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November 28[edit]

Category:Fictional characters of the Postal Service[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: merge. (non-admin closure) feminist (talk) 17:06, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Only two article in the category. JDDJS (talk) 21:49, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Fictional characters of the (agency)[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: Rename. Timrollpickering 10:42, 7 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Current title is awkward and unclear. You can't be a "character of the FBI/NSA" JDDJS (talk) 21:09, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Shorter title and clearer scope. Dimadick (talk) 21:15, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Names of places in Pakistan[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: no consensus. There was not enough discussion to form a consensus on the merits of this (type of) category, but any subsequent nomination should take into account the existence of similar categories for other countries. That said, there does appear to be significant overlap between Category:Place names and Category:Toponymy as well as Category:Lists of populated places. -- Black Falcon (talk) 22:46, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Weird duplicate of Category:Geography of Pakistan —swpbT go beyond 19:46, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Dear swpb, I have created subject category after seeing Category:Names of places in India. Category:Geography of India also here. Geography is very vast term.--Ameen Akbar (talk) 20:19, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Further you should Click Here to see categories for different countries.--Ameen Akbar (talk) 20:27, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Given the content of the category and all of its siblings, it may be useful to rename all of them into "Category:Lists of places in ...". But that will be for another day. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:33, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Radioactive waste repositories in France[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: merge. (non-admin closure) feminist (talk) 16:59, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: A category of repositories in France, but only has 1 page. Should be merged into the main category of repositories. This is the only subcategory of repositories (no other countries have individual categories), but is not needed. DannyS712 (talk) 18:32, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support- seems a sensible suggestion. Reyk YO! 10:02, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Pig Newton, Inc.[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: Delete. Timrollpickering 10:45, 7 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Delete. Cat without a main article, effectively bypasses WP:OCEPON's prohibition on creating Category:Louis C.K. UnitedStatesian (talk) 15:05, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support deletion completely not needed, circumvention per unitedstatesian. --DannyS712 (talk) 18:34, 28 November 2018 (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.

People from the Ottoman Empire[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: No consensus. Timrollpickering (Talk) 16:52, 13 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Propose renaming:
206 subcats of Category:People of the Ottoman Empire
Categories struck per discussion below
Nominator's rationale. To avoid the ambiguous or misleading nature of many of the current titles.
For example:
  • The title of Category:Painters of the Ottoman Empire: did they cover the whole Empire in paint? Or just paint a few walls somewhere? Or create paintings? The intended meaning is actually "Painters from the Ottoman Empire", which is about the least expected interpretation of the category name.
  • The title of Category:Architects of the Ottoman Empire: did they design the governing systems of the EMpire, or just its buildings? Umm, neither: they were just architects from the Ottoman Empire.
  • The title of Category:Journalists of the Ottoman Empire describes people who reported on the Ottoman Empire, but the intended meaning is actually journalists from the Ottoman Empire, whose reporting may have nothing to do with the Empire or its territories.
  • The title of Category:Academics of the Ottoman Empire describes scholars of any nationality whose field of study is the Ottoman Empire, but the intended meaning is actually academics from the Ottoman Empire, whatever their field of study.
These titles were created at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2017 September 13#Ottoman_people, where the obvious and well-justified concern was to avoid the problems caused by the previous titles which used "Ottoman" as a demonym, e.g. "Ottoman painters". However, the editors in that discussion do not appear to have given much scrutiny to the new titles, which were in a collapsed list.
This list of renamings is also collapsed, but it would great if editors could spend a few minutes checking that the new names don't create any problems.
I compiled this list by first building a list of all subcats of Category:People of the Ottoman Empire, and keeping only those whose titles include of the Ottoman Empire. I then removed any titles which it seemed might correctly use "of". Most of these exclusions seemed to be either job titles or a description of holders a public office.
The exclusions if are listed in a subpage of today's CFD page, at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 November 28/More Ottoman people cats. If anyone spots more categories in the current list which need separate discussion, please just use <s></s> to strike them out. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:12, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note that this a followup a nom of only 3 categories lower down this page at #Category:Journalists of the Ottoman Empire. That nom was opened by @Good Ol’factory, who kindly offered to close it if a broader nom was made. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:12, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The category trees which use of "of" are mostly sparse, and therefore don't raise the problems encountered here.
I note that the better-developed category trees for former countries don't use the "of" format, e.g. Category:Soviet people, Category:East German people, Category:Czechoslovak people. If the "of" format had been tied in those cases, we would have the same problems as we have here. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:40, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If so, I would propose Category:Ottoman Empire people. UnitedStatesian (talk) 15:54, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@UnitedStatesian, are you just throwing this out there off-the-cuff? Or did you start by examining the 200 categories in the nom, to see how they would work in the adjectival format?
We've been here before, with last year's CFD: a proposal which looked good at first glance, but which created some real horrors in the subcat. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:40, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This is what I feared about a mass nomination. Users appear not to have taken the time to read through the nominated categories and recognized the inherent ambiguity in many of them – they are more concerned about a broad convention than clarity in the category names. Good Ol’factory (talk) 23:51, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
So it seems, @Good Ol’factory.
I do hope that @UnitedStatesian will take another look and reconsider, and also that @Laurel Lodged will change their mind about defending Category:Painters of the Ottoman Empire as the title of a category for people by national origin rater than by topic of painting. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:17, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Why would you assume that voters had not read the nomination? I "No" vote is not synonymous with ignorance. Do you credit editors with as little common sense as the Painters example assumes of readers in general? To Go'F's point about mass nominations, the solution seems to emerging from this healthy discussion: deal with troublesome cats differently while letting the remainder unchanged as they're grand. I do hope that I'll not have to witness another attempt to soft-brow-beat me into changing my vote again. Laurel Lodged (talk) 13:36, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
However, regardless of what we do with the others, please can you support fixing this one? "People from Foo" is widely-used format, and its use here would solve a real problem. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:24, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Wikipedia categories named after Brazilian politicians[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: keep. (non-admin closure) feminist (talk) 16:58, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: I don't see the usefulness of these separate categories about Wikipedia categories where a politician's category is placed in Category:Wikipedia categories named after Brazilian politicians instead of simply placed Category:Brazilian politicians or into another subcategory of Brazilian politicians. Other categories like this exist like Category:Wikipedia categories named after Australian politicians instead of simply Category:Australian politicians.
Is it notable that there is a Wikipedia category about a subject so there is a separate category for Wikipedia categories? This could be a slippery slope! Liz Read! Talk! 04:53, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep This a hidden maintenance category which groups eponymous categories. It is part of an extensive series:
Category:Eponymous categories → Category:Wikipedia categories named after people → Category:Wikipedia categories named after people by occupation → Category:Wikipedia categories named after politicians → Category:Wikipedia categories named after Brazilian politicians.
The nominator offers no reason for making this an exception to the rest of the huge tree of hidden categories under Category:Eponymous categories (eponcats). Everything she says about this category could be applied to all the other eponcats.
I'm inclined to suggest that @Liz should have done a more thorough job of WP:BEFORE. But I wonder: if Liz doesn't have view hidden categories enabled in her prefs, she would not have seen the hidden parent categs. Liz, I suggest that you go to Special:Preferences, switch to the "Appearance" tab, and go down to "Advanced options". Make sure that "Show hidden categories" is checked, then save. Now you should see the parents. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:28, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, the concerns raised by nominator are valid concerns and they apply to the whole series. These categories are kind of ghettoized, while they serve no real maintenance purpose. Marcocapelle (talk) 07:42, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Marcocapelle: if the whole series is a bad idea, then nominate the whole series. Or open an RFC on it. But there's no point in picking out one of many hundreds of cats and deleting it because of a characteristic which applies equally to the series.
Substantively, I disagree with your assertion that "they serve no real maintenance purpose". I think you mean that you haven't yet used them for maintenance :)
I have found that misuse of eponynmous categories plays havoc with the category tree, because some editors place whole cats in the eponcat rather than only the head article. This can have weird effects, placing an entire era of politics as part of the family of one politician. These tracking categories allowed me to unravel many such tangles. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:13, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Photometry[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: relist, see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2018_December_16#Category:Photometry. (non-admin closure) Marcocapelle (talk) 09:26, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: An opposed speedy. Renaming is to bring category name in conformity with main article Photometry (optics). Good Ol’factory (talk) 02:45, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Copy of speedy discussion
  • Oppose The category is currently broader than Photometry (optics) is. The different meanings of "Photometry" that are covered on the disambiguation page are all related to one another, and the category covers the broader topic. We should not rename the category simply to match the article title. If the category is to be renamed, it should be because there is a consensus to narrow the category's scope.--Srleffler (talk) 13:00, 28 November 2018 (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.

Tornadoes in the United States by state by date[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: Merge. Timrollpickering 10:44, 7 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Propose merging:
Nominator's rationale. These are all pointless sub-categories. They currently serve no purpose; if subdivided they would fail WP:SMALLCAT.
Their names indicate that they should be {{container}} categories for a multi-dimensional set of by-date subcats: e.g. Category:Tornadoes in Texas by date should contain Category:Tornadoes in Texas by year//Category:Tornadoes in Texas by decade//Category:Tornadoes in Texas by century, with specific date-period subcats e.g. Category:1979 Tornadoes in Texas. However, AFAICS none of them has any subcats at all . They are all just flat lists of tornadoes.
None of the US states has enough tornado articles to support a by-year category structure (i.e. with an average of at least 5 tornadoes per year), and AFAICs v few could even sustain a by-decade structure.
Even the global Category:Tornadoes by year has only 504 articles in 105 by-year subcats, an average of less than 5 articles per year. Only 5 of those by-year cats exceed 20 articles, and the highest number in any cat is 31 Category:Tornadoes of 2011.
That is not enough to sustain a Tornadoes-by-country-by-year scheme, let a lone a Tornadoes-by-US-state-by-year scheme. Note that we don't have a Category:Tornadoes in the United States by date or Category:Tornadoes in the United States by year or Category:Tornadoes in the United States by decade.
I can see that the creator @Colonies Chris has put a many hours of work into building this manually (it would have taken only a few minutes with AWB), and I wouldn't want to WP:DEMOLISH an incomplete structure if it had a viable destination. However, I see no way that this can be developed into anything useful. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:51, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Pointless subcategorization. The dates do not affect these categories, as they are not part of a chronological sequence of events. Dimadick (talk) 08:35, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I created these subcategories (and the corresponding Category:Tornadoes in *** by location subcategories) in an attempt to resolve the problem I identified here - that the categories as they stood are pretty much useless to anyone. There are two ways a reader might want to search for a particular tornado event - by date or by location. The present category structure makes it only possible to index by only one of these, but doesn't prescribe which one; in practice this means that some are indexed by date (in various incompatible and incomparable formats), some by location, and some just by the first letters of the article title; this confusion has resulted in many anomalies such as Tornado outbreak of April 14–16, 2011 appearing before Tornado outbreak of April 15–16, 1998. Just cleaning up the category sort keys would not be not sufficient to resolve these problems, because the problem is inherent in the too-limited category structure that was in place before I made these changes. The contents of Category:F3 tornadoes illustrate the mess very well. Colonies Chris (talk) 09:33, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Colonies Chris: if readers want to find Tornadoes by date, we already have Category:Tornadoes by year. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:56, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Also @Colonies Chris: anyone can use the Wikipedia:PetScan tool to list articles having any category intersection you want. I Support the proposed merges. UnitedStatesian (talk) 15:20, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@BrownHairedGirl; (1) These are not intended to be part of a 'multi-dimensional set of by-date subcats'; they are solely for the purpose I described. They are only subcats of "Tornadoes in state", all of which I would expect to be diffusing categories. (2) Those "Tornadoes of year" categories are equally useless, for the very same reasons I described above. Look at Category:Tornadoes of 2009 for example. It's a mess, with the articles in no identifiable order at all.
@UnitedStatesian: the tool you describe may be useful for highly experienced editors, but I'm thinking about readers here, who will have no idea that something like that exists. Colonies Chris (talk) 17:00, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Colonies Chris: I know of no other category set where categories are created merely to adopt a different sort order. If you think that Category:Tornadoes of 2009 could be better sorted, then why not sort it? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:07, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As I described above, it's useful to have indexes both by date and by location. A category can't sort both ways. Subcategories are the only way to achieve that, as far as I'm aware. Colonies Chris (talk) 17:40, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Colonies Chris a category is not an index. You seem to want sortable lists; so see Help:Lists. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:51, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As I asked below, what's the point of a category if its contents are not in a useful order? A category listing is a form of index, but an index that's not in the order a reader wants is no use. Colonies Chris (talk) 09:26, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly a similar benefit could be achieved by a sortable list. But that would require someone to spend a lot of time to create such a list - gathering together all the tornado articles into a single list - and it would have to be maintained manually every time a new tornado article was created. You can be 100% sure that wouldn't happen. Using subcategories is a much neater and less labour-intensive approach. Colonies Chris (talk) 20:38, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as obvious duplicates. In theory we could duplicate every category multiple times with different sort keys, that would result in the whole category system being doubled or tripled in size. Not a good idea at all. Marcocapelle (talk) 22:36, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
So how to do you propose to allow readers to be able to easily search within categories which have more than one natural sort order? What's the point of a category whose members aren't in a useful sequence? Colonies Chris (talk) 22:50, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As said, every category can be sorted in whatever multiple orders if you'd wish. I do not want to propose anything here, this concerns a wish that is not accommodated for by the category system. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:39, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Can you explain that please? The contents of a category are in an order determined solely by the sortkeys in the constituent articles; there may be tools that can re-sort and filter the contents, but the ordinary reader who's looking for something will know nothing about them. Of course you're right that it's not accommodated in the category system, because of the limitation that one article can only specify one sort key for a category; that's why I'm proposing this approach. There are many other categories that would benefit similarly, though these tornado article categories are by far the worst mess I've seen. If readers would benefit from having articles within a category ordered by more than one sort key, why not? Colonies Chris (talk) 09:26, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the ordinary reader who's looking for something will know nothing about them" ... until the reader opens and reads the articles. And the latter is the purpose of a category: to help readers find and read more articles about a topic they are interested in. Marcocapelle (talk) 19:01, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
We don't seem to be understanding each other here - how will opening an article inform a reader about tools for sorting elements within a category? My point is that they're going to experience great difficulty finding the article they want if the articles within the category are in no sensible order. It's about as much use as a dictionary that has all the words but in random order. Colonies Chris (talk) 20:38, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Colonies Chris: If the articles within the category are in no sensible order, then simply sort them into a sensible order rather tan creating a new category. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:21, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
To repeat what I said in my initial explanation, the problem is that there are two natural sequences, that readers might want to search by - date and location. Since a category can only have one order, the subcat approach makes it possible to, in effect, have the same category in two different sequences. Colonies Chris (talk) 11:35, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Concur with BrownHairedGirl. Readers do not have to be informed about tools for sorting elements within a category, that is an editors' responsibility. Readers have to be informed about the existence of all articles available about a topic. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:58, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
We seem to be very much at cross purposes here. I am not suggesting that readers should use obscure tools to sort categories. Absolutely the contrary. What I'm trying to achieve with this category structure is a way for readers to be able to view (and search) the articles in a category in two different sequences (by date or by location). The whole point of what I'm suggesting is to make this as easy for a reader as clicking on the appropriate category. Colonies Chris (talk) 11:35, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - there are many ways that things like tornado articles could be sorted so this is better handled by a sortable list than by multiple categories. Sorting by year may be the best way to sort these articles, but that could be done (after discussion in wikiproject and putting a note on the category pages) in the main categories. DexDor (talk) 19:47, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that I've already raised this question on the project page and received no response at all. See link in my first comment. As I noted above, I understand that a sortable list can provide the same benefit, but it would require updating every time a new tornado article is created - I'd bet a lot of money that it would become out of date within weeks if not days. Colonies Chris (talk) 20:38, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A list would be a list of tornadoes (with a redlink where there is not yet an article), not a list of articles. Why not sort the main category by date? DexDor (talk) 21:23, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(1) What's the difference? Whether it listed all tornadoes, or just articles, it would still have to be manually maintained each time someone creates a new tornado article. Using the category structure I'm proposing solely requires the new article to be categorised, which is a normal part of creating an article.
(2) As I noted in my initial explanation, the problem I'm trying to solve here is that a reader may wish to search by date or by location. It's in the nature of our category system that a category can't be ordered more than one way - it's completely determined by the sort key assigned in the article. Yes, I could adjust the sort keys to use date properly (in fact, I've been doing exactly that in order to populate the "Tornadoes in state by year" subcategories). But that means that locations will appear in random order unless they're assigned their own sort key in a 'by location' subcat. Using subcats is a way of, in effect, sorting a category in two different sequences. 11:35, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
Re 1: A list can include things that there isn't an article about (if it can be referenced of course). Re 2: What if the reader wants to sort by death toll, by highest wind speed recorded, by cost of damage, by latitude ...? DexDor (talk) 22:02, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(1) But it can't include entries for events that haven't happened yet. Almost all new tornado articles are about new events, they're not documenting older events. (2) If any of those possible search fields were considered potentially useful enough, another subcat could be created. Much easier, and much less ongoing maintenance, than a giant sortable list. Colonies Chris (talk) 10:28, 1 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(1) I was responding to your comments such as "each time someone creates a new tornado article" which are incorrect. (2) It's unlikely that other editors would categorize (e.g. using sortkeys) in exactly the way to make your idea work. Multiple categories with different ordering isn't the way we normally categorize in wp. Remember that we are categorizing articles - not attempting to use the wp category system to construct a database of tornadoes; for that Wikidata or a specialist website would probably be more appropriate. DexDor (talk) 15:19, 1 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(1) I'm sorry, I simply don't understand what point you're making here. (2) Since the categories are called "Tornadoes in state by date/location", it would be perfectly clear what form the sort key should take. (2) You make the point that we are categorising articles here, not creating a database. But what is the point of categorising if not to make articles readily findable? This is not about creating a data base - it's about allowing readers to find the article they want as easily as possible, by ensuring that the articles appear within the category in a useful order. Colonies Chris (talk) 22:51, 1 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(1) A list lists things (e.g. events) whether or not each has an article (i.e. having an entry in a list is not directly connected to whether an article exists). A category lists articles. (2a) There are many different ways (formats) in which both location and date can be specified in. (2b) That you refer to "the category" (singular) suggests you haven't grasped that having a separate category for each sort order that an editor thinks might be useful could lead to the creation of many categories. DexDor (talk) 07:40, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(1) I have never at any point suggested dealing with anything but articles. I don't know where you've got that from. This is about categorising and indexing existing and future articles, not anything else. (2) When I wrote 'the category' I was referring to the enclosing category, whose subcats would be in different sequences (as above - "Tornadoes in Kansa by date" and "Tornadoes in Kansas by location" would be subcats of "Tornadoes in Kansas") - yes of course, that implies the creation of more (sub)categories, but what's the problem with that? If it serves our readers, why not? (2a) Date formats vary, but there are other categories ordered by date; yyyy-mm-dd is pretty universal. Occasional errors or inconsistencies can easily be fixed, unlike the current situation, where no editor knows what sort key to even try to use. Colonies Chris (talk) 09:56, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to summarise and hopefully reset this discussion. Here's what I've done with tornado categories, and why.

  1. I noticed that many tornado-related categories are a mess, in the sense that the articles within them are listed in no discernible order, and thus of no use to anyone looking for a particular article. For an example, see Category:F3 tornadoes.
  2. Generally, tornado article titles identify an outbreak by date and location, which are the primary things any reader looking for an article is likely to want to search on; however a typical tornado-related category such as Category:Tornadoes in Kansas does not guide an editor towards which of the sort keys would be appropriate. The result has been that most tornado articles simply use the default sortkey of article title, with the random results that you can see in any of the tornado-related categories.
  3. My plan for fixing this problem, which I had started working on, was to create subcategories, by date and by location, and modify each tornado article's categories to use these subcategories with apropriate sort keys. Thus, a reader would be able to click on, for example, Category:F4 tornadoes by location, to see an appropriately ordered list that would, hopefully, contain the one they're looking for.
  4. Objections to this proposal take several forms: (1) It's creating a lot of small subcats. This is true, but I don't see why it's a problem. If it's useful to our readers, why not? (2) We've never used subcats like this before for ordering in different ways. Also true, as far as I know, but again, why not? (3) There are other methods available, such as a sortable list. Yes, but that's more work to set up and would require separate updating whenever a new article was created, and so would inevitably get out of step. Why choose a difficult method over an easier one? (4) Categorising is not indexing. This objection is a bit of a mystery to me. If the items in a category are not in any useful sequence, they're unsearchable and therefore no use, so what's the point of the category at all?

Hopefully, this has clarified what I've done and my reasons for doing it, and removed some of the misunderstandings about my actions and my intentions. Colonies Chris (talk) 09:48, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Journalists of the Ottoman Empire[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: self-close per discussion below. Good Ol’factory (talk) 06:45, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: This are nationality/occupation categories. They are not, respectively, a category for journalists who reported on the Empire; a category for those who designed the Empire; or an academics by subject category, as the names suggest. Good Ol’factory (talk) 00:02, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose as nominated. I fully enthusiastically support in this principle, but the problem is much wider than this and needs a comprehensive solution, rather than inconsistency.
There are plenty of other sub-cats of Category:People of the Ottoman Empire whose names are misleading, such as Category:Painters of the Ottoman Empire: did they cover the whole Empire in paint? Or just paint a few walls somewhere? Or create paintings? The intended meaning is actually "Painters from the Ottoman Empire", which is about the least expected interpretation of the category name.
Same some sort of problems with e.g. Category:Writers of the Ottoman Empire. And many more.
This is an an absurd situation, created by an ill-considered discussion at WP:CFD 2017 September 13 ... so congrats to @Good Ol’factory for raising it. My objection is that renaming just a subset will create inconsistency. We should either rename Category:People of the Ottoman Empire and all its subcats, or rename none.
In early summer, I had a draft of a group nom to rename them all, but I lost it when my laptop died. I could re-create it without too much trouble, and would be happy to do so if that helps. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)
Sure, we can have a broader discussion, and if you'd like to help, I'd be glad to close this one. I don't think the other ones are as confusing as these, which is why I selected them out. I agree that the discussion which chose to use "of" rather than "from" is a strange decision. Good Ol’factory (talk) 03:18, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Good Ol’factory: mass nom of 208 categories is now open above, at #People from the Ottoman Empire. Do you want to close this one? — Preceding unsigned comment added by BrownHairedGirl (talk • contribs)
Yes. Good Ol’factory (talk) 06:42, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
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