Category talk:Orphaned categories

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[edit] Definition of Orphaned categories

I really think that a very, very brief definition of what an orphaned category is should be at the top of the page for people who have never been here.

[edit] Automated dump

The automated dump is extra cool, but could we put section headings in it for easier deletion of fixed ones?? --ssd 05:01, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Small categories

I moved the list of categories with only one or two items to Underpopulated categories. Maurreen 02:09, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I moved them back; Underpopulated categories is explicitly for categories that are not orphans, and all of the categories listed in 1 & 2 are orphans. It is also explicitly for categories that should be not deleted, and most of the ones in that section should, in fact, be deleted. As it happens, I've started processing the 1s in a semi-automated fashion. I don't have time today to implement the suggestions generated, so I've dumped them back onto the page here. -- Beland 03:20, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Towns vs. Cities

I'm one of the people responsible for the apparently duplicate categories, but wherever I've used them, I've followed usage that I found elsewhere before me (I think first on Category:Coastal cities), where it was explicited that "Cities" > 100,000 people and "Towns" were <. This seems such a useful distinction, and at about the right level, that I've kept it thruout. So while by my lights the little places in Category:Cities of São Paulo properly belong in Category:Towns of São Paulo, that doesn't mean the categories should be merged as someone recommends! There are some very large cities there. Similarly for elsewhere, of course. — Bill 11:56, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I disagree with using population to distinguish between towns and cities. There are some very small cities (such as Apache Junction, Arizona) and some large towns. Maurreen 13:48, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
In some areas, "town" and "city" depend not just on population but also on governmental and traditional considerations. If there is to be any merging (and I don't recommend it except in places that do not distinguish), it should be to "towns and cities of" rather than "cities of". (And what about villages? Gambier, Ohio is an village and absolutely should not go into a towns or cities category, which would be factually incorrect.) In many places, "town" can be thrown around to refer to a town, a city, or a village, but this is not standard usage everywhere. I think the only way to be accurate is to stick to local preferences.
Of course, if you are comparing towns and cities from different nations (as in, say, Coastal cities), perhaps it would be necessary to lump them all in together. Of course, you have to draw a limit somewhere unless you want to have every community on a coast anywhere in one category.[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 19:11, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
There are plenty of small places called "cities", yes. Here, though, what seems useful is to prevent large places from being drowned in the morass of small ones, so that a person navigating the categories but not familiar with an area can find the essential places easily. (By these standards, Tucson is a city, Apache Junction, Arizona is not; Ancona is a city of the Marche, Treia is not: and notice that Treia — I launched the article myself — is officially a "city".) If someone can find a better pair of words, that would be helpful; I've just picked up with usage before me.
But you've got to put Apache Junction, Arizona in the cities category, since it is a city, although I suppose you could put it inder towns using the more informal definition. I think English is perhaps a bit too ambiguous here! What about a "major cities" category as a sub-cat of "cities"? How would we define it? Straight population is problematic—Anchorage, Alaska, though very large by Alaskan standards, is small when compared to major East Coast cities like New York and Philadelphia. [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 22:57, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If a place is defined in its own charter as a "city," and is so recognized by the state of which it is a part, it is a city, no matter how small it may be. "Town" is even more confusing, because in some places it has a precise meaning, like city (for instance, in New England, or in my home state of Maryland) while in other places it does not (Pennsylvania, for instance, which is divided officially into cities and boroughs (incorporated) and townships (not)). Notable Maryland locations such as Bethesda, Towson, and Columbia are neither cities nor towns, because they are not incorporated at all - they have no local government. But pretty much every U.S. state (except maybe Hawaii) has some places which are designated as "cities", and other places which are designated as something else (boroughs, towns, villages, &c.) Similarly, England has only a very limited number of places designated "city," but some of these are very small. London, in the sense of Greater London is not a city at all, but within it are two cities - the City of London and the City of Westminster. I think in terms of categories, we should use the official definitions of city in the particular entity under consideration. The same should be done with town, village, borough, township, and so forth. Some sort of general term like "community" that has no specific meaning should be used as a general term and for unincorporated communities for which no better term can be found. john k 23:20, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well that certainly makes sense from the standpoint of law; but what it does to Wikipedia and to the poor innocent person trying to understand what towns/cities/communities in a given area are like, is another matter. We would wind up fragmenting into Cities, Towns, Townships, Boroughs, Villages, Communes/Comuni, Castelli (the official term in San Marino, equivalent to the comune in Italy), etc....! Do we then create an artificial term for the sole purpose of navigating Wikipedia? (A genuine question on my part, not a rhetorical one: it may well make sense.) — Bill 23:29, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
There is a Wiki project on cities. Maybe this discussion would be better at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities. Maurreen 04:22, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] English vs. British

The two are emphatically not the same thing, and should not be merged! In modern great Britain, England is considered a "country", along with Wales and Scotland. (I won't go near the topic of Northern Ireland, folks!) Although all English writers may be called British, the reverse is not true; and whoever deleted or is considering deleting Category:English novelists — would you delete Welsh and Scottish novelists too?? There is also historical impropriety in referring to English anything before the Act of Union (1701) as "British".

If a category must be removed, it should be Category:British novelists, except as a parent of the constituent nations; unfortunately, many people have written lazy articles starting out "Blatherksyte was a British..." — Bill 19:15, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I actually removed Category:English novelists from the list here for the reasons you indicated. The suggestions listed here are just suggestions—if they had been carefully researched already, they would not have been here. Perhaps it would be good to clarify this further? [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 22:57, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It seems to me that it would make more sense to do Category:British novelists, because it can become quite difficult to tell if someone is an English or a Scottish novelist. For novelists, at least, this is particularly easy, since there are very few novels written before the 1707 Union. This seems especially true since the UK is a sovereign state, with adjective "British" to refer to its residents, while Wales and England are not. It seems to me it would make most sense to just leave "British novelists", and get rid of separate categories for Welsh, Scottish, and English novelists (I, too, don't want to get into Northern Ireland, or pre-1922 rest-of-Ireland, for that matter) john k 23:23, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Foods vs. Category:Food and drink

Oboy, me again. I'm the guy responsible for Foods (and for Food ingredients), the idea being (a) to reduce the clutter in the top category; (b) to complete the existing structure by breaking Foods out of Food and drink, parallel with Beverages — after all ravioli and papaya juice are really very far apart; (c) to avoid lumping Quenelles Prince Orloff along with Turmeric. The categories are unambiguous and simple, and won't lack for population, as my bathroom scale can attest. — Bill 16:54, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Progress

I visited this page yesterday to find that all the old entries here had been clean out. Yay! I have done a quick upload of the latest database feed, so that work can continue. Feel free to drop me a note on my user talk page if this page needs updating in the future, since I don't check it as often as I probably should. I was actually holding off on uploads for a while because the page was getting too long and no progress was being made. I've reduced the number of suggestions to a maximum of 3 and only added them for the first few groups, to help keep the overall page size down. I have some ideas on how to make the suggestion algorithm more useful (by taking advantage of see also links), but I'm not sure when I'll have time to work on implementation. Anyway, thanks to everyone who's been helping out recently. -- Beland 08:09, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Automation of orphaned categories to CfD

Okay, maybe I'm a n00b here, but if there are scripts that detect orphaned and under-populated categories, why can't someone come up with a script that will automatically move categories with 0 articles to CfD - or maybe even delete them directly - after a given period. I'm of the mind that if someone took the time to create a category, they should take the time to populate it as well. However, I realize it's possible that people may make a category intending to come back later and add articles, but if the category hasn't been populated in 30 days (for example), then maybe it should be moved to CfD. --Barista | a/k/a マイケル | T/C 5 July 2005 03:45 (UTC)

[edit] Mind the logic gap

You say in the activewfixup projects template "As soon as the May 16 list is reduced to a more reasonable size, the June 23 list can be posted.". Surely if we work throught he 16th May, then post the 23 June, we will have completed some/many of the issues found in the 23 June. Would it not be more sensible to list the 23 June now - and if it is too long, release the list incrementally. --Tagishsimon (talk)

[edit] Definition of underpopulated categories

I haven't managed to find a definition of how few articles a category must have to be considered underpopulated? Is there a set figure? Also, when it has more than enough articles does it automatically get taken out of the underpopulated category or must this be done manually? Nick Watts 11:05, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know, the criteria for adding and removing categories to category:underpopulated categories is subjective and the process is manual in both directions. If you have any doubt whether a category is now sufficiently populated you might try tracking down the editor who originally added it and asking them if they think it's suitably populated. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
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