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Nominator's rationale per SMALL. Each cat has only 1 article and it's not going to grow. It's debatable as to whether either of then is even a genuine gaeltacht as they have no native speakers. Laurel Lodged (talk) 22:32, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Merge both to Category:Category:Gaeltacht places. I suspect that both are neo-Gaeltacht, rather than Gaeltacht, but that is a subject better addressed by a discussion on the articles. Sinn Fein long campaigned to reestablish the Irish language. I strongly suspect that Gaelic speakers in Belfast can be compared to Cornish speakers in Cornwall, where the language became extinct and has been revivied in modern times. The difference is that for Belfast there continued to be native speakers elsewhere to teach it. Peterkingiron (talk) 11:09, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. This is not an accepted method of categorization.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:04, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
REply -- Category:Gaeltacht places is a legitimate category in relation to Ireland: see Gaeltacht places, accordingly the right answer is to merge these as small categories into the parent. The question of whether they belong there is a differnet one. Peterkingiron (talk) 12:51, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We do not categorize places by language spoken there, so I think we should just delete.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:00, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Category:States and territories disestablished in 979[edit]
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The result of the discussion was:no consensus. There appears to be a developing view that this an other similar categories should be upmerged to the decade categories. However, there is a lack of clarity on what merge targets should be used, and since several similar categories have been mentioned in this discussion it seems better to close this discussion and allow one followup nomination to deal with all the categories discussed here. So this closure is made without prejudice to an immediate followup group nomination. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 15:57, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Noting that it is part of the series Category:States and territories disestablished in the 970s... not to say the that before a certain point it might be better to merge to the decade level as its siblings for 971, 975 and 978 each have 1 article in. Shouldn't be deleted in isolation though. Tim! (talk) 07:13, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale:Delete. There is no matching article for this category. There is a Josh Schwartz who is nothing to do with this category, as the categories say "for more information see Joshua M. Schwartz" which is a redlink. Notified creator. Richhoncho (talk) 19:04, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep There is no rule that we only categorize songs by writer when the writer is notable. The rule seems to suggest that since every song has a writer, every song should be in a song by writer category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:20, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Withdraw nomination. Having argued from both sides of this particular discussion and been wrong both times...--Richhoncho (talk) 14:13, 27 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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The result of the discussion was:delete, without prejudice to-creation when there is more content to e categorised. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 15:37, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale:Delete. Per numerous precedents and WP:OC#Eponymous. With articles all appropriately categorized by content (albums and songs) and easily linkable from one another through the main article, no need for an eponymous category here. StarcheerspeaksnewslostwarsTalk to me 18:57, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete no reason to have a container category for albums and songs cats.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:34, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete at the present time. May recreate when there is more than the standard two articles and three categories for a music act.--Richhoncho (talk) 09:32, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale:Delete. Only one article which I added to an appropriate songs category. Easily linkable from it to the topic article. WP:OC#Eponymous. StarcheerspeaksnewslostwarsTalk to me 18:51, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The nominator created a category for songs by Erina Mano and decided to delete the main category. The category has interlanguage links and is therefore useful not only for the English Wikipedia, but for Wikipedias in other language as well (for organizing creation of articles about Erina Mano in different languages). The Japanese category contains the shows she hosted, etc. The songs category currently contains only one song, no interlanguage links and is not needed. --Moscow Connection (talk) 19:05, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete – songs should certainly not be in the top category but in a songs category (which could be linked to the corresponding songs category in ja.wikipedia). Oculi (talk) 21:25, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete not all songs by x categories need a parent. This only has the eponymous article and is unneeded.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:47, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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The result of the discussion was:upmerge to Category:978 establishments. I don't see enough agreement that the articles should also be upmerged to Category:10th-century establishments in Italy here to feel comfortable including that as part of this close, but I see no problem with adding these articles to that cat at any point if there's no objection to it. delldot∇. 20:09, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale There is only one article anywhere in Category:978 establishments. I see no reason to subdivide the category in anyway when it has only one content. Beyond this what exactly constitutes Italy in 978 is tricky to decide, so it is just easier to not even try. There is no reason to subdivide a category when it only has one entry.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:43, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. First of all, your speedy tag at the cat page is incorrect, the perge target is all wrong. Secondly, upmerging this removes half of the information in this entry, namely the geographical aspect. You consider Italy a tricky subject for the 10th century, but we also have Category:10th-century Italian people with 69 entries, so there is clear precedent to discuss things as being in or from Italy in this period. Finally, there are other candidates to add to the 978 establishments cat, e.g. the United Kingdom of Georgia, and there are also at least two potential entries for the corresponding disestablishments cat, Wuyue and Fuzhou. Anyway, either keep the current cat, or upmerge to both the general year cat and the Category:10th-century establishments in Italy, which is rather empty now but for which there are sufficient candidates to populate it. Fram (talk) 07:50, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Merge all subcategories of Category:970s establishments into that, while making sure that all articles have a category from the series including Category:978. This will provide just about enough content for a decent sized category. We are getting far too many small intersections in these annual categories. Peterkingiron (talk) 10:59, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Merge. I don't understand Fram's objection here, since (1) Georgia isn't in Italy, (2) I don't see any speedy tags, and (3) we can move geographic-aspect categories onto Badia Fiorentina, the article in this category. It's too small of a category, and I doubt we'll get more articles to go into this one; if others prove me wrong in the future, we can just go back and recreate it. Nyttend (talk) 13:49, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
About 1), this was a response to " There is only one article anywhere in Category:978 establishments" from the nominator's rationale, which looked to much at what is there now, and not enough at what could potentially be there (still not a lot, admittedly). About 2), nothing "speedy", you're right, I meant that the deletion tag on the category gives a completely incorrect target (which is not a reason to oppose, just a remark for the nominator). Anyway, I also suggested, if the merge is done, to also add Category:10th-century establishments in Italy to the article. Does this seem sensible and reasonable to you? Fram (talk) 14:38, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale: I was going to speedy nominate this to become "Artist writers," but this is a weird hybrid category, and might be better if just deleted. It's "for professional artists in the Visual arts who also wrote books that were other than collections of their artworks." It seems enough to categorize them both as artists and as writers, but I don't see the value in categorizing them as both simultaneously. If this doesn't get deleted, it should be renamed to Category:Artist writers or something else without "author" in the title.-- Mike Selinker (talk) 18:31, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete we generally avoid most dual profession categories. To have them, there needs to be evidence that the intersection is more than just trivial, and I see no such evidence in this case.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:36, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep (as creator) This is a highly significant and un-trivial category, which catches people who were significant in the fields of both art and imaginative literature, like Michelangelo and Dante Gabriel Rosetti, some like William Blake illustrating their own work, as well as artists who wrote important manuals on technique like Albrecht Dürer, Theophilus Presbyter, & Nicholas Hilliard, or were important in art criticism or art history like Vasari and Joshua Reynolds. To call it "trivial" is frankly ridiculous. No particular objection to "Artist writers". Johnbod (talk) 20:08, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. William Blake is the first person I thought of when I saw this category. It isn't the same thing as creating a category "Insurance executive poets" (Wallace Stevens) or "Physician poets" (William Carlos Williams), where the two occupations are distinct spheres of activity. "Artist writers" are an unusual class of creative people who practice both arts in a way that's complementary, so that you can't evaluate the writer side without taking the artist side into account. I do wonder, though, how the category might relate to certain graphic novelists such as Art Spiegelman or Neil Gaiman, who have a certain literary stature. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:21, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep. I thought of Calligraphers and other artistic writers ("Ceci n'est pas un pipe"). I suppose it doesn't hurt, as long as you also allow the artist categores and writer categories to remain on the page. Jane (talk)
It is unfortunate that moving to "writers" will create that ambiguity. Category:Calligraphers is of course very different. Johnbod (talk) 01:25, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep -- This is an interesting intersection, for people who excelled in with different arts. I think author is better, because I would like it to be limited to those notable for their writings and to exclude those who may (for example) occasionally have contributed reviews to newspapers. Peterkingiron (talk) 10:54, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Would a hyphen help, like singer-songwriter? As you point out, the category seems intended for those whose creative career encompasses both letters and fine art, not an artist who happens to write a little. I've been mulling over the aversion expressed at the word author above, and find I don't understand it. I'm not sure "author-artist" or "artist-author" wouldn't be better. Just thinking it through, though. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:46, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
All authors seem to be writers now, in categoryland. I think it is just for consistency, hence the original speedy. No occasional reviewers etc should be here, & I don't think any are, but I'm not sure how to exclude them in the name, though a note will help. Those who just write about their own art are excluded in a note. Johnbod (talk) 04:39, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but can we find a better name? I'm convinced the intersection is likely notable but the name, as others have said, is a bit feeble. Mangoe (talk) 12:16, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale:Delete. We should not be categorizing populated places by their former countries' subdivisions. All the articles in this are properly classified in their current countries/subdivisions, etc. If an article were created describing the extent of Nishapur Quarter it would fully explain what its borders were and what places were included, but categorizing like this would lead to a huge mess where many places would have so many categories of not only their former countries, but every incarnation of subdivisions that such country went through. Category:Populated places in Wessex anyone? Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:10, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment -- I do not see that the objection is completely valid. The scope of a former subdivision is of historical interest, but I would prefer to see a category of this nature being a container for the modern subdivisions. To apply the nom's analogy, it would be appropriate to have a category Category:Counties of Wessex, with Devon, Hampshire, Berkshire, etc as members. In that case, the extent of the ancient kingdom can be defined from modern county boundaries. I do not know if this applies to the subject here. Peterkingiron (talk) 10:49, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The first article I came across was an ancient city that no longer exists. It makes sense to put ancient cities under the name of the place when they existed.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:08, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Rename to x in y format. This is the usual format for city categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:37, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment that makes no sense. These aren't cities (except for Shanghai) -- 76.65.128.43 (talk) 04:05, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support It does not matter that the nom combines cities and provinces. The use of nouns as if they were adjectives is unsatisfactory. Peterkingiron (talk) 10:43, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Rename; this is the usual format for categories of both cities and regions of all sorts. Nyttend (talk) 13:44, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Propose deletingall empty categories and subcategories of Category:A-Class articles (more than 1,000 categories).
Nominator's rationale. There are 1,886 categories (plus an unknown number of subcategories) in Category:A-Class articles. However, there are only 1,104 distinct A-class articles in total (number from here), most of them related to Military History (this project is the only one that uses A-class on a regular basis, AFAIK). I am not proposing to abandon A-class, I have no problem with projects that actually use this, but to have more than 1,000 categories created and kept around for absolutely nothing at all is not really useful. Take e.g a look at Category:A-Class India articles, which contains no articles but twenty subcategories: 8 of these are empty, 10 contain 5 empty subcategories each, one contains 8 subcats (5 empty, and three with each 5 empty subcats again), and one with 40 subcats, 5 empty ones and 35 ones with each 5 subcats, all of them empty. This means that for India, we have over 200 subcats, and not a single article...
I have not tagged all these cats, as that would be a massive and largely useless task. I'll drop a note at every page you feel is useful to get a thorough discussion though (I'll start with the village pump). Fram (talk) 13:13, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - This submission show that the editor/admin doesn't understand the complexities of WikiProject categorizatoin and how these categories work or how they are used by the WikiProjects and the WikiProject's templates. A-Class is recognized on many projects, WPMILHIST is just the only one that has an active review process. Additionally the Editor/Admins recent contributions here marking several hundred "empty" categories for deletion also show that. Not only would deleting many of these create more work, because they would need to be periodically recreated upon use, they are used to identify problem areas and are often empty because the projects are using them, they would cause the WikiProject Template to generate red links on the documentation unnecessarily. With that said I do agree that some of these are not needed and could be eliminated because the associated project has already been deleted, merged with another or for other reasons. But a wholesale purge of empty categories is not the right way to do it. Kumioko (talk) 16:57, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as well. The Highways WikiProject also has an active A-Class review process at WP:HWY/ACR. A contributing reason for these categories being empty is that very seldom does an article stay at the A-Class level for long. At least in the highways projects, if an article is considered good enough for A-Class, it is usually good enough for FA, so it only spends a brief period of time in the A-Class category before being nominated at FAC. —Scott5114↗[EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 17:29, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose These categories are part of the WikiProject classification system. There's no ruling out that there will never be any articles within these categories. - Presidentmantalk · contribs (Talkback) 21:46, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose things may have been demoted, promoted, or under evaluation for any of the empty categories, thus still in use; a blanket deletion is unhelpful and disruptive. you must identify specific projects that do not use A-class and delete those -- 76.65.128.43 (talk) 04:03, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose and work to improve articles so those categories are populated. Removing them is inappropriate. KillerChihuahua 07:17, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So, everyone opposes for the sake of burocracy, basically? Of the ca. 2000 Wikiprojects, there are 5 or so that actively use the A-class, but every single project needs such a category because perhaps, one day, they may get used? What's the problem with creating them once they are actually populated? Why should these cats be an exception to the general "no empty cats" rule? It is not as if they are often populated and just happen to be unppopulated now. Most of them never had a single entry in their long existence. Purge them once now, and recreate the few ones that will be populated but are empty now. I would be thoroughly amazed if more than 50 would need to be recreated this year (unless people would deliberately start promoting things to A-class from now on of course). Fram (talk) 07:56, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wrong, there are only a couple of operational A-Class processes in use, that does not mean these categories are not supported nor does it mean they do not apply. WikiProject United States as well as the 100+ supported projects "support" the A-Class category. Many of the others support it as well. Its a big step to go from GA class to FA and A is a helpful intermediary. I agree that some can be eliminated, but a wholesale purge is not the right way to go about it. Furthermore a lot of the US Supported projects would have some if I hadn't given up supporting the project. There are still a lot of articles that need to be tagged for the projects. Someone may take up where I left off before I gave up on the idea.Kumioko (talk) 16:28, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose deleting these will just cause more work, and ugly red links on the tables that list combinations of article classifications for projects. I see no reason to create them for projects that do not use A class, but once there it will be a lot of useless work to find those that cannot be populated ever, (because of lack of support for class=A). Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:38, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Having looked into this some more, I see only three projects that use this, MilHist, Highways, and Hurricanes (I may have missed some others, but don't expect many others to crop up). Most of the other projects which have A-class articles are either assessments copied from one of those three, or mistakes. I am slowly removing the latter category, e.g. reducing Category:A-Class biography (royalty) articles from 16 entries to 1 (a MilHist article). So far, I have removed some 50 articles from A-class list, but am far from done. This only makes the discrepancy between the few articles, from few projects, that use this, and the vast, vast majority of projects that don't, more obvious, and the arguments to jeep them anyway more hollow. So far, we have "a lot of work" (I'm more than willing to delete them myself), "ugly redlinks" (POV, no reason why nice redlinks can't be better than ugly bluelinks), "may some day be populated" (unlikely, and can be recreated if that day ever happens), "are in use" (really? They just happen to be all empty today?), "are part of a system" (so what? If a system isn't used, don't keep it lying around). Anything else? Yes, I'm obviously clearly in the minority so far, but I fail to see a single argument that is even somewhat convincing. Basically, what I see is "we shouldn't delete them because the system wants them". Fram (talk) 12:34, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
you haven't shown how they harm the encyclopedia in any way, and there have been a number of arugments for keeping. KillerChihuahua 12:40, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
They don't harm the encyclopedia any more than any other empty category: frustrating readers who think that when they have a bluelink, they will get a result; bloating maintenance tasks; hiding the true extent of A-class; giving the impression to new projects that they too need these useless categories; and so on. Wouldn't it be preferable, honest, correct, if Category:Articles by quality gave a relistic number, instead of what is there now? As for the number of arguments for keeping, I normally look at the quality of arguments, not at the number. I haven't seen a single even slightly convincing argument why e.g. the 6-year old 200 empty category tree for India should be kept. (In the meantime, I have noticed that the projects Videogames and Chemistry also seem to use A-class, bringing the projects that actively use this to 5 instead of 3). Fram (talk) 13:05, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Empty means that it's not likely used, and Fram's done a good job explaining why these empty categories don't help. Article-class categories should be seen like dated maintenance categories: as soon as they're empty and not supported anymore (which, unlike dated maintenance categories, doesn't have a necessary timespan), they should be deleted. Deletion should be performed with a rationale similar to "Deleted per Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 January 16 because your project doesn't appear to use A-class. If you do, leave a note at WP:AN and it will be restored." Nyttend (talk) 13:38, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's not very accurate. Some projects have no FA articles, or no stubs, or GA, etc. should we also delete those because they are empty? -- 76.65.128.43 (talk) 00:48, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
These categories are generally supported though, while many projects don't do A-class reviews at all. There seem to be 5 projects which actively use A-class, and there is no objection to them doing this. But why do the other projects need these cats for nothing? E.g. Category:Book-Class articles only has nearly 700 entries, instead of the 1800 we have here. This doesn't break anything though, no one has a problem with the missing book categories, but the same doesn't apply to A-class for some reason. Fram (talk) 10:10, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Huh? Your comment is the only place where that name appears on the page. Nyttend (talk) 16:46, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
For those unable to add two and two to get four: KillerChihuahua. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 22:18, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Categories rating class of articles may become empty periodically or most of the time. The higher the rating, the more this will be the case. Leaving the cat empty until needed–as opposed to going thru deleting them to only recreate the structure at some future date–is just not good time management. GenQuest"Talk to Me" 17:26, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all – They aren't harming the project. I don't see a case where a reader is going to end up in an empty category, since they won't show up on articles unless that article is in the category, hence, a populated category. The only people who would end up at an empty category page are editors like us digging through the deeper layers, who should have enough understanding of how things work to not be confused or disheartened by finding an empty category. We have 45 A-class articles in WP:VG, as a side note. —Torchiesttalkedits 22:00, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep It would be ideal if the categories were not created until there was actually something to place into them but it's such a trivial issue to have empty categories that it's not even worth the time and effort to delete them. ElKevbo (talk) 22:18, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as a highways project member we definitely use these. --Rschen7754 05:53, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per the comments above about how this will break things for no benefit.Thryduulf (talk) 09:31, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly will be broken? Having a redlink doesn't mean that anything is broken. Having a burocracy that requires us to keep the 90% of empty cats to "support" the 10% of used ones is evidence that something is truly broken though. What harm can be done by having an experiment; delete them now, and see how many have been recreated after a year. I'm willing to do the legwork, both in deleting them and in regularly checking whether there are any non-empty ones that need to be created. Using [1] and "next 100", you go to the start of the populated cats, both bluelinked and redlinked. Note, by the way, that Category:A-Class Russia (politics and law) articles has been a populated redlink for over a year, without anything being broken by it. Not having this cat for a while isn't such a problem as people seem to think, and the ones that are in use are not going to be deleted anyway, so what's the actual problem? Who here really has an actual, not just a philosophical, problem with these categories being deleted now and recreated if and when they are used? Fram (talk) 10:05, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The classification itself is intrinsically of a transient nature, as most A-Class articles tend to get punted to FAC rather quickly. However, that doesn't mean that A-Class is not useful. Furthermore, A-Class is not an optional part of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team's assessment system, while Book-Class (brought up above) is optional, so the comparisons between both are not apt. The argument that Category:Articles by quality is viewed by readers is nonsense: that page has had only 100 views in the last month, and most people prefer the interface on the Toolserver to browse article categories. While deleting the categories won't probably break anything, no one has demonstrated a tangible benefit from deleting them, and doing so would simply be a bureaucratic exercise that would create redlinks just for the fun of it. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 01:17, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note I think its safe to say this isn't going to pass at this point. Does someone want to close it? Kumioko (talk) 01:27, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note this discussion had been closed for two days by a clearly involved editor, violating WP:NACD. I have reopened it for that reason. Fram (talk) 08:37, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I closed it because 15 editors said Keep it and the only 1 that wanted to delete these was you. Most AFD's don't even get that many votes let alone in 2 days. Involved much? There is Zero chance this is going to pass but since you want to make a case out of it fine, keep it open. Kumioko (talk) 10:55, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wrong, there was one person that agreed with my proposal as well. And I'm not "making a case out of it", I am trying to follow procedure, you are involved in this discussion and thus shouldn't be closing it. What's the hurry anyway, not a single cat is tagged so it is not as if this discussion is disrupting anything. Fram (talk) 11:07, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Its a complete waste of time but as I said fine go ahead and keep it open. But why stop at A-Class. Why not all the empty FA class or C-Class or Book, Redirect, Disambig, File, etc. Kumioko (talk) 11:19, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Because all these others can be potentially found in every project; every project would love to have a FA, but many (most) projects don't do A-class reviews and don't ever use this assessment (if you look at those that are populated, apart from the 5 projects that really use it most of the others seem to be caused by inheritance, e.g. Milhist ranks it as A so the other project assessments are put at the same level). Plus, this discussion was large enough as it was, adding even more to it wouldn't have helped anything. As for wasting time, no one forced you to close this against all guidelines and policies or to even comment here, you are no longer interested in projects, assessments, or the mainspace basically, or you are interested in is the nominator of this CfD. Fine, it's your life and time, but don't complain that it is a complete waste of time. Fram (talk) 11:58, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale: Doublet of the long established and structured Category:Neighbourhoods of Istanbul. If necessary, we can rename this one as Quarters of Istanbul. Alex2006 (talk) 09:59, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: Quarter (semt) and neighbourhood (mahalle) are completely different things. Quarters are non-administrative regions, and they don't have certain borders. Neighbourhoods have certain borders and they are represented bu muhtars. This map shows neighbourhoods of Şişli. You can not see quarters of Şişli such as Osmanbey, Nişantaşı, Pangaltı etc. in this map.--Rapsar (talk) 12:20, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I have no idea what is the nuance around "in" or "of". As user Rapsar explains above, the neighbourhoods and quarters of/in Istanbul are not exactly the same thing. The "neighbourhoods" have defined borders; so we should better use (I mean prefer) this concept in WP and not so much the not very accurate "quarter". The quarters are there, known and used by people, but as they do not have fixed borders, sometimes not everybody understands the same area by the name of a quarter. Normally even this should not be a problem but the long history of cities like Istanbul and the presence of many controversial attitudes in WP do not leave me to simply ignore this matter; because we have seen and continue to see that formerly used (now only by some Wikipedians) names of parts of the city, like "Galata" or "Pera" are being objects of POV users to try to present them as current demonyms of Turkish places. After all this, I will only say I have confidence in both user:Alessandro57 and user:Rapsar and would normally agree with what they, or other objective users agree on. --E4024 (talk) 12:49, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I think that I expressed myself not clearly. The difference between a quarter and a neighborhood in Turkey is clear. What I mean is that the category neighbourhoods of Istanbul is presently mainly populated with quarters, and not neighbourhoods. So the right thing to do is move the category (and subcategories) name from Neighbourhoods of Istanbul to Quarters of Istanbul. Alex2006 (talk) 13:12, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose deletion; although we now have a proposal to rename that should be discussed. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:06, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I think that we have two possible solutions here: either we rename the Category:neighbourhoods of Istanbul and subCats to Category:Quarters of Istanbul (and subcats) and then move the neighbourhoods to a new neighbourhoods cat (with subcats?) or we leave the situation as it is, traversing the existing neighbourhoods subcategories and moving all the quarters in the existing (unstructured) quarters category. This soultion will have the inconvenient of leaving several neighbourhoods subcategories empty (ex: Category:Neighbourhoods of Bakırköy), since at the moment they are populated only with quarters. Alex2006 (talk) 14:04, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale: Main article is a redirect and the Boyz were just a backing group for D. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:28, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale: Too little content, the two subcats are linked —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:44, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Not enough to support an eponymous category. --StarcheerspeaksnewslostwarsTalk to me 18:42, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete we have never agreed to have this type of parent for all possible sub-cats. The category itself needs sufficient direct contents.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:45, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale: New category with no pages, except a redirect. Novels should be placed in Category:Horror novels, short stories in Category:Horror short stories, and films in Category:Horror films. Satellizertalkcontribs 08:10, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete—the category description indicates that this is for horror stories by Riley Scott. The creator of the category is Riley Scott. We don't do categories for individual editors. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 18:56, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete even if we avoided the odd problem of its contents being more restricted then its name, this is not part of a general way to categorize.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:44, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Misleading title, narrow scope, and questionable notability. Dimadick (talk) 11:46, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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The result of the discussion was:no consensus.--Mike Selinker (talk) 04:12, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale:Delete or merge if the articles don't already have a good parent. I'm not convinced that this is a proper grouping. What do Category:Public transport and Category:Intermodal transport have in common? This groups airfields with the description of a type of bus stop. Vegaswikian (talk) 07:26, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
keep Nomination does not mention precisely how navigation to articles will be improved by deleting this category nor how the parent categories, Category:Transport infrastructureCategory:Public transport and Category:Intermodal transport, will be improved by copying the contents of this category into each of these parent categories. This is certainly a logical grouping: it is end points and way points (the nodes) in the transporation network and these are clearly separate from the means of transport between these stations, terminals and stops. Hmains (talk) 17:48, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If the purpose is to collect end points and way points, this should be at least renamed. However it does not just list the points as you state, it also includes at least one article on the types of stops. I did not dig much due to the mishmash of material. Likewise the terms here are ambiguous and also are categorizing by a shared name. Terminal can be used for the end station on a rail line. It can also be used for any dock along a ferry route when the ferry stops. It can also be used as a major assemblage of station, yard, maintenance, and repair facilities, for trains. So clearly this can be considered a collection of like named things, and in this case it it a collect of 3 like named things. Are we going to add truck stops to the category? In doing a search for this term, the first hit was a book based on Wikipedia and other sources that includes Park and Ride, Request Stop, Bus Bulb, Container Terminal, Taxicab Stand, Pack Station, Tram Stop, Landing. So is that a better name or definition? How is that workable? You are correct in that I did not explain how this nomination would improve navigation. But when the category listed is a random collection you really need to explain how it improves navigation. The name is simply confusing! Bottom line, there are simply too many issues with this name and organization to be useable. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:56, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete While I see the point about nodes, I agree with the nominator that it's simply too much of an indiscriminate grouping. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 01:16, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep or modify. Regarding terminals, we need a parent for Category:Container terminals. There is currently no category for "Passenger terminals," but there should be, and it would share the same parent. The new/revised category could be simply, "Terminals." I agree that there should be a category which groups stations and terminals together. This could be organized separately for each transport mode (rail, bus, truck/lorry, air, shipping)... but there are also some intermodal passenger terminals out there. (Although their current articles may not be clearly labeled as such.) Caseyjonz (talk) 23:41, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep or Modify, per Caseyjonz. I just replaced this category for the Bush Terminal – Industry City article, with one that was more specific, but I agree that a parent category is needed for many of these types of stops. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 19:56, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale: "Author" is tremendously confusing, and we've been converting it to "writer" whenever possible. Obviously, this can't be "artist" given the confusion with "musical artist," so "visual artist" seems a good compromise.-- Mike Selinker (talk) 07:15, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support: I agree that using the term 'visual artist' avoids any misunderstanding about the nature of the category. I support the change. Lewismaster (talk) 18:08, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Rename we avoid the term "author". It is especially useful to do so here, because this is an at best irregular use of the term.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:43, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Rename A much more intelligible name. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:34, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale:Delete. Typically, an eponymous category has a little more content than what's here. Albums and songs categories can link to one another through a hatnote and the discography can be placed in one or both of those. WP:OC#Eponymous. --StarcheerspeaksnewslostwarsTalk to me 06:50, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. This is getting really obnoxious. I'm in the middle of creating articles for the category (of which there are now 5, which is plenty for a category), and you run around moving articles and requesting the main category be deleted. Your deletion request has no basis in policy or guideline given the content currently in the category (most of which has been created in the last two or three days). There are several other articles which are going to be created, and this category and it's subcats are there to contain them to give another way to find all of them easily. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 06:56, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If it's nothing more than album and song articles then there is no need for this category per WP:OC#EPONYMOUS. --StarcheerspeaksnewslostwarsTalk to me 16:05, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but you're reading too much into that. This kind of category is not unusual; Take a look at Category:Wikipedia categories named after Japanese musicians and you'll see quite a number of them. Categories are not the same as hatnotes and lists, and they simply provide an alternate way to easily group similar or related articles. That's what is happening in this case, so your argument falls flat. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 17:02, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A number of those look as if they should be deleted as well. I've nominated a couple more that have minimal content. --StarcheerspeaksnewslostwarsTalk to me 19:01, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete this fails the general rules on eponymous categories. We do not need an eponymous category to hold all album and song categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:39, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but why not? It makes it much easier to find all the articles and categories, and there are two articles and 3-4 images in that category, too. It's hardly empty, and it will only get more full as time goes by. There's no valid reason to delete it. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 06:44, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep – it is unreasonable to bring a category to cfd on its day of creation. There are at present 3 subcats (usually regarded as sufficient) and more material might be forthcoming (unfortunately I am unable to tell from the Japanese article whether she wrote any songs, whether there are videos, or concert tours etc, or indeed whether there is a category for her). Oculi (talk) 11:41, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If you're going to count images or media files, every single music artist with an article should have an eponymous category. We should categorize based on content not topic until it becomes reasonable to do so. If there is sufficient material (articles) to populate an eponymous category, then the category can be created. You don't create the category first. --StarcheerspeaksnewslostwarsTalk to me 01:31, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't necessarily true when the articles are being created quickly. And all categories are based on a specific topic, so your comment makes no sense. The only reason I've included the images is because they are fair use images and it makes it easy to keep track of them in one place. I'm disturbed by your aggressive stance on this: you refuse to accept any argument from anyone else on this regardless of the solidness of the argument, and you (as pointed out already) nominated the category for deletion barely 1.5 hours after it was created. Without notifying me of the nomination. Without any discussion or inquiry. WP:BITE much? Even though I've been on enwp for over seven years, and I've rarely encountered such hostility. The guidelines are there for a purpose, but they are definitely not carved in stone. WP:OC#Eponymous doesn't apply in this case, for all the reasons already given to you by me and others. The encyclopedia would be much better served by not wasting our time with pointless discussions such as this one and instead focusing on useful discussions and contributions which may actually improve the encyclopedia. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 06:57, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There are hundreds of subcats of image files: see Category:Album covers by recording artist or Category:Images of musicians. The original (valid) argument against eponymous categories was that they acted as a magnet for a sprawl of tangentially related articles. Here we have 3 tightly defined uncontroversial subcats, neatly included by a logical parent, no sprawl and no problem. Oculi (talk) 15:37, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete at the present time.May recreate when there is more than the standard two articles and three categories for a music act. I note that there are 3 other eponymous categories for deletion on this page alone, none have anybody clamouring to keep as per this particular one, yet for two of those there is the same number of entries, with the exception nobody has created an album covers category for them. The question I ask myself is what does the category add to Wikipedia that can't be dealt with in some other way? The answer for me is nothing; songs, albums, and album covers both link back into discography which is, or should be, a "see also" on the the main article. --Richhoncho (talk) 18:57, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Amended !vote and added italicised sentence above in response to Nihonjoe's comments below. --Richhoncho (talk) 09:30, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with your argument is that ALL categories can be dealt with in some other way. ALL of them. In many cases, categories are redundant to other lists outlines on Wikipedia, but we still keep them because they provide another way to keep things organized, and a rather innocuous and unobtrusive way, to boot. This whole "eponymous category" argument is damaging and unhelpful to the encyclopedia the way you are trying to apply it here. This particular category is growing fairly quickly (in Wikipedia time), so the argument that another category being discussed has "the same number of entries" is not going to be valid for much longer. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 07:57, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding "none have anybody clamouring to keep as per this particular one", those ones weren't nominated within 2 hours of being created. Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars is completely out of line the way he nominated this category, and he didn't even bother notifying me of the nomination. This is WP:BITE in the extreme, and he's been around long enough to know better. I waited to create the category until there was a reasonable amount of content for it, and then he steamrolled through everything and didn't follow any common courtesy at all. Actions like this are why less-experienced (and even some experienced) editors throw up their hands and give up. There's absolutely no reason for the method in this case. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 07:13, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete for now. Based on past practice, this seems to have less than the amount of content that is usually required to keep a category named after a musician. If more content is created in the future such that a category is warranted, then it could be recreated. For now, though, all of the content is easily inter-linkable and the template can also do this job well on the various articles. Good Ol’factory(talk) 06:33, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: While I can understand being cautious and not letting basically empty categories proliferate, it's completely absurd when a category containing three valid sub categories, two articles, and a template can get deleted. This "eponymous" thing is being carried too far, and is being observed here simply for the rule's sake and not for the good of the encyclopedia. Templates, categories, and inter-article links are not meant to replace categories; if they were, we would get rid of all of them. Yet some people here seem to think that any categories with a person's name are bad inherently, and that's just crazy. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 07:07, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There are high rules for allowing eponymous categories, and this category does not pass them.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:22, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Where are these rules? I have been following cfd for several years and eponymous musician categories with 3 or more subcats have nearly always been kept: see User:Oculi/test for a list. Oculi (talk) 23:54, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not so much rules as just past consensus on the issue, which has been notoriously hard to pin down with exactness. The album covers subcategory should really by in the albums category as a subcategory, in my opinion. Many would argue (and the guidelines seem to suggest) that the template doesn't belong in this category at all. With that result, we have a fairly typical situation of two main subcategories—one for album (a single album, it is worth noting) and one for songs—a main article and a discography article. That is exactly the type of situation in which we have generally decided that a category named after the person is not warranted. The ones that are kept seem to be the ones for bands with a "members" category, and possibly a "concert tours" subcategory—a bit more than this one currently has. That's just my sense. I've always been hesitant about drawing a line in these cases, as it's so difficult and subjective to choose where to draw it. But I would be in favour of saying if all there is a songs category, an albums category (with or without an album covers subcat), a main article, a discography article, and a template—that is as good a place as any to draw the line. Good Ol’factory(talk) 23:56, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Two editing guidelines can be interpreted as saying delete. WP:OC#EPONYMOUS says, "In general, avoid creating categories named after individual people, or groupings of people (such as families or musical groups). The eponymous article in question typically already contains links to articles directly related to the subject (which would thus be potential members of such categories)..." while WP:EPONCAT says, "In certain very notable cases, an individual's name can be used to categorize the person itself, for example Category:Abraham Lincoln." If any editor feels the guidelines are wrong they are entitled to try and reach a new consensus there. Please consider the wider implications for WP if we just ignore guidelines at CfD and elsewhere. Rant over. Sorry guys.--Richhoncho (talk) 09:57, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep There is a related article that can't be added to either the albums or the singles category. --Moscow Connection (talk) 00:07, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
One article is not enough to justify an eponymous category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:29, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. I don't know how many are enough. What I see is that it's very unconvenient that her singles and albums categories won't be connected. We can add the other category in "See also", but wouldn't it just be easier for readers if the category stayed? --Moscow Connection (talk) 12:26, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The categories are pretty well interlinked and one of the categories is just media, not prose content. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:44, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale: Greater specificity as to what the category is referring to. Eastlawtalk ⁄ contribs 05:45, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep As far as I know, there are no other legal entities called "Indigenous Territories" that could be a source of confusion (if I'm wrong on this will happily switch my !vote). Also, the associated article is called Indigenous Territory. joe•roet•c 09:19, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The page "Indigenous Territory" which the category belongs to also refers to Brazil. If the category is moved, that page would need to be moved too. Satellizertalkcontribs 09:53, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support -- Are we sure that there are none elsewhere? If there are, the category is likely to collect them by mistake. This is why the article is at Birmingham but the categories are at "Birminghamn, West Midlands". Since this is a specifically Brazillian category it would be better if Brazil appeared in the title. No need to move the article yet. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:38, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Rename to Category:Indigenous Territories (Brazil) (disambiguation standard form). Categories are frequently disambiguated when the primary article isn't. This is to prevent users putting articles that appear to belong to a category into it. In this case there are indigenous territories in other parts of the world (Australia for example) and if articles on them get created they could easily end up in the category as currently named. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 19:04, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Rename to Category:Indigenous Territories (Brazil) the current name is just too ambiguous to use. People might think that things that are indigenous territories, like Nunavut, go here, even if that is not their official name.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:41, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Rename, either to "Indigenous Territories (Brazil)" or per nom. Perhaps Brazil is the only one that uses this as the official name, but it's close enough to the generic name that people will get confused and put non-Brazilian entries in it. Nyttend (talk) 14:00, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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The result of the discussion was:keep by weight of argument, multiple recent precedents, existence of complementary category for female actors, and the international hierarchy. If the female category had been called "American female actors", some of the arguments against this one would fall away; the fact that Category:American actresses follows the internationally still-common term "actresses" should make no difference to whether this one is kept. – FayenaticLondon 09:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Per gender neutral guidelines. We already have Category:American actors and plenty of subcategories. Tinton5 (talk) 03:02, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - actor is for males only - the female term is actress. The "male" is completely unnecessary. Satellizertalkcontribs 09:51, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
While I have no opinion on the nomination, I would point out that, like many masculine terms in the English language, "actor" can be used as a gender-neutral term when referring to groups, as categories do. (It also functions this way when the gender is unknown, but that's a separate issue.) – PhilosopherLet us reason together. 10:02, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to Category:American actors (if anything) -- This has been an issue of controversy recently. Plain deletion is liable to lose relevant infromation. But before we do anything, we need to ensure that the target has been purged of all actresses, moved to Category:American actresses. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:34, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This was just discussed at CfD starting on November 22, 2012, and the result of that discussion was keep, see here Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 November 22. In that discussion the entire tree was nominated instead of just the American one. Acting is a genedered profession, in almost all cases roles are defined by gender. There are cases where females are described as actors, and actors is used as a gender-neutral term to hold both men and women. Acting is a gendered profession, and splitting the category by gender makes sense. Nothing has changed since the last discussion, so we should keep this category. Bringing it up again so soon after a close to keep seems highly irregular.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:32, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep – not again. One of the duties of the nominator is to check 'what links here' to spare the community the tedium of yet another 'actors' cfd. (This very one closed as 'keep' on 1 Jan 2013.) Oculi (talk) 18:54, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is simply not true. Glenda Jackson has been calling herself an actor since the 1970s, as have many other female actors. Oculi (talk) 18:56, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In the 1980's I remember the SAG pushing for use of the gender neutral term "actron" instead of 'actor' or 'actress'; but I don't remember ever hearing the term since the 1980s -- 12:48, 21 January 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.65.128.43 (talk)
Delete per Presidentman. No more need for this than there would be for a category "Male kings of England" or "Female queens of the Netherlands". Nyttend (talk) 14:00, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Are you arguing that the category should be deleted because "actor" can only mean "male performer" so that "male actor" is redundant? If so, that's an argument for renaming the category, not deleting it. A King of England will always be male. A Queen of the Netherlands will always be female, and the same for an actress. A monarch or an actor can be either male or female. "Male actor" makes it entirely unambiguous as to whether women are included. Alansohn (talk) 20:27, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. An actor is both any actor, either male or female, or any male actor, and all actors (including actresses) are already subcategorized by actign medium. Mayumashu (talk) 00:13, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Either way I think Category:American actors should end up as a holding category since ever actor should be able to be split out at least by medium, although a few might not be. Someone has just started adding this as a category to people not only who are already in the actress cat, which seems unneccesarily duplicative, but also to people who are in the American trelevision or film actors cats. The whole process just adds unneeded categories to people and clutters articles up. I am not sure what to do about it. Things were nice, we had the American actors cat down to one article because it was frozen from all editing, and it was easy to find new articles and move them to the appropriate sub-cats. Now the whole thing is heading towards being a duplicative mess.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:35, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep quite a useful way to split the category and avoids the ambiguity caused by omitting "male" Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:02, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Bureaucratic nightmare ready to happen. GenQuest"Talk to Me" 19:54, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete/merge to Category:American actors. Some users want to separate actresses—fine. But to then suggest that we need to further subdivide the remainder into a "male actors" category is silly, and a tremendous make-work project. Is anyone really going to go through the thousands of actor categories and divide them into female and male subcategories? I doubt it. The result is we are left with a half-assed category crap job, where users create subcategories but don't bother to populate them fully. We only have articles on 933 male American actors? Laughable. Good Ol’factory(talk) 23:46, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Reply. If a contribution to a deletion discussion contains a plausible rationale, it can avoid describing a category as "laughable" or "silly". In this case the mockery fails to disguise the lack of a substantive rationale for deletion. The reason for separating male and female actors simple: acting is a gendered profession, and gender is a defining characteristic of an actor. The reason for specifying "male actor" (rather than simply leaving them as "actor") is that the term "actor" is used both for men and for women in the profession, and in a profession divided roughly equally by gender it is non-neutral to use that common term for only one gender. The argument that the category is not fully populated is classic WP:DEMOLISH argument. This category has existed for barely 3 months, and in that time there has been less than 3 weeks when it has not been the subject of a CfD discussion, so its little wonder that it has not been well-populated so far. Editors are unlikely to devote their time to heavily populating a large category when it is a current target for deletion. If the category had existed for 12 months without being under-populated, this argument might carry some weight, but at this point it's just crystal-ball gazing. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 04:07, 25 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
None of what you write makes the situation non-laughable. You can have any opinion you want on the substantive issue (Lord knows a WP editor will), but you can't tell me what what I think is amusing and what is not. And this category is amusing. To me. If you read the comments above carefully, you will find that there are many rationales for deletion. You apparently do not find them "suitable" or "plausible". In other words, as far as dismissing others' arguments outright, there is a bit of pot—kettle—black going on. Your argument is one way of looking at things, and I regard it as "suitable" and "plausible", I just disagree with that approach. There can be disagreements and both can be reasonable. It would be nice if everyone could acknowledge that, but it does require a bit of a mind-shift in many cases. Good Ol’factory(talk) 23:34, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You can be as amused as you like, and that's your privilege. However the fact that you are amused is not a valid rationale for deletion, and while other editors have made some coherent arguments for deletion, the only substantive argument you make is that the category is not yet fully populated. In some occupations, we treat one gender as a special case worthy of attention, so for example we have Category:Women in politics. However, where we have separate categs for male and female, we label both genders explicitly: e.g. sportsmen and sportswomen, male singers and female singers. Your venting about a "silly", "laughable", "half-assed category crap job" may amuse you, but it adds nothing to the discussion, and doesn't explain why you want one half of a gendered profession to be categorised under gender-neutral terminology. If you do have a substantive reason to delete this category, it would be helpful for you to set it out ... because as it stands your !vote is just rhetoric rather than rationale. Oh, and if you want editors to read your views as a "reasonable" disagreement, you'd do well not to abuse those you disagree with by describing their view as a "silly", "laughable", "half-assed category crap job". --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 23:59, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think you missed a few of the rationales set out. And you have done a nice job of misapplying some of my comments about the category's state to the users' views. I did not describe anyone's views as "laughable" or "half-assed category crap job". Perhaps that was a mistake on your part. Not surprising, given the other information you seem to have missed in my comment and in others'. And I never claimed my amusement was a reason for deletion. I think you would do well to look beyond some of the comments you find distasteful to the substantive arguments being made. I think everyone understands your positions. It's difficult to miss them. I think effort could always be spent on understandings others', though, rather than repeating one's own. In any case, I don't think it's necessarily true that humour "adds nothing" to Wikipedia discussions. Some users do appreciate it, even if some do not. You don't have to find it funny, and you certainly don't have to find it a compelling rationale to delete something; in most cases, it was intended to be the former but was never intended to be the latter. Good Ol’factory(talk) 00:18, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Like other content, categories are created by editors. Describing a category as a "half-assed category crap job" is a rude judgement on the work of those content creators. As to understanding others positions, that's what I have been trying to do with yours, but so far I can't find any substance behind the sneering words. So I'll try for a third time to ask you to clarify your !vote: why exactly do you want this category deleted? --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 00:46, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You're a helluva fun guy, BHG. (My reasons are above, and I agree with what some of the others have said as well. I won't repeat them here.) Good Ol’factory(talk) 00:56, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is supposed to be a discussion, and if you don't want to offer any reason for deletion other than the fact that it isn't fully populated yet, that's up to you. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 01:40, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, my point is I have—you are just unable or unwilling to find it. I trust that the closing admin will be able to, though. And as I say I agree with many of the other comments that have been made in favour of deletion, and I also agree with some of the points made by those who have argued for a different result than me (including you). I don't feel the need to repeat what I have said and what others have said on it, mainly because my opinion on it if fully expressed would be long and a little messy—especially in a situation in which doing so would be largely futile. I don't think most editors agree with my position in full on this matter nor would I expect them to. Lastly, I just don't think I care about this issue quite as much as some other editors do, not to mention wearied by the issue—so overall I'm happy letting what has been said stand. John 19:22, and all that. Good Ol’factory(talk) 01:44, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In most discussions, if someone seeks clarification of a point someone else has made, it's seen as helpful to both sides to try to clarify it. This might not lead to agreement, but it does lead to better understanding. If you think that I have missed your point, why not try to clarify it? You may doubt that you will persuade me, but other editors may find it useful. And I do find it very odd that when asked for clarification you are willing to post repeatedly about your unwillingness to clarify, and proclaim weariness ... even tho it would probably have taken many fewer words to explain what you think I have missed in your substantive view. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 02:04, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oh well—things are weird sometimes! What I would write is nothing really new, just a new synthesis. I haven't the desire here to try out my powers of persuasion, so there's little point—users can find the information above and below. And in any case it would result in a position that is not the type that would likely sway any WP user. (Nuance doesn't typically get a lot of attention here, I've noticed.) I doubt what I would write would amount to less than I have already written, though, and this has certainly been easier effort-wise. Good Ol’factory(talk) 02:25, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, for both procedural and substantive reasons.
First, the procedural reasons:
This category was kept at Cfd 2012 Nov 22 (closed on January 1, only 15 days before this nom), along with its parent Category:Male actors by nationality, and sibling categories for Irish, English and Danish actors. It is an abuse of process to nominate a category for deletion so soon after it has been kept at a previous discussion; see WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT.
This category has been nominated without any of its sibling categories, but the nominator offers no rationale for deleting American actors while keeping the Irish, English and Danish, Canadian, Russian and Soviet categories. Cherry-picking categories in this way risks inconsistent decisions, and disrupts consensus-formation by duplicating discussions across several locations.
There was also a long discussion discussion at the Village Pump on the categorisation of actresses. That discussion showed a clear consensus in favour of categorising actors by gender, and that discussion should also be taken into account in the closure of this discussion.
Substantively, I will re-post my comments from Cfd 2012 Nov 22:
Gender is a defining characteristic of an actor, because actors overwhelmingly portray characters of their own gender. This not only imposes a divide in the types of role they can play, but also regulates their eligibility for particular roles. Other than in a few exceptional and experimental productions, women don't get to play Hamlet or Macbeth, and men don't get to play Ophelia ... so gender is the central defining characteristic which determines what roles an actor can be considered for. Sherlock Holmes can be fat or thin, tall or short, and played by an Irish or American or Australian or British actor ... but the List of actors who have played Sherlock Holmes consists of 74 men and not one woman. This does not just apply to parts in established plays such as the work of Shakespeare; it is also inherent in much new drama. A script based on a heterosexual relationship, such as the popular genre of romantic comedy, unavoidably requires a man for one role and a woman for the other. Even less overtly gender-based scripts, such as that of Groundhog Day, would require very substantial reworking if the gender of the lead character was changed. Similar, cross-gender films such as Tootsie or Some Like It Hot are based on one specific gender impersonating another; neither of those two films would have made sense with a woman in the lead role. Gender is less significant in minor parts, whose status may be radically altered without significantly changing the plot, but actors aspiring to major parts will in most cases be looking at roles where the gender of the actor was determined before casting begun. Mike notes above that "most productions have male and female actors doing the same job alongside each other", which is only partially true. Male and female actors do work alongside each other, and both portray people, but with only very rare exceptions, men portray men and women portray women. A male surgeon and a female surgeon can swap jobs without issue; so long as they are both competent, they should be interchangeable. But the woman playing Ophelia cannot portray King Claudius unless the director wants to radically change the emphasis of the play. This gender divide in career paths and roles is recognised throughout the profession, both by theatrical agents and by the gender divide in nearly every major award. For examples of theatrical agencies, see Amber, Elinor Hilton, A&J, Shepperd Fox, MBA, Nelson Browne, McLean Williams. They offer selection by a range of attributes, but all of them divide their talent lists by gender. For examples of gendered awards, the Critics' Choice Television Award, the Academy Awards, the Emmys, the Golden Globe Award, the Screen Actors Guild Award, the Satellite Award, the Dora Mavor Moore Award, the Drama Desk Award; all have separate prizes for best actor and best actress, with the gender divide being carried across a wide of categories. In fact, so far I have not identified any major acting award which doesn't split by gender. Categorising actors by gender therefore matches the gendered reality of a rigidly gendered profession. As such it meets all the criteria set out in the long-standing guideline at WP:Cat gender, where the basic principle is that "A gender-specific category could be implemented where gender has a specific relation to the topic". With slight variations in wording, that principle has been the stable core of the guideline for more that 6 years, and has been applied to all sorts of topics. These principles have led us to keep some categories such as Category:Women in politics, because politics is a historically male occupation in which women remain a minority in nearly all countries; but it has led us to delete others such Category:Female philatelists. Those categories which we have kept fall into two groups: a) topics where the role of one gender is matter of exceptional interest, whereas the role of the other gender is not (such as politicians); b) topics which are divided by gender, where we have gendered categories for both sides. So far, most of the topics where we both have male and female categories relate to sports categories where men and women compete separately (such as male and female tennis players), but we do have a close parallel with male and female singers, where the two genders also perform alongside each other but are not interchangeable. As Jc37 noted back in 2006, it's hard to see the justification for splitting one but not the other. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 03:38, 25 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per recent consensus and BHG's outstanding rationale. —Torchiesttalkedits 04:11, 25 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment If kept I would then create the appropriate film/television/stage and other subcats. At least with the American cats that is the only way they are going to get populated. With it being at CfD so much I have not felt like spending much effort in trying to increase it.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:07, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Those in favor of deleting may have a point in the case of common names. The Corpus of Contemporary American English, a database using only material starting in 1990, gives us 10,233 uses of actress to 63 uses of "male actor" and 2 of man actor. "female actor" only shows up 29 times, and women actor twice. There have been 17,421 uses of actor is the corpora. It seems this indicates that in common usage people do not see a need to refer to "male actor".John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:15, 27 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Reply. I am sure that this comment was well-intentioned, but I think that in effect it is a misuse of the data, because the database primarily records the usage in text, where it has a context. We are discussing here the use of the terminology in a category title, where it has no context, and hence needs explanation. For example, "Anthony Hopkins is an actor" needs no gender marker, because the mention of his name clarifies that he is male ... but in a category title, the bare term "actor" could refer to either a man or a woman. Similarly, those who use the term "actor" for a woman in that profession do not need to qualify it as female when using it in context; there is no need to say "the female actor Meryl Streep", when "the actor Meryl Streep" conveys the same information in a shorter form. I am also surprised by the results cited. For example, the Screen Actors Guild Awards are one of the major Hollywood awards, and are widely reported. Every year they issue 5 awards to a "male actor", and five to a "female actor". These awards are widely-reported, and I find it astonishing that the cited usage levels are so low. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 20:54, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Reply: We've settled the fact that acting is a gendered profession. Whether its based on the sex of the person or of the roles the person plays, we are agreement that thespians are distinguished by the real world at large and by their industry and their peers based on their sex, either as "actors" and "actresses" or "male actors" and "female actors". If you watched the SAG Awards last night, you saw Jennifer Lawrence recognized by her fellow performers as winner of the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role, whereas she could ultimately win an Academy Award for Best Actress. Last night you would also have seen Daniel-Day Lewis chosen as Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, whereas he might win the Academy Award for Best Actor. Whether you prefer "Actress" or "Female Actor", there is no ambiguity; this is a female. Not so for "Actor" vs. "Male Actor", where the latter is unambiguously referring to a male thespian, while the former could either be referring to males or to all people, regardless of sex. This is complicated by the fact that we need to have a parent category for all performers, regardless of state of residence, medium, ethnicity or sex, among other characteristics, which would include a pair of categories for the "gendered" profession of acting. Category:American actresses fills one half of the equation. If we were to use Category:American actors to mean all male thespians from the United States, then the name of the parent becomes a quandary. By using Category:American actors to be the parent for all subcategories of thespians from the U.S., we can then have Category:American male actors to be used unambiguously for male thespians as the counterpart to Category:American actresses. Based on the overwhelming evidence provided that the real world and the acting profession distinguish based on sex, consensus is clear that acting is "gendered", so there really is no argument for deletion. If the argument is from WP:COMMONNAME that "actor" means "male performer", then I fail to see how we can come up with a set of unambiguous categories for male performers and a parent for all American performers. I don't like "male actor", and I'd rather avoid it, but I fail to see how we can do our job of categorizing by sex without it, nor has anyone offered any alternative for what the parent category would be called. Alansohn (talk) 22:46, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I just notified the Wikipedia film project of this discussion.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:38, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Nyttend. A male actor is an actor. A female actor is an actress. "Male" and actor" are two masculines next to each other, about as pointless as "female actress".♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 00:40, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not so. Maybe actor used to be a solely male term, but if so it has long since ceased to be so. Here's a few examples of its gender-neutral usage:
Merriam Webster's definition does not mention gender, and cites as its first example "my sister went to drama school to become an actor". (No, they don't mention her changing gender as part of the course).
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.
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/merge C2C. Timrollpickering (talk) 01:41, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Rename; this perhaps could have been speedied. Nyttend (talk) 14:01, 17 January 2013 (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.
