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March 18

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Wikipedia FOO cleanup categories

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The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: Rename. Timrollpickering (talk) 10:59, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Propose renaming
Nominator's rationale: The word 'categories' in the titles serves no useful purpose; in fact, their presence discourages the inclusion of a limited number of applicable cleanup-related non-category pages such as Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Maintenance/Images for cleanup. The convention of the parent categories also dictates this type of change, since we have Category:Wikipedia cleanup and Category:Wikipedia maintenance and not Category:Wikipedia cleanup categories and Category:Wikipedia maintenance categories.
As part of this nomination, I am also proposing to change 'image cleanup' to 'file cleanup' to expand the scope of the category tree to include, as appropriate, audio and video cleanup; a category specifically for image cleanup can be split out later if it is needed. -- Black Falcon (talk) 23:52, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
[edit]
The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: Rename to Category:Art gallery districts. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:07, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Propose renaming Category:Art gallery places to something
Nominator's rationale: Rename. As currently defined, this category is for Places known for concentrations of commercial, contemporary and other art galleries. That is an extremely subjective criteria which may or may not be defining. While deletion would be an easy option, I suspect that there is some rename that would provide for an objective inclusion criteria. The question is, what is that name? Vegaswikian (talk) 22:43, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Voids

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The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: Rename. Timrollpickering (talk) 10:58, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Propose renaming Category:Voids to Category:Voids (astronomy)
Nominator's rationale: Rename. An opposed speedy nomination. Void is ambiguous, and the article dealing with what is being categorised here is at Void (astronomy). I suggest renaming the category to match non-ambiguous article name. (I think that User:Black Falcon is correct that this nomination probably best fits under speedy criterion C2B.) Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:19, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
copy of speedy nomination
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Shōnen anime and manga

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The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: Rename. Timrollpickering (talk) 16:17, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Propose renaming:

Nominator's rationale: These categories were renamed earlier today (or in some cases may still be in the process of being renamed) after having been listed at WP:CFDS for 48 hours. However, I think the reason no one objected is only because no one with knowledge of the subject saw the listing there (I wasn't even aware of that page). This rename is problematic for two reasons. First, these are demographics of manga determined by the target audience of the magazines the manga ran in, and aren't really applicable to anime that wasn't adapted from a manga. The main articles on these subjects are at titles like Shōnen manga and Josei manga for that reason, and renaming the categories has now made them inconsistent with the articles. The second reason this rename is problematic is that many of the articles in the category were only about manga and had nothing to do with anime. For those articles, categories like "Shōnen anime and manga" are incorrect, as the subject of the artile is not both an anime and manga. Perhaps having these categories in the parent category Category:Anime and manga by demographic is inconsistent, but renaming these categories was not the solution, as now the category that actually shows up on the article pages is inaccurate for a large number of titles. There is a previous earlier rename discussion for these categories at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2010_April_21#Category:Josei, though I don't know if it directly addresses the reason "manga" was chosen over "anime and manga" for these categories.Calathan (talk) 19:37, 18 March 2012 (UTC)}}[reply]

  • Comment. That is well beyond the scope of the C2C and C2D criteria. These should not go forward under speedy terms. Personally, I think manga and anime should always be categorized separately, even if some articles get two categories because of it.--Mike Selinker (talk) 19:54, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The move has already been mostly completed based on the speedy listing, so it is probably too late to say it shouldn't go forward. For having separate categories for anime and for manga, part of my arguement is that the terms like Shōnen and Shōjo really are only applicable to manga (since they are based on which magazine something ran in). In these cases I don't think separate categories are warrented, because the terms like Shōnen would only be applied to an anime because it was adapted from a manga in that demographic. For other categories that aren't based on reader demographics (like Category:Action anime and manga), that is a whole separate discussion, and I think in the past the categories have been changed back and forth between having two sets and having one set. Calathan (talk) 20:06, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Are you saying shonen is only defined by Shonen Jump? Hmmm. Not sure I agree with that. But anyway, I think these should be reversed, and then evaluated independently in a full CfD discussion.--Mike Selinker (talk) 20:14, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A manga that is in Shonen Jump would be a shōnen manga because Shonen Jump is a shōnen magazine, but there are many other shōnen manga magazines, some of which wouldn't even have shōnen in their name. Basically, what I'm saying is that shōnen is a demographic used for manga magazines, and that a shōnen manga is one that ran in any shōnen magazine (see Category:Shōnen manga magazines for a list of some shōnen magazines).
I think I forgot to sign the above comment because I also had a signature after the deletion sorting message below. In case it wasn't clear, the above comment was by me. Calathan (talk) 20:54, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Anime and manga-related deletion discussions. --Calathan (talk) 20:24, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Images of The White Stripes

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The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: Speedy renam C2C. Timrollpickering (talk) 20:20, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Propose renaming Category:Images of The White Stripes to Category:The White Stripes album covers
Nominator's rationale: That's what it actually is. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:25, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Pakistani Old Fooians

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The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: Rename all - jc37 02:36, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Propose renaming:
Nominator's rationale: Rename all, to a standardised descriptive format (see WP:NDESC) which incorporates the title of the head article. This clarifies the purpose of the categories to the non-specialist reader for whom Wikipedia is written, by eliminating obscurity and ambiguity and adopting a consistent format. The proposed names follow the "Foo alumni" convention for non-Fooian subcats of Category:Alumni by secondary school in Pakistan.
Note that the naming policy WP:NDESC explicitly states that a descriptive title maybe "invented specifically for articles", as is the case with these proposed new names, and also with the thousands of other category names in the sub-caegories of Category:Alumni by secondary school, and tens of thousands of other categories elsewhere on Wikipedia. Per WP:NDESC, the proposed new names follow WP:COMMONNAME by incorporating the title of the head article.
There is a fundamental problem with this whole type of collective name, as summarised by Moonraker (talk · contribs) in another recent discussion: "there are very few references anywhere to people educated at a particular school (including this one) as a group". That's exactly why these "Old Fooian" terms don't work well for category names: they are rarely used, and therefore unknown to the general readership for whom Wikipedia is written. A rarely-used term does not meet the requirements of WP:Commonname,
To check for rarity, I searched on Google News. (I chose Google News rather than a general search, because the News publications are both reliable sources and widely-read. A general Google search is less useful in establishing the currency of a term, because it brings up unreliable sources such as self-published material and web forums, and includes results on pages with minute readerships).
A search for "Old Etonian" produced 4,290 hits, confirming my hunch that "Old Etonian" has entered general usage. However, apart from false positives, none of these "Old Fooian" terms comes within a thousandth of the prominence of "Old Etonian".
The table shows that these terms are all either A) almost unused in the news media, or B) so ambiguous as to be useless. In each case the school name is more widely used, making it much clearer for readers.
Articles Category School GNews hits
school name		 GNews hits
"Old Fooian"		 Notes GNews hits
"Old FooianS"		 Notes
1 Abbottonians Abbottabad Public School 6 2 1 False positive: the lone hit refers to an American sports team in the 1920s
6 Abdalians Cadet College Hasan Abdal 25 533 Appear to be all false positives. First 20 hits refer people with the surname "Abdalian" 18 Most hits relate to an internet group of terrorist suspects. The school itself refers to "Old Abdalians", and the alumni association is the Hasan Abdal Old Boys Association
48 Old Aitchisonians Aitchison College 307 2 2
16 Petarians Cadet College Petaro 21 7 Only one hit, a report in The International News appears to relate to the school's alumni 0
Since December 2011, over 180 "Old Fooian" categories of alumni have been renamed to a descriptive format, at over 50 separate CfD discussions, and in the same period no "Old Fooian" category title has been either retained or created at CFD. There is now a clear pattern of consensus to move away from "Old Fooian" category names, and as far as I can see the only issue at stake here is whether these categories should be treated as a local exception to the general consensus in favour of a descriptive format. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:46, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion (Pakistani Old Fooians)
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The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

South African Old Fooians

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The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: Rename all - jc37 02:36, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Propose renaming:
Nominator's rationale: Rename all, to a standardised descriptive format (see WP:NDESC) which incorporates the title of the head article. This clarifies the purpose of the categories to the non-specialist reader for whom Wikipedia is written, by eliminating obscurity and ambiguity. The proposed names follow the "Alumni of Foo" convention for non-Fooian subcats of Category:Alumni by secondary school in South Africa.
Note that the naming policy WP:NDESC explicitly states that a descriptive title maybe "invented specifically for articles", as is the case with these proposed new names, and also with the thousands of other category names in the sub-caegories of Category:Alumni by secondary school, and tens of thousands of other categories elsewhere on Wikipedia. Per WP:NDESC, the proposed new names follow WP:COMMONNAME by incorporating the title of the head article.
There is a fundamental problem with this whole type of collective name, as expressed most eloquently by Moonraker (talk · contribs) in another recent discussion: "there are very few references anywhere to people educated at a particular school (including this one) as a group". That's exactly why these "Old Fooian" terms don't work well for category names: they are rarely used, and therefore unknown to the general readership for whom Wikipedia is written. A rarely-used term does not meet the requirements of WP:Commonname,
To check for rarity, I searched on Google News. (I chose Google News rather than a general search, because the News publications are both reliable sources and widely-read. A general Google search is less useful in establishing the currency of a term, because it brings up unreliable sources such as self-published material and web forums, and includes results on pages with minute readerships).
A search for "Old Etonian" produced 4,290 hits, confirming my hunch that "Old Etonian" has entered general usage. However, apart from false positives, none of these "Old Fooian" terms comes within a thousandth of the prominence of "Old Etonian".
The table shows that these terms are all either A) almost unused in the news media, or B) so ambiguous as to be useless. In each case the school name is massively more widely used, making it much clearer for readers.
Articles Category School GNews hits
school name		 GNews hits
"Old Fooian"		 Notes GNews hits
"Old FooianS"		 Notes
17 Old Greys Grey College, Bloemfontein 672[1] 13,200 Seem to be all false positives: old grey eagles, old grey horses etc 67 Mostly false positives
11 Old Hiltonians Hilton College (South Africa) 761[1] 0 0
8 Old Selbornians Selborne College 71 9 All hits refer to the eponymous rugby club 5 All hits refer to the eponymous rugby club
5 Old Stithians St Stithians College 122 0 0
17 Old Collegians (Maritzburg College) Maritzburg College 406 1020 Mostly false positives 1360 Mostly false positives
  1. ^ a b Search without disambiguator, and with scope restricted to South Africa
Since December 2011, over 180 "Old Fooian" categories of alumni have been renamed to a descriptive format, at over 50 separate CfD discussions, and in the same period no "Old Fooian" category title has been either retained or created at CFD. There is now a clear pattern of consensus to move away from "Old Fooian" category names, and as far as I can see the only issue at stake here is whether these categories should be treated as a local exception to the general consensus in favour of a descriptive format. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:37, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion (South African Old Fooians)
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another vote below. Peterkingiron (talk) 10:00, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Biogeographical Puzzle

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The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: Listify & delete. Timrollpickering (talk) 21:06, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Biogeographical Puzzle (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Nominator's rationale: A rather vague category. All New World monkeys could be populated in there, as the specific mechanism for the Africa -> South America transit is unknown, for instance. - UtherSRG (talk) 09:20, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Category's creator's response: I think on reflection you may be correct. I do think it may still be useful to be able to group individual species with puzzling distribution so perhaps the category can be renamed: 'Species with an unexplained or puzzling distribution'?? Or something similar that everyone is happy with? Jerry (talk) 10:53, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Listify, then delete -- The subject is an interesting one, but may be better developed as an article before we attempt a category. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:28, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep very interesting category. Great for browsers like me. If the article New World Monkey supports with citation it's inclusion, what's wrong with including it? I don't get the objection. It doesn't preclude an article. Chrisrus (talk) 20:33, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. Everything is a puzzle until it's sorted out. Those about how species got from point A to point B no different than any other puzzle. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 22:23, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I'm not convinced vagueness is a fatal flaw. If everything was cut and dried it would be less interesting. Perhaps, however, it could be replaced or partially replaced with "taxa with highly disjoint distributions" and/or "long range oceanic dispersals". As suggested by Uther's point, the latter could have a subcategory, something along the lines of "Africa to South America transoceanic dispersals", to which New World monkeys (for which rafting is a reasonably well accepted origin) and others could be added. WolfmanSF (talk) 04:57, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to make a couple additional points. Wikipedia has many categories that are irreducibly vague; e.g., any category in which "notability" is a criterion. Also, it would not make sense to list every New World monkey under a category such as "long range oceanic dispersals"; only the highest-level taxon (Platyrrhini) which fits the category should be listed. WolfmanSF (talk) 17:34, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete for now. Even if kept, the name is not a great one. It is defined as "any species (or group of species) where its distribution is currently unexplained i.e. - where it is not known how that particular species came to occur in a particular region." I'd like to see an article created with sources, and then attention could be turned to whether or not a category is the way to go with this. My sense is that maybe it is not. But certainly under the current name it is not good. Good Ol’factory (talk) 21:34, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Listify and Delete - "it's interesting" is a reason to keep in article space. So that one can read up on the topic, and see references which document further explain the information. Due to technical constraints, this is not possible for each entry in categories. - jc37 02:29, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Serbian people in the Balkan Wars

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The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: Speedy rename C2C. Timrollpickering (talk) 20:21, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Propose renaming Category:Serbian people in the Balkan Wars to Category:Serbian people of the Balkan Wars
Nominator's rationale: As per Category:People of the Balkan Wars. Zoupan (talk) 05:27, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Old Pannonhalmians

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The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: Rename to Category:People educated at the Benedictine High School of Pannonhalma. - jc37 02:40, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Propose renaming Category:Old Pannonhalmians to Category:Alumni of the Benedictine Secondary School of Pannonhalma
Nominator's rationale: Another case of a school using a difficult to penetrate name for its alumni based on the town, in this case Pannonhalma in Hungary. The proposed alternative is per the parent category Category:Alumni by secondary school in Hungary. Timrollpickering (talk) 19:27, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Relisting comment: Consensus to rename, but not on what the target name should be.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, jc37 05:14, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Events of the French Revolution, 1800-04

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The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: Delete. Timrollpickering (talk) 10:54, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Category:1800 events of the French Revolution
Category:1801 events of the French Revolution
Category:1802 events of the French Revolution
Category:1803 events of the French Revolution
Category:1804 events of the French Revolution
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Works by decade of setting

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The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: no consensus. Compelling arguments all around, but no consensus to be seen.--Mike Selinker (talk) 01:25, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Works by decade of setting and all "by setting"/"set in" subcats.

Rather than reiterate, please consider my comments at the discussion here as the nomination rationale. (And I'll merely note that the creator was User:Stefanomione.)

Simply put: Categorising fictional content (such as setting) by decade/year is problematic at best, and WP:OR at worst. - jc37 00:45, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, this nom only affects those categories listing a specific year/decade/etc. (actual numbers), and their container cats, as listed below by User:Black Falcon. And not historic periods. - jc37 06:22, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all - as nominator. - jc37 00:45, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all - These categories serve a historical purpose. They serve also an encyclopedia's purpose: we would harm navigation if this entire tree was gone. (Besides, I wasn't the initiator of this tree (Novels, Films, Televisions series by decade/year of setting) - I merely created the parent categories). Stefanomione (talk) 02:18, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    What "historical purpose"? And how does this seemingly purely subjective tree help with navigation? (And I merely noted you were the creator of the cat nomed.) - jc37 03:51, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all. Nothing subjective about the setting of a work, and a rather useful categorising scheme. Not sure why this would be problematic. Dimadick (talk) 06:03, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Did you read my comments in the discussion I linked to in the nom, as I asked? - jc37 06:38, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Question I'm looking for a section of this treet that actually works and isn't a subjective mess for balance. Which sub-categories are you looking at? RevelationDirect (talk) 02:47, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete (or listify) all - Categorization of this type – of a work of fiction by an element of its fictional plot and in context of a real-world classification scheme – is irreparably problematic. In addition to the problem of original research, it fails to distinguish between a decade in the real world and a decade in a fictional universe. The decade of the 2010s in one fictional universe is not directly comparable to the same decade in another fictional universe. The author of a work of fiction has the power to define the times however they wish, unconstrained even by normal flow of time (e.g. time travel, alternate timelines). The situation is complicated further when one takes into account when a work of fiction was created: a vision of the 2010s in a work of fiction produced in the 1910s is likely to be much different than a vision of the same decade in a work of fiction produced in the 2000s. Lists of television series by period of setting may be workable but, even then, only with vigilant maintenance to identify and remove good-faith WP:OR additions. -- Black Falcon (talk) 06:27, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all Nothing wrong with this category scheme. Saying that it's "WP:OR at worst" is WP:OR in itself. Lugnuts (talk) 09:38, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    There is no problem with original analysis within a discussion as, surely, we can't expect arguments about individual articles or categories to be drawn from reliable sources. More generally, would you please expand your reasoning? You say that there is "nothing wrong with this category scheme" but without any attempt to address the issues raised by jc37, BHG and myself. Thank you, -- Black Falcon (talk) 18:45, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or listify all per Jc37 and Black Falcon. At first glance, this sounds like a workable idea, but the more I look at it the worse it gets.
    The first problem is that it lumps together at least 3 different types of chronological setting: A) a work written in Decade X about its own time; B) a piece of historical fiction set in Decade X, but written decades or even centuries later; C) futuristic fiction set in Decade X, but written decades or even centuries before then.
    Secondly, as Jc37 notes, even contemporary fiction may create a fictionalised version of its own time.
    Thirdly, some fiction plays fast and lose with time: e.g. Virginia Woolf's Orlando covers more decades than I can count (over several centuries), as does the TV comedy series Blackadder, creating massive potential for category clutter. Even works confined to one century will often span many decades, e.g. The Thorn Birds, covering about five decades.
    Fourthly, the decades covered by a work may not be explicitly labelled, which risks WP:OR categorisation and/or long arguments about which secondary commentator's view of the time period should be used. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:13, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • This CfD and jc37's proposal at the March 14 represent a pretty far-reaching discussion (you can drill down to individual years of setting in the film cat). I'm a bit concerned that all this is happening without all or even most of the individual categories being tagged for discussion. I also think that for a discussion this far-reaching it would have been better for the nominator to have written a detailed deletion rationale all here, rather than direct people to a comment he's made in a previous CfD which is just one !vote among many. I really have to oppose all this be neutral for now, at the very least on procedural grounds as there seems to me to be a somewhat ad hoc approach to a fairly sweeping deletion proposal. I think that a nomination that was properly identified in scope -- through a deletion rationale, here, and procedures followed on listing and tagging subcats -- might have a better chance. (The WP:OR argument is unconvincing, to me, as well, btw.)Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:05, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I support the proposal, but I agree that it should not proceed unless all the sub-categories are properly tagged. The discussion should remain open for 7 days after the last affected category is tagged. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:25, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    And I'll continue to follow this. I do find the category clutter argument against structure compelling, and for that reason I would like to support: this works set in time scheme has been bothering me for some time. But I'm having trouble getting my head around why we would have such a vast and detailed structure now in place for works by place of setting, but not time of setting, since the "location" can be no less fictionalized and unreal as the period, decade or year? Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:45, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all -- If the work clearly indicates when it is set, there is no reason why it should not be categorised accordingly. If the period can only be determined by OR or depends on the editor's POV (which is the same thing), it should not have a category of this kind. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:36, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Example This category sounds reasonable, but it gets messy when you drill down. Films set in the 1960s includes loose articles, usually historic peices set in the 60s or contemporary movies whose plot last more than a year. It also has individual year sub-categories for all 10 years which is the release date of movies without clear timeframes (never mind that the screenplays would have been written a couple years before). And it also includes categories of films about the Algerian and Vietnam wars even though both conflicts spanned multiple decades and the movies are already individually categorized by year. It's even messier from the article perspective where they are also grouped by date of release (usally the same), movie genre by decade, and childhood flashbacks create bizarre spreads. It's not that there are a few places where cleanup is needed; everywhere in the tree I look, these cats either are cluttered, don't make sense or duplicate the published/release/broadcast date. RevelationDirect (talk) 02:47, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tagged. The following subcategories are now tagged: -- Black Falcon (talk) 03:26, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Nomination list: 241 subcategories
  • Keep all - partly on procedural grounds, since I do not believe that the fate of 241+ subcategories can reasonably be decided in the course of a single WP:CFD discussion. True as it may be that categorisation of works of fiction by time setting can encourage WP:OR, a great many works exist for which the timeframe is clearly defined. Why delete a mass of subcategories that are bound to contain many well-placed entries just because some other entries may or may not be incorrectly or dubiously categorised? SuperMarioMan 01:19, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    It is, I think, more than just a matter of some incorrect or dubious categorization. The entire premise of categorization by year or decade of setting is problematic, for several reasons: the high potential for miscategorization; the failure to distinguish time in a fictional universe from time in the real world or in other fictional universes; the potential for extreme category clutter on works that are set in more than one year; the failure to take into account when a work of fiction was written (e.g. a work of fiction set in 1900 could have been written in 1900, 1800 or 2000 – although they are all "set in 1900", the first uses a contemporary setting, the second a future setting and the third a historical setting); and so on. -- Black Falcon (talk) 05:31, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    That the parent category is titled "Works by decade of setting" limits the scope of this particular family of categories to fiction. I fail to see how matters relating to the real world can be of any consequence to a discussion about categorisation of works of fiction when fiction and reality lie opposed - for isn't fiction, by definition, not reality? Whether works set in a particular year are published before or after the year in question, they share a year of setting and therefore merit categorisation to account for this commonality. Another thing that strikes me as curious is that the subcategories grouped under "Works by city/country of setting" would appear to pose very similar problems (e.g. place in reality and place in fiction are distinguishable; some works have more than one place setting, hence increasing the risk of category clutter; works may be written in one country but set in another country) yet a discussion of the validity of that category family has not been proposed. SuperMarioMan 23:40, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    And there's the rub, at least for me. That a particular work of fiction is set in a fictional 1920s, for instance, has direct relevance neither to the real 1920s nor to a fictional 1920s in some other work (or fictional universe). The year or decade of setting which two works share is, really, not shared at all because the timeline of one fictional universe is independent of the timeline of another fictional universe. Categorization of works of fiction by place of setting may or may not have the same problems (the connection to the 'real world' may be more direct, or it may not) but I fear that a discussion addressing both at the same time would be prohibitively complex – too many pages, arguments and counter-arguments, and examples and counter-examples. -- Black Falcon (talk) 00:43, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all As well as much historical fiction not stopping to pin down the year or decade precisely, a lot of fiction is rather looser with the time of setting than first appears. This is particularly true with fiction that is published or transmitted over a much longer period than set. One set of examples are the various Enid Blyton series featuring children having adventures & solving mysteries in their school holidays - these were each written over periods of 15 to 20 years but the characters aged much slower (and may even have stopped altogether). There wasn't any particular effort made to keep the period of setting of the books exact. An even messier situation comes with the awkward handling of time in Marvel Comics whereby events of the last 50 publishing years are notionally condensed into about a decade plus to keep the characters young but depending on the author retellings, flashbacks and timetravel stories to the earlier publishing years can either see the era of the original comics recreated faithfully (right down to namechecking the year) or else the whole setting is updated to the notional year it actually took place in. Then there's a lot of science fiction that's set in the near future to combine the reader's world with more credible advanced technology, and whilst some goes out of the way to identify the year (e.g. the original A for Andromeda is set in the early 1970s, though the episodes begin with brief scenes set much later down the line), others are rather looser at tying things down (Doctor Who stories featuring UNIT are particularly messy). Or you get situations where the author provides only some details on years - many of the Sherlock Holmes stories are subject to much debating of placing & chronology because of contradictory details. In some of these cases I dread to think of the mess of Wikipedia authors regularly adding and removing time of setting categories to fit either the latest published attempt at a chronology or worse a fan's own interpretation of a quite heated debate. Timrollpickering (talk) 17:42, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete All I gave an example in my little essay, above, about how these categorizations are not working at the article level. I haven't seen anyone come forward with a section of this tree that is well defined and applied and not redundant with release dates. (I remain willing to relook and reconsider.) The support for these cats seems to be on the conceptual level from the category listings; on the groundview of the articles, the ones I've looked at are a mess. RevelationDirect (talk) 03:35, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all even if used properly (i.e. if only movies which are recognizably, unquestionably and significantly set in year X were categorized as such) this subtree has little value since the precise year of setting is almost always trivial. The following example seems significant to me: Category:Films set in the 1860s is currently a subcategory of Category:Victorian era films. We can all agree that this is absurd. It makes sense to group Victorian era films because they share a meaningful historical setting and there is infinitely more in common between two films set in England in 1850 and 1861 than between a film set in England in 1850 and a film set in Brazil in 1850. It's a mistake to try and categorize every article along every axis we can come up with: we should pick the most meaningful characteristics and this isn't one of them. Pichpich (talk) 19:22, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Question: is your point that films should only be categorised within Category:Victorian era films if they were set both (i) at a time during Victoria's reign, and (ii) in a location within the British Empire? – Fayenatic L (talk) 15:09, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • There is a problem with using the Victorian era as an example, since it was an international era due to an international empire which had effects all over the world. Besides that, (From the article: "The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901.") - The Wild West, The Irish Potato Famine, The Boer War, and so on all existed during the time of this era. But at least by naming a specific era, it can be defined as limited to certain items of culture or region. Blankly using an arbitrary date (year, decade, century) doesn't have such restrictions. As Pichpich was noting. - jc37 21:17, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all Okay, I'm in. The category clutter is an issue, I believe. So is User:Pichpich's "every axis" observation, which is, I think, a valid description of a problem. Losing this vast structure would make "historical eras" & "time periods" more important to any future category tree, so as to retain some way to group films or works by defining eras/periods, and with that in mind I've raised a merge CfD on March 23. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:00, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all. No good reason advanced for deletion. Part of a perfectly acceptable classification system which is very useful to those of us who actually like historical films. I really cannot see any reason for deletion other than the classic WP:IDONTLIKEIT. A perfect example of an editor who doesn't like something trying to dispose of a massive amount of other editors' work (and trust me, as someone who has heavily contributed to this, a massive amount of work has gone into it) with a few lines. I should note that some of the reasons given for deletion are flawed - in general, films are only classified as being set in a particular year or decade if they are specifically set in that time period (i.e. if they deal with or are based around real events or if the time period is actually mentioned in the film). They should not be classified as being set in an era merely because they were filmed in that era. If the scheme was rubbish or genuine OR (good God, if I had a penny for every time that accusation is thrown around to back up weak deletion arguments!) I would agree, but it isn't either of those things. Very disappointing. -- Necrothesp (talk) 23:40, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    There's no need to start counting pennies, regardless of whether they were generated by claims of OR or by accusations of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. :)
    I respect your opinion – though I disagree – but you're wrong in at least one assumption and one conclusion: I enjoy good historical films very much and, on an emotional level, I actually like these categories, so much so that that originally I suggested expanding their scope (see my comment of 19:35, 14 March 2012 (UTC)). I can't speak for anyone else, of course, but that should be sufficient to show that the arguments for deletion are not based on a like or dislike for historical films or for these categories. Also, it's not "an editor" and a "few lines" of text: jc37's nomination linked to another location where he had posted longer comments and several others, myself included, have offered lengthy rationales.
    Please believe me that my intention is not to lecture (I do it only when I'm paid) or to pick at your comment; my goal is only to try to ensure that if there is a dicussion to be had, it be a positive one focusing on the issues at hand. Best, -- Black Falcon (talk) 03:51, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, but I've read these "lengthy rationales" and I can quite honestly say that (a) I utterly disagree with them and (b) they provide no greater rationale for deletion than the non-rationales you have presented above. I can only repeat what I wrote above: "in general, films are only classified as being set in a particular year or decade if they are specifically set in that time period (i.e. if they deal with or are based around real events or if the time period is actually mentioned in the film). They should not be classified as being set in an era merely because they were filmed in that era." Yet you still seem to be arguing that this encourages OR because the era of setting and era of production are often the same thing!!! -- Necrothesp (talk) 23:03, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Err... not quite. The OR argument in the way you've presented is not even a component of my argument (you'll note that I mention WP:OR, above, only in context of lists). That you disagree with the rationales is apparent, and my goal was to get you to counter them rather than merely dismissing them as expressions of subjective dislike or for some other reason. -- Black Falcon (talk) 20:20, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm very sorry, but I thought I had done. The rationale for deletion stated by the nom was "Simply put: Categorising fictional content (such as setting) by decade/year is problematic at best, and WP:OR at worst." I have already set out twice the reasons why I believe it is neither problematic nor OR. That you disagree with this is apparent, but that is no reason to dismiss what I have said in the way you appear to be doing. It is my considered opinion that the only possible reason for nominating these categories for deletion is WP:IDONTLIKEIT and I have seen nothing in the arguments of the pro-deletionists to change that opinion. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:46, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    The rationale stated by the nom was (as I, the nom stated): Rather than reiterate, please consider my comments at the discussion here as the nomination rationale. - The rationales for why this is clearly are noted there, as others have noted, and even expanded upon. So, I'll repeat BF's request, and ask, if you would address the rationale. Or to be clearer, why do you consider them "non-rationales"? And also, as these time periods are not restricted to locality of setting (location/place is just as much a factor of setting as time). So why are we grouping by only one aspect of setting? - jc37 21:17, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    In the original discussion, jc37 asked about series that have a framing in the future looking back to a past setting. I haven't seen those shows, so I don't know whether the framing forms a large part of the show; presumably not; so rule out categorising by such framing, as well as flashbacks. He also raised time travel; well, category:time travel in fiction has a decent sub-cat structure already, and could neatly be dealt with by bringing that category into this head category of setting by time. IMHO, using WP:OR to argue for deletion of this category structure is taking that rule too far, losing sight of what it is for, and I would invoke the pillar of WP:IAR to save us from throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Nobody has shown that Category:Films set in 1944 is WP:OR; and if other works have been categorised too specifically by year, then fine, move them up to decade/century, but there's no need to delete the year category unless it becomes empty. – Fayenatic L (talk) 16:26, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all. No good reason for deletion has been provided. Limiting the categories only to works which are specifically set in a year would solve the problem with OR. Nor is the argument that the year is almost always trivial a sound one, as generally a specific year is usually significant in the context of the film. All in all, no reason to delete a very useful category just because of some minor problems with the categories. Kostja (talk) 13:12, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • If there are areas of the tree that truly have only minor problems, please direct me to them. I'm willing to reconsider. The film categorization I've looked at (and looked at) equate year of release with setting (which is already categorized) even though they're usually doing editing for a year and written a couple years before hand. RevelationDirect (talk) 19:40, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all, per Pichpich. Works should be categorized by era (a useful thematic distinction), not the specific year in which it is set (a trivial distinction). Axem Titanium (talk) 15:44, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all. Usefall from the 18th century. J 1982 (talk) 14:42, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    How is it useful? Also, what's unique about the 18th century – i.e., why do you consider it to be useful starting in the 18th century but not useful before the 18th century? Thank you, -- Black Falcon (talk) 19:59, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all but refine category purpose to discourage clutter. The time of setting is a defining characteristic for any work of fiction. I do not give much weight to the objection about mixing works that were set in different authors' future, contemporary era or past; IMHO it would be over-categorisation to split these, and the mixture does not detract from the importance of time period as a setting. I thought about upmerging all year categories to decades, but year cats work fine when there are specific references to historical events in the works e.g. Category:Films set in 1944. However, category pages should state that cats for a particular year of setting should only be used for a work that is set predominantly within one or two years; brief flashbacks should be ignored; and for works set over a longer period, the categories for decade or century of setting should be used instead. E.g. at present The Kennedys (TV miniseries) is categorised within 21 year categories, and this should be clearly discouraged; nor should it be added into six decade categories, but just in Category:Films set in the 20th century (or rather, a new 20th century category for television series). Works that do not identify a particular year should probably be re-categorised by decade rather than assuming that the year of publication/release is the year of setting; as stated above, the story would have been written a couple of years earlier. This may result in depopulating some categories for individual years that did not have film-worthy events; they can then be deleted. – Fayenatic L (talk) 15:03, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Generally I agree with this, except that I see no problem with categorising works set over many years by decade, if not by year. Category:Films set in the 20th century would have so many entries as to make it completely pointless. But removing date categories for brief sections of the film is probably a good idea. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:36, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Except that eras typically do not fall nicely into decades (or even centuries). Events which start an era (social, military, economic, or whatever) rarely happen on Jan 1 of the first year of a decade. I see that films are a concern of this discussion. Well, the films by the "new turks" were spread over the mid 70s to the mid 80s. I would think that "by era" would be much more useful. This is merely WP:OC#ARBITRARY. It may be convenient to group by decade, but that doesn't mean that eras conform to our convenience. And is also reinforced as problematic by the fact that you are suggesting that the category introduction needs to specify what all should and shouldn't be included. And what date would you set a film in which the framing sequence is set "now", but the whole of the film is set in a part year or a future year? To pick one or the other would be WP:OR. So you can't dismiss flashbacks so easily. Fictional works are not restricted by this arbitrary determination, instead being as spread out over years as the author may wish. And that doesn't even include situations where the passage of time may be vaguely referenced, or even contradictory (as can often happen when there are multiple authors involved in the scripting of a fictional work). Simply, Authors do mot restrict themselves to a particular year/decade or even century, why are we? Our convenience? Then that indeed is WP:OR. We're inventing a demarcation of setting by year that (in many cases) has nothing to do with how each of these works presents itself. - jc37 21:17, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Making that selection really is not WP:OR (I read the policy again). It's making a judgment about whether an element of an article is sufficiently defining. The worst I can say about it is that it is WP:OC#SUBJECTIVE. However, I don't think even that is a killer; it's like the discussions that happen all the time about whether an event/circumstance is notable enough to include in an article; and nobody says that whole articles should be deleted for lack of WP:V about whether a particular element is notable. – Fayenatic L (talk) 06:54, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Exactly. These allegations of OR really are most irritating. It's not OR in the slightest to define a film by the year in which it is set if that year is specified within the film or if it is set around actual historic events. Otherwise it is indeed OR, but throwing the OR accusation around baselessly is increasingly common and does not reflect well on those doing it, since it appears they don't really understand what the term means and have not actually bothered to read the policy. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:02, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    While I disagree, ok, let's toss out the term WP:OR for the nonce. And let's pretend I said instead: "ridiculously ambiguous WP:OC".
    A numerical year (let's say 1984) holding works produced in the past (in 1948), as well as holding works produced in the present (in 1984) and works produced in the future (let's say now, 2012) is ridiculous, imho. And as noted, doesn't even get involved in the problems of alternate timelines and such.
    Consider Watchmen. It was produced in the late 80s, set from WWII to a fictional future (Richard Nixon as president through the 70s and 80s among other things), which is now the past (to 2012).
    Or how about The Dark Knight Returns? I already mentioned Heroes (TV series).
    How about something as basic a many-year film such as War and Peace? Great Expectations? Gandhi (film)? Lawrence of Arabia? The Patriot (2000 film)? The Postman? Forrest Gump? or even Superman (film)?
    And let's have some fun and look at Westerns: How the West Was Won, or Wyatt Earp (film) or Tombstone (film)?
    And not even talking about comedy like: History of the World, Part I (and good luck with Blazing Saddles).
    What individual year or even decade of setting would any of these be placed in? And if you chose one year/decade over the others, wouldn't that be a type of WP:OR? I would think so.
    So, sorry, but categorising fiction by numerical year is rather ridiculous WP:OC pure and simple. - jc37 17:47, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all I think these serve a highly effective organizational and referential purpose and it makes no sense to eliminate them. Kuralyov (talk) 04:04, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and if people can get adequate source citing, listify. This set up just invites too much OR. A person goes "well, this work of fiction mentions George H. W. Bush as president, so it is set in the 1990s". The decade of setting seems to be perfect for ambiguous settings, but often ambiguous settings are too ambiguous to be limited to a specific decade. This also can lead to the question, how close to reality does a work need to be for it to be classified by decade of setting. Does 2001: A Space Odyssey belong in Category:Works set in the 2000s?John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:24, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment the point about three types of setting, past, present and future is very well put. On the other hand, do we want to Harry Potter books in any of these settings, even if we have definitive statements from the author on the exact years in which specific books occur? If I remember correctly Orson Scott Card gives definitive dates to his Alvin Maker series, but do we want historical fantasy creaping into these categories. Just a quick look has shown me that many of the films are categorized in 4 or more years, which just seems excessive.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:35, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Citizen Kane manages to be in 5 setting by decade categories. There are lots of other cases that would come close or exceed this number, such as various editions of Goodbye Mr. Chips, and then there are cases like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:51, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I have to say the Television series set in X format is a really bad idea. They have much higher potential for random flashbacks and running long times pushing them into multiple decades.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:54, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree that 4+ year categories is excessive; so recategorise by decades or century/ies. TV series with multiple flashbacks? add a standard category explanation ruling out categorisation according to brief flashbacks, and if they are a dominant feature, categorise by century. – Fayenatic L (talk) 16:26, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Re-nominate for merger with Category:History in fiction and all its subcats for XXth century in fiction, XXX0s in fiction, YYYY in fiction, as there is a massive overlap. Note that "works" includes documentaries, which logically should not be part of a "fiction" hierarchy, and "Works by century of setting" includes future times unlike "history", so I would suggest merging "History in fiction" into this tree. Mind you, if Category:Historical fiction and Category:Historical fiction by setting deserve a set of new/renamed categories for "YYYY in historical fiction", these would be new subcats of "Works set in YYYY", and would deal with the nominator's & other objections to mixing forward-looking and backward-looking works. So 2001: A Space Odyssey would belong in "Works set in 2001" but not in its sub-cat "Historical fiction set in 2001"/"2001 in historical fiction". – Fayenatic L (talk) 16:40, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all per SuperMarioMan. AaronY (talk) 08:39, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment You have not yet tagged the history in fiction tree. That tree gets even more complexed because categories like Category:1930s novels and its subcats are there. Those are novels by year of publication categories. The whole tree seems to be a mess mixing up all sorts of things.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:20, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sure I haven't; let's close this discussion first. Simultaneous overlapping discussions on different pages are confusing. You're right about the novels by year of publication being in the "History in fiction" tree; that's done through a template, so the whole lot could be changed from a subcat relationship to a "see also" link in a single edit. IMHO there was a match that was often-enough-right to be allowable through WP:SUBCAT, but this discussion is making me think that we should split those trees. The trouble with "1930s in fiction" is that it is ambiguous; it sounds like Category:1930s in music which is about works created & performed in those years, but in the case of fiction we probably need to separate years of setting from creation. – Fayenatic L (talk) 08:14, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I went ahead and changed the novel templates for years and decade, so Category:1930s novels etc no longer appear within the History in fiction tree. – Fayenatic L (talk) 09:18, 6 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment these categories overlap with the Category:1810s in fiction and related categories, which I have began putting under this category because they are a natural sub-section of this category. I would not that this category as it is currently named in theory could be seen to gorup both fictional and non-fictional works in the same categories. This is problematic at best.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:18, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The fiction is not neccesarily "about the same period" as non-fiction. The fiction is about a fictional representation of the period that may come from around that time, long before or long after.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:36, 10 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note for the closer - In addition to the discussion here (noted as the nomination rationale), please take the discussion at [[1]] into account in this close. This nom was discussed there as well. - jc37 16:56, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I think even if we keep the decade categories we should upmerge all the year categories into the relevant decades.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:36, 10 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or Upmerge into the by century categories. Having by decade categories does not really aid navigation by using 10 screens for 10 categories in lieu of 1 screen (+ depending on screen size) for 100 categories. In addition it does away with the ambiguous 1900s category (is that for 10 years or 100?) and avoids the issues of including categories is wrong parent century categories. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:36, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oh yes, what a great idea. So now we have many thousands of films in a single category. May as well do away with the whole categorisation scheme whatsoever! Why not do away with all categorisation schemes while we're at it? We could just have a single Category:Articles! That would do away with all this messy categorisation business! Seriously, these proposals to delete this categorisation scheme do make me wonder whether the supporters actually think we should just get rid of all categorisation. Why discriminate against this particular scheme? It's useful to those of us who like historical films (and that's many people), it doesn't harm those who don't. It's not fluff - it's solid, fact-based categorisation (and any category that isn't based on solid fact can be freely deleted, just like any other category anywhere - arguments that it encourages people to use the wrong category could just as easily apply to any other category). Why should we categorise films by when they're made, where they're made, what language they're in, what genre they fall into, what they're based on and where they're set, but not when they're set? This makes no sense to me. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:09, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – it seems that a large part of the problem with the current system of categorisation by decade is that it makes no distinction between works set in the future, works set in the present, and works set in the past. Perhaps the problem could be solved by splitting each category into these three subcategories? For example, 'Films set in the 1980s' could be split into 'Futuristic films set in the 1980s', 'Contemporary films set in the 1980s', and 'Period films set in the 1980s'. Just a thought – sorry if I've overlooked any obvious problems. Flax5 (talk) 16:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Templates that add a tracking category

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The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: no consensus. I'm not sure how this is going to cure the confusion that DePiep describes, but I've certainly been there. While the two other commenters both argue for deleting the category, it is a step toward an improvement, even though we don't yet know if it's a successful one. I'll make this a conditional keep. If after a month it's still sparsely populated and not solving the problem DePiep describes, we can look at this again.--Mike Selinker (talk) 01:35, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Templates that add a tracking category (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Nominator's rationale: Seems to be a case of over-categorization. What benefit does this category bring? — This, that, and the other (talk) 00:35, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for "asking". Why not on my talk page first? -DePiep (talk) 00:43, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Seriously, what is the deleting argument in this? -DePiep (talk) 10:38, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - In my experience, a LOT of templates have tracking categories. Sometimes this is temporary (for some statistical, or some wiki-gnomish reason), or sometimes kept indefinitely. This could be done to any template. (So, technically, this category could be "all-inclusive".) I'd like to hear more to understand what use this facilitates. - jc37 00:55, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A lot? yes. All-inclusive: no. Let's ask the bot operators. -DePiep (talk)
Or, better still, let's ask those editors who are figuring out "where does that category come from?", and end up frustrated -DePiep (talk) 01:02, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Better still, let's drop the sarcasm, and the vague statements by implication. Actually conveying what you see as the purpose of this category might go a fair bit further in facilitating discussion, and thereby, help thereafter determine consensus. YMMV, of course... - jc37 01:10, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. I was triggered by the nom. eh, YMMV? -DePiep (talk) 01:16, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
wikt:YMMV. - jc37 01:39, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The category adds the fact, systematically, that the template adds an administrative category. Mayor point is that when a template adds a category to a page, that it is difficult to get where that category comes from (it is not visible when in the page's edit). I've seen many editors (including myself) gotten lost when such a category is to be improved somehow. Also, it can be used by bots for the same purpose (the bot can systematically reach every category-adding on a page). As for the number of templates that are eligible for this template: many, but how is that a problem? One could argue that this hidden category should be added on the article page, not the template page. That could be good, but is only a matter of editing, not deleting. -DePiep (talk) 10:50, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Are any bot owners using this for anything right now? Or are you merely describing theoretical usage? - jc37 02:31, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Of course not. The category was put up for deletion within 3 hours after creation, for reasons still not clarified (see nomination). OTOH, I was asked by a bot operator not to auto-add categories by template because the bot wouldn't get it. Voila. -DePiep (talk) 23:19, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Sy Smith

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The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: Keep. Timrollpickering (talk) 10:55, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Sy Smith (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Nominator's rationale: Delete. WP:OC#EPONYMOUS. Category is serving only to group her albums category, her discography article and the image files of her album covers — as she doesn't have all that many other related spinoffs, the article itself already serves as a wholly sufficient navigational hub for this content. Bearcat (talk) 00:11, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
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