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University categories

I originally raised this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities#Format for categories but here seems a better place to discuss it. Note that although most of the categories involved refer to people, some cover other things like colleges, positions, societies and so forth and a consistent format should cover all:

Amidst proposals to rename all the University of Durham categories to Durham University (in line with the recent corporate rebrand of the institution and, crucially, the relocation of the main article), it's been noted that there is currently no standard for how the categories for university people are named. For example alumni categories include:

People categories (which are generally top level categories containing only Chancellors, founders, prominent sponsors, architects and the like with all the alumni and academics in sub categories) have :

Academics are also mixed:

And we also have other variants such as:

I should also note that this potentially stems beyond people - Oxford and Durham have categories for their colleges:

The main problems are:

  • 1. A good number of the categories are out of sync with the location of the main article on the institution.
    • I'm going to propose renaming all these to a format in line with the article name.
  • 2. (Rather bigger) There needs to be some consistent form for the categories, at least within individual countries.
    • How about the following forms:
      • "People associatied with University Name"
      • "Alumni of University Name"
      • "Academics of University Name"
      • ...and other variants that way?

Timrollpickering 14:25, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I feel that using <University Name> as an adjective looks very clumsy (especially for "<University Name> people". I agree with your suggested forms. There may be an element of US/UK style here (for the record, I'm from the UK, and I believe Tim is as well.) Previous CFD discussions have raised the issue that the term "alumni" might not be universally used by UK institutions, and converting them to "Former Students of <University Name>" has been suggested. Bluap 15:12, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
OK, here is the situation with college/university categories I have run into. First, the defintion of alumni varies. Some use the traditional graduate, others the newer expanded definition of anyone who attended. On wikipedia the definition of alumnus, not only includes both grads and former students but it includes a part about poeple working somewhere being an alumnus. There is where the problem lies. According to this expanded definition any faculty would also qualify as alumni and go into the alumni category as well as any faculty or people cat they may alread be in. To this end basically everyone listed in some sort of ABC U category could rightfully go into the alumni cat. So, I think either we need to define alumni as graduates only, or simply remove the distinction and have categories of ABC U people as there would likely be few if any people that fit people but not alumni. Basically, there is no difference between alumni and people if we use the newer definition of alumni. Thoughts? Aboutmovies 19:33, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
It's very difficult to use "graduate" as a definition without full access to records of graduation - most of the information available is about whether someone attended an institution and there are many reasons they may not have graduated - not finished their course, declined to actually take the formal final award (two common anecdotal cases involve research students not actually writing up the thesis but instead going into employment with their sponsor and students with debts to the university not repaying them and so not getting the degree), taken a course that doesn't end with graduation (this happens a lot with short and technical courses), been to university in an earlier era when graduation didn't mean much and so forth. I'm not sure where this "working somewhere" stuff comes through for staff - from what I can see the only cases where staff are being listed as alumni are where they were also students (a number who haven't yet got their PhDs do take them internally) or the handful of universities that confer honourary degrees upon staff who aren't alumni. Using "former students" is the only workable definition. Also adding in staff and others with university connections would massively increase many categories to the point that they'd need to be sub-divided again. Timrollpickering 20:10, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
My thoughts: Although <University/College> alumni sounds better to my ear and I suspect is the more common form, using the form Alumni of <University/College> does have the advantage of being able to sort naturally without piping. So that's pretty much a draw, AFAIC, although I've just gotten into the habit of adding "<University/College> alumni" categories to new people articles I create.
While the meaning of alumni has broadened somewhat, especially in non-academic uses, I don't think that a member of the faculty or administration would ever be considered an alumni of the school unless they also attended the school. At least this seems to be the case in the U.S. If there are actual cases in reputable media of a person who never attended a school being referred to as an alumni, I'd be interested in seeing that. "People of <University/College>" seems a reasonable catchall for anyone who not an alumni -- although for some institutions, I could see finer gradations being appropriate (e.g., Faculty of <University/College>, or Trustees of <University/College>, etc). older ≠ wiser 19:51, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
That is one of the problems with the newer definition. The media does not seem to use it, nor is it universal. Bill Gates is not usually refered to as a Harvard alumni and he is not categorized as such. In fact Harvard has a "Non-graduate alumni" list that is just non-sequenter by either definition. My personal vote goes for making it universal that for categorization purposes that to be an alumni you need to have graduated from that institution. But somehow we need to come up with a standard definition and then apply those rules to the categories. Aboutmovies 20:38, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
"have graduated" is just too tricky a concept to apply in a lot of cases - see my detailing above. This is a particular problem for a lot of non degree students at universities, particularly those studying for external qualifications rather than an institutional award (e.g. a lot of the further education students in UK universities; a lot of vocational qualifications; language courses and so forth) whilst in the pre modern era the concept of graduation wasn't what it means today and it would be very hard to now determine whether someone actually did graduate.
(Indeed one of my own university qualifications - not a degree - was "awarded" - the wording on the certificate - and there was no "graduation ceremony" in any sense of a formal conferrment. And a lot of those who took similar courses only studied one or two for either personal or professional interest, rather than a sufficient number to qualify for an award.)
I think we have to stick to "former student" as the only thing that's a) reasonably clear and b) doesn't require indepth research to establish the exact nature of both the qualification and the way the subject finished university. (Some will say "I never graduated" to mean they never got the award, others will just mean they didn't actually attend the ceremony.) Timrollpickering 21:20, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Without wishing to sound like an OED fanboy, I fully endorse classification in accordance with the Dictionary definition of alumnus: "The nurseling or pupil of any school, university, or other seat of learning. Also, a graduate or former student (chiefly U.S., esp. in pl.)."

Neither in the dictionaries, nor in the Wikipedia article Alumnus can I find any suggestion that the academic staff of an institution qualify as alumni of that institution. Perhaps User:Aboutmovies has misread the part about staff: what the article says is that if a person formerly worked for a company, he or she is sometimes called an alumnus of that company.

The former pupil definition seems quite clear to me. I endorse current classification, which seems to accord with this meaning. — mholland 21:49, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Well then if I misread it, then what does this mean: "Recently, the definition of "alumni" has expanded to include people who have departed from any kind of organization or program. As such, one can potentially be a "corporate alum" of XYZ Company, or an alum of a military branch, non-profit organization, fraternities and sororities, or training process." Aboutmovies 21:56, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

The problem with “former student” is it is not one of the definitions. It is part of one of the definitions. The modern definition calls for drop outs and graduates, plus former workers of an entity. So former profs could be called alumni. If we want to make things easiest, I would say we need to just have “category:ABC U people” then there is no need to distinguish between students, faculty, donors, administrators, and the like. Then if that cat gets too big then sub cats can be made like “faculty” or “former students” and just eliminate the usage of alumni and the floating definition. As it is now it depends from school article to school article what definition is being used. As I pointed out above, Harvard doesn’t even know which way to go. Aboutmovies 21:57, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

The "former workers of an entity" is a usage being applied to non-educational institutions - nobody is using it to encompass "former academic staff". "University people" is way too broad for a category - many universities, even those founded in the 1960s, already have so many people in the sub-categories that you'd immediately have to redivide the "people" category to make it manageable. Since "alumni" means "former student" (and several categories such as Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh are saying it clearly on the category page) I really don't see the point of merging it all and demerging it all. Timrollpickering 22:06, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Exactly right Timrollpickering. Applications of the concept of "alumni" to non-academic settings is a rather informal extension of the sense by analogy. No one seriously claims that faculty or administration of a school are alumni (unless, of course, they also attended the school). Identifying former students of an institution, as distinct from other affiliated persons seems a useful categorization. In cases where there are a large number of alumni with articles, as may be the case with Harvard or some other large/long-lived/high-profile institutions, it may make sense to subcategorize non-graduate alumni (provided that can be verifiably ascertained). older ≠ wiser 22:18, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
You may not use it to describe academic institutions, but the definition does not limit it in that way. I limit my own use of it to only graduates. There in lies the problem. One definition, graduates only, two former students only, three anyone affiliated with an institution (academic or not). So no matter what definition is chosen, there are still two other possibilities. That’s why my proposal was to eliminate the use of alumni altogether, as a way to remove a POV issue from categorization. In the end nothing is going to change because of the sheer amount of work involved in moving and renaming. Aboutmovies 23:04, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
No, the definition strictly applies ONLY to academic institutions. The expanded definition is an informal usage, an application by analogy. It is purely an informal usage and (at least in the present state of the language) not cause any concern for categorizing alumni of academic institutions. Any use as the basis for categorization other than with educational institutions should be discouraged. The limitation to mean only graduates of an institution is, while perhaps a common misunderstanding, is not supported by dictionary definitions, which pretty uniformly describe former student as the primary sense. older ≠ wiser 23:15, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
I’ll have to beg to differ that it is uniformaly describe former student as the primary sense: please read here and you will see four different sources, two say graduate only. To me, 50% is not uniform. Aboutmovies 23:58, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Answers.com is less reliable than some sources. For one thing, they use Wikipedia material under the GFDL! The claim in our article, Alumnus, which you construe as meaning that staff should be categorised as alumni, is poorly worded and unsourced. All of the other sources refer to a distinct, specialised meaning of the word in order to apply it to staff. To lump that meaning in with the other meaning would be harmful to the encyclopaedia: it would reduce clarity and cause categorisation issues (per above comments). By contrast, many good sources include former students as well as graduates: that, in my experience, is indeed the almost uniform definition. Of course some online sources say just graduates: it's a common misconception. — mholland 01:17, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree that "alumni" means simply a student that attended the university, they did not have to graduate. As long as we mention they did not necessarily graduate to be in the category I don't see a problem. It would be far to hard to find sources as to who graduated vs. who didn't graduate as well. VegaDark 10:51, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I think it is important to separate students from employees (faculty / academics), and that all types of student should be generally be in the same cat. I agree with ≠'s last few posts that alumni covers exactly this set of students, no less and no more. It also conveniently includes current students, who shouldn't be forgotten. I think the only other concise option is "X students" / "Students of X", though to some readers this will imply that the person is currently a student. ×Meegs 12:18, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Pro wrestling alumni categories

Alumni categories are useful because they tell people who have once worked for the promotion. Case in point is the Stampede Wrestling alumni page. It was deleted and it should have been left. That is just an example. For future possible deletions, alumni pages should be left as is. It's useful to have alumni categories. I am not advocating for one category, but alumni categories as a whole. Mr. C.C. 03:42, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Out of curiousity, why are they called "alumni" and not just "former wrestlers" or "retired wrestlers"? --Hemlock Martinis 22:18, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Works by artist

Please can we come to a consensus about a convention or set of conventions for subcategories of Category:Works by artist? Several eminently acceptable conventions have evolved already, and there are several categories where no convention is currently followed.

My thoughts about the recent CFD discussions was that there are so many categories that need renaming in each case that I did not feel a simple CFD and a tag in the parent category was sufficiently visible to represent a viable consensus. Can I propose that we decide in each case what the guideline should be, add it to the guideline project page, and allow each one as a speedy criterion for WP:CFDS nominations? I then undertake to set my robot to work implementing whatever is agreed.

So to summarise, my aim is to encourage Wikipedia to reach a consensus for the best naming convention for each type of "work by artist" category.

Possible outcomes:

  1. Consensus is to accept existing de facto standards, to decide on the standard where none is currently apparent, and allow them as speedy renaming criteria.
  2. Consensus it not to have a standard for each type, but to require CFD nominations of Works by artist categories individually
  3. Consensus is that it is not important to have a standard and there should be none
  4. Consensus is not forthcoming
  5. Someone can point out a previous overwhelming consensus, and we can just agree to add the standards already agreed to the naming guidelines.

Please can I remind everyone, this is not a vote?! My preferred outcome is 5, or possibly 1. Input, please? --RobertG ♬ talk 12:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

  • I'll start the ball rolling: the existing de facto standards listed above are acceptable and should be adopted immediately (classical and popular music, paintings and films). For plays I accept "Playwright plays". For books my preference is "Books by author" and "Novels by author" and "Poems by author" for two reasons: the name emphasises that it's the "novels" or "poems" that are being categorised, not the authors; and because then character series such as Category:Sherlock Holmes novels and Category:Hercule Poirot books are then unambiguous. --RobertG ♬ talk 12:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • In looking over the varied categories, it would seem that in general the standard is performance-based works use "Artist works" (Director films, singer songs, playwright plays, etc). And on the rest it's "Work by artist". - jc37 16:52, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
    There are some categories which don't follow this standard, but probably should, such as Category:Paintings by artist. (For your Sherlock Holmes comment above, among other reasons.) - jc37 16:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
    Thanks for your response. On reflection I agree with you about Category:Paintings by artist. Otherwise I'm not so sure it divides clearly between "performance-based" and "other". I can envisage performance-art categories that would not be sensible as "Person works", such as Category:Ballets by coreographer, Category:Lieder recordings by singer and Category:Lieder recordings by piano accompanist - I'm not necessarily suggesting we should have such categories, though. Category:Foo (band) songs is fine and unambiguous, Category:Person books is not necessarily. I think we need a case by case approach. There will always be exceptions to any rule anyway (Category:Anonymous musical compositions). --RobertG ♬ talk 11:42, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
    Agreed that exceptions are always a possibility (which is a core part of WP:IAR : ) - However, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if maybe we shouldn't just standardise all artist by work categories to be artist by work. Madonna songs from a current CfD, for example. This way we remove the need for disambiguation parentheticals. Performing group examples: Chicago; Girl; Asia; Blue; Aqua; Black Sheep; etc. (Note that several of these examples do not currently use a parenthetical, while there are certainly many songs about Chicago, or Chicago-related. Then of course there's the group "America"... : ) - This would also allow clarity and precision in category names. - jc37 13:01, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
    Sorry, I don't quite understand. Are you saying that you think it should be "Songs by Madonna" and "Albums by Madonna"? I'm not sure I disagree: you have a point. It's just that every category in the "Songs by artist" and "Albums by artist" categories would need renaming! For a change such as that, I foresee a requirement for more input than is likely to be garnered here, and I will not have the time to marshall it. Can you clarify? Have I misunderstood? --RobertG ♬ talk 16:28, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • To encourage discussion I am going to boldly update the convention with my proposal, and see if anyone objects. Anyway, I think some of these should amount to no more than the documentation of uncontroversial de facto standards. --RobertG ♬ talk 11:42, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I came here from the CFD on "Novels by author" etc. I agree a standard should be set, though of course enforcing the standard would probably require a bot to be put in place to rename newly created categories. In terms of authors, I would favor Books by xxx rather than Novels by xxx because not all authors of fiction published exclusively novels: there are those like Asimov who also wrote non-fiction works, and there are others who also dabbled in short stories and poetry collections. So Books by... would be a more useful catchall then the potential of spin-off categories like Novels by..., Short stories by... etc. (although there may well be authors who are prolific enough to justify this sort of sub-categorizing in which case exceptions could be made). 23skidoo 16:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
    Thanks for your input. I agree with you. However, we are here concerned with the "standard" rename. What we are proposing here is that it be possible to speedily rename existing "Author X novels" categories to "Novels by Author X" without going through a full CFD discussion. Would that be acceptable? Renaming the category, subsequently, to "Books by Author X" if Author X did not write only novels would be an option, but that would happen through WP:CFD. Don't worry about manpower to do the renaming: WP:CFDS rarely has a backlog, while WP:CFD has a bad one just now. Having said that, if the guideline is agreed the resulting changes won't necessarily all be implemented overnight! --RobertG ♬ talk 16:28, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Around we go again - these need to be sorted out once and for all - this debate is being fought out peicemeal and is counter productive. See Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_November_14#Category:Novels_by_author. Personally I prefer "Artist Worktype" for reasons mentioned in the link and I had thought that that was the way things were going. However this "tooing and froing" is a "waste" of time. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 16:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, toing and froing is a waste of time, there has been no real consensus on this at WP:CFD, which is why I brought it here and have actually proposed a standard. I thought I was well on the way to getting it sorted. My reading of all the toing and froing is that "Work by artist" and "Artist works" are both sometimes acceptable, and I have suggested which could be used where, and why. Do you reject my proposals? --RobertG ♬ talk 16:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
My frustration comes from such debates going one way one minute and being hung the next then going the opposite way. Remind me which is your proposal for Novels and Books. The decisive debates recently were going the direction of "Artist worktype", oh and were closed that way! :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 17:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I understand your frustration, it mirrors my own! I think you are right: I think I was dimly aware of the CFD you point to, but had not factored it in to my proposal. I will alter the proposal to be as the CFD suggests. How's that? It now says "Author work", so "Jeffrey Archer novels", "Wilfred Owen poems". Kevin, can you support it now? Anyone object to this? --RobertG ♬ talk 18:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
YES - support - for two reasons, we need to get to consistency and remaking decisions again and again is counter productive. What we need to establish the "how" of the changes as you (or someone) pointed out above. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 09:38, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with the assertion above that the recent CfDs put a seal of approval on "Artist works" - What's been happening is that the votes have been about "consistancy". So if they look at a category and most of the categories follow some patterm then the votes tend to be for that format. That doesn't in any way suggest that that is the "correct" format. Yes, changing the cats would be a fair amount of work. But such a standard would follow all of our rules of naming conventions, including Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision). The recent CfD about Madonna and her works would have not even been necessary if the standard was "Songs by Madonna" (which removes any confusion between that and "Songs about Madonna"). As I noted above, "Songs by Chicago" is different than "Songs about Chicago", etc. We've already discussed why "Author works" is a bad idea (among other things, since it may be confused with "Character works"), so that leaves Architect works. This is just like the directors' categories. "Films directed by director". "Buildings designed by architect". Consider this possibly confusing category name: Category:John Burgee Architects buildings. This structure also allows for clarity when dealing with an architectural firm/company/etc. "Buildings designed by firm", rather than "Firm buildings". So, as I said above, I realise that this may be a fair amount of work, but for true consistancy, clarity, and precision, we should do so. - jc37 16:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

My summary of this discussion: most Wikipedians (the thousands who didn't contribute here) aren't concerned whether there is a standard or not (which is absolutely fair enough), while those who responded here have very different and equally justifiable opinions on what any standard should be. I have no strong feelings whether it should be John Author novels or Novels by John Author, and nor am I on reflection really that concerned about there being a mixture. I am going to remove the proposed guideline until there is agreement here involving more than three editors (let me know). --RobertG ♬ talk 17:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll take a position. The thing that matters to me is that within a category, users know how to name a new one. So with category:Songs by artist, it's very clear that the correct answer to that question is "(X) songs". It is not clear inside the books categories. Those need a single standard, and so I'd support "(X) books" and "(X) novels". But I also wouldn't mind "Novels by (X)", just as long as there were no categories of the opposite format. Let's pick one for books.--Mike Selinker 00:15, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

The Return of Works by Artist...

Cross-posted to Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Novel categorization, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Books, Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion
I know this has been hashed over before. Each of the sub-cats of Category:Works by artist has its own style, but they are relatively consistent within their sub-cats, and I for one would like to apply a consistent style for written works. I have done a count: of the 344 sub-cats of written works by author (books, short stories, novels, etc.), 162 sub-cats are named [X] by [Name] or [X] of [Name] and 182 are named [Name] [Xs]. If we can't agree on aesthetics, can we at least go with the numbers (i.e. [Name] [Xs])? Any thoughts? Her Pegship (tis herself) 21:19, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

This must be bottomed out soon, we keep going round this one again and again. Probably as much from the painful amount of work it takes to change just one category name from one form to another.
  • Albums is clearly settled on [Name] [Xs]
  • Compositions has settled on [X] by [Name]
  • Songs has settled on [Name] [Xs]
  • Films directed by has settled on [X] by [Name]
  • Symphonies by has settled on [X] by [Name]
  • Paintings has settled on [Name] [Xs]
  • Buildings and structures has settled on [Name] [Xs]
  • Poems are undecided by mostly [X] by [Name]
  • Bibliographies are all over the place
  • Short Stories are undecided (although mostly [X] by [Name])
  • Books are mostly [X] by [Name] (recently changed)
  • Novels are mostly [X] by [Name] (recently changed)

Personally I prefer the [Name] [Xs] form which I think in more intuitive and has bee well established in 'great numbers' by "Alums" and "Songs". It also avoids the "by" "of" inconsistency. But I would far prefer to see consistency across all of these but if this is not possible at least consistency with category and ideally across the literature cats.

This really needs to be decided - and then we must work quickly together to get the consistency before another debate comes along. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 09:00, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem (as has been mentioned elsewhere), is clarity and precision. How does one clarify between Sherlock Holmes novels and A. Conan Doyle novels? James Bond novels? Who is depicted in Madonna (art)? Or how about Madonna songs or Madonna songs? Prince songs? And are they songs that he sang, he produced, that he wrote? There is a difference... (Consider that Lionel Ritchie wrote Lady for Kenny Rogers; or Islands in the Stream, written by the Bee Gees, but sung by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton.) And how about clarifying "X films": is the "name" the screenwriter, the director, the producer, the best boy? (Or perhaps even a fictional character?) Works that are of a collaborative effort require such disambiguation of some kind. (Feel free to read my comments in the section directly above for more examples.) - jc37 10:20, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Although I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments here - in practice this gets rather unwealdy if taken too literally. I will use an extreme example to make the point. "Songs sung by but not written by Dolly Parton". Now that clearly is not your intention, but I just do that to show that precision is not everything. Also as you point out, to use the [X] by [Name] or [X] of [Name] is not sufficient, you need to add something else e.g. "written by" for instance. I quite agree. As the extra clause you pinpoint is missing the difference in real meaning between [X] by [Name] and [Name] [Xs] is actually minimal. However if we take the [X] by [Name] route we would need to ensure we "cull" the "Sherlock Holmes novels" form to avoid the latent confussion that would bring. I will explain. If we have 2 categories "Winston Churcill novels" (for those about him" and "Novels by Winston Churchill" (for those written by him) the ambiguity remains in a different form. We would need to move to using "Novels about Winston Churchill". Again whatever we decide on needs to be easily understandable, consistently used and easily rememberable for future editors to stick with. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 11:21, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
For the most part, I agree with you : )
An exception: The first example shouldn't happen, since that would create a "not" category. I believe current consensus is to categorise by inclusion rather than disinclusion. (We wouldn't have a category called: "Songs not written by Dolly Parton", nor would we have "Songs not sung by the Bee Gees".) A single song article (Islands in the Stream, for example) could have "Songs sung by Dolly Parton", and "Songs written by the Bee Gees". Look at the current categories in the article, and see the obvious confusion. - jc37 12:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
That where I thought you were going with this, thought it needed a mention though. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 12:42, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Fortunately, we don't have to mess with songs or films and their various contributors. My personal preference is for "Books/short stories/essays/etc. by X", no matter what the numbers currently are (despite my assiduous count!:)); it leaves no ambiguity as to the category's scope, and the "Sherlock Holmes stories" nomenclature makes sense for works in which a character appears. Other print contributors are generally limited to illustrators, which (if absolutely necessary) could have their own category. Her Pegship (tis herself) 14:22, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I'll second that. Prepositions seem to be emerging as the preferred category-naming structure when the aim is to link a group of nouns to a specified noun. Something similar came up some time ago related to Category:Films by director, too. The Tom 21:48, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I reinstated the proposed guideline on works of art categories by artist. I think it reflects the discussion above. If there are no objections, I think it should be accepted as a real guideline, and can become a criterion for speedy renaming of categories. --RobertG ♬ talk 10:19, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Note - do note that due to recent debates and the work to implement done by Her Pegship, both "Books" and "Novels" are not largely in the format "[X] by [Name]" and personally as this is the emerging standard I believe "Short stories" should clearly go that way too. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 10:52, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

And while we are at it Category:Science fiction novels by author should go that same way. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 10:59, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I discovered that Category: Jewelry as well as the Category: Jewelry Designers are both deleted to the English and European spelling of the word. This is great however, the fact is that most of the best publications on the topic are done with the spelling Jewelry. I propose that all categories, including Jewellery, Category: Jewellery and Category: Jewellery Designers be dual linked or duplicated back to include the American Spelling as in Jewelry. It is not possible for any person interested in this topic to find relevant materals without alot of irrilevant searching. Also, if you look at the major publishing houses for primary resources on the topic, they are published in New York. I ask for this revision, or advice on how to make this revision possible.

Thanks, Archie Martin Archiemartin 23:53, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe the categories fail to meet these set of conventions in a nutshell. Comments? --Cat out 19:03, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Babel box categories

There is a discussion started at Wikipedia talk:User categories for discussion#User en. This is not a UCFD nomination, and may not lead to one - but I think it is important to gather consensus on how these categories should be named and if some of them (in particular, -0) should exist at all. Please discuss this there to keep the discussion in one place. I am posting this here to notify people who watch this page, as the discussion touches on issues related to this guideline.) --Random832 17:09, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I added: "Categories created by Babel boxes are of the form "User (language code)[(-level)]", identical with name to the box that populates it. This should not be used for categories associated with non-Babel userboxes, including Babel-like userboxes for non-languages or programming languages."

(note: the term "non-languages or programming languages", while appearing awkward, was chosen carefully, since other constructions like "non-natural languages" or "non-ISO languages" would exclude some constructed languages for which there is a consensus to allow full babel categorization)

--Random832 17:29, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


Naming Categories for Assessment: Inconsistent and Conflicting Advice

There seems to be a genuine inconsistency between Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories)#Special conventions for some Wikipedia-related categories and the advice interpreted by editors overseeing assessment categories in accordance with Category:Wikipedia 1.0 assessments. It needs resolving in some way, or else other editors will be confused (as I was) as to how to proceed if they are setting up assessments for WikiProjects an "inadvisable" choice will result in additional work and other problems. At the moment, people overseeing Wikipedia 1.0 assessments do not seem to follow the advice given in this article here.

In this article in section 2.3, the second bullet point reads: "All Project categories should have "WikiProject" (or "WikiProjects") as part of the name.", which is what I followed when I set up categories and wrote project specific documentation for Wikipedia:WikiProject Cheshire. So, I set up categories like: Category:Start-Class WikiProject Cheshire articles and Category:A-Class WikiProject Cheshire articles. These and others have now been nominated by someone else here to names such as Category:Start-Class Cheshire articles and Category:A-Class Cheshire articles giving Category:Wikipedia 1.0 assessments as justification saying that the renamed categories are consistent with guidance given there.

This difference gives conflicting advice, and causes additional work and misunderstandings. So some means of resolving the conflicts are required. I'm not sure if one can simply edit the article here to make it consistent with the assessment viewpoint, and so that is why I'm raising it here.  DDStretch  (talk) 14:54, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Meh. It's obviously common practice to consider "X articles" as a valid internal category name, without the need to include "Wikipedia", "WikiProject", or anything else; see Category:Wikipedia maintenance and all its many, many sub-categories. Frankly, I think that's the easiest convention to apply here. (Assessment is not necessarily tied to particular WikiProjects—it's sometimes conducted under the purview of other groups—so trying to jam "WikiProject" into all of the assessment category names will create a significant amount of inconsistency among them in any case.) Kirill Lokshin 15:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
In which case, the advice given in this article needs to be changed. My use of "WikiProject" was restricted to the particular instances of its use I was concerned with, and it made good sense to do it (as you will see argued on the relevant CfD page). As it happens, I am sure the change will go ahead, which brings me back to the conflicting advice, and the fact that the content of this article needs to be changed. That is all I am talking about here.  DDStretch  (talk) 15:43, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I will be bold and make an addition to the section that points people to the relevant place in Category:Wikipedia 1.0 assessments, and I hope that may go some way to reducing any future problems caused by this conflicting advice.  DDStretch  (talk) 00:04, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Disputed

The Vatican City

The current entry seems nonsensical to me. It says to use "Vatican City" without the definite article. I challenge anyone to convincingly attest that usage as common (other than in "Man bites dog" headlinese). "Vatican" is not a simple adjective here like "New" or "South". It's an appellation that requires the def. art., like "the Socratic method" (article name notwithstanding, it's the), "the City of Angels", etc. Compare also "the United States" and "the United Kingdom" (as nouns) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 13:28, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Per Vatican City:
For other city-states, see: Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Florence, Venice, etc. - jc37 13:43, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


demography

The naming convention demographics of... (country) is not correct. It should be demography of... according to both the demography and the demographics page. I propose that this should be changed accordingly. Virgule82 19:53, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

"The place of birth is rarely notable"

This clause of the "Residence" section (dealing with Category:People from Foo categories) is, in my opinion, not correct. Place of birth is inherently notable. If I knew where a person was born but omitted that information from their biography on notability grounds, you would think I had rocks in my head. We always include it in articles. Why, we even include it in our persondata!

Furthermore, this does not accord with general social conventions, which is to make a big deal about where a person was born. If a famous person was born in my home country but did whatever made them famous in some other country, you can bet your boots that the home press will be spruiking the fact that that person is "one of ours".

Further further more, it does not accord with current practice, which is, in general, to include biography articles in the appropriate place of birth category. As far as I'm aware, the vast majority of biography articles do so.

Therefore I propose that the clause be deleted. Hesperian 00:39, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Agree. That sounds like common sense to me. —Moondyne 00:46, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Agree. Sure would end inherently very stretched out lame edit wars over obscure musicians who were born one place lived another and the eds from both locations claim the poor muso as 'theirs' SatuSuro 07:30, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Strongly disagree. To privilege place of birth as a regional identifier is, IMHO, highly stupid, especially considered the increasingly large amount of human movement in modern times and the corresponding increase in the number of people who were born in one place but became notable through their association with somewhere half a world away. Certainly in the realm of law, there has been a movement away from considering place of birth notable (ie, some countries now explicitly refuse to include it on their passports, which has relevance in matters such as the Maher Arar case). The Tom 02:21, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Strongly disagree, place of birth is where the mother happened to be when her time came. Babies are born in all kinds of strange places. Where you live is far more important. Often both are the same, but there are plenty of exceptions. -- Prove It (talk) 17:03, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Guidance - Songs by composer

The guidelines state that (notable) songs by (notable) composers/songwriters should be categorised in Category:Songs by composer (a category which may, however, be misnamed; a "composer" writes music, a "lyricist" writes lyrics, and a "songwriter" writes either or both).

So, we have categories like Category:Songs_by_Tony_Hatch, where Tony Hatch is a member of (ultimately) Category:Songwriters.

I want to get the songs written by one of the most notable of them all, Lennon/McCartney, categorised; they are a member of Category:Songwriting teams. What I'm not clear about:

  1. Should I create Category:Songs by Lennon/McCartney, or Category:Songs by John Lennon and Category:Songs by Paul McCartney? Note that my personal feeling is very strongly that it should be the former, because many of the songs were Lennon/McCartney in name only (i.e. they were written by one or the other but credited to both) - we don't want squabbling over whether Yesterday (song) should be in the Lennon category etc.; and because the solo songwriting output of both men was quite distinct from their partnership. If folks agree with me, that might mean some existing categories need to be changed to, to reflect other songwriting partnerships.
  2. If we have a Category:Songs by Lennon/McCartney category, should it be in Category:Songs by composer, or should we have a new Category:Songs by songwriting team? I favour the latter.

--kingboyk 16:35, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

  • I strongly agree (though I might use "Lennon and McCartney"). Attempting to segregate the Lennon and McCartney compositions is original research.--Mike Selinker 16:50, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, kind of, although there are reliable sources available on who wrote what it really would be a nightmare. The article is called Lennon/McCartney hence my choice of that naming form, for consistency.
Do you think the other songwriting team members should get CFRs and what do you think about question 2? --kingboyk 17:00, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I think it can be on a case by case basis, and "Songs by songwriter" can cover teams of songwriters just fine.--Mike Selinker 07:37, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Addendum: I've proposed renaming Category:Songs by composer to Category:Songs by songwriter at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_May_7#Category:Songs_by_composer --kingboyk 17:00, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I also agree with songwriting teams being categorised together. Considering songs from musicals: Rogers and Hart, Lerner and Lowe, Rogers and Hammerstein, Lloyd Webber and Rice, etc. - jc37 08:21, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Labour law of country

Over at WP:UNION we've been talking about starting Category:Labour law of country under Category:Labour law. Should it be in or of country? Originally I thought in was right, but now it seems to me that of sounds correct. Any thoughts?--Bookandcoffee 01:50, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually: Category:Labour laws of Canada, or Category:Labour law in Canada? I think the second might be more inclusive.--Bookandcoffee 01:52, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
The plural of "laws" indicates statutes only, while the more generic term "law"—which can be plural or singular, depending on context—would encompass court rulings, administrative law decisions, bureaucratic rulings, advisory opinions, and the like. So, with all that, I'd vote for "law" rather than "laws." And I agree that "of" is better. - Tim1965 14:13, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Started:

etc.

--Bookandcoffee 09:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Avoid "other" in category names

Per my comment at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 June 23#Category:Other_bodies_of_the_European_Union, could we agree to add some guidance against using "other" in a category name? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:38, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree, but it seems like something that'll have to be tackled on a case-by-case basis. --Hemlock Martinis 22:17, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_December_9#Category:Other_schools_in_the_United_States. -- Prove It (talk) 19:01, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Convention for biological groupings?

Category:Sturgeons and Category:Acipenseridae are redundant and should be merged. Which fits convention and should survive, which doesn't and should go? One is the common English name for the family, one is the scientific name for the family. GRBerry 10:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Subdivisions of countries

Should the conventions about countries (of/by/from etc) apply wherever practicable to states, provinces, cities, counties, etc?

Example for study: Category:Organizations based in the United States has some subcat "organizations based in" but some subcat "organizations in"; its only state subcat (hey, why is there only one?) is a "based in" - but the top-of-list subcat, specifically for states, isn't "based": Category:Associations in the United States by state has all of its state subcats just Category:Associations in ... . Is there, or should there be, a move to add "based" to all of the Associations subcats and the other "organizations in" subcats?

(I noted that a heading above this was all about Kurdistan, but I didn't check whether the same issues were involved.)

Robin Patterson 15:04, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Heritage categories

The first bullet point of the section "Heritage" currently reads:

  • People are sometimes categorized by notable ancestry, culture, or ethnicity, depending upon the common conventions of speech for each nationality. A hyphen is used to distinguish the word order:
    1. Fooian Barians, nationality followed by heritage, such as Category:British Asians.
    2. Barian-Fooians, heritage followed by nationality, such as Category:Irish-Americans.

I'd like to propose that a third item be added to that numbering:

    1. Fooians of Barian descent, for countries where conventions such as "Barian-Fooian" or "Fooian Barian" are inconsistently applied or not otherwise used in reliable sources, such as Category:Japanese people of Iranian descent.

Discussions:

Thanks, cab 02:31, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Occupation by Country Categories

I propose that the names of the occupation by country categories (e.g. Category:American writers) be changed. At present, we have a policy of using "Fooian fooer" type category names where possible (example: Ethiopian musicians), and use "Fooers of Foo" type names (example: Musicians of the Democratic Republic of the Congo) when it is unavoidable (e.g. when there exists no “Fooian” type name).

I propose that we make the latter form (Fooers of Foo) the standard, and further, that we change this form from "Fooers of Foo" to "Fooers from Fooia," in order to prevent confusion on whether articles should be categorized according to current country or country of birth. So, "Ethopian musicians" would be changed to "Musicians from Ethiopia," and “Musicians of the Democratic Republic of the Congo” would be changed to “Musicians of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”

There are two reason for my proposal. The first is that since not all countries have appropriate "Fooian" type titles, the categories for those countries must, in order to follow the existing guidelines, be non-uniform. This non-uniformity creates confusion and makes it difficult to find the right category for an article. The second reason is that some “Fooian” titles are not readily associated with the countries to which they refer (examples: Filipino, Congolese, etc.), causing more confusion.

To complicate matters further, the existing conventions are often disregarded, with all three forms being used interchangeably by many editors. All of these factors combined make occupation by country categories messy, uniform, and difficult to work with. My proposal, if adopted, would fix all of the problems by creating an attainable and simple standard for occupation by country categories.

If this proposal is accepted, I will personally take charge of bringing the existing occupation by country categories in line with the new policy. TheCoolestDude (talk) 19:53, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

On further reflection, ordinary users cannot rename categories. Any suggestions for how the renaming would be achieved will be appreciated. TheCoolestDude (talk) 20:02, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I just realized that per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (country-specific topics), my proposal is already policy. However, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories)#Occupation does not reflect this change in policy. Is there reason for this? TheCoolestDude (talk) 20:06, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, on the talk page for Naming conventions (country-specific topics), it sates that people articles should use the "Fooian" form. My proposal still stands. TheCoolestDude (talk) 20:12, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

The proposal makes sense, but where is previous discussion about person's occupation? (SEWilco (talk) 03:08, 22 November 2007 (UTC))
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