Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (categories)

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[edit] Abbreviations: to expand or not to expand?

There has been some dispute in Wikipedia:Categories for deletion about when to expand abbreviations in category names. A lot of people think it is an absolute requirement that all abbreviations be expanded. Some make exceptions for only a very few extremely well-known abbreviations. The relevant portion of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) is:

  • Avoid abbreviations. Example: "World War II equipment", not "WW2 equipment".

Although this is not an absolute prohibition, it doesn't give any indication as to what the exceptions might be.

I'd like to argue that the length of the name should be a factor for category names (which is in sharp contrast to article names for which a really long name isn't much of a problem). Because category names appear at the bottom of articles in a format which puts as many categories on a line as will fit, really long names add to the clutter and make it hard to sort through more than a few categories.

Therefore I think the convention should be updated to explicitely say that avoiding long names and keeping well-known abbreviations are valid reasons for keeping an abbreviations in a category name.

I'd also like to change the criteria for speedy renaming of categories to not include the expanding of abbreviations. --JeffW 21:11, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to instigate this thread, JeffW. Having tended to favor the expansion of abbreviations in category names, I'm now thinking it might be better to favor using or retaining them, especially if there'd be no consensus or prospect of modifying the category-listing routine (to prevent splitting long or wordy category names across lines). However, if abbreviations were to be (re)embraced, I'd say it should become a requirement that anyone creating or proposing to move a category to a name that uses an abbreviation must at the very least include a sentence at the top of the category's page that expands the abbreviation. (If appropriate, a neat way to achieve this might be via a {{main}} link.) Regards, David Kernow 01:40, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree - a note at the head of the page expanding the abbreviation should suffice. i nominated using acronym naming for sub-cats, but it looks like it ll be rejected. i think now that the criteria should be that as long as no other common meaning for the acronym exists (eg.ATP would be problematic) and as long as the abbreviated name is at least nearly as commonly used as the spelled-out name, then the abbreviated name should be used. i do think though that the supra-cat name should be the same as the name given to that entity's article page (eg. National Hockey League and Category:National Hockey League should be kept, but Category:NHL players should be used; NASCAR and Category:NASCAR should be used). page naming in wikipedia has tended strongly to reflect common as opposed to official name use and acronyms are very commonly used as adjectives to describe things such as players, teams, members (take Category:WTO members - when we talk about members of a WTO, we know which WTO we are refering to, and if someone doesn t, the page header clarifies) Mayumashu 01:55, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
i do think though that the supra-cat name should be the same as the name given to that entity's article page
Absolutely; something I forgot to include in the above. Thanks, David Kernow 12:44, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
There must be billions of people in the world who don't know what the WTO is, and Wikipedia should be easy to use for them too. Bhoeble 16:29, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Category:LGBT, has been criticised, but never for having an initialism as name (afaik). I think one should avoid the use of abbreviations and acronyms in page names where possible (Compare WP:WOTTA, which is about abbreviations in project namespace, so doesn't really apply here, nonetheless interesting for comparison), but for categories maybe not as strict as for article names (compare wikipedia:naming conventions (acronyms)). But maybe an explicit "permission" would be as unneeded as an explicit prohibition (even for article names there's no real prohibition): I think the first principle of page naming is recognition, meaning that only well-recognised, and generally used acronyms could be used; Another principle is to make page names not longer than needed (which in the case of categories is often somewhat more an issue than for articles, so defensible to be a bit less strict on the avoidance of acronyms in the case of categories); And then, there's "good taste" (aka avoiding to be contentious when there is no need for it) - maybe that's why the acronym works better for the LGBT category. --Francis Schonken 09:20, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Oppose The category system is a navigation tool. As far as possible people who are unfamiliar with a topic should be able to form an accurate idea of the contents of a category without clicking it. This can only be done by eliminating abbreviations. Bhoeble 16:27, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

As above, I'm coming round to agreeing that the longer the abbreviation, the longer and more unwieldy the expansion; and the longer the abbreviation, the more specialist it's likely to be, so anyone finding such an abbreviation that doesn't already know what it means is probably already motivated (i.e. happy) to go that further click to find out. (What then needs to be ensured is that the category page carries the expanded version.) I'd hope more and more folk are using tabbed browsers these days, which, if so, makes me think opening an extra tab to view a category page is not particularly inconvenient. Regards, David Kernow 16:43, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
As I navigation tool I don't think people are coming upon categories blind. Either their coming at it from the bottom or from the top but they will have some idea of what the category is about just by where it is placed in the category hierarchy. It's a tradeoff, but I think that the disadvantages of an unwieldy category name shouldn't be discounted. --JeffW 21:17, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

From Category:WAGGGS member organization to Category:World Association of Girl Guides etc etc etc:
...That puts it into areas of closing admin discretion so I am closing this as no consensus pending some insightful outcome at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (categories)#Spelling Out Acronyms. I personally agree that while insiders to the community know WOSM and WAGGGS, anyone from outside the community shouldn't (and likely wouldn't) open the category just to try and figure out what the acronym meant. In those latter cases, the categorization scheme on Wikipedia has failed. In the case of NASCAR, the popularity of the branding makes the acronym itself a proper name. I reserve the ability to reopen this debate with all votes in place if the above discussion doesn't break new ground. I await howls of Rouge Admin at my talk page. ;) --Syrthiss 15:06, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
 No howls of "Rogue admin!" here; instead thanks for a considered approach. Essentially I support the above, but fear new cans of worms will be opened as people argue over whether certain abbreviations are or aren't popularly/generally known. Instead, I'd suggest pitching the policy along the lines of:

Use an abbreviation unless you or someone else makes a case that it can stand for more than one popularly/generally known thing.

That way abbreviations such as WAGGGS, WOSM, NASCAR, CCABG etc would remain as abbreviations, while (shorter) abbreviations such as ABA would most likely need expanding. Regards, David Kernow 16:32, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Oppose The above example shows that things are already decided on a case by case basis, so the only reason to change the policy would be to increase the number of abbreviations which are kept, which is not the way we should go. There are no space restrictions so it is better to spell everything out unless the full version is less clear, as with NASCAR (but few others). Sumahoy 17:17, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
    • The space limitation is at the bottom of articles. --JeffW 19:51, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
    • ...things are already decided on a case by case basis...
      Well, searching for some compromise between the benefits of expanded abbreviations (assists comprehension) and its drawbacks (the longer the abbreviation, the more unwieldy the name), how about:
      All abbreviations of four or more letters remain as abbreviations, to prevent unwieldy category titles; all those of three or less are expanded.
      —The preceding unsigned comment was added by David Kernow (talk • contribs).
  • Expand -- Especially in the case of categories, expansion is crucial. If "WW2" is insufficiently well known and should be expanded, just about anything else is less known. Why treat the World Toilet Organization (WTO) differently? Or "NASCAR" (what does that stand for)? And truly obscure "WAGGGS" and "WOSM"? The longer and more obscure, the more necessary to expand. Expand them all! There's no bit tax (yet), and multi-line lists of categories are not a serious problem.
    --William Allen Simpson 22:10, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
    • One thing to remember is that some some groups are no longer abbreviations. So if NASCAR was the correct name, it should not be expanded to National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. Some terms no longer stand for something but are in fact the name of that something. Vegaswikian 22:32, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
      • I think it is important to distinguish between abbreviations and acronyms. NASCAR, for example, is an acronym. I think this is what Vegaswikian is alluding to. Generally, abbreviations should be spelt out; acronyms are often the word that has meaning to most readers. Other examples that might benefit from being left in their acronymic form would be NATO and NASA. Valiantis 01:17, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
        • No, all acronyms are still abbreviations, and all initialisms are still abbreviations. Vegaswikian is (correctly) describing the fairly common practice of adapting an abbreviation to become the official name. For example, the acronym "Michigan Educational Research Information Triad" (MERIT) became a "Tetrad" and eventually reincorporated as just Merit Network, Inc. when it built the NSFnet. Did National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing officially do that? (It's not actually national, and not actually stock, either.)
          --William Allen Simpson 13:16, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
      • OK, apologies if I am misrepresenting Vegaswikian. And yes, acronyms are a type of abbreviation. Do you know the correct term for an abbreviation that is neither an acronym nor an "initialism"? I still consider that acronyms that are commonplace are better left as acronyms rather than expanded to a form that is less comprehensible. In the case of NASCAR, you know what NASCAR is and means. I (a non-American with no interest in motor-sport) also know what NASCAR is and means (vaguely). A reader who has never heard of NASCAR will be little wiser whether they encounter the word in its acronym or spelt-out form, but for those who have heard of it, it would be less comprehensible if spelt out - you stated in your earlier comment above that you don't know what it stands for! It would seem daft to increase confusion by slavishly following a rule which was introduced with the intention of reducing confusion. Valiantis 00:54, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
        • You are looking for Apocopation. No, until this debate, I'd never bothered to learn the expansion of NASCAR, and did not know what it meant. It was not popular in my area of the US as I was growing up, and is often sneered at now. Apparently, it's one of those annoying organizations that calls itself "national" when it was actually regional, and according the the article "Stock Car" was only in its first year, nearly a century ago. Anyway, the obscurity is a very good reason to expand the silly "Car Auto" faux initialism, a meaningless string of words strung together to make the acronym.
          --William Allen Simpson 10:32, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Valiantis' clarification re acronyms – thanks for mentioning – and since the majority view here (thus far) is to expand all abbreviations, let's forge on. Suggest the "Avoid abbreviations..." guideline under ../#General naming conventions modified to include Valiantis' point. Regards, David Kernow 11:36, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

DO NOT ALWAYS EXPAND Some categories are left alone because they're supposedly well-known (NASCAR), but others are left alone that arena't well know (ARCA). On any given day, you can find cats with abbreviations that have never been proposed for deabbrev. Some cats deabbreviations would create names almost TWO LINES LONG (like World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts member associations in the western hemisphere)...Let's get real here. Is this what we want at the bottom of articles---a cat that is a full sentence? The current policy is inconsistently enforced and would justify a category for "Articles with ridiculously long names". In such a case, an explanation at the top of the categroy page should suffice. Rlevse 20:08, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

PS - why is okay to have ARCA drivers and LGBT not spelled out despite the current policy? I could go on and on with more categories, but the bottom line is this policy is inconsistent and needs to be modified.Rlevse 15:56, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Case by case basis I agree with Rlevse. Some things are ridiculous to expand. You can have too many words. I found a great quote: My great-grandfather used to say to his wife, my great-grandmother, who in turn told her daughter, my grandmother, who repeated it to her daughter, my mother, who used to remind her daughter, my own sister, that to talk well and eloquently was a very great art, but that an equally great one was to know the right moment to stop. ~Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Coffeeboy 18:16, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Oppose Nearly all of them should be expanded. NASCAR is one of only a handful of exceptions I can think of, and that is because it is much more familiar than the full form. Hawkestone 18:30, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

NASCAR is special because why? And who gets to decide this? Some arbitrary group? How many foreigners do you think know what it is? I also noticed you conveniently neglected to mention the "LGBT" and "ARCA drivers" categories. Rlevse 10:08, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Case by case: Most of the times, a user will see a category for the first time at the end of some page. If I go to a page such as Cars (film), I will be left wondering what NASCAR is, because NASCAR is only mentioned once in the text and never explained (and I am under the impression that almost no one outside the USAUnited States of America knows what it is). If I go to the page of a member of organization X, it will probably say at the very beginning "this is member of organization X, which stands for xx xxxx xxx". (if the article doesn't say this, it will need this clarification anyway, whatever the result of this discussion on cathegories). In this case, there will be no need to expand the abbreviation in the category name, because the reader already knows what it means. --Lou Crazy 21:24, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Case by case: As per Rlevse, Lou, Coffee. --Naha|(talk) 22:32, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

What do each of you mean by "case by case". The text of the convention currently just states:
Avoid abbreviations. Example: "World War II equipment", not "WW2 equipment".
It seems many people are currently taking this to mean that the only exceptions are very rare and only on the basis of how well-known the abbreviation is. Would you favor adding text to say that it is reasonable to take the length of the resulting category name into consideration when deciding whether to keep an abbreviation? Do you think abbreviation-expansion should be a speedy-renaming criteria? --JeffW 22:57, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd prefer this to be decided on a case by case basis as well. Some clarifying language would be helpful. I think some editors have interpreted "avoid abbreviations" to be an absolute dictum "Thou shalt not use any abbreviations", which IMO is silly. older ≠ wiser 02:20, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with older/wiser. Also,it should NOT be a speedy criteria. ALSO NOTE: The NASCAR category DOES NOT EVEN EXPAND ITS ACRONYM OUT IN THE TEXT OF THE CATEGORY PAGE, WHICH SOME OF THE CATS MENTION DO AT LEAST DO. Rlevse 10:08, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Agree with User:Bkonrad aka older -wiser --evrik 19:26, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I can see this isn't going to be easy. For example- which is more recognizable: laser or light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation? And yes, lasers is a category with sub-cats of laser science and military lasers. Under the no abbreviations rule, these would be expanded to the point where only the pundits would understand it. Ditto for radar with six sub-cats. The article for laser is under laser, but the graser article is under Gamma-Ray Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. (I knew that certification would come in handy someday). A hard and fast rule is simply not going to work here. I don't think the exceptions are as rare as some may think. A shallow dive into the categories revels sonar, NASA, GNU project, and BSD. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 02:37, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Why not throw my lot in with the radical expansionists? I would support expanding out even NASCAR. This is an encyclopedia: we always value added information over slightly increased brevity—especially in the "end material" of articles, i.e. everything below the "See also" section, with the possible exception of deleting linkspam, which is neither here nor there. People shouldn't have to click on a category to see what the acronym means—no point in creating nebulous distinction here over whether some acronyms are more well-known than others. There really is no added utility, even with the longer acronyms, of saving space in the categorization box. One exception I would support is if the acronym has become a word, which is distinct from well-known. Scuba, for example, appears in all dictionaries as a word in its own right.

It appears likely that the result of this discussion will be that this can't be speedied and that we need a case by case analysis. Even if that is true, we can still make general guidelines. I propose (for starters): I reserve the right to update this list

Things always to be expanded
  1. Organization names
  2. Country names and acronyms which only hold true in one country (MP for Minister of Parliament comes to mind)
Things never to be expanded
  1. Acronyms that have become words

Also, obviously this policy should only apply to the article space. For the project space, acronyms known by Wikipedians should be fair game. Also, LGBT isn't really an acronym in the traditional sense, so its not a good example for those who oppose expansion. But it wouldn't be the end of the world if that was expanded from my point of view. savidan(talk) (e@) 08:19, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Agreed. Category:LGBT should be expanded. "Laser" may have originally been "LASER", and "Radar" may have originally been "RADAR", but both are now words (Neologisms). I'm opposed to the endless case-by-case debates, the exceptions should be exceptionally rare!
    --William Allen Simpson 10:32, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Good. We have identified that neologisms are an exception to the rule. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 12:58, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Another suggested exception: when the acronym in the category name is explained in all member pages. --Lou Crazy 03:12, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Agree with Lou Crazy, plus there will always be debates about is and isn't a neologism. Rlevse 10:23, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
More suggested exceptions to be used with the traditional good judgment invested in the average wikipedian:
Acronyms in Category names are acceptable when the expansion of an "acronym'ed" organization would be a) unwieldly and long (which is why the acronym is commonly used: such as IBM and 3M, but not BSA or USA), or b) more confusing than just leaving it as an acronym (NASCAR, but not LGBT).
It is also inefficient to police on a "case-by-case" basis, so I greatly prefer that this be left as a non-binding recommendation. By the way, expanding GNU would open a Pandora's box (just try it, but not here). NThurston 18:10, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
The following survey is now closed in favor of this thread below.

[edit] Consensus to remove mention of abbreviations?

Further to the rationale here, i.e.

"...expanding abbreviations in category names makes scanning the category listings at the bottoms of pages less than straightforward. Discovering what an abbreviation in a category name means takes only one or two clicks, which I don't believe is inconvenient – especially when using tabbed browsers such as Firefox, which seem to be more and more popular..."

...I was wondering whether or not there'd be a consensus to remove the "Avoid abbreviations..." bullet from the General naming conventions section?  This is not to encourage use of abbreviations but not to discourage them either.

[edit] Survey

Please add  * Support  or  * Oppose  followed by a brief explanation and then your signature ("~~~~").

  • Support per above. David Kernow 15:02, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Sometimes the abbreviation is clearer then the expanded form and length has to be a factor. If this passes it should be removed as a speedy criteria as well. --JeffW 21:53, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose -- the same old argument AGAIN??? We just had a long discussion a couple of months ago, and a couple of months before that, and I'm really getting tired of it. Counting all the previous discussion, this new "survey" is very unlikely to advance. --William Allen Simpson 02:33, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Did the previous discussions consider the notion above, viz. "a consensus to remove the "Avoid abbreviations..." bullet... not to encourage use of abbreviations but not to discourage them either"...?  Apologies if I missed it and also any response to tabbed browsing. Regards, David 03:10, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
The discussion above is preserved as an archive.

[edit] User categorisation

For a proposal on how to name categories intended to contain wikipedia users, see this CfD entry. SeventyThree(Talk) 22:15, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I propose that all Wikipedian or User categorization categories have "Wikipedian" as part of their name to avoid any ambiguity as to their function. This also eliminates the possibility of accidentally assigning articles to non-article categories that Wikipedians seem to generate with fecundity. 132.205.45.148 23:56, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Environment by country

The contents of Category:Environment by country currently go by the "Nationality x" wording. As the concept of nationality specifically regards a relationship between people and a nation, I'm curious why a direct sub-cat of Category:Nature uses this naming convention, which we generally only apply to socio-cultural topics that are represented as products of a nation of people, like Category:Art by nationality or Category:Rock music by nationality. Additionally, the primary cat involved here has always been named Category:Environment by country, not Category:Environment by nationality. I think it would be preferrable to switch to a wording not based on nationalities. Kurieeto 16:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Strong support. Ont thing I'll add by way of a qualm is that picking the appropriate preposition is tricky, as neither "in country" or "of country" seems clearly more appropriate than the other. The Tom 18:33, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
I would propose "in country" to be more suitable. This category's parent of Category:Nature deals with subjects of "matter and energy" that pre-date and are irrespective of the formation of countries and borders. Therefore, I don't think that the preposition "of" is the most appropriate, because the word involves a reliance on the existence of whatever country is involved. Kurieeto 22:42, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm somewhat in agreement from a conceptual stance. It's just Environment is a weird mass-noun and it grates awkwardly on the ear when modified by any prepositional phrase (to be fair, it grates equally so with the status-quo of nationality adjectives). "The environment in Fooland" maybe? "Environmental topics in Fooland"?
It's also worth noting that the thing that is colloquially called "the Environment" has wound up as Natural environment for its Wikipedia master article, with Environment reserved as an uber-disambig page. That might suggest "Natural environment in Fooland" in keeping with our category-titles-parallel-article-titles rule of thumb.
Now, oddly enough "Natural enviroment of Fooland" sounds markedly better than the "in" option, and I'm not entirely sure what rule of the language is leading me to think this. Maybe this is a situation like Category:History by country (and Category:Natural history by country) where "of" is the preferred preposition for whatever quirky English-language reasons even though they should by all rights fit under the "irrespective of the formation of countries and borders" envelope that you quite rightly pointed out. Maybe I'm overthinking things, but I suppose "History" is an automatic property that any territorial unit of earth automatically "has," the same way it has "Dimensions" or "Borders" or "Geography." With that in mind, perhaps there is justification for "Natural environment of Fooland" ? The Tom 01:39, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Agree with The Tom's analysis above, that natural environment of <country> has a more authentic and idiomatic ring to it, as a property more so than a discrete entity which can be contained.--cjllw | TALK 03:10, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
While The Tom is right about natural environment being the master article now, I don't know if I agree with a change to it, unless Category:Environment and its associated sub-cats also move to that name (Category:Environmental organizations, etc.). If "Environment" is being used in all other sub-cats as the term with the widest and most appropriate scope, then I think we should continue to follow it in Category:Environment by country.
Also, I would support a move to "Environment of country", but I'd also add to my initial point that I just find "Environment in country" to have a broader conceptual scope than "Environment of country". I can't articulate exactly why though. Perhaps in some way it's similar to a question of "Law of Canada" or "Law in Canada" as the highest level article for a subject by country category? I should have been an English major so I could express myself about this! Sorry for being so vague, it's just a feeling in my gut. Kurieeto 14:02, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
I've made a proposal at CFD to switch to a by country wording. Kurieeto 21:16, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
oppose change. present system is more friendly to people searching. also fixing all the links to these articles would be a minor nightmare. Anlace 03:18, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I disagree, the present system is in fact less friendly to searching. What are the borders of scope of Category:Chinese environment, for example? This would be addressed by going to a model which would allow for say Category:Environment of the People's Republic of China, Category:Environment of Taiwan, etc. Everything will still be sorted alphabetically by using the inclusion format of for example: [Category:Environment by country|People's Republic of China]. Also the number of renamings involved in this proposal are relatively minor, and will likely be taken care of by Bots anyway. Kurieeto 21:48, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Sory I had misspelled the link —Argentino (talk/cont.) 15:19, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aircraft by country

I'm looking for comments regarding Category:Aircraft by country and its sub-cats. As an initial point, I think that Category:Aircraft by country and Category:Ships by country should use the same naming convention as they are both vehicles. Aircraft by country currently uses "nationality x" and Ships by country currently uses "of country". I would propose we use "of country" for both because this regards production or operation within the border of a country, not really the products of a nation of people.

I also find the sub-cats of Category:Aircraft by country to be very unwieldly and cumbersome. Several sub-cats like Category:Canadian sports planes 1990-1999 have existed for over a year and a half but contain only one article, and others like Category:Australian aircraft 1930-1939 would be much better suited as part of a list. I find this to be a systemic problem throughout all sub-cats of Category:Aircraft by country, and I'd appreciate comments on this category and its sub-cats. Kurieeto 13:51, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

A proposal to rename to "of country" has gone up at CFD. Kurieeto 23:11, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Landforms by country

I'm proposing that Landforms by country categories be named "in country" (such as Category:Rivers in England instead of Category:Rivers of England). Currently by country categories of permanently located man-made objects are named "in country", and I don't see a reason why this policy should differ for entities not made by man that are also permanently located. Like Ethnic groups, landforms pre-date the formation of countries and human concepts of borders, and often exist within the boundries of multiple states. For these reasons among others, ethnic groups by country were given the "in country" naming convention. As an example of existing within multiple states, the Nile River article is categorized as a River of Egypt, River of Sudan, and a River of Uganda. As the river existed long before the creation of these countries, the most appropriate term to describe it is not that it is "of" these states, but rather that it is simply in these states. Discussion is appreciated prior to a mass-cfru. Kurieeto 22:19, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Several good points in opposition have been made, so I no longer think a mass-cfru for all landform by country categories is appropriate. However, to make the encyclopedia as good as possible by using the most appropriate terms, I would like to see debate and cfrus allowed for some Landforms, such as those that are without question inside a nation's borders. My proposal is therefore ammended to only ask that not all landforms be named "of country" mandatorily, given support for some of them being described most appropriately by "in country". Kurieeto 14:47, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Oppose. Quite a few of these categories aren't literally "in" the countries. Names like Cat:Coastline in New Zealand sound ridiculous, and we could easily have a deep philosophical argument about whether "Bays in Wales" is correct (is the bay the land or the water?). All the man-made features, however, are in the respective countries. If we were going to make all of them uniform by having the same preposition "of" would be a far more natural one to use for the reason of inclusiveness (all places "in" are automatically "of"; all places "of" are not automatically "in"). Grutness...wha? 23:51, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments Grutness, you make good points. As a question, considering by themselves landforms that are unequivocally within the borders of a country, such as Category:Caves by country or Category:Mountains by country, would you believe "of" or "in" to be the most appropriate? Kurieeto 01:32, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
FWIW, I'd probably use "of" in everyday speech or writing, though it would depend on circumstance and a subtle nuance of meaning - Mount Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand (as it is located in New Zealand), but it is one of the mountains of New Zealand (as it is part of New Zealand). I suppose it comes back to a philosophical point again - are we categorising things because they are located somewhere or because they are part of a place? I'd say that the second is closer to the aim - these are the mountains (caves, rivers) that form part of X. Caes is a tricky one because they are literally "in" the place - if you wanted to be really technically picky, you';d have to describe most of the others as "on" the place, but I don't think anyone would support that as a naming option. Grutness...wha? 03:48, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Considering ethnic groups, I think we categorized those because they are "in" a place, as opposed to being "of" a place, which I believe should be continued to landforms. Kurieeto 12:53, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I would have thought "of" might bave been a more natural usage there too, but I've no real objection to ethnic groups being either "in" or "of". Grutness...wha? 05:19, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Support for most of them. I don't see why we shouldn't use "of" for most types, and have a few exceptions for coastal landforms. This area would then be more consistent with the manmade categories, and "in" sounds more natural to me. Calsicol 11:35, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
The problem with that is that currently there are no exceptions to the rule - if it's manmade it's in, if it's natural it's of - it's easy and straightforward to remember. If we head down the track of "They're all in except for the following list..." then it'll become far harder to remember which name is used where, and we're also more likely to get doubling up of categories. Grutness...wha? 12:13, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
For currently existing categories, which ones come to mind as exceptions to any potential "in country" rename? By country landform categories we have right now are Category:Beaches, Category:Caves by country, Category:Cliffs, Category:Craters, Category:Depressions by country, Category:Deserts, Category:Fjords, Category:Forests, Category:Glaciers, Category:Headlands, Category:Hills, Category:Islands by country, Category:Mountain passes, Category:Mountain ranges by country, Category:Mountains, Category:Peninsulas by country, Category:Rivers by country, and Category:Rock formations by country. Kurieeto 14:10, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
well, fairly much as BL points out below, the ones relating to coastlines seem to be - if you'll pardon the pun - boderline at least. we don't talk about the coast in a country, nor coastal features in a country. So that instantly excludes cliffs, headlands, peninsulas, beaches, and fiords. Mountains, mountain ranges, lakes, and rivers often form the boundaries of countries too - the Pyrenees aren't in France or Spain, they form the boundary - but the slopes are part of both countries. In fact, anything that has the potential to be shared by two or more countries can't really be said to be in any one of them. Which is why in is an advantage with man-made features (since they are rarely in more than one country) but a disadvantage with natural features (which frequently cross borders). Grutness...wha? 05:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Abbreviations (again) - where the well-known logo is the abbreviation

I'm trying to tidy some parts of a WikiProject, and I've bumped into the issue of whether to expand an abbreviation or not. In view of the long discussion here Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(categories)#Abbreviations:_to_expand_or_not_to_expand I'd like to tackle this as a generic thing rather than another case-by-case problem. What we've got in the National Health Service in the UK is an organisation where its well-known logo just says "NHS". And, without personally reading every page of 62 million Google search results for "NHS" I think the acronym is pretty unambiguous worldwide. In other words, the logo is a recognised alternative name that's a whole lot shorter. Without trying to draft Wikipolicy, I'm thinking that after "former abbreviations that have become the official name should be used in their official forms where there are no other conflicts" it might make sense to say a little bit more about possible exceptions. Maybe, "similarly, where there are no other conflicts, an abbreviation that is used as an official alternative name or logo with global recognition can be considered as an exception." For example, can we sensibly standardise on the short version of NHS? (The issue "NHS v. National Health Service" surfaced in Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:NHS_defunct_bodies_to_Category:NHS_defunct_organisationswhere I now recognise some of the usernames!) --Mereda 16:10, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Did you forget about the National Honor Society, that's the most well know. At least in the US? This is likely the most common use in the US. If you look at the NHS dab article there are several listed, all of which use NHS as the TLA. So really in this case expansion for the article and cat help since I clearly know what the National Health Service is. Vegaswikian 16:43, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Sorry, but logos aren't dispositive. Heck, even the [www.nhs.uk main web presence] calls itself "NHS England" to distinguish from other parts of the UK. US doesn't have anything like a national health service, but has various health systems, and lots of "High Schools" (all with logos). I graduated from "LHS" and one of my classmates became an internationally famous (single named) artist, who designed our logo and various other emblems. Folks create new logos all the time. Best to expand.
    --William Allen Simpson 17:18, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I think the wrong end of the stick has been seized here. It is not just a question of the logo, which was created a long time after the acronym 'NHS' gained general currency; thus logo criteria are not germane to the issue. The National Health Service is, according to various calculations, the 3rd, 4th or 5th largest organisation in the world. Its structure is extremely complicated and that necessitates a number of categories so that the topic can be clearly defined and 'routed' for Wikipedia readers. In these circumstances it is apropriate to continue to use the generally accepted acronym NHS, which has been used for over 50 years. There is no case, or reason under Wikipedia conventions, to expand it.--Smerus 09:15, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Natives to People

Recently, "Greek exceptionalism" advocates (mainly 2-3 folks) were using the categories named "Native of Foo" to mean non-immigrant, excluding folks actually born in a place whose great grandparents had been immigrants or refugees. Nativism rearing its ugly head.

During the debate, it was mentioned that several other places use the "Native of Foo" in the same way:

While it's hard to tell, I don't doubt that there is some confusion, and that some folks are using those categories in that nativist fashion. The rest of the 'pedia seems to use the "People from Foo" form instead.

I'd like to standardize on "People from Foo" to avoid further confusion.

--William Allen Simpson 04:19, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Ok for me (renaming all "natives of .." to "people from"). "People born in .." would be find as well. -- User:Docu
  • Support "People from..." as less binding. David Kernow 15:30, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

After related discussion at the Village Pump, added subsection on Residence, distinguished from Occupation.

--William Allen Simpson 01:41, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed amendment to the "Avoid abbreviations..." statement in General naming conventions

Further to the above, perhaps a consensus may be reached over the following:

[edit] Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories)#General naming conventions

Replace

  • Avoid abbreviations. Example: "World War II equipment", not "WW2 equipment". However, former abbreviations that have become the official name should be used in their official form where there are no other conflicts.

with

(a) Only use abbreviations if they are adjectival (i.e. if they act as adjectives)...
Example: "WTO members", not "Members of the WTO"
...or if they are four or more letters long.
Example: "United States Navy SEALs", not "Members of the United States Navy Sea, Air and Land Special Operation Force"
(b) Only abbreviate whole words to single letters, i.e. don't use abbreviations such as "Univ".
(c) Don't abbreviate country names.
Examples: "United States", not "US" or "U.S."; "Argentina", not "ARG"; etc.
(d) If a category name includes an abbreviation, ensure an expansion of that abbreviation may be found on the category's page.
Example: Category:ARCA racetracks has "Racetracks that host events held by the Auto Racing Club of America (ARCA)." at the top of its page.
(e) Note that some abbreviations have become names in themselves, i.e. they are no longer treated as abbreviations.
Example: Category:ECHL and its subcategories.

[edit] Discussion/Survey

  • I believe the balance between using and not using abbreviations in category names is tipping too far in favo/ur of the latter, producing overly long category names. I suggest the above as a position between this situation and debating each instance on a case-by-case basis (cf previous discussions). There are probably more effective examples than those used above. Let's work out a consensus!  David Kernow 11:25, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree, there are definite advantages to shorter names. - SimonP 14:46, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I can see the benefits, but I am of the belief country names should never be abbreviated. I would ask that that position be considered. Steve block Talk 12:56, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Have added sentence to the proposed wording above to reflect this; perhaps there are better examples to use...?  Thanks, David 13:17, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose -- I'm getting mightly tired of these constant polls.
    1. The length of category names is not a problem, and it's not a problem when they are on multiple lines.
    2. "single letters" are initialisms, one of many forms of abbreviation.
    3. WTO should never be abbreviated in a category.
    4. SEALs should never be abbreviated in a category, as most folks have no idea what it means without looking it up, and it is not by any stretch of the imagination unique, there are many conflicts.
    5. Folks should NOT be constantly clicking on category after category to learn the meaning!
    --William Allen Simpson 02:45, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm getting mightly tired of these constant polls.
Perhaps their recurrence is an indication of a groundswell for change?  Perhaps they don't all address or propose the same things (cf. queries here)...?
1./3. Okay, your opinion is clear. Thanks.
2. Not sure to what this is referring; apologies. If you mean "Only abbreviate whole words to single letters...", I'm not sure why you're pointing this out.  (updated 18:59, 4 July 2006 (UTC))
4. Not sure why it therefore follows that it has to be expanded in the category name...?
5. I agree. I just don't believe they would. When using/browsing the encyclopedia, I only come by categories with expanded abbreviations (or categories whose abbreviations haven't yet been expanded) occasionally – and when I do, the article to which they're attached usually indicates the abbreviations' meanings or suggests their likely meaning. I notice those abbreviations that have been expanded in category names, however, because the length of those names is often in marked contrast with the length of other category names beside them. For the sake of keeping the lists of categories at the bottoms of articles consistently scannable, is it really that much to ask someone to open a tab on their browser? If they don't already know what the abbreviation means, paying attention to it suggests they are sufficiently interested by it to find out...
Thanks for your thoughts, David Kernow 02:21, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps their recurrence is the same people bringing the same old arguments back again and again, in the hope that the old folks have gone away or are busy elsewhere. The "scannability" is enhanced by expanding the abbreviations. There's no problem with displaying as many lines as it takes.
--William Allen Simpson 07:05, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't agree that the scannability is increased by changing say, NASA to National Aeronautic and Space Administration. If the abbreviation is more well known then replacing it greatly decreases scannability. --JeffW 17:26, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
I'll readily admit, I don't know the history of this debate. I do remember the CFD discussion on the ECHL cat. So, I dunno. WTO is debatable, so are most others, but I've never, ever, ever heard anyone not call them "Navy SEALs." As a general rule, I like expanding acronyms, but I would oppose the idea of that as an absolute policy. Good ideas, signed into writ, can quickly become suicide pacts; aren't we better off leaving ourselves with the room to apply our own judgement? Ultimately, ease of browsing is the standard I usually go for. Just a few thoughts. Luna Santin 10:03, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A brief history of discussions etc regarding abbreviations and category naming

Folks may be interested and perhaps surprised to learn that there appears to've been very little discussion of category naming and abbreviations in general until recently. Most of the history appears to concern the use of abbreviations for country names – which is not the issue here.

  • The first – isolated – expression of disapproval toward abbreviations in category names other than those involving country names seems to be here, in August 2005: ""...Although I would use US Marine Corps in speech, I would almost always write United States Marine Corps, as I think abbreviations are generally clumsy and unencyclopaedic."
  • Going back a year, the suggestion that "...Issues that will be debated at a later stage [could include] Whether or not to use abbreviations in cat names" occurs here. There doesn't appear to be any record of such a debate (country names excepted) until #Abbreviations: to expand or not to expand? above.
  • A second to possibly a fourth expression of general disapproval toward abbreviations in category names appear in this talk page's most recent archive, /Archive 7.
  • A debate about abbreviations in category names other than for country names does not commence until #Abbreviations: to expand or not to expand? above. Statements in favor and against some specified use of abbreviations in category names follow thus, without listing repetitions:

[edit] #Abbreviations: to expand or not to expand?

  • (Query by JeffW with implicit support; becomes support below.)
  • (Prospective support from David Kernow; becomes support below.)
  • Prospective support from Mayumashu.
  • (-) Implicit opposition from Francis Schonken.
  • - Opposition from Bhoele.
  • (-) Implicit opposition from Syrthiss.
  • - Opposition from Sumahoy.
  • - Opposition from William Allen Simpson.
  • + Support from Rlevse.
  • + Support from Coffeeboy.
  • - Opposition from Hawkestone.
  • + Support from Lou Crazy.
  • + Support from Naha.
  • + Support from Bkonrad (aka "older ≠ wiser").
  • + Support from evrik.
  • Prospective support from Gadget850.
  • - Opposition from savidan.
  • Prospective support from NThurston.

[edit] #Consensus to remove mention of abbreviations?

  • + Support from David Kernow.
  • + Support from JeffW.

[edit] #Discussion/Survey in this thread

  • + Support from SimonP.
  • + Support from Steve block.

I believe all the above indicates that:

  • (a) Until recently, i.e. within this current talk page, there has been very little consideration of abbreviations' use in category names other than as regards country names (where the history indicates a consensus against their use);
  • (b) Of the two polls conducted to date (#Consensus to remove mention of abbreviations? became the #Discussion/Survey in this thread; see above) there is no consensus over the issue.

I don't believe the "Avoid abbreviations..." statement should include directions for which there is no consensus. Hence I suggest it is replaced by:

(a) Don't abbreviate country names.
Examples: "United States", not "US" or "U.S."; "Argentina", not "ARG"; etc.
(b) Note that some abbreviations have become names in themselves, i.e. they are no longer treated as abbreviations.
Example: Category:ECHL and its subcategories.

Regards, David Kernow 00:10, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
PS More detail from the review.

  • Begging your pardon, David, but what you have is no consensus to change!
    1. This policy was only adopted last August. That's why you don't have many old comments.
    2. The text at Avoid abbreviations was taken verbatim from an earlier guideline (then called "Wikipedia:Categorization#General naming conventions"). The earlier debate was held there, and approved in the poll here.
    3. The poll on adoption had many contributors in multiple places. You have few.
    4. Your listing and subsections (and silly images) were never adopted, and you shouldn't ascribe positions to people without their express consent.
  • However, thank you for taking the effort to read some of the history and bring your interpretation to our attention.
    --William Allen Simpson 03:49, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your information, William.

Re 2. "...The earlier debate was held there, and approved in the poll here", per the second bullet under here, please confirm the locations of the debate and poll, as I remain confused. Hence I'm not sure there ever was a consensus to introduce the current general policy, only a consensus as regards not using abbreviations for country names. Thanks.
Re 3. "The poll on adoption had many contributors in multiple places" – if so, how was it possible to guage a consensus? Who took the time and trouble to do so? Is there a record of their evaulation somewhere that I've missed? Please also indicate a few of the "multiple places" I've apparently missed; thanks.

Yours, David Kernow 01:33, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Don't hijack votes

You want to know my vote on something, ask me outright, don't vote for me based on your own interpretation of what I have said. People should always apply good faith. Also, if you want to know where abbreviations have been discussed look through the old manual of style archives, they've been discussed there a few times too, as well as at CFD. At the time this page was created, the consensus at CFD was that we should avoid abbreviations. There was no poll or discussion because the discussion had been held in cfd after cfd. It had wide agreement at the time and didn't need discussion. I wouldn't want people to think that a lack of transparency indicates anything other than the fact that Wikipedia is not a democracy, and nor should anyone attempt to build a position based on the perceived lack of transparency. Steve block Talk 13:45, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm assuming the above is directed toward myself. I'm sorry, Steve, if you are/were under the impression that the listings above constituted a poll; they were no more than my effort to summariz/se the previous discussions and polls I had found in this talk page and its predecessor's history. I simply took your statement "I can see the benefits, but I am of the belief country names should never be abbreviated..." above to indicate your support for the idea of amending the "Avoid abbreviations..." statement in the General naming conventions. If this was not your position, please accept my apologies for misunderstanding your statement. I am also sorry that you appear to feel I acted in less than good faith ("People should always apply good faith"); it has always been and continues to be my intention to assume nothing other than good faith. If this is not what you meant by "People should always apply good faith", I apologiz/se again for misunderstanding you.
Though the issue involved – the use of abbreviations in category names – is relatively small, I spent some time trying to research its history (see, for example, the "PS More detail from the review" above) as I was concerned to find it very much less than straightforward to locate and establish the sequence of discussions, polls, etc leading to its adoption as "policy". As William (Allen Simpson) has not responded to the requests for assistance in my post immediately before yours, perhaps you might be able to help...?  Best wishes, David Kernow 17:09, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
I appreciate your response. The trouble is this is a frequent occurrence on Wikipedia, that people will summarise views or vote in polls for people based on comments they have read. My comment carries meaning within the context it was made, and I was stating that I could see the benefits, not that I supported the idea. I appreciate the explanation though, and apologise if my words were overly harsh. I've made my position clear, perhaps stronger than I should have done, for which I apologise, but I would say it's important to be careful when summarising.
I thought myself and Rick had outlined the process by which this became a policy below? It's worth noting that Wikipedia isn't a democracy, and there was no poll on this issue becoming policy, I argued against a poll quite heavily at the time the discussions were going on. I wanted to reach whatever goal we found through discussion rather than a quick poll. There was a long poll at the beginning of the discussion to sound out opinion, and start discussion, and then those of us who held the greatest interest thrashed out those views into the page itself, and decided upon labelling it policy. All of this tookl place with the discussions being advertised on all the usual places. It's also worth noting that a lot of things that had consensus were written into the page. On a wiki, somethings happen by poll, somethings happen by discussion, and some things happen because no-one reverts them; in the latter this is because it is felt high profile pages will soon be amended if the community disagree. A lot of issues had been hashed out at many debates held at WP:CFD prior to these discussions and were views consensually held. There was no discussion since no-one objected. I hope that helps to clarify the process somewhat, and might establish why the discussions you seek aren't necessarily to be found here. Either we hashed it out before-hand or we simply all agreed and there was nothing to discuss. Steve block Talk 16:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your understanding, Steve. I think what might've happened is that something (namely the details of the "Avoid abbreviations..." statement) was imported from somewhere where its scope had/has consensus (i.e. article-naming conventions/guidelines/policies) to somewhere where its scope doesn't necessarily have consensus (i.e. here). Both contexts might have consensus that abbreviating country names is a no-no, for instance, but the newer context (here) might not have the consensus to apply all the other original constraints ('don't abbreviate this', 'don't abbreviate that', etc). This is what I hope my response to your "What else do you refer to..." query below indicated.
Perhaps in future months and years more folk not put off by the morass of page histories etc might also question the long category names that the minimal use of abbreviation tends to produce; perhaps not. Perhaps also there might be some process and record that's easier to follow, refer to and hold to account as regards the creation of "policy". Regards, David Kernow 01:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Plus, not having a record of the previous debate makes it really hard to see if the differences in usage between article names and category names was taken into account when the avoid abbreviations policy was added here. --JeffW 07:32, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I can only offer that in my opinion there was a huge consensus in many debates at WP:CFD that the differences were discussed and that the merits of issuing the guidance in the context of categories had been discussed. However, nothing is binding. Start a discussion and try to gain a consensus on amending the guidance. Attacking the guidance for perceived flaws in the creation of that guidance isn't really the way we change things on Wikipedia. Wikipedia isn't a democracy, and Wikipedia isn't a bureaucracy, so not every consensus has to be annotated. But it is all there, in archived category renaming debates through the period this policy was discussed and settled upon. I can't agree that everything should be documented, we're all volunteers and that appears to me to be m:instruction creep, overly bureaucratic and against keeping it short and simple. It was thought long category names were not a problem at the time, and there seemed a benefit to them, in that they afforded a clear definition of the category through the name, and that aided classification. I appreciate you may not readily accept my descriptions of the events as I participated in them, but I think it is unfair to assert that something was imported from somewhere without consideration. Like I say, feel free to create a consensus to alter what you disagree with. I can't see any value in attacking the creation of something that has been accepted this long. Don't ignore a consensual decision, but do try to build a consensus to change it. Steve block Talk 10:37, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Start a discussion and try to gain a consensus on amending the guidance
I believe that's what I tried to do, before becoming aware that it wasn't readily evident that there was consensus for the original (and current) "Avoid abbreviations..." statement.
Attacking the guidance for perceived flaws...
I can't see any value in attacking the creation of something...
I'm sorry if you feel my queries and suggestions have constituted an attack; this was and is not my intent, as I recognise it is unconstructive. My apologies if this is how they have appeared.
I appreciate you may not readily accept my descriptions of the events
I hope none of my contributions here suggest that I don't believe your (or Rick Block's) accounts. If they do, my apologies; I'd appreciate advice where this occurs (probably best placed on my talk page).
I think it is unfair to assert that something was imported from somewhere without consideration
I believe I've suggested rather than asserted that the possible benefits of the constrained use of abbreviations in catgory names (less constrained than at present) might've been overlooked through the consideration given to issues such as country names, a consideration I have seen and acknowledge. If my contributions have nonetheless appeared to constitute an assertion, my apologies.
Don't ignore a consensual decision, but do try to build a consensus to change it.
I don't believe I've tried to do anything other than you describe; I apologiz/se if it has appeared otherwise. I hope the sense of bad faith I unwittingly seem to've created may be transformed.
Thanks for taking the time to comment, David Kernow 12:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stub categories

A proposal at Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion has generated some discussion regarding if Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) should defer to Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Naming guidelines#Categories, or the other way around, in regard to naming guidelines for categories exclusively containing stubs. Input there is appreciated. Kurieeto 16:52, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

This is POLICY, that is a GUIDELINE. Policy trumps Guideline.
--William Allen Simpson 02:49, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ethnicity, hyphenation, and membership

There's a long list of ethnicity nominations heating up at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 July 3.

We need a firm policy on this for Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories).

  1. When hyphenation should be used?
    • I propose that hyphenation should always be used where the ethnicity is followed by the nationality (for example, Category:Irish-Americans). It is my understanding that this follows common style practice in American newsmedia.
    • I propose that hyphenation should never be used where the nationality is followed by the ethnicity (for example, Category:British Asians). It is my understanding that this follows common style practice in British newsmedia.
  2. When categorized?
    • The recent earlier discussion indicates that membership should be self-identified and verifiable. I agree.

This needs clear policy and forceful enforcement. We have a real problem with racism among some of the editors.

For example, folks with 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, and 1/16 Black ancestry are again being categorized as "African-American" without any verifiability. I don't want to go back to the days where folks were called "mulatto", "quadroon" and "octaroon". It's certainly not appropriate for a modern encyclopedia.

Another example:

No African or Caribbean or Asian or Indian immigrant is referred to as "English", no matter how long they or their generations have lived here.

I find the racist sentiment repugnant. It is contrary to current practices. For notable examples in the popular media:

Are there any existing Proposed guidelines or policy or essays? I'm planning on writing a new one, and it would be helpful to know where the previous attempts have been made.

If folks could point me at past discussion, I will try to formulate something in the next few days. Thank you.

--William Allen Simpson 07:06, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
I support your positions in points 1 and 2 as above. To make it emphatic that these categorizations are based on self-identification, perhaps that phrase or a derivative of it can be worked into the category title, at least at the top level. Kurieeto 14:19, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
Self identification works very poorly when dealing with historical figures (100 years ago, etc). Facts of where they came from are more likely to be found. Thanks Hmains 03:06, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
That's a good point. Perhaps having two streams of categories would accomodate this, "people from X" and "X self-identifiers", with potential overlap accepted? Kurieeto 03:14, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Self-identification with no parent-based facts seems pretty useless. My point is all the categories' population should be based on parentage facts and that self-identification should be superfluous. Thanks Hmains 19:05, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I have added to the policy page, new section Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories)#Heritage. Note that I'm deliberately using a very broad umbrella term, rather than a list of "ancestry, class, culture, ethnicity, national origin, race, religion, or previous condition of servitude".

The determinative use of hyphens to distinguish the adjectival word order was overwhelmingly supported at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) and recent Categories for Discussion pages, such as Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 July 3.

The requirement that living people must have self-identified was overwhelmingly supported on the Village pump, while the status of historical people was harder to determine. I've crafted wording that reflects a cross-selection of the arguments there.

Remember, these are Wikipedia:Naming conventions, and need to be concise. The detailed guidelines for inclusion and interpretation will be at Wikipedia:Categorization of people, where we can worry about other issues.

Any changes to hyphenation are now subject to speedy renaming, pursuant to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories)#Categories by nationality.

--William Allen Simpson 15:52, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I am going to remove this section. It was added prematurely by a user with a vested interest and with inadequate support. The current discussion on Wikipedia:Categories for discussion shows that it is far from having consensus support. Chicheley 10:20, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Am I the only one who feels that this needed much more discussion before becoming policy? There are a lot of editors who edit the "Abcd American" articles that would have an opinion about this. It seems like this policy was just being passed under the radar and then unilaterally enforced.

And I'd like to point out that the U.S. Census does not use hyphens in its categorisations. Personally I would think that would be more authoritative. --- Hong Qi Gong 15:36, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

No, it seems you are not the only one. There is no consensus it seems; at least there wasn't after this recent discussion at WP:CFD. Can I propose that the correct formation of these category names, both Category:Fooian Barians and Category:Fooian-Barians, might be Category:Fooian-Barian people in line with the categories at Category:People by nationality which are all Category:Fooian people except where no accepted adjective for the nationality exists. Discussion here has been slow, it appears, which means that perhaps there is no perceived urgency in the community to implement a policy for these category names. --RobertG ♬ talk 11:27, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't have an opinion on other nationalities, but since the US Census does not use a hyphen, I suggest that the Abcd American articles and categories be named without the hyphen. Whether or not the categories' names are followed by people, I personally don't care. --- Hong Qi Gong 18:25, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 July 14#unhyphenated-American result was "short with 64%". Apparently, despite the numerous previous such debates, and existing policy, the closer felt that the threshhold should be 67%, or that somebody was somehow proposing that everything should be renamed in the form: "American African" (the closer isn't clear). I didn't see any such ambiguity.

If you haven't been paying attention to this discussion for over 6 months, then it might seem "passed under the radar". For the rest of us, it seems long and drawn out.

The 2000 US census reports (alphabetically):

  1. "American Indian or Alaska Native"
  2. "Asian"
  3. "Black or African American"
  4. "Hispanic or Latino"
  5. "Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander"
  6. "Some Other Race"
  7. "White"

Are you positing a straw man? Do you really think we should consolidate all the American categories to these few?

And should we do the same to the rest of the world?

--William Allen Simpson 01:17, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
And what exactly should I have been paying attention to? Deletion review, where hundreds of articles of no interest to me pass through? Was the discussion here in Naming Convention ever mentioned in any of the Ethnic American articles? I have several on my watchlist and I didn't notice that. Was it even mentioned in the Talk pages for the Categories prior to the move proposal template being added to them? Correct me if they were actually mentioned and I just completely missed it.
Like I said, there are a lot of editors at these articles. All of a sudden we would have to deal with inconsistencies between how the Categories are named and how the articles themselves are named. Would the next move be to rename all the articles themselves and add the hyphen?
About the US Census, those groups you listed above are not the only categorisation that the Census does. Here you go[1]. And no, I'm not presenting a straw man argument. You, on the other hand, are under a logical fallacy. While the Census may not categorise as many Ethnic American groups as Wikipedia here does, it also does not claim that those groups it does not categorise do not exist. The lack of categorisation is not lack of existence. --- Hong Qi Gong 01:46, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

The place that the policy was decided was myriad Cfd and Village Pump discussions over a period of more than 6 months. That's how it works.

Yes.

Why exactly are you referencing a decade old ACS report that used some old racial categories? Do you not know the difference? Or realize that the latest census was 2000? Or read the Congressional Record on the racial question changes? You either want the official US census designations, or something else, but you cannot have your cake and eat it too. I'd suggest a logic course....

And why do you think that any US designations apply to the entire world?

--William Allen Simpson 02:04, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
You seem to have missed a few things:
  1. The link I provided in my immediately previous post mentions that the ACS standards are to be fully implemented in "2003 and beyond".
  2. My posting right here on the Talk page at 25 July specifically said "I don't have an opinion on other nationalities".
  3. The US Census does not "designate" that those ethnic groups it does not categorise do not actually exist.
--- Hong Qi Gong 02:17, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category naming conventions for clothing -- Please help!

Hi, a few of us have been working on articles about clothing/fashion and their history and we'd like to make a sensible set of top-level categories under Category:Clothing. We've come up with the following proposal and we'd appreciate your input very much

  1. Category:History of clothing
  2. Category:Clothing by nationality
  3. Category:Clothing by ethnicity
  4. Category:Clothing by culture
  5. Category:Clothing by geography
  6. Category:Clothing by use
  7. Category:Clothing by person
  8. Category:Design and construction of clothing

One point that may catch your eye is the distinction between nationality, ethnicity and culture. Presently, we're thinking of using these terms as they're defined in Wikipedia, roughly speaking, peoples defined by political boundaries, genetic heritage and common viewpoint, respectively. For example, "Polish clothing" (which would include clothing worn by Poles at all points in their history) would seem to belong under Category:Clothing by ethnicity, since Poland was politically Swedish, Russian and German at various points in its history. Similarly, "Clothing in ancient Rome" would seem to belong under Category:Clothing by nationality and, I dunno, "Goth subculture clothing" would belong under Category:Clothing by culture, since it covers people linked by a common culture, not genetically or politically.

The other categories are relatively straightforward. Category:Clothing by geography covers subjects such as "clothing worn in cold climates" or "clothing worn at high altitudes". Category:Clothing by use covers clothing by occupation and occasion, such as "fireman clothing", or "maternity wear", or "wedding clothing". Category:Clothing by person groups articles by the person wearing it, e.g., "women's clothing", "men's clothing", "children's clothing", etc. Finally, Category:Design and construction of clothing covers the technical details of how clothing is made and designed.

We've tried to make these top-level categories as independent of each other as possible, e.g., so that the time can be specified independently of the ethnicity, independently of the occupation, independently of the person, etc. We've also tried to be as consistent with Wikipedia definitions as possible. Please let us know if you like these categories and if you have any suggestions -- thanks muchly! :) WillowW 16:04, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi WillowW,

I'd suggest Category:Clothing by person becomes Category:Clothing by person type or something better, as the former might suggest "Clothing by designer", "Clothing by notable who wears it", etc. Otherwise, the categories seem good starting points. Thanks for your and your colleagues' work!  Best wishes, David Kernow 02:16, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Residence demonyms

Brought the language from Wikipedia:Categorization of people#By residence, as a description of the naming convention. This has been thoroughly vetted by recent CfD debates.

--William Allen Simpson 01:25, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming guideline or official policy?

Isn't this page a naming convention guideline that should have this tag: {{Wikipedia subcat guideline|naming conventions|Categories}} So why is it tagged as an official policy? CG 13:11, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

No. Both Wikipedia:Naming conventions and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) were elevated to policy. See Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines and Wikipedia:List of policies.
--William Allen Simpson 21:02, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I know, I organised Wikipedia:List of policies. But I want to know why has it been elevated to official policy? CG 21:19, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

The switch from "guideline" to "policy" appears to've been made here by Rick Block, about half an hour before the same user apparently began a thread entitled "policy or guideline" on the talk page. (Use link or see /Archive 7.)
(The one subsequent post to this "policy or guideline" thread (a) gives the opinion that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) is "a collection of conventions and guidelines", before (b) suggesting Rick Block proceed with his (presumably) idea of "...moving (all) the policy related information elsewhere and reducing this page [i.e. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories)] to a naming guidelines page". This does not appear to've been tried, nor any consensus in favo/ur or against either matter obtained.)
Information about and direction to a procedural record welcome.  Regards, David Kernow 00:23, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Cedar, I see that you made a couple of recent contested edits to the Wikipedia:List of policies, but it looks to me like Stevage did most of the original work. However, you were making additions to Wikipedia:Naming conventions at about the same time that Rick Block marked this page as policy there (2005-09-26), so you should have been aware of it.
David, you merely found the most recent (2006-01-22) Rick Block revert of Radiant's change. They also did the same (circa 2005-10-15) at revert of change.
The actual setting of Policy was 2005-09-25 by Raul654 (talk • contribs). My guess is that's the time frame for looking at the Village Pump....
Currently, the policy related things are here, while guidelines are at Wikipedia:Categorization and Wikipedia:Categorization of people. I'd oppose downgrading this to a guideline.
--William Allen Simpson 01:19, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your information, William. Intriguing to learn that there has previously been dispute about the status of this page.
Unfortunately I'm having difficulty locating the relevant Village Pump archives from September last year; your assistance would be appreciated. Is that also where a survey to find consensus for the upgrade would be found?
Thanks also for exapnding the archive listing for this page. I suppose some folks might say it's incorrect as it includes archives from this page's predecessors, but I think it a good idea.
Regards, David 02:02, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
PS Hope you received my email. Any further thoughts re the latest here?

If this page is policy, then should it be changed or added to without the changes going through the same policy process? --JeffW 00:19, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The policy process was the consensus arrived at on the talk page, following invitation to comment at all the usual places (such as WP:VPP). What happened was I asked Raul what the official policy is for designating something as policy, he took a look at the talk page and decided there was sufficient consensus to call this page policy, and added the policy tag. As I said in the policy or guideline thread in the archives, the reason to have this as policy is because it contains procedural instructions (which were vigorously contested relatively soon after it was designated as policy, specifically the additional criteria for listing category renames in the CFD-speedy section). The procedure for changing this page, specifically adding new by-country conventions by CFD consensus, is specified on the page itself. If anyone feels the need disentangle the policy parts from the naming guideline parts, I would have no objections. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:51, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the insight, Rick. I'll have a go at disentangling policy from guidelines sometime soon, I hope, once I make some time to do so. I'll be trying to distinguish procedural instruction (policy) from anything else (guidelines). Regards, David Kernow 17:32, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

There seems to be some confusion about what "policy" means. None of the Wikipedia:five pillars would even remotely be considered a procedural instruction.

Indeed, under the usual understanding in the legal field known as "administrative procedure", that's exactly backwards. The "statutes" and "regulations" are the policy. The "guidelines" are the procedures governing the application of policy. They are binding on the administrative agency.

Here, the policy is what to name the categories, and governs the decisions about what are legitimate categories. That is (hopefully) relatively constant. This provides coherent structure and organization, a very appropriate thing for a policy.

The guidelines are how to populate the categories. There are quite a few. If there are things here that seem better matched to one of the category population guidelines, let's discuss that -- where we agree, divert to the appropriate guideline.

--William Allen Simpson 01:12, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your input, William. Rereading Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#The differences between policies, guidelines, essays, etc. reminds me of my impression that "policies" are '"guidelines" that haven't changed for some time'. As the edit history of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) indicates that this is not the case here, I am left wondering why Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) has earned the same status as Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:No original research, etc. The latter certainly seem more policy-like to me, whereas Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) and the like seem more convention- or guideline-like. The processes that have led to at least one of these "policies"/"conventions"/"guidelines" seem very much less than transparent.
Regards, David Kernow 04:40, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

As another participant, I'll concur with Rick's memory. We advertised this thing everywhere. We hashed it all out on the talk page and settled on tagging it as a policy. Given it has survived this long as policy, I'd say that makes it policy. Steve block Talk 13:38, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the memory, Steve; I hadn't started editing Wikipedia in earnest when this discussion occurred. Apart from the country-related issue, it certainly seems less than straightforward to find.
In the meantime, I'm not convinced that naming conventions are best placed on a par with policies such as NPOV, NOR, etc, but if that's the consensus, so be it; this is but one person's impression. Hopefully the presentation and/or interpretation of the label "policy" won't disuade too many folk from making suggestions as regards its development. Best wishes, David Kernow 04:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
What else do you refer to when you state "Apart from the country-related issue, it certainly seems less than straightforward to find." I may be able to help clarify points you remain unclear upon. I certainly agree with Rick that there are aspects of this page that should probably be moved to sub pages and tagged as guidelines. Steve block Talk 10:06, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I mean accepting abbreviations, in certain less-constrained circumstances than those currently pertaining, for the sake of keeping category names from ballooning in length. Thanks for your offer, David 17:28, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Policy scope includes image and stub categories?

I have a question - If the naming conventions are policy with a scope of the entire Category namespace, am I correct in saying that for example Category:United States military images and Category:United States military stubs should be renamed to Category:Military of the United States images and Category:Military of the United States stubs? If discussion regarding such a renaming of for example the latter at Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion reaches no consensus or consensus in opposition, what course of action should an administrator take when processing the nomination? Kurieeto 01:45, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course they do. When a "vote" anywhere is contrary to policy, the closer should simply note that policy when closing, and follow the policy.
But I don't see where your particular example applies. "United States military" seems appropriate, and not contrary to any policy. Perhaps I missed something. There is an entire project dealing with these things.
--William Allen Simpson 14:05, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
My apologies, I should have referenced this in my last post. I ask because "military by country" categories should be "of country", as per this page's Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories)#State-based topics. That would make "United States military" a deviance from "military of X" category by country naming conventions (which is policy). Kurieeto 13:47, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
No, the conventions for the "by country" categories are very narrowly scoped to apply to just the specific category types mentioned. "military by country" categories should be "of country" means, for example, a category for the military of France should be "Military of France" rather than "French Military". It says nothing about any other categories that might have the phrase "French military" in their names, e.g. "French military images". -- Rick Block (talk) 14:24, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Labour disputes by country

A couple of us at WikiProject Organized Labour want to sub-divide the Category:Labor disputes into Category:Labour disputes by country. I'm of the opinion that the wording should be in the format Category:Labour disputes in Canada, not of Canada. Is this a clear enough case that we can just proceed, or would you recommend a more detailed discussion? --Bookandcoffee 16:53, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

"In country" seems most natural, and there's no reason to hold off using if there's no expressed opposition. Would this be a sub-cat of Category:Conflicts? Kurieeto 14:00, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
That's a good question. Currently it is "sub"ed under more political themes like Category:Labour relations, but conflicts might make good sense as well.--Bookandcoffee 18:31, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
If it does go under Category:Conflicts, the "in country" choice would be further supported because the same naming convention is used for Category:Conflicts in Canada, which would be a parent of one of your Labour disputes by country categories. Kurieeto 18:50, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] People by language, and "x by y"

After a bit of discussion at Wikipedia talk:Categorization now archived here, I've started work on creating and populating some occupation categories by language. The general idea is that when there are occupations that use language, it is often more useful to have the subcategories of that occupation split by the language used than split by nationality. For example, writers, philosophers, singers, directors. As recent discussion at CFD brought up (Category:German-language philosophers), by having language categories, we can combine groups that are artificially broken up by nationality. I have some questions about how these categories should be named.

  1. I've been using "Fooish-language fooers" as the naming model for these categories. Any comments?
  2. The big problem I'm having is how to name some of the categories that hold these categories, and I've noticed some inconsistancies with the naming of the "x by y" categories". For example, most "x by y" categories have members who are all x listed in order of their y, so for example, there is Category:American people by occupation. The members of this category are all Americans listed by their occupations. However one of the parents of this category is Category:Nationalities by occupation which lists categories of occupations listed by their nationalities. I think this category should be renamed Category:People's occupations (by nationality) or Category:Occupations of people (by nationality) or Category:People by occupation (by nationality) or even swapping names with Category:Occupations by nationality. The current Category:Occupations by nationality could also be renamed Category:People's nationality (by occupation) or Category:Nationality of people (by occupation) or Cateogory:People by nationality (by occupation). Of these, my choices would be Category:People by occupation (by nationality) and Cateogory:People by nationality (by occupation). Perhaps there are some better choices.
  3. I have created two similar categories for people by languge: Category:Languages by occupation and Category:Occupations by language. I'm wondering about renaming these to something like Category:Language occupations by languge and Category:Language occupations by occupation or Category:People by occupation (by language) and Cateogory:People by language (by occupation). There has to be a better name for these.
  4. Is there a need to explain how "x by y" categories get named?

Suggestions? Comments? -- Samuel Wantman 23:28, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] National varieties of English and category consistency

There is a current vote at WP:CFD to rename more than a hundred cats in the subcats of Category:Transportation by continent (i.e. Category:Transportation in Asia, Category:Transportation in South America, Category:Transportation in South America) to reflect the fact that 'transportation' is an American term, whereas 'transport' is the standard in British English. There doesn't seem to be any mention here on the potential conflict between category standardisation and the MoS, so I'm wondering if there has been discussion on this issue, and if not should there be? :) Ziggurat 22:10, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your sound decision to raise the matter here. Uniformity would be nice, but we've already decided in essentially all such spelling/dialect matters that diversity is the better choice for our community, since we end up not imposing one system on everyone. (And, in the end, it's beautiful!) We should not mess with that general, guiding principle, in my view. (Unless we were going to create a "compromise English", which, in fact, wouldn't be such a bad idea, though it will never happen....) I suspect Darwinek has misunderstood the Guidelines about national varieties of English. He, like many Europeans, seems to think something like "the whole world aside from the U.S. uses British English," and, thus, that every instance of "Transportation" that doesn't involve the U.S. or its "dependencies" (his word) can be changed to "Transport". (He's already made many of these changes to article names.) He is, of course, incorrect about English (which is spread out in all kinds of complicated and beautifully American, beautifully Brittish, beautifully Australian, beautifully Japanese... etc. ways all across the globe). Moreover, he's incorrect about his interpretation of the Guidelines about national varieties of English. "Transportation" would be wrong in an article about the UK, but about, say, Mexico, or Japan, or any other non-English speaking country, the rule that matters is "the dialect of the first überstub author". Let's retain this principle, and not engage in "orthographic imperialism". --Cultural Freedom 2006-07-17 -22:24 (UTC)
Does this apply in the case of categories, or does standardisation take precedence? I'm curious as to whether these two have been discussed at this point of intersection (in the archives of this page maybe?). I do note that the distinction between American vs. rest of the world is a difficult one, as even in the British bastion of New Zealand official sources seem to use both ([2] [3]). Ziggurat 22:30, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
That's a great question! In most cases, it seems standardization does not take precedence. Look at the various "Organis/zation" categories, for ex. So Darwinek's suggested move seems to me to be against what's generally done (though I haven't made an exhaustive examination). It's also extremely divisive, seems to me. I think we, as a community, need to be much more careful with wholesale changes like this. I've been trying to encourage Darwinek to withdraw his proposal, and allow much more time for reflection. It seems it's needed with a change of this magnitutde. But he is unwilling, unfortunately. I hope heads are cool, and that the coolest ones prevail! --Cultural Freedom 2006-07-17 22:52 (UTC)
I think the motto of consensus should be more eyes, so hopefully some people with this page on their watchlist can offer opinions (one way or the other!). Ziggurat 22:57, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Existing precedent in the "by country" categories is to follow the WP:MOS guidelines and use British or American spelling as appropriate for the location. Examples are numerous, including shopping malls/centres, Universities and colleges or just Universities, sport/sports, and transportation/transport. user:CalJW was one of the most ardent supporters of this, but seems to no longer be active. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:19, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm new to all this, so please don't bite my head off. I've added my comments here re this debate. I suggest to let things be and evolve naturally. As long as things are clear, does uniformity matter ? There are surely better things to get on with, like the huge issue of changing the systemic bias of (at a very wild guess) over 50% of the English language Wikipedia articles. Final suggestion - as the style issue will no doubt crop up again and again, if there is felt need for agreement, then why not seek the wider communities agreement via the main page, or else disputes will always arise because agreements have otherwise been via a self-selected few (as I said in my blurb on the user talk page I linked to). Good luck to one and all.--Phillip Fung 04:52, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not certain, but are you of the conception that User:Cultural Freedom initiated this series of moves? The initial changes appear to have been made by another editor in the name of uniformity, and CF's edits are disagreeing with that. Ziggurat 05:42, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Right, it's Darwinek who initiated a massive, systematic name-change campaign several months ago. I'm trying to enforce (and, ultimately, improve!) policy. Diversity is good! --Cultural Freedom 2006-07-18 08:19 (UTC)
First, thanks to everyone for being civil! Just for the record, I have several concerns, some general (one of which Ziggurat got me thinking about), some specific. Of the general ones, one is the messiness of the Manual of Style rules about spelling. 1) The Manual of Style is actually self-contradictory in certain aspects. We probably don't need to get into that here -- but I do think it is at the root of many of these problems. I will be getting into this issue later, within a couple weeks. (Anyone interested should keep an eye on my user page.) 2) As Ziggurat pointed out, we need to address the consistency vs. "orthographic appropriateness" issue in category names (and, for that matter, in article title names). 3) The matter at hand: the Transport/ation articles. What Darwinek did was systematically change every single article title from "Transportation in X" to "Transport in X". Those changes -- essentially all of them (though "Transportation in the UK", Transportation in India, etc., should be changed) -- violated MoS guidelines. The guidelines do not say that Wikipedia uses British or Commonwealth spelling. Nor do the guidlines say that Wikipedia uses British or Commonwealth spelling "except for the U.S. and its dependencies" (this was Darwinek's phrase). 4) Now, he's called a vote for a mass rename of "Transportation in X" categories to "Transport in X" categories, and he's arguing this is a good idea because the categories should "match" the article titles, yet the article titles were changed in violation of policy, by him. I think we need to take a deep breath and address 2-4 above (and #1, if needed). But it seems we're dealing with a truly massive change here, one conducted in a questionable way. I've tried to get Darwinek to withdraw his requested category name change, so we can reflect. But he is unwilling. He seems to think that if the votes pass, that's all that matters. Is that really how things work here? Seven or eight people vote on a massive category renaming, only two or three of them question the idea, the vote passes, and suddenly guideline-violating article name changes are "locked" into place? --Cultural Freedom 2006-07-18 08:20 (UTC)

If I might propose a compromise which is inspired by a comment someone made on the Talk:Transport in Jordan page. Any country that has a Ministry of Transport or equivalent should use "Transport in ..." and countries that have a Department of Transportation or equivalent should use "Transportation in ..." Jooler 10:33, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

That's a creative, potentially Solomonic idea. One potential problem is that for most countries, we'll be looking at the "English" version/translation of a name that is not English. I've worked quite a bit as a translator, and English versions of proper names are often chosen haphazardly. But I think your idea is, at a minimum, an excellent way to start to get our bearings. (I might be away from the Internet for the next 6-10 hours; sorry if I can't continue this discussion right away.) --Cultural Freedom 2006-07-18 10:50 (UTC)
A quick note of reality, for what it's worth: whilst almost all countries that are today in the Commonwealth use predominantly British spellings (with a few Australian and Canadian and other variations), it is not true that countries not in the Commonwealth somehow default to US-spellings. So this does negate the argument to divide the world up into two 'spelling camps' as it were (which seems an option from the gist of all comments above). For example, most EU member states use British spellings, as do countries with previous British influence, but are not Commonwealth countries (such as Jordan and Hong Kong); but conversely US spellings are common in Caribbean countries with British influence, even those, such as Anguilla and Bermuda, that are existing British dependent territories. My view on this: let things be and evolve naturally, and if there are arguments, then let them be debated country by country. I hope this slightly incomprehensible argument puts some further food out there for the debate. --Phillip Fung 11:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I am ready for civil discussion about this policy, I always was. Just one thing, I think all these articles were first named "Transportation in " cause when Wikipedia started a few years ago, users inserted info from PD CIA World Factbook which uses "Transportation" everywhere. - Darwinek 21:31, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Darwinek: Thanks for joining us! I've got a massive workload now, so I'll just add a couple comments here, first. 1) The precedent on WP is that variety, in order to respect national differences (see "...organization..."/"...organisation...") trumps uniformity. This is the way things are in most article and category names. I think this is a Good. 2) It is most definitely -- in my view -- not fair to say that all the "Transportation in X" must remain so because of the "First überstub version" rule, for exactly the reason you cite: They were in that form simply because they were ported from the CIA World Fact Book. That's what makes this a difficult case, and it's why slowing down (and, ideally, withdrawing your proposed mass-renaming -- pretty please!! :) ) would be best here. I think we should all be able to agree both that keeping all the articles as "Transportation in X" (aside from the UK, Ireland, etc.) is wrong, and, also, that renaming all the articles to "Transport in X" (aside from the US, the Phillipines, etc.) is wrong. Letting things naturally evolve might be best, but letting things naturally evolve from the forced start of the "Transportation" names is unfair to one "side," and letting things naturally evolve from the forced start of your systematic, mass-renamings is unfair to the "other side." The only solution may be to divide the world in the usual (coarse, but still: usual) way it gets divided here: Western Europe definitely gets British English, South American definitely gets American English, Middle East aside from Israel gets British, etc., etc., etc. --Cultural Freedom 2006-07-19 21:46 (UTC)
I'll repeat here a comment I made at CFD - user:CalJW worked through all the top level "by country" categories, country by country, and paid particular attention to British/English terminology differences. We could probably look up in the archives when this happened, but I'd be willing to bet the countries that are now "transport in xxxx" vs. "transportaion in xxxx" were done on his initiative. The overaching goal he used was "what terminology is locally used" (in the country the topic pertains to). Of course this rule doesn't help decide what to use for the vast majority of countries that are not English speaking, but for these I don't see any particular reason standardizing on either "transport" or "transportation" is particularly necessary. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:10, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I totally agree with Rick and I'd like to add two points:
  1. Having a category with inconsistant names (tranport or transportation) is a good thing. It educates users that the subject is called different things in different places. The text for the parent category should explain the differences.
  2. There is a very important political reason to allow these inconsistancies. It is frustrating to battle them out and consumes too much attention that could be devoted to more constructive efforts. If there is no term that satisfies all speakers of English, then we should use the term for the location being described. If there is no local term, one used by the first editor should prevail. If we all agree to this common methodology, we can avoid many edit wars and CfD discussions. I bristle every time I see "Categorization" spelled with a "s". But I'm getting over it for the greater good. -- Samuel Wantman 00:26, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Rick Block wrote: "but I'd be willing to bet the countries that are now "transport in xxxx" vs. "transportation in xxxx" were done on his initiative."" I will take you up on that bet! :) Virtually all of the changes were done in a series of mass-renamings by Darwinek.
They seem to start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&offset=20060411090707&limit=500&target=Darwinek
(Page down to April 07, 12:38, and then go backwards.)
(Note: I think he did some other changes earlier, and did many later, as well.)
Most of these need to be changed back; that, for many reasons. (I've changed some of the obvious ones.) The most critical reason is that many people voting on the category name change are voting on the basis of misinformation. Darwinek introduced/justified his CfD proposal as follows: "Rename all to match main articles." If the main articles were inappropriately renamed, that's not a good reason to rename the categories, of course. (Darwinek: could you please respond to these points? Thanks.) The problem, of course, is that many voters don't think much about their vote. They just double-check the article names, and think, "Of course, 'Transport in Ecuador', 'Transport in Brazil', etc., yup, those are the article names: the category names need to be changed to match them!"
--Cultural Freedom 2006-07-20 08:15 (UTC)
No, I will not respond to you again. I think I have said all necesarry and all I wanted to say. Also I am tired of all this neverending "Darwinek changed this, Darwinek have done that" and so on. I am not a devil and if this will continue against my person I will soon withdraw from this discussion. Goodnight and good luck. -- Darwinek 09:14, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry you feel attacked personally. It was certainly not my intention (I can't speak to others' intentions, of course) to attack you personally. I am pointing out what I believe to be mistakes you made. What's frustrating for me is that you refuse to remove, comment on, or emend information in your CfDs that is clearly incorrect (or simply remove the CfDs, and let people discuss it). I can't understand why you won't do that. Voters are being misled. Anyway, no, I certainly do not think you are a devil! Accepting criticism from other users, taking the time to look into disputes carefully, etc., is part of what it is to be a Wikipedian. Indeed, accepting criticism without assuming someone is calling you a/the devil is part of being human. No one is perfect, right? We can learn from others' perspectives/criticisms. Could you please read the above issues, and respond with your views about these issues? Discussion is good! --Cultural Freedom 2006-07-20 10:27 (UTC)
Yeah, no problem. As I commented more widely at that page regarding my person, I have made a mistake by that mass renaming etc. I think there are 3 categories of voters: 1.) "Transportation or death", 2.) "Transport or death", 3.) Reasonable users. I don't think voters are misled, since you have written there what is all this situation about. However, it seems there will be no general consensus an these categories will not be renamed. I will not withdraw it, because then some people should tell something like "you have withdrew it but what if ...", you know that. I think you and other users after closing of these CFD votings (I doesn't want to be involved in it, since I have many other projects started) should go from country to country and then rename or propose for renaming some categories or articles. I am a Pole and live in the Czech Rep. and can say "Transport" is used in POL, CZE and SVK. -- Darwinek 11:06, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I was specifically referring to the categories, not the articles. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:21, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Update
Developments:
  1. WikiFair1 mass-reverted a bunch of Darwinek's European renames. Violetriga reverted WikiFair1, claiming that her main objection was that WikiFair1 didn't fix double-redirects. Fair enough. Well.... it turns out, Darwinek himself didn't check for double-redirects! The European ones were fixed by others, this is why WikiFair1's not entirely careful reversions left redirects. However, simple reversions of essentially all of Darwinek's South and Central American renames, and most of his Asian ones, are the easiest way to solve existing double-redirect problems.
  2. So, I reverted nearly all of Darwinek's South and Central American renames (and fix the very few double-redirects I saw). I've only changed a few of the obvious mistakes in the Asian ones. In a few cases, "Transport in..." is clearly correct. See Talk:Transport_in_Belize, and Talk:Transport_in_Malaysia.
  3. Someone mentioned the trustworthiness of User:CalJW. Based on what I've so far seen, I can confirm that: His changes (to "Transport in X") all seem well-motivated.
--Cultural Freedom 2006-07-21 17:50 (UTC)

[edit] New project (Regional English)

Related to the discussion above, I've started a new project for discussion, consensus building, and (later) enforcement of the use regional English language variants in WP articles (use shortcut WP:REDS). Certainly in its infancy now, but hopefully can become a helpful project in the future. SB Johnny 11:25, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cities first?

We have categories of the form "Cities and towns in...", giving (natural) precedence to the larger entities. So why do we seem to use Category:Fictional towns and cities in Foo as a convention? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Grutness...wha? 01:11, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree, cities first.
--William Allen Simpson 00:16, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hong Kong is not a country

Heads up. Some people refuse to accept that Hong Kong is part of China. We have a couple of sparse discussions at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 August 6#Category:Hong Kong people and Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 August 6#Category:People of Hong Kong descent.

Hong Kong is not an ethnicity nor a nationality. Other than this, I'm unaware of any categorization of people by the city or town where ancestors were born. No other "colonies" of any civilization are treated as countries for "descent". Macau isn't treated this way. Nor was Hong Kong ever a "city-state" (like Athens) that warred and settled treaties with other nations. Hong Kong reverted to China after the end of a treaty between China and Britain (not Hong Kong and Britain).

--William Allen Simpson 01:48, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 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:

  • Category:University of Birmingham alumni
  • Category:Alumni of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne
  • Category:Former students of the University of Oxford

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:

  • Category:Academics of Queen's University of Belfast
  • Category:University of Edinburgh academics

And we also have other variants such as:

  • Category:Chancellor of the University of Durham (proposed for renaming)

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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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 Cat: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 scriptwriter, 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)

[edit] Proposed Change from Deletion of Category Jewelry to Category Jewellery, Should have dual link for Both

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)

[edit] Kurdistan related categories

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

[edit] 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)


[edit] 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 oberseeing 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 WikiProjectsL 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 bulleted 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)
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