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Nominator's rationale: Per WP:EGRS, these sorts of sub-cats should only be created when the parent cat is fully diffusable, which isn't the case for American women activists. Thus merge up. (I note that the parent of Category:American women activists (i.e. Category:American activists, is, on the other hand, fully diffusable, so the ethnic and gendered categories do work at that level. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:08, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: I changed the nom and reduced merge targets per JPL statement below. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:54, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Upmerge per nom, though I am not sure we need all three for the first one. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:53, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. This is where an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. While these cats clearly diffuse Category:Native American women, they are last-rung-of-the-ladder for Category:Native American activists and Category:American women activists, as those two cats cant otherwise be diffused. Perhaps one could re-think the idea of those only being containers? I don't see why they have to be... they could hold anyone who doesn't have a valid/non-ghettoizing sub-cat below. For example Category:Native American actresses can remain, as the parent cat Category:American actresses is fully diffusing by state and century. I guess this is an area where the guidance doesn't really give hints on how to resolve? --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:38, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
They need to be only containers for the same reason that ;Category:American women is only a container. We do not categorize people by gender in all cases, only in cases where their gender directly interacts with something else. If we allow Category:Native American women to be a general holding category, then we should do the same for Category:American women and we will be classifying everyone by gender. That is not a good plan. It has been clearly rejected. There is no particular reason why these people need to be classified by the intersection of gender and ethnicity, anymore than we should classify every women by the intersection of gender and nationality. I think the clear consensus of the previous discussions was that where people can not be sub-categorized by the intersection of gender/ethnicity/occupation they should just be in ethnicity categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:45, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Upmerge to only the ethnicity+activists and women+activists categories. We have done this before in other cases where the specific triple intersecton did not work.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:45, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, let me try to change the nom accordingly. Take a look and let me know if it matches what you propose.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:54, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Category:Critics and criticism of animal rights[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.
Nominator's rationale: This category only includes one article, which fits just as well in the parent, and the name of the category closely overlaps the name of its only child cat. Thus I think a simple upmerge to the parent will solve two problems at once and get rid of an unnecessary intermediation category. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:45, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. We have Category:Animal rights advocates. The fact that that is populated at this time, whereas the nominated category has so few entries, reflects a present-day imbalance in the POV of Wikipedia's coverage of the animal rights movement, with many pages created by, frankly, pro-animal rights POV pushers. Therefore, I think that the proposed merge is likely to become regretted in time. (In fact, looking at the category page today, I'm pretty sure that a lot of pages that used to be in the category have been taken out of it. I'll have to look into why.) Merging the subcategory (Category:Critics of animal rights) into its parent category will undo the reason for creating the category to begin with: that there is a logical difference between critics (persons) and criticism (ideas). The existence of the category does no harm: it fixes rather than creates a POV problem, and its small population is an artifact of the temporary present-day state of our coverage. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:39, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi - In general, such anti-movements are not listed underneath the pro-movement - for example, Category:Gun control advocacy groups in the United States and Category:Gun control advocacy groups in the United States - they are siblings. But there don't seem to be many (or any?) articles on anti-animal rights activism. In addition, merging the children up to Category:Animal rights movement doesn't violate any logic because there aren't any "criticism" (ideas) articles out there - if such an article does get created in the future, then it should be placed in a new cat, with a better name, that would be a sibling of Category:Animal rights. Until then, I think it's just clutter and confusing. If it's kept, it should be renamed, as Anti-animal rights advocacy or something, and placed as a sibling rather than a child - the "Critics and criticism" formulation doesn't work and isn't needed, especially if you end up sub-catting the critics in any case. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:19, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think I am coming at this discussion as a content-oriented editor, whereas the rest of the discussion is more format-oriented. I recognize that some editors care a lot more than I do about keeping things neat and orderly in the sense of what is logical from an organizational point of view. It's like: "categories should be neat and orderly, and that's what matters, we can't have any clutter." I, in contrast, have spent a whole lot of Wiki-time dealing with the POV issues of how the animal rights movement has been portrayed in content. I see categories as something that our readers (as opposed to our reader-editors) pay hardly any attention to, except to the extent that when they glance down at the bottom of the page, the categories tell them something about where the page fits, and it bothers me that readers will tend to be led to think that the animal rights movement is non-controversial and good. I really don't know what "anti-animal rights activism" would even be, because animal rights have so little status in mainstream culture that there is little reason to organize to overturn them. In contrast, one can criticize the movement, and there's a lot of source material on that. That's obvious to anyone like me who pays attention to the subject area. In contrast, the line of reasoning that "animal rights activism" should be paralleled by "activism" in the opposite direction comes from seeing the subject area only as a category name. Whereas the emerging consensus here is that the category is "just clutter and confusing", I tend to think the only people who are confused by it are people who spend time thinking closely about categorization. Regular readers are not going to be confused, and it really doesn't matter to them, just Wikipedia "inside baseball". So, I guess it really isn't worth fighting about, because it really is no big deal. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:57, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I see your point, but Animal rights is not a special snowflake - it should be treated like any other advocacy issue. Those who oppose abortion cannot create categories under Abortion rights to hold critiques of same - instead those things are handled as sibling categories. In this case, since you only have a few critics, merging up doesn't hide them in any case, it puts them right at the parent cat. If we ever get enough content to cover anti-animal rights activism as a category in itself, then recreate it as a sibling and move the activists out.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:46, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a matter of being unique, like a snowflake, but a matter of considering the subject matter as the subject matter that it is, rather than setting rigid, WP:IAR-resistant, rules based on behind-the-scenes Wiki-processes (in this case, categorization) that ignore the nuances of the subject matter. (And I'm pleased to see, below, that another editor agrees with me about this.) You said that you see my point, but then you went on to talk about "anti-animal rights activism". The abortion issue has advocates on both "sides"; the animal rights issue has activists on one side and critics on the other. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:40, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's just your judgement, and it's really a matter of degree. In a few minutes of googling, I was able to find Expose animal rights, Advocates for Ag, Americans_for_Medical_Progress, Research_Defence_Society, Pro-Test, Peta Kills Animals, etc, so at some point in the future, or even now, a category could be created for the anti-animal rights movement (or you could call it the Pro-humans movement, or pro-animal research, or whatever). These groups are going beyond critiques of the animal rights movement, they are making their own case for use of animals in research, for example, or in supporting farmers and farming. In any case, this category is in the wrong place, and it has the wrong name. If you can fill it up, then we should move it to be a sibling of animal rights, and rename it.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:02, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you are quite correct that I was mistaken in saying that such advocates don't exist. Duly noted, and thanks. But the facts remain that (1) there are also critics in addition to advocates, and that (2) it's just your judgment that the "category is in the wrong place, and it has the wrong name". Up to this point, there are three other editors who have commented here, and two share your opinion and one shares mine. As I said before, my guess is that your opinion will have consensus, and I'm OK with that, because I think it's no big deal. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:53, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Merge -- except the stray Plant rights, this is merely a container category for one on critics (people). This is an unnecessary level of category and should be merged to the parent, per nom. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:57, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This is clearly a distinct and different topic. It would be unacceptable covering up of anything on the topic to remove the category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:51, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - There's a distinct topic here, and maybe more than one. I think there's probably a meaningful distinction between (A) the philosophical opposition position (those like Descartes who did really acknowledge that animals could have rights, for example) and (B) those whose quarrel is with specific tactics or arguments or positions taken by animal rights activists. For now at least the general category relating to "critics" should be kept, even if renamed. (But it needs to be maintained so that, when applied to biographical articles, it is just those persons who are "defined" by their animal rights positions. Not every person who has expressed an anti-PETA view should be considered for the category of Category:Critics and criticism of animal rights -- only those who are defined by their criticism, i.e., it's a major theme/focus/identity in their lives or work. --Lquilter (talk) 17:55, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: There is an extant cat calls Category:Critics of animal rights, that I am not proposing to delete - it would just be moved up to the parent. This nom is for the container cat, which only has one other article, and as we don't have much else on animal rights critiques for now (and the title is duplicative), we should just remove that parent/container cat, merge up. in the future, if sufficient articles were written, a new cat could be created on Anti-Animal rights activism, and would be a sibling to Category:Animal rights movement. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:02, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think Lquilter's comment is a thoughtful one, and I'm now beginning to revise my earlier guess that consensus was going to go against my argument. (Quibble not directly related to the decision to be made here: I think some people who have prominently and notably criticized animal rights can properly be placed in the category, even if it wasn't the single defining position in their lives. We do not, for example, define Descartes primarily as a critic of animal rights, but his views distinguishing between humans and (other) animals are certainly prominent and notable.) But Lquilter is quite correct that critics and activists are two different things, and we shouldn't, for example, put Descartes in a category of "activists", nor should we merely merge him up into a category about people in the animal rights idealogical camp. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:53, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No-one has suggested merging any of the critics up - they would remain in the critics category.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:07, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Your first reply to me seemed to be suggesting exactly that. So are you saying that Plant rights should be in Category:Animal rights movement? Obviously, plants are not animals. If, instead, you are proposing to uncategorize it, I don't see what good that would accomplish. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:17, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale: Eponymous category containing Liverpool Senior Cup and no other articles Tim! (talk) 20:10, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - This category has little room for growth since there is not much information about the award that cannot go in the article itself, and its receipt is not defining for the recipients of the award. --Lquilter (talk) 01:30, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete -- minor local football trophies do not need categories. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:58, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale: Eponymous category containing Essex Senior Cup and no other articles Tim! (talk) 20:09, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - This category has little room for growth since there is not much information about the award that cannot go in the article itself, and its receipt is not defining for the recipients of the award. --Lquilter (talk) 14:39, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete -- minor local football trophies do not need categories. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:58, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale: "Ting" is the word in Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish, but meaningless in English, and "Thing" is way too broad in English, so it's best to have the category title match the article on the topic, Thing (assembly)Yngvadottir (talk) 19:27, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
speedy rename per nom, to match article title. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:57, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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The result of the discussion was:delete. Nothing in here seems to be about vegetarianism, so it's just another more focused list of vegetarians. And we're deleting those, as seen below.--Mike Selinker (talk) 14:54, 26 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: The article on Buddhist vegetarianism is much more about various schools of Buddhism and their approaches to vegetarianism, which are subtle and complex - and much less so about Buddhist vegetarians or what it means to be a buddhist vegetarian - so classifying this intersection of buddhist + vegetarian does not in itself seem notable or defining enough to be a category. There are hundreds of buddhists in the Buddhists tree, but very few have made their way to this category. I think we should just delete, since the rest of the vegetarian cats have already been deleted. nb: A previous CFD deleted all of the Category:Vegetarians by nationality tree, but this one remains. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:30, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
delete on the basis of multiple decisions not to categorize people as vegetarians. Mangoe (talk) 16:00, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete We have decided to not classify people as vegetarians. The supposed related Christian category is about movements and ideas, it does not have biographical articles, so it is not an example of a similar article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:55, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Can you explain this? There are only 5 articles in the cat now, and they are all people. There is an article on Buddhist vegetarianism, but no other articles, so I don't see a need for a category just for that one article. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:35, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I only recently discovered (when I went looking for notable vegetarians) that a lot of the people vegetarian cats have been deleted. I think this was a bad decision, given that we categorize people for all kinds of more trivial reasons. The only reason we know someone is a vegetarian is that they've chosen to make it be known, so clearly people feel this is something important about themselves. I therefore oppose any more of these deletions, and think that the other cats ought to be restored. SlimVirgin(talk) 01:26, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale: If this is not defining for people, I can't see how this is defining for fictional characters. Delete - there's no reasonable upmerge target. nb: A previous CFD deleted all of the Category:Vegetarians by nationality tree, but this one remains. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:26, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there's no consensus (yet) that it's not defining for people. --Lquilter (talk) 16:24, 8 May 2013 (UTC) (hadn't seen the other CFD)[reply]
Delete If we don't cover the subject in bios, why would we do so for fictional bios? Dimadick (talk) 15:57, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete trivial. Even if the character is memorable for vegetarianism; many characters are memorable for other traits we would never categorize on: innocence (Dorothy & Toto), baldness (Kojak), cheekiness (Bart Simpson), obesity (Jabba the Hutt), or bad eyesight (Mr. Magoo), just to mention a few.... Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:01, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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The result of the discussion was:no consensus to delete; no consensus on whether/how to rename; there is consensus that category definitions would be helpful.Good Ol’factory(talk) 03:52, 29 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale:Delete. I believe this recently created category and sub-categories is confusing. It appears to be initially created to be a history subject (ie. "American history"), but it's easily interpreted as a category for home of the award (ie. home country of the award) which is how these country-level categorizations are usually done. It creates a conflict because they are not the same. For example World History Association Book Prize is based in the USA, but is not a USA history award. Green Cardamom (talk) 14:37, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
See this previous discussion in which User:BrownHairedGirl argues that we do not have a history of categorizing awards by geographic eligibility of the winner. And that categories like this actually introduce triple ambiguities and are not part of the standard categorization scheme. The Category:Education awards by country, Category:American literary awards and Category:American awards by subject are all based on geographic home of the award, not eligibility of the winner. As BrownHairedGirl says, the "idea of categorising the awards by their geographical eligibility is an interesting one, but it would require a radical restructuring of all similar categories." -- Green Cardamom (talk) 18:53, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I think a rename might be in order, because "history awards by country" is susceptible of two very plausible and distinct readings: (a) history awards for members of a particular country; (b) awards for histories of a particular country. ... I'm not wholly convinced of the need for this category, since history is so fluid that oftentimes "history of a country" necessarily involves a region or a bunch of countries. History by era or region or event makes a lot more sense to me than "history of a country". --Lquilter (talk) 16:25, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
True, but IMHO your point also applies to any of the subcats in Category:American awards by subject. For this CfD, Category:American history awards follows the same scheme as the rest in Category:American awards by subject, which I take to mean awards given by organizations from the USA. In any case, confusion can easily be fixed with a cat description at the header of the cat. Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 16:59, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ok I think the ambiguity is a problem but it's bigger than we can solve here, it would mean renaming many cats. So a dab notice at the top of the cat is OK, and going through the parent cat and moving in the rest of the American-based awards. It just looked like the only awards that were populated were the ones in which American's were recognized as winners, while the US-based international awards were not moved into the cat, so I was confused what the purpose of the cat was. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 19:07, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Green Cardamom is right: the ambiguity starts higher up the tree. Once again, the use of the adjectival form of a country name creates an ambiguity which confuses readers and editors. This ambiguity is easily avoided by using nouns instead of adjectives. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 03:03, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Rename to something. Right now, this category has many possible meanings. It could be for:
Awards relating to the history of the United States
Awards relating to history, issued in the US
History awards for which American people are eligible.
I can see a case for creating either of the first two (tho not the third, per my comments in a previous discussion) ... but if so they should be named so as to clearly reflect the intended scope. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 03:00, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale: We don't classify people as vegetarians anymore. A previous CFD deleted all of the Category:Vegetarians by nationality tree, but this one remains, and it continues to accumulate bios. The decision in the CFD was that this was not defining and List of vegetarians should be used instead. Thus, the category needs to be upmerged and purged. Everything that's not a person is now a member of the parent, so we can just delete. The other child categories are nominated for deletion too, except the vegans, which are already elsewhere categorized. Also, if this happens, we should place Category:Vegans as a subcat of Category:People by behavior. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:33, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
note: Other previous CFDs for this category in particular:
Oppose - Vegetarianism is a reasonable defining characteristic. Certainly don't merge a bunch of people into a category about the concept. Jerry Pepsi (talk) 20:57, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Jerry - did you see the previous CFDs on this topic? A whole tree full of vegetarians was deleted - the consensus was, we don't classify people as vegetarians (we do for vegans - go figure). Does that previous consensus change your views? (Note: I just changed the proposal to delete, as I agree - we shouldn't upmerge, we should just delete the category.)--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:23, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, we never discussed whether being a vegan was notable at the last discussion, we just avoided the issue entirely. I would argue to delete those categories for the same reasons.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:59, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Categories that contained vegetarians broken down by country were deleted, but that doesn't mean vegetarianism itself isn't defining. Jerry Pepsi (talk) 18:02, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, that was the argument for deleting that tree- that vegetarianism was not in itself defining.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:37, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete We should have gotten rid of this category when we got rid of all the by nationality children. The same arguments about it not being notable still apply here. It is transient, we do not categorize by dietary choices etc.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:58, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete it's a "current" category at best as many of the folks people will put in there have eaten animals - and if I only eat carrots between meals, I too can be a vegetarian for a few hours. Trivial. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:02, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's a more notable trait than that! It can be defining to some people. But I'm still going to say "delete" below because it is an attitude / opinion that can change. --Lquilter (talk) 17:42, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Vegetarianism is a behavior that can change, and an attitude that might be based on a wide variety of distinct reasons. It's a defining identity for some people, but by no means is it a defining identity for all who practice vegetarianism. This would be better handled by categories for advocacy / activism, and as a note in individual biographical articles. --Lquilter (talk) 17:42, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep Definitely a reasonably defining characteristic, as much as if not more so than many other categories. Ouroborosian (talk) 00:39, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. It has been determined before that this is not a sufficiently defining characteristic to categorise by, especially as it's changable (and dare I say "faddish") - there's potential BLP issues here. - The BushrangerOne ping only 14:52, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale: The definition of the rapists categories is "This category consists of individuals who have been convicted of rape in a court of law as well as those who are considered by most historians to have committed the crime." Relevant CFD here: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_April_7#Category:Rapists. Thus, these categories are duplicative of the parent cat, and should be merged up. NB: Once the Category:People convicted of rape is merged up to Category:Rapists, it should then be diffused to the appropriate by-country categories. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:41, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
They're not duplicates. The convicted categories are only for those who have been convicted; the rapists category includes those known to have committed the crime but who were not convicted. That's why the 'as well as those who are considered by most historians ....' description is not on the convicted cats. Jim Michael (talk) 09:46, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
ok technically true but they are duplicates in intent. I'm not sure we need a separate category for those who have been convicted, as the top level cat also contains hundreds of such bios. The much more rare cases are those where there is no conviction, but historical agreement instead. In any case, I just don't see the value - these cats are almost 95% overlapping I would guess, and since being created 2 years ago, it hasn't been very populated as you can see. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:50, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It was not my intent to duplicate, and the fact that they haven't been fully populated in the time they have existed (20 months and two months) does not mean that they are too small to be categorised this way. Jim Michael (talk) 21:39, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that. However, the point I'm making is, in the modern day, we put in people who have been convicted. For historical cases, we use what historians say. I just don't see a value, given the volume here, of differentiating between those two via categories (what is the evidence against them is a subtle issue, much better dealt with in the articles themselves). As such, this cat is an overlapping container, and in order to be filled out properly and be consistent, would require the creation of overlapping "People convicted of rape in X" containers in all countries like in Category:Rapists by nationality - so it ends up being a lot of work and a lot of extra categories without much discernible benefit to the reader - who is ensured in any case that everyone in these cases is pretty much accepted to have committed this crime, whether via conviction or the judgement of history.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:31, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Reverse mege We need to keep clear, unquestioned inclusion criteria. Being convicted is a clear, unquestioned inclusion criteria. That is the name we should use. Since people do not need to look at the category heading when categorizing no amount of category heading warnings will fully avoid BLP violations in categorization. We should go with the names that make the matter clear, without question, not ones that will open up to attempts to attack peopel accused.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:02, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I think we really should not categorize people who were not ever convicted. I think this opens us up too much to POV-laden attempts to attack historical figures.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:04, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. The inclusion criteria is if historians generally agree the crime was committed, or there was a conviction. I think for dead people, that is reasonable. It seems you are turning this nomination on it's head, and proposing to rescope the whole Category:Rapists tree as a result. Ugh. Why not just accept this merge first, then start a different discussion about that whole tree, what to call it, and what the inclusion criteria are, so that it could be purged if necessary. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:07, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
keep as is the categories have different inclusion criteria to reflect their different names and contents. Both are necessary to that the criminals involved can be properly found via the category system. Hmains (talk) 03:09, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
CommentCategory:Rapists does not exclude living people who have not been convicted. Historians do not limit their studies to people who are no longer alive. That category is open to not only questionable past inclusions but to inclusions of living people who have never been convicted, which is a very serious concern related to biographies of living people. The majority of academics at Duke assumed the accused lacrosse players were guilty, but none were ever convicted.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:39, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As I said before, we have a whole tree which has been in existence happily, and a new tree that significantly overlaps is created. In this case, I think the correct solution is to merge back, and then consider a rename and rescope for the whole tree. I think the arguments you're making above are a little off-topic for this nomination. Finally, I'm not sure historians would come to consensus on the Duke lacross players. If you like, we could rescope rapists to say that for any BLPs, there must be a tendered conviction - but again that's an argument for a different forum.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 01:08, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Reverse merge - convicted of rape is defining; it has real world consequences. Having raped and not been charged or convicted will be hard to prove (in our WP:BLP world) and perhaps not very defining; what are the real world consequences for people who no one knows raped in the past? It also begs the question of whether a person can (or should) be labelled as a Fooist if he or she Fooed once? While rape is extreme; ought everyone who betrays his or her racist mind by uttering a racial slur (even once) be labeled a racist and categorized here as such? perhaps.... Is someone who gets a speeding ticket forever a "speeder" or who took drugs a "druggie" or who skipped school a "truant" or who once doubted the existence of God an "agnostic"??? I think we better define the category by "people convicted of rape" than walk down the slippery slope. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:10, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I understand where you're coming from, but the Rapists cat has been around a while, since 2005, and it has the following header: "This category consists of individuals who have been convicted of rape in a court of law as well as those who are considered by most historians to have committed the crime. Rape is a form of assault. Note: Persons are listed in this category only if their offense is relevant to their notability." So that should limit membership - and you could for example have some famous author who was convicted for rape and served time but for whom it was not part of their notability, they would not be included - we do the same with other crimes - and it's unlikely "historians" will judge a BLP as having raped someone - again we could change the scope to say for BLPs especially, this must be a conviction.
More importantly, your suggestion implies a rename for the whole Category:Rapists by nationality tree, which is also possible but not in scope for this nomination. So would you agree, for now, to merge these cats which are duplicative, and then nominate in a different discussion a rename of the whole tree? If you want the main tree to be *only* convictions, then we could create a separate tree for Category:Historical rapists, which would capture those famous rapists like Sextus Tarquinius who never had a conviction but have been indicted by history. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:40, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale: We don't have enough country articles on this topic to justify a separate continental breakdown tree. Category:Rape by country is sufficient. All members are already in Category:Rape by country, so suggest delete. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:36, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Circular argument. We don't have enough country articles on the topic, so we just delete the ones we already have and their container categories? The very definition of unproductive. Dimadick (talk) 15:53, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a circular argument, and I'm not proposing deleting any articles. We have a by-country tree, but we don't need a by-continent tree - the by-continent trees are usually created once you have articles for almost every single country, and want a different/comprehensive way to look through them. Until more articles/categories exist, I don't see any need for this tree.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:56, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and populate. By-continent categories are a valuable navigational tool, both as container categs and as a repository articles with a scope wider than one country. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 03:05, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and populate the tree. I agree with BrownHairedGirl regarding the value of by-continent categories. --Orlady (talk) 15:35, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but in this case we only have cats for 8 countries. If we populate, to be fair, we should create groupings for every continent - but then some continents would only have 1 sub-cat. I think continental groupings are useful when we have most of the 190 countries in the world covered. We don't, and may not any time soon, so I think we should delete until we get more articles/cats in Category:Rape by country. As I noted above, there are 1000 different cats by country that don't have continental breakdown - so I don't think we *always* need one, and I don't see why we need one here (there is no Rape in Asia article for example, nor Rape in Oceania, etc.)--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:48, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale:Delete per WP:OCAT#Award. Okay, I love that this award exists, but C-3PO, Data (Star Trek), Opportunity (rover), Terminator (character), Lego Mindstorms, R2D2, HAL 9000, and Roomba (among others) are not notable because Carnegie-Mellon decided to recognize them and induct them into a robot hall of fame established in 2003 in order to "honor achievements in robotics technology and to create a broader awareness of the contributions that robots and robotics make in science and society". I respectfully submit that this award is best represented in the list embedded in the article where the "achievements" and "contributions" made by those robots (really? the Terminator was a contributing member of society?) instead of a category. And I hope our robot overlords do not look unkindly on my submission. Lquilter (talk) 03:14, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete This is a classic example of unneeded overcategorization by award.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:06, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale:Delete. Overcategorization by award. In particular, this "Hall of Fame"-type award is "given out annually for outstanding achievements in the creation of comic books, graphic novels, webcomics, and comics retailers and publishers by Canadians". It recognizes existing achievements of notable comics folks, like John Byrne and Hal Foster (Prince Valiant! how I loved you when I was 12). It does not, however, confer additional notability; it just recognizes existing notability. See Joe Shuster Award; there is a complete list of Hall of Fame inductees and other Shuster Award winners in the article. The existing list(s) do a much better job of providing context & order to the various award-winners. Lquilter (talk) 03:09, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete this is another overcategorization by award.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:41, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Category:Gaylactic Spectrum Hall of Fame inductees[edit]
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Nominator's rationale:Delete per WP:OCAT#Award, this is a non-defining award. I love me some gay SF, but the novels (The Female Man), TV shows ("Quantum Leap"), comic superhero teams (Alpha Flight), movies (Rocky Horror Picture Show), and writers (Ellen Kushner, Diane Duane, Melissa Scott are not notable because they won this award; rather, this award, like most "Hall of Fame" awards, serves to recognize pre-existing notability. Lquilter (talk) 03:03, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Category:Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame inductees[edit]
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Nominator's rationale:Delete. Per WP:OCAT#Award. This category is not defining of the notable cartoonists who win the award, which as a hall of fame award basically is a recognition of already-earned notoriety/notability. Lquilter (talk) 02:59, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Category:Prize-winners of the Carus Greek Testament Prizes[edit]
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Nominator's rationale:Delete. Delete per WP:OCAT#Award. The Carus Greek Testament Prizes are an annual award from Cambridge University for best translations by undergrads & grad students. While this 150-year award is notable itself, it is not defining of the people who won it, and is not a good fit for the category system. The list embedded in the article is the best way to handle this. -- Lquilter (talk) 02:56, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Category:Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences[edit]
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Nominator's rationale:Delete. This is an eponymous category that contains only (a) the article for the award, and (b) a subcategory for the award-winners, which is currently posted at yesterday's CFD. (I didn't notice that it had its own category!) It's really not the practice to have categories for particular prizes, because for the vast majority of prizes, there is only an award page and possibly a list of winners. Lquilter (talk) 02:44, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale: last-rung category - Category:American serial killers cannot be diffused any further, so we should not create gendered sub-cats which tend to ghettoize. I realize this whole category may be distasteful, but we should still probably treat it according to WP:EGRS - see the last paragraph. Note: an interesting thing here: while American serial killers does not otherwise diffuse, this category *does* seem to be a valid sub-cat of Category:American female murderers - I'm not sure what the guidance has to say on this point, where something is a reasonable specification of one category, but not a valid (according to guidance) sub-cat of another category. If this one passes, I will likely nominate Category:American female murderers as well for deletion - either that, or we find some way to fully diffuse Category:American_murderers (perhaps by state?) Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 02:20, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - If this category is upmerged there will be over 200 articles in Category:American serial killers and (unfortunately) there could be more additions to the category. Hence, some form of diffusion is needed. In this case a male/female split is probably the best option (better than by-state) - i.e. create Category:American male serial killers. DexDor (talk) 21:00, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think size is a good argument against upmerging - Category:American people convicted of murder has over 1000 articles, and is not diffused now. 200 is not that many... I think we could get away with diffusing Category:American murderers by state (since their crimes usually happen in a specific place/community, and they are usually present in a given community, it could be argued that state is a relevant way to diffuse these) - then we could keep Category:American female murderers and upmerge the female serial killers there and to Category:American serial killers (which still won't be large enough to need diffusion IMHO). I'm not sure if there's such a good argument around dual-gender cats here, as there might be for prostitutes or actors, where gender/sex is clearly closely tied to the work/act.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:17, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Upmerge Size should never be a reason to ghetoize women. I guess I really do not expect an NYT peace "Wikipedia thinks women who do serial killings are not real searial killers", but we should upmerge.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:10, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - women who kill are a subject of books and television series, such as Martina Cole's Lady Killers. Some women murderers have become more notorious than their male counterparts, including Myra Hindley and Aileen Wuornos. Categorising them as female does not mean that they are not serial killers or are lesser serial killers. There is also a difference in the modus operandi of female killers in comparison to male killers: women often use poisoning as a method and in most cases kill people they know, indoors. Men are much more likely to shoot, stab, strangle or beat, often target strangers or slight acquaintances and kill outdoors. These differences are a matter of academic research and an article such as Female serial killers could be written. Jim Michael (talk) 15:18, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Based on the modus operandi you describe, there should be considerable overlap with Category:Poisoners. While a non-gendered category, most of the articles seem to cover female individuals. Dimadick (talk) 21:57, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I think this category is right at the border of a notable intersection. My concern (as explained below in the CFD for African-American serial killers) is that this is not an "identity group"; it's purely an external label, and thus implies external validation of the intersection. That's necessarily a POV and thus requires heightened scrutiny. I see the popular attention to this issue, and some academic attention. My question is that at this point it feels like the popular attention is mostly sensationalism, rather than a serious look at the gender issues relating to particular kinds of violence (serial killing). So is this really a "topic"? I think it's marginal. I do think that users of the encyclopedia would likely expect to find a Category:Female serial killers, and that may push me towards keep on this one. --Lquilter (talk) 17:04, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
However your example category is not this cateogry at all. Having a world-wide category, and having by nationality sub-cats are two entirely different issues.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:24, 28 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Correct. This is where non-diffusing and diffusing crash into eachother. American female serial killers could diffuse Female serial killers, but should not diffuse American serial killers - and since American serial killers cannot be otherwise diffused, the last-rung rule says the category should not be created.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:30, 28 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale: last-rung category - American serial killers cannot be diffused any further, so we should not create ethnic sub-cats which tend to ghettoize. I realize this whole category may be distasteful, but we should still probably treat it according to WP:EGRS - see the last paragraph. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 02:19, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - No reason to make ethnic subcategories of serial killers. This is not a notable intersection. --Lquilter (talk) 02:46, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete This intersection of ethnicity and being a murderer is unneeded.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:11, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete another race category. Interesting how everyone who otherwise loves race categories doesn't like them when the thing being categorized is a negative. Just an observation. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:15, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I don't want to scuttle my own nomination, but a few simple google searches found African American Serial Killers: Over‐Represented Yet Underacknowledged, Allan Branson, February 2013; Of course there are black serial killers, African Americans and Serial Killing in the Media: The Myth and the Reality, ANTHONY WALSH, Boise State University; Criminology textbook section on african-american serial killers, etc. So there are books, lectures, articles, blog pages, web-sites, etc devoted to this. However, I personally still think it should be deleted, as it is a last-rung category, that would tend to ghettoize/isolate African-Americans away from the main serial killers category.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:45, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There is a widespread false belief that the vast majority of serial killers are white.
What are people's thoughts on whether or not American serial killers should be subcategorized by gender, ethnicity, state or any other variable? Jim Michael (talk) 11:16, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If you sub-categorized by state, then technically that would eliminate the last-rung-of-the-ladder proscription against such categories.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 11:39, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
PS, Just checked, and it looks like someone has started such a category and it needs to be speedied for a rename. BUT actually I tend to feel that with <200 articles in the parent category there's not sufficient numbers to support a state-by-state subcategory. Is there guidance somewhere on the question of when it's appropriate to subdivide by state? --Lquilter (talk) 15:50, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Carlossuarez46: Yes, I'm sure it looks that way. It is easier to just have an all-or-nothing policy. But I think it's more helpful and accurate to have something a bit more nuanced. I look for (a) a topic that can support a freestanding article; AND (b) group identity, with some sort of sliding scale between the two. At this point there might be enough research to support a freestanding article on the general topic of ethnicity and serial killers, but to go further and have freestanding articles on the topic of particular ethnicities and serial killers? and argue that the intersection creates some sort of group identity? I think that's hard, in part because the nature of the crime (serial killer) tends to not create group identity: it would be imposed on the subjects, and it's hard to get away from that being a POV problem. Compare ethnic minorities and gender in various professions, many of whom have professional associations and mentoring programs and so forth, that foster a group identity; AND the group is frequently the subject of study and popular recognition. ... The notes that Obiwankenobi puts up tends to suggest that there is some study, but I'm not sure there's enough there to justify an ethnicity-based subcategorization scheme, notwithstanding the common perception that serial killers are mostly white. I would be more inclined to support a gender-based subcategorization scheme, given the much stronger correlation with gender, and the attention that female violent offenders tend to receive. But I would still be troubled by the group identity piece, because I don't see that female violent offenders tend to have group identity as such -- so the identification would be imposed from the outside. --Lquilter (talk) 15:46, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. This is a category of real public curiosity. In wider US society, many people have falsely believed that "all serial killers are White" - perhaps at the cost to some people of their lives. This category is an eye opening read, and a form of public protection/education in that clearly killers come in all forms. Besides the public interest aspect, it should be noted that there exist plenty of "special" & "positive" Black categories on wikipedia. Categories such as Category:Murdered African-American people and Category:Executed African-American people (which can viewed as "we are victims" categories to a degree - there are no white versions). Any Black membership of high status professions are duly listed off, with Black dentists as one example acknowledged with Category:African-American dentists. Even Category:Fictional African-American people in video games are acknowledged. It would be terrible to see a double standard on wikipedia. Pointe Drive (talk) 12:33, 29 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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