Category talk:Streets and squares in Vancouver

The following discussion is an archived debate regarding the category or categories above. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the category's talk page (if any). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was merge. Despite Keefer's argument, analysis of Category:Streets_and_squares_by_city shows that the cats for most cities are not in fact subdivided into a "street" cat and a "square" cat. It's also rather quickly after an earlier CFD that had the same conclusion, so arguably this cat is recreation of deleted material. >Radiant< 09:49, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Merge into Category:Streets and squares in Vancouver, per discussion of March 9th. -- Prove It ^(talk) 16:26, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

• Merge and perhaps salt with an appropriate notice to prevent re-creation. Why should we have to debate a nearly identical category again, 2 weeks later? Is there a way to speedy merge this in light of the previous result? --Seattle Skier (talk) 23:16, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Funny, I don't recall you debating this at the previous discussion. Are you aware that this is about a subcategory, of the category established at the earlier CfD? Subcategories sometimes - well, most of the time - have similar names to the parent category. For example, "Category:Streets" and "Category:Streets and squares by city" are not redundant even though they both contain "streets" in the name. You can find Speedy criteria here, I'd be interested in which one you think might apply. It'd probaby make sense if you sought the answers to such questions before weighing in on the debate, especially when wielding such strong opinions on the subject. Bobanny 22:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose Please note this is a subcategory and is in accordance with other streets and squares subcategories, such as Category:Streets and squares in London, Category:Streets and squares in Berlin, Category:Streets and squares in New York City. We have already gone against categorization precedent in Canada and virtually all of North American by creating the Streets and Squares format for Vancouver, if we must have Streets and Squares-- as some are convinced we must-- this further subcategorization is reasonable as it is used elsewhere without controversy.--Keefer4 02:49, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - I'd just like to know what "squares" we're talking about. Station Square obviously is a shopping centre and doesn't count; jury's out on Granville Square, but while that building has a plaza ("square") it's also the skyscraper that's called Granville Square; on a similar footing would be Park Place, which is a skyscraper complex and not a "place" (plaza, square). Robson Square also doesn't mean the plaza spaces but the building complex. So there's Victory Square .... and...and...and where, again, exactly, are there other squares (by that name or another name) in Vancouver?Skookum1 21:57, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

“Squares” is not an appropriate category for Vancouver because for anything that could be classed as such, it would be based on a non-defining or trivial characteristic and it groups unrelated subjects with shared names (parks, malls, universities, art galleries, etc). The latter is made worse by adding “streets” to this motley mix, as Category:Streets and squares in Vancouver does. But since that category was imposed on Vancouver articles, it seemed to me that the “grouping unrelated things” problem could be lessened by two subcategories. Besides “Streets in Vancouver, I also created Category:Squares in Vancouver. Additionally, the only article doggedly classed as a “square” by some people in the March 9th discussion was Victory Square (Vancouver), and it seemed ridiculous to have a category with 16 streets and one park. To avoid having a single-entry category, I populated the new “squares” category with other things that might be considered “squares” and/or are named as such. If anyone wants to rejig that category, I won’t object.

This discussion isn’t supposed to be about the merits of the parent category Category:Streets and squares by city, but it should be pointed out that underlying this debate is an assumption that there is objectively such a thing as a “square” that can be applied universally to any city with a place called or square or something imagined to be a square, which couldn’t be further from the truth. What constitutes a “square” changes radically in different contexts, and in this context, is about as useless as "Category:Centres in Vancouver" would be. Even calling them “public” can mean “publicly owned,” or just “used by the public,” as in all the privately owned shopping malls calling themselves Squares. No matter how you look at it or what your POV is, “streets” and “squares” are entirely unrelated in Vancouver (see: Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Intersection by location). This pairing possibly stems from Boston; the Category:Squares in Boston page defines a square as “a major intersection, usually with many street approaches.” The parent article to this category, Town square, notes that this definition is applied “in some cities, especially in New England in the U.S.” Making these CfDs only about Vancouver obscures the underlying assumption that "Category:Streets and squares" can be applied unproblematically to anywhere that has one or more places resembling or being called a square. Note that no one’s trying to rename the “Squares in Rome” from it’s current name, “Piazzas of Rome.”Bobanny 22:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose per WP:POINT. This is a bad faith and spurious nomination. The March 9th discussion was silent on the issue of subcategories, and there is nothing in that discussion or its outcome that can be construed as an argument for merging this subcategory into its parent. “Category:Streets in Foo,” as Keefer4 noted, is an established standard category, conforms to all the guidelines, consensus decisions, and conventions. As the creator of this category, my gut feeling was that if this CfD is based on the earlier one, as per nom, it must be directed at me with the assumption that my creating this subcategory was a sneaky attempt to bypass a consensus decision. In other words, I figured it must be targeting my behaviour rather than the merit or appropriateness of the category (see Seattle Skier’s comment above, which not only assumes my bad faith, but assumes it will be an ongoing problem and salting might be necessary). I’m really not interested in trying to defend my wiki-cred here and have no doubt users familiar with my contributions, or ones interested in checking, will know that such tactics would be uncharacteristic.

Since my sinister motives are only implied by the nomination and were not explicitly alleged by User:ProveIt, I decided to slavishly abide by WP:AGF and ask him to clarify the reasons for the nomination, since the March 9 discussion is utterly irrelevant and offers no direction (at least not without a large dose of creative interpretation or ignorance of the issue at hand). He responded that it was only because the parent category is called “Streets and squares by city” rather than just “Streets by city.” He said this would “help people quickly find what they are looking for” by improving consistency, which I thought was a bizarre response from someone who apparently does loads of categorizing work on Wikipedia. The whole purpose of subcategories is to make a more specific and precise category for a subgroup, and that is what helps people quickly find what they are looking for.

As for this particular CfD, the nominator’s actual reason, which has no relation to his reason stated above, is this:

As far as making subcats for it; at the moment there are a total of 16 streets and 7 squares. If there were hundreds of streets and dozens of squares, making subcats would be the right thing. But for a grand total of 23 articles, its just not worth it, and the subcats just get in the way.”

I think it’s important here to note that this is an administrator with deletion powers and who does an awful lot of deletions on Wikipedia. His going against or ignoring guidelines and conventions, as well as undermining consensus processes can’t be accounted for by a lack of knowledge as to how things work. Too few articles in a category is in not a problem for Wikipedia, nor is it an acceptable criterion for deletion unless it’s a completely empty category. Generally, categories should have “potential for growth,” (but with exception), which both “Streets in Vancouver” and “Squares in Vancouver” do. Subcategories do not in themselves undermine the usefulness of the category scheme. “Get in the way” of what exactly? “Hundreds of streets and dozens of squares” needed to justify a subcategory? What online encyclopedia does that city category exist on? Certainly not Wikipedia, No city has that many. (For a relevant discussion on the number of articles in categories, this one on the CfD talk page).

I’ve no problem with losing debates, abiding by decisions I don’t like, or even having my work undone for reasons I disagree with. This is flagrant disrupting Wikipedia to make a point by the nominator to push a deletionist agenda. I’m sure categorization work would be a lot easier if the only category were Category:Categories, but Wikipedia is not a Newspeak dictionary, and will undoubtedly keep on growing. If Prove It or anyone else thinks it should go in a different direction, then take the time to build a consensus to change it. In the meantime Prove It, stop wasting my and other people’s time by abusing the process. Defending one of my most pedestrian contributions to Wikipedia from being undone was not on my list of things to do this week. At the very least, stop misrepresenting archived discussions as you did both here and the previous CfD, instead of stating your true reasons up front. Someone did take the time to create what you are deleting, and others are taking the time to try and constructively discuss the relevant issues. Not bothering to even identify how proposed categories “violate policies, or are misspelled, mis-capitalized, redundant, need to be merged, not NPOV, small without potential for growth, or are generally bad ideas” is disrespectful to the efforts of all involved. Bobanny 22:06, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page, if any, or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.