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Speedy renaming 3

This is copied from [User:Hiding|Hiding]]'s proposed poll question.

Any categories that go to speedy renaming to be standardised to the agreed format will have a two-day window in which users may state why the category is an exception to said standard. If there is valid objection to the speedy by at least two users, each of these users having been registered before the speedy nomination was made, the category gets the remaining 5 days. Inappropriate reasons include "I want." Appropriate reasons include factual accuracy and length.

I think this is OK, but my understanding is that there are objections. However it turns out, I think it's often more organized to separate the elements under discussion (that is, this part of the discussion from the discussion of which categories to poll on when).

Comments? Maurreen (talk) 17:39, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I think the two proposals should be separated. Mainly because the remit of any speed-rename rule would go beyond just country titles, and apply to future standardisations too (and presumably replace the current speedy rename procedure). Also, since there are at least a couple of proposals for how to work speedy renaming, there wouldn't be much harm in firming each of them up (I count about 3 of them) and present them all to an approval vote. -Splash 17:57, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, I wasn't clear. I was trying to say that discussion should of the speedy renaming exception should fall under its own header on this page. I'm not sure whether it needs to be separated in the voting. Maurreen (talk) 07:29, 25 August 2005 (UTC)


Simple statements

Okay. Before we propose anything to the community, can the lot of us at least agree on some statements...

One. The list of categories below (which was originally proposed by Hiding) uses the schema "thing of country", and it is desirable that any future additions to those categories use the same schema. List annotated with number of subcats, and number of non-conforming subcats. Rick Block (talk) 04:22, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Two. The list of categories below uses the schema "thing in country", and it is desirable that any future additions to those categories use the same schema.

Three. We can discuss other schemas as well, and it would be easiest (if possible) to have a simple definition that we can use as a guideline (e.g. "all categories related to government institutes should use such-and-such schema"), possibly with a stated exception or two. Guidelines should be short and easily comprehensible.

Four. As Hiding said, "Any categories that go to speedy renaming to be standardised to the agreed format will have a two-day window in which users may state why the category is an exception to said standard. If there is valid objection to the speedy by at least two users, each of these users having been registered before the speedy nomination was made, the category gets the remaining 5 days. Inappropriate reasons include "I want." Appropriate reasons include factual accuracy and length.", or some variation thereof.

Five. This discussion is about category titles, not about article titles. We do not intend here to place any restrictions on the renaming of articles.

Six. Since several countries have changed name (or area) throughout history, categories about history should in some cases be an exception to the naming standard. For instance, the UK and the USSR. A category like "Monarchs of the United Kingdom" would not work well since the country wasn't always called that.

HTH. Radiant_>|< 10:57, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

That's a great help, yes. However, from the of country list, I've had a look and am now unsure about category:Militaries by country. The subcats of Category:Armies, Category:Navies, Category:Air forces and Category:Marine Corps all seem to be standardised fooish, which to my eye seems natural. Hiding talk 12:51, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I've stricken it for now. Should I take your statement as agreeing with these four points? Radiant_>|< 12:54, August 24, 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I do agree with all four points, and would like to add a fifth: That these naming standards we agree here are applied only to category titles and not to articles.
Here's what might be an example of an exception in *category:Heads of state by country - Category:British monarchs, which is more correct than Monarchs of the United Kingdom would be, since British monarchs covers a greater time span than Monarchs of the United Kingdom would be. It is also far too messy, I would suggest, to have Monarchs of England and so on. This one might need to either be exempted or thoroughly discussed separately. Hiding talk 13:33, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Ok... moved five up above (slighly reworded, feel free to word back if you want), and added six per your reasoning. Radiant_>|< 13:49, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Our chief weapon...our two weapons...". And I'll write a proper answer later. -Splash 14:41, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree with No. 5 and 6. I agree in principle with No. 4, but possibly the wording can be tweaked. I lean against No. 1, 2 and 3. But that's OK. We can agree to disagree. Maurreen (talk) 07:37, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Ok, so I don't think I have any much problem with polling along these lines. But, the wording will need to be less risky. At the moment it sounds like "should we do it this way?". If the answer's yes, that's ok, but if it's no, we don't have anything. We should present a binary question, even if it is unlikely to produce a divided vote. I think the wording of the speedy should be tinkered with a bit, and it must be presented clearly as having application beyong country titles, which I presume is the intent?-Splash 13:15, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

But, the wording will need to be less risky. At the moment it sounds like "should we do it this way?". If the answer's yes, that's ok, but if it's no, we don't have anything.
Could you clarify what you mean here. I thought the whole point was to ask for a standard. I'd rather be up front and just ask a yes or no question than try to gain a back door standard that has no consensus. I think if the answer is no then it does not leave us with nothing. but rather with the status quo, which is to use existing policies. As to the speedy criteria, I thought that the clause we were discussing was just to apply to these standards. Isn't there already a speedy renaming policy in place for other principles? Hiding talk 14:19, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Regarding "isn't there speedy renaming for other principles" - actually, no. The only reason that categories have 'speedy renaming' (or, indeed, CFR voting) is because it generally requires a bot and/or admin to do so. Renaming is generally done by being WP:BOLD, or sometimes using WP:RM. The latter, and any disputes, use existing naming conventions (which tend to be created out of such disputes, if not already existent). Category speedy renaming is written so that it can adopt existing naming conventions (for instance, I've proposed that the "no abbreviations" NC be so adopted, and there don't seem to be any objections).
  • So it seems easiest to 1) establish a naming convention in general, then 2) make it a speedy-renaming criterion (not that I would mind doing it another way, but just pointing things out). I should also point out that neither actually requires a vote per se (although the former would require more feedback than we have here, but whichever way we take it's easier to have an agreement amongst ourselves first). Radiant_>|< 14:25, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
  • I thought that Hiding was talking about article speedy renaming, but I may have understood that. Either way, I would have no objection to simply setting a Naming Convention (in line with existing naming conventions) that would apply to both articles and categories. I would also have no objection to not doing that. Radiant_>|< 14:44, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, but I am struggling to understand what you are saying here. There is speedy renaming for categories, I've used it. Also, my understanding of what we are doing here is this: There are categories which categorise by country or nationality that people wish to standardise, and currently do so by listing them at WP:CFD, which is time-consuming and inconsistent depending on who is reading the page at any given time. Therefore, a proposal to standardise names within said categories which can be used as a speedy renaming criteria is desirable, and is what we are seeking to achieve.
My understanding is also that categories are listed at WP:CFD for renaming, not WP:RM. As to the procedure for making any standardisation we can agree on a criteria for speedy renaming, since that is the purpose of any standardisation, why do it in two stages? For me it seems just as easy to kill two birds with one stone. I'd also point out that the standard that one wishes to apply would certainly need a consensus. But frankly, I am wearying of this, as it seems we are more intent on filibustering each other than we are on moving forward. Hiding talk 14:55, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes, it is getting annoyingly bureaucratic. Sorry if the above post was confusing. My point is simply - if we're setting a naming standard, why restrict it to categories and not articles as well? I don't object to that but it may be simpler to not do it. Radiant_>|< 15:04, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
Because the whole thrust of this discussion is categories. If we can get an agreed standard on categories then by all means propose to extend that to articles at a later date, but do not do so now, please, as I have seen no consensus here that it is desired to move it to articles. I would think personally it's more easily applicable in the category namespace than the article namespace anyway. Hiding talk 16:19, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Step two

Anyway. It seems we're mostly agreed on the above simple statements, at least I haven't heard any objections other than to the exact wording of #4. So. Regarding #1 and #2 - we could propose them as they stand, involving a list of categories. Alternatively, we could describe them. Thus,

  • Two-B. Categories for "man-made objects in country" use the schema "thing in country" and it is desirable that any future additions to those categories use the same schema.

I have not been able to find any categories for 'man-made objects in country' that do not presently use "thing in country", thus this should be pretty uncontroversial. Thus, are there any objections to using this simpler phrasing rather than the list? And can we do something similar for statement One? Radiant_>|< 15:04, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

What is wrong with using the lists? What problem are you seeking to fix? category:Aircraft are by nationality, are they man made? I'm really sorry, but it feels like the thrust of the debate keeps getting moved backwards. Are you now suggesting we propose meta categories and how they should be standardised, rather than seeking consensus on hardcoding existing common usage consensus in certain categories, using Rick's list? Hiding talk 16:28, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Hiding. Maurreen (talk) 16:50, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
I don't think Radiant was trying to go backwards or make things more difficult. I think the point of trying to describe a meta-category rather than using a specific list is in support of simple statement #3 (simple definition). Unfortunately, I don't think anyone has come up a meta-category rule that we all agree on (i.e. not "natural resources of foo" since some seem to prefer "in" rather than "of") and includes as members only categories in the list I put together (i.e. not "man-made objects in foo", which includes categories not in the list - in addition to category:aircraft by country consider category:airports). I think we perhaps could come up with such a rule, but I suspect we're tired of talking about this and would like to actually accomplish something. For the initial step, I'm fine with a list. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:01, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I apologise for any misunderstanding. I think the reason I see it as easier to knock up lists is that the hardcoding of standards by meta category seems too rigid for the way we actually talk about things, and thus categorise them. Hiding talk 13:35, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Whichever standard we agree on, we will eventually have to rename something. "Non-controversial" does not have to mean "entirely matching the present situation". Now personally I think that if something is obvious enough, there is no need to put it to a vote (WP:NOT a democracy, and WP:NC doesn't generally resort to voting, and neither does SR). But if people want a vote nonetheless, knowing this wiki, I predict that proposing a guideline for a simply-defined group is likely to pass, and proposing a guideline for an enumeration of entries is likely to be voted down as confusing, arbitrary, and/or instruction creep. KISS principle, you know. For a good example thereof, refer to the recent CSD proposal and compare reactions to proposal 1 (relying on common sense) to those to proposal 2 (relying on statistics) or 4 (relying on strict limits). Now I'm not saying this to be argumentative - I'm saying this because the earlier poll, and existing categorization, and common sense, and NC precedent, all indicate that most people think this is a good idea. So no need for further bureaucracy, let's move on and make it actionable. Radiant_>|< 13:48, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
I agree that the simpler we can make such a rule, the better. Note that even using the list approach, we'll be renaming some things. By my counts (see above), the lists apply to 1440 individual categories with a total of 107 using names not following the existing predominant conventions. Other than "this isn't what I thought we agreed to do" is there anyone here who disagrees with the meta-rule "<man made objects permanently located> in foo" (I'm trying to avoid Category:Aircraft_by_country, which currently uses "fooish" and if we're going to change from "fooish" sounds better to me as "of foo" rather than "in foo" matching Category:Weapons_by_country). Can we do a quick poll right here, right now (with any comments below the vote list, please just agree/disagree in the list) on this one rule? -- Rick Block (talk) 14:29, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
Categories of man-made objects with a permanent location divided by country, shall use names of the form <objects in countryname>.
Comments.
  • The only category-group (we need a name for these) I'm aware of that fits this rule and is not already predominantly (as opposed to universally) in this format is category:airports (currently "airports of"). If anyone knows of any others please mention what they are. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:29, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
  • Put them under transport? Hiding talk 15:05, 26 August 2005 (UTC) This comment is nonsensical, I misread the question. Hiding talk 15:19, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Note I removed my previous edit per how I would do it as I missed Rick's post whilst making it and mine now seems superfluous. Hope that is acceptable. Hiding talk 15:05, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Consensus is clearly "man-made objects in foo"

The consensus above is clear agreement with the proposed "x in foo" form for permanently located man-made objects. Note that I recently added some classes of sports venues (which I think should be considered to be in this grouping) which are currently of "fooish x" form. Anyone have any problem with these? -- Rick Block (talk) 16:13, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

No problems, with both the above lists. -Splash 20:04, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Another simple question

Okay, we have consensus on man-made objects. Now what about natural objects? "Categories of natural objects with a permanent location divided by country, shall use names of the form..." - it seems most of them currently use "thing OF country". Should we 1) keep it that way, 2) change it to "thing IN country" for consistency with the man-made things, or 3) don't care? Radiant_>|< 09:16, August 28, 2005 (UTC) (the term "natural object" may not be the clearest, better suggestions welcome)

The following categories contain categories which are greatly dominated by the "thing OF country" ("of foo") pattern. The "thing BY country" structure is not being discussed at this point. — list introduction added by (SEWilco)

Vote here ("of foo", "in foo", "don't care")

Comments on "natural objects of/in foo" proposed rule

  • I'm not sure category:Subdivisions by country belongs in this list. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:58, August 28, 2005 (UTC)
  • Whether it's "of foo" or "in foo" seems relatively arbitrary, and "of foo" is the existing de facto rule (supported by numerous previous CFD discussions). I don't see any need to institute a different rule. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:58, August 28, 2005 (UTC)
  • As mentioned abowe I think the "in country" form makes the most sense for this "class" too. With the exception of Category:Subdivisions by country, for those I think "of" makes most sence (Départements of France rater than Départements in France), and they are not realy natural objects anyway, but rather man made administrative units so I think those should not be listed alongside rivers and volcanoes. This class also have the additional "problem" of possebly also making sence to categorise by continent, island (in cases like Ireland and other divided islands) or maybe by faultlines and such (volcanoes), but I guess that's a debate for another time. --Sherool 16:02, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Rather than "natural objects" I suggest we use "natural features". -- Rick Block (talk) 16:06, August 28, 2005 (UTC)
  • Whether it's "of foo" or "in foo" seems relatively arbitrary, and with a bot it would take us all of five minutes to change the lot of them if need be, so there's no need to stick to the status quo (which is also an arbitrary one). There are also some features that are part man-made and part natural (e.g. diverted rivers, man-made islands) so it's easier to have the same guideline for both. Radiant_>|< 16:42, August 28, 2005 (UTC)
    • Based on my count above (and excluding Category:Geography_by_country and category:Subdivisions by country), changing from "of foo" requires renaming 541 categories. Assuming 5 articles per category (I haven't counted the articles, but I'd guess this is the right order of magnitude) and that Pearle runs at her nominal rate of 10 seconds per edit (she's been running 3-4 times slower than this lately), means it would actually take about 7.5 hours to do these. The setup time might be 5 minutes, and perhaps that's what you're referring to. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:07, August 28, 2005 (UTC)
      • Yes, I meant it's not a lot of work. It may take a couple of days, this discussion has already taken longer than that :) Radiant_>|< 18:18, August 28, 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure "islands in" makes sense. Lakes and rivers are often national borders so for these as well "in" seems somewhat peculiar. I think in all cases "of" works fine. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:20, August 28, 2005 (UTC)
    • Hmm I tend to agree with you on Islands, they seem to require special treatment (what to do with island nations or divided islands). I think "rivers in country" is fine though. For border rivers just put it in both categories, you would have the same problem using "of" in that case anyway. --Sherool 18:33, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree that Category:Geography_by_country should be of rather than in. I think I would apply the same to category:Islands by country, because in just sounds wrong Islands aren't always part of a nation's borders, but are always part of a country's territory. Hiding talk 19:13, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Things that are integral parts of, or directly linked to a nation state.

That is things like (not a complete list):

Most of these already use the "of country" form (except law), and IMHO that makes the most sence. These are things that are literaly "of" a country rather than just in it. --Sherool 16:26, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

  • Law should be in. It's common usage, we refer to the law in England and Wales or the law in France and so on. Law is generally thought of as existing within a society or country, being dependent on those to exist. A government exists of the people and therefore of the country, and I can agree with Politics and Economies as being of since they describe facets of a country. Political parties come from a country, so are of it, although in would also work. Foreign relations can not really be grammatically said to be in, I think. Hiding talk 18:31, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
    • See a couple paragraphs up for a longer list. I would propose that all of these use "of country" rather than "in country", except in cases where that doesn't make sense gramatically. I'd probably agree with Hiding that "law" would make a good exception. Radiant_>|< 18:38, August 28, 2005 (UTC)
      • [Re Hiding's comment] It's not common usage among lawyers. If discussing the law that applies within a particular jurisdiction, a lawyer (that is, an English-speaking lawyer) would most commonly refer to "English law" or "New Jersey law" or "Australian law"; and, if they wanted to be particularly formal, would say "the law of England and Wales," or "the law of New Jersey", etc. --Russ Blau (talk) 15:35, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

Suggested exceptions

I'd like to suggest some exceptions.

Um, what are you suggesting them as exceptions to? Given all the lists on this page I'm getting very confused deciding what I am even agreeing to. Hiding talk 20:26, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
Good point. I'm suggesting that it not be
  1. "Government of Foo" unless we mean just the national government, and
  2. that the places in my list not "in Foo". Maurreen (talk) 20:37, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Sports are to be considered. Airports and landmarks and theme parks, however, are clearly man-made objects, and I don't see why they should be an exception, except that you seem not to want to change anything from what it currently is. Radiant_>|< 13:46, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

proposal for generic rule

I hope this doesn't sidetrack the productive discussions above, but can we agree on a generic rule of the form:

All categories whose subcategories are categories by country (roughly all categories that are members of category:categories by country) shall have a naming convention which will apply to all of their subcategories. The naming conventions will be listed at Wikipedia:Category titles and should generally follow the guidelines specified on that page. Conformance to these naming conventions shall be treated as "speedy renaming" CFD criteria. Changing these conventions shall require a CFD renaming consensus.

I think this may be the only actual rule we need to present to the community at large, supported by guidelines like the statements we're working on above. This would give us the flexibility to consistently name the members of each type of "by country" category in whatever way is most appropriate.

As a probably controversial follow on, I'd also propose that the way to proceed from where we are now is to treat whatever existing informal conventions we have as the established convention and move the discussions we're having here about renaming groups of categories to CFD. I think this would allow us to move the discussion to the community at large, in reasonable sized chunks, without convening "extra" polls for each meta-rule we come up with. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:46, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

I like the idea of the proposal, and am quite happy to standardise along the common usage lines already inherent within many categories, and to establish a standard for inconsistent ones elsewhere. Hiding talk 20:11, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
I don't understand why the controversial bit needs to be thrown in when we're doing just fine in baby steps above. -Splash 20:14, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
If there are going to be formal standards, this makes sense overall. And, Rick, my understanding is that any formal titles decided on/standardized/whatever here would be just be added to the project page as they are concluded. Is that right? Also:
  1. I'd suggest that the speedy renaming conditions outlined above (or whatver we decide on for exceptions, etc.) be included with the proposal to the community.
    Wikipedia:Category_renaming#Adding_criteria defines what has to happen to add a new criteria for category speedy renaming (i.e. discuss at Wikipedia talk:Categories for deletion). -- Rick Block (talk) 14:04, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
  2. I suggest changing "Changing these conventions shall require a CFD renaming consensus" to "Changing these conventions shall require a consensus at Wikipedia talk:Category titles." Maurreen (talk) 20:32, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
    I prefer CFD for this, since CFD is where all other category related naming issues are discussed. This would basically make Wikipedia:Category titles (which I think should be moved to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories)) a repository for discussions that occur at CFD. Given that the category naming convention page will have a talk page, I suppose the reality will be that changes will be discussed both at CFD and on the talk page. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:04, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
OK. Maurreen (talk) 17:01, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Oh, for goodness sake. Why did we bother with the above stuff, that seemed to be working only to turn on our heels, and say "to hell with it, let's not change anything". I just don't get it. There. You've got my first angry Wiki message. Pah. -Splash 21:38, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps an explanation is in order. This proposal is intended to:
  1. Codify a naming convention we can all agree on, removing category-by-category naming issues for "by country" categories from CFD.
  2. Allow for whatever general guidelines we'd like, with as many exceptions as necessary.
  3. Provide a process, and specifically one the community may agree to, for creating and changing the general rules using an existing process (CFD).
  4. Admit we already have conventions in many cases, but provide a mechanism we can use to institute changes we've talked about to these conventions without either a giant multipart poll or an endless series of smaller polls (attaching the meta-renaming to CFD essentially uses an existing process for the smaller polls).
  5. Conclude this seemingly interminable subgroup. I suspect we're all running out of patience.
-- Rick Block (talk) 00:13, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry I allowed myself to post an angry comment. I shouldn't have done that; it never ever progresses discussion. -Splash 16:36, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
No offense taken. Like I said, I think we're all running out of patience. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:59, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
I agree fully with all but the interpretation of the first grammatical clause of #4. As Hiding says below, we are "leaning" reasonably clearly in the direction of a numer of decisions (or recommendations, at least), and my feeling is we should give ourselves a few more days on that. I am not saying I disagree with every established convention — at least many of them are perfectly sensible but, as I said before, we should arrive at them because we think they're right rather than because that's what we already happen to have. -Splash 16:36, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
What would "a CFD renaming consensus" look like? -Splash 16:36, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
By "CFD renaming consensus" I mean the normal CFD process (as it applies to category renames). We already have some of these that pertain to more than one category. The idea is that anyone, at any time, could suggest the convention for some "fooish x", or "x of foo" (or whatever) grouping of categories be changed to something different. If there's a consensus on CFD, then so be it. The point of starting with where we are now is to avoid the two step process where we agree and then we have the same discussion in the broader community. Since it's really the broader community that matters, I don't really think there's much point in attempting to bring our "baby steps" to consensus (and I think we're reaching the point where "he who argues longest wins"). Assuming we institute the rule I've proposed (or something similar), the next step is to take any changes we'd like to make directly to the community via CFD in whatever sized chunks we think the community might be able to swallow. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:59, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
  • Well, we're finally making progress and agreeing with a lot of things. That is good. We should be avoiding polls as much as possible, they're generally not helpful. And actually we already have processes for creating and changing general rules - that process is called consensual discussion, as long as it's done in a central and visible place. Sorry if that sounded stupid but it's generally the best way. See also WP:CENT, which basically does just that. Radiant_>|< 13:44, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

Speedy renaming exceptions?

I'm not clear on whether Rick's proposal would make speedy renaming automatic, or allow for exceptions if a reasonable objection is made. Maurreen (talk) 17:01, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

CFD already has a speedy renaming mechanism, with an exception process, specifically WP:CFD#Speedy_renaming. I'm suggesting conformance to the category family rules (at the level of individual category class, like category:Geography by country, not at the level of "man-made objects in foo") be handled by the same process. This process currently has a 2-day objections window, with acceptable reasons for objections not well defined (which I think means "common sense" rules apply). -- Rick Block (talk) 18:23, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
OK, thanks. Maurreen (talk) 02:51, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Quick summary

We are leaning to in foo for

  • Categories of man made objects which are permanently located
  • Categories of physical natural features in a country, except for islands
  • Category:Law by country

We are leaning to of foo for

Can we also lean to at foo for sporting events, example being Category:Nations at the Olympics? Hiding talk 22:45, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

  • Good. I've combined the top one to 'natural features', that seems to be the gist of it.
  • Can we also agree that the parent categories should be "by country" rather than "by nation"?
    • I don't understand the distinction between "by country" and "by nation". Do you mean "by nationality"? -Splash 16:41, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I believe we could combine most of the second part (the "of foo") into "government and organizations" of country. Any obvious exceptions?
  • Also there's "abstract concepts" (please tell me a better name?) like Law, Religion, Music etc, which appear to be best as "Law in country" etc.
  • Radiant_>|< 13:41, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
    • Hmmmm. How about "abstract concepts such as law, religion, music etc"? -Splash 16:41, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
      • Music, literature, art, etc. seem to be a more contentious case than, for instance, law, as common usage strongly leans toward a nationality modifier for these sorts of things, e.g. British literature. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:14, 2005 September 3 (UTC)
  • I agree in full with Hiding's summary thus far, and with sporting events. -Splash 16:41, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Regarding "by country" or "by nation" - most categories are called e.g. "Economies by country". A select few are called e.g. "Art by nation" while it seems that the categorization is intended to be the same. Radiant_>|< 09:50, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

What's next?

Please don't take this the wrong way, but can sombebody let me know what are we going to do next with our leanings if not pretty much exactly what I've proposed above? Seems like the alternatives are:

  1. We continue this discussion, we write up our "meta-rules" on wikipedia:category titles to reflect what we collectively desire and, also, a rule like the one I've proposed above, and submit them both to the community at large for comment. Since some of the meta-rules require changes from current practice, IMO we need to let the community comment on each one individually.
  2. We write up the one rule I've proposed above, document on wikipedia:category titles any existing "meta-rules" and the de facto conventions we can infer from existing practice (ala Wikipedia:Category titles/Categories by country), and submit this to the community at large for comment (note that the comment here is on the rule and whether we've accurately captured existing rules and conventions). Then we (or anyone) submits desirable changes to the community via CFD (per the process I've outlined above).

In both cases, I think it is the community (rather than us) that will ultimately decide what changes are made, which leads me to question the rationale for further discussion here. Why would we do #1 when #2 will likely have the same outcome but skips the step where we agree to a non-binding sub-consensus? Also, following option #1 seems like it will confuse the community with too many issues at once. Option #2 presents a simple, basically inarguable, rule to the community, followed by "standard procedure" to further standization. Option #1 mixes these two things together at the same time. Is there an option I'm not seeing? -- Rick Block (talk) 20:36, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

Option #2 seems the better idea, yes. I think strong arguments have already been made against too many polls, and KISS seems to be a good rule of thumb. I've been persuaded against having to present huge swathes of lists to the community by arguments further above by Splash and Radiant, however the presenting of lists is something I would still feel obliged to do were we proposing by meta-category, so this seems an admirable compromise to me. It is all well and good tackling all the categories we can agree on, but then we have to tackle the ones we can't agree on, and then we have to present them to the community, and this idea of getting the standard supported first and then agreeing the standard after the event on CSD is a useful idea. Hiding talk 21:26, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable. Maurreen (talk) 02:52, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Ok. (Don't look so surprised.) I think there is a crucial clarification in what Rick Block says that means I can go with this. I think the meaing is (or maybe always was) that we take the italicised paragraph to the community, along with the bit I don't like. But then we can consider the stuff we've been nodding at here and represent those changes after having established a way for us to do so. So the adoption de facto of existing nomenclature is not seen to be overriding what we "lean to" here since we can present our leanings in bite-size chunks straight(ish) afterwards? Is that right? -Splash 03:49, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

  • Sounds reasonable, as soon as we get one or two more responses to the summary above, I'd say. Can we agree that this is a discussion rather than a vote? There's been too much voting recently (see Jimbo's talk page for discussion, to my surprise) Radiant_>|< 10:09, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
    • Yes. -Splash 01:18, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I do believe that the point is (after Rick's lines) that we have no standards now and propose them (as we have here). The intent should not be that the standard is to keep to precedent, and attempt to change that standard. For reasons of bureaucracy. Radiant_>|< 12:00, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
  • This then, is where we disagree, as I believed the opposite. Hiding talk 12:05, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

No, I believe it was something in between. We propose Rick's suggestion which produces a temporary standardization with the way things are. Then, we take our "leanings" through the new-speedy-criterion process, visibly on CfD and they then replace (or augment) the existing standartd. Am I completely wrong? -Splash 13:14, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

My intent is precisely what Splash describes. Step 1 is to institute a standards process reflecting current practice (which I expect should be easy) which includes a way to make sweeping changes, and steps 2-n are to adjust/augment via CfD per what step 1 institutes as the "normal" process (which may be significantly harder). -- Rick Block (talk) 18:09, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

Kazakh / Kazakhstani

And what about this situation? I think we should rename "Kazakh" or "Uzbek" categories to "Kazakhstani" and "Uzbekistani". For my explanation see WP:CFD. - Darwinek 10:44, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

  • Sorry, but that's a specific issue and we're talking about broad issues here. There was a poll earlier, though. What'll probably happen is that some categories are "thing of Uzbek" and others are "Uzbekistani thing". Radiant_>|< 10:48, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

American/United States

In that mind, it occurs to me to propose that on the American issue we could propose to allow the term American to be used to represent the United States on the basis of first usage, similar to the British/American spelling. If the category is named American, do not rename, and the same for United States. US and U.S. should however, be renamed to United States, and we could also propose placing a notice on categories which use American to the effect that the term is used to convey the nationality of the United States rather than to denote continental nationality. This would prevent systematic bias which could be argued if either side were chosen, and represents the split that seemed apparant on the issue. Thoughts? Hiding talk 20:05, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

This seems to presuppose the discardment of the perfectly good discussions and progress we are making chunk-by-chunk above. I don't see the reason for the sudden changing of heart. -Splash 20:17, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure about this. I suggest defering it. Maurreen (talk) 20:20, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
Fair play. The issue hadn't been raised for a while, I didn't really notice any discussion of it, to be honest, and this suggested itself as a nice compromise. It would be nice to have thoughts on the compromise, but I shall kick it back into the long grass. Hiding talk 20:24, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Resurrecting

Since we seem to have come to consensus on the issue above, could we now turn to this issue?

The proposal is this:

In categories where we categorise by nationality, such as people as dictated by policy at Wikipedia:Categorization of people, any categories currently named American to refer to the nationality of those people of the United States should not be renamed to United States, and any category curently using United States to refer to the nationality of those people of the United States should not be renamed to American.

The thinking behind the first part of the proposal is this-

The recent poll we had was reasonably split on using American versus United States. Official documents of the United States government utilise both forms to describe the nationality of its citizens. Common usage does not offer a solution, and systematic bias can be claimed by both sides. Since no position appears to offer a greater claim, this compromise position seeks to establish that no systematic bias is evident, and given that each position appears of equal merit, it follows to propose that first usage should dictate, as per spellings: If all else fails, consider following the spelling style preferred by the first major contributor (that is, not a stub) to the article.

I have considered the idea of proposing that sub-cats follow their parent category, but that idiom leads one to Category:American people, of which all citizens of the United States of America with articles upon Wikipedia are nominally sub-categorised in.

Thoughts? Hiding talk 11:05, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

  • Well, no. You're basically proposing a policy to not do anything. That seriously doesn't require a policy. Also, the previous poll was somewhat confusing as to the usage of "American" vs. "United States" as an adjective. We should definitely hold a poll determining that, since it's a frequent issue on CFD. This poll will likely not result in consensus, but I'm not going to assume that in advance. The only thing that will stop people from nominating such categories (and making CFD the proverbial lottery) is consensus on that. In fact, a good third option on the poll would be "don't care as long as it's consistent". Radiant_>|< 11:09, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

No I'm proposing a policy to clarify the siutation and prevent unneccesary arguments, stopping it becoming a frequent issue on CFD. I also fail to understand why on the one hand you argue against polls because we have too many, and then on the other you argue for a poll in this instance. This proposal is not up as a poll, but rather for discussion. If the consensus is to leave well enough alone, which is the basis for this proposal, then that should be at least a guideline which can prevent people from nominating such categories (and making CFD the proverbial lottery). I fail to understand why you believe this proposal would not prevent people from nominating such categories. Hiding talk 11:23, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

  • Ah. Ok. Well, the USA/American bit is really a separate issue from what we've been doing so far. I do not object to a straw poll to find out which of the two has preference since it's clearly a binary issue (as opposed to holding a yes/no policy vote on something that can be reworded if that would make it more consensual).
  • Given the way the wiki works, a proposal "do not nominate such-and-such for renaming" is likely to be ignored (or even be unseen) by many. We have several such issues (e.g. the AD/CE debacle) and saying that people should ignore it does not make it go away. Radiant_>|< 11:29, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
  • Well, the proposal serves well in terms of spelling, which is where I utilised it from, and I believe we should afford the community the benefit of the doubt rather than pre-judge the issue. Further, any categories listed in error can be closed immediately with reference to this policy. No, this proposal does not make the issue go away, but neither does forcing a poorly supported consensus on the community make it go away, since it will just be resurrected again and again. I accept this is a fudge, but I want to at least hear numerous opinions on it before I allow people to shout it down again. Hiding talk 11:40, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm not shouting anything down, I simply stated my reasons for disagreeing with it. I believe this to be on par with WP:NIS (check its history, it's now a redir). Radiant_>|< 11:56, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
  • I apologise if I gave the impression you had shouted it down and I strike that comment. I was merely attempting to state my intention that I would like discussion on the American/US issue rather than remove it once again after people simply state disapproval without offering an alternative. Do we really believe a binary poll is the best answer to this problem, and if it isn't, what are the alternatives. Hiding talk 12:09, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

This does seem, fairly explicitly, a proposal to change nothing and admit no consideration of changing it. I'm still not persuaded of any particularly good reason why that's the thing to do. However, in light of the pretty sure no-consensus we'd reach on going either way it may be the only option. If that is so, how would we use the proposal to help us with future categories? Simply accept whatever possible inconsistent styling the first editor comes up with? -Splash 13:17, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

How would it be inconsistent? It would either be American people or United States people, wouldn't it? Yes, there would be two standards, and they would be inconsistent with each other, but that's hardly the worst outcome, is it? Note also it doesn't pervent consideration for change, it just moves it away from being individual arguments on cfd. If anyone wants to propose that we standardise American or United States it would then have to be done at a higher level, either here or on the talk page of either Wikipedia:Categorisation of people or WP:CFD. However, here is a further thought. Similar to that vote over the European template, we could enshrine the proposal above whilst concurrently opening a poll which would require a 70% consensus either way to enact a standard. The poll would not be closed until such a consensus has formed. This allows discussion to take place and allows an ongoing vote and debate whilst allowing CFD to remain clear of the issue. As soon as one position reaches 70%, that position becomes the standard and all categories fall in line. 84.92.54.229 13:41, 31 August 2005 (UTC) (Hiding, I apparently became logged out.)

Although the page started out talking "U.S.", "American", etc., it has since taken a big detour. I still prefer to defer. Too much going on at once for my taste. Maurreen (talk) 07:38, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

The proposals

Please see the mainpage; I've attempted to summarize what we've got so far. It should be consistent with the above bunch of summaries, and would be something we can show to the community. Thoughts welcome. Radiant_>|< 11:23, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

I've reverted the changes. Radiant's text was as follows:

  1. Parent categories by country, such as Category:Geography by country, should be called "... by country" (rather than "... by nation").
  2. Categories of natural features or man-made objects by country should be called "... in country".
  3. Categories of businesses, governmental agencies and statistics directly related to a country (e.g. history, economy, demographics) should be called "... of country"
  4. Categories of abstracts and cultural items by country, such as law, music and religion, should be called "... in country".
  5. Categories of nations at sporting events (e.g. the 2000 olympics) should be called "country at ...".
  6. The above guidelines can have exceptions when the proposed naming doesn't make sense gramatically. For instance "islands in country" sounds strange, so it should be "islands of country" instead.

Note that the vast majority of categories already conform to these proposed standards.

In addition to the above, a poll should be held to determine if there's a consensus for preferring "American topic" or "United States topic" in category naming.

Categories of people by country may be debated at some point in the future.

  • I believe that the consensus was forming behind Rick's Wikipedia talk:Category titles#proposal for generic rule, which did not involve the listing of any suggested standards. Also note that categories of people by country are actually categorised by nationality as dictated by the existing policy at Wikipedia:Categorization of people, and if anyone wants to discuss that I propose they take that into account first. I also object to the fact that a poll should be held to determine if there's a consensus for preferring "American topic" or "United States topic" in category naming, when I am in the process of re-igniting that debate. Could we please talk things through here before we make wholesale changes to anything? Hiding talk 11:31, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
    • Yes yes yes, I already removed that American thing and answered you above. Rick proposed that all categories have a standard that is listed at Category Titles. That is precisely what I'm doing here, listing those standards (as proposed-and-under-discussion, not as set-in-stone). Radiant_>|< 11:35, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
  • I believe it would be courteous to allow Rick to publicise his proposal, and decide what he meant by it. Hiding talk 11:46, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Radiant, it's not that I object to the recent edit, it is that I would rather we discuss such things here before we make a presentation on the project page. Hiding talk 11:50, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I have to list only those points that I believe have consensual backing here. Further discussion is welcome. Radiant_>|< 12:05, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't believe you have to do anything, Radiant, and as stated above, I believed the standards were to be decided at CSD rather than here. However, I feel it is fruitless to edit war anymore over this issue. Hiding talk 12:19, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I've replaced the text with something more like what I had in mind (previous versions are in the history). Per above, I agree with Hiding about this. Where I think this goes is that the page gets renamed "Naming conventions (categories)" and it includes all category-related naming conventions. The first two sections I included are from WP:CG and I think this page should be referred to from there (as well as from naming conventions). -- Rick Block (talk) 19:01, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
    • Given Rick's message further up, I can subscribe to the present front page, and the procedures underlying it with enthusiasm. The fact that we have a parenthetical warning that things can still change (and that proposals are forthcoming) is important. We might tweak the exact contents of the text a little here and there, but I don't think I have anything substantive. -Splash 20:12, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Glad to see some progress here. I suppose we can just submit the proposal to align non-conforming categories with the specific conventions listed to WP:CFD as a block nomination, which will officially "bless" those conventions? -- Beland 04:08, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Yuk. No need for the quickpoll. We'll get ourselves deleted. We're doing fine as we are, I think. Moreover, as has been pointed out a few times now, any poll we make among ourselves is overriden as soon as we conclude it by taking it to the community. -Splash 05:02, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

The intention at present is a two step process 1)make ourselves a new-speedy-rename-rule process and standardize as we are 2)re-standardize as discussed further up, and to be discussed imminently. -Splash 05:02, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Quick polls on undecided proposals

I've split the misc. "nationality x" list up into more specific bits, because personally, I don't think all of the things list there belong, and they are certainly not homogeneous. We haven't really asked about these at such a detailed level, so here goes. This is a quick poll to determine which way we lean on these specific categories.

Cultural "nationality x" (proposed)

Support

  1. I'm supporting this in the spirit of compromise. The general idea is that the cultural influences of a country leak outside its physical borders, and include non-resident people of the national ethnicity, and others, as well.-- Beland 04:54, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

Sport "in country" (proposed)

Support

  1. Sports teams seem to be pretty concretely tied to a specific political entity or territory. -- Beland 04:54, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

Organizations "of country" (proposed)

Support

  1. These subcategories seem to refer to organizations that are specifically headquartered or active in a physical country. They do not include e.g. an ethnic Swedish interest group operating in the U.S. under "Swedish organizations". Those could be listed in under "ethnic organizations" or somesuch. The distinction is useful to make for navigational purposes, I think. Note Category:International organizations is here, and I like that. -- Beland 04:54, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

Media "of country" (proposed)

Support

  1. Again, a media organization is either headquartered in, primarily broadcasting to, or primarily publishing in a given country, or it isn't. Many media organizations are "international". -- Beland 04:54, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

Politicians "of country" (proposed)

Support

  1. Clearly associated with a specific political or territorial entity. -- Beland 04:54, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

People "by nationality" (proposed)

Support

  1. I'm supporting this in the spirit of compromise. The idea is that you have residents, citizens, ex-patriates, and members of the national ethnicity, and these all co-mingle and overlap and it's easier just to put them under the same broad category. -- Beland 04:54, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

Miscellaneous proposals

Support

  1. Either they're made in a given country, or they're not, or they're international. -- Beland 04:54, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Oppose


Support

  1. Most of these are for national parks, which have a clear physical location. Others are clearly related to the politics of a specific governmental entity. -- Beland 04:54, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Oppose


Support

  1. Clearly associated with a specific political entity. -- Beland 04:54, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Oppose


  • Rename all "Nationality X" meta-categories to "by nationality"

Support

  1. We haven't talked about this much, but it would seem to make semantic sense, and aid navigation. -- Beland 04:54, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Oppose


  • Rename all "X of country" meta-categories to "by country"

Support

  1. We haven't talked about this much, but it would seem to make semantic sense, and aid navigation. -- Beland 04:54, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

How to name the country, Dealing with overlaps

I added these two sections because they seemed fairly well supported and relatively uncontroversial. "How to name the country" is absolutely necessary to have as a reference for whoever renames "Nationality X" categories to "X of country", or else it's ambiguous what the destination should be. As for overlaps, I generally leave those up to the people who work on those categories to decide what is appropriate, but the advice in the "Dealing with overlaps" section seems useful. I submit it for your approval or dismissal if you think it shouldn't be a part of the convention. (Though it is a common question, and sometimes people object to a proposal because these situations create ambiguity which allows people to imagine the worst.) -- Beland 05:06, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

  • I think the way this page is currently written is too confusing. There are too many lists, and it's hard to tell whether they are arbitrary or not. I really believe it should be changed to descriptions (e.g. "natural features" rather than listing them). Radiant_>|< 07:56, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
  • Please enlighten me as to how this proposal deals with Category:Court systems in England and Wales, reason for which see Courts of England and Wales. Also, if of Russia refers to the modern day country, how do we refer to the historical country of Russia, and with the category of England, do we refer to the whole of English history, or things as they are now? Do we need to implement historical categories into the structure, as in England (800-1200)? As an example of what I am thinking, recent boundary changes have moved Mitcham from Surrey to a London borough. Do we categorise Mitcham in Surrey? Now expand that question out across politicians who have served in the English Parliament, which has grown over history to cover the whole of the United Kingdom, without ever actually changing its location. Isaac Newton can be declared a part of Category:British MPs, he could never be a part of Category:MPs of the United Kingdom. Note also the United Kingdom is a nebulous term, describing both the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the historical state the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. These issues need to be looked at by someone, I feel. Hiding talk 08:15, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
  • I give up. Hiding talk 07:57, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Eep. Edit conflict. My edit was in response to Beland's, not Hiding's. Radiant_>|< 08:29, September 1, 2005 (UTC)


  • Okay. We're exhausting ourselves and running around in circles. This is bad. I propose the following:
    1. Make this page an accurate summary of the status quo (which it may already be, I haven't entirely read it yet))
    2. Wait about a week since we're likely all tired of the matter
    3. Take the things we're mostly agreed on (e.g. Rick's proposal, and this summary), post a link on RFC and the village pump, and see what reactions are.
  • Radiant_>|< 08:32, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

I'm lost

Apparently I misunderstood. I had the impression that "the proposal" was what Rick had suggested:

All categories whose subcategories are categories by country (roughly all categories that are members of category:categories by country) shall have a naming convention which will apply to all of their subcategories. The naming conventions will be listed at Wikipedia:Category titles and should generally follow the guidelines specified on that page. Conformance to these naming conventions shall be treated as "speedy renaming" CFD criteria. Changing these conventions shall require a CFD renaming consensus.

That seemed pretty simple and relatively clear.

I had the impression that the next step was to take that proposal to the wider community.

All the other stuff on the project page is overwhelming. I can't follow all the discussion above. Maurreen (talk) 07:30, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

tough crowd

OK. Referring to Wikipedia talk:Category titles#What's next? (above, at least until it gets archived), it seems like we had a nice friendly agreement that we'd first establish the one meta-rule with the broader community, and then (meaning later, like not at the same time, non-simultaneously) use the process that this one meta-rule establishes to straighten out the namings. Our goal here is to establish sensible rules. Getting mired in the details before establishing a way to create and enforce reasonable rules (whatever they may be) sure seems like it's been counter-productive. I'm not going to claim to be in charge, but here's what I think we ought to do:

1) Keep working on the main page to make it easy to understand and essentially inarguable (specifically removing any even remotely contentious proposals). I've made most of the lists less intrusive. I 'm not sure what to do with the country-name stuff, but it seems far too "weighty" in its current form.

2) Archive this talk page.

3) Propose on the talks for Wikipedia:Naming conventions and WP:CFD and WP:CG and wherever else may be appropriate that this page become Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) and wait for the consensus to develop (this talk page seems as good a place as any for this discussion). It might be good to have a target date for when we're going to do this. How about Sept 7?

4) Politely but forcefully defer any talk about changing by-country category names until we gain consensus for what we've proposed will be the process for doing so (i.e. by using CFD). Note the sneaky ploy here. All we need to get the entire community to agree on is that the naming rules for by-country categories can be changed via CFD. Then, changing these naming rules only requires a CFD consensus (not a community-wide consensus).

5) In chunks the CFD community might be able to swallow (perhaps no more than one chunk a week), propose changes via WP:CFD.

If we can manage to stay focused on getting the rules in place, I think we'll make it a lot easier to make further progress. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:01, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

On my part, I'd like to apologise for being tough. It also seems we have been pre-empted once again and moved to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories). It occurs to me that the country-name stuff might be better housed at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Country names), as it would also apply to article naming, I would think. I've also amended the front page to include detail from Wikipedia:Categorization of people. Hiding talk 19:23, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
Is it time to archive basically all of this, and invite the entire community to comment on the proposed convention page? If no one else does this by tomorrow, I will. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:00, September 8, 2005 (UTC)