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. Jafeluv (talk) 12:43, 1 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: There are at least three notable "Luther Colleges" by Wikipedia's current standards. As of right now, this category has representatives from the Iowa and Saskatchewan versions. The Iowa campus seems to be predominant, but I think splitting them off by location would be best. The other categories generated by the renaming would be Luther College alumni (Saskatchewan) and Luther College alumni (Victoria) to match with their page names.Canada Hky (talk) 23:16, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. I have never done this before. Should I change the nom, or does this just get discussed? Thanks for your input! Canada Hky (talk) 23:44, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That looks good to me. Thanks for your help! Canada Hky (talk) 14:17, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Rename per nom. It might be worth seeing if there are any other places that have in the past been known as Luther College. I think there is or was a Martin Luther College somewhere, and that could easily be shortened to "Luther College" in some usages.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:00, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My suspicions proved right. Martin Luther College is in New Ulm, Minnesota. There was also St. Paul-Luther College in St. Paul Minnesota, and a Luther College in Nebraska which merged with Midland Lutheran College, now Midland University. Alumni of the Nebraska institution will be put in this category if it is not renamed.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:04, 19 May 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.
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 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.
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. Jafeluv (talk) 12:44, 1 June 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.
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) 22:39, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale:Delete. The category is completely unnecescary. Everyone who has left a political party should be included in the party member category. Moreover, the insinuation that most people who left the US Democratic Party to become Republicans would be laughable to any number of prominent politicians. TM 19:36, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: obviously I am biased as the category's creator (by the way I wasn't given the courtesy of being notified of this CfD), but I believe it is not "unnecescary", and in fact is both a necessary and topical intersection. I removed the text (", who left the party, usually to become members of the Republican Party.") that TM disagreed with, but this text alone would not have sufficed to render the category worthless. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 00:42, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies for not notifying you. Using 'former' is anachronistic on Wikipedia. Isn't William Jennings Bryant, 19th century Democratic politician, also a former Democrat? We don't categorize people by what they are not or what they were formerly.--TM 17:41, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Someone who is deceased is a former everything, but "We don't categorize people by what ... they were formerly" is not entirely accurate: look at all the religious categories (i.e. Converts from .... to ....); the use of particular words is semantics. We have latitude in creating categories, although sometimes, as here, disagreements arise. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 22:18, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. What does "Moreover, the insinuation that most people who left the US Democratic Party to become Republicans would be laughable to any number of prominent politicians" mean exactly? That is where most former Democrats go, as far as I know. Which former Democratic politicians (have) joined the Green Party or the Communist Party or the Right to Life Party? If you are referring to the Dixiecrats, I had already referenced that in the text which you deleted. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 22:23, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, you forgot Tim Penny, who became an Independent, but that is a small minority of the cases, and in any event text related to the category can always be adjusted. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 00:05, 17 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You both forget the most prominent former Democrat ever, President Martin van Buren who in 1848 ran for president as the Free Soil Candidate. What about John Tyler who was elected Vice President on the Whig ticket, but had previously identified as a Democrat? Do you count Democrats starting from Jackson, or do you trace the party back to Jefferson? If you trace it to Jefferson than John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay belong here.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:23, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Categories aren't temporal ... we don't have "People formerly from Chicago" or "The Rolling Stones former members". This category also has definitional problems, as party affiliation can be a little more fluid than you think. Mike Gravel, for instance, likely still considers himself a Democrat in some senses. For an equivalent category of Republicans, how would you treat Ron Paul, who was a Republican member of the House, left and ran for president as a Libertarian, then got elected to the House as a Republican again? Is he a "former former Republican"? How would you treat Independent Democrats like Joe Lieberman? Wasted Time R (talk) 12:16, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Categories can be temporal: Former Roman Catholics, for example. As for "Mike Gravel, for instance, likely still considers himself a Democrat in some senses" -- this is an example of text that could never even be included in an article on Wikipedia (except possibly as a third party quotation) due to WP:POV, WP:SYNTHESIS, et al, so how can it be used as an argument here?
Obviously Paul is a Republican, and, unless he officially switched his party membership, Lieberman is a Democrat. There is no comparison to Rick Perry, Jesse Helms, Elizabeth Dole, Dick Morris, et al. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 12:30, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The religion analogy does not work. The complexity is that Lieberman ran as an Independent, not as a Democrat. He was not elected to office as a Democrat, so how is he a Democrat? Many of the founders of the Republican party belong in this category, as maybe does Martin van Buren since he ran for president on the Free Soil ticket, but previously served as a Democrat president. If we were to expand this to most other countries it would become laughable, can you imagine the type of "former X party members" we could putif we did this with Israeli political parties? Do not go there, down that road lies madness. Anyway, did Mrs. Dole ever hold office as anything besides a Republican? Paul is not obviously a Republican since he was the Libertarian Presidential Candidate in 1988. At a minimum this category should be named "Politicians who were formerly Democrats" and clearly limited to politicians who held office as Democrats and then switched political parties and held offices under a different party. We could also include people like Martin van Buren who ran for office with a new party but lost. However if someone never held office as a Democrat, like say Ronald Reagan or Orrin Hatch, the fact that they at one time identified as Democrats should not be relevant. Otherwise you would have to put Hilary Rodham Clinton in Category:Former United States Republicans because she publicly identified as a supporter of Goldwater in 1964 (when she was under 20-years-old and virtually no one cared).John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:14, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There is also the compleity of fusion candidates. William Jennings Bryan was endorsed by both the Populists and the Democrats. In New York most candidates run on the tickets of multiple parties, such as the Conservative and the Republican Party and maybe the Pro-Life party as well. Then there was a time in California where a candidate could run simultaneously in both parties, so do we count Earl Warren as a former Democrat because he ran on the Democrat ticket at times? We have not even touched the whole topic of Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose party yet. This category seems to have a debilitating presentist bias, the main defender seems unable to even deal with political complexities that date back to the 20th century.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:23, 19 May 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.
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) 22:39, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale:Rename. Guards Division is ambiguous, so rename it to include disambiguator. The last CFR discussion also resulted in a decision that something like this should be proposed. (except it said "British Army", so that's also an option.) 64.229.100.153 (talk) 07:04, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - In general terms the category should match the article name. The article name is Guards DivisionKernel Saunters (talk) 11:39, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's the articles that are causing the issue, they are ambiguous, fix this and the category name will become obvious. We have an article about the current division Guards Division and the previous organisations with the same name in article Guards Division (United Kingdom). Renaming this category which holds all the articles that concerning the Guards Division and has both of the previously discussed articles will compound this problem Kernel Saunters (talk) 20:24, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, the category name will remain ambiguous, meaning that the wrong articles will get categorized into it, since categories are not articles. 65.94.45.230 (talk) 05:33, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it will, there has been 3x Guards Division's in the UK. The right articles are currently categorised, that is not the issue Kernel Saunters (talk) 08:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Categories are not named so that you are required to read the contents of the category to determine what they are for, per precedent at CfD for renaming ambiguous categories. 65.95.13.213 (talk) 04:31, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ambiguity is a bigger issue in category names than in article names. While going to an article can usually easily show that it is the wrong one, going to a category might not inform the editor of this fact.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:24, 19 May 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.
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. It's very possible there's a better name for this category, but the only consensus seems to be to expand the abbreviation if it is used.--Mike Selinker (talk) 22:39, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale:Rename. Expand abbreviation. If the current form is kept, the capitalization on Dft needs to be looked at. If this rename succeeds, the children categories will also need to be renamed. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:43, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as is, as DfT (and yes, that's the right capitalisation). I have sympathy with wanting to spell it out in full, but, just like CIA is well known in the USA, it is unambiguous and well known in UK. This is quite a specialist categorisation, so I doubt that WP becomes more usable as a result of spelling it out in full. Ephebi (talk) 15:11, 5 May 2011 (UTC) (Changing my mind to reflect other countries' systems, such as German railway station categories)[reply]
I also considered using 'National Rail' in the name, but that is somewhat ambiguous. Those names work for the subcategories which will need nominating if this one passes. Are you suggesting that this one should be renamed to something like Category:Railway stations by category in the United Kingdom? I could go along with that. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:12, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately that is ambiguous... the uninitiated may ask "railway stations by what category? Wikipedia category perhaps?" That is why we need the "DfT" in there in one form or another. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:27, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Rename. CIA is well know world wide. People regularly claim groups in all sorts of countries have links to the CIA, and never feel a need to explain it. Department for transportation is not nearly as well known. The general rule is to avoid any abbreviation in category namess.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:08, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Rename per user Johnpacklambert rationale. Laurel Lodged (talk) 19:24, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Rename – DfT is not well-known in the UK. I have asked all 7 members of my family (UK) and none of them knew it. (DFT has several meanings, although admittedly few others would be involved in categorising railway stations.) Occuli (talk) 23:40, 5 May 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.
The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was:keep.--Mike Selinker (talk) 22:39, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale:Delete. This category has no objectively verifiable criteria, and thus is prone to endless abuse, POV pushing, and needless disputes. It's like having a category for "bad books about history" or "wrong historians." I discovered this category when it was added to Hitler's Pope. To be fair, that work has received its share of criticism; but that criticism, even when vitriolic, tends to be disagreement with the thesis of the work, not allegations of blatant falsification of sources, etc. Many of the other articles within this category are there because of similar subjective judgments. Wikipedia is not institutionally competent, nor should it be, to make these types of judgments. I note that some of the sub-categories do not suffer from this problem. For example, "Category:Holocaust denial" is capable of relatively objective inclusion criterion. "Category:Pseudoscience," while prone to many of these problems, is not quite as bad. This is a function of the difference between hard science and the humanities. Savidan 02:39, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
keep Even taking on board all the nominator's criticisms, I've found and used the category through an article tagged with it. Something describing this category is needed, which may as well be the category itself. MartinSFSA (talk)
Comment we have an article on the topic pseudohistory, which explains that it is pseudoscholarship in the field of history, so it can be renamed Category:Pseudoscholarship in the field of history, and the person category can be called Category:Practitioners of pseudoscholarship in the field of history. I say "field of history" because it needs to be clear that this is about the field, and not past entries in pseudoscholarship. As explained in the article, it is about works and people in the field who do not follow rigorous standards which are normally applied. So, if commentary from reliable sources indicate such breeches of standards have occurred, then categorization can be done, and it would be subjective of the editor, since we would be relying on the judgment of reliable sources and not our own. 64.229.100.153 (talk) 04:48, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The proposed changes just make this category name more verbose, and do nothing to address the problems I have identified. There is nothing objective about adding this category to articles just because one reliable source supports it. This is like adding the category "bad movies" to an article about a film because one reliable source gives it a bad review. So either you uncritically accept the judgment of what might be a minority view, or its subjective. Savidan 13:26, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
keep t seems like a valid category, any PoV issues can be resolved by strengthening category requirements and insisting on NPOV (IE requiring sources to state something is pseudohistorical for inclusion). We have other pseudo-science categories and I do not think NPOV requires us to not ever label. HominidMachinae (talk) 06:10, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I have no love for the book Hitler's Pope and will be the first to criticize Goldhagen for all sorts of methodological failures, as well as factual inaccuracies. However I know enough about history to know that most judgements on such matters are subjective. The methods of history do not lend themselves to consensus the way science does. Holocaust deniers are about the only well defined group that might be classified here. Historians recognize that the same events will have multiple interpretations, and there is no disciplinary standard of minimum competency. Some of the authors who engage most widely in presentism and deceptive quoting are praised as the greates scholars for their long foot notes. This would inevitably turn into a way to attack any writer who writes on a controversial subject, no matter how well they use sources.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:15, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are other categories widely called pseudohistory: the purported histories of the Holy Grail and the Spear of Destiny are two. Books like Holy Blood, Holy Grail are great examples of (admitted) pseudohistory. Likewise with many topic surrounding the rise and more occult aspects of the Nazi reich. 98.209.39.71 (talk) 20:10, 5 May 2011 (UTC) HominidMachinae (talk) 20:11, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as long as the articles exist in WP, then categories are needed for navigation to the articles. That is why categories exist. There is no valid reason advanced here to delete this category. Above discussion of the content of some articles is completely irrelevant to a discussion of categories.
Keep both categories with present names. While many amateurs and self-taught historians (likewise self-taught scientists) have made useful contributions, the combination of an amateur and an outlandish theory is an indication of pseudohistory. Move a number of authors/writers from Category:Pseudohistory to Category:Pseudohistorians; and Category:Holocaust deniers to be a subcategory of Pseudohistorians also. PS: I am not a historian! Hugo999 (talk) 01:35, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep If theories are described in reliable sources as "Pseudohistory", putting them in a category with that name seems to make sense. The fact that articles may be wrongly added to a certain category is no reason to completely delete the category. Qrsdogg (talk) 03:13, 11 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep The reason why I want the “Pseudohistory”- and “Pseudohistorians”-categories to remain on Wikipedia is because history (as with science) is not a democratic process. REAL historians do not come and say: ‘Alright we really like THIS idea let’s al go for it.’. REAL historians al least do their research and try to disprove their hypotheses before they confirm them. LarsJanZeeuwRules (talk) 13:18, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As can be seen from various discussions there is no clear definition of pseudohistory. Hugo999's term "outlandish theory" is not neutral. It seems to me to open this to a presentist attack on people who advocated discredited ideas. This still stikes me as along the lines of category names like "Cults" and "alleged x". There is too much potential POV involved and too little useful information. HominadMachinae's wanting to put studies about Nazi's and the occult here is also a dangerous precedent. There are some people who claim to write on the occult I would love to put here, but despite their misuse of sources, deliberate presentist use of language to decive and other such actions, they are respected as historians by some. If you want to group studies on Nazis and the occult or studies on alleged secret organizations controlling the course of history of Europe, create categories that focus on content, not methodology, issues.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:32, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This one is difficult. Pseudo-histories and pseudo-historians are definitely real topics, and cross-referencing is good for navigation, but are the terms sufficiently well-defined to function as categories, where a black-and-white categorisation applies to a mainspace article? I have posted a note at the well-watched (66) page Talk:Pseudohistory. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:58, 21 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
KeepThis is a term used in reliable sources, there are even books about it. The fact that like so many categories it may be subjective is irrelevant, it's a meaningful and useful term. Dougweller (talk) 04:25, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The objectively verifiable criteria do indeed exist as the main article explains. There isn't any value-statement in it, as much as some people might read into it; it simply means fringe theories in the field of history (e.g. those not accepted by main stream science) Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556> haneʼ 04:57, 31 May 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.
