Wikipedia talk:Category names/Archive 6

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Previous discussions

• Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Category:By country (Jan 2005 discussion)
• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (country-specific topics) (April 2005 discussion)
• Wikipedia talk:Category titles/Archive 1
• Wikipedia talk:Category titles/Archive 2
• Wikipedia talk:Category titles/Archive 3
• Wikipedia talk:Category titles/Archive 4
• Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (categories)/Archive 5
• Wikipedia talk:Category titles/Archive: Poll started August 4, 2005
• Wikipedia talk:Category titles/Archive: Summary of poll started August 4, 2005

Community blessing

In archive 5, Rick Block wrote:

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).

I thought it was already fairly clear that because CFD is where renaming discussions happen, it has the power to decide what the conventions should be. Really, it has this de facto power, since it is the implementation mechanism. Not that this should stop anyone from seeking "community blessing" for this idea. I'll be glad to see the renamings-to-standard finally make it to WP:CFD. ::sigh:: -- Beland 04:37, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Per my comments in the immediately following section, the essential point is to officially elevate the CFD authority in the "by country" cases from individual categories to groups of categories. CFD has per category renaming authority, but since higher level conventions have never been officially recorded and there is no supporting policy in place, we still have discussions like WP:CFD#Last "Fooian rivers" categories and WP:CFD#Buildings and structures by country - the rest (both currently on CFD as of September 11, 2005, and neither is necessarily constrained to result in the obviously "right" answer). If we can successfully adopt the proposed naming conventions as policy, these specific CFD discussions become speedy renaming cases without requiring a full CFD discussion and without running the risk that the set of folks interested in CFD when they happen to come up fail to reach the obviously "right" conclusion. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:23, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

previous discussion and summary

Please see the archives above for previous discussion on this topic. The current proposed policy reflects a consensus of a number of editors (see, in particular, Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (categories)/Archive 5) and includes current guidelines from WP:CG as well as new guidelines and procedures related to "by country" categories (the original topic that initiated this effort). The "by country" guidelines that are listed reflect current naming practices and add three significant new rules:

1. all supercategories of "by country" categories will have an explicit naming convention pertaining to their subcategories (listed on this page)
2. conformance with these "by country" naming conventions will be treated as a "speedy category renaming" criteria
3. changes to these "by country" naming conventions can be made via the category renaming process at WP:CFD

The intent is to shift discussions at WP:CFD away from individual "by country" categories to entire classes of these categories, and provide a means to facilitate changing the naming patterns for classes of these categories. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:40, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

New comments

• As a guideline it puts quite some weight on the "by country" problem - since that was obviously the problem that needed solving I want to give this proposal that part of "community blessing" (however small) I can give it. --Francis Schonken 06:29, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Can we bring this discussion to a close?

No substantive edits have been made to this discussion in a few weeks - can it be brought to a close? -- BD2412 ^talk 00:42, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Categories by country. Objections to speedy renaming

In recent weeks I have made more renaming nominations for national categories than anyones else and I expect to continue to do so, but I oppose these being treated as speedies. The first attempt to use this policy was based on a misunderstanding (that national archaeology categories and national archaeological sites categories are the same thing - see eg category:British archaeology). I am particulary concerned that this policy could be used to convert all names to American English, thus giving as such things as category:Transportation in Australia and Category:Theater in the United Kingdom, and this might not be stopped in time. There aren't exactly hordes of people on categories for deletion. Some nominations get about two comments in seven days, never mind two - and speedy renaming is a separate and easily missed part of the page. I would rather see things done (slightly) more slowly and accurately. CalJW 23:32, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I suspect the relative lull in national category renamings has in fact been due to the "almost policy" nature of this proposal. It's now policy, but certainly not too late to discuss further.

• Renaming as speedy - speedy is only for cases where a category name violates an established, documented, convention for its supercategory. The conventions are included on this naming conventions page and, at this point, reflect "supermajority" convention within the listed categories. The basic argument for using speedy in these cases is that failing a consensus to rename is nonsensical (one of the basic reasons to make these conventions policy is to make them enforceable, just like capitalization). There may be categories that are themselves miscategorized (for example, national archaeology categories in category:Archaeological sites by country), but I really think this will be a low runner case. Forcing all "convention alignment" renaming through standard CFD so that a very few exceptional cases might be caught seems like overkill.
• Converting names to American English - again, speedy is only for cases in which there already is a naming convention. We need to make sure the conventions we establish are not American English (or British English) centric, but worrying about this after the conventions are established (when speedy applies) seems to be too late.

-- Rick Block (talk) 04:10, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

There remains a risk of errors being made, as is illustrated by the fact that you made one yourself the very first time this idea was applied. If I had not happened to nominate a category for speedy renaming myself that same day it is probably that the incorrect change would have been made as I normally skip the speedies section of Categories for deletion and the chances of anyone else out of the small number of people who visit the page noticing it and being aware of how archaeology is subcategorised are pretty slim. Errors will be minimised by giving changes more exposure. Speedy renaming should be used with caution here, as speedy deletion is with articles. Cancelling this criteria will not prevent any correct changes being made, but it will reduce incorrect changes. CalJW 22:11, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Using CFD-speedy was an integral part of this policy during the entire time it was discussed and was in every version discussed prior to the page being marked as policy. To remove it would require consensus, here, that it should be changed. There has been no such consensus. I'm adding it back. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:10, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

It was not declared policy before I intervened. Go back and look at the position a few days ago. CalJW 03:32, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Can somebody other than CalJW or myself please comment on this thread? Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:27, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

On the largely irrelevant point, CalJW's first edit to the project page was after Raul654 had added the policy tag. On the more substantive point, Rick Block is quite correct. The discussion (which I spent an inordinate amount of time debating with others) was clear that the principles we established, given on the main page, were to be viewed as speedies unless someone objected. We didn't actually construct a new speedy mechanism for cats, because we lost some of our core editors (and the proposal, in a refactoring). So they are speedies, but as with all speedies on CfD there's a 48 hour delay as it says at the top of that section, to allow time for objections on reasonable grounds. As ever, you'd have to have a good reason for it. I don't think there would be a problem with de-speedying certain, individual entries from the main page, after discussion here. So if the transport one conflicts with a consensual arrangement elsewhere, we need to talk about it. Equally, if there was one particular cat that needed, for some extenuating reason, to be different to the rest within a speedy-group, we can talk about it — if it's that obvious, it shouldn't be hard to give it a green light. But we don't need to just go excising the bits of policy we don't like, or I shall take to task with a few choice ones of my own, elsewhere! -Splash^talk 05:04, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

As another participant, I can confirm that we consensually agreed on the following:

• 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.

It is regrettable this aspect was not placed on the front page, the reason for which was probably fatigue, this was a long and arduous discussion. Is the above clause disputed, or is there still consensus on it? Hiding talk 19:26, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

• • I would have thought that, in the absence of consensus to change, it stands. That does not preclude the kind of discussions I mentioned, nor indeed the complete abolition of the scheme: but again, only through consensual discussion. We should try to keep this in one place - I'm having to cross post everything! -Splash^talk 22:41, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Renaming in progress of Images of United States

I point out a renaming vote is in progress at WP:CFD#Category:Images of United States (SEWilco 15:30, 28 September 2005 (UTC))

The problem is that 48 out of 49 national categories are in "X images" format, while the subcategories of category:Images of places are in "Images of X" format. But apart from the categories for U.S. states "Images of places" is almost empty. Thus we have two different standards and Category:Images of United States is the intersection point. I favour "Images X" because not all the images in these categories show the whole of the place named. To me, "Images of the United States" only completely appropriate for satellite photos. An image of say a Harley Davidson is an image "from" or "taken in" the United States. Thus it's easiest to stick to "United States images" to cover all types of images, and all the continental and US state categories should be amended to reflect the convention used for countries. CalJW 01:52, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2005 September 30#Subcats of Category:Images by country for discussion about creating a convention for its subcats. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:40, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Football venues

Could someone tell me where there was a debate about renaming these all to include "soccer". I believe this is U.S. centric. If there was a debate, how many non-North Americans were involved? There is a clear precedent for not using the word soccer in that it is not used in the vast majority of national venue categories at present and it is not used for players/managers/clubs/competitions categories either. CalJW 03:39, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

The discussion is presently occurring at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion#Subcategories of sports venues by country categories (non-speedy). This discussion (at CFD) is precisely about changing the convention from "fooish football venues" to "football (soccer) venues of foo". CFD is the proper place for this discussion, in accordance with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories). -- Rick Block (talk) 04:26, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Category rename Afghanistan images to Images of Afghanistan

I point out that a rename is proposed for CFD:Category:Afghanistan images. (SEWilco 19:25, 29 September 2005 (UTC))

Nationality

Do people agree the page asserts nationality is to be used with regards to categorisation of people? Hiding talk 10:16, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

• I would say no. Under "Special conventions for categorization of people" is says people are categorized by their nationality and occupation, but then lists some cases where "of country" format is used. I think these two bullets specifically pertain to subcats of Category:Occupations by nationality but not to other people-related categories. When the page was put together, the intent was to accurately describe current practice and provide a mechanism for changes and further conventions to be adopted. We haven't returned to the general "Nationality X" discussion. Perhaps it's time. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:10, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

  I guess we disagree then. I wasn't under the impression the first point, "Special conventions for categorization of people" applied only to subcats of Category:Occupations by nationality. I thought it applied to Category:People by nationality and its sub-cats. I also think if the page reflected current practice then it seems wrong to me to descibe nationality categories pertaining to people as Considerable discussion has already occurred on this naming convention. Expect proposals for renaming many of these category types soon. when as far as I know Wikipedia:Categorization of people was guideline and thus current practice. Hiding talk 15:29, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

  The expect proposals bit is specifically alluding to the "rename 'em all" sentiment some editors have expressed. I find it somewhat awkward to defend this position since I don't personally agree with it (i.e. I do not favor renaming all "Nationality X" categories). I'm not sure why no one has yet made one of these renaming proposals. I've been proposing some (not involving "Nationality X" renaming) mostly to try out the new process. Back to your question - the page was deliberately presented as descriptive rather than prescriptive in order to ease the consensus process. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:17, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

  The problem I have is that if it states people are categorised by nationality, then shouldn't that be the standard? I seem to recall there was consensus that people at least could be categorised by nationality, even if there was no consensus on using nationality in other categories. Granted I might be misrembering, but at the moment the page seems to contradict itself. The other point is that I was under the impression that these standards were not immutable, that consensus either here or at categories for deletion would change the standards. If that understanding is correct, I fail to see why it would be prescriptive to describe categorisation of people by nationality as a standard. I can see the reasoning for the other categories, just not the people ones. Hiding talk 11:51, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

  It says People are categorized by their nationality and occupation - a very narrow interpretation of this (using logical AND rather than perhaps the more normal meaning of logical AND/OR) is People are categorized by (their nationality and occupation), i.e. in a category like "Fooian fooers" (2-deep subcat of either Category:Occupations by nationality or Category:Nationalities by occupation). The current descriptive standard (which has evolved through usage rather than having been prescriptively designed by consensus) is that these categories (but not necessarily all people-related categories) use nationality naming. The standards are certainly not immutable (are mutable), but I wouldn't be surprised if there were objections to the claim that nationality naming pertains to all people-related categories. Again, this would be fine with me, but it does raise the ugly American (pun intended) issue. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:40, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

  Um. Okay, for the sake of argument let's say that People are categorized by their nationality and occupation applies only as you say it does. Does this still not mean that subcats of Category:Occupations by nationality should be exmpted from the umbrella statement in the Nationality section, Considerable discussion has already occurred on this naming convention. Expect proposals for renaming many of these category types soon. since the above standard, I believe we agree, applies? As to the American question, perhaps it is time to again seek a consensus around either American foo,United States foo or perhaps foo of the United States similar to the given example Category:Musicians from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Hiding talk 19:25, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

  Yup. I think it's time. On the other hand, I'm not at all sure any consensus other than "people don't agree on this" is achievable. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:05, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Over 80% of the categories use "American", and that is the form we should be working towards. This is the English language Wikipedia and it should use normal English. CalJW 11:44, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

• I've started a page for this dicsussion, please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories)/Usage of American. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:07, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

• Um, any chance of an answer to my question as follows? Okay, for the sake of argument let's say that People are categorized by their nationality and occupation applies only as you say it does. Does this still not mean that subcats of Category:Occupations by nationality should be exmpted from the umbrella statement in the Nationality section, Considerable discussion has already occurred on this naming convention. Expect proposals for renaming many of these category types soon. since the above standard, I believe we agree, applies? Otherwise I'll amend the page accordingly. Hiding talk 11:45, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
  • The standard apparently refers to accepting what is listed on the Category:Occupations by nationality page. The names to be used in subcategories, such as Category:Sportspeople by nationality containing Category:Afghan sportspeople, are not covered by the standard. As mentioned above, United States classifications such as Category:American sportspeople are under discussion. (SEWilco 16:32, 12 October 2005 (UTC))

• I've moved those categories where there's been agreement that "Foo by nationality" will be the name down to their own section. There are no substantive implications, I hope, merely a clarity thing so that we don't keep getting "country" and "nationality" crossed. No contentioous stuff was affected. If this is a real problem for anyone, I'd take no offense to a revert -The Tom 20:31, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Ships categories are a mess

The categories in Category:Ships by nationality need to be sorted out. Most are in the X ships form, but there are also some "Ships of X" - including some duplicate categories for prominent countries. CalJW 05:53, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Sport or sports; should change the guideline

This guideline says: "Category names for lists of items should be plural. Examples: "sports", "writers".". But here is the problem. As explained in this discussion, both sport and sports could refer to all the athletics in the whole. So I suggest fixing this in guideline. --Monkbel 12:13, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Good eye. I've gone ahead and substituted in a different example, "sports venues." I trust this is acceptable to all? -The Tom 05:59, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure. It seems that sport venues could be used as far as sports venues, as per above... see Category:Sport venues in Northern Ireland, for example. May be you should change it to something like.. Category:Cathedrals by country, or Rivers, or whatever. --Monkbel 06:42, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

So it is, too. I thought we had agreed back on CFD that "sports venues" was correct regardless of the sport/sports divide. Rivers it is. -The Tom 21:53, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Grammar in category titles

I've come across a couple of categories (the ones I remember are Category:The Beatles songs and Category:Music occupations) whose titles are horrificly ungrammatical (the first should be a possessive, i.e. Beatles', and the second should be a contain an adjective and not a noun, i.e. musical). Is there a reason that these categories, not to mention other ungrammatically titled categories, are titled like this, apart from someone making an honest grammatical mistake? I immediately wanted to change these two to Category:The Beatles' songs and Category:Occupations in music, but was uncomfortable doing it without asking someone about the changes (as this would be my first major encounter with categories). I figured that maybe there was a convention I was missing, but so far I haven't found one. Blackcap | talk 02:37, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

You should try to propose these changes to WP:CFD, I think, since there is no appropriate guideline. --Monkbel 22:16, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

O.K., I've gone and done so. Blackcap | talk 15:46, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

No one else disagrees? I think the Beatles example is fine. A category "Queen songs" seems perfectly legitimate, so why not "The Beatles songs"? It's not a possessive. Personally I think "Beatles songs" would sound better in any case. Stevage 21:13, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you -- "The Beatles Songs" sounds strange, but it's correct. And there's certainly nothing wrong with "Music occupations" any more than there is with "Government occupations" or, for that matter, "web page". Nouns can certainly modify nouns. ("Horrificly", however, is decidedly ungrammatical.)

People from "City X" or "City X'ers"

I've been noticing a lot of edits lately to biographies to add categories to list people from certain cities. The category that these sub-cats can be found in is Category:American people by city. They usually read "Akronites" or "Chicagoans" or some such thing. Shouldn't these be named "People from Akron, Ohio" or "People from Chicago, Illinois" respectively? Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 17:00, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Adjectives vs. nouns in category titles?

I noticed, when looking at Category:Maps, that there are a number of very poorly grammatically constructed cats there, such as Category:Asia maps (instead of either Category:Asian maps orCategory:Maps of Asia),Category:Greece maps, etc. Almost all of the pages in the Maps cat were in the ungrammatical form of noun modifying noun, rather than adjective modifying noun, and I imagine that this form exists in other cat titles as well. Is there a reason that this is the case? Is there a convention somewhere which I'm missing? I've searched, and couldn't find anything. I did see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (adjectives), but that refers to pages about adjectives (such as eloquent), not all pages with adjectives in them. If there isn't already a convention about this, then I'd like to propose one: When creating page titles, use correct grammar unless by doing so you would contradict other WP policies or violate common sense. Any thoughts? Anyone know the current rules? --Blackcap | talk 01:23, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Ethnic groups by country categories

Currently categories that group ethnic groups by country generally use "of country" in their name. For example, Category:Ethnic groups of Canada. However, there currently is no listed guideline at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) of how such ethnic groups by country categories should be named. For several reasons, I am proposing that ethnic groups by country categories be named "in country", such as Category:Ethnic groups in Mexico.

The existence of some ethnic groups, such as indigenous peoples, pre-date the formation of the countries that they are now located in. For example, see the First Nations or Inuit in Canada, or the Awá in Brazil. If the ethnic group existed prior to the formation of the country, then the word "in" is more accurate than the word "of", and avoids implying belonging. A Google search also confirms that generally "in" is more widely used than "of" in describing ethnic groups by country. See Google searches for "ethnic groups in Australia" vs. "ethnic groups of Australia", and "ethnic groups in France" vs. "ethnic groups of France".

The choice of "in" instead of "of" has also been made through debate or has not been objected to for several ethnic group articles including Aboriginal peoples in Canada, Indigenous peoples in Brazil, and Indigenous peoples in the United States. Kurieeto 21:07, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

This strikes me as a reasonable proposal, although personally I think making sure that the "Ethnicity" and related articles makes these points clear in their contents is more important than naming conventions. Be that as it may, I can't object to this proposal though I hope many others weigh in. Slrubenstein | [[User talk:Slrubenstein|Talk]] 22:20, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

I prefer "in" over "of", but not because of any politically correct issues over historicity. There are a number of ethnic groups who as of today are not confined to a single country, such as the Iriquois, Rroma, Tutsi, and Punjabi. Such groups can't really be described accurately by the preposition "of", but "in" is accurate. Caerwine 07:19, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Support for the reasons Caerwine mentions — ethnic groups often span more than one country. Luigizanasi 21:10, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

A week has passed since the last comment about this proposal, and overall there have been no expressed objections to using the wording "in country". I've therefore made a formal proposal at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion to make "in country" an official guideline, and to rename all the "of country" worded ethnic group-country categories to use the wording "in country". Kurieeto 18:02, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposal: Extend per-country conventions to parts of countries

At the moment, categories for countries can be speedily renamed to follow frameworks. Similar categories for parts of countries and for cities are taking up a lot of WP:CFD. Should speedy renaming be extended, and should “same spelling” also include “same disambiguation”, which is rarely an issue for countries? Susvolans ⇔ 20:27, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Relating to this proposal I've put in a request at today's CFD to rename some 'ethnic groups by region' categories to follow the naming conventions of the 'ethnic groups by country' categories as established here. Should our naming conventions as established here have a scope of for categories by region, instead of categories by country? Changing to "region" would allow for the application of naming conventions to entities that are above and below the country-level. Kurieeto 20:44, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Naming convention for list categories

Articles that are lists are named "List of..." to eliminate ambiguity. Why isn't the same practice followed for categories that are lists? This article points out that Category:Opera and Category:Operas are distinct categories. That is ridiculous! It's way too easy to make mistakes. In the article namespace, Operas redirects to Opera. The list of operas is at List of operas. To be consistent, and much less confusing, Category:Operas should be renamed to Category:List of operas. In general, any category which is a list should use the "List of..." convention, just as articles do. Mirror Vax 17:13, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

All categories are lists, so naming them "list of" would be redundant. Specifically, category:opera is "list of articles about (the generic topic of) opera" while category:operas is "list of articles about (specific individual) operas". Perhaps category:opera (and similar categories) could be renamed something like category:opera (topic). I think by quite a large margin most categories are lists in the sense you're thinking of, so at this point it would be highly impractical to rename them. There are fewer topic categories, but still likely so many that renaming all of them is also likely to be quite impractical. Perhaps there are few enough cases like Category:Opera and Category:Operas that something could be done where both exist. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:13, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but my guess is that most categories are not lists (as in, category Z is a "List of Z"). Of the eight top level categories, only one (Category:People) is a list. Many categories have list-like names but are not lists (perhaps they were originally intended as lists - who knows? - but people placed related articles in them, because it was the closest category fit). The main point is that the meaning of categories is often not clear, and depends on subtle grammatical distinctions. Mirror Vax 19:52, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Here's another point. A mistake that is sometimes made is to place a category which is not a list into a list category (because the name of the category is the same or similar to an article that belongs in the list - for example, Category:Winston Churchill does not belong in Category:1874 births). This error would be more obvious if all list categories were named "List of...". The rule would be: "List of..." categories can only have subcategories that are also "List of..." categories. A bot could automatically detect the error. Mirror Vax 20:19, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not arguing this is a bad idea, simply that it's not practically possible (so it doesn't really matter whether it's a good idea or not). If you want to pursue this, you might want to try to drum up support at Wikipedia:WikiProject Categories. I certainly agree that the meaning of categories currently depends on subtle grammatical distinctions. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:06, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

As it stands, most people don't worry about topic/list distinctions. If there's a plural "list" category available (e.g. Category:Operating systems), they hardly ever create a singular "topic" version (e.g. Category:Operating system). It's not a natural and intuitive thing to do. So categories that begin as lists inevitably mutate into topics. Maybe that's okay? Mirror Vax 04:52, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Since categories don't have any formal semantics, yes I think it's okay. There's no real enforcement for what goes into what category, and I think there is even fairly widespread disagreement about the fundamental purpose of categories, which leads to a variety of what I suspect are unresolvable issues (like whether "list" categories can/should contain only articles that are members of the list - for example, there is sometimes contention about whether an article list of things should be in category: things). I think the root issue might be that some users want category membership to have a precisely defined meaning in a theoretical database or ontological sense while other users view categories simply as a navigational convenience, and allowing anyone to edit means the first camp has an uphill fight. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:35, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the insightful comments. Mirror Vax 19:54, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Renames struck down

Several of my attempts at Cfr's to follow this standard were struck down (Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2005 December 22#Category:U.S. aircraft to Category:American_aircraft and other sections). I guess these need to be reconsidered? wknight94 17:39, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

The computer program named User:Kbdank71 renamed some of them, but not others. So it's nice and random. Mirror Vax 18:32, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I assume you realize User:Kbdank71 is, in fact, a person. He's one of not very many people who carry out the consensus decisions made at WP:CFD - the randomness is not due to him but to the nature of CFD consensus (different people vote on different days, etc.). If Kbdank71 got to make the decisions himself my guess is that they'd be a whole lot more consistent. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:13, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that process seems to need a lot of help. Not the carrying out of the consensus but the process of gathering a consensus. There's not much point spending time coming up with naming conventions - like on this page - only to have one of the categories sneak back in to Cfr or Cfd and get overturned by people who didn't participate in this page to begin with. Total waste of time and I'm unlikely to continue participating in cleanup and consistency efforts in the future. wknight94 02:25, 31 December 2005 (UTC)