Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 March 24

March 24[edit]

"By-source categories"[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: Move to talk page and rename. It's not a defining characteristic but it's valid metadata. >Radiant< 09:49, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Consolidating discussion: Let's do this thing properly, and discuss the general principle in one place, rather than nnn different discussions. Jheald 08:43, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete More by-source categories for deletion per recent precedents (e.g., here, here, and here). Overcategorization. Not a defining characteristic of the articles so categorized. Most sources don't have categories, which is a good thing. If we had categories for all sources each article’s important categories would be lost in a sea of by-sources categories. Carlossuarez46 23:16, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep or switch to talk-page usage. You obviously haven't been involved much in WP:MEA (one of the largest projects on Wikipedia), otherwise you'd understand the importance of these categories for editors. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-25 00:26Z
- See my comment below. Talk pages are fine, but there needs to be some sort of categories for WP:MEA to even continue functioning for some of these sources. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-25 08:30Z
Wouldn't it be better to put these categories on talk pages instead of deleting them? — coel acan — 00:42, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, that's the best solution. Unfortunately some unknowing vote closer may come along and just decide to delete everything, wiping out the categories and their contents, losing all track of our progress on creating articles from those sources. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-25 08:35Z
Delete as category clutter. AshbyJnr 01:02, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Repurpose to categorise talk pages I don't propose to paste this for all of the 'categorisation by source' nominations here today—life is too short—but I do hope that it will be taken into account for all of them.

We would probably all agree that these categories are non-defining characteristics for the subjects of the articles in question, yet they do serve some purpose for editors. I agree that it is inappropriate for them to be present on the main article page, distracting and often overwhelming, as they do, from the main encyclopaedic categories.

These categories are effectively internal Wikipedia categorisation, categorisation which is for the benefit of contributors, not general readers. Why do we not treat them like this? Repurpose the categories so that they categorise the talk page rather than the article itself. This is in line with the approach that we already take for WikiProject categorisation, is there any reason that we should not adopt it for these 'source' categories as well?

Xdamr^talk 01:38, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to hear Brian's response to User:Xdamr's suggestion, which sounds quite sensible to me. A Musing (formerly Sam) 01:57, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Me too! Brian's comment is unhelpfully cryptic; it would more useful for him to explain their importance rather than merely asserting it. Xdamr's suggestion sounds good to me, but I'd like to hear a response from Brian or someone else at WP:MEA. I will leave a message there. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:26, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Xdamr; they should be moved to the talk page. I was only following previous precedent when I started putting categories in the article space, but the talk page makes more sense. In any case, Deleting does nothing but severely hinder WikiProject Missing Articles. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-27 14:22Z

Keep
- Regarding FS1037C: Helpful to find articles that were copied verbatim and not updated to normal prose yet. See Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica for instance.
- Why destroy information? What is it hurting? Plus, some of these help to find articles that were copied verbatim and not updated to normal prose yet. See Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica for instance. I don't see any reason why any of them should be deleted. — Omegatron 04:20, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - We have a category for just that purpose, Category:1911 Britannica articles needing updates which is not up for deletion. Carlossuarez46 15:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Rename to Category:Wikipedia articles using information from (source) and use on talk pages only (preference), or Delete - The articles in this category are generally unrelated. However, this could be useful for maintenance purposes if placed on the articles' talk pages. If that is too complicated, then deletion is probably best; I see no reason to keep this maintenance category on the main article pages. Dr. Submillimeter 08:27, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - Note that I altered my vote slightly to address all the categories. Dr. Submillimeter 09:06, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Talk pages are fine by me. There needs to be some sort of categorization, or there's really no way for us to keep track of what entries we've covered and what entries we haven't. I use Category:Cyclopaedia in particular almost all the time. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-25 08:30Z
Question: Is there a bot which can transfer the categories to the talk pages, or does it have to be done by someone sitting down to a few long AWB sessions? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:25, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Needs to be maintained by a bot, if the cats are to remain reliable (eg when users copy in new bits of maths articles from PlanetMath, etc). Jheald 11:44, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all as non-defining characteristic. Mowsbury 10:49, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment It may not be a defining characteristic w.r.t. the subject of the article, but it is a defining characteristic of the text. Jheald 10:56, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Disagree these are left even when the text has been so modified that none of the original remains. Carlossuarez46 15:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Move to talk pages and Rename and Automatically generate. Since these cats are about the text rather than the subjects, the appropriate place for them is the talk pages. The cats are at the moment automatically generated by short template tags like {{1911}}. This must continue, if the cats are to remain reliable. A bot is therefore needed which will routinely scan the template "what links here" list of pages for changes, and add the cat tag to the relevant talk pages automatically.

With regard to naming, if the cats are moved to the talk pages, there is less pressure on the shortness of the cat names. I suggest that the cats are systematically renamed to the form Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from (foo), as already used for Britannica 1911 and some others; and that these cats are then gathered together under Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from reusable sources, by source. Existing problems caused by the current too-short names can be seen in the comments for Category:General Biography and Category:Based on Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia below. Jheald 11:11, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment One enhancement that might be built into such a bot would be to get it to read a word or words after the template tag, and add them to the category name, so eg {{foo|unrevised}} would categorise to Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from (foo), unrevised, or {{bar|updated}} would categorise to Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from (bar), updated. I could imagine this might be quite useful. Jheald 11:34, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Rename all to Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from (foo) for clarity per Jheald, and encourage this important project to train a bot to do the necessary housekeeping in applying these tags to talk pages and removing them from article pages. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:19, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Most of these articles using public domain text have large portions of text from these sources. The use of the proposed categories for deletion here helps to defend against charges of plaigarism as we are acknowleding the source of the text. Many of the articles I have been adding talk pages to from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships have never been touched after creation and are straight cut and paste jobs with categories added at the bottom. Most users will never visit the talk page. How are they to know the original source? If these categories are deleted, we will need another way to indicate the original source to help avoid more negative publicity on the "Wikipedians are plagiarists" front. LarryQ 14:27, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - You could just use a "Reference" section with a citation for the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. When I cite books, websites, and journal articles, that is all I do. I do not need to add categories to indicate that I used the Astrophysical Journal or the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database as references. Dr. Submillimeter 14:39, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - True. However, this will require that people go back to all of these sources and add reference pages to existing articles using them. If there is a bot that can do this great. We have to acknowledge the original source. LarryQ 14:47, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - No it won't. These categories are added by templates, which are not up for deletion. Therefore I don't think you have any reason to be concerned. Wimstead 14:58, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - Correct. The templates must not be deleted, as they defend WP from charges of plagiarism. However, the categories are useful, both for maintenance, but also for browsing material of a known standard. They should remain, at least on the talk pages. Jheald 15:16, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all or at least move to the talk pages. The addition of large amounts of out of date material to Wikipedia is not something to be encouraged. I guess that when Wikipedia was starting out, it was a good way to get a reasonable amount of material together quickly, but now the disadvantages of important incomplete or anachronistic material outweight that to my mind. Wimstead 14:57, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment In my experience, if you browse articles in any of these categories, you will find material of a consistently higher standard, better written, more complete, and more balanced, than an awful lot of WP articles. Yes, readers should be aware that new information may since have come to light; but even so, these articles represent a commonality of standard, and there is value to being able to easily browse between them. Jheald 15:15, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- "The addition of large amounts of out of date material to Wikipedia is not something to be encouraged." This isn't about deleting the out-of-date material. It's about categorizing the material as out-of-date. You're proposing we remove the tag that says "this material is out of date" and let it blend in with the rest of our content. — Omegatron 16:37, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all as non-defining clutter. Hawkestone 16:32, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. What is the need for this information as a category? If it is to only identify that the material only came from the source, then this should be noted via a template. The 'what links here' link from the toolbox would list the articles that are sourced. Is there any encyclopedic reason to categorize articles by where we sourced them? We don't categorize material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress used for many members in the US congress. I'm leaning delete and leaving it as a reference like most other sources. Before I decide, I'll ask, is there any reason that these need to be treated any differently then almost every other source by having a category? Vegaswikian 19:46, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: There's no clickable link on the page to the template, so a user can't easily get from the page to the template's 'what links here' link. Also note that this isn't just about the sources of a fact being referenced, this is about articles where verbatim lifting of substantial chunks of text. Jheald 19:58, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica should be added to the list. — Omegatron 04:26, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep or Delete together with Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. Don't see much difference. Kmorozov 04:57, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete' where there is a reference; Keep where there is not. In many cases, the source is identified only by the category, and deleting the category will result in a loss of idenifying information about the source of articles. A Musing (formerly Sam) 16:08, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all These categories do not convey any information about the subject matter of the articles. Casperonline 01:57, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- That's not their purpose (at least not for the ones I use). They're used as part of WP:MEA, and deleting the categories will destroy our progress-tracking for some of these sources. At least change your vote to move to talk page. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-27 14:18Z
  - If every source had such a category for someone's project, the main space would be awash in meaningless categories. Put links to the titles of all articles on a project page and work it from there. Like I've done for Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, (see User:carlossuarez46/Smithlist) rather than add a category that mucks up the mainspace. Carlossuarez46 16:48, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The only one of these I come across is the 1911 EB, and readers need to be told the information comes from there so that they don't think WP editors write like that. Templates will take up too much room, and the category is the easiest way to find & update them. It is, unfortunately, very much a defining characteristic of most of the articles with it on. Johnbod 03:29, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The template tells them that, and it exists independent of the category. Wilchett 02:11, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all The categories convey no information that is not given by the template, and are an undue intrusion of editorial issues into the user experience. They are also potentially misleading, giving a patina of authority to articles which may have been vandalised or otherwise rendered inaccurate since the material was imported (though in some cases the material is seriously out of date and unreliable to begin with) .Wilchett 02:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]