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February 24[edit]

Category:F4 Eurocup 1.6 drivers[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: rename to Category:French F4 Championship drivers. We have no consensus to delete, but we should get the name right.--Mike Selinker (talk) 03:02, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Category:F4 Eurocup 1.6 drivers (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Nominator's rationale: Delete. WP:Overcategorization, WP:Notability. Minor, fourth tier motor racing series. Main article has less than one hundred words describing what this series is. If a motor racing series has so little text describing what it is, how can it be important enough to justify a category for its drivers? Falcadore (talk) 00:00, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS doesn't give that justification much in the way of credibility. Secondly, if it is not a minor series why is its article only 93 words long? That suggests very strongly it is a minor series. If the series is not minor, the main article should establish that. All you can really tell from the current main article is that it exists, or existed. By creating a category of its drivers there is a certain amount of cart coming before the horse, ie, the trivia has begun before the inherent notability of the series has been established.
Also the comparison is flawed, Formula Ford is not a series, it is a 30+ year old category which has had over a dozen series the world over, but regardless, Formula Ford's category is not a defence, as it may just as equally suggest the Formula Ford category should be deleted as well. This is the essence of OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, it does not matter whether other categories are notable or not, Category:French F4 Championship drivers has to justify its own existance, regardless of other categories. You appear to fail to understand this principle. All you have really said, is "I want to keep it," and you need a better justification than that. --Falcadore (talk) 11:13, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Julliard School of Music alumni[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: merge. We have frequently placed alumni of a school that changed its name into the category for its current name. That seems to be what's going on here.--Mike Selinker (talk) 03:51, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Merge Category:Juilliard School of Music alumni into Category:Juilliard School alumni.
Nominators rational These are the same school. These are really duplicate categories where one was made the sub-section of the other, but they essentially cover the same thing.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:21, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • NOTE - THIS HAS BEEN DEBATED BEFORE in 2007. You must check this (via "what links here") when doing a nom. Johnbod (talk) 02:07, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment According to their website they have "divisions" for dance, drama, and music, etc. For alot of the larger universities, we do have sub-categories for medical, law school, etc. But the nominator may be right that this is not needed in this case, I don't know. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 00:29, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Divisions are not schools. Language is inportant. Juilliard School of Music was the official name until 1969, Juilliard School after that. There are a few cases where alumni of an institution are broken down by historic school name like this, but very few. In the cases where this is actually what was intended it is explicitly spelled out in the category headings that this is what is going on. Even the usefulness of some of the historic name of institution categoriation that does exist is not clear, and the vast majority of higher education institution name changes are seen as minor enough to not merit a seperate category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Upmerge I don't think separate school subcats is ideal for a smaller school. RevelationDirect (talk) 01:20, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A small school with 2 very big alumni cats, totalling 460 articles! Please clarify your point. Johnbod (talk) 02:07, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Upmerge I've seen both categories and I've wondered this issue before to myself. There is no article for Juilliard School of Music, which redirects to Juilliard School, and even that doesn't seem to have enough material to fork off to create a standalone article for the School of Music. Given that, it would appear that an upmerge is entirely appropriate. Alansohn (talk) 02:19, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Alansohn, that is a very good point. It will be noted that in cases where there is a seemingly similar sub-category such as Category:Eastman School of Music alumni who are a sub-category of Category:University of Rochester alumni, Eastman School of Music has a distinct article from University of Rochester. The same can be said for the relations of Category:J. Reuben Clark Law School alumni and Category:Brigham Young University alumni with both J. Reuben Clark Law School and Brigham Young University having articles. The same can also be said for Category:Harvard Business School alumni and Category:Harvard University alumni, as well as various law, medical, business and other sub-discipline institutions carrying the name of the parent institution. I had never really been sure that there was actually any difference between Juilliard School and Juilliard School of Music. I had always seen it as somewhat similar to the New England Conservatory verses New England Conservatory of Music issue, although it appears slightly differnet. However Juilliard is all focused on performing arts, whereas most universities have broad focuses. The exceptions that we maybe should look into are Category:Rush Univeristy alumni and its sub-categories and the category Category:University of St. Mary of the Lake alumni.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:10, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The absence of a parent article for the school of music, accompanied by the lack of content to create one in the parent article clinches it for me. I think that a category may be appropriate if a parent article exists for a school within a university, but it is almost certainly not appropriate when the article for the subsidiary school does not exist. Alansohn (talk) 05:22, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Oppose per the arguments of myself and others last time. It is not about the main article, but about the parent categories that will be appropriate, and about its size. Johnbod (talk) 02:07, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment If Juilliard School of Music is a distinct enough entitty and important enough to have a seperate article, than it should be more than just a redirect. Every other case is more than just a redirect, so such upmerging makes sense. The only parent category other than "Juilliard School alumni" is "Alumni by fine arts school in the United States" which clearly applies to Juilliard School as a whole. It appears that if we merge these two categories we will have 460 people in the category Juilliard School alumni, which is less than 10% of those in Category:Harvard University alumni ignoring all the sub-categories in the later, and actually significantly below Category:Harvard Law School alumni or Category:Harvard Business School alumni. Harvard is the extreme case, but there are probably at least 25 university alumni categories with over 500 entries, so upmerging is not going to make this category unrully. In Category:Alumni by university or college in New York there are five cases of larger categories and then there is the subcategory Category:Columbia University alumni that includes Category:Columbia Law School alumni that is bigger than 460.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:57, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed it seems, oddly, we have no scheme for "Musicians by conservatoire" or similar. But we should. This "no main article" argument cuts no ice with me. Johnbod (talk) 04:21, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Juilliard School of Music is not a sub-division of Juilliard School. It is the name official name of Juilliard School pre-1969. However Juilliard School began in 1905 as the Institute of Musical Art. Juilliard does appear to have at least a Drama Division, but it is unclear from the article if all music is a division at the same level as Drama or if Drama has multiple divisions. The statement that Juilliard School of Music alumni were "Musicians who attended from Juilliard School" would make it on the level of Category:Harvard Medical School alumni being descibed as "doctros who attended Harvard". Harvard Medical School alumni are people who attended Harvard Medical School. They do not have to be doctors, they can be people who died in medical school, dropped out of medical school, finished medical school but never became doctors or so on. At the same time a doctor who went to the undergraduate program of Harvard College, or who studied at Harvard Law School, Harvard Business School, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard School of Engineering, Harvard Dental School or even Harvard School of Public Health would be mischaracterized is called a "Harvard Medical School alumni". It does not matter if a doctor is a vascular surgeon who has performed heart surgery on six continents, if he only was a Harvard student at "Harvard School of Public Health" he is mis-categorized in the category "Harvard Medical School alumni". Thus it appears that anyone who only attended "Juilliard School" after 1969 is mischactegorized by being placed in the category "Juilliard School of Music alumni" (and why this name changeustifies two categories when the change of Howard College to Samford University does not, just to give one example of a much more drastic name change, is a worthwhile question). Even if "Juilliard School of Music" is still a sub-program name for some of Juilliard School (sort of like how Carnegie Institute of Technology is both the name of one of the two institutions merged to form Carnegie Mellon University and also the current name of one of CMU's componant colleges) the earlier description of who goes in the category would be wrong. A musician who goes to Juilliard's drama division would be out while a person who studies piano at Juilliard but has not touched the instument since should still be in. Even the not based on education program athletes categories would not support seeing the Juilliard School of Music alumni category as a parallel because in the case of the athletes categories it is based on the person having been an NCAA athlete (or equal level predecessor organization) in a sport, or more often a particular sport. Thus people who never played football after college still belong in categories like "Michigan Wolverines football players" while someone who is famous for playing baseball but was not on a colleges baseball team should not be categorized as a baseball player with that college.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:06, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The pre-college level instuction programs at Juilliard have always been seperate and distinct from the college level programs there, yet some students who attended Juilliard at the pre-college levels have been categorized as students of it as if they were higher education students there. This should not be the case, a good precedent that comes to mind quickly being the fact that Category:Hunter College High School alumni is not a sub-category of Category:Hunter College alumni. Thus this category was larger than it ought to have been. I have tried to fix this problem among others.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:50, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • It should also be noted that for some people who seem to have been educated at Juilliard School of Music while its name was such the "alma mater" listing in the article is The Juilliard School, making a consistent notion that these are distinct designations even less likely.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:55, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The totals I calculated above that would result from merging these categories are not only wrong because they included some mis-identified pre-collegiate alumni, but also because there were some articles in both categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 05:18, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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

Category:United States Air Force Academy graduates and Category:United States Naval Academy graduates[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: merge and rename.--Mike Selinker (talk) 03:02, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Merge Category:United States Naval Academy graduates into Category:United States Naval Academy alumni
Rename Category:United States Air Force Academy graduates to Category:United States Air Force Academy alumni
Nominators rational These are as far as I can tell the only two categories that use "graduates" instead of "alumni". These is no clear reason for this deviation from the 200+ other categories that are somewhere under the general heading Category:Alumni by university or college in the United StatesJohn Pack Lambert (talk) 22:12, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the case of the Naval Academy both categories are populated. It is not clear that people in the alumni category in all cases did not graduate. Some may have been placed there mainly because of uniformity.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:14, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. No reason to make a distinction between alumni and graduates. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:50, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Web animation authors[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: Delete. Timrollpickering (talk) 17:27, 7 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Web animation authors (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Nominator's rationale: Looking at the contents of this underpopulated category, it seems to me that it either duplicates Category:Flash artists, or groups animators whose work appears on the web with people like Stan Lee (whose work appears across all media and so isn't a web animation author in any meaningful way, I'd argue). I don't think we should rename to Category:Web animators, I really just think delete. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:18, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

College team name category regularity[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: rename.--Mike Selinker (talk) 03:02, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

UTEP basketball[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: rename.--Mike Selinker (talk) 03:02, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Scandinavian Jews[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: delete.--Mike Selinker (talk) 03:02, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Scandinavian Jews (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Nominator's rationale: Delete Adds an unnecessary level of categorization. There are no comparable categories for Scandinavian people by origin or ethnicity. As far as I know, there is no specifically strong historical bond between these communities so grouping them together is of little significance. A telling sign is that there is no article on Jews in Scandinavia. Contrast this with, say, Spanish and Portuguese Jews). Pichpich (talk) 13:34, 24 February 2011 (UTC) Pichpich (talk) 13:34, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Jewish categories should be based on groupings that create a logical connection of the Jews so clased. There is no evidence that there is a defining unity in the history of scandinavian Jews. The category also would force a determination of what is Scandinavia, that without some historically unifying history will be difficult. Should Icelandic Jews, Faroese Jews, Finish Jews and such be included?John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:53, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Given the history of Scandinavia, I can imagine a way in which the category could be useful - what is a Jew who was born in Helsinki in 1600? - but the category is only being used to hold country subcategories, indicating that there seems to have been no problem deciding. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:37, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. There's no need for a Scandinavian category given that we have individual country categories and the debate about which countries are actually in Scandinavia. Cordless Larry (talk) 01:34, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Hardcore music groups[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: Rename. Recommend a manual pruning after the rename to recategorise as appropriate. Timrollpickering (talk) 17:40, 7 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Propose renaming
Nominator's rationale: So that it is more clear/accurate and so it fits with the main article hardcore techno. Munci (talk) 10:24, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment If there are miscategorised groups then they should be recategorised as appropriate. The appropriate category for hardocre punk bands is Category:Hardcore punk groups. Also, I'm not sure if there's a better way to add the second nomination. Munci (talk) 19:26, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:American basketball players of European descent[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: relisting at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2011_March_5#Category:American_basketball_players_of_European_descent. --Mike Selinker (talk) 06:56, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Category:American basketball players of European descent (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Nominator's rationale: Procedural nomination due to the late, and uncountered, argument that this one was different than the rest of the 20+ categories it was nominated with. Courcelles 09:28, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support this seems to be an unnotable intersection of ethnicity and nationality and profession.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:49, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. White Americans (also known as European Americans) have a unique history in basketball. White Americans are a distinct and significant minority in the NBA and other professional leagues. The topic has been covered in the media on many occasions. Someone even started an all White basketball league. The topic has also been covered at this magazine and on Outside The Lines, a popular ESPN show covering issues in sports. Given all of this, it is no more inappropriate to keep this category than Category:African American basketball players or Category:Jewish basketball players (because of the unique contribution of Jews to the sport).--TM 15:19, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"White American" and "European American" are not the same. These terms are not interchangeble. On one side the US Census currently says whites are people with their ancestral origin in "Europe, the Middle East or North Africa". Thus White Americans by census standards include Arab Americans, Egyptian Americans, Armenian Americans, Moroccan Americans and probably Iranian Americans, none of which are by any strech of the immagingion "European Americans". On the other hand historical and prsdent use of the term "White Americans" often excludes Albanian Americans, Jews, Italian Americans (I can prove this with various citations to dating website race classification schemes) and Russian Americans, all of which are without question European Americans.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:08, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
While they may not technically be the same, in common parlance they are the same. Look at a player like Jason Kidd or Joakim Noah. Both have African and European heritage and they are rightfully categorized in both the African American and this category. However, if this is deleted, there will be no category for a player like Larry Bird, who was once identified as a "Great White Hope" while the Jewish and African American categories will persist.--TM 20:16, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately that is not how Wikipedia's naming conventions are currently working, see Category:American people of European descent and Category:American sportspeople of European descent--TM 02:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What is the rationale behind keeping Category:African American basketball players and not this? Both have a unique history in the sport, just in very different ways.--TM 03:47, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not in favor of that either, and were it up for deletion as part of a global nomination, I might argue for removing it. In fact, I already did.--Mike Selinker (talk) 15:07, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A strong consensus exists that, per WP:CATGRS, "Dedicated group-subject subcategories, such as Category:LGBT writers or Category:African American musicians, should only be created where that combination is itself recognized as a distinct and unique cultural topic in its own right." I have shown above that being an American basketball player of European descent is, in fact, a distinct and unique cultural topic in its own right. If people are creating minor leagues, writing about and consistently noting in pop culture about it, Wikipedia's consensus is to keep the intersection.--TM 15:20, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You've not shown it to my satisfaction, that's for sure. The path of white Americans in basketball is exactly the same as it is in nearly every other field: whites completely owned the environment, then blacks started to make inroads, and now they share the environment. The only thing different about this path is the supereminence of blacks at the end of that path, which does not make the white Americans' path any more notable..--Mike Selinker (talk) 15:52, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How many articles on the topic do you need? Slate.com wrote this piece on White American basketball players. The New York Daily News and Huffington Post extensively covered the opening of the All-White league above with long discussions on the topic. Noted sports commentator Michael Wilbon wrote an op-ed about White NBA players and White players in general. What else do you want? Look at the stories and think about whether you really think it is not a 'distinct and unique cultural topic'.--TM 16:02, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I do not. I think I've adequately stated my reasons as to why. YMMV.--Mike Selinker (talk) 16:19, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have no idea what YMMV means, but I think we need more commentators given that you and I disagree and Johnpacklambert only commented on the White vs. European issue.
Sorry, it means "your mileage may vary." That is, you may disagree. Which you do. No harm done.--Mike Selinker (talk) 19:42, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Also, can you undelete and repopulate the category pending the outcome of this discussion?--TM 15:23, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ugh. I thought I'd caught that before it deleted. It is restored now.--Mike Selinker (talk) 15:49, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Cornerstone structures[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: delete.--Mike Selinker (talk) 03:02, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Cornerstone structures (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Nominator's rationale: Delete. This category is scoped as "structures with engraved Cornerstones," but that hardly seems like a defining characteristic considering my alma mater alone has dozens of such buildings. On the flip side, such a thing would be difficult to verify in RS.- choster (talk) 05:16, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:American military personnel[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: do not rename. However, the nominator is correct about those subcategories, which should be nominated for renaming.--Mike Selinker (talk) 03:02, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Propose renaming Category:American military personnel to Category:United States military personnel
Nominators rational: Rename. The defining unity is not the nationality of these individuals but that they are members of the United States military. If however people want to stay with "American" as the name, the sub-categories should all be renamed to reflect this, thus Category:United States military personnel of the Boxer Rebellion among others should be renamed.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:54, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Alumni of Stow College[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: no consensus. Of the editors who expressed a preferred option, there was a clear preference to keep the category at its current title. However, several other editors expressed concerns that a decision should depend on whether categs for people educated at FE colleges were to be viewed as following the convention for higher education, or for schools, and noted that FE colleges perform some of the functions of schools and some of those of a place of Higher Education. The interested parties may want to have a wider discussion on naming categories for people educated at further education colleges, but in the meantime this "no consensus" close defaults to keeping the category at its current title. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:55, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Propose renaming Category:Alumni of Stow College to Category:Former pupils of Stow College
Nominator's rationale: Rename. Few colleges in the UK rarely, if ever, have alumni. Former pupils is often used in Scotland, where the college in quetion is. DuncanHill (talk) 04:18, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
DuncanHill, I originally was going to use the form "people educated at Stow College". However, I noticed that Stow College is a further education college. Thus, the precedent for naming this category would seem to be Category:Edinburgh College of Art alumni, Category:Alumni of Burton College, possibly Category:Alumni of the Co-operative College, Category:Alumni of the Royal Agricultural College and Category:Alumni of Ruskin College among other examples.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:47, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The RAC is an HE college, Ruskin College is essentially an HE college, Edinburgh College of Art is an HE college, so not a great set of examples to choose. DuncanHill (talk) 04:56, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
However Burton College is a further education college. I am still unclear of the exact nature of further education colleges, what exact level of education they would be classified at. I am finding that few people have been classified by the further education college they attended so I am not sure what to say on this matter. My sense is that they are somewhat equivalent to "technical colleges" and "technical institutes" in the United States. See the section on the United States in the article Institute of Technology. What is clear to me is that further education colleges are not truly secondary institutions, and whether or not people educated at them can be called "alumni" is going to be an issue that needs to be considered in the broad contours of what terms should be used for what institutions. It appears to me that if you object to Category:Alumni of Stow College you should also object to Category:Alumni of Burton College. Beyond this, I have yet to find an example of a further education college where people educated there are in a category other than "People educated at FOO". Lastly, if the pupils verses students debate animates discussions of people educated at clearly secondary colleges, I can only expect it to be even more of an issue when we are discussing further education colleges.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:23, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think it will be less of a problem but your comment about "secondary colleges" reflects a very British mess that is near impossible to succinctly explain. There's a lot of confusion about the terminology for educational institutions across the UK, partially because Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own systems albeit with some similarities, partially because of a private/independent sector that's full of institutions going their own way (and some have a cross border pitch - for example Fettes College, a school in Edinburgh, follows the English not the Scottish education system), partially because of historic circumstances and partially because not everybody goes to every type of institution and the transfer ages can vary. The result is that a lot of institutions use words in their names that aren't necessarily the normal use for that type of institution - for instance "school" is virtually never used for a higher education institution but there's one called the "School of Oriental and African Studies". "College" is a similar term that's found in the name of a number of secondary level schools such as Fettes (and also in the name of a university) but nobody would actually call them "colleges" in the more general sense of the term. Similarly nobody would call an FE colleges "school".
Further education is particularly difficult to explain because it covers a broad span - as well as doing course also taught in schools such as Highers, FE colleges can also do university level courses such as Higher National Diplomas and a lot of vocational and adult education courses. Just in case that doesn't confuse enough there are also institutions of Higher education around that aren't actually universities and some institutions that are explicitly branded as both further and higher institutions. I don't know if any offer courses in explaining all this.
As for what people attending FE colleges are called, the legal situation is interesting. The text of the Further and Higher Education Act (Scotland) 1992 generally calls people educated at further education colleges "students" and includes the following clause (an amendment to the 1980 Education Act):
In sections 12 to 14 of this Act and in section 52 of this Act as it relates to the said section 13, any reference to a pupil shall include a reference to a student attending a college of further education within the meaning of section 36(1) of the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 1992.
That suggests to me there was a shift in the use of the terms and the earlier Act was amended accordingly (and it's usually easier to amend such Acts with definition clauses like the above rather than tediously inserting "or B" after every single incident of "A" in the text).
I don't think this is such a fierce matter compared to schools as there don't appear to be many localised names for the former students of particular colleges that complicate matters and the term student seems to be near universally used for FE in my experience. I'm honestly not sure how much "alumni" is used for FE but also it's rare to actually find discussion of former further education students, certainly compared to that for schools and universities, that would be usage. Timrollpickering (talk) 19:31, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • At a minimum I think we should get the opinions of someone who went to a further education college on the proper terminology.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:25, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep – let us preserve the admirable consistency in Category:Alumni by university or college in Scotland. In the Uk we are using 'alumni' for tertiary (post 18), a fiercely disputed hotchpotch of different terms for secondary (age 10-18), so let us use alumni for FE Colleges (post 16 I expect) - these are certainly not called 'pupils' in 2011. Occuli (talk) 13:13, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Appears to be a further education college, which usually have students, not pupils. "Alumni" is usually used for these colleges even in the UK. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • If someone thinks the naming of this category is off, they also need to argue we should move it from Category:Alumni by university or college in Scotland. It seems that as long as long as this institution is of such a nature that it belongs in that category, the ategory is appropriately named. Whether those who attended Further Education colleges belong in the above category or not I am unsure. It might be worth having a discussion of whether to move these categories. Should we leave this category as a sub-category as it currently is, move it to Category:Former pupils by school in Scotland or make it a direct sub-category of People by educational institution in Scotland with plans to make a seperate category for further education colleges once we get enough of them? I would suggest the first, but if alumni does not work here, I would favor the third because whatever further education colleges are they do not seem to be schools of the type that would have pupils.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:53, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose -- as a tertiary FE College, alumni is appropriate; pupils is not. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:05, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
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