Category talk:Athletes by nationality

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[edit] Sportspeople vs Athletes

"These categories are for track and field athletes only. Other sportspeople can be found in sportspeople."
The title of this category currently uses a British English definition of athlete, yet the word "athlete" is basically equivalent to "sportsperson" by various definitions, including the current version of Wikitionary and Wikipedia, as well as American English. As such, should these categories(Sportspeople_by_nationality and Athletes_by_nationality) be redefined or altered somehow? Shawnc 07:03, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

The wikipedia article on Athletics is all about the British definition of athletics, so it would seem logical for a list of athletes to also refer to the British definition of the word athlete. So basically I see no problems with this article. Perhaps what might need changing is the focus of the article 'Athlete' to be swapped from the American definition to the British definition with the other definition being the secondary explanation on the page.

I think the British definition of athletics has been debated and accepted by many on here and, to me, it seems the simplest and best course of action would be to bring the meaning of athlete in line with this rather than to try and use the American definition of athlete and possibly try to re-open the debate about athletics to try and bring some consistency.

Sorry if my reply here seems a bit waffley. It does tome, but I'm not sure how else to say what I want to say. Evil Eye 17:34, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

While ideally category names and article names should tally, there is a pragmatic issue here. In American English, "athletics" is a fancier way to say "sports" (compare "automobile" and "car"); however "athlete" is more common than "sportsperson" (compare "auto racing" and "car racing"). So the danger of an article which belongs in "Sportspeople" being mistakenly added to "Athletes" is greater than the danger of a reference to what is really "Sports" being mistakenly wikilinked to "Athletics". I think the athletics and athlete articles should remain as they are, but Category:Athletes should be renamed Category:Track and field athletes and likewise its subcats. Joestynes 11:50, 24 January 2006 (UTC)