This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:Categorization. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
This is what the category guideline says about categorization of burial. "If it is relevant to identify the place of burial (either from the perspective of the person or the burial place), then someone buried in a less notable cemetery, or in a place with just a few notable burials, should be recorded in a list within the article about the burial place. However, if the burial place is notable in its own right and has too many other notable people to list, then such burials may be categorized." I take this to mean the following A-our default should be creating a list at the article on the cemetery, not making a category. B-articles should be placed only in categories for burial by cemetery or cemetery like place. higher level categories seem to only exist to group these categories by cemetery, not to directly place articles. So as I am reading this we would create a list for the specific cemetery in New York City someone is buried in. If that list gets big enough that it would reasonably support a category we would create a category. We then would group those categories by city. We actually have "Category:Burials in New York City by place" that makes this clear in the title. I am not sure why the next level up, Burials in New York state, does not make this clear in the title. It might help a lot if we made it clear in the title in more categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:31, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
At the same time I am also not understanding why the category "burial monuments and structures in New York (state)' is under "burials in New York (state)". I think the later is a sub-set of the category "burial in New York (state)" which is different than "burials in New York (state)". One is a topic article for articles about the thing, and the other is a set article for articles that are the thing. I think normally we link the other way around. So we have a category "chemistry" and we make "chemists" a sub-set of Chemistry, we do not make chemistry a sub-set of chemists. I am thinking we need to reverse the order of these categories. Or maybe create a parent category "burial in New York (state)" that is an overarching topic category, with sub-cats "burials in New York (state)" which we probably should rename to
burials by place in New York (state)" but I am not sure "place" is the right word, we do not mean "populated place", we mean "cemetery or place that functions like a cemetery". I also wonder if the parent category named "burials" should be renamed to "burial" or if maybe we should create a sepeate category "burial". I am also not sure why we need say "burials by castle". I understand some castles are defining places of burial. However I am not seeing why the fact that the place of burial was a castle is of any import. I do not think this aides navigation, esepcially since it has only 3 sub-cats. We are not going to create a category "burials in castles" and place in it everyone we have reliable sources showing they were buried in a castle, so I really do not see the point in sorting by so many things. The whole burials tree seems way more complex than it needs to be. In fact with the US I am thinking we should make burials in X state by cemetery the main category, everything else looks like needless clutter. New York state have 42 categories under burials in New York (state) by cemetery. It has a further 10 categories that subdivide basically the same context by an eclectic mix of city or county.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:47, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
Revolutionaries v Rebels
I just came upon Indzhe Voyvoda who was in a revolutionary category. I added him to another for the state he actually lived in. However it seems odd. The article really seems to be saying he was an outlaw, a bandit, maybe a highwayman. I am not sure how he was a revolutionary. It seems the assumption is "every Bulgarian who violently resisted the rule of the Ottoman Empire was a revolutionary." This does not seem to be a good way to define the term. However I am starting to think in some cases one person's rebel is another person's revolutionary. At other times the terms get used fairly interchangeably. There are maybe 3 actual groups. 1-people who are often called "rebels", who seek to change the currently ruler, but who are content with the system as such. However I think some sources call those involved in the American Revolutionary War "rebels", and they do not fit in this group. 2-People who seek to change the system of government. Such as going for a monarchy to democracy. Or instituting a socialist revolution. 3-people who seek to end what they see as foreign control of a place. Sometimes this is obvious, such as those seeking to end British rule in India. Other times it is less clear. I knew someone who thought the Free Savoie types were a bit nutty, and did not think Savoy/Savoie was a distinct enough place for such a movement to make sense. My experience is both Revolutionary is used at times for all 3, group 3 is regularly called Revolutionary, and at times rebel. There are clearly not 3 widely used terms, which is why we do not have 3 categories. My sense is the split between rebels and revolutionaries is less than clear, especially since we have 3 terms covering 2 topics. The fact that some people seek both to overthrow outside colonial rule, and maybe institute a Communist or other drastically different form of government in the place where they are trying to end colonial rule means that 2 and 3 overlap. I am beginning to think the best solution might be to create a category called say French rebels and revolutionaries, or German rebels and revolutionaries or Rebels and revolutionaries from the Ottoman Empire, and group both. We have other compound named categories like Dramatists and playwrights. This would also avoid us having to parse out exactly what counter revolutionaries are. They are actually revolutionaries, but since sometimes "revolutionary" is used as code to mean "supports of the group that won in X revolution", it can come to be seen to have a narrow ideological meaning. A general rebels and revolutionaries category would allow for grouping people more by what they did than what they thought, especially since some people under our current system probably would count as both rebels and revolutionaries, since they were involved in multiple such movements, but we really do not need multiple such categories on the same article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:42, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
Johnpacklambert#People in non-people by century categories
I asked a question on my talk page about people in by century categories that are not meant for people. I think that might be something that people here would be interested in. I do not want to engage in over posting or forum shopping, so I am just putting notice of it here.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:48, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
So I came across a Soviet musicians who was a singer and an accordionist. I am not seeing enough Soviet accordionists who have articles to justify that Category. I am thinking that however we need him in something other than Soviet male singers. I put him in Accodinists, but still feel that another Category is needed. I actually created a Category:Soviet instrumental musicians, but noticed there is no instrumental musicians. We basically have musicians, then divide by genre and by composers, conductors (music), singers, and then specific instruments such as accordion, organ, piano, tuba, guitar, drums etc. We end up with a huge number of 1 article intersections of instrumental and nationality, especially since dome categories are things like 20th-century Norwegian accordionists, or 21st-century Irish accordionists, or 18th-century French violinists. Others are Dutch jazz trumpets or Irish classical clarinetists. We may even have 20th-century American jazz trumpeters, a 4 way intersection of instrumental, nationality, century and genre. At one point we have categories like 20th-century African-American women opera singers, which is technically a 6 way intersection of nationality, ethnicity, gender, genre and instrument (if we count voice as an instrument). African-Americans are American nationals, so I think calling it 6 way is right. It has 1 non-diffusing trait, and 1 trait where we allow an ERGS trait to diffuse. Singers we allow to diffuse by gender. Those 6 way intersection categories are no more, but we have many. They work if they can be reasonably filled. I think we need to do something about the 1 article cats.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:32, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
I rethink one of the two following ideas would help. 1-Treat singers, composers and conductors as semi-nom-diffudimg subcats. Let me explain. If someone was only a singer, composer or conductors we would diffuse. If they were any of those plus a player of an instrument, we would allow placing in say both French musicians and French male singers, or French tenors, until there were enough Frech harmonica players or whatever instrument to justify diffusion.
2. What I think would be better is create a category French insteumental musicians. Right now we have Frebmnch musicians by instrument. This is a container category. You either have to choose a specific instrument or leave the article directly in French musicians. The problem is that the intersection of instrument and nationality is not going to always lead to large numbers of articles. We generally need at least 5 articles for a category to help navigation. We probably only have 1 article on a Panamania accordionist. There is another issue. Some people are not very defined by the specific isteuments they played, but that they played instruments is defining. We do havd a multi-i strumentalidt category. However this oddly mainly works to create category clutter. We have someone in German trumpeters, German horn players, German tuba players, and German flutists. Now we can add him into German multi-instrumentalists. We do not have someone in German geologists, German chemists, German botanists and German zoologists and them add him to German multi-discipline scientists. Maybe there is really justification for the multi-instrumentalists cat, but I think we need an instrumental musicians one as well. This would be a huge change to how musician categories are ordered. I am not sure if we would want to rename say Australian musicians by instrument to Australian instrumental musicians, orleave both categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:47, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
It looks like a current problem is that since voice is being classed as an instrument, instrumental musicians would include singers, unless we come up with another term.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:56, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
I checked Australian musicians. I think there are 9 sub-cats of Australian musicians by instrument,not counting any under singers, that have 1 article. There are several others that are under 5 articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:56, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
Overcategorization
I just had this note connected with an edit reversion. "Undid revision1231303175byJohnpacklambert(talk) It is standard practice to include all such categories for professional athletes. Abbott played for 18 professional teams and they can't all be expected to be mentioned in this article. His teams are easily verified via the external links at the bottom of this article." I am sorry. This is just plain wrong practice. If we cannot be bothered to mention something in the text of an article, it is too trivial to categorize by. Categories are supposed to lead people through somewhat similar articles. A minimum expectation is that the information be mentioned in the article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:09, 9 July 2024 (UTC) I recently had 4 articles I had edited get revered. This is the general tone of the edit summaries. "Undid revision1231303175byJohnpacklambert(talk) It is standard practice to include all such categories for professional athletes. Abbott played for 18 professional teams and they can't all be expected to be mentioned in this article. His teams are easily verified via the external links at the bottom of this article." I am sorry, this is just ludicrous. First off, external links are not always reliable sources, so just using them to push categories directly is problematic. Beyond this, categories are supposed to link something that means something. They need to be "defining". If playing for a team was so non-defining to a person that we do not even mention it anywhere in the text of the article, not even in a table, we should not categorize by it. This makes me think that at some level team played for becomes to close to performance by performer categories. I am sorry, but we should not be categorizing anyone by 18 different teams played, especially with the amount of other categories sports people are placed in. At least not when we do not even mention in any way all 18 teams in the article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:18, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
To be fair the word "professional" above means any level of paid baseball, even in this case A level minors. We have never even agreed that all these levels of playing baseball are notable, even when we were our most generous in granting notability to sportspeople. 18 different teams is just ludicrous. It comes very close to performer by performance level of teams. I am thinking at some point this violates the rule against categorizing performer by performance.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:21, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
The Abbott article is 16 paragraphs plus tables and other things long. It still does not mention Winston-Salem Warthogs or several other teams that he is categorized by. I am not sure why all 18 teams cannot be expected to be mentioned in his article, but if we cannot expect them to be mentioned in the article, I am not sure at all why we should categorize by them.~~~~~
I think we should limit categories to things that are mentioned in the article. If it is not defining enough to mention in the article I do not think it is defining enough to categorize by.~~~~
Things need to be clearly stated and explained in the article to use for categories, not just buried in some external link. I looked at the baseball minor reference link, and it was a confusing chart of abbreviations that I could not make any sense of.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:58, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
OK, on further reading I now see where the minor league teams are mentioned. I have grave doubts that we should be placing someone in a category (categories must be defining) based on a source that is a database that throws out a lot of statistics but has no prose about the person's time in the minor leagues. We are not a stat website, and if all we have about the time someone was a player for a team is stats that does not seem to be enough to say something substantive, and I do not see how we can argue some part of someone's life is defining if we do not have even a substantive source on it.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:03, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
WP:CATV applies here. If there is a category for a sports team's players, that team must be mentioned in the article prose as one that the person played for. With source, of course. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:29, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
I see that the guideline says "Categorization of articles must be verifiable. It should be clear from verifiable information in the article why it was placed in each of its categories." So I am right in stating that the information needs to be in the article, not just present in a source.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:56, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
I am thinking that even if we could make soured mention of these minor league playing roles, we have to ask if they are defining. For example, I do not think it is reasonable to mention most minor league playing in the lead of an MLB player article, so I do not think it actually for most meets the definition of definingness, and so I think most MLB players should not be categorized by most of the minor league teams they played for.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:27, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
Pinging Denniscabrams in here, as he is the editor whose edit summary was quoted above by John Pack Lambert. I disagree with Dennis's assertion that "18 professional teams...can't all be expected to be mentioned in this article." The Kurt Abbott article is aptly rated as Start class. It could be developed a whole bunch more. I just made some edits to it to include mention of his path through the minors from 1989 to 1993 toward his MLB debut. All of the minor league teams that Abbott played for can be easily verified at Baseball-reference.com, a highly reliable site; see https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=abbott001kur. I suspect one could find contemporary newspaper coverage to corroborate all of this and add more detail. John Pack Lambert, as for your claim that "we have never even agreed that all these levels of playing baseball are notable", we have stand-alone articles for all these minor league teams, like Southern Oregon Timberjacks and Tacoma Rainiers. What is the point of even having a category like Category:Southern Oregon A's players if it's not going to be populated with articles like the one for Kurt Abbott and similar players, most of whom ultimately became notable for their MLB careers? Jweiss11 (talk) 18:02, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
I really think that over 5 categories for teams played on is getting excessive. I think categorizing by Level A (4th tier) level of game played is even more excessive. This is not about "notable" this is about defining. No every thing that is verifiable is defining. When we get to a dozen or more categories this is excessive. The guidelines say that we should categorize by what is reasonable to include in a lead summary. We should not be categorizing based on newspaper reports as some moves through their career. This will often be primary and localized sources. Categories are supposed to be limited to defining characteristics. So for example we do not categorize people by every job they had, even if we can verify from reliable sources they had the job. We categorize them based on the careers they are regularly described as. If a women worked as a flight attendant for 6 months when she was 22, but went on to do other unrelated things the rest of her life, as a flight attendant. Yet if she had worked for years as a flight attendant we would. Categories on players should be limited to people who became well known for. A few weeks with a team is not defining. However it is definitely clear that no category should be placed on an aticle until it is mentioned in the article. Consensus can and does change, and local consensus that ignore the general principals should not be used, so we should not just say "this was discussed before, deal with it", we should discuss it now, because there is a huge problem with lots and lots and lots of article in categories not at all supported by the article text, a great many of which are biographies of living people where that is even worse. Also, Wikipedia is not a court, things are not litigated. Using that word to describe discussions of categorization is incorrect and inaccurate.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:56, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
John Pack Lambert, Rich Hill played for 13 different MLB teams. Would it be "excessive" in your view to categorize that article under all 13 teams? Jweiss11 (talk) 19:03, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
I would say yes… there was a period in his career when he was very injury prone, and as a result he only played a few games for some of those teams - being frequently either sent to minor league affiliates or traded. Blueboar (talk) 19:48, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
Blueboar, so you'd remove from of the 13 MLB team cats from the Rich Hill article? Which ones? Is there some minimum number of games played you could suggest to qualify for such categorization? Jweiss11 (talk) 19:51, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
I would certainly remove some as non-defining. I am not familiar enough with the details of his career to make definitive calls as to which, but JPL’s assessment (below) seems a good start. Blueboar (talk) 21:11, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
Blueboar, the principles here are not Rich Hill-specific. We need principles than can be applied consistently to tens of thousands of articles. Your suggestions thus far lack coherence. Jweiss11 (talk) 21:22, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
The principle to apply across tens of thousands of articles is: “Only categorize by what is defining”. In order to apply that at the Rich Hill article, you need to ask: “which of these team categories are defining for Rich Hill, specifically?” Blueboar (talk) 01:01, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
I would say that all 13 team categories are certainly defining. Appearing in MLB action for a specific team, e.g. (merely "donning the pinstripes") is very defining. What is the standard you propose to exclude for such MLB team categories. How much tenure is needed to qualify as defining? Jweiss11 (talk) 01:14, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
Yes, his comments are consistent with DEFCAT. The notability of these players are entirely based on them playing in MLB. No one creates articles on college or minor league players because they aren't notable. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 14:44, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
Bondegezou, WP:DEFCAT says: "A defining characteristic is one that reliable sources commonly and consistently refer to in describing the topic." In the case of an MLB player, the reliable sources are going to commonly and consistently refer to that subject as a player for those MLB teams. Jweiss11 (talk) 14:55, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
If reliable sources commonly and consistently refer to Hill in those terms, great, they meet WP:DEFCAT. Can you show reliable sources commonly and consistently referring to Hill with reference to, say, the San Diego Padres (as it's been suggested they don't meet WP:DEFCAT)? Bondegezou (talk) 15:36, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
Bondegezou, there's already two citations in the article that discuss Hill as a Padre. A quick google searches comes up with [1], [2], [3]. There are also definitive listings already included in the article that present Hill as a Padre, like: [4]. Jweiss11 (talk) 16:44, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
Well it looks to me like Rich Hill did not play any games with either the New York Mets or the Pittsburgh Pirates, at least the text does not mention any games with either, so those two both look like categories that are hard to justify. Actually the San Diego Padres too. So if he never played in a pro game with any of those three I think that is an easy call to say being a player for them is not defining. In general I think we can ask this question about any team he was not on the roster of for a full year. There might still be cases where it is defining, but not every time someone is on a team's roster is it defining. He may have played in games with those three teams, but the fact that there is no mention of it in the article seems to suggest these are not very defining postions.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:17, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
I know nothing about baseball, but I believe our basic principle is that a category should not be added to an article, especially a BLP, unless there is sourced content in the article to support it. That's not "It can be read in one of the external links", it's text in the article with a WP:RS. So either the clubs are important enough to be mentioned in the article and their categories added, or not. PamD14:57, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
In the case of the Rich Hill article, all 13 MLB teams he played for are mentioned in the article with good sourcing. What isn't in the article is the number of the games that Hill played for each and every one of those teams. But inclusion of such detail is not required for categorization. It's only relevant to a new, proposed standard that John Pack Lambert was suggesting above. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:41, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
For a player with a career that extends over several years, where they played for several teams, at a minimum it seems that player should have stepped up to the plate for the team at least once to be considered defining as opposed to just having a contract and being on injured reserve or some non-playing status. Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 11:14, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
FieldMarine, yes, actually playing in the regular season or postseason as opposed to mere having a contract is a clear, objective standard that can be applied consistently to thousands articles. In the case of baseball, we should remember that pitchers like Rich Hill often never bat all. But they do play—they pitch! Hill indeed played for all 13 of those MLB teams. He also played for the Michigan Wolverines in college and he's played for a bunch of minor league teams. Jweiss11 (talk) 14:03, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
For what it is worth I do not think we should categorize baseball players by county at all. We maybe should categorize them by the state they are from, not born per se, but where they were raised, but only of it is consistently stated. We should avoid categorizing them by more than one state.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:19, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
Our article Publican is about tax collectors in antiquity. Our category Publican, is about people who operated a pub. I think we should find a way to make it more clear that the category is not meant to include people who collected taxes for the Roman Empire.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:43, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
Templates in category pages
I've seen sometimes navigation templates included in category pages (for example Category:Amiga). Feels like an incorrect use of a category page but I couldn't find any guideline it goes against, closest is WP:CATDESC which says not to include refs or external links in category pages. Mika1h (talk) 16:42, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
I think you misunderstood me, that link is about how to categorize templates. See the example for what I mean, there are templates sometimes included within category pages. I just didn't want to remove them unless there is a guideline I can cite if someone reverts the edit. --Mika1h (talk) 17:49, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
Oh, yeah, those navboxes are all transcluded in the content of the category page. All they accomplish by being there is to link to the same articles that the category page and its subcategory pages already list (at least, all those articles should be in the category or a subcategory), and the reader has to scroll through them to get to the listing that the category page is there to provide, after being confused because they're not seeing what they expect when the page first displays. Redundant, confusing, pointless. Remove them. Largoplazo (talk) 19:14, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
Colonial American people
We have a category Colonial American people. It's header says "
These categories include people who were notable colonists in the regions of North America which would become the United States, that were in British (Thirteen Colonies), Dutch, French, Russian, Spanish or Swedish colonies."
This is a horrible,ahistoric, normalizing present boundaries way to organize things that strikes me as just plain wrong. All the more so because the header itself is not even correct. We should categorize people based on political reality at the time. I wish we could just have a People from British America Category to correspond with British America. The issue there is we already have People from the British West Indies. That groups people from the earliest days in the 1640s and even earlier, down to the 1960s. A lit are broken by Colony, but there are some other groupings. Even though it is an odd anachronism for most of their history People from the Thirteen Colonies is a common enough name that we can just apply it from 1607 on, and ignore than there are not actually 13 colonies until Georgia is formed in the 1720s or so. This leaves the Colony of Newfoundland, British Florida, British Newfoundland and British Quebec that includes Detroit, in an odd position. However my sense is we can live with that.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:11, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
My other sense is people have largely ignored the horrible header. We are not placing people living in what is now Texas, California and New Mexico under Spanish rule into Colonial American people or its subcats despite the header saying we should. I think at this point we around get rid of or rename the whole Colonial American people tree. Our guidelines really discourage using these confusing demonym forms at all. That is why we renamed Imperial Russian people to People from the Russian Empire. In a form like this is Colonial describing people or American. I think it is meant to modify Anerica, or American. So People from Colonial America. However this is America as in the United States of America, not America as in North America or South America. The current way it is used us intense headache forming. The most logical way to use it would be to have it cover everything that became America in 1776, which is effectively the 13 Colonies, so calling it People of the Thirteen Colonies, and excluding those only defined by actions in New Netherlands, New Sweden, New France, or in Spanish Florida that at times included areas later in Georgia and maybe further north would make sense.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:24, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
I think we should further rename People of the Thirteen Colonies to People from the Thirteen Colonies. The by Colony sub-cats use from, as do several others. "From" means essentially the sane thing as of. From can include those born elsewhere with an established connection. It woks way better with some subcats. A historian of the Thirteen Colonies can live anywhere, at any time after they were cemented, and if we get a painters cat the painters of the Thirteen Colonies is even worse.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:24, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
Actually it is 1732 when Georgia is formed. So the 13 Colonies exist de facto for only 44 years, and maybe de jure by dome view from 1732-1783, so 51 years. There were Colonies for at least 126 years before there are 13. However the name has become conventionally applied so I think it works.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:47, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
Having review Colonial American merchants only 1 person had not operated in areas under British control. I moved him to Dutch merchants, because that is what he was. The only other person who is borderline is George Crogan.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:13, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
Croghan did enough in New York he probably counts. Also Virginia claimed the Ohio country, so in the minds of Virginia authorities he was in Virginia. That some of his activities were in areas also claimed by Penbsylvania would make him fit better. He would more clearly fit in Category:Merchants from British America, but if someone really does not see him as fitting is Merchants from the Thirteen Colonies, we could just move him to Irish merchants. Merchant categorization is by nation of affiliation, not place of operation. A Britsh merchant does not become Chinese just because he comes ashore to sell ginseng, opium, or anything else in Shanghai. We are fairly lenient in allowing merchants who become settled residents of an area to be cataloged there, especially when they are from a home country and in a Colony. However Croghan can be called an Irish merchant, at least if we are not willing to accept his working with Johnson in the Province of New York making him from the Thirteen Colonies. I would accept that, but am not dead set on it.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:22, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
Is there a reason why someone could not be in more that one category… Irish merchant and Merchant from British America (or whatever)? Blueboar (talk) 10:57, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
If they were clearly a national of more than one place at different times in their life, then yes they would go in both.However, if they were only an expatriate Merchant then no they would not go in both. If we have a person who is a British merchant in the 1750s, who travels to Istanbul, sells his goods there for about a year, and then returns home, he is not now a Merchant from the Ottoman Empire. That would be too short to make him notable as an expatriate even. If he stays there 6 years, or comes back 7 times, each staying close to a year, than yes he could be in British expatriate in the Ottoman Empire, or Expatriates in the Ottoman Empire if we do not have that. He would need to in some way become a permanent recognized resident of the Ottoman Empire to move to Merchants from the Ottoman Empire though. We do not place British actors who appear in half a dozen American films in American actors categories. They only go in American actors categories if they in some way become a national of the US, or at least someone with regonized permanent residency. We do not require direct evidence, but merely working in a profession in a country does not make one a national there.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:53, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
Naturalists in the biology tree
I have been thinking naturalists are a good parent category to contain zoologists, botanists, etc. Other editors seem to think that naturalists, botanists, zoologists and others are sub-cats of biologists. What is clear to me is that we need a little order to avoid too much overcategorization. Basically in the 18th and 19th century you had many naturalists who observed and studied a wide range of plants and animals. We have a lot of very specific categories for studying specific types of plants and animals. Several people are in a lot of these categories. I think we should either say that Naturalist is a parent of botanist, zoologist (including ornitologists, mamaologists etc) or state that they are overlap cats, so that we only place people in the naturalists category who are not in any part of the botanists or such. We may also have to work not to diffuse people beyond their real level of specialization. For example John Abbot (entomologist) is said in the lead to have been a "naturalist and artists". He is in categories as a botanists, ornithogist and entomologist. He is in no artist category at all, and is not because of how categories are organized in the naturalist category at all. I added him to the artist tree based on the lead, but think we need to figure out the best way to place him under the scientist tree.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:03, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
I just noticed that Category:Painters from the Republic of Venice is a child Category of Category:Painters from Venice. I think what we actually want is the categories following the an overlap Category rule, like we have with Category:French writers and Category:French-language writers. So many French writers are also French-language writers, that we have a rule that we do not put French writers in the French-language writers tree. I think that is what we want to do with Venice. The Republic of Venice include not only all the general region around Venice, but much further inland. It also included Brescia and some other places in Lombardy, various areas now in Croatia, Greece and Albania, and maybe for short times a little more. Many of the painters from other parts of the Republic of Venice did spent long times in Venice even if not born there, but not all. I think we basically can live with Painters from Venice as a category for Painters active after 1797, and Painters from the Republic of Venice for those for the previous 1000 or so years. If we have any painters from before the formation of the Republic who lived in Venice, we can consider them on a case by case basis. I know some think it is OK to do loose association children categories, but I do not think this is good when it is not loose. This is not the a case like the Republic of Genoa that was very little beyond the city limits. I am not sure if any categories under Category:People from the Kingdom of Naples that are in the Category:People from Naples tree, but I would object to that placement just as much if it is happening.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:27, 22 July 2024 (UTC)
I did not have access to a computer when I first wrote the above post. I am now at a computer which made it possible to update the formating and easily fix spelling issues.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:10, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
Draughtsman
Draughtsman is a disambiguation page. It lists the following. "
An architectural drafter, who produced architectural drawings until the late 20th century
An artist who produces drawings that rival or surpass their other types of artwork
So why do we have a category:Draughtsmen? To make things more fun that category through the sub-cat Dutch draghtsmen, includes Jeanne Bieruma Oosting, who would be a draghtswoman. In the main it looks like most people in Category:Draughtsmen, and its various sub-categories are 2- an artits who produces drawings. We also have a seperate category Category:Drawing artists the main article on that type of art work is under the article drawing. I am thinking we would best off rename/merge Draughtsmen and its sub-cats to Drawing artists, and then create American drawing artists, British drawing artists, French drawing artists, and any other by nationality categories to match the ones we have currently. We will also want to ensure that all the people in these categories are actually drawing artists, move anyone who is not to Category:Architectural drafters, Category:Drafters for those who make non-architectural technical drawinings, and I guess if we have anyone who is a law costs draftsman (and we think it is a defining trait) we could create a category Law Costs Draftsmen, and Parliamentary draftsmen as well if we need it. I do not think we need the playing piece category at all.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:36, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
It's very hard, if not impossible, to be notable as any of these except #2. A note should clarify that this is what the category is for. Neither "Draughtsman" nor "Drawing artist" are especially familiar or clear terms, and a new name would be better. "Artists notable for drawings" perhaps - this alkso solves the gender issue. The trouble is that over long periods many/most painters produced drawings, as they were trained to do, without being especially known for these. Stern category notes are needed to exclude them. I agree about the merge. Johnbod (talk) 15:57, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
I think "drawing artist" is probably a good name, and just have a note that says that the category is only for people who are notable for their drawings, not everyone who made a drawing ever.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:26, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
I disagree - "drawing artist" seems a made-up Wikipedia term to me, which we should avoid. You never see it in art history. I see some articles on modern artists use "drawer", but I think that is too ambiguous. Johnbod (talk) 21:13, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
"drawing artist" is clearly a turn used outside of Wikprledia. I got this return from Google schoolar,
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C23&q=%22drawing+artist%22&btnG= and found several other uses in Wikipedia. At some level I think "drawer" should work, since painter, ether, sculptor, illustrator all work. A bigger issue at be if it is clear that we can distinguish illustrators from drawers. On the other hand drawers is the same word as "drawers" so it is an ambiguous word. The first use of the term I found in Google scholar was "drawers of water" in a reference to labor roles. That is not people making drawings that show water, but people getting water out of a well. The second Google school Reference was talking about doors are drawers in a kitchen. Qe should not use a category name that is an ambiguous word, so I think drawing artist it is since draghtsman is clearly ambiguous.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:45, 21 July 2024 (UTC)
That very thin google crop, from various minor papers tangential to art history, shows precisely and clearly that it is a very rare term, and somewhat ambiguous, as you point out. We have many names that are potentially ambiguous, and rather than make up terms, we clarify which sense is meant with a note. I don't think distinguishing "Artists notable for drawings" from illustrators is that hard actually, though some overlap is inevitable. Johnbod (talk) 02:10, 22 July 2024 (UTC)
I still think since "drawing artist" is both a used term and shorter it is much better. We also have avoided using the term "notable" is Category headings. Categories anyway are applied because the thing is defining to the person. As long as we have an article on someone, and their drawing is defining, they should go in the category drawing artists or whatever we call it. Even if they actually became notable in some other way, and their art was not notable. Basically drawing artists, etchers, sculptors, engravers and all other artists have the same test for Category inclusion. Unless we are going to add notable in all Category names we should not add it in any. I think Category:Drawers (artists) would actually the best name.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:12, 22 July 2024 (UTC)
On further thought I think Category:Drawers (artists) would be the best name. I think that would actually be a workable article name as well. We could then rename the categories to American drawers (artists), French drawers (artists) and so on. This will avoid any confusion. Since drawer has other common meanings in English it is our only option really. Hopefully this can also spur us to fix other ambiguous occupational titles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:16, 22 July 2024 (UTC)
I still disagree - this isn't a usual term in art history at all! We have other options - "Artists notable for drawings" suggested above, for example. Johnbod (talk) 00:34, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
That is a horrible name. No where else do we use the word "notable". It creats a horrible precedent. This article [5] uses the term drawer, but since if you search for "drawer" by itself the first thing that comes up is the part of a dresses or other furniture item, we need to disambiguate the term. It is clear that "drawer" is a term used for artists.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:01, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
On the other hand here [6] is a source that uses the term "drawing artist". This search on Google for the term "drawing artist" in quotes gives me 19 pages of results [7] so it is clearly a term that is being used by people in a lot of places.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:09, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
A google search for the word draghtsman, with that spelling, gives me 33 pages. However the results clearly from even a basic search include both technical draghtsmen and architectural draghtsmen as well as drawing artists/drawers (artists). The issues remains we have no term that is both short and unambiguous, as we do with painters. In Wikipedia "painter" redirects to "painting", "draghtsman" goes to the the disambiguation page, "drawer" goes to the article on the item used in furniture. However the second item at Drawer (disambiguation) says that a drawer is a person who engages in drawing. I really do think Drawers (artists) is the best way to name this category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:17, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
Why "draghtsman"? I've never heard of that spelling. I have, however, come across "draughtsman" (Br. Eng.) and "draftsman" (Amer. Eng.) on many occasions. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:45, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
For what it is worth, that 33-page collection ins a mish-mash of the various uses of the term (engineering, architectural, and others not even mentioned on the dab). As such a simple comparison of number of results returned is something of an unfair apples to oranges comparison. older ≠ wiser18:15, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
Since the biggest issues is "draughtsman" or "draftsman" is ambiguous, and at some level precision superceeds common name, the comparison is not all that material. For example the common name for doctors is "doctor" not "medical doctor" and not "physcian" but "doctor" is ambiguous so we do not use it. I even found an article François de Cuvilliés the Younger, who is called a "draftsman", but since he was also both an architect and an engraver, I was not really able to tell from the article which type of draftsman he was, a drawer (artist) or an architectural draftsman. I am thinking it might be an architectural one, but I am not sure it does mention him "publishing ornamental prints based on the work of his father". I tried following the first linked source, but it did not take me anywhere. I had not realized there was also an English variation issue here, so that we really should not have "American draughtsmen" at all, if the more common form in the US is "draftsmen", but I think drawers (artists) would avoid the English variation issues completely. That said, I picked the first person in American draughtsmen. To start with she is a woman. I went to her obituary [8], 2 times they mention her as having created "drawings" and taught "drawing", they do not ever use any adjective to describe her other than artist. The link between "drawers" and "drawing" is clear, I think the link between "draughtsmen" or "draftsmen" and "drawing" is less clear.At bit later on there is Vernon Howe Bailey. The article we have talks multiple times about his "drawings" but does not use the term "drawer" or "draftsman" or "draughtsman", but I would argue of the 3 the first is most clearly linked. However this source we use [9] says of him " Bailey's abilities were recognized through painting, printmaking, and illustration." So this suggests to me that maybe his "drawings" make him an illustrator. What exactly is the difference between a drawer/draughtsman/draftsman and an illustrator? Eugene Andolsek is described as an "American artistic draughtsman" in our article. "artistic draughtsmen" is one way we could make it clear this category is not not architectural draftsmen, or law costs draftsmen or other such. However I think the gender-specific nature of "draftsmen" is also an issue. In other places this seems to influence our category name. We have Category:Fishers even though fishermen is a far more common term.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:56, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
François de Cuvilliés the Younger pretty clearly only drew buildings, both as an architectural draftsman (new, unbuilt ones) and architectural illustrator (famous old ones). Was he an artist? There are no exact distinctions in this sort of area. Vernon Howe Bailey seems best described as a "graphic artist" - he mainly drew, but all Commons seems to have is versions of his drawings as prints. Why do we have Category:Fishers? Seems wrong. They all seem to be male, but in a case like this one could add "and fisherwomen in a note, in case any aren't. Johnbod (talk) 21:40, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
A Hatter, yesterday, denies being a milliner Do we have non-google dictionary definitions? Also, why use nowiki above? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:52, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
looking more closely at our article on hatmaking, we have a statement with 2 sources at the end of the sentance that says from 1713 or so the term "milliner" gradually came to mean a women who made and sold hats and other accessories for women. So it is not just that the products were for women, but only women selling such were milliners. A man selling women's hats would still have been a hatter in 1875 use.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:22, 24 July 2024 (UTC)
I agree that for categorization purposes, it makes sense to have one cat that uses both terms (ie “Category:Hatters and Milliners”). Blueboar (talk) 19:01, 24 July 2024 (UTC)
Category:Deaths
We have decided that deaths by place is not defining. So "deaths in Virginia" does not contain any biographical articles (or at least it is not supposed to, I did not check recently). We have also decided that not all diseases or infectious diseases, of other possible causes of death are defining causes of death that we categorize by. Because of this I think we should make the sub-categories by place of those categories (deaths from disease, deaths from infectious diseases, this principal may apply to other possible categories), and make Category:Deaths from disease and Category:Deaths from infectious disease into container categories. We currently have people in them, but I do not think that some died from disease or an infectious-disease is defining per se, only some specific disease causes of death. We should only put people in a category for the specific disease or diseases they died of, based on reliable sources. We should not place people in the deaths by disease category directly. At a lower level "deaths in India by disease" and "deaths in India by infectious disease" should only contain specific subcategories for specific diseases, not articles on people either for whom we cannot define the disease or that disease does not have a specific catehory for India (as an example, this applies to all places). Because we do not categorize by place of death we essentially first move a person to the specific cause of death. Be it cholera, bubonic plague or any other cause we feel is a justifiable category. We then subdivide these cause of death categories by various places to aid navigation. However we should only do this for the specific cause of death, not a vague grouping.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:32, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
Sort key with article and disambiguator
Should the DEFAULTSORT for The Salt Path (film) be ["Salt Path, The (film)" or "Salt Path (film), The"?
A recent edit by @Fuddle: changed it from the former to the latter and I want to revert but would like to see documentation or consensus to quote when doing so, especially as it was done using a tool or gadget called "Cold Default Sort".
It seems more logical, to me, to sort all articles with the title "The Salt Path" together, after any (hypothetical) works "A Salt Path" and before "Salt Path Adventure", and keep the bracketed disambiguator as the final element.
@PamD: Consider that WP:SORTKEY says to remove all punctuation except hyphens, apostrophes and full stops. This would make your choices Salt Path, The film or Salt Path film, The. That apart, I can see arguments on both sides. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:51, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
Commas are a special case. You remove them from the original page name before rearranging it, it does say Commas can be added when re-ordering words, as in the previous example. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:44, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
We want to avoid categories of one item, so I would go with “Cemeteries in X location” if the city/town has more than one cemetery … but bump it up to the next regional level if the city/town only has a single cemetery. Blueboar (talk) 01:02, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
Is use of a "People from ____ County" appropriate when the county is not specifically mentioned in the article? For example, "People from San Luis Obispo County, California" is among the categories for James Griffith. As far as I can see, San Luis Obispo County is not mentioned in the article. Is this an exception to WP:CATV? Eddie Blick (talk) 00:08, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
In this case, Griffin died in San Luis Obispo County. There are is no consensus as to whether a death location constitutes being "from" a place or not.--User:Namiba13:35, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
Categorization is supposed to be based on defining attributes … if the article text does not even mention a category’s attribute (in this case being “from” a specific place) I don’t see how the attribute can be considered defining for that topic/subject. Blueboar (talk) 14:55, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
Avila Beach is also too small to have significant medical facilities. So in this case since the article says he died of cancer there, one can reasonably infer that he lived there in his later years. Whether that's enough to be defining for a category is a different question. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:42, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
Not necessarily, some people with cancer die in the attempt to complete the Things To Do Before I Die. Maybe he always wanted to visit Avila Beach, and having finally made it there, realised there was nothing else worth visiting. We just don't know. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:59, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
It's a nice place to visit; I've been there more than once. But it seems an odd choice for a bucket list. Nevertheless, as you say, we should not operate on guesswork. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:40, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
Our guidelines on categorization specifically say that people should not be categorized by place of death. We have not well enforced this rule. We allow say Deaths from lung cancer in California because deaths from lung cancer itself is too large. We do not however place biographical articles in deaths in California, that is a container category for articles on types of death. Just because you died somewhere does not mean you are from there. However to address the actual question, I would say if we have statements in the article that say that someone is "from Avila Beach" either explicitly, or implicitly based on other things said there (but place of death alone is not enough, lots of people die on trips, short visits, in a hospital in a place they never lived etc.) then if we do not have a category for Avila Beach, we can place them in the category for the county. Although you could solve all that issue by first editing the article to explicitly state that Avila Beach is in San Luis Obispo County. We have to watch that we only put people in these categories where they make sense. We would not place someone in the San Luis Obispo County category if they died or moved away years or decades before the county came to be. Yet in the case of German states formed after World War II we have people from the 18th-century being placed in categories based on these states. Such things ought not to be.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:52, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
In a related question, should Burials at X cemetery be in City X or people from City X? User:Alansohn and I have differing views on this. I contend that Category:Burials at Hackensack Cemetery should be in Category:People from Hackensack, New Jersey while the aforementioned editor contends that it should be in Category:Hackensack, New Jersey. I contend that a category with people is most useful as a subcategory of a people-based category. Moreover, being buried in a specific place for all of eternity does, in fact, demonstrate the kind of long-lasting connection one might expect from those in the from category. What do you think?--User:Namiba18:29, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
So… one of my ancestors purchased a 12 grave plot in a cemetary located a few towns away from where he lived. It was a brand new cemetary at the time he purchased it, and he thought it was nicer than the old one in his town.
Since the family already owned the plot, his children and several grandchildren were also buried there - even some who had moved to other parts of the country. The point being… none of them ever lived in the town where this cemetery is located. It’s simply where they were buried. I don’t think it accurate to say they are (in any way) “from” this town. Blueboar (talk) 21:39, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
My POV is that the "from" categories also include people who have a close connection to a certain place. Is not the permanent location of your body for all of history a close connection? Moreover, isn't it more likely that a user looking to find where someone is buried to look in the "from" category alongside other biographies?--User:Namiba15:02, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
I certainly don’t think so. My family continues to have a tie to the town where my relatives lived… but not to the town where they are buried.
Then consider soldiers that are buried on battlefields or national cemeteries. A WW II soldier from the California might be buried in Normandy, France… a Union soldier from Maine might be buried in Arlington. Those soldiers were not “from” France or Virginia… they were “from” California or Maine.
I was under the impression that by century categories were a convenient way to subdivide other categories that are to large. I have seen people argue that x-nationality by century categories are container categories. I think we should formalize this view. By century categories are supposed to be limited to the intersection of something defining amd that century. I think therefore we need to define what that definingness is. I think we need to limit all by century categories that have biograohical articles to being the intersection of an occupation, broadly defined, and that century. Or sub-cats thereof. The general 18th-century people category and any non-occupational sub-cats should only function as container categories for by century categories that are occuaptional in a broad sense.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:42, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
In our frenzy to subdivide large categories we seem to have moved far far from the principles that categories should be defining and that separate defining properties should be listed as separate categories. Instead, I have to somehow remember or look up which combinations of subsets of characteristics are named as categories and that are not covered by even more specific combinations of subsets, and then which of those combinations are diffusing and which are not. So that if, for instance, someone has American and Dutch nationality, works as a mathematician, specializes in geometry, of African descent, is a women, and has been active in both the 20th and 21st centuries, I need to remember that American women mathematicians are subcategorized by century but Dutch women mathematicians are not, that American mathematicians are subcategorized by specialty but Dutch mathematicians are not, that we have categories for African-American mathematicians and African-American women mathematicians (non-diffusing in their mathematician parent categories but not in their African-American or African-American women parent categories respectively), that Dutch people of African descent are categorized by place of descent but not by occupation, etc. etc. Most of these are non-defining intersections of defining characteristics. I end up with a random assortment of a dozen categories much longer than the single sentence of my description above. I don't even think it's possible to automate this process of going from characteristics to categories because most of our categories are not annotated as to whether they are pure intersections of their parent categories or whether they add extra information beyond that. Getting it right is so tedious and annoying that I seldom can or do. And then once all our articles are categorized in this way it becomes difficult or impossible to list or even count the articles in a parent category because they are all broken out into a complicated hierarchy of overlapping subcategories. I think these intersections are broken and I think we should stop using them. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:07, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
Excessive sub-dividing of ambassador categories
We have a huge number of ambassador catrgories that only have 1 article. Thus seems to stem from a view that it is reasonable to have every one of the in excess of 20,000 possible ambassador categories at least as long as any example has at least 1 article. The potential is probably worse than that, since there are in addition to all the existing countries, past countries like the Ottoman Empire, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and so on each of which both sent and received Ambassadors. So Ambassadors to Prussia (which really should be Ambassadors to the Kingdom of Prussia) has 4 sub-cats with 2 or less articles. Size is not the only issue though. Many Ambassadors had multiple assignments over time, and in some cases the same ambassador served as the agent of their country to several countries all at the same time. I think most of the current problem will require CfD nominations, but it would be nice if we could stop the creation of more small categories now. Especially since ambassadors are not default notable so the fact Country X has sent multiple Ambassadors to country Y in no way shows that they will all be noable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:32, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
Also should ambassador categories A-hold only those who held the title Ambassador. B-include every formally appointed top representativd of countey Y to country X regardless of title. C-cover every person who acted as the top representative of ciuntry Y to country X. I think B is what we should do, but C is the current reality. I think very short term appointees, consuls who were at the time the top representative and other things not even close to regular appointments should nit be included, but on the ither hand since we categorize bt shared name we should not worry if the title was anbassador, minister etc as long as they were the top representative of nation X in nation y.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:36, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
I also think we need to establish a minimum size of Ambassadors of X country, and of Ambassadors to Y country, before we create any sub-cats at all. I think 100 would be a reasonable minimum, but and willing to consumider other numbers.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:38, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
That would probably entail deleting most of the categories. I have been prodding a number of non-notable ambassadors recently resulting in the deletion of quite a few categories with single members. AusLondonder (talk) 05:08, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
Hans Klingenberg is in 9 catrgories for being an ambassador. I think he only held 2 ambassadorial appointments, the current one is to 3 countries, the previous one may have been to 6 at once. I think 7 of the categories he is the only entry in and 2 he is one of two articles in the category. This seems excessive.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:33, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
Do we need both women ambassador and women diplomat categories
I noticed armt least for some nationalities we have women ambassador and women diplomats categories. The women ambassador categories are sub-cats of the diplomat category, but some articles are in both categories. I am thinking we either do not need women ambassador categories at all or we really should only have them in cases where we end up with a very large women diplomats category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:10, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
categories for historical subdivisions of countries
@Altenmann: having been the capital of a past administrative division is not a defining characteristic of a current city. We do not even have categories for capitals of current administrative divisions. Marcocapelle (talk) 20:20, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
I don't ask for a separate category for capitals. I disagree that being a capital is not a defining characteristic. Wikipedia is not focused on recent times and being a capital s just as important for the past as it is for
P.S. The question arose because Marcocapelle removes pop.places from these categories like here While this may be reasonable, I guess editors who categorized in this way may have their reasons as well. I will try to find a couple and ping them, asking for their arguments. I dont think it is WP:CANVASSING, because I am not looking for a headcount, but for arguments. --Altenmann>talk17:07, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
Latvia is an interesting example, because smaller municipalities have recently been merged to larger municipalities. Should we categorize the capitals of the past municipalities as past capitals? They are mostly just villages. And if not, where do we draw the line? Marcocapelle (talk) 17:37, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
What do you mean under "categorize the capitals ... as past capitals"? We don't have categories for capitals. Whatever your question means, it does make sense to write that "Niekuriškai was the capital of Niekurių senunija between 1990-2014" in the "History" section. --Altenmann>talk19:16, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
It seems like a pretty pointless category to me, but off the top of my head I'm not sure exactly what P&G it's in violation of. However, you might suggest that the category should only be used to list articles that name or explicitly refer to fictional couples (e.g. Frankie & Alice), rather than any article that has a couple as an arguably non-primary focus (e.g. Gold Blend couple). DonIago (talk) 13:12, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
Are dropouts alumni?
The word "alumnus" in English is ambiguous: it is sometimes used to mean people who once attended a school, and sometimes used to mean people who have finished a course of study at a school (that is, graduates, or people who have received a degree). My understanding is that our many alumni categories should only be used for the stricter meaning of graduates, because only that is defining: attending a school but then dropping out or transferring elsewhere is non-defining. User:SammySpartan obviously disagrees, and has been edit-warring to add Category:San Jose State University alumni to Rita Sanchez (who dropped out and later earned multiple degrees from a different school). Opinions, please? I'm asking here rather than starting a discussion on Talk:Rita Sanchez because I think this is a very general issue that we should have some global consistency on. I checked the archives but found only many discussions on what to call the alumni categories, not really touching on who should be listed in them. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:20, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
Cambridge Dictionary: Someone who studied at a particular school, college, or university. [10]
Merriam-Webster Dictionary: A person who has attended or has graduated from a particular school, college, or university.[11]
Dictionary.com: A graduate or former student of a specific school, college, or university, especially a man[12]
The definition is pretty clear that an alumni does not have to be a graduate. I don't see why Wikipedia should have a private definition of the word in this case. SammySpartan (talk) 00:32, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
The definitions you quote are pretty clear to me that there are two distinct meanings: "who has attended OR has graduated"; "graduate OR former student". If these were intended to be a single meaning encompassing both the graduates and the former students, then the graduate parts of these definitions would be redundant and should have been omitted: one cannot be a graduate without attending. Since those parts of the definitions were not omitted, they make sense only as a way of describing a distinction between two different usages of the word "alumnus". Therefore, the question should not be, what is the definition, but rather which of these two meanings we should follow. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:37, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
Additional comment, not all schools offer degrees, so former student makes more sense to me. Some military schools are an example. Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 01:16, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
I agree with FieldMarine. I have always interpreted it as meaning someone attended (so, including dropouts). I don’t see any reason to interpret the term more strictly here.
That said, WP:DEFCAT applies. We should only be applying categorisations if they are defining and I suspect that while I would call Rita Sanchez an alum of San Jose, her status as such seems less likely to be defining. Bondegezou (talk) 07:11, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Should we make sure a false Category has other entries before removing it
If I come across a person who lived 1712-1798 and find that they are in Category:19th-century French merchants (which oddly enough does not exist) am I justified in removing it even if it is the only article in that category, or do I have to instead leave it there and file a formal petition to delete the category. Either way this illustrates that we need to come up with much better rules against overly narrow intersection categories, because the uncontroversial edit I outline above should not require such an extensive process to accomplish.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:37, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
The link above appears in §See also, but following it lands you at a soft redirect page pointed at mw:Help:Sortable tables. While I could just update the link to point there, IMHO that target page title seems pretty clearly unrelated to this page — I'm more inclined to just remove the link completely. If anyone objects, speak up... FeRDNYC (talk) 22:39, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
@FeRDNYC: We have a lot of help links that go to Meta, which did have some pretty good help pages. In recent months, Pppery (talk·contribs) has converted many of these pages on meta: into soft redirects to mw: but unfortunately, the pages on mw: are often not as comprehensive as those on meta: were. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:06, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
I also just noticed that, in addition to the §See also link, there's a second in-body "See also" towards the end of §Sort keys that no longer goes anywhere useful:
Use other sort keys beginning with a space (or an asterisk or a plus sign) for any "List of ..." and other pages that should appear after the key article and before the main alphabetical listings, including "Outline of" and "Index of" pages. The same technique is sometimes used to bring particular subcategories to the start of the list.
Sort order of characters before numbers and Latin alphabet (0–9, A–Z) is (partial list):
! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . / 0 9 : ; < = > ? @ [ \ ] ^ _ ` A Z a z { | } ~ É é —
On the see also to MediaWiki, you're right that it isn't really needed, and there's a local page Help:Category which is already linked earlier so it can just go. The sort modes thing isn't my fault - the Meta content before the move was itself very specific to tables. No opinion on whether than should be bypassed or removed. * Pppery *it has begun...04:59, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
@Pppery For the record, in my personal view "fault" doesn't come into it. (Blame is boring,anyway.) Your work cleaning up our vast messes of disorganized behind-the-scenes documentation is greatly appreciated! In cases where it causes other documentation to become outdated or in need of revision, then we just do that; it doesn't make your efforts any less useful or valued. This discussion is merely my attempt at pitching in with cleaning up the docs here.
As far as the actual links in question, it may simply be (and it's increasingly starting to appear this way) that there is no good, generalized documentation on the sorting routines that are apparently shared between table and category sorting (...and who knows what other contexts?). If they've only ever been documented in the context of table sorting, then that's the best we've got unless and until someone pitches in further to change things. Even so, it's useful to put our heads together and figure out where things stand. So this was still productive. Thanks! FeRDNYC (talk) 18:31, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
Remark: To hopefully clarify some confusion due to ambiguous meaning of "included": the special wiki term for this is transclusion. The templates {{Amiga hardware}}, {{AmigaOS}} and so on are transcluded in the page Category:Amiga. —andrybak (talk) 18:06, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
