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The result of the discussion was:upmerge.--Mike Selinker (talk) 22:44, 27 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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Category:Wikipedians who have signed Jimbo Wales' guestbook[edit]
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The result of the discussion was:Delete. עוד מישהוOd Mishehu 12:04, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale:Delete. This does not fit any of the items at Wikipedia:User categories#Appropriate types of user categories. It has been claimed to "group users by participation in Wikipedia", but I can't see how signing someone's guestbook, even Jimbo's, is a participation that in any way improves the encyclopedia. If anyone is interested in who has signed, they can always just look. Anomie⚔ 22:22, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Does not foster collaboration. VegaDark (talk) 04:52, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete ridiculous vanityCurb Chain (talk) 00:10, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - a "I signed Jimbo's guestbook" userbox (or the page icon the cat links from) would be/is nifty. A "I signed Jimbo's guestbook" category is not. - The BushrangerOne ping only 18:24, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, user categories are supposed to be limited to those which facilitate collaboration on the encyclopedia's content. "Wikipedians from a particular city" is fine, as it helps to build the network of Wikipedians who work on encyclopedic coverage of that city. "Wikipedians who have a particular hobby" is fine, and on and so forth. This, however, serves no collaborative purpose. Delete. Bearcat (talk) 22:46, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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Nominator's rationale: Per main article. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:09, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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The result of the discussion was:Rename. Dana boomer (talk) 02:01, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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Category:Members of Planning Commission of India[edit]
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Rename per nom. Needs a 'the'. Occuli (talk) 13:46, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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Category:Former Members of Planning Commission of India[edit]
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Upmerge. The category scheme isn't used to separate current titleholders from former ones; as far as categorization is concerned, once a member always a member. Bearcat (talk) 22:48, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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Category:Former members of the Polisario Front[edit]
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Nominator's rationale: Only one entry, which is a list--considering the obscurity of the topic, it's not likely to be filled any time soon (if at all.) Delete and upmerge. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:16, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I just created the category, it now contains two pages. Many entries to come. Tachfin (talk) 19:41, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Upmerge. The category scheme isn't used to separate current titleholders from former ones; as far as categorization is concerned, once a member always a member. Bearcat (talk) 22:49, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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I'm inclined towards deletion. It appears this Mark Stanley was a lighting designer only and describing him as a ballet designer seems very misleading. older ≠ wiser 14:38, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete main article deletedCurb Chain (talk) 18:02, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete – it would be absurd to categorise ballets by lighting person anyway. Occuli (talk) 13:57, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose — Whether the main article was deemed Wiki-worthy or not, Mark Stanley has designed several dozen ballets for New York City Ballet, a major company, and it is relevant to performing arts scholars to categorize productions (not just of ballets) by designer; costume, sets and lights. The Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center has just recently created an on-line database of lighting designs (Hair, Fall River Legend, A Chorus Line and Sunday in the Park with George). — Robert Greer (talk) 16:19, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks for the examples. It would be absurd to categorise Hair (musical) under 'Musicals with lighting design by Jules Fisher', although it would be perfectly OK to categorise '1968 Broadway run of Hair (musical)' (as an article or redirect) as such. Occuli (talk) 00:45, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Theatre, dance and opera designers often are responsible for more than one of the elements — although very rarely all three — so seperate categories for lights, sets and costumes have not been used and have never proposed. It is nonetheless invaluable to be able to look up productions by name of designer. — Robert Greer (talk) 18:21, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
But this is a ballet, not a production. One doesn't categorise Macbeth by people who have lit a production of it 400 years later. Occuli (talk) 16:08, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I have nothing to do with this category...I'm not sure as to why you emailed me about this, Robert Greer. bibliomaniac15 20:42, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Reply Your name appeared on Ballet project, which seemed to be a place to find a wide range of opinions concerning this. — Robert Greer (talk) 23:15, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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The result of the discussion was:no consensus.--Mike Selinker (talk) 22:46, 27 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale:Delete What could possibly be the purpose of tracking this? Note that it only tracks one infobox--the generic {{Infobox person}}--so that (e.g.) authors, such as (e.g.) George Orwell and Sylvia Plath aren't included, even though their articles have images of their signatures. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:13, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Question – would the category be more useful if the other infoboxes also filled it? I think the question here must be whether such a category would be useful if all biographies with signatures were included, and on that matter I have no opinion. --Stemonitis (talk) 08:57, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think the category could be useful if it contained all biographies, as a means of tracking signatures/finding one you're interested in. Of course, it would be largely redundant with commons:Category:Signatures... --PhilosopherLet us reason together. 11:16, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: It's a tracking category for the infobox parameter, nothing more - that much should be obvious from the category description and {{tracking category}} tag. I forget the specific reason why I added this to the template, though IIRC it was to monitor the physical size of sigantures within the infobox with a view to altering the default size and/or altering the template syntax. I'm not using this category at the moment nor am I likely to be in the near future, but it also isn't causing any harm. As the tag says, this isn't "part of the encyclopedia's categorization scheme". It's just a maintenance category. PC78 (talk) 11:35, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I believe the category was created because I objected to the use of the field in so many infoboxes for no reason other than the signature existed. The usual Wikipedia if-it's-a-fact-it-must-be-included. That said, I think I gave up later on doing anything about it (would have required discussion on Talk pages about changing the documentation as to when the field should and shouldn't be included). I still think it's an issue worth pursuing, but I confess to dropping the ball.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:37, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Purpose Per WP:NOHARM "it doesn't hurt anything" is an invalid argument--we could have an infinite number of tracking categories (e.g. Category:Articles without the word "melon") that serve no function, but we don't for good reason. If no one seems to know why this exists nor if anyone is actually monitoring this for any purpose, then it should be deleted. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:29, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sufficient function is given above, so your argument is also invalid. However, I have no specific objection to deletion as long as there is no prejudice against recreation at a later date should someone wish to resume work on this. PC78 (talk) 19:33, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Tracks a potentially useful technical bit of info, and is a hidden category, so it doesn't clutter or confuse non-technical users. - The BushrangerOne ping only 23:20, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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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) 19:32, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Categories erected for a single article (or daughter category) each, where the parent categories are sufficiently small. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:49, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A category for a genus with one or only a few species can never be large enough to be worthwhile.
The possible contrary argument that "such categories are part of a large overall accepted sub-categorization" is false: there is no agreement in e.g. WP:TOL to have a category for each genus; inspection of existing taxon categories quickly reveals that species articles are regularly categorized under e.g. the family where the genus has few species.
A side-issue which adds to point (1) is that taxoboxes provide a way of navigating based on the strict taxonomic hierarchy: there is no point in replicating this in the category system.
The option of redirection rather than deletion does not work properly for categories as opposed to articles; although there are categories which have been set up as "soft redirects" (e.g. Category:Agavaceae), having more than a few such is undesirable, since they require manual maintenance – Category:Wikipedia_non-empty_soft_redirected_categories claims that "Members of category redirects will be re-categorised by a bot (eventually)"; my experience is that "eventually" can exceed several weeks. It's because of this that WP:PLANTS has Category:WikiProject_Plants_category_redirects which is used to check that the redirected categories really are empty.
I do not believe that it is feasible or sensible to discuss every case before deleting a small taxon category when there is a clear general consensus not to have them.
Neutral I acknowledge Peter's arguments above and for those reasons I could support this deletion. However, There has in recent times been a large amount of editing and rebuilding of the Categories used in the turtle pages. Largely undertaken by User:SunCreator and as a part of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Turtles. Therefore I would like to see what SunCreator has to say on this and if he can justify their existence. If he has good argument for retaining them then I will support this, if not then deletion. Hence for now I remain neutral. Cheers, Faendalimastalk 15:51, 5 November 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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The result of the discussion was:the discussion at the talk page closed as "no consensus", so we won't change anything from the category end either. Good Ol’factory(talk) 04:25, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment to closing admin, the discussion is occurring at Talk:Ryukyu Islands. Also, the nomination template on Category:Ryukyu Islands has additional extraneous text attached after its placement that needs to be removed when the template is removed. -- 65.94.77.11 (talk) 06:44, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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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. עוד מישהוOd Mishehu 09:36, 13 November 2011 (UTC)}[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Most of them are fields; the only one I can think of, even after the mass addition, which was a subdivision and not a field, is Category:Recreational mathematics. — Arthur Rubin(talk) 03:05, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Well, I don't have any difficulty distinguishing Fields of mathematics and fieldsin mathematics, but we would need to ask non-specialists. — Arthur Rubin(talk) 08:50, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I doubt if a non-specialist (e.g. me) would start their search by exploring categories in any case, and for all I know "subdivision" might as well also be a technical term. I suspect the possible confusion is not a problem. --Northernhenge (talk) 21:38, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Reply to comments I'm not a specialist either, I just have a fairly wide knowledge base, which is why I asked the question. I'm happy to support a change away from subdivisions, which implies the non-existent Category:Divisions of mathematics as a parent. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:03, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Suport seems closest to the most common mathematical terminology. The parent cat Category:Subfields by academic discipline shows a wide variety of options: sub-disciplines, branches, areas, and subfields. Perhaps Branches could be a good alternative. --Salix (talk): 09:43, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
support the proposed naming or one of the alternatives (branches, areas). Anything rather than subdivisions.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 15:40, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support – if we look at Category:Mathematics at present we see 34 top-level subcats (not subdivisions of Maths) and this subcat, which itself has 14 subcats. The alternative to 'rename' is not 'delete' (as this would take Category:Algebra out of Category:Mathematics altogether) but 'upmerge to Category:Mathematics' (ie undo edits such as this one) which would then distribute the 14 subdivision subcats throughout the other 34 (undesirable IMO). 'Fields of mathematics' sounds fine to me (and move Category:Recreational mathematics back up to Category:Mathematics). Occuli (talk) 16:00, 12 November 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.
