd bottom|stub=yes}}

If the decision affects:

  • A stub category—follow the instructions in the 'Process' section above.
  • A stub template, and the decision is:
    • Keep or No consensus—remove the {{Sfd-t}} or {{Sfr-t}} notice from the template.
    • Delete—replace all transclusions of the template with more appropriate stub types, and then delete the template.
    • Rename—move the template to its new name and remove {{Sfr-t}}, check incoming links and update them (except links from talk pages and discussions), and either delete the newly created redirect or tag it using {{R to stub template}}.

Discussion

Two technical notes:

  • {{Cfd top}} and {{Cfd bottom}} do not currently accept the stub=yes parameter. I created sandbox versions (here and here) that can be copy-pasted into the main templates if there is consensus for the above changes.
  • {{Sfd-t}} and {{Sfr-t}} do not currently support the parameters I am proposing. I created sandbox versions (here and here) that can be copy-pasted into the main templates if there is consensus for the above changes.

Any constructive feedback or suggested improvements would be welcome. Thanks, -- Black Falcon (talk) 23:53, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

So... shall I take the silence to mean consent? -- Black Falcon (talk) 06:48, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Category not working

Resolved
 – Fixed

I must badly need coffee or new glasses. {{Wikipedia glossary}} is supposed to populate Category:Wikipedia glossary items, and is used on numerous pages, but the category is empty. I've looked at (and worked on) the template code and am not seeing a problem. Could use some fresh eyes on this (I also have a splitting headache, which may have something to do with it).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  00:48, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: It has been broken since this edit.​ {{{NAMESPACE}}} → {{NAMESPACE}}. Your recent edit also included an extra {. — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:14, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
@JJMC89:. Thanks. That was driving me nuts.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  04:23, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

War in Afghanistan

A few years ago, the article War in Afghanistan (2001–present) was split into War in Afghanistan (2001–2014) and War in Afghanistan (2015-present), so as to reflect the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country during Obama's second term. Last summer, as it became clear that the U.S. wasn't really leaving the country, it was decided to merge those two articles back into a single article, once again titled War in Afghanistan (2001–present). The main parent category for this topic, Category:War in Afghanistan (2001–present), properly reflects this title - but none of its subcategories do.

Some of the subcategories exclusively cover the (2001-2014) phase of the war and don't have a counterpart category for the (2015-present) phase - e.g. Category:People of the War in Afghanistan (2001–2014) and Category:Works about the War in Afghanistan (2001–2014). In other cases, there are two separate categories for the (2001-2014) phase and the (2015-present) phase - e.g. Category:Battles of the War in Afghanistan (2001–2014) and Category:Battles of the War in Afghanistan (2015–present). I'm not involved with military topics on Wikipedia, so I'm not sure whether there's any value in keeping separate categories for the (2001-2014) and (2015-present) phases of the war in the instances where such distinctions have already been made. I'll let someone else make that call. But in the instances where there aren't separate categories for the two phases, it seems clear that the categories should be moved to reflect the (2001-present) title.

I've never nominated anything at CfD before, and I'm not entirely sure how it's supposed to be done. I created a discussion here - Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 January 20#War in Afghanistan - and started adding a few categories... but there's a lot, and I noticed the note saying that I could request help. What's the best way to go about this? Thanks. --Jpcase (talk) 16:46, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Should the old name of a category be kept as a redirect after a "rename" or "merge" closure?

After closing a CfD discussion as "rename" or "merge", should the original title be kept as a redirect, or deleted? It would be nice if this were explicitly mentioned somewhere. The most recent discussion of this issue I found was Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion/Archive_16#What_can_I_do_to_help?, but it seems it can go either way. feminist (talk) 16:42, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

  • Personally I think it's a judgement call when an admin closes the discussion, but on a general basis I think it's better to keep the category unless it's implausible for other reasons. Redirects are WP:CHEAP, and these category redirects may prove useful as they provide a history of what happened to a certain category. {{R from merge}} and {{R from move}} redirects are usually kept in main space, and I don't see why category space should be an exception. -- Tavix (talk) 16:50, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
    • The problem with category redirects is that in many cases they aren't WP:CHEAP. If the category exists as a redirect, editors may add it to an article (HotCat can't distinguish between categories and category redirects), and it would take extra edits to move them to the correct category. See WP:CATRED for details. feminist (talk) 16:56, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
      • There's a report that catches articles incorrectly categorized to category redirects the same way redlinked categories are. See Category:Wikipedia non-empty soft redirected categories. -- Tavix (talk) 16:59, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
        • Yes, but that's not ideal compared to deleting the old title altogether. Category redirects cannot really be compared with article redirects. feminist (talk) 17:04, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
          • Well, I see the value of having the history of the category at a certain title as being greater. If an article were to be restored, it's easier to track the categories and move them to the new one that way. Besides, these can always be handled on a case by case basis at RfD if editors disagree whether an individual category redirect should exist or not. -- Tavix (talk) 17:07, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
            • I don't see why we can't have the same functionality that Commons has, where the HotCat entry of a category redirect causes the correct target category to be added to the article. bd2412 T 02:15, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
              • @BD2412: we do have it. @feminist is wrong here: a redirected category entered via HotCat is corrected by HotCat when the entry is OKed. This doesn't happen when the edit is saved w/o OKing the category. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:24, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
                • BrownHairedGirl, thanks, that clears things up. That being the case, we should definitely keep any reasonable category redirects. bd2412 T 01:38, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
                  • OK, sorry for correcting my mistake. feminist (talk) 13:46, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
                • We do have HotCat, but not everyone uses HotCat to add or change categories. -- Black Falcon (talk) 05:34, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
  • My rule is to delete on a result of rename or merge. A blue link for the redirect is prone to cause too many issues. People often just check if a link is blue without clicking on it for category purposes, which would cause unnecessary future cleanup work in the case of redirects. VegaDark (talk) 02:12, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
  • I much prefer to keep the redirects. I don't see what "issues" @VegaDark is referring to; HotCat catches most redirects entered that way, and @RussBot catches the rest. If the redirect has been deleted, the variant form becomes a redlink which ends up in Special:WantedCategories, where manual cleanup is needed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:30, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • I prefer the category to be deleted in all/most cases. This is so that it's easy to tell if a category exists or not (from the color of link) and to reduce complexity. DexDor (talk) 16:44, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • The default should be to delete the old category, unless there is a very compelling reason to keep a category redirect. Category redirects are not the same as redirects in other namespaces, and they are definitely not "cheap". This is partly due to the reasons noted by VegaDark and DexDor, and also because category redirects can result in miscategorization. Take the example of Category:Track and field people from Arizona, which was recently renamed to Category:Track and field athletes from Arizona to better describe its current membership. Retaining a category redirect would result in articles about non-athlete track and field personalities being automatically recategorized (by RussBot) as athletes. -- Black Falcon (talk) 05:33, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
  • My own practice is to keep the redirect if I think it is likely to be entered by other editors, and therefore useful. I always keep redirects from ASCII to non-keyboard characters, e.g. hyphen to dash, or plain characters to diacritics. I keep redirects from WP:ENGVAR e.g. organi[s/z]ations. I also keep players categories for former sports team names, but not for the parent category (old team name itself) as usually there is little scope for additional new articles/sub-categories. I usually delete redirects from different capitalisation as I consider these to be clutter. Cyde's bot, which does most of the work, used to delete most redirects after moves, but when it was rewritten a couple of years ago there was an unintended change in functionality in that it no longer deletes most redirects. I initially resented this, but have got used to keeping more redirects than I used to. – Fayenatic London 22:57, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
  • We seem to be doing category redirects only when the category is something people are very likely to try to use, such that they'd go re-create the category if it were a redlink rather than look for the correct category.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  00:50, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
  • The question in the title added "after a rename or a merge". Rename and merge are two different situations: after a rename the target of the redirect will (usually) be a synonym, while after a merge the target of the redirect will (usually) be a category with a broader scope and besides with merging there are usually multiple targets involved. So while I regularly keep old names as a redirect after renaming, I hardly ever keep redirects after merging. Marcocapelle (talk) 15:14, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
    After a rename the target of the redirect will (usually) be a synonym. I agree, but the frequency of cases when the new name is not synonymous is quite high. For example, when Category:French radio was renamed to Category:Radio in France, a redirect was kept; however, French radio can just as easily refer to French-language radio, so the old name and new name are not synonymous. -- Black Falcon (talk) 21:59, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
    Where the old name is ambiguous, and there is a category for more than one of the possible meanings, then the redirect should be replaced with {{category disambiguation}} linking to the alternatives. Where it's ambiguous but only one meaning currently has a category, I have no problem with leaving a redirect for now; but I add an explanatory note on the active category, sometimes with a "see also" link to an article about another meaning. – Fayenatic London 08:50, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Removing members during a CfD discussion, template wording. See Template_talk:Cfd#Removing_members_during_a_CfD_discussion

As mentioned at Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#New_account_adding_contentious_cats, there is a conflict between the templated wording placed on every categoriing being discussed at Cfd:

"Please do not empty the category or remove this notice while the discussion is in progress"

and the rare perceived imperative to remove a category from an article immediate, such as the category name appearing on the article constituting a BLP violation.

I think this is kind of rare, could be covered by IAR, but seeing as it has led to arguments at least once, adjusting the wording of the template might be in order. I suggest that Template_talk:Cfd#Removing_members_during_a_CfD_discussion is the appropriate place to discuss the details of wording on that template. Discussion has commenced there. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:01, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Hmm. But "please" isn't a commandment, and removing someone from a category because it's a BLP violation in that case isn't emptying the category. If the category is an attack category, clobbering it is basically immune to sanction, since an attack category is a form of vandalism. If it's an arguably legit category under policy, but all present members of the category are incidentally BLP violations, BLP policy supersedes CfD guidelines so it would be more than permissible to empty it (and we wouldn't seem to need the category anyway, at least not at this time). So, aside from "some people who don't think the policy stuff through very well might complain for no real reason" I'm not sure I see a problem to address.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:35, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Propose merging Category:Eastern Catholicism to Category:Eastern Catholic Churches

I tried to create a proposal at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2018_February_20#Category:Eastern_Catholicism, but got a procedural close due to my technical inability. A change of this top category, as seen here above in the title, ought also affect all the category tree so that the categories subject to the top category would also change formula from "Eastern Catholicism in X" to "Eastern Catholic Churches in X", such as Category:History of Eastern Catholicism -> Category:History of Eastern Catholic Churches etc. However I am not sure how to technically achieve that, and could you some help if anyone knows how to. Thanks! Chicbyaccident (talk) 12:23, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Amherst Mammoths

Is there an admin here who can close the Amherst Mammoths discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 February 22. It's had unanimous support for the remaining for nearly three weeks now. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 01:41, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

This discussion has still not closed. Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 March 4#Cal State Hayward Pioneers football is in the same boat as well. Please assist! Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 10:52, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Re-visiting television shows/programs/programmes

Hi. In this CfD from February 2017, the Category:Television programs by country was renamed to Category:Television shows by country. However, that discussion had only three participants including the nom (me). Another related discussion, which saw much wider discussion, resulted in Category:Television programs by language being the preferred name for that tree (rather than Category:Television shows by language). This has resulted in a discrepancy; I think the by country CfD should be re-opened and overturned. I don't have the time to go through the tagging, so if somebody could do it that'd be great. --Paul_012 (talk) 04:52, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Done. --Paul_012 (talk) 05:09, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Cfr-speedy template issue

We should probably split this into Template:Cfr-speedy and Template:Cfm-speedy (which presently redirects to the former). If it's a round-robin move (e.g. of Category:Foo to Category:Foo (bar) and Category:Foo (baz) to Category:Foo), then the Cfr-speedy on the second move, to the shorter but presently otherwise-used name, will incorrectly state that it's a proposed speedy merge, which is confusing and potentially alarming.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:48, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

​ I agree. @Pppery: would you be so kind as to do the honours, as you previously added some complex parts in the current one? I could split the template myself, but I don't follow all the validation code at the start of {{Cfr-speedy full}}. – Fayenatic London 15:53, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
Aw, so my first big coding task in July 2016 was for naught. Anyway, done. Remember to notify Twinkle about this. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 19:10, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
@Pppery: thanks! I have left a request at WT:TW. – Fayenatic London 21:15, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

How do we sort drag queens?

Further input is requested at Category talk:RuPaul's Drag Race contestants#Sorting --woodensuperman 09:24, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Further to above, editors have blanketly removed defaultsort keys from all of the articles, so some further input is desperately needed. --woodensuperman 09:30, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Is an RfC needed about titling categories with terms rooted in discriminatory usage as pejorative slurs?

My initial thoughts when I first noticed Category:Queer actors were notions of inappropriateness. Seeing its pervasive use, I question my own alignment within the mainstream. I'd like to see how others opine before considering other options. Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 06:15, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I'd like to see all the "queer" hierarchy merged into the eg Category:LGBT male actors tree. At the moment it isn't even a sub-cat of that (because it contains women?). Not a helpful tree organizationally, or appropriate imo. Most examples seem to rely just on the phrasing of a remark in an interview (see Janelle Monáe for example), & it doesn't seem enough to create a distinct tree from the main LGBT one. Category:Queer theorists is probably an exception - but they aren't all identifying as LGBT or queer, & so the category is not parented to either people tree. There may be others. Try a test case? Johnbod (talk) 13:32, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
Agree with Johnbod. Queer theory is a thing unto itself. The use of "queer" as a stand-in for "LGBT[...]" is nowhere near universally appreciated by people to whom this applies, and is primarily used as insider jargon (i.e., it's like "nigga" – used as a self-label among peers, but as offensive as the root usage when used by others as an exonym).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:58, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Assistance with tagging categories for renaming

Hi! I am requesting assistance in tagging the plethora of pages affected by this CfR proposal. I've created a list in the proposal of the affected pages, which should make tagging easier. Any help would be greatly appreciated. ―Biochemistry🙴❤ 18:46, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Stub types (revisited)

Hello,

Over the next several minutes, I will be implementing the changes I proposed last year at Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/Archive 17#Stub types. There were no objections to my proposal, so I assume it is not controversial. If anyone does have concerns, or if I clumsily break anything, please comment here. I will post diffs of my changes once they are done.

Thank you, -- Black Falcon (talk) 01:49, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

All done! The following pages were edited:
  1. Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/How-to (diff)
  2. Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Administrator instructions (diff
  3. Template:Cfd top (diff)
  4. Template:Cfd bottom (diff)
  5. Template:Cfd top/doc (diff)
  6. Template:Sfd-t (diff)
  7. Template:Sfr-t (diff)
  8. Template:Sfd-t/doc (diff)
-- Black Falcon (talk) 02:05, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
I consider this a Plan of Goodness +5.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:05, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Black Falcon: regarding these edits - why is it necessary to fill in the date manually, and in a non-intuitive format as well? Other XFD templates do not need this, they work out the date for themselves. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:41, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

@Redrose64: You're quite right, it does not need to be that way. I've fixed the templates (diff 1, diff 2) and updated the documentation (diff 1, diff 2). -- Black Falcon (talk) 15:25, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Landing page

The Wikipedia:Categories for discussion landing page is quite long (27 section headings) and cumbersome due to transcluding three subpages:

It is also not very user-friendly due to the fact that most of the section "edit" links will actually take you to a different page. Therefore, I would like to propose two independent changes:

  1. Replacing the transclusion of /Speedy with just a link to the subpage.
  2. Copying and pasting the contents of /How-to into the landing page, so edits and other changes can be made and watched on a single page.

Thoughts? -- Black Falcon (talk) 20:13, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

C2D criteria and official rebranding

C2D currently requires renamings to be

uncontroversial – either because of longstanding stability at that particular name or because the page was just moved after a page move discussion resulted in explicit consensus to rename.

I propose that this should be expanded to:

uncontroversial – either because of longstanding stability at that particular name, or because the page was just moved (i) after a page move discussion resulted in explicit consensus to rename, or (ii) unilaterally to reflect an official renaming which is verified by one or more citations.

IMHO the current criteria require unnecessary bureaucracy in cases such as Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons. – Fayenatic London 14:41, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
​​ The proposal would also fit the set of Municipalities of East Timor, even if the main page had only been renamed recently. – Fayenatic London 22:13, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

  • Support. Chicbyaccident (talk) 17:05, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Sure. I like removing/bypassing bureaucracy. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:20, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support A lot of page moves are uncontroversial and don't need the bureaucracy of RMs and that principle should apply here as well. Timrollpickering 20:47, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. Marcocapelle (talk) 12:33, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment I don't mind changing the criteria, as long as the citation if the official renaming is supplied with the nomination on CFDS. Armbrust The Homunculus 10:54, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support This is how it should work, because sometimes things we have categories about change their names and it's totally unneeded to go through rigmarole for something like Nu9ve. Raymie (t • c) 07:37, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks; that's a clear consensus. I have now implemented this at WP:C2D. – Fayenatic London 21:13, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

How to categorize "views on" articles?

I recently run a wikidata search and (manually) added all of the "Fooian view on XYZ" articles to Category:Point of view but I think this is not the right place (but at lest now they should be more easily batch-moved with some script then before, when they didn't share any single category). Views disambiguates to Opinion which doesn't have a good parent category (Category:Belief, Category:Epistemology, Category:Subjective experience). I thought about creating Category:Views, but which parent categories should it have? (Also I don't know what script can do the batch move). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:40, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

I wonder if this is a smart idea at all. If XYZ can be anything the category will consist of articles which are related to entirely different topics. Marcocapelle (talk) 12:31, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
Yeah. I'm not sure what encyclopedic (or maintenance) purpose this is supposed to serve. And "views" as a stand-alone word is ambiguous. Implies "scenic vistas".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:15, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
The point is those articles share a similarity that needs to be categorized. Could be Category:Opinions, if views are ambigious (which would also suggest we may need to rename all of them). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:11, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
It's not a defining similarity at the topical level, just an accidental one of how we're presenting the material. While we do have some "article type" categories, more for maintenance than anything (like Category:Set indices, Category:Wikipedia glossaries, etc.) this views/opinions thing is more iffy; it really has more to do with coincidentally similar titles than with the actual structure of the articles, which are frequently quite dissimilar.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:29, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
I am struggling with this category, too. It is a mix of articles about the views held by various religions, nationalities, ideologies and even individuals on various topics—i.e. fundamentally, it categorizes articles based on how the article itself is organized rather than a characteristic of the article's topic. I am open to other ideas, but at the moment I think they should not be consolidated in a single location. -- Black Falcon (talk) 02:43, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Would it be too troublesome to rename the articles from "[religious] views on [subject]" to "[religion] and [subject]"? I don't think the nuance of a "view" is necessary here since the respective articles already cover the scope of diversity in doctrines and opinions. -- Invokingvajras (talk) 12:48, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

The constant problem of category half-diffusion

Virtually every time I look at a category with a lot of stuff in it, it's just completely random whether a topic that has an article and its own topical subcategory will appear in this parent category as an article entry, a subcategory entry, or both. It's a maddening mess. My understanding for 12+ years has been that if the topic has its own subcategory, then the subcategory not the article should appear in the parent category, unless there's a special consensus that this particular parent category's article listing should be total and comprehensive for some special reason whether or not any given topic also has a subcategory in there.

At this point, it looks like there's overall about a three-way split, almost everywhere, on what to do (which may vary widely, e.g. 70/20/10 or 25/50/25, or whatever, depending on the parent category).

This is obviously a maintenance nightmare, but I'm not even sure how to encapsulate a draft decision to formalize in an RfC (or whether there's already been one and we're just not enforcing it, or what).

If this can be resolved somehow, I would suggest that categories of the "should have an article in the category even if a self-named subcat is present" sort would be tagged in some way (template, tracking category, whatever), and a bot would be used to auto-decategorize articles from redundant parent categories that don't have this tag. If this is done, then we won't have to deal with it any longer, except for occasional cases where the article name and the category name cannot match for some incidental reason.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:28, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: Thanks for bringing this up. I bet there a lot of people confused about this. Your suggestion seems valid. On a further note, I would suggest an explicit policy for the unspoken rule (if there is none already) that I have come across claiming that some of the more purely "data"-related categories such as Category:Organizations established in 1923 or Category:1923 births ought to "hard-categorised" on an article no matter if it has its own category. Hope you understand what I am trying to say. Thanks! Chicbyaccident (talk) 12:28, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
Yes, and I have no problem with that idea; the problem is the randomness within each category, and the further randomness from category to similar category.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:18, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
The relevant policy is WP:EPON, which has I think remained unchanged for well over 12 years. You will see from it that "my understanding" was not really correct - there is no default right answer. Personally I don't see any need to change the policy, and I imagine it would be difficult to find support to do so. Generally I think rather more articles should also be in the main category than currently are, so I would not support your approach, which reflects your mistaken understanding of the long-established policy. What you find a "maddening mess" many will find sensible flexibility. Johnbod (talk) 12:53, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
The obvious need to change the policy is that no one is following it, and we're getting utterly inconsistent results from article to article even in the same category. It needs to be clarified in more certain terms, one way or another. I don't even have a problem with the idea of deciding that all articles should be [what I call] redundantly categorized by default unless there's a specific reason not to. (I.e. a reversal of the dominant practice of removing redundant parent categories, which may not be codified as a rule but is clearly the community preference.) I don't think that's the ideal outcome, but it's a better outcome that the current situation. What is a problem is the current random admixture with no rationale. It's one of the last aspects of the project where we have stuff being done with no rhyme or reason, just whim, and it's unhelpful for both readers and category maintainers.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:18, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
That is a terrible idea. We need to have the main article of a subcategory in the parent topical category, so the parent topical category will be complete. Otherwise, the parent will not longer be a topical category, and both parent and subcategory will have top be deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 12:46, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
You don't seem to be following what we're talking about (which is understandable, since it's a hassle to explain it in words). The scenario is this (readily observable in, e.g., innumerable sport-related categories):
  1. The subcategory Category:Foobar and its article Foobar are both in the parent category Category:Bazquux (and article Foobar is of course also in Category:Foobar)
  2. Then, for a different topic in the same parent category, only the subcategory Category:Snorkeweasel is in parent Category:Bazquux, with the article Snorkelweasel found only in its Category:Snorkeweasel, not in Category:Bazquux
  3. Then, for a third topic in the same parent category, only the article Chickenbutt is in Category:Bazquux (and also in its own Category:Chickenbutt), while Category:Chickenbutt is missing from Category:Bazquux.
None of this has anything to do with deletion at all. Nor does it have anything to do with completion, since in all of these cases, Foobar, Snorkelweasel, and Chickenbutt are all present in Category:Bazquux either as a subcategory, an article, or both.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:18, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
If he did understand it he is unlikely to do so after reading that! Suggest you produce actual examples (remembering also that some of your past claims of universal anarchy in some particular aspect of WP have not in fact been evidenced). Johnbod (talk) 13:28, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
I'm skeptical that anyone would couldn't understand a few variables and some plain English would be able to follow our categorization procedures.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:54, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
  • The exact locus of the problem is this: Editors should decide by consensus which solution makes most sense for a category tree. There are three options: .... The problem is that this decision by consensus virtually never happens, and even if it does, it's unlikely anyone can find it. Consequently, people just do whateverTF they feel like. The solution is to have a default, and the overall trend suggests avoidance of redundant categorization is that default, even if we want to make entire meta-categorical exceptions that are quite broad.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:23, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
  • when people who are not familiar with the categorisation system add categories there is no indication that they see about diffusion or over categorisation. Rathfelder (talk) 16:08, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I suggest that perhaps a template could be created to categorise a topic article both in its eponymous category and in necessary parent categories. The point of the template would be (i) to show that the dual categorisation was intentional, (ii) to prevent either category being removed using HotCat.
There is a similar issue with non-diffusing categories and WP:EGRS, which says:
In almost all cases, gendered/ethnic/sexuality/disability/religion-based categories should be non-diffusing, meaning that membership in the category should not remove membership from the non-gendered/non-ethnic/etc. parent category...
These rules make sense once you study them, but are not intuitive to an editor who has only read WP:SUBCAT.
To help with both EPON and EGRS cases, templates should be used more widely on category pages to state where dual categorisation is correct and intentional. Two exist for this purpose, see WP:DUPCAT. – Fayenatic London 07:11, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
  • It appears, then, that we simply need to centralize the advice in one place (probably WP:EPON, under the already-extant "Guidelines for articles with eponymous categories" heading), and cross-reference this with hatnotes at WP:SUBCAT, WP:EGRS, etc. And that this advice should be clear about a) what the default is, b) what common exceptions are, c) when to use either of the two available exception types, and d) what to do (what templates to use, etc.).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:51, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
    Yes, no, maybe? Anyone?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:50, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: Yes, you seem to have a grip on this. Please go ahead per WP:BOLD. Chicbyaccident (talk) 09:33, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
Hokay-dokay. I'll add it to my to-do list.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:27, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

It might be helpful to bring this discussion to the notice of some projects. Wikipedia:WikiProject Brands, for example. Rathfelder (talk) 07:14, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Eventually, perhaps, but I think it's too early. Inviting individual WikiProjects before we've flushed through at least (a) and (b) in SMcCandlish's comment above is likely to produce more noise than music given the inherently technical nature of categorization policy. -- Black Falcon (talk) 04:50, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
  • My understanding for 12+ years has been that if the topic has its own subcategory, then the subcategory not the article should appear in the parent category,
WP:EPONYMOUS is quite clear that the article belongs in the majority of the categorisation, the category only in the primary parent categories. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:56, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Duplicate "Use Foo English" categories?

Why do we have Category:Wikipedia articles that use British English (populated by {{British English}}, a talk-page and edit-notice banner), and Category:Use British English (populated by the in-article template {{Use British English}})? These appear to be redundant. (This applies to the rest of the "[Wikipedia article that u|U]se Foo English" categories, too.) I haven't nominated them for CfM (yet) in case there's some important technical reason for this apparent duplication.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:19, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Hmm... good question, and it may be a good one for WT:MOS, too. The talk-page category is a tracking category (informational only) and I think the mainspace category is intended to be a maintenance category for articles that need to be standardized to British English (see this comment by User:Ohconfucius, who created {{Use British English}}). However, Category:Use British English does not appear to be used as a normal maintenance category; instead, it seems to function as an overlapping (and more populated) tracking category. If that's the case, I would argue for tagging the talk pages of articles that use the Use X English templates with the X English templates (that may be a good option for WP:BOTREQ regardless) and then deleting the former. -- Black Falcon (talk) 02:59, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
I'm leaning increasingly toward merge. The same categories can be used regardless whether the tagging is being done by an invisible in-article template, an editnotice, or a talk page template all indicating "use Foo English".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:59, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Broadly, yes, but a straight merge would mix articles and talk pages within the same category, which I think we ought to avoid. Separately, I found there are several similar categories in the oddly named Category:EngvarB—again, I could find no indication of why there exists a category structure separate from Category:Wikipedia articles by national variety of English. -- Black Falcon (talk) 17:32, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
EngvarB is named for User:Ohconfucius/EngvarB; it's tracking for pages changed by that script. I have no idea if that's a useful thing to do. Category:Wikipedia articles by national variety of English, however, is an internal maint. category, so whether stuff is by article page or by talk page is irrelevant. This is like various other maint categories sometimes put on the talk page (place of death missing, etc.). If we decided we really, really hated the mixture, the solution would be to remove the categorization from the talk template, and use a transclusion analysis to produce a list of articles for which the talk page says an ENGVAR has been asserted but which is not categorized as such at the article level, either by an in-article invisible template like {{Use Canadian English}}, or by an editnote.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:54, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
That seems a good solution, and I think it could be implemented easily by a bot or even using AWB. It would be nice, though, if someone else could shed light on why these two mechanisms were developed separately (two sets of templates, two sets of categories, etc.), since a lot of the cleanup will have to occur at the template level. -- Black Falcon (talk) 04:12, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Montreal Football Club

I left a message on this talk page because one football team seems to have been split into several separate topics. The team underwent several name changes and people searching for Montreals past football teams listed them all separately https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Montreal_AAA_Winged_Wheelers

As shown here and can be confirmed, they are all the same team https://stats.cfldb.ca/team/montreal-aaa-winged-wheelers/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Armorbeast (talk • contribs) 08:38, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

@Armorbeast, Cmm3, Fat pig73, and Mundster: If these are just different names of the same team, then this could be addressed by merging the articles together. You can start a discussion to form a consensus for merging by following the steps outlined at Wikipedia:Merging, or you can request assistance at Wikipedia:Proposed mergers. Because there is a backlog of merge requests, I have pinged the editors who created these articles for input and you might also try notifying a relevant WikiProject such as Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Canadian football. Lastly, please remember to sign your posts using four tildes, as follows: ~~~~. Cheers, -- Black Falcon (talk) 15:44, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
CFLdb is a useful website, but it is fan-operated and can't used as a fully credible or overruling source (https://cfldb.ca/about/). According to the official CFL Guide and Record Book (https://www.cfl.ca/2017-cfl-rule-book-facts-figures-records-guide/), page 154 in the 2017 edition, the Montreal AAA (Amateur Athletic Association) Winged Wheelers folded after 1935 because players were becoming professional. The succeeding teams (Indians/Cubs/Royals/Bulldogs/Hornets) were operated under various names and owners, although many players continued to play with these same teams. Given this information, I am opposing the merger of these pages since the CFL indicates that they were separate entities (as redundant as they are). Thanks, Cmm3 (talk) 23:52, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Notification

Per the request at mw:Community Tech/Newsletters/Commons notification bot and SVG translate - August 2018, I nominate we utilize this new bots capabilities to post a notification on the talk page of all articles affected by a CfD nomination. Trackinfo (talk) 04:12, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

The page link does not work; would you please double-check and correct it? Speaking for myself, I oppose this proposal as it would needlessly clutter article talk pages (and editors' watchlists). Categories are a mechanism for grouping related articles, and so by definition they are not a feature of any individual article. As a result, category discussions tend to take a higher-level view than a single article, and ni most cases the factors considered during a CfD nomination have little to do with any individual article in the category—the discussion tends to be about whether the category should exist at all and/or what it should be named according to our categorization guidelines. -- Black Falcon (talk) 04:34, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
Link corrected. Trackinfo (talk) 23:28, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
I've heard that "clutter" argument used before, along with excuses about how much work it would be on the nominator to contact interested parties. Clutter on obscure talk pages is such a tiny price to pay to open this process up to sunlight. How many CfDs go forth with virtually no discussion, or discussion amongst at best the same handful of editors. Its because people involved in the articles . . . the content . . . don't know that tools to help users find the content are being discussed for deletion. The first notification of the discussion, is when the result to delete causes alteration to the article. Trackinfo (talk) 03:51, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
I disagree with the notions (1) that it is a "tiny price" or a reasonable one, and (2) that it will open up CfD in a meaningful, productive way.
  1. Clutter makes a page less likely to be used and mass-notification on talk pages tends to desensitize editors to all talk page activity, so this proposal would counterproductively degrade the primary forum for discussing article content issues. In addition, every message consumes the time of editors who read it or follow a link to another discussion; over millions of messages that will presumably stay on talk pages for years (unless the bot removes them after each CfD closes), this amounts to a significant cost. Previous discussions, such as this one earlier this year, have recognized these costs of mass-notification by bots.
  2. More informed participation in CfD discussions would certainly be welcome. However, CfD discussions are typically about organization, not content, and therefore they typically require participation by editors interested and informed in categorization, and not as much by well-meaning drive-by commenters who are unfamiliar with the category system. (I say "typically" because there are definitely exceptions when CfD discussions hinge on specialized subject-matter expertise, and in these cases CfD editors tend to actively seek more informed editors' input.)
In short, I think this is a well-intentioned but flawed proposal that attempts to fix a misdiagnosed problem. Low participation at CfD is not because the process is hidden from the light—on the contrary, CfD can be found just as easily as any other XfD, but most people just do not have a long-term interest in categorization. For individual CfD discussions, I am all for contacting interested parties, but it is often difficult to do that without engaging in canvassing or even to determine who is interested. Relevant WikiProjects are typically already notified through the Article Alerts process, and it's surely a good idea to ping a category's creator. Beyond that, however... Ultimately, categories are tools for navigation and organization, in some ways similar to lists and navigational templates. It is no more necessary or helpful to notice the talk page of every article in a category in the event of a CfD than it is to notice the talk page of every article included on a list or navigational template in the event of an AfD or TfD, respectively. -- Black Falcon (talk) 05:05, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
I fail to see how a notice on a talk page can cause obnoxious clutter. The InternetArchiveBot leaves notices of its activities all the time on almost every article. I don't see the world collapsing from its weight. By having this activity done by the bot to the talk pages of all transcluded articles, meaning all articles affected by the discussion, this would be a totally neutral process, avoiding any question of canvassing issues. CfD can be found just as easily as any other XfD Seriously, how many find it? How many have the interest to search XfD lists on a daily or weekly basis to perhaps find an XfD affecting a subject they understand? That logic is preposterous. Compare the number of people participating in XfD discussions to the number who insert categories into articles. The interest is there, not the knowledge or notification of XfD activities. Mainspace articles are the public face of wikipedia. It is where the activity is. Most interested editors, once they advance past the novice stage, learn how to build a watchlist of articles in subjects they care about. These are the experts wikipedia depends upon to further the world's knowledge. In regards to any subject, these are the editors who would be able to contribute to an XfD in a meaningful fashion. The handful of XfD regulars who currently dominate most decisions cannot possibly have the wide range of knowledge necessary to make meaningful decisions across all possible subjects making their way into XfD. Trackinfo (talk) 09:42, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
IABot posting to talk pages is an activity that has since been ended by community consensus, for many of the same reasons that you're being opposed now. --Izno (talk) 13:30, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
The bot does not have that capability. It can only notify for file deletions on Commons. — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:45, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
Let's let the bot owners determine their capabilities or limitations. I was encouraged to seek means of expansion. Trackinfo (talk) 04:59, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Category:Primates (religion)

@Fayenatic london: Could you explain what happened to the Category:Primates (religion) request here, please? Chicbyaccident (talk) 21:51, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

@Chicbyaccident: I moved that and the one below it to be processed on the Working page, then I reinstated the one below and added a comment to it. This may be a clearer diff. – Fayenatic London 07:25, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Chicbyaccident (talk) 09:52, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Where to discuss proposed categories?

Someone asks "Where to discuss proposed categories?"

See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation#Where_to_discuss_proposed_categories?. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:25, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

  • I have long ago suggested that category creation should not be available to ordinary editors. I remember no one disagreeing, and User:BrownHairedGirl agreeing. The motivation for this is the reduction of the large amount to CfD work in fixing ill-considered categories.
Before taking that idea any further, I propose creating an additional CfD process "Requested new categories".
At Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion#Scope, add "requests for new categories".
At WP:CFD#HOWTO, add instructions for how to do it.
I think that requests for category creation should flow through the system the same as all others, and in practice they will not be terribly different to requests for renaming or merging. I think that when an ordinary, non-category-experienced editor encounters a category need not being met, their first an only considered solution is the creation of a new category, and there may be other better options, such as altering the scope of existing categories. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:57, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
Not a bad idea, but there would need to be a speedy option for the population of existing category trees. The bigger problem is that few editors show any interest in categorisation and those that do are not omniscient. Rathfelder (talk) 08:46, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
  • So only admins will be allowed to edit the articles? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 13:35, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
    • That slope is not even slippery. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:00, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Support I would support a relatively tightly restricted right to create categories, and "Requested new categories" would be a necessary part of this. Or work it into the existing CFD flow, which might be better. Johnbod (talk) 13:42, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Support as someone who's been actively involved in trying to do some clean-up of the film-related categories and doesn't need new, even well-intentioned, editors creating cats that will just need to go to CfD because they (understandably) didn't check the MoS first. DonIago (talk) 18:48, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Doubtful. (i) As Rathfelder says, there would need to be a speedy option. Admins who are knowledgeable with categories are somewhat sparse, as evidenced by the backlog at CFD (even though that is currently very low compared to the average over the last few years); so this should not be restricted to admins. (ii) Wikimedia introduced a facility to move category pages a few years ago, against the advice/wishes of most CFD participants; I don't expect they would change the wiki software to shut down category creation.
On the positive side, note that there is already a place to log requests for categories: it's not intuitive from the name, but Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects handles category requests as well as redirect requests. Perhaps we could simply place an edit notice in the category space on English Wikipedia, recommending editors to make requests at WP:AFC/R unless they are sure they know what they are doing. – Fayenatic London 19:55, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
M'kay, but that's why I didn't put a request there, because I'm somewhat dubious of Category:The Beatles songs sung by Ringo Starr, and *really* wanted discussion of the ramifications of even more article cross-linking by secondary factors. Shenme (talk) 21:43, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Isn't the problem with people who think they are sure what they are doing? Rathfelder (talk) 20:37, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Well there are two things being discussed here. One responds to my initial query: how to provide a space for discussions regarding proposed categories. Then second and separately, whether to force everybody to WP:AFC/R or the new discussion place first, by further restricting the process. Y'all would have definite opinions about process restrictions, as continuity of attention to the subject will concentrate thoughts in that direction.

In the meantime, where best to propose a category that needs to be discussed first, without chance it will be created precipitously (such as WP:AFC/R?) I'm looking at the fact that there exists categories such as Category:Coppola family, which astonishes me, versus one of the proposed categories Category:Cassidy family which again astonishes me. (Both were deleted once at CfD, but one was recreated!) Shenme (talk) 21:43, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Keeping category redirects

I have started an essay page Wikipedia:Category redirects that should be kept which I hope will be useful to CFD admins and other interested editors. Additions and amendments would be welcome. – Fayenatic London 11:45, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

  • @Fayenatic london: you may well consider creating a link from Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Administrator instructions to this essay. Marcocapelle (talk) 21:16, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment. This is a good essay. Incidentally, what is the reasons that we still use soft redirects for categories rather than hard redirects? The hard ones seem to work fine, but I may be forgetting something. Good Ol’factory (talk) 21:51, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
    When you move a normal page, the MediaWiki software creates the redirect as a hard redir, but when you move a category page, MediaWiki uses a soft redir. The software must have been set up that way deliberately, since it will have required extra effort (analysis, coding, testing) to provide an exception for one namespace when they could easily have used the existing code (already proven in day-to-day use) that is used for non-cat pages. Hard redirs on category pages work fine if you're linking to the category (i.e. [[:Category:Foo]]), but we don't often do that. In what other ways do the hard ones seem to work fine? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:47, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
    Hard redirects seem better, because when you click on a link to a hard-redirected page, the software takes you to the target page instead of the redirect. I would prefer this to happen with categories too. Then we would not need templates like Template:Namibia 1910s estab by year, spanning changes of country name. – Fayenatic London 10:22, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
    Pages which are put into a hard-redirected category do not appear in the target category. --Izno (talk) 11:44, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
    Nor do ones placed in a soft-redirected category. We rely on a bot to move them, unless you add it using hotcat. But hotcat treats hard-redirected categories the same. I just don't see the advantage any longer of using soft-redirected categories over hard-redirected ones. Good Ol’factory (talk) 05:35, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
    Presumably the bot could be trained to work with hard-redirected categories too. – Fayenatic London 07:26, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
    Yes, we would need a bot either way. However, it is easier to see that it's the wrong category with a soft redirect than a hard redirect. --Izno (talk) 14:18, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Processing categories too early

In this edit, I screwed up. I was somehow sure that today is October 25, and moved for processing some of the categories which have not yet been there for 48h. (I think some of them have been around 40 h, others have been longer). They have been processed. What would be the best way to proceed? --Ymblanter (talk) 07:46, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Leave them now they're done, but if somebody complains, be prepared to go through everything that Cydebot (talk · contribs) did and undo it. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:53, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. Now all of nthem would be eligible for processing, but if somebody claims they would have objections to moving the categories, I am willing to undo the move(s).--Ymblanter (talk) 15:48, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Clarifying a COP point on English/anglosphere surnames, left vague for years

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see this thread at WT:COP.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:43, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Nomination for merging of Template:Lc1

Template:Lc1 has been nominated for merging with Template:Lx. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Bsherr (talk) 21:46, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Category move review notice: Category:Automobile -> Cars.

Per a suggestion here Wikipedia_talk:Move_review#Is_this_the_correct_place_to_request_a_review_of_a_category_move? I'm posting this notice. A discussion request to review the move of Category:Automobile -> Cars has been opened here Wikipedia:Move_review/Log/2018_November#Category:Cars. Springee (talk) 03:31, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

One of the tail-end complaints voiced there is the old issue of sufficient notification. It is frequently repeated that WikiProjects don't own categories, or any stuff, and I would add that WikiProject are embarrassingly dormant. I am wondering, however, whether for any CfD discussion where there is a parent article, the talk page of the parent article should be notified of the CfD. I imagine the major benefit of this being the raising of awareness of the category system to ordinary editors. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:31, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
We do have Template:Cfdnotice, though I can't say how often it is used... I think article talk notifications could help sometimes but probably not in most cases. Most category discussions where there is a parent article are either nominations to align a category's name with the article's name (notification is not useful), to delete a lightly populated eponymous category (notification could be useful), or part of a wider discussion about an entire category scheme (notification is not useful). So, while I do not think we ought to mandate or encourage notifications in all cases, in some cases I do think it would be a good idea. -- Black Falcon (talk) 19:10, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Tool for mass listing?

Do we have any kind of tool to help with mass listing? I want to CfR all the topical subcats of Category:Wikipedia essays to have consistent names in "Wikipedia essays on foo" form (because "Wikipedia essays about foo" means the same thing but is longer, and "Wikipedia foo essays" is inconsistent and doesn't work for all constructions). But manually tagging them all seems like a hassle (I've been putting off for years). The current instructions say, "For bundled nominations including multiple categories, or if you prefer not to use Twinkle, follow the manual steps below", which is disheartening.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:58, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

I've always found AWB is the best tool for this. Timrollpickering 23:06, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: I use AWB with custom modules and a regex text editor to make it all quite easy. It does require some programming skills, but once set up it does the job quite easily. See e.g. WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 December 5#Wikipedian_sports_fans, where I listed and tagged 718 categories without much hassle.
If you clarify what you want done to Category:Wikipedia essays, I would be happy to put it together for you and leave you to add the rationale. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:54, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
@BrownHairedGirl: Thanks! A more expedient one would be all the subcats of Category:Wikipedia templates by namespace which should have names of the form "Category:Help-namespace templates" (hyphenate compound modifiers) instead of "Category:Help namespace templates"; most of the latter format are hard to parse and look like broken English "Verb namespace templates" constructions (i.e. "there are things called 'namespace templates' and these categories are for doing something with/to them"). There may be some other "Foo namespace bar" categories, too (redirects, maybe?). For the essays cleanup, what I said above is probably already the rationale :-) 'CfR all the topical subcats of Category:Wikipedia essays to have consistent names in "Wikipedia essays on foo" form (because "Wikipedia essays about foo" means the same thing but is longer, and "Wikipedia foo essays" is inconsistent and doesn't work for all constructions).' I'm not on Windows any more, which is why I've not been using AWB.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:53, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
PS: A complication in the essays rename (or, rather, its post-consensus implementation) would be that short forms like {{Essay|cat=Wikipedia notability essays}} works, so the exact string "Category:Wikipedia notability essays" will not be found in the source of every page in such essay subcategories.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:56, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: Easiest to do it one step at a time, surely? Start with the categories, and then do the templates?
I had a quick glance at Category:Wikipedia essays, and I am not sure that a single format will work.
e.g. Category:Wikipedia how-to essays and Category:Humorous Wikipedia essays can't use an "on" format.
Personally, I prefer "Wikipedia essays about Foo" rather than "of Foo"; it is a more broadly-applicable construction. However, we'll do the nom in whatever form you choose, and I can propose an ALT rename if I disagree.
As a first step, I will use AWB to build and analyse some lists, and see what you make of that. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:07, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
@BrownHairedGirl: Sure, I knew there would be a handful of "the pattern won't fit" cases, like Humorous essays. (And I was going for "on" not "of"). I wouldn't object strenuously to "about"; it's just three characters longer without particular benefit. I did read down the list again, and "on" (or "about", for that matter) will work even for the long-winded cases like "supporting", "outlining", and "identifying" (even "supporting" isn't necessary, since we don't have essays condemning editor endurance, ha ha). Humor and how-to, and "Wikipedia essays introducing or defining new terms‎", will likely be the only necessary irregularities, unless there's something I didn't notice in one of the subcats. (The last of those isn't for essays particularly about terminology, but meta-tracking of where our jargon came from. Some are entirely about a term/phrase, but others just introduced one somewhere in their midst. That said, I'm not sure this is useful, and it might be better re-scoped, though that's a separate CfD matter, not a naming normalization one).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:35, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: my first attempt at list-making failed. It found 375,000 pages ... which on investigation turned out to be in large part because @Mr. Guye had placed Category:Wikipedia:Systemic bias as a subcat of Category:Wikipedia neutrality essays. (A WP:TROUT is probably in order, but I'm feeling charitable tonight ...)
I will probably need a few more rounds of eliminating such horrors before I get a clean list. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:43, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
Argh. Yeah, the entire notion of bias isn't a Wikipedia essay, just the WP:Systemic bias actual essay is.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:57, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: lists now made, at User:BrownHairedGirl/WP-Essay categories. Take a look through them, and lemme know what you conclude. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:49, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
@BrownHairedGirl: Sorted, with some notes.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:04, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Appropriate notification

I'm interested in input from others. I would like to setup a RfC to get input on the notification section. I'm looking for suggestions as to what the changes might be.

Recently the category Automobile was renamed to Cars. This change was based on input from just four editors. This category has 24 subcategories and who know how many articles. The change was done with the minimum notification by the rules. None of the optional notifications appear to have been used [[2]]. The result of this limited notification was a long, concerned thread at Project:Automobiles where editors were clearly blindsided and not happy about the change.

My initial thought is a change the the CfD notification guidelines to some level of required above and beyond the current automated system or make the lack of above minimal notification and limited discussion participation a reason to challenge a move. I would assume that most category name changes are smaller (fewer associated articles and sub-categories) but I'm concerned that many impacted editors aren't going to be following teh few places where the current minimum notices would be posted and thus the community voice won't be heard. Again I'm looking for suggestions for ways to address this. Springee (talk) 03:32, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

As I posted at Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion#Category_move_review_notice:_Category:Automobile_->_Cars., above, I propose appropriate notification means posting notification on the talk page of the parent article, if there is one. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:35, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
I think that would be a good first step but in the case of automobile I don't think the parent article would be enough. Consider that many editors in the automotive section have specific areas they are typically interested in. For example, I've been involved in a few automotive technology articles and a limited number of specific model pages. These are pages that are impacted by this category change. I've hardly noted the parent article page but I have been active in the automotive space since joining Wikipedia. I suspect I'm not the only one. BTW, please don't take my comment as anything combative. I appreciate the feedback and agree that such a change would be both a obvious good start and a minimum. Springee (talk) 03:47, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
The issue of appropriate notification comes up every so often at CfD, and I acknowledge that it is trying to address a legitimate issue. However, I think that looking through the lens of notification ultimately misdiagnoses the problem. The unfortunate reality is that few editors are interested in categorization and category discussions, especially to the extent needed to make informed contributions to CfD (i.e. reading the categorization guidelines), and additional notification requirements will not change people's interests. I understand the WikiProject's frustration but the fact is that the project was notified via Article Alerts. If a project's members are not monitoring these notices (I admit, I don't always follow my projects' Article Alerts), then I struggle to accept the idea that the nominator needs to bear a greater burden of notification. Posting notices to WikiProject talk pages is an option ({{Cfd-notify}} has a parameter just for this), but flooding WikiProject talk pages with CfD notices would be counterproductive as it would only desensitize people to the notices. So, I guess I'm saying... I agree that there is an issue, but I don't think notification requirements are the answer. -- Black Falcon (talk) 19:38, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
I would agree with Black Falcon here. Also, isn't this the type of thing people could use their watchlists to monitor if they were particularly interested? The only other thing I could think of is a bot that scans CfD for nominations, then goes through the contributors &/or members of the category (in case of a user category) to notify those who opt-in, which is at least an improvement without putting the onus on the nominator to do any extra work. VegaDark (talk) 09:07, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
If read the misdiagnosis analysis as circular logic, and do think better better notification can be done. I don’t think WikiProject notifications is the way forward, as WikiProjects are only dying, and think parent article notification is a very good answer. Would this be too much work? Most categories are subcategories without a direct parent article. Could a bot easily recognise a CfD listed category as having a parent article (templated on the category page) and post a notification on the parent article talk page? This would mean no burden on the nominator. This happens to suit my belief that categories should whenever possible explicitly link to its parent article, and that only the top of the category tree does this, not the subcategories. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:22, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

What about an alternative solution. For a short period of time (perhaps 2 weeks) after a name change is implemented we could allow for the discussion to be reopened if, as a suggestion, two or more editors who weren't part of the original discussion request additional time. This would have addressed the concerns the project automobile editors had since they would be able to weigh in on a discussion they weren't aware of. I don't think just notifying a parent article is sufficient (though it should be required). Many editors such as my self are active in The subtopics but not the parent topic. That and to be honest, I would have assumed the automobile project was the parent. In any case, a short term window to reopen a discussion would be a clean way to address the issue without adding to the notification burden. Springee (talk) 14:52, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

That's an intriguing idea... I am not against it in principle (although, maybe a shorter window of 2-3 days instead of 2 weeks), but I think it depends on the problem we are trying to address. For example, if the original discussion's outcome was flawed (e.g., legitimate arguments were not given due weight), why not just overturn it at MR and start a new discussion? Discussions that are kept open for a long time (and this is not unique to CfD) tend to become stale, muddled, and difficult for a closer to evaluate. -- Black Falcon (talk) 17:58, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
So I think the case where the closing is questioned based on the information presented the current rules already have that covered. The problem I'm trying to address is only the one due to a lack of notification (either due to an editor following the bare minimum or because not all interested/impacted editors/articles/projects will be on the right distribution lists). In it's simplest form we simply say a move discussion can be reopened for some period of time (TBD) if two or more previously uninvolved editors nominate to reopen the discussion. I'm saying 2 editors because I don't think the views of a single editor are likely to change an outcome and I don't think a single editor failing to notice is really what we are trying to fix here. I'm a bit torn on the time limit. On one hand this does need to be time limited but I don't want some bureaucratic thing where if you protest in 47 hours things are good but 49 hours is too long. It should be based on when the actual change is implemented, not when the discussion is closed. The project Automobile discussion concerning the category change was about 3 days after a number of projects started changing. I think if we called it a week after the change was implemented and offer some latitude for a rolling change (for example the parent category is changed right away but the subcategories are changed a few days later). The time limit should be a guideline. The core idea is to allow a nomination to reopen and extend discussion by a previously uninvolved editors (one to nominate a reopen, one to second the reopen). We could avoid some issues by noting that the nomination must include a justification. Perhaps if the reopen comes in just a few days you don't need a reason but more than a few days would then require some explanation why the reopen request was delayed. This would seem to be in the spirit of consensus building etc. Springee (talk) 02:27, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
"the parent category is changed right away but the subcategories are changed a few days later" could make things a lot more complicated for the CFD closer etc and wouldn't solve the problem you think there is as (if you hadn't watchlisted the parent category and it contains few articles directly then you probably wouldn't notice it being renamed).
I'm not convinced that your "discussion can be reopened for some period of time" idea is worth the extra complexity it would add; creating a new CFD which links to the earlier one (or using MR/DRV if appropriate) achieves pretty much the same thing using existing processes. DexDor (talk) 07:18, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
@Springee: Thanks for the added clarification of your proposal. However, I am still struggling to understand why we need an additional process. As you say, if an editor challenges an outcome based on new information or arguments, "the current rules already have that covered". In the remainder of cases, where the editor has nothing new to add, what value does their participation add? After all, notification and participation are merely means to an end (a comprehensive discussion and, hopefully, a good outcome), not goals in and of themselves. -- Black Falcon (talk) 19:53, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
BF, thanks for the feedback. My concern is when only a limited discussion occurs because concerned editors were unaware. Presumably more editors would bring either different arguments than already occurred in the limited discussion or, in cases where weight of numbers vs strict policy will make the difference, the votes of more editors may make a difference. I'll use the recent Category:Automobile -> Cars rename as an example since I was involved. The original 22 Oct change from Automobile->Cars was decided by just 4 editors who were unanimous in their view. Almost immediately after a number of subcategories were changed a concerned editor asked about the changes at Project:Automobiles. It was clear that most responding editors were unaware of the change. I started a second move discussion to reverse the first (not the correct procedure but I'm not sure what was in this case). That RM was listed at two related projects and had 20 participants who were closely split and offered arguments for and against having a Cars vs Automobile title. So under my proposal, the original discussion could be reopened with a justification that the original notification hadn't reached impacted editors. I don't think think would result in topics lingering open since, just as the first time, the discussion will run it's course and be closed again. The concerned parties will get their voices heard and the argument that notification was inadequate will be addressed. It would be unlikely a discussion would be opened a third time under such a rule since you would now need to find two additional editors who would have to argue why the first and second rounds of notifications didn't reach them. That seems unlikely to me. Ideally this would be used rarely but it would provide a backstop for cases where a legitimate argument can be made that concerned parties wouldn't have known about the discussion. Springee (talk) 02:41, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
CfD notification at the "Main article"/"parent article", is needed and is sufficient. Notify the articles listed as parameters in the Template:Cat main at the top of the category page.
For Category:Cars, that means notify Talk:Cars
For Category:Car brands, there is no main article, so no article talk page to notify.
Article talk page notifications work. For example, Talk:Car#Category_name_change_Cars_->_Automobiles, posted by Springee 20:13, 26 October 2018 (UTC), brought a whole lot of people to Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2018_October_26#Category:Cars ("RM2")
In comparison, Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2018_October_10#Category:Automobiles ("RM1") was not advertised at Talk:Cars and only three people turned up.
Ideally, RM1 would have been better advertised, as was RM2.
More ideally, the category, and subcategories, should be been promptly renamed as a consequence of Talk:Car/Naming#RM_(September_2014). Category titling is and should be subservient to article titling decisions. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:11, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
Catmain talk page notification might be realistic (I'm not so sure about useful; see below). WikiProject notices would be neither, both for the "wikiprojects are dying" reason provided by SmokeyJoe, but also the more serious one that many wikiprojects have devolved into canvassing farms of lock-step editors (often only 2–5 active ones, who have chased off everyone else) with have a strong penchant for lobbying against guidelines and policies applying to "their" special topic. It's a constant problem in WP:RM discussions and in MoS-related RfCs; the last thing we need to do is empower it at CfD as well. However, I'm skeptical of the utility of even notifying the talk page[s] of a category's main article[s]. Categories are not moved capriciously, but in accordance with a set of rather tedious and specialized conventions, which are not identical nomenclature for those that are used in article titles and in running text (themselves not entirely identical to each other). Most editors are not actually familiar with CfD and its rationales, so ginning up a sudden firehose of topically interested input isn't likely to actually be productive but often the opposite. If CfR/CfM/CfD makes an outright error, this is made plain soon enough, and the decision can either be reversed with a closure appeal, or more often with a new Cfx that presents clearer rationales than the original discussion. Still, if we decide we want some notification, it's the kind I wouldn't object to strenuously. Spamming all editors who [some criterion here], or talk pages of all pages in the category, or talk pages of all wikiprojects that claim scope on some or all of the articles, they're all just out of the question. Indeed, one of the tools available to closers in assessing the validity of an apparent consensus is seeing whether someone from a wikiproject went and (usually non-neutrally) notified the wikiproject of the discussion and whether this generated a sudden bloc-voting influx with a singleminded viewpoint. We should not do anything that takes away such a tool.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:18, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

RfC on permitting "List of foo" mainspace titles to redirect to categories instead

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see: Wikipedia talk:Stand-alone lists#RfC about redirects to categories
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:44, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Category:Millennials

I have to run at the moment, but just noticed Category:Millennials and am bookmarking it here to come back and discuss (if anyone gets to this sooner than me, go for it). Marquardtika (talk) 22:45, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

re recent change

On Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2018_November_29#Category:Former_populated_places_in_Palestine_(region) there was a little notified and little discussed change: Former populated places in Palestine (region) was deleted, and some places were then put into Former populated places in Israel instead.

This is a highly controversial deletion. One effect: Al-Bassa is now listed as a "Former populated places in Israel" ...when it was never populated in Israeli time, indeed, it was the creation of Israel which lead to the destruction of Al-Bassa.

How can I get this changed back? Huldra (talk) 21:37, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

@Huldra: first, ask the closer to consider reopening the discussion. – Fayenatic London 22:49, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
Ok, thanks, and done, Huldra (talk) 23:00, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

RFC: Move stubtypes (and categories populated by templates currently on TFD) to TFD

I think that putting stub templates up for discussion on a page whose title includes "Categories" is kinda... odd. It would make more sense to put these templates on TFD like everything else, and also put categories populated by templates currently up for TFD on TFD, instead of dividing the nomination between two forums and two sets of regulars. Kamafa Delgato (Lojbanist)Styrofoam is not made from kittens. 23:17, 22 December 2018 (UTC)  Request withdrawn Kamafa Delgato (Lojbanist)Styrofoam is not made from kittens. 19:15, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

  • oppose stub template usually has its related category Hhkohh (talk) 00:58, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - stub templates and stub categories are closely coupled, in many cases there is a one-to-one relationship - for example, {{UK-geo-stub}} goes with Category:United Kingdom geography stubs. They are discussed at CFD since it's primarily a categorisation system, with the stub templates providing the categorisation plus a means of making the fact that the article is a stub somewhat more visible than looking in the cat box at the bottom.
    Until six or seven years ago we had a separate WP:SFD system specifically for both stub templates and stub categories (nothing else): it was closed down (see this RfC) with the decision that both should be discussed at CFD. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:06, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

question re non-admin closure

hi. just a question, what happens if a user disagrees with the ruling when closure is made by a non-admin? is there any way to contest or to appeal any such closure?

I appreciate any help. if and when someone replies, please be sure to tag me in any reply, by using the template {{ping|sm8900}} . thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 19:32, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

@Sm8900: You already asked this at Wikipedia talk:Deletion process#question re non-admin closure, where a reply has been left by Joe Roe. Please observe WP:MULTI. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:46, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
ok, thanks, but hold on a second, the page I was directed to there pertains to deletions. I thought that this page Categories for discussion, is more broad in scope? are you saying that the page to appeal deletions is also the page to appeal any other rulings as well, i.e. on categories discussed here on this page? thanks very much. --Sm8900 (talk) 18:27, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
@Redrose64:, thanks for your reply above. sorry, but I need to further clarify, as per my question above. would the page to appeal category deletions, also be the page to appeal any other rulings on categories as well? i aprpeciate any help. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 16:30, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
It depends upon the venue and the outcome. It would have helped immensely if you had linked to the discussion concerned. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:04, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
well, right now, there isn't one.--Sm8900 (talk) 02:52, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
It does seem a little odd that the instructions don't include any guidance as to what an editor should do if they disagree with the outcome of a CfD... Even if there's simply no venue for an appeal, perhaps the instructions should say that... DonIago (talk) 15:08, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
Doniago, the procedure is to raise it here (and be chided for doing so). So it goes. cygnis insignis cygnis insignis 19:11, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
I don't know why I expected it to be otherwise... :p DonIago (talk) 19:13, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
I don't know why you're asking here. It's covered at Wikipedia:Deletion process#Deletion review. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:15, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
Er...why would one expect information for how to appeal a move to be discussed at deletion review? Also I didn't readily see any instructions for how to challenge a rename... DonIago (talk) 14:47, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
As things presently stand, if a CfD closes as "rename", and you wish to dispute that, it's a WP:DRV matter. There is a proposal to alter this from DRV to WP:MRV, see Wikipedia talk:Move review#RfC: Should the purview of move review be expanded to include CfDs and RfDs that are limited in scope to renaming? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:49, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
Thanks! DonIago (talk) 14:52, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Consistency

After our prolonged discussions I am confused about what I am supposed to do about Organizations. I've been trying very hard to make sure any new categories I create using this word are consistent with the head category for the country. Then I come to Category:Organizations based in Kuwait and there is no consistency. Am I supposed to leave all the categories as they are? If I want to make a new one do I use S or Z? My impression from our debates is that most of the editors who actually work on these categories would be happy to switch them all to Z, but we are caught on a policy which is devised, and makes sense, for articles, but is unhelpful when applied to categories. I've been involved with similar discussions about healthcare and health care. In each case there is no compelling reason to prefer either usage, and I find it hard to believe that anyone has strong feelings on the matter, apart from the people who misguidedly believe that spelling organization with a Z is capitulating to American imperialism. I dont see that the MOS:ENGVAR policy helps much as these are mostly countries where English is not a native language. And as far as healthcare is concerned there isn't any identifiable pattern of usage. But our discussions in each case have been inconclusive. Is there a way forward in the direction of consistency? Do we abandon the idea of consistency? And what am I to do in Kuwait? Can I do what I like? Rathfelder (talk) 00:28, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

  • We don’t have to completely “abandon” consistency... rather we have to understand that consistency is not always achievable. consistency is only one aspect of choosing a title (and not always the most important - sometimes other factors outweigh consistency). Consistency should be part of any discussion, but it isn’t necessarily the deciding factor. Blueboar (talk) 14:26, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
As for what you should do... Simple: If you are creating a new category, you can spell it however you want... but accept that others may disagree... and be ready to discuss the options with an open mind. If you think the spelling in an existing category should change, go to the talk page and explain why you think this... make the best case you can... but accept that others may not agree with your arguments. And (whatever happens)... never edit war over it. Always be willing to “lose” a disagreement. Blueboar (talk) 15:13, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
You haven't linked to the "prolonged discussions" that you referred to. Has there been an RFC on this yet? if so, I'm sorry I missed it. If not, please start one.
Meanwhile on Kuwait, the categories currently have literally six of one and half a dozen of the other, so (preferably) hope for a decisive consensus at RFC, or (if impatient) tag all 12 for a full CFD discussion with two options. – Fayenatic London 16:03, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
  • With Kuwait I would use 'z' per Category:Organizations based in Kuwait with any new creation. If it were 'Category:Organisations based in Foo' I would use 's'. I doubt if an RFC would resolve these matters. (Changing 'organisations' to 'organizations' at speedy or cfd seems to me to be more difficult than the reverse.) Oculi (talk) 09:55, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Bulk deletions on 'stale' CfDs?

Is the deletion (see Special:Contributions/BrownHairedGirl) of Category:Quacks and category:American quacks justified, when it is based on no evident discussion and merely cites a four year old CfD (linked with a broken link) at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2014_May_1#Category:Pseudoscientists? That CfD was actually specific that it did not cover a 'Quacks' category, as there was none that long ago. I do not think so. Even if this category should be deleted, we work by consensus here, not by runaway admins acting on their own personal biases. There is a rather obvious connection to Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2019_January_6#Category:Autism_quackery. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:40, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

They've now gone on to G4 delete Category:Autism_quackery, see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2019_January_6#Category:Autism_quackery, which is in no way supported by consensus at that CfD. Andy Dingley (talk) 02:00, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley: See my reply to @Jehochman at User talk:BrownHairedGirl#Quackery.

Consensus was clearly established in an exceptionally extensive CFD debate at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 May 1#Category:Pseudoscientists, which was closed by a panel of 3 admins. That closure was upheld at WP:Deletion review/Log/2014 June 2.

Here's the relevant section, which prompted my actions per WP:BLP/WP:G4/WP:G10. I have added bolding to the most relevant section.

The category will therefore be renamed Category:Advocates of pseudoscience (as of May 23, categories may be renamed through a page move, and this will be implemented once that option becomes available). Furthermore, this category will only serve as a holding category for subcategories (and should be tagged with {{container category}}). This category therefore should be empty as to articles, and should contain only subcategories such as Category:Alchemists and Category:Phrenologists, on the condition that reliable sources generally classify the subcategorized field itself as a pseudoscience. The rename makes the category more accurate (all astrologers advocate in some sense for a pseudoscience, but not all are pseduoscientists as many employ pure mysticism), while the depopulation largely eliminates the BLP problem (people do not self-identify as pseduoscientists, but do self-identify as crytozoologists). Because of this subcategorization, the "pseudoscientist" category will not appear on the articles of subjects, and therefore will not be detrimental to article subjects who might dispute that categorization.

It is regrettable that 4 years later, the BLP and neutrality principles which were asserted on the basis of such substantive discussion are apparently controversial among some editors. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:40, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

  • I place zero weight on a 4 year old CfD when we're in the middle of another CfD. One that is possibly looking to rename, but certainly not to delete.
Secondly, you were WP:INVOLVED in that 2014 CfD, just shouldn't be anywhere near closing it, closing the current CfD (you were INVOLVED in that too), or doing bulk speedy deletions using either of those. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:48, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
I posted this on the basis of your speedy deletions citing the old CfD, before you closed (or before I saw it) the current CfD. Having seen that, I now think this probably needs to go to ANI, not just CfD. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:49, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2019 January 12 Hhkohh (talk) 09:58, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
@Andy Dingley: As noted above, I took those actions because I believed (and still believe) that they were justified by WP:G4, WP:BLP and WP:G10. You are of course free to open an ANI discussion if you feel that DRV cannot consider all pertinent issues. But please do remember to notify editors of any ANI discussions which involve them. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:18, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Tagging bot

Is there any support for a bot (mine) that would go through a category and tag all of its subcategories with CFDS alerts? This would only be for simple cases where lots of categories would be renamed with a consistent regex change. I have User:DannyS712 test/GTK.js for easily tagging them one-at-a-time, but my bot would be a lot easier. For examples of when this could be used, see Special:PermanentLink/883583596 at both the top of current requests (vice-presidential candidates) and at the English-language singers section, as well as Special:PermanentLink/882876513#GTK for the original idea. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 08:49, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Pinging the editors involved in those discussions: @Fayenatic london, Ymblanter, Editor-1, and Walk Like an Egyptian --DannyS712 (talk) 08:49, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

It's only occasionally wanted for the Speedy page, but could certainly be a help for full CFD nominations. – Fayenatic London 22:01, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
I fully agree. We usually do not need this, but once in a while somebody nominates 200 categories at a time, and then a bot is needed.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:28, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Listifying

Hi. I'm new to this page, but have created lists for categories that should be listified.

I could keep going, but I don't want to create new work, so I'll stop here. What are the steps to be taken after creating a list?

Other questions:

  • When a category has sub-categories, are all of the pages in those categories also added to the list?
  • did you know that, with User:DannyS712/Cat links, you can easily retrieve a list of all of the pages in a category (subcategories coming soon) and add them to a page? That's how I did the 5 above in 5 minutes.

Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 07:06, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

See WP:NOTDUP. Or do you think these categories fail WP:OCAT? postdlf (talk) 13:57, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
Neat script! As for your questions, I assume these are all in context of a CfD that resulted in a "listify" outcome... What are the steps to be taken after creating a list? If it is a stand-alone list, move it to the main namespace (if ready) or to the Draft namespace (if not ready) and give it an appropriate title (e.g. List of X). If it is a list within a larger article, it's usually best to just add a section that includes the list. When a category has sub-categories, are all of the pages in those categories also added to the list? It depends—this is really something which should have been considered in the CfD. -- Black Falcon (talk) 16:32, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
Good idea, well done, Danny.
For the record, the above were covered by "listify" results at CFD, 2018 April 30 or 2018 July 27.
Some of these lists are not long enough to require a separate page, so I would add them as new sections to the related article e.g. Dance India Dance. If people start adding more information to each entry, expanding the section significantly, it could then be split out after all. IMHO this is better than starting small lists as separate pages. – Fayenatic London 21:20, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
@Fayenatic london: My original question about subcategories still stands though - I only listified the categories without subcategories, but I'd like to help with the rest, I just want to know the right way. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 02:01, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
@DannyS712: I think that depends. If Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2019_January_31#Category:Palestinian_Christian_communities had been closed as "Listify", I would have made a list of both categories on one page, but with a separate section for the former sub-cat, and created a redirect "List of Arab Christian communities in Israel" to that section heading. That's a case where the sub-cat was also nominated, and where its contents were a logical sub-set of the other category. Sometimes in English Wikipedia, the latter does not apply, e.g. you could have a category of places, with sub-categories of buildings in those places or people from those places; those should not usually be combined into a list of places (not the people, anyway; perhaps the buildings, if not many?). If such sub-categories are being retained, it would probably be useful to include a link to them in the list; but it all depends on the context.
Ah, you mean "the rest" currently waiting at WP:CFDWM. In the case of Category:Dancing with the Stars participants, I think the national lists belong in articles about the national TV shows, rather than in one international list of participants in multiple shows. The categories for deletion have sub-cats of winners; yes, certainly the winners must be included in the lists of participants, even though the categories of winners are not being deleted. Note that sub-cats that are kept may need to be moved up into parent categories.
If you need help thinking about what would be the best outcome in particular cases, by all means ask here or on another suitable talk page. – Fayenatic London 14:41, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
@Fayenatic london: I have moved the contents of Category:Rokdim Im Kokhavim participants to List of Rokdim Im Kokhavim participants. However, the manual working page says to only mark the category for deletion once it is emptied. Do I have to manually remove the category from each page? This would be another case of where the bot I brought up above would help - removing categories. --DannyS712 (talk) 02:49, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
@DannyS712: if you're not an admin, you can ask me or another admin to list the category for deletion on WP:CFDW, so that Cydebot will process it (remove the category from each page and then delete it). Alternatively, use your own bot, or WP:JWB, or WP:Cat-a-lot to remove it from each page; in any case please link to the CFD in a the edit summary. After that, move the entry to the last section of CFDWM (Ready for deletion).
In this instance, I also suggest setting up a new category for Lists of Dancing with the Stars participants. – Fayenatic London 07:33, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Region sub-categories of Category:France geography articles needing translation from French Wikipedia

With the regions mergers of 2014, these maintenance categories do not describe reality anymore, and therefore the categories of the old regions should be merged under the name of the new regions which they are now part of, bringing the number of categories from 27 to 18. Furthermore, the communes by department subcats should be hidden, being of the same type of category as the main category, although I am unsure whether that last issue is relevant to categories for discussion. Sadenar40000 (talk) 17:18, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Cydebot replacement

Please see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/JJMC89 bot III, where I am requesting to take over Cydebot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 4) at Black Falcon's request. Since this task is already being performed by an adminbot, I believe this should be uncontroversial. Any comments are welcome. (Also posted at WP:AN.) — JJMC89 (T·C) 07:36, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

See also bot

Hi. For categories that are turned into lists, would there be support for a bot to add the list to the see also sections of pages now in that list? I was about to listify Category:Battles won by Indigenous peoples of the Americas, but I realized that it would likely be an orphan or have very few incoming links. If we add to each of the category's pages' see also section "List of battles won by Indigenous peoples of the Americas (which would be a relevant article to add) it would ensure that the page has incoming links. Thoughts? --DannyS712 (talk) 20:52, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Unnecessary bot edits

This has been implemented {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 02:31, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I've just coded Module:XfD old, which automatically generates the (currently bot-maintained) content at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Awaiting closure from the full list at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Old unclosed discussions. Any comments before I implement the same module on Categories for Discussion? {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 01:01, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/All old discussions

I just created Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/All old discussions, which lists all discussions more than seven days old that aren't closed yet in one page. To me, that seems much nicer than the previous hack of separate lists for various times in the past, regardless of which discussions were closed. (For the technically curious, this list is built by parsing the "/Old unclosed discussions" list and manually transcluding all the sections individually, which explains why there are no (edit) links.) {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 04:27, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Hack? I thought it was ok.
Something I liked about it was the ease of reviewing all old discussions, open and closed. When you get involved in CfDs, they can take weeks to get closed, and without these pages the old discussions are forgotten. I think it is important to review what happened in old discussions you contributed to.
I’m sure we can retain options. Of course, it is important to be able to browse all unclosed discussions. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:23, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
That point actually makes some sense to me... {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 21:31, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
:) I like it when what I say makes sense to someone. I also thank you again for doing these things that make contributing easier for me and others. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:32, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
  • That is very helpful. Thank you.Rathfelder (talk) 15:40, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
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