Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion

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Closing Cfds

Hi. I'm not an admin, but would like to lessen your burdens by closing out unambiguous decisions. I'm technically adept, but inexperienced in this area and would love someone talking me along a couple of cases until I get the hang of it. I'm on IRC most of the time so it'd be easier than exchanging messages back and forth. Thanks. Xiner (talk, email) 01:07, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

• The basics are covered at Wikipedia:Deletion_process#Non-administrators_closing_discussions. The CfD details are at Wikipedia:Deletion_process#Categories_for_Discussion_page. Vegaswikian 22:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Helping out on the backlog

The backlog on these CFD's has gotten very large. I recently became an administrator and would like to help on it but need some help from other administrators whom are more knowledgable of how this process works. Thank you.--Jersey Devil 22:04, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

• The basics are covered at Wikipedia:Deletion process#Non-administrators closing discussions. The CfD details are at Wikipedia:Deletion process#Categories for Discussion page. Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working has all of the work items listed. Generally bots do a lot of the work. Some of the oldest work items are in Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working#Listify.2C split or other manual work required. If you know something about the current entries there you could clean those up. Moving a category means a copy and paste to the new name. There is also some work needed in emptying Category:CfD 2006-12. Those entries need someone to look at each one and then decide what to do. You may need some more experience before you did that, but if you want to look and see, there may be something you think you can handle. Drop a note on my talk page if you have questions before you do something. Of course there is the current backlog of unclosed discussions. The results there either support consensus for an action, or not. If not, you can relist them by removing the old template in the category and adding a new one. Don't be boxed in. So, if there is consensus to rename, but not a clear target, relist offering the two targets with the most support. Again feel free to drop a me a note. Vegaswikian 23:06, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Redundant wording

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion#Users without accounts and users with new accounts says:

Users without accounts may nominate and comment on proceedings. If they lack edit history, comments and votes from anonymous without accounts and users with new accounts may be discounted. See Wikipedia:Sock puppetry and Wikipedia:Suffrage for details.

And then a couple paragraphs later Wikipedia:Categories for discussion#Special notes says:

Anonymous users may nominate and comment on proceedings, just as in Articles for Deletion (AfD). Votes from anonymous or new users may be discounted if they lack edit history. See Wikipedia:Suffrage and Wikipedia:Sock puppetry for details.

Since it's best to have it as short as possible to increase the likelihood that the stuff will actually get read, I propose that we merge the relevant parts of these sections and remove the redundant wording. Objections? delldot | talk 21:03, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

• Seems sensible to me. Anyone else...?  Thanks for spotting, David Kernow (talk) 19:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• Yeah, go for it. // FrankB 20:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for the input, I went ahead and made the changes, along with minor wording changes (e.g. changing "edit history" to "few edits", since new users may not know what edit history means). It's at WP:CFD#Users without accounts and users with new accounts. What do you think? delldot | talk 03:20, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Request review of edits possibly related to a CfD

This is a little bit out of the ordinary, but I'm not sure where else to request further opinions on this. Can people watching this page review the following:

• User:Headphonos reverted an edit I had made to Category:School massacres: revert is here.
• That edit had been my attempt to provide a unified index of all the articles in the category structure in and below the school masacres category, so that the entire index was available without having to click through lots of different subcategories.
• I raised the matter on Headphonos's talk page here.
• The matter was further discussed on my talk page here, where Headphonos made it clear that he feels that I was reacting to the CfD here. I disagreed and said I would raise the matter here for wider discussion.
• I have done this kind of index listing on other categories where I feel that an index list would be helpful. See Category:Earthquakes. I also did this at Category:Missionaries following a request from another editor.
• A possible alternative is to link to Special:CategoryTree instead. See school massacres; earthquakes; and missionaries.

Note that currently, the way categories are viewed on Wikipedia, only the subcategories can be shown. It is not possible to see the articles in a subcategory without clicking through to it. The indexes I produced manually are not updatable, but they are alphabetical. The CategoryTree system can't handle categories with more than 200 articles, and you have to manually click many times to explode the category structure into a list of articles, and it does show duplication. Category Intersection will probably make all this moot, but can I ask what is best done about this? In paticular:

• Is the CfD vote relevant to whether I should have produced an index listing?
• Would it be acceptable for me to restore an updated listing or a link to CategoryTree?

Thanks. Carcharoth 23:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

In this case Carcharoth has improved the presentation of the category - the structure remains in place as agreed in the cfd and extra value has been added. I am in favour of improvements. roundhouse 16:57, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Unfinished business, half-done job by category movers

Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 November 21,

The result of the debate was merge Category:New Zealand Māori and Category:Māori people to Category:New Zealand Māori people. the wub "?!" 11:05, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

So why did you leave behind a cartegory redirect to a now redlinked page at Category:Maori people? It should now be a category redirect to the new page. Gene Nygaard 23:02, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Because I'm human and occasionally make mistakes. the wub "?!" 19:03, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

A page for each discussion

Why does CFD only have a page for each day. The discussions are typically longer than at AFD when people nominate a whole group and I find it really hard to follow these discussions. If the discussions were moved to a subpage you would be able to watch it on your watchlist. --Maitch 22:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

• I've thinking similarly, so that it's possible to follow (i.e. watch) those CfDs where a debate ensues specifically. (It should still be possible to watch a whole day's CfDs.)  What do other folk think about each CfD having its own page...?  Regards, David Kernow (talk) 04:15, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Is it possible to do both? I'm thinking that most CFD's are not controversial, and there is little or no dissent. For these, it is easier to see them all in one place. Perhaps, we could break off any CFD once it passes a certain threshold, such as more than 10 comments, and less than 80% going one way or the other? Or perhaps, just break it off whenever anyone thinks it should be broken off. -- Samuel Wantman 04:53, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this some more, and in light of some of the discussions further up the page. The process at CFD is getting very time consuming (and sometimes frustrating). Perhaps it could be simplified. Here's what I'm thinking:

• Keep Speedy deletion the same as it is.
• Create a new page Wikipedia:Proposed category changes. Instead of listing categories at CfD, they'd be listed at PCC. Guidelines for the page would suggest that anyone proposing a change should discuss which guidelines or precedents are relevant for the changes being proposed.
• People reviewing listings at PCC that agree with the proposed change would not have to do anything. Only those that disagree would need to respond. Someone who disagrees would be required to counter the arguments made by the nominator.
• If some number of people (three?) disagree within a few days (five?), then the conversation would be moved to our current CfD, and each discussion would have its own page. If there are not enough dissenters who make valid counter arguments, the changes would be approved.
• CfD could use the same process as we are using now, but hopefully there would be many less of them.

While we are at it, I'd like to see the structure of CfD improved so that there is more discussion and less "voting". Perhaps we could use a template like this:

Category:Anti-Semitic people

• Problem: This category is a POV magnet. There are many differing views of what an anti-semite is, and it seems impossible to reach a consensus on a NPOV definition.

• CFD History: Several previous discussions did not reach consensus (links here)

• Possible solutions:
  • Rename to a NPOV definition Category:People labeled as anti-semites. Precedent: This has worked for categories such as ... (links here)
  • Delete category, create a list with annotations. Precedent: This is the solution disussed in the guidelines for dealing with POV categories. Precedent: Category:Racists...
  • Keep, define criteria for inclusion, and police category. Precedent:This has worked for categories such as... (links here)

• Proposed changes to guidelines:
  • None -- Precedent applies
  • Allow POV categories, as long as they are labeled as such, and all articles put in the categories have citations to independent sources that document the POV.

• Extenuating circumstances:
  • This is a constant source of contention between many wikipedians. Previous CFD's have been plagued with vote spamming.

• Discussion follows:

--- etc...

Anyone would be able to add to this template, but the discussion should be limited to discussing which precedent applies, or whether policy should be modified and why. Perhaps each discussion should have a moderator/facilitator. There could be a committee of people who are moderators. The moderators should not take part in the discussion, but they could remove comments that are outside of the framework, duplicate other comments, or go off topic. In most cases facilitation is not needed, but in cases where there is not a clear consensus it would probably help. -- Samuel Wantman 08:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• Taking all the ideas above together, I think it's something to aim for – but suggest that first we try giving each discussion a separate page (transcluded onto a master page for each day) and see how well this works. Anyone else...?  Thanks for your input, David Kernow (talk) 19:19, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

ZOMG what a backlog!

Hi people, I'm a relatively experienced admin, and I happened to close a few of CfD's recently (e.g. this, which took me over an hour to untangle) and I noticed the backlog. However, not being very experienced with CfDs, I learned the bitter side that it takes a lot of time to move or merge a category, thus the backlog is humongous. I'd like to put a helping hand here ocasionally though.

I'm asking, is there a dedicated bot for this kind of job? Simply put, when I close a CfD, I'd just like to fill in a (supposedly protected, so that non-admins can't make a mess) bot-task page and know that the job would be done during the day. However, I can't make heads and tails of Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Working -- are the bots smart enough to figure out what is required from there? Or... ? Duja► 14:03, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

yeah CFD/W is all you have to do. List the cats in the proper format IE category:XXXX to category:YYYY and list them under the date of the CFD and the bots can handle the rest. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 21:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget to close the discussion and remove the CfD text from the category if it is a Keep or No Consensus close. There are some templates available for leaving the result on the talk page. Vegaswikian 22:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Navigation

With the length of the current list, I find it more and more difficult/time consuming for my strong-enough PC to scroll up and down in the list. This very much discourages study of the items in the list. I think it would be better to not present the entire list as a choice, but to present each day separately. This is what is presented after I edit any one item on the list. I don't want to have to edit an item just to get this format! Thanks Hmains 18:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

At the very least it would be useful to provide links to, let's say, the past 7 day's logs up near the top of the page. Activity seems to be on the increase at CFD—as the weeks and months go by the daily logs seem to increase in size and in activity. From time to time (like Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 January 25 and the actors by series discussion) even the daily log becomes almost unmanageable, so I dread to think how it must be for those who try to navigate on the main CfD page.

Xdamr^talk 19:43, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at #A_page_for_each_discussion above. I propose that we split CFD in half. Categories would first be posted in Wikipedia:Proposed category changes which would be a much simpler process. If any change does not have near unanimous support, it would get moved to CfD, and each discussion would be on a separate page. -- Samuel Wantman 20:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

That's an interesting proposal, something which will need to be seriously looked at if Cfd activity continues to rise. I'd be interested in how this would mesh with the other Xfd processes; commonality is important, we don't want Cfd to be completely unlike the rest.

In the short term though, perhaps it is advisable to follow the example of Afd and remove the 5 day debate listings from the Cfd main page. Simply link to the logs instead?

Xdamr^talk 21:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

It is WP:PROD for categories. Since categories are not just deleted, but merged and renamed it would be PROCC (the CC being "Category Changes"). Same sort of idea, same sort of process. -- Samuel Wantman 06:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• In the mean time I'd recommend people with slower connections to simply browse by day, rather than by the CFD main page. That's what I do, at any rate. >Radiant< 17:41, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Given that daily logs are increasing in size, and 5 day's worth of debates are pretty huge, is there any reason that as a fairly immediate step we shouldn't just link to the daily logs from the main CfD page rather than list the debates in their entirety (per the example of CfD)? Anything that reduces the utility of the main page clearly can't be too good an idea, can it?

Xdamr^talk 19:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• Another user on Feb. 4, also suggested we have separate pages for individual discussions and transclude, as WP:AFD does. It would certainly be helpful on long discussions, and it would facilitate notices to the various wikiproject deletion sorting groups. --lquilter 18:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

  (See also #A page for each discussion above. David Kernow (talk) 19:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC))

• • How about splitting the difference... scanning one page has it's time advantages for the busily busy—if a particular discussion grows large, as say for example that ongoing now on the categories related to the matching Tfd of Template:Template list, or the whole aggregate begins getting big, then put a link on the section title of the main days page and make that a sub-page. In the latter case, split the day in half, or by thirds once it reaches a size limit (TBDL)--make a splitting annotation a shout LIKE THIS: CFD DISCUSSSIONS SPLIT AT THIS TIME, and such should stand out on watchlists. IIRC, I've seen something like that done Ad-Hoc a couple of times--I think back last summer on the ebooks category discussion. // FrankB 20:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I agree that it's useful to (1) link to the daily pages rather than transcluding them from the main page, and (2) move lengthy debates to a subpage. >Radiant< 08:16, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

An improvement to the large nominations process- maybe?

Large group nominations frequently run into problems when some editors have objections over specific categories in the list. In some cases, this causes a keep vote, even when there may be no specific objections given. I'd like to propose that we change the process slightly so that the nominations without specific objections can move forward with a simple keep or delete outcome. Categories for which there are specific objections would be split out and fully discussed. This is from suggestions in a recent CfD made by Dugwiki and Samuel Wantman.

Basically, if you want a specific category kept, then strike through <s></s> the nomination for that one category and create a separate discussion including the original nomination and your reason for keeping. The category must also be renominated to point to the new discussion. If no follow on discussion is created, then any admin can unstrike that item.

This would make it easier to follow some of the large nominations and allow specific category issues to be discussed without bogging down the basic nomination. Any category not brought up for a separate discussion would be judged based on what now would be a simpler Keep or Delete consensus. Vegaswikian 06:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• Sounds reasonable, but I would also expect CFD closers to ignore arguments that are purely bureaucratic (basically, an argument like "this nomination is out of process" is invalid since we don't actually have a policy that forbids group nominations). >Radiant< 17:39, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• So, just to make sure I understand: for a contentious proposal, the original proposal would keep getting individual items struck from it, and those would move to separate pages; the nugget that remained would apparently be ones which were sufficiently similar that arguments could be all made consistently? ... If I understand it, then -- Wouldn't this split up discussion? I mean, some people early on would be making arguments that applied to all the items; would those points get copied over to the new discussion for all those points? --lquilter 18:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't think we would be splitting up the discussion. Most comments really support taking an action on all items. If someone raises a point about a specific item, then a new discussion would be started for that one item. I believe that this will not happen in most cases since the broader objections tend to be non specific. The valid issues raised for a specific category, frequently support a different solution since the concerns raised are valid. Vegaswikian 22:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• I'm getting the same sense as you, but have no problem with a daily organized page like used on TFD (Like actually) and if separate pages are getting large with the days traffic, note the issue with watch lists I raised above. OTOH, iff separate issues are being split down to later on a big page, just keep them close, backlink to the split heading above, and annotate that there is discussion there that is pertinent. Could make that a cfd template so it's not overlooked. Ditto for the separate page, but there would suggest copy the whole prior discussions, but invert the strike throughs, in the heading. ((See this quick and dirty test/example) Instead of each bulleted line, replace with {{I}}, which will keep a similar appearance, but should allow a single strike through to span the whole bunch of now not discussed related categories. Such would work just as well with one split out of the middle of such a list, just use two pairs of strike throughs. // FrankB 20:50, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure that many of these large nominations are really contentious proposals. Its just that some of the categories may need further discussion. Right now, keeping those in the main nomination only muddles the overall discussion and makes it had to identify a consensus that may in fact exist. Most large nominations of late are a follow on to one or more 'trial balloons' that have shown consensus. The biggest objections seem to be of the form, 'no lets discuss each on its own merits' or 'category foo is really different and should be handled differently'. By allowing these to be removed from the main discussion, any specific issues with a category can be aired in a way that does not bog down the group nomination and also makes the individual discussion more visible. Vegaswikian 22:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Template:Listify

Per the closing of Category:Actors_by_series, I've decided to be bold and create a template if the result of a CFD is to delete after a suitable list has been created. There is one parameter for the template, which is the link to the discussion. For the Actors_by_series categories the template looks like this:

After this discussion, it was decided that this category should be replaced by a list.
Once a list is created that includes all the information found here, this category may be speedily deleted.

It was created by adding this:

{{listify|link=2007_January_25#Category:Actors_by_series}}

There should probably be a category for all the decisions that result in "Listify". Any suggestions for the name of the category? It can be added to the template. -- Samuel Wantman 08:25, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

• Sounds OK to me. We have Category:Lists that should be categories; why not just

Category:Categories to be listified or Category:Categories that should be lists? Her Pegship (tis herself) 16:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

What about the obvious(?) choice—Category:Categories to be listified and deleted?

Xdamr^talk 18:01, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

• Would also support a tweak to Category:Categories to be listified then deleted. Regards, David Kernow (talk) 23:38, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Just a quick note to let you all know that I've altered the template so that all tagged categories are listed within Category:Categories to be listified then deleted per David Kernow's suggestion. I haven't actually created the category though, do we agree with the name?

Xdamr^talk 17:12, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I created the category as proposed by David. -- Samuel Wantman 20:21, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

A few unfinished items...

• I've tagged most of the categories from the Jan 25th CFD, but I was not able to finish. I hope I didn't miss any.
• Should the original CFD tags remain until the categories are removed? Some have already been removed because of the complicated closing decision of "Rename, Listify and then Delete". The ones that were renamed got the CFD tags removed by the bot. This also removed the CFD from the history, and these are now starting to reappear at CFD. I'm closing the ones that I catch. I hope tagging them as listify will keep them from getting nominated again.
• When should we rename the parent categories? They should be renamed "Lists of actors by XXX series".
• I think we need some sort of tag for the parent categories that explains that categories of actors by performance should not be created and added.

--Samuel Wantman 08:27, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

• Once the lists exist, what should be the process for getting them deleted? It seems a waste of everyone's time to renominate them. --Samuel Wantman 10:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I wanted to know that too. The list of EastEnders cast members already exists at List of characters from EastEnders and List of previous EastEnders characters by year of exit, as they all contain the actors' names after the characters' names. — AnemoneProjectors (talk) 20:36, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

We could create another template, perhaps {{csd-listify}} so when the list is ready, anyone could change the tag from:

{{listify|link=2007_January_25#Category:Actors_by_series}}

to

{{csd-listify|link=2007_January_25#Category:Actors_by_series}}

Then, an admin or bot could browse through the category we create to hold all these CSD candidates and delete them. This does seem to be in a gray area of our speedy deletion critieria. The decision to delete has come from a CFD discussion, but it might be delayed by quite some time. I don't see a problem with that, but I am not bold enough to create a speedy deletion process on my own, without some discussion. Any opinions, suggestions, whatever? -- Samuel Wantman 00:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• I think this template is a very good idea. I should point out that, even though it technically involves pressing the 'delete' button, changing a category to a list is not in fact a removal of information. >Radiant< 10:32, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I would actually support a new speedy deletion criterion, along the lines of 'where deletion has been deferred pending a further course of action'.

I don't favour deleting categories without raising them on CfD first; I think that the publicity of CfD and openness in action are are essential. It also leaves open the possibility of a change of consensus being effected - WP:CCC and all that.

Xdamr^talk 17:32, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

This sounds good to me. I would pharase it that "where deletion was deferred pending a further course of action and that action is now complete".

It seems that new subcategories should also be a candidate for speedy deletion if they recreate a hierarchy that has been deleted even if the specific category never existed in the category previously. This would save a good deal of effort at CFD, If someone creates "Cast members of My Mother The Car" we shouldn't have to nominate it, and discuss it at CFD. It should be covered by the previous decision and quickly deleted. I'd have no problem with allowing discussions about recreating deleted categories, and this could also happen at CFD. So if consensus or circumstances change, we could reopen a previously deleted hierarchy. -- Samuel Wantman 23:34, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

When old CFDs get lost

I've set Cydebot to update this page once a day. The page records a list of every page in Category:Categories for deletion. Some old CFDs tend to get lost, so using the history of this page should be able to identify old CFDs that have remained in the category for too long, and have likely been forgotten. --Cyde Weys 04:32, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Category redirects section incorrect

The section explaining category redirects on this page is wrong. You can in fact hard redirect categories. I'm not sure if this is a new feature, but the way you can do this is put a : before the category name as you would to display the category on a page instead of adding the page to the category. Example: "#REDIRECT [[:Category:xyz]]" is a hard redirect. I don't know if someone wants to go through all the soft redirects and change them or what, but that section on this page should be changed. VegaDark 09:34, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

While that "works" in a sense, it also has undesirable side effects, which is why it is not used. See Wikipedia:Categorization#Redirected categories. Basically, unless something has changed recently, articles added to the redirected category, appear in that category and not in the new target category. older ≠ wiser 13:01, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

You don't actually need the ":". However, in addition to what Bkonrad mentions above, articles already in the redirected category remain in the redirected category not in the new target category. What happens if you follow the category link from an article in a redirected category is that you arrive at the target category (following the redirect) but the article you were looking at is not in this category. Articles in "soft redirected" categories are recatted by a bot into the target category. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:15, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Can a bot not be programmed to do this for hard redirects as well? VegaDark 20:07, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but there needs to be a way to find them. template:Category redirect adds the category to Category:Wikipedia category redirects so all the bot has to do is enumerate though the cats in this category. Per the discussion below, adding adding both a hard redirect and a soft redirect seems to work fairly well. This would work even better if the MediaWiki software were changed so that an article added to a hard redirected category is actually added to the target of the redirect. Given a hard redirect the only point of the soft redirect would be to have a way to identify redirected categories. If we're changing MediaWiki anyway, it might be possible to implement a special page that would return a list of (hard) redirected categories based on a database query, in which case the recatting bot could use this as a way to find hard redirected cats. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:11, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Propose tagging with both and expanding use of Cat redirects overall

IIRC, there was a change last fall, perhaps part of the software update that made it necessary to re-enable emailings??? Hard redirects are also being used on the commons. This needs a better technical answer, but I think there was a mention in one of the email lists, probably the one on the Commons--but I'm not going to wade through the thousand or so since August! However, I wouldn't agree that rushing to change any category redirects into hard redirects is a good idea without a lot of discussion. One can tag with BOTH though, so that might be an alternative... Hard redirect with category redirect on the same line much as one puts any {{R from ... } template on a redirect page. That will let the BOT still patrol on occasion and maintain the benefits of the hard redirect. The BOT then cleans up automatically, and fixes up links. My feelings are we need to have more CFD deletions/re-namings/merges create an category redirect outcome, Period. TO split the workload, add a parameter so that aged splitting of category redirects (say ten to twelve Plus Old-old ones), so the BOT can patrol each older one in succession without the bogging down Rick Block's time on any one pass. Would probably be a good idea to recruit a couple of other operators too. If people are checking their category links, like they're supposed to, the cat redirect then helps them correct the error. The BOT catches the rest. Eventually, the errant party 'discovers' the correct syntax and name, and everything minimizes time waste. Deleting so as to create red-links is pretty wasteful of people's time editing down the road--they have to stop and puzzle out why some name which makes perfectly good sense doesn't link. Consider the ambiguity in 'Historical maps of'--does the category hold maps showing the history of, or old maps, or is it a categorization schema node collecting other categories? We've been addressing such issues here and on the commons since the summer, and now have a proto-project being formalized here. Please join in! It's fair to say a lot of activity on CFD was a result of that restructuring to eliminate ambiguity... there is more to be done--lot's more! Dave Kernow, Mike Peel and to a lesser extent I have been pursuing a similar structural examination and fixups on templates categories. I'm integrating things across wiki-sisters. The benefit of having a soft redirected category is the user doesn't recreate, but learns, and is a direct help those to and for those of us who relationally 'think differently' (or for the moment) so that they try one logical name among several possible choices quickly find what the community consensus name has become...'glopstity glops glump', so saves time all around, and prevents the re-creation of the error and split in the hierarchical schema. This is in fact, the preferred method on the commons, as many non-English speakers would otherwise struggle to find a perfectly good translated name from their own language. Since the three biggest collections of Interwiki's are Here on 1) Articles 2) on categories, and 3) on the Commons Categories, it would be a nice courtesy for not only our own editors who think 'somewhat differently', but to those many foreign language editors who are attempting to close the gap in their language's wiki-sister-projects as well. As an institution, we need to focus less on 'right and wrong' (Juvenile think), and more on facilitation and elimination of ambiguity to save time multiples for others down the road, so to speak. I'm sure I'm not the only one to ever SWEAR when some simple seeming edit suddenly has red-links to fix up, and I'm already overdue in RL say! <g> Such is not necessary on a computerized data manipulation system like our servers and with our BOTs. So I see no technical reason to NOT lend such thoughtful aid to any and all, save we need and should long ago have had more BOT operators than Rick! Best regards // FrankB 18:01, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Discussion part-I

I don't actually run a recatting bot (but somebody does). I tried adding a hard redirect to Template:Category redirect, but this doesn't seem to work (the #REDIRECT line seemingly must be actually in the article/category itself). Seems like the recat bot could be changed to update a soft redirected cat to have a hard redirect as well (if there isn't already one). With this scheme, a user could add an article to a redirected cat, and the only issue would be until the recat bot runs the article would not show up in the target cat (however a software change could be made so that if an article is added to a hard-redirected cat it's actually added to the target cat). This seems like a pretty reasonable solution to me, to a very long standing problem. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:44, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I suspect like most pre-processors back into antiquity, preprocessor commands will need be abutting the left margin before any other parsing takes place. The included templates are already past the logical branch deciding what to do next since the # wasn't the first non-white character. Not to say that there may not be a work around... I'll ask CBDunkerson. // FrankB 19:23, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

If the {{Category redirect}} template were substituted then a hard redirect at the top would work fine. The current functionality could be substituted onto the redirect page or moved to a sub-template with a call to that template included in the substitution. Of course, that would require all current usages to be subst'd. --CBD 19:43, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Since I've proved it works without subst'ing, one edit on a page is as good as another... why not just get an AWB pilot to tack in the Hard redirect, and let the template stay as well... that gives an what links here list to use for another pass at another time, whereas subst'ing wouldn't let that residual list stay populated. // FrankB 20:10, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Discussion part-II

Hello. I've just been directed to this discussion, and as the owner of RobotG I thought I'd better post my 2p worth.

Suggesting that #redirects should be used in the category namespace implies that you think #redirects would make the category system more usable. I question this.

Are categories primarily for browsing? If so category redlinks and redirects are irrelevant, because they will never themselves be in any categories, and thus will never be found by browsing. Are categories primarily for grouping articles about related subjects? If so, the priority must be to keep categories in one place, and the logical conclusion is that category redirects must be usable at the point of addition to the article. Are categories primarily the targets of wikilinks, or a user typing in "Category:X" and hitting "go"? On the whole, I think, no. So if a redlinked category is an inconvenience, it is only so for their least important use.

When this has been discussed before, it has always come back to the article editors' experience– particularly that of the inexperienced user. Imagine we are using #redirects as suggested above. User Alice adds category Authors to an article. On her previewing the article, the category link shows blue: Alice saves the article. She then clicks on "Authors" to see what else is in the category. She is taken to the category "Writers", to which category "Authors" redirects: she finds herself in the "wrong" category, in which her recently-edited article is not to be found! In order to avoid confusion, Alice must understand what a #redirect does, she must know that you can click on the "redirected from…" link to see the #redirect itself and thus get to the "Authors" category as she intended. She is unlikely to know about robots, and will probably not imagine that her article will end up eventually, automagically, in category "Writers". That seems to me too much knowledge and presence of mind to ask for such a simple task as adding a category to an article! And if she does understand all that, she will probably make a leap of logic too far, and see it as a bug that category Authors was not replaced by category Writers when she saved the article!

One way of mitigating this would be to have a sort of {{redirect}} template on the top of all targets of category redirects, but I think that would needlessly clutter category text.

In the light of these considerations, the beauty of the current system is that when you go to the category redirect it is immediately fairly clear what happened, and why, and what to do next is explained. The proper category is only one click away. What we have is a good combination of #redirect functionality and {{category redirect}} narrative.

The reason I am not wholeheartedly in favour of an expansion of the use of {{category redirect}}s, and why I sometimes remove less-obvious redirects under CSD C1/C2, is because there are already about 2000 of them, and there is no way to decide which are the populated category redirects short of checking each one every time. This why I set up Category:Often-populated Wikipedia category redirects. In hope of finding a more efficient mechanism, I recently set up an occasional query against the toolserver database mirror, (populated hard-redirects and populated category redirects), which, as you can see if you follow the links, is usually disappointingly out of date! Although similar queries on the live database might be the best mechanism, I cannot see the developers granting me access :-)

While I see the current category redirect mechanism as an efficiently evolved system based logically on the categories' raison d'être (a mechanism which is still amenable to improvements: I have a to do list), I have no axe to grind, nor any overriding preference for the way they should work. Provided the category redirects are all in Category:Wikipedia category redirects then the robot will be able to pick them up, and provided it can be made to understand the syntax to extract the target category it will happily trundle through the articles, altering category references as appropriate. There will be no technical problem if category redirects become #redirect [[:Category:Target category]] {{R from alternative category name}}, and we deprecate {{category redirect}} (although there might be a short hiatus while I reprogram RobotG).

Finally, I don't want to violate WP:BEANS: suffice to say I have put some code in RobotG that makes category mischief unlikely to slip through. This is the reason why I am quietly reluctant to share the code of RobotG. Any solution put forward here has to consider the possibility of its abuse, please. --RobertG ♬ talk 16:40, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

If Alice adds category Authors to an article, sees it's a blue link, and doesn't immediately follow it it may well be a soft redirect to Writers. She's now added an article to a soft-redirected category and has no clue she's done anything incorrect. If we change MediaWiki so that adding an article to a hard-redirected category adds it to the target (I don't think this is a tremendously big if), making the soft-redirect a hard-redirect gets the article in the right category immediately. Assuming this change, now whether Alice follows the link or not the article will be in the right spot (without a bot moving it). Alice can add articles to Authors to her heart's content. Bob can add articles to Writers. More importanly, we could choose to change the bot so that it simply does a null edit on articles it finds in redirected cats, so UK and US variant spellings could both be supported with UK articles appearing to be in a category with a UK spelling while US articles appear to be in a category with a US spelling. All articles would actually be in one or the other, but the link on the article could be either. Without changing MediaWiki, if Alice adds an article to Authors, clicks the link, and finds the article is NOT in Writers will she click the "redirected from" link (which would explain all) or simply give up in exasperation? My guess is most editors don't follow the link (it's blue, what could be wrong) so won't even notice. Those that do might be momentarily confused. If we change MediaWiki then noone will be confused, and we get to support category aliases, which (IMO) would be Good Thing(TM). -- Rick Block (talk) 01:43, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

You have specified the ideal solution, one which I had been led to believe was low priority for the developers! If MediaWiki is changed to handle category redirects by automatically placing articles added to them actually into the target category, while the link on the article keeps the "old" text, we can then scrap {{category redirect}}. When category #redirects are fully supported no compromises will be necessary. We may need two types of category redirect, one which redirects from consensually unacceptable form [bad spelling, POV title, ambiguous] to accepted form (and which a bot can still occasionally patrol), and another which redirects from one alternative accepted form [spelling variant, alternative name] to another (which the bot ignores). You have my full support. Once MediaWiki is changed on en: I can easily get RobotG to do a one-off run through all category redirects, whether #redirect or {{category redirect}}, converting them all into #redirects and running through all the articles in each one if necessary. Please get MediaWiki changed as you suggest!

Until MediaWiki changes I think my logic above is valid. "If Alice doesn't immediately follow the link…" - yes, what you say is correct, but I still think we shouldn't design software that is usable provided the user doesn't click that link!

Please keep me up to date with what happens… --RobertG ♬ talk 09:38, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I've added this to the description of bugzilla:3311. We'll see what happens. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:40, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Appologies for not getting back to this sooner, but I've been having some computer issues and RL time matters.

1. I've added an endorsement to Rick's prod to the developers at bugzilla:3311, with rationale as to why it's a higher priority than they've given it. User Alice will have to learn to look for that font size 1 blue redirect link on any and every page, and how to handle such cases... just like the rest of us have, so while I share some angst for her fate, I don't feel her pain. It's the rest of us I'm concerned with, insofar as enhancing our productivity is concerned...

   1. to Are categories primarily for grouping articles about related subjects? If so, the priority must be to keep categories in one place, and the logical conclusion is that category redirects must be usable at the point of addition to the article. I respond, I can agree, but your case seems overstated.
      A) If a alternative name is a blue link, and someone follows it, the matter is resolved... he got to where he wanted to go. They may experience a little discomfiture with a differently titled page, but the little redirected from that other pagename explains the matter, as it always does and has. The soft redirect in the middle for a reader, is a major annoyance... it needs a further read, then a page click. I make no assumptions about whether they are an editor at all, much less an experienced editor.
      B) If the category applied is a redlink, then they are editing and should attempt to find a proper name, of course. But bear in mind the default skin makes the category system's links well down off the radar of many if not most people.

      1. My real focus and concern for championing this combined let's do something on this now is on the time-waste of and by good contributing editors when one or more possible relevant names exist in practice... usually as one phrase or another was widely used in one scheme or another, and those through maturation and further work now seem to be in need of reconciliation, or was reconciled in CFD, and one old name or the other no longer works. When that happens, one gets: Dismay! Delay! Did I make a typo, include a non-printing character, or am I going nuts? All those questions and perhaps more suddenly need resolved, taking one immediately from the work at hand, into an entirely different (non-productive) priority task—in the arts, it would be 'very bad', the experience shatters the 'suspension of disbelief' in a storyline, as this shatters the equanamity of the editor trying to remember a whole list of important things--or so one hopes! <g>. THAT's the issue to me. Why tolerate that in a computerized system that can now handle the matter? So I give a nod to reconciliation in CFD, but not to deleting the old name, thousands of us are used to. That CFD outcome, one way or another wastes further productive editing hours in large multiples to find the new name—wikipedia search is decidely NOT FAST, in any manner. If tagging as a category redirect and redirecting the page cleans up the source page eventually (When the BOT is run), and the redirect gets those following the link to the proper page immediately, I see no downside. We are merely using {{category redirect}} as we do the many {R from ....} templates (e.q. {{R from other template}}, {{R from other name}}, etc.) to provide the necessary categorisation, the BOT fixes up the pages, and business of all humans procedes as fast as possible with as little disruption as needed. Another way of saying it is We collectively waste far too much time around here manually doing what the computer system (collectively, lumping in the BOT with the system software in this case... AND that includes the other 'technical' software demands--guidelines and procedures!) should be doing for us. To put it a third way, my interest is in 'Unloading the tasking on the thinking contributors' in this project, so they can stay focused on good editing as in writing, not minutia, such as a single category link, which may be stated many different ways. Now that we know this is workable, I see it as being not our job to educate each other into perfection, but instead to implement time saving measures ASAP, if the matter can be automated, by adding such robust supporting structure to enhance everyone's productivity. The bottle neck to me, is your BOT, if that duty were shared and a schedule delegated to a few more worthies, there is no reason to wait for the developers to work their magic, so far as I'm concerned. Surely some like users CBD, Omniplex, SlimVirgin, Radiant!, MgM, and many others of long seniority etc. who have demonstrated devotion and have exemplary track records on behalf of the project could share the BOT and the duty. If the category is broken up by date, you can each just patrol a section of the overall list. Anyway, give that some thought, as I really think we needed aliased categories far long ago... only institutional inertia and the low priority from the developers have kept it from happening, and this is no longer needful as it's never been helpful. One of the things that MOST impressed me with Wikipedia several years back was REDIRECTS, and I've been programming one way or another since '76. It's a very powerful feature, and for categories, one very underutilized. The commons does a much better job of that, but there the problem has the multilingual issues also involved (Along with some accompanying Nationalistic odors! <g> If someone were running your BOT there, it would be a very good thing. It's needed. Kudos on the BOT, by the way. As a last objection reducer, if you've qualms, we could impliment {{Category redirect}} as an {{R from other category}} tag, and keep the two separated for a trial period. I'd like to see this blessed and in place ASAP simply for the sake of CFD and being able to suggest related changes as it's pragmatic to keep old good names, and we need not suffer the death by a thousand cuts of editor's caught by surprise anymore. Add in, some aliased names seem to make better sense to people, so are tried first like 'Historical maps of', 'in' versus 'by', etc. Dozens of tiny little distinctions that can be safely redirected to the community consensus names, safely, so far as I can see. // Best regards. FrankB 20:17, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

         Proposal posted at WP:CAT

         I've posted a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Categorization, about overhauling how categorization works. In a nutshell, I'm proposing that the creation of new category pages be restricted. To create a category, you would need to first create a list and then nominate it for conversion to a category at CFD. Only approved categories could be created by an Admin or a bot. I'd appreciate feedback. Please take a look. -- Samuel Wantman 08:41, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

         Edits to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion

         I've made one or two changes to the main page which I leave open for your comments. Firstly, as was recently proposed above, I have removed the 7 day's worth of transcluded debates from the Current discussions section, replacing them with a list of logs instead. The 350k+ of debates was getting to the point where it was almost unusable.

         In order that the list of current logs shouldn't be overwhelmed by the rest of the page content, I've moved them up to the top of the page. Given that they are now up at the top, I've removed the Skip to current debates infobox; it seemed superfluous in the circumstances. I've also moved the warning box re. discussion of user categories to the head of the page, hopefully making it a little more prominent.

         Hopefully you will agree that these changes have made the page a little more usable. I decided against moving the Discussions pending completion and recently completed section up with Current discussions as it is of arguably less interest to the average editor.

         One or two minor points—would there be any advantage in transcluding the current day's debates on the main page? Publicising the current day then moving it to logs when it is over? This would perhaps make things a little clearer for nominators etc. Secondly, would the Requests for speedy renaming section benefit from being hived off onto a separate page? This would remove all debate from the main page, making it fairly static, enabling us to devote it to guidance and links to the discussions.

         Xdamr^talk 00:56, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

         • For what it's worth, I hate the new style. The removal the ability to pop open the page and do a quick search of all the week's discussions is a major loss for me. I can understand that some debates get big, and I'd be willing to see a solution for that, but removing the entire functionality of the page is a terrible idea.--Mike Selinker 01:56, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

         I agree entirely with Mike - the new page set-up stinks. PLEASE change it back! It now takes seven times as long to re-check the week's CFDs to see the latest comments on them. The new format is a major loss and a major hassle. The new changes have not made the page a little more usable - they have made it far less usable. Grutness...wha? 03:48, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

         • The solution might simply be to have a bot create a WP:CFD/All page, updated daily, that lists this week's worth of discussions. >Radiant< 11:01, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

         A possible compromise (at the risk of duplicating effort)

         One possible solution would be to keep the old format for WP:Categories for discussion, but have a separate Wikipedia:Categories for discussion (summary) with just links to daily pages as per the new system. it would mean a little more maintenance, perhaps, but would allow for both types of page viewing to be done (ISTR something similar is or was done on AFD for a while). Grutness...wha? 04:57, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

         • Another option to consider is reducing the discussion time from 7 days to 5 days. Vegaswikian 06:49, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
           • That would be reasonable. Just about all deletion processes work in five days (apart from backlog) and there's no real reason why this one is different. >Radiant< 11:01, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
             • I'm entirely in favor of that. Seven days is a long time.--Mike Selinker 14:49, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

         Do we really need a bot to maintain a central link to recent/current discussions? Can we not just use the date/time ParserFunctions? Discussions a week old, six days old, five days old, four days old, three days old, two days old, yesterday, today? --RobertG ♬ talk 13:34, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

         • • Oh, that's even better. Go for it. >Radiant< 16:22, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

         Another compromise

         I've no objection to a listing of all debates (whether 5 or 7 days) being available somewhere. Clearly if some find one large page useful then I'm not going to dictate how they should approach CfD. The problem is having these consolidated debates on the main CfD page, along with deletion criteria, guides, speedy deletion, etc, etc. It all amounts to too much clutter on the page, a page which is far too big for those on limited bandwidth.

         How would it be if we revert to the summary style on the main page, create a new consolidated debate page, containing all the trancluded logs? That way objectors will have their favoured page format available, and the main page will be slimmed down for those who find the current setup unusable. AfD manages with this setup, so it can't be totally flawed.

         Xdamr^talk 18:16, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

         No objection from me - that sounds pretty much like my idea but in reverse. In both cases, both the summary and the full list would be available for anyone who wants it. I also agree with the idea about five days, above - that would by itself reduce the size of the full page. Grutness...wha? 22:44, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

         Just to add, I have no objections to 5 days either. Apropos my proposal, I'll try it out at changeover tonight, see what the general consensus is. Hopefully it will prove acceptable.

         Xdamr^talk 23:43, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

         I also miss full page display, but I think the all discussions page works nicely fine that. The all-pages view is better for reading, and the day by day is better for editing. Also, the old page was really getting too big to comfortably work with. I can't imagine trying to use the old version over a dial up connection. Overall, I think the change is for the better. -- Prove It ^(talk) 03:27, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

         This is just fine. The "All discussions" approach seems to be a compromise where everybody gets what they want. Good thinking, guys.--Mike Selinker 04:46, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

         All this is fine with me, and definitely an improvement. The page was horribly unwieldy before. the wub "?!" 09:13, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

         About creating a category

         Hi! If permissible, I would like to create temporary category for pages that need a certain sort of maintenance, empty it, and then request its deletion. Template:Infobox School previously had an image call like | image = [[Image:Name.jpg|300px|The school logo]], but I changed the source code to allow for that and also | image = Name.jpg | imagesize = 300px | caption= The school logo. If possible, I would like to convert all instances of the former to the latter. Would it be allowed under current guidelines to put <includeonly>[[Category:Infobox School previous format]]</includeonly> with the former instances; and if so, could I db-author the category after converting everything? Or should I merely not create the category page, but still use it to identify pages in it? (I generally don't deal with categories, so any help would be appreciated.) Gracenotes^T § 22:14, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

         Umbrella nominations

         Do umbrella nominations not work any more? ie is it necessary to create a heading for each item? If so, they basically aren't available as no effort can be saved. The one I tried didn't work, and the amended instructions are opaque. ReeseM 01:44, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

         Categories to be listified

         Some of the categories that were to be listified have been emptied by a bot and deleted, this goes against the consensus, how are we supposed to listify a category that no longer exists? — AnemoneProjectors (talk) 14:15, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

         Forget I said that, the category in question was to be deleted, where similar ones were to be listified, and I assumed it had had the same result. — AnemoneProjectors (talk) 14:17, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

         On a similar note, is there a way to find whether a category has been listified or not? I'm looking for the lists corresponding to some recently emptied and deleted categories which were closed as "listify then delete", but I can't find them. Specifically, I'm looking for the lists which were to be made from Category:Doctor Who cast members and Category:Doctor Who directors, but the point holds in general — how can an interested editor tell whether a list has been made, and find where it is? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:15, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

         If they are in any kind of decent shape then this should surely be accessible from the main article(s)? If not then you'll have to do a search; all recent listify candidates that have come up on CfD have cited their cast articles, so they certainly do exist somewhere.

         Xdamr^talk 15:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

         Oh, List of Doctor Who actors seems to be one of the lists that you are after. --Xdamr^talk 15:33, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

         Thanks. I did search for that earlier, but I suppose there was a lag in the database. It turns out that List of Doctor Who actors and List of Doctor Who directors were created just yesterday (March 10), and they weren't linked from anywhere. How are editors supposed to find these newly created lists? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

         Most of the search databases are not real time but are updated on some schedule. So, if you try to search for something before the update you will not find it. At a minimum, any new list should be placed in Category:Lists if the editor does not know of a better specific category for the new list. BTW, if anyone has the time, Category:Lists looks like it needs someone to move the entries there to more specific categories. Vegaswikian 19:57, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

         Here's a suggestion: perhaps when a bot is emptying a listified category, it could include a link to the list in the edit summary. That way, it will show up on the watchlists of interested editors, and if expert attention is needed (as, for example, at the frankly shoddy list created at List of Doctor Who actors) interested editors will know where to go. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:32, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

         A worthwhile suggestion. I'm surprised that the lists weren't linked, that is surely an essential step in completing the listification. I'd hope that it was just an oversight. Re the lists being 'shoddy'; they may not be 'featured list' status, but they contain exactly the information that was present in the category. All the listification does is move it out of categories into articles; the information, such as it was, is preserved. What interested editors do with that information is for them to decide.

         Xdamr^talk 00:14, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

         I think it only fair that the list preserve as much functionality as the category it is replacing. So in the case of List of Doctor Who actors, all the actors listed should be wikified so they are links. This isn't hard to do with a find/replace. -- SamuelWantman 01:53, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

         I was mainly referring to the absence of wikification when I called that list "shoddy". Incidentally, I've been contacted by an editor looking for the list of Space: 1999 cast members, and I can't find that list either. It may show up once the server is updated, but this shows that if the failure to provide links to the newly created lists was an oversight, it was committed on multiple occasions. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:30, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

         Non-endemic "endemic" birds

         Hi. I hope this is the right place to discuss this. Apparently categories such as Category:Avifauna of Western Mexico recently got renamed to Category:Endemic birds of Western Mexico, etc. However, endemic (ecology) means that the species is found in that area only. Most of the birds with these regional categories are found in other places as well—for instance, Lazuli Bunting got categorized as a Western Mexican endemic although most of its range is in the U. S. and Canada. If the plan is really to categorize based on endemism, the articles will have to be reviewed carefully before recategorization. On the other hand, if the plan is to continue putting fauna into every geographical category they fit into (Birds of Western Mexico, Birds of the Western U. S., Birds of Western Canada), the word "endemic" needs to be changed. Something like "Birds of Western Mexico" would be fine with me, as would many other possibilities. —JerryFriedman 05:04, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

         The thrust of the debate was that it would be best to restrict the scope of fauna categories because an animal such as boar is in too many categories. Tim! 10:40, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

         Yes, I was noticing that categories were accumulating. But was "endemic" the wrong word, or was it getting applied to the wrong species and regions? The Band-tailed Pigeon is now categorized as endemic to both the Southwestern United States and Central Mexico. That's a contradiction—just as if someone were in "1842 births" and "1991 births"—so there must be some kind of misunderstanding. —JerryFriedman 15:15, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

         Should we do away with the endemic categories altogether and just say "Birds of XXXXXX"? The thing is, each species is endemic to its own unique area (I've seen those maps of the USA with a species range highlighted). I don't really see how this can be categorized appropriately. The information should be conveyed in the article, but I just don't see categories working here. --Cyde Weys 15:24, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

         Well, for well-defined regions such as continents, islands, and lakes, you might be able to do it. I can see "endemic fauna of Lake Baikal" or "endemic plants of Cuba". For politically defined regions with arbitrary boundaries, or for ecologically defined regions with fuzzy boundaries, I'm inclined to agree that it wouldn't work. Then if we want geographical categories at all, the question is how to define them. If "Fauna of Scotland" is allowed, should there be a similar category for every political entitiy of comparable size? —JerryFriedman 23:35, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

         I will argue that the word "endemic" is needed in all categories describing animals with limited ranges. Please take a look at the categorization of articles such as boar, leopard, Green-winged Pytilia, Red-cheeked Cordon-bleu, and Gray Wolf. As can be seen from these (and other) articles on animals, people are using the categorization scheme to indicate every country in which these animals are found. This is inappropriate, as the political boundaries generally have nothing to do with the locations in which the animals are found, and the resulting category lists in individual articles are difficult to read. Adding a description to categories saying that the categories are only for endemic animals will not work either, as the description may be disregarded or removed later.

         I am therefore pushing forward with two sets of proposals at WP:CFD. First, I am trying to upmerge all "fauna by country" categories into "fauna by continent" categories (or fauna by subcontinental regions, as should be done for Asia and Africa). (Category:Fauna of Scotland was nominated for merging into Category:Fauna of Europe, but the nomination did not receive any other votes, and so it was closed as "no consensus".) Second, I am trying to add "endemic" to categories for islands or small ecoregions.

         As for what happened with some of the "fauna of the United States subregion" and "fauna of Mexico" subregion categories, that seems to have been incompletely discussed. Some of the animals with more extended ranges should probably be listed in broad continental categories and should therefore be removed from the categories now using "endemic". Animals with limited ranges should be listed in "endemic" categories as is appropriate (e.g. Category:Endemic animals of Lake Baikal.)

         I am working on more nominations at the moment. Please add comments here. Dr. Submillimeter 09:44, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

         I think you're right. The best we can do is to have inclusive cats only for each continent, and endemic cats only for a few isolated ecoregions that are the exclusive home of many species. Every animal will be in one or more continent's cat (boar will unfortunately still be in a handful), and very few will be in any endemic cat. ×Meegs 11:29, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

         There are even better examples than Boar: Rock Pigeon and House Mouse would each have something like 200 categories. Then what if we add categories for regions, states, provinces, oblasts, prefectures…? It's better to have the Rock Pigeon in hundreds of lists than have hundreds of categories in the article. So I support continent categories and maybe endemic categories, whether by political boundaries (contrary to what I said above, maybe it is interesting that the Crimson-collared Grosbeak is found only in Mexico) or ecological boundaries ("Endemic Flora of the Sierra Madre del Sur").

         It would still be great if the current "endemic birds" problem could be solved as soon as possible. It's really embarrassing to have all those incorrect categories. Maybe just have a bot revert all the edits for now? —JerryFriedman 18:15, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

         As an exercise, I cleaned up Category:Endemic birds of Western Mexico using the AutoWikiBrowser. Birds were moved to Category:Birds of Mexico when they were not endemic to Western Mexico. This took less than an hour for the whole category. Only a few birds are left in the category, but the description is now accurate. I will continue working on some of the other categories than now have the word "endemic".

         As I was doing this, I noticed that some people would list these birds in multiple "birds of Mexico" categories. To me, it makes little sense to list a bird in "birds of Western Mexico", "birds of Eastern Mexico" and "birds of Central Mexico" simultaneously. The use of the word "endemic" in category names should end that practice. Dr. Submillimeter 23:03, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

         I'm out of my element, but its not clear to me that regions like Western Mexico are well defined or have contained ecosystems. I'm not suggesting that all endemic cats have to dedicated Lake Tanganyika or the Galapagos Islands, but I'm concerned that asserting that a species of bird is confided to Western Mexico is both too vague and too bold a statement for us to make with a category. Also, I think you just overlooked this, but Category:Birds of the Madrean sky islands and Category:Birds of Sierra Madre Occidental can not belong to Category:Endemic birds of Western Mexico. ×Meegs 13:23, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

         I agree that the category is still defective. I was just trying to fix it in the short term. Maybe these categories need to be renominated for further discussion. (I am working on other nominations at the moment.) From my attempts at cleaning up the category, I noted that a large number of birds have ranges that are restricted to the southwestern North America. Maybe that can be used in a category name? Dr. Submillimeter 20:11, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

         If you needed to define "contained ecosystems" for Mexico, then Western, Central, and Eastern would apparently be the way to go, as in Howell and Webb (provided you define "Eastern" as "Gulf" and "Western" as "Pacific"—Howell's "Western Mexico" goes all the way east to the Guatemalan border). There are indeed a lot of birds found only in the southwestern U. S. and Mexico (and maybe Central America), but I'm really not sure any categories smaller than continents are sufficiently well defined, as you both say. Maybe North versus sub-Saharan Africa is.

         The Madrean sky islands and the Sierra Madre Occidental are both part of Western Mexico, but if we want categories for their endemics, I think they should be set up as sub-categories, and only the smallest relevant one should be listed. Which I think is what you're suggesting, Meegs.

         My suggestion would be to have geographical categories only for continents and oceans, with only "endemic" categories for smaller regions. Is there a guideline for how many articles a category should potentially have? E.g., if an island has exactly one endemic bird, or two, should there be a category for endemic birds of that island? —JerryFriedman 23:07, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

         Categories with few articles may be kept if they are part of a larger hierarchy. That would definitely be the case for hierarchy of categories for the endemic fauna of specific islands. Dr. Submillimeter 11:38, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

         Inclusive categories

         For the inclusive (not the endemic) cats, three of us have suggested above merging all regions so that we have just one for each continent. Dr. S has pointed out to me that in two discussions about Africa last month, here and here, some of the opposition was solely about the combination of sub-Saharan Africa with Northern Africa. There is a lot of utility in keeping them separate, but as soon as we allow any continent to be split, we lose the ability to use the by continent label for the parent cat and keep the door closed on all manner of smaller regions. A better solution than continents is to use the WWF's eight ecozones. Similar to continents, using the ecozones would guarantee that no species, including boar, will be in more than 6 or 7 cats. ×Meegs 14:12, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

         The only problems with these ecozones is that the terms are not going to be recognized by the general public. Palearctic and Neotropic are much less meaningful than "Eurasia" and "South America". We could try describing the complex ecozones in layman's terms (e.g. Neotropic would be "South and Central America"). If we do not use the layman's terms, people will tend to recreate the continent and country categories anyway. Dr. Submillimeter 22:46, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

         Good point, and Palearctic would be almost impossible to describe succinctly (even "Northern Africa and Eurasia, excluding south and southeast Asia" isn't quite right). I think we'd do best to decide the set of zones before we proceed. Our wishlist seems to be partitions that are few in number, have ecological significance, are widely recognizable, and discourage subdivision. ×Meegs 11:27, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

         Category:Fauna of Europe by region

         I launched the nomination to merge this and its subcategories to Category:Fauna of Europe. Although we are still discussing what the final categories should look like, it seemed like this merge was a logical choice regardless of whether we sort fauna by ecozones or continents. If we decide to sort by ecozones, then we can just merge Category:Fauna of Europe into Category:Fauna of the Palaearctic later. If we decide to sort by continent, then this category will be OK. However, I think something needs to be done. Reform of these categories stalled out in Oct 2006. We should not let the reform stall out again. Dr. Submillimeter 17:46, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

         Categories with almost no articles

         Looking through Special:Categories, I see a very large number of categories with only one or two articles. What is the policy on these? Every category has to start somewhere, but it still feels to me like a waste of resources if a category does not have at least three entries or possibly more. If CfD is not proper, should {{Popcat}} be added to all categories with such a low population? — CobraWiki ^{( jabber | stuff )} 04:44, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

         • There is no specific guideline on this. As a general rule, a category should have a potential for many articles. If the article is a part of a series, then having only one or two articles is reasonable. A category with one or two articles that does not have growth potential and is not a part of a series can be brought up at CfD. If you are new and you do this, I'd suggest that you only do this for one category and use any feedback, either negative or positive, to decide on how to proceed with additional categories. Vegaswikian 06:09, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

           Note that there are category structures for which even one article categories are fine as well, for example subcats of Category:Albums by artist. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:02, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

           That's a definite. Single categories, however, can be reviewed to see what the articles within are. This can be helpful to look around, because there are many categories which don't belong, and many only have one member. Alex43223 ^{Talk | Contribs | E-mail | C} 01:28, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

         Speedy merging

         How do I propose a speedy merge? There is mention of it, but then only a speedy renames section. Shouldn't there be a separate template for speedy merges? No such template is mentioned. And where should I put the request? --greenrd 23:43, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

         • Use speedy rename. A merge is a rename where the target already exists. Vegaswikian 01:13, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
         • (edit conflict) A speedy merge implies that one of the categories should be speedily deleted. So just follow the speedy delete process of the category that you think needs to go, and mention the category into which it should be merged. If the category qualifies for speedy deletion, the merge would likely not be a problem. Is this what you meant, or am I not understanding the question? -- SamuelWantman 01:16, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

         It would be nice to have such criteria spelled out on the main WP:CFD page. Dr. Submillimeter 08:33, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

         Notices

         I added a bit of detail on notices; it would be helpful to include relevant wikiprojects, and to indicate who has been notified (as is done with the FARC process). Sam 13:23, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

         Proposed Change

         I'd like to propose a rule change here, which is that where someone proposes deletion of a significant category (e.g., one with more than, say, 25 entries or a non-stub principal article), that deletion only occur after the proposer documents notification of the category creator, at least one relevant wikiproject, and any major contributors. I think it makes sense before undoing someone's work that there be notice and a chance to respond. There are similar notices provided as part of the FAR/FARC process, which works fairly efficiently. Sam 14:55, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

         I'm afraid that this seems a little too much like an excess of bureaucracy to me. I'm certainly in favour of the creator being informed as a matter of courtesy, however I don't think that he/she have any special claim (WP:OWN), especially if the category was created some time ago. Likewise with WikiProjects, always assuming one exists that covers the category in question. I'm also unsure as to what constitutes a 'major contributor' so far as categories are concerned. Is it someone who has made a lot of edits on the category page? Is it someone who has been enthusiastic in adding the category in question to articles? The first is (usually) a fairly trivial attribute, and the second would take all day to research.

         Now, don't take this to mean that I don't favour publicising debates—I certainly do where appropriate. I just wouldn't be terribly keen to see it made compulsory, as a hoop to be jumped through before action can be taken. Creep of red tape and complexity of procedure ought to be avoided as far as is possible.

         Xdamr^talk 16:15, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

         • That's a WP:PERENnial proposal. The perennial answer is that mandatory warnings are excessive red tape, and that the remedy is to keep categories you find important on your watchlist; that's what it's there for. >Radiant< 16:50, 15 March 2007 (UTC)