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April 11[edit]

Category:NGC astronomical objects[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. There may need to be a wider nomination to consider the whole tree and weigh the lack of ambiguity within the field against the perceived confusion outside it. Timrollpickering (talk) 20:52, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Propose renaming Category:NGC astronomical objects to Category:NGC objects
Nominator's rationale: This was a terrible result. 4 people objected, 4 suggested renames (with little conviction behind the suggestions), but none agreed on what. These objects are universally referred to as NGC objects, no one ever calls them NGC astronomical objects, and this creates a particularly awful clash with every other object categories out there, such as

and many many more. Let's rename this and let's get rid of this thing that sticks out like a sore thumb. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:39, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • rename I'm not sure what the policy is on overturning previous CfDs, but if we can revisit this, I would say rename. A simple google search of 'NGC objects' will illustrate that this terminology is used overwhelmingly to refer to exactly the objects envisioned by this category, and not to anything else like the national gallery of canada... That is the essence of a category - that it classifies an article by its defining characteristic: WP:OVERCAT "a defining characteristic is one that reliable, secondary sources commonly and consistently define, in prose, the subject as having." I think there is ample evidence that "NGC object" is a defining characteristic; and "NCG astronomical object" is not. It actually gets, amazingly, a single hit on google (that's incredibly rare, I think you win a prize when that happens. --KarlB (talk) 00:00, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose – DRV is the route for challenging a cfd decision (and this particular recent rename of 15 March 2012, in exactly the opposite direction, looks to me like a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the arguments presented). Oculi (talk) 00:26, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agreed that the rename was a rather weak close close in that it assigned too much weight to non-arguments about how "NGC objects" is theoretically ambiguous. DRV is probably the right call for this one. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:20, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The underlying argument to me seemed to be that subcats of Category:Astronomical objects should retain 'astronomical' to qualify 'objects'. This is a standard generally non-controversial rationale in cfds (regardless of ambiguity). Oculi (talk) 11:06, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The counterargument would be that while this convention is often used, it is certainly not uniquely used (not all subcategories inherit boilerplate in their titles from their parent cats). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:21, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rename – While on the face of it "NGC astronomical objects" might seem to make sense, I don't believe it has ever been the normal practice to use that phrase. To me it even looks a little strange, as if Wikipedia is flaunting its disregard of the real world conventions. "NGC objects" is consistent with the List of NGC objects article; there is no common ambiguity that needs to be addressed. Regards, RJH (talk) 17:57, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Closer's comment. Normally I would suggest this go to DRV instead of being re-discussed here, but I think this is an appropriate forum for this specific discussion because of the ten other categories that conflict with it. I made the only change I thought I could make on the last discussion, but let's have it out again here. (I'll remain neutral, of course.)--Mike Selinker (talk) 02:37, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose proposed rename. As noted in the previous discussion, "NGC objects" gives the reader no indication of what the category contains. The addition of the work "astronomy" resolves that problem.
    I don't care how the word "astronomy" is incorporated, but I will oppose any rename which omits it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:09, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very droll, Headbomb. Your reply reminds me of a friend who was recruited to a large organisation, and introduced to other staff. One of those people said zie worked in "Section 64", so my friend asked "Where's that?". The reply was "beside section 63".
    Let me spell out exactly what the problem is here. NGC is an abbreviation, which could have many different meanings, as listed at NGC (disambiguation). Even if readers or editors are familiar with that list, the name itself gives little or no clue as to which NGC is involved. To the general reader unfamiliar with the topic, "NGC objects" could refer to: objects displayed by the National Gallery of Canada, the goals of the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago, things portrayed on the National Geographic Channel, coins assessed by the Numismatic Guaranty Corporation, etc.
    To those who are experienced in astronomy, this may seem far-fetched, but to those like me who know next to nothing about astronomy, the reality is that "NGC" is a meaningless abbreviation and our guesses may be wildly inaccurate. NGC is not in the short list of acronym exceptions or initialism exceptions ... and Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(categories)#General_conventions explicitly says "avoid abbreviations".
    NGC objects redirects to New General Catalogue, which is itself a contraction of "New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars". To clarify the purpose and scope of the category, we could either rename it to something like "NGC astronomy objects"/"NGC objects (astronomy)", or we could take the full name. But the current name is an impediment to navigation for all except astronomy buffs, and wikipedia does not create articles to function as an inhouse tool for the cognoscenti.
    The fact that some (but not all) of the other astronomy categories listed above are also named with obscure abbreviations is no reason to keep this one: see WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:14, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Except these abbreviations aren't obscure in the least. They NGC objects are universally referred to as NGC objects, and nothing else. This is like renaming Category:Canada to Category:Canada (country) on the basis that it could technically refer to another Canada, or Category:Flamsteed objects to Category:Flamsteed astronomical objects on the basis that Category:Flamsteed objects could theoretically refer to the wares of Flamsteed Equipment LTD. Especially when this create a discrepancy with all other astronomical object categories. Utter nonsense. Especially when there are no National Gallery of Canada objects, no National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago objects, no National Geographic Channel objects, no Numismatic Guaranty Corporation objects, etc. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:32, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Headbomb, there are only 14 hits on Google News for "NGC objects", and that includes the archives. The term is not in common usage outside of astronomical circles, which is why some clarification is needed for those who are not already immersed in the details of astronomical terminology. Per naming policy, the way to do that is to expand the abbreviation.
As above, the fact that some other astronomy categories are named in an equally incomprehensible form of inhouse jargon is simply a case of WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. The likes of Category:MCG objects should also be renamed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:32, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Since we're comparing search results, there are 1,680 results for "NGC objects" under Google books. "NGC astronomical objects" returns only 4 results. The name is going to be used on astronomy topic pages, so the context is already clear. Regards, RJH (talk) 02:01, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rename. This is perfectly unambiguous and we should stick to standard terminology. Polyamorph (talk) 22:06, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – The existing category name deviates from the standard professional astronomical nomenclature for this and other celestial objects while the inclusion of the adjective "astronomical" is a logical redundancy owing to the presence of the "NGC" component in the title, which identifies the objects as astronomical by definition. Talking about "NGC astronomical objects" is like saying "astronomical stars" or "astronomical planets". — O'Dea (talk) 11:43, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - "NGC objects" is not just the WP:COMMONNAME, it is the only name used for the objects outside of Wikipedia. When Wikipedia is naming something on its own, it should be a clearly descriptive and neutral format of the name - not simply appending a word in the middle of the term to disambiguate it. Creating the term "NGC astronomical objects" "because Wikipedia says so" is WP:OR, and also clashes with the standardised disambiguation policy. "NGC objects (astronomy)" would be the dabbed term, if disambiguation were needed - which it is not. - The Bushranger One ping only 05:17, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Since I'm the one (I think) who first suggested Category:NGC astronomical objects, I'd like to point out that I did so after saying that a rename did not seem strictly necessary. I think the arguments above for returning to NGC objects have some value and I'd be ok with that. Either way, I don't think we need to make this a big issue. Pichpich (talk) 02:54, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - While I suppose this could've/should've gone to DRV, I think the result there would likely have been: "Endorse close, but relist for more discussion". As for me, I still think that this (and most of the rest of the objects categories listed above) are ambiguous in name and should have a clarifying word. whether calling them "astronomical objects" or adding "(astronomy)" or whatever. - jc37 04:52, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    As has already been mentioned, these categories will only be used on astronomical articles, so there is no ambiguity on wikipedia, besides the fact that in reality there is no ambiguity off wikipedia. Polyamorph (talk) 08:38, 20 April 2012 (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:Hospitals in Ireland[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: Keep and repopulate - jc37 22:25, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Hospitals in Ireland (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Nominator's rationale: I emptied this category, which previous contained Category:Hospitals in Northern Ireland and Category:Hospitals in the Republic of Ireland and moved any hospitals classified here into the correct regional category. I don't think this is needed anymore, because any hospital is either in the nation 'Republic of Ireland' or in the country 'Northern Ireland', so this cat (which is used to refer to the whole geographic island) isn't needed. KarlB (talk) 21:27, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose there are hospitals that closed before 1923 that do not properly belong in either of these categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:46, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note to closing Admin - the nominating User appears to be unfamiliar with CFD protocoll. I have therefore re-added both subcats until this CFD discussion is completed. --Mais oui! (talk) 06:49, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • comment Can you please tell me what part of CfD protocol I violated? Are we not allowed to re-assign any categories, at any time, without going through a CfD discussion? My argument for deletion was not that the cat was empty - my argument is that the geographic island cat is not needed for current topics (i.e. hospitals).--KarlB (talk) 15:17, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • "Unless the change is non-controversial (such as vandalism or a duplicate), please do not remove the category from pages before the community has made a decision." There is no history on a category's contents. In order for CfD to evaluate the merits of a certain category name or scheme— say, whether it's confusing, or being used as an attack category, because of all the obviously misplaced items— it is important that its contents not change too dramatically from what it looked like when first proposed for discussion.- choster (talk) 16:50, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • "comment" Ok; I guess in this case, I was just cleaning up categories; I didn't plan to nominate it for deletion, then I realized after the cleaning was done, that the cat itself was kinda useless - so I didn't know in advance there was even going to be a discussion! anyway, sorry if I was out of line. --KarlB (talk) 17:19, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Two points. The first is that as far as I know we do try to avoid "united Ireland" categories for current topics, as in almost every aspect the two are separate entities which happen to share the same bit of rock. The second is that obviously there will be entities predating the Partition which couldn't and shouldn't logically be filed under either of the present states. So one course of action would therefore be to depopulate Category:hospitals in Ireland of non-historic entries and then to rename it to convey its historical status. I assume this is how we handle such things in other countries which later split apart (in the Balkans et cetera)? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:26, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Agreed. However in my perusal of elements in the category, I didn't find any entities which are not still functioning hospitals, paying taxes and hiring employees in the Republic of Ireland. So they all went to Category:Hospitals in the Republic of Ireland... If anyone can find a historical hospital that is now closed but that needs an article in Category:Hospitals of Historical Ireland be my guest, but the question is, why? Clearly, neolithic tombs aren't being used anymore, but we have no problem classifying those in the nation-state where they currently live. Also the standard here is a bit obscure - in the history of Europe (and the world) there have been hundreds of states/nations/countries/kingdoms that no longer exist (ex: Former_countries_in_Europe_after_1815; should we classify everything according to the various governments that have ruled over it? Why is pre-partition Ireland singled out, but not any other of hundred of previous nations? Can you imagine if we took that project seriously? Instead of Category:Churches of Germany, you would have Category:Churches of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen for any churches that happened to have been built during the reign of that state. I feel we should we classify things on the nation-state boundaries within which they currently sit, and leave 'Unified Ireland' cats to geography or other features that are invariant to governments. Culture perhaps merits an exception (e.g. Irish dance) because it crosses the border. Hospitals don't! The result of this 'unified Ireland' business is much confusion in the categories - for example, this hotel Merchant_Hotel was created in 2006, in modern-day Belfast. So why is it in Category:Hotels in Ireland? On the other hand you have this gem Ballygally_Castle, which was founded in the 17th century, but shows up in Category:Hotels in Northern Ireland? The whole tree is awash with this sort of silliness, and I have no energy to fix it, I'm just trying to tidy up a small corner.--KarlB (talk) 15:17, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Category:China or Category:Korea may be analogous, among the various Category:Divided regions and Category:Disputed territories by location.- choster (talk) 16:42, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • A lot of what is written above shows a grievous misunderstanding of what the categories are for.
        For example Ballygally Castle is a hotel which exists within the boundaries of what is currently Northern Ireland, so it is categorised under Category:Northern Ireland. Yes, of course its history goes back longer, but there is no anachronism in categorising it according the geographical scope of the current state. The same goes for the city of Armagh, which has been continuously inhabited since at least 400AD: it is currently in Northern Ireland, so it is categorised under Category:Northern Ireland. This is what Karl Brown describes above as "silliness" ... and the only bit of good news in his comment is that he has "no energy to fix it". Just as well, because his "fix" would wreck the use of the current political boundaries as a geographical container. (Next stop: Karl Brown recategorises Texas under Category:Mexico).
        The notion being floated above that anything extant which predates the foundation of the current state should not be categorised under that state would mean that most of the cities in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom could not be categorised under those countries. Under Karl Brown's bizarre logic, London would be removed from UK categories and categorised only as a city in the Roman Empire.
        Why is Merchant Hotel categorised under Category:Hotels in Ireland? Simple, because it is in the island of Ireland. It should of course be diffused to Category:Hotels in Northern Ireland, so i did that, and then noticed that it was already in Category:Hotels in Belfast, so I removed it from Category:Hotels in Northern Ireland. This is nothing more than a simple issue of category diffusion, which applies to squillions of other categories on Wikipedia. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:35, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • BHG, I'd ask that you WP:AGF and WP:AssumeI'mNotACompleteFool - and if you see the longer discussion I've started at the wp:cats naming page, you will see that I strongly support the notion of placing an object in the modern state where it currently sits. So in the above, I was not saying that Ballygally Castle was in the wrong place, I was just using it as an example to show how an old entity was placed in the new cat, while a new entity was placed in the old cat - in other words, there is a lot of inconsistency in the category trees, especially in these divided states. To top it off, many people have argued (see below, and elsewhere) that something like Ballygally Castle should be in the supra-national entity it was created in, or it was completed in, or it was used in, or for any number of other reasons. And yes, I realized that Merchant Hotel was a mistake that needed to be diffused, but again, I was just using it as an example to illustrate the "silliness" of some of the arguments that have been presented here and elsewhere (i.e. hospital X was created before 1922, therefore, it must go in supra-national category Y). So, while I appreciate your wonderful voyage off into Mexico and the Roman-era London, please don't make false claims about my opinions. The good news is, it appears that on this topic, at last, we agree - entities like hospitals (and other immobile objects) should be placed within the nation state where they live. Can I mark you down as having come to consensus with me on that point? :)--KarlB (talk) 00:35, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Karl, I'm sorry, but from the evidence I have seen so far you have been advancing a lot of very very silly arguments. The point you make in the reply above is a repetition of that: you are trying manufacture a crisis out of the fact that one article had not been diffused to the appropriate sub-cat, and sighed that "the whole tree is awash with this sort of silliness". If you oppose keeping things in their nation state categories, then don't denounce as "silliness" the fact that an article is so categorised ... and want me to believe that you are not a complete fool, please stop writing as if you were heading in that direction and strike out the nonsense. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:08, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • I don't oppose keeping things in their nation state categories!!! Please read what I've written. From the evidence I've seen so far, you've claimed the existence of a navigational structure for Ireland, that does not match with the reality of the existing categories (the same is true for Korea and China trees). I've cited examples, here and elsewhere, of this inconsistency, that probably numbers in the hundreds of categories (to say nothing of articles). My nom was very simple, clean, and polite - remove a cat that I didn't see as having any value. You can oppose it, but please do so because you see the cat as valuable, and make arguments to that effect.--KarlB (talk) 02:51, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • Karl, from what you have written it is very hard to figure out what you intend, because you so frequently contradict yourself. Up above you argue against keeping things in their nation state categories, but now you say that you support it. At one point on this page you say that this discussion is only about one lone category which you believe to be superfluous, but elsewhere there are screenfuls of your denunciations of the whole concept of Foo in Ireland categories. And you have also linked to a meta discussion on the whole topic.
              You are almost certainly right that there are inconsistencies in the current structure. Given the scale of wikipedia's coverage of Ireland, and the thousands of categs involved, there are probably many inconsistencies ... but you persistently refuse to distinguish between the flaws of implementation (to which the solution is routine maintenance per WP:SOFIXIT), and the bee in your bonnet about the existence of a Foo in Ireland category even when it is fully implemented. This makes discussing your concerns a bit like trying to build a tower out of jelly. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:33, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You are invited to join the discussion at difWikipedia_talk:Category_names#Supranational_.2F_historical_country_categories. KarlB (talk) 17:50, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Ireland has been notified. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:51, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment I didn't notify wikiproject ireland because, when I went to their page, I found that they were already notified - they have an automatic notification system that alerts them to any relevant CfDs. Secondly, any claim to 'a consistent category structure' can be dismantled by simply browsing through that tree. 'Ireland' is used to mean all of the things you mentioned, and more, and for any given category, the item you are looking for is just as likely to be in 'Foo of Ireland' as it is 'Foo of XXX Ireland' - see the example I gave of hotels above. I don't want to bore you with a long list of inconsistencies in this tree, and in the Korea/China/Taiwan and other split country trees. My main point is, the system is not really working - if consistent navigation is our desire, the result to date is *not consistent*... In any case, I don't think this tree should be solved only based on what wikiproject Ireland wants; I am hoping we can come to a much broader set of criteria that could apply globally - please join the discussion here: Wikipedia_talk:Category_names#Supranational_.2F_historical_country_categories. Finally I would be most grateful if someone would tell me, besides containing 'Hospitals in Rep of Ireland' and 'Hospitals in Northern Ireland', what should the category in question should technically contain? --KarlB (talk) 18:07, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Reply Your broad assertion that "the system is not really working" is nothing more than a vague wave. It is central to your rationale, and if you actually mean anything by it, then please take the time to spell out in detail exactly what you trhink the problem is. I know that category tree very well, and I will not be bored by it.
    The example you give in this case is of Category:Hospitals in Ireland, where it seems that it may have contained some articles which should have been dispersed to sub-categories (it's hard to tell, because you depopulated the category before nominating it). In any such case, the answer is very simple: WP:SOFIXIT. A failure to disperse is a indication of a incomplete implementation of a category structure, not of a failing in design of the category structure.
    In answer to your question, Category:Hospitals in Ireland is primarily a {{container category}}, and it should should contain: Category:Hospitals in Northern Ireland, Category:Hospitals in the Republic of Ireland, and Category:Teaching hospitals in Ireland. It will also sometimes contain individual hospitals which should be dispersed to the RoI/Ni sub-cats. This situation is replicated in tens of thousands of other container categories across Wikipedia.
    Tidying up the category, I encountered yet another common situation. There are no hospitals in Ireland which straddle the border, but after starting to sub-cat Category:Teaching hospitals in Ireland into NI and ROI, noticed that is in fact a 32-county category, because AFAICS the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland on a 32-county basis. Such anomalies abound in Ireland: transport in Ireland is organised mostly on an RoI/NI split, but Waterways Ireland is organised on a 32-county basis.
    I don't know what you are proposing wrt Korea, and I don't know much about the history of Korea or its current structures (other than the partition of Korea has been much more complete than that or Ireland). What I do know is that an attempt to demolish the Foo in Ireland categories will both a) cause serious damage to navigation, and b) impose a decidedly non-neutral political viewpoint by preventing the category system from logically accommodating the 32-county elements both of Irish history and of the current reality.
    The history of Ireland is tangled, and the currently reality is also tangled. There are also major POV issues at stake. The current category structure accommodates the various POVs and the inconsistent realities, but what you are trying to do is to distort those realities in order to fit some preconceived notions of neatness. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:01, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ok, first of all, I'm not attempting to demolish 'Foo of Ireland' - I was only proposing to remove a single cat which didn't seem to have much of a purpose. Also, w.r.t things which are 32-county, why can't they just be added to the proper categories? That is, for article X, if it is about an institution which exists today in ROI and NI, just stick it in both categories - why does one *always* need a container category? If anything, the idea of a 'unified Ireland' as a country is itself a POV issue (i.e. listing 'Foo in Ireland' instead of 'Foo in the Republic of Ireland' in all of the 'Categories by country' pages smacks of POV - I think you would have trouble finding other institutions or 3rd party sources which consider 'Unified Ireland' to be a country). Finally, w.r.t inconsistencies/failings in the category structure, any time something in 'Northern Ireland' ends up as a sub-category of things in 'Republic of Ireland', I think the system is inconsistent - and this happens. In addition, sometimes (or frequently) "Ireland" is used to describe things or entities which are only extant in today's RoI, which probably violates the naming conventions that have already been agreed upon. As for navigation, every time you are looking for something, you have to browse through the (usually empty) 'Foo in Ireland' category before getting to what you want, so I'd love a 3rd party user interface analysis of how helpful the Foo of Ireland categories actually are. --KarlB (talk) 19:54, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Categories and articles pertaining to Ireland (the island), Ireland (the nation) and Northern Ireland (also on the island) have a well established and hard won agreement concerning their categorical structure and pattern. Thus, all catgories are headed by Category:Ireland within which are Category:Republic of Ireland and Category:Northern Ireland, and these are then populated by all Irish articles. All categories pertaining to Ireland are arranged within this structure, and for good reason. This attempt to establish a different categorical structure for hospitals is, in fact, a profound challenge to the entire structure of Project Ireland in Wikipedia. Ireland has this unusual, split identity for historical reasons which persist painfully enough for some people to want to argue fiercely about such things as national categories which are comfortably settled elsewhere. This probably well-meaning disruption of the consistent and coherent categories that have been agreed would kick over a wasp's nest of trouble, because a break with the always semi-endangered pattern here would create a precedent and a destabilising anomaly through which opportunistic, mischievous, and profoundly tedious further brawling would be encouraged. The talk pages of Wikipedia often serve as a proxy battleground for fierce political wars in the real world. — O'Dea 20:42, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
    • comment I appreciate the caution (and BHGs very very very very negative reaction to this proposal), but allow me to ask the following - are you suggesting that my recommendation, which is to delete a single 'Foo in Ireland' category, is really that big of a problem? To me, that suggests that, if there is already a category Foo which exists in the 'Republic of Ireland' tree, without a parent category of 'Foo of Ireland', then that is an abomination that will challenge the very foundations of Project Ireland? If that's true, I'm afraid I have bad news for you. A few seconds browsing found this scandal: Category:Egyptological_collections_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland, and its long-lost brother, Category:Egyptological_collections_in_Northern_Ireland , neither of which have a parent Category:Egyptological_collections_in_Ireland. A veritable navigational nightmare! It's easy to find a few more orphans without Irish parents, like the following (which are perhaps closer to the hospital example): Category:Secondary schools in Northern Ireland by locality, Category:Secondary schools in Northern Ireland. I'm afraid of revealing more, lest I undermine something else. What is fascinating to me is that this line of reasoning from O'Dea suggests that the consensus, established somewhere, was as follows:
      • Every time we create any category about something in Ireland (North or South), we must actually create 3 categories: One for Republic of Ireland, one for North Ireland, and one for Ireland, and they shall always be named the same - all the way up and all the way down the tree. Few exceptions to this rule are allowed, and any violation of it will challenge the whole structure of our project.
    • Is that accurate? If so, you should really put that on the Category:Ireland page, so eds like myself don't step into a minefield, and always remember to create 3 cats for every cat we want to create, and make sure we maintain 3 equal trees.
    • In any case, I've done some quick calculations, and I'm afraid the results aren't pretty:
      • Ireland (all in): 12189 categories
      • Republic of Ireland (minus those in Northern Ireland): 3827 categories
      • Northern Ireland: 3353 categories
      • Ireland (removing Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland): 5007
    • Now, no matter how you slice this, those numbers don't look good. They suggest that the Republic of Ireland categories outnumber the Northern Ireland categories by at least 500 (and the way the tree is currently structured, every single NI category can be found UNDERNEATH RoI!) That means there are possibly hundreds of Republic of Ireland cats that don't have a Northern Irish brother. In addition, it suggests that Ireland has many many many articles (perhaps over 1000) that don't have a RoI or NI equivalent. I even found 20 categories, about the Republic of Ireland, that are not found within Category:Republic of Ireland.
    • Honestly, at the end of the day this is just one cat, and I don't want to beat it to death. But I do want to request that in this discussion, that we do not claim 'this is the way it's always been' and 'we have a consistent navigational structure' when the data in the tree suggests, strongly, otherwise. I prefer we argue on the merits of the particular case, not based on an inconsistently implemented category structure. --KarlB (talk) 02:40, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is very late so I will not try to tackle all that right now except to make the simple observation that there are a lot more Irish editors creating content for Ireland than there are Northern Irish editors doing the same for Northern Ireland. There is a heavy population imbalance for one thing (4.6m versus 1.8m). You can see this illustrated clearly if you compare at a glance the articles 2011 in Ireland and 2011 in Northern Ireland. There is not remotely the same level of Wikipedia production emerging from Northern Ireland, so there are many more articles for one jurisdiction than for the other. In addition, because Ireland is physically larger (3:1 approx.) with more "stuff" in it, and with more people, there is simply more to document than in Northern Ireland. — O'Dea (talk) 03:40, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note to closing Admin 2 - what on earth is this about? The User already tried to plead ignorance at this CFD discussion (see above), had the error of their ways gently pointed out, and then a few days later does exactly the same thing. One cannot plead ignorance twice.--Mais oui! (talk) 05:32, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • comment Ok, I'm obviously not getting the rules at play here. If I nominate a CfD, I'm not allowed to touch the category (even to diffuse an article)? Yet you, on the other hand, are allowed to do whatever you like? Please recall that this particular hospital, which *you* added to the cat only 2 days ago, had not been in Category:Hospitals in Ireland for all 250 years of its existence - and you just put it there, to make a point. In any case, I did truly believe that the edits I made were non-controversial - the hospital is safe and sound within the category, just lower down, in accordance with the general trend in the tree - I thought it was a diffusing category. FWIW, if you want to re-inforce your point about old hospitals that should go in Category:Hospitals in Ireland, I have about 50 other old hospitals that should be moved up. Would you like the list, so you can add them to Category:Hospitals in Ireland? Also am I to assume by your edit and revert that you are suggesting that category:Hospitals in Ireland should be a non-diffusing category? --KarlB (talk) 06:05, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • comment Um, BrownHairedGirl, who opposes this nomination, nonetheless just made these same exact edits, for the same exact reason - diffusion to the proper category. [1]. can you please consider striking your what on earth comment? --KarlB (talk) 18:48, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - I can see no good reason for this. While the existing cat structure may not be perfect, its pretty good. This nomination serves no purpose. Snappy (talk) 17:03, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - For reasons mentioned above. Hohenloh + 00:47, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment (not that I have much hope of anyone reading it ever The fact that there are way more Republic of Ireland than Northern Ireland categories does not indicate a flaw in the system. It indicates that there are some things categorized for the Republic of Ireland that for reasons that are quite varied are not categorized for Northern Ireland. A few that come to mind are 1-As an indepdendent nation, the Republic of Ireland has Category:Republic of Ireland Ambassadors or whatever exactly the category is called, Northern Ireland does not send or recieve Ambassadors. 2- we do not have empty categories just sit around. There may be several permutations of professions found in ROI not present for NI categoryes. 3- the same goes for types of buildings. Category:Hosptials by country probably has more sub-cats than Category:Medical schools by country. Is this a flaw in the system, or just a sign that there are more notable hospitals?John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:56, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Resciend my previous votes, no for deleting I have been thinking about this category. I have become convinced that we have a consensus to use Category:Republic of Ireland hosptials for hospitals currently in the Republic of Ireland. I have also just realized that treating Ireland as some sort of supra-national Identity in which we group places in an indepdendent country and also in a sub-division of another independent country just does not work. This basically acts as POV-pushing for the IRA. We do not haveCategory:Hospitals in Congo in which we group together Category:Hospitals in the Republic of Congo, Category:Hospitals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Category:Hosptials in Cabinda in recognition of the fact that many in Cabinda would be more happy to be in the Democratic Republic than to be in Angola as they are now. This is essentially what we are doing by trying to fudge the reality that Nothern Ireland is a sub-national entity, and the nation it is part of is not Ireland. This reality has largely been accepted by all parties in Ireland, at least no one is proactively challenging at the moment. We should build our categories on the reality of the situation, and stop pretending that Ireland is a composite of two nations, and start recognizing that this makes as much sense as having Category:Universities and Colleges in West Timor as a sub-cat with Category:Universities and colleges of East Timor of Category:Universities and colleges in Timor.John Pack Lambert (talk) 05:22, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rescind all previous votesJohn Pack Lambert (talk) 06:39, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge Category:Hospitals in Ireland to Category:Hosptials in the Republic of Ireland per the guidelines on naming by country categories "For "of country" and "in country" categories, the name of the country should appear as it does in the name of the article about that country". The article on the country in question is at Republic of Ireland. The article on Ireland is about an island. We currently categorize hosptials by the national entity they are in, not by the geographic entity they are in. I am beginning to think we might want to rename all the Ireland categories for now.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:39, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • whoah I think you might be opening a bigger can of worms than this particular discussion can hold. To be honest, my original intent in making the nomination was very simple - in browsing through the tree, I saw some cats where there was an Ireland/RoI/NI holy trinity, and others where there wasn't, so I figured, it's a discretionary choice. Perhaps you want the trinity for history, but you don't need it for hospitals. As I mentioned in my submission: "any hospital is either in the nation 'Republic of Ireland' or in the country 'Northern Ireland', so this cat (which is used to refer to the whole geographic island) isn't needed". My reasoning was really that simple, and I certainly wasn't trying to challenge anyone's dream of a united Ireland. I didn't see any warnings, or any notification anywhere, that the holy trinity must always be maintained. Future eds be warned - here there be dragons! In any case, as you can see above, my suggestion to delete brought out the hornets from their nest, to defend "a consistent structure, which has been in place for years, whereby Category:Foo in Ireland contains the subcats Category:Foo in the Republic of Ireland and Category:Foo in the Northern Ireland." and "All categories pertaining to Ireland are arranged within this structure, and for good reason. This attempt to establish a different categorical structure for hospitals is, in fact, a profound challenge to the entire structure of Project Ireland in Wikipedia. (emphasis mine)" All this over a single cat! Then comes this: "an attempt to demolish the Foo in Ireland categories will both a) cause serious damage to navigation, and b) impose a decidedly non-neutral political viewpoint by preventing the category system from logically accommodating the 32-county elements both of Irish history and of the current reality" It makes me realize that we should create a European-Union container for every single little European category, so that we can "logically accomodate the 27-country elements of current reality". Sigh.
    • Nevermind that there are hundreds of categories where the Trinity is missing a father, or one or both of his sons, or even worse, hundreds of cases where the RoI son is posing as the father, claiming the title of Ireland for himself while NI has to hang out in his own sub-cat. In spite of all that, it seems my forlorn hospital was the straw that broke the camel's back, and I don't want that on my conscience. When I pointed out that there were hundreds of exceptions to this holy trinity, the response was we have more southerners than northerners or Yes, the implementation is inconsistent, but the ideal is not. When I pointed out that there are categories called 'Foo of Republic of Ireland' that were actually not contained within the 'Republic of Ireland' tree (thus indicating pretty poor navigation!), I was told WP:SOFIXIT. But I don't blame them. The inconsistencies don't surprise me - maintaining a tree like this is hard work! It means, instead of maintaining 3 separate trees, and letting them evolve more or less how they like, you actually have to maintain 3 trees that are embedded within each other. And the poor NI have to synch their tree with that of the UK as well! God forbid someone comes up with some country that is claimed by two ancient supra-national entities, you would need a PhD in mathematics just to figure out the topology! So in any case, I've given up on my little hospital category. It didn't bother me that much, and I guess I'm done fighting this one. I would still like to pursue the broader conversation, but I suggest you don't go after Ireland directly. Instead, let us come to a wiki-consensus elsewhere that isn't specific to a country - what is the broad approach one should take here, that is fair to all parties, and doesn't push a POV? In any case, I'm throwing in the towel on this one.
    • Withdraw For lack of will to fight, I hereby withdraw this nomination. --KarlB (talk) 08:30, 15 April 2012 (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:Healthcare software[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 merge. Timrollpickering (talk) 13:13, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Propose merging Category:Healthcare software to Category:Health software
Nominator's rationale: Per previous category merges, there is no clear criteria by which software can be classified as 'health' or 'healthcare' or 'medical'. I think it will be cleaner overall if we combine these. KarlB (talk) 19:33, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I'm OK with one category, unless there is some clinical distinction between these terms. RevelationDirect (talk) 21:23, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Health is a state of the body whereas healthcare is how you care for and treat the body. To argue that you can classify software used in these two into only one category seems wrong. If anything I would suspect that if a merge was done it should be the reverse of what is proposed based on the lead articles (with maybe a recreation of the deleted category and a small repopulation). Most of the available software probably has some relationship with healthcare either in diagnosis, treatment, delivery or billing. While all of this can affect the health of individuals, they are not simply health. Has anyone looked at depth into the contents of these trees to see if a major cleaning is needed? Vegaswikian (talk) 21:35, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment I of course agree with the distinction between Health, Healthcare, and Medicine. However, the question is, can we find an easy to understand (and implement) metric whereby software can be categorized according to the subtle differences between the terms above? The reason I would suggest 'health' instead of 'healthcare' is because 'health' is the more general term, and would capture applications that aren't often or always directly tied to healthcare delivery (for example, home diabetes monitoring, or personal health records, or medical advice websites, or ...) I have indeed looked at this tree in depth which caused me to recommend this CfD, and I have found, for example, EHR software in all three categories. Let me give you some other examples:
    • EatherWay EatherWay is an appointment scheduling software developed by AlignMinds Technologies to help people to schedule their medical appointments
    • Distribute_Surveillance_System Through use of the Distribute system, state and local public health agencies voluntarily contribute data on influenza like illness (ILI), and other syndromes of interest, for comparison with data from other jurisdictions.
    • Electronic_Distributed_Monitoring_and_Evaluation_Solution Electronic Distributed Monitoring and Evaluation Solution (EDMES) is a system used specifically for the monitoring and evaluation of socio-economic programmes
    • Practice Fusion Practice Fusion is a free, web-based electronic health record compan
    • Clinical decision support system Clinical decision support system (CDSS or CDS) is an interactive decision support system (DSS) Computer Software, which is designed to assist physicians and other health professionals with decision making tasks, as determining diagnosis of patient data
    • Spatiotemporal Epidemiological Modeler STEM is a framework and development tool designed to help scientists create and use spatial and temporal models of infectious disease.
  • Now, without looking, can you tell which is the best classification (and did your guess match the actual tree)? I would bet that whatever your guesses, and the guesses of 3 other experienced editors, they would not match eachother or the current tree. There isn't always a clear dividing line between healthcare, medicine, and public health, and sometimes a given software can span traditional domains. The problem with trying to break down the classifications this way is that different software could be considered as promoting health (for example, if it was used by a patient to help prevent disease), or in practicing medicine (if it helps a surgeon scan a brain) - but there are also lots of edge cases, and different people define 'Health' differently. Finally, the evidence is there before your eyes - if you look at what previous editors have put in Category:Health software, much of it is really about helping delivery of care, per your definition, and thus in the wrong category, but the eds, in their wisdom, didn't agree. If we really want to break down these categories, I would suggest something more like the following: List_of_open_source_healthcare_software (see here for other breakdowns: [2], but that can be done once these suggested mergers are complete. I hope you will reconsider your vote, or barring that, that you will propose a *clear* way to separate software that is 'healthcare' from software that is 'health', taking into account the vast scope of software in this domain, and if you vote to keep 'medical' as well, a clear way to differentiate those two. Also recall that categories are supposed to be categorizations that the outside world gives to software. If you do some google searches, you will see that the outside world uses these terms interchangably, as in, there is no discernable difference given by outside sources between 'health software' and 'healthcare software'. I've also nominated a merger of Category:Medical informatics and Category:Health informatics, for a similar reason - these are subtle differences that are often lost on editors categorizing articles.--KarlB (talk) 22:19, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The fact that editors do make errors is not a reason to eliminate a category. Especially if that category is far and away the larger of the two. Vegaswikian (talk) 17:05, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that editors made errors. I meant to say that editors make judgement calls, which perhaps I or you consider to be in error, but which they (obviously) don't. So the issue is not 'will editors make errors', but rather can we develop a consistent and globally applicable metric by which a given piece of software can be classified as 'health', 'healthcare', or 'medical', and if so, what is it, and does any other source in the known universe divide the world of software in this way? Also, FWIW, Category:Healthcare_software has 20 pages, Category:Health_software has 59.) --KarlB (talk) 18:44, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Part of the reason for the large number of articles in Category:Health software is that many of the articles in Category:Health software probably belong in Category:Medical informatics. I'm not saying that cleanup is not required, just that this merge is wrong. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:01, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • I feel like I'm repeating myself, so I will ask one more time: your judgements are based on what criteria? Take an electronic medical record software. Should that go in health informatics, medical informatics, health software, healthcare software, medical software? Which one? --KarlB (talk) 19:22, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - while there does need to be a clean-up of the contents of these various categories - including diffusion from the parent category Category:Health software, up-merging this and the next discussion into the parent is not the solution.

    In answer to Karl's question about EMR (Electronic Medical Record) software, it belongs in healthcare software. The reason it does not belong in Category:Health informatics is that informatics uses data derived from an EMR (and may advise on its construction), but it does not create the data, that task belongs solely to the healthcare professions. If the EMR was in "medical software", then clinical staff who are not medically qualified (nurses, physiotherapists, speech-language therapists, needs assessment support co-ordinators, laboratory technicians, &c.) would not be contributing to the record, which is not so. A Medical Record (E or otherwise) is not about the health of the patient/client/service user, but is a record of the care undertaken to restore the patient to health (where possible), i.e. "healthcare". Beeswaxcandle (talk) 04:47, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    • comment thanks. would you mind providing criteria for the other ones I listed above? What is the dividing line between health and healthcare and medicine? What test can we use to decide where a piece of software goes? And (most importantly), can you find any 3rd party sources which divide the software in this domain into 'health', 'healthcare', and 'medicine'? I think if we do make divisions, they should be thematic (for example, clinical, patient-focused, telehealth/telecare, health information system/MIS, public health, etc), which is how most people in the outside world do this; but these high level divisions don't make sense. FWIW, I agree with you about 'health informatics', I've been cleaning up that tree and moving software out into the 'health software' tree.--KarlB (talk) 05:05, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - health software would include things that improve (or possibly decrease) health. e.g. exergaming. Healthcare software would include things like electronic medical records (records about the care). If EMR articles are miscategorized, we should move them. If there are enough articles just on that, maybe create a category just for EMR (then it is easy to know where to put items on EMR). Zodon (talk) 05:18, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Vegaswikian. Some software may need to be dual categorised, but that is no reason to completely remove the distinction between treatment of the body and the state of the body. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:52, 23 April 2012 (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:Medical software[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. Timrollpickering (talk) 13:14, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Propose merging Category:Medical software to Category:Health software
Nominator's rationale: There isn't a clear way to differentiate what should go in this vs the parent category. KarlB (talk) 19:30, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I'm OK with one category, unless there is some clinical distinction between these terms. RevelationDirect (talk) 21:23, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose based on my comments above unless I'm missing something. Category:Medical software should probably be a subcategory of Category:Healthcare software since it should be somehow involved in the delivery of health care and not in delivering health. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:38, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment please see my comments above. If you can find a clear rule to determine the difference between health, medical, and healthcare software, and outside sources or catalogues that make this differentiation, please tell me what it is. (nb: Category:Medical software is already a subcat of Category:Healthcare software fyi) --KarlB (talk) 23:40, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think the difference between health and healthcare is clear. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Perhaps - although in practice, the two terms are constantly conflated. We have a health system, which delivers healthcare; we have a Ministry of Health, that tries to provide Universal health care (or is it Universal health coverage)? In any case, could you try to propose a rule, or show a 3rd party source, that has a list of 'healthcare' software on one side, and 'health' software on the other side? How do I know, for a given piece of software, where it fits? Here are a few categories to think of: medical billing, human resource management, health supply chain and logistics management, disease surveillance, community health worker information systems, budget/financial tracking systems for Ministries of health, software that monitors water quality, management of eLearning for health workers, software that teaches patients how to care for their babies... Unfortunately, health cannot be divided into 'delivery of care' and 'everything else' - it's much more complex than that... --KarlB (talk) 01:02, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose this proposal. I can see an argument to upmerge to Category:Healthcare software. However, I do also note that there is a subcategory of Category:Healthcare software for Dental, and while appointment diary software could easily be the same, the clinical software my dentist uses would be completely useless to my GP, and vice versa. This means that some distinction is required. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 04:57, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • exactly which is why i think we should come up with thematic categories. Dental, clinical, surgical, public health, administrative, etc. - but they could all sit under 'health' - there's no reason to have an additional 'healthcare' layer - the subcats will take care of that. I'm still hoping I can change your mind... :)--KarlB (talk) 05:18, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • comment if we merged, we would have the following subcats under 'health':
        1. bioinformatics
        2. dental software
        3. disability
        4. exergames
        5. free healthcare software
        6. Medical simulation
        7. Medical video games
        8. neuroimaging
      • Then if you like, we could add categories for public health and biosurveillance, electronic health/medical records, practice management, health system management, imaging/visualization, research, mobile devices, interoperability, etc. But we don't need a 3-level tree to do that - we can do it all under a single level of the tree. Remember the purpose of categorization is not precision of terminology, it is to aid navigation. I know you agreed with the merge of medical/health informatics. Can I change your mind on this one? --KarlB (talk) 05:27, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Perhaps a way forward on this is to congregate items into the categories that make sense (either populating existing ones, or adding new ones), or providing a concrete proposal of categories that would replace what here. I would think that electronic health/medical records, practice management, health system management could all be together - e.g. that is what I would expect to find in healthcare software category (doesn't have to be called that, health care management software?). Perhaps another category might contain analysis tools - imaging systems, diagnostic systems, treatment planning systems, etc. (things of that sort are more what I would expect to find in medical software, though a more precise name would help.) I would prefer to have a concrete plan for how to organize things rather than a take apart what there and then see what happens. Zodon (talk) 05:31, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    comment Ok, I will try this. I think my main point is, in 3rd party websites they don't differentiate software based on 3 big categories "Health" "Healthcare" and "Medicine" - instead they go right to more granular categories, which is what I am suggesting would be under 'Health'. I will start to move things into categories so you can see how it might look. What do you think of the following as a start - feel free to propose changes:

The point is, while I can see the argument that it is useful to distinguish between and EHR and a home weight-loss software, what distinguishes them is not that one is about healthcare, and the other is about health, but that one is about 'health promotion' and the other is about 'managing clinical records' - so I totally agree on the need for categories, I just don't think we need 3 top-level cats to separate - more specific categories will be much better - then if in the future we get so many cats that we need to recreate some higher level structure, ok no problem. The reason I proposed a merger *for now* is that there is zero consistency now in the various programs found within, so we're not *losing* any information by merging, but on the other hand we're making it more likely that people will find what they're looking for by having a two-level deep tree: level 1 = Health, level 2= 'specific application category within the health/healthcare/medical/wellness/public health/global health domain', instead of a 3-level tree that has no clear differentiation between the levels. Many have insisted that the difference between health and healthcare is crystal clear, so let me give you a few examples - how would you classify a disease surveillance program, or a program that monitors your blood pressure? If it is used by clinician, is the blood pressure software healthcare, but if it's used at your home it's health? you see the mess we get into - thats why more detailed categories like the proposed above are much better than the current system. Thanks for listening :) --KarlB (talk) 22:19, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback on the list - If possible might aim for fewer categories. (Not sure how I would differentiate health promotion from some of the video games categories necessarily). e.g. maybe wrap health education/promotion items together (with possible subcat if need). Would mhealth be like free software, an additional category to indicate platform of the software (are there existing structures for this in categorizing software in general that should just be paralleled/subclassed here).
Where does medical reference go? Things like dictionaries, electronic practice guidelines, drug interaction cross-references. (Or are there not any programs in that category.)
Where do expert systems go? (Those based on imaging could go in imaging, but ones using other forms of input.) Again - may not have any of them to deal with at this point, I haven't looked at items to be categorized as much as you obviously have. Zodon (talk) 08:04, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Suggestion - before going any further with this proposal, I suggest that WP:MED should be advised of this discussion and asked for input. Many of the Project participants use Medical and Healthcare Software in RL and will have useful ideas.

Comment - I have problems with the idea of splitting Patient Administration Systems (PAS) from Health System Management software (HSM). These are part of a loop that sees increasing aggregation of data starting with individual patient care to clinical coding to health funding and national data collections to the World Health Organization, who then use the data to target resources to individual patient care. HSM software is in use at all levels of that loop: bedside, room, ward, floor, building, facility, region, country, WHO. Those countries with a National Health Identifier have PAS active at all those levels except WHO. And at many levels PAS and HSM are merely different views of the same core database. Splitting them into separate categories would be unhelpful. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 09:13, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

comment I notified WP:MED. Per your other comment, what you just described is one of the reasons I was proposing this merge in the first place - it is becoming hard to distinguish a system used in patient care from a system used to understand population health, because these are often two aspects of the same system. I'm happy to have fewer categories. Let me take another shot:
  • dental software
  • disability
  • free healthcare software (software would be placed both in this cat, and the relevant cat accordingly)
  • Medical simulation
  • Public health and biosurveillance
  • Electronic health records (would include EHR and EMR)
  • practice/hospital/health system management (non EHR/EMR: billing, finance, appointment scheduling, HS management: planning, dashboards, HR, etc)
  • imaging/visualization
    • neuroimaging
  • interoperability
  • health education and promotion
    • exergames
    • Health video games
    • Medical video games (perhaps merge these three games cats?)

--KarlB (talk) 00:21, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose per Vegaswikian. Some software may need to be dual categorised, but that is no reason to completely remove the distinction between treatment of the body and the state of the body. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:49, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another solution? Would the editors who opposed this merge, agree to a merge of Category:Medical software to Category:Healthcare software. If we leave 'health' out of the equation, what would distinguish 'medical software' from 'healthcare software' - as when you practice medicine, you are providing healthcare. Then we could still create the categories I proposed above to subdivide further. --KarlB (talk) 15:57, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I would oppose that too. When you provide healthcare, you are not necessarily doing so through medicine. See Allied health professions for a list of some of the non-medical disciplines which provide healthcare. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:59, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Ok so are you suggesting that Category:Medical software be used for any software that enables the practice of medicine, while Category:healthcare software be used for everything that provides healthcare except medicine? If you could find any source, anywhere, that makes this distinction, I would be most grateful. I unfortunately cannot - healthcare and medical software are frequently interchanged in the real world - for example here: [3]. Here is another example - talking about FDA regulation - the FDA calls it 'medical software', this article calls it 'healthcare software' as a synonym: [4] You have a 'medical informatics' specialist who will help implement a 'electronic health record' which links to a 'medical billing' application connected to a 'health portal'. Please, the purpose of these categories is to help people find things they're looking for. Can you find any evidence anywhere in the world that people distinguish between healthcare software and medical software in some sort of consistent fashion? [citation needed] please.--KarlB (talk) 12:19, 25 April 2012 (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.

Arabic novelists[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. Timrollpickering (talk) 11:14, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rename Category:Arabic novelists to Category:Arabic-language novelists
  • Nominator's rationale this is a category for people who wrote novels in a specific language, and this is how we do language sub-cats. I am not sure there is adequate precedent to subdivide writers by language by what the people wrote. Generally there has been a decision to not use writter by language cats for people who come from countries where that is the dominant language. However I figure the first positive step is to give this a clear name. I would support deletion outright as well.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:23, 11 April 2012 (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:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from FOLDOC[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) 06:18, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from FOLDOC (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Nominator's rationale: Following a reworking of {{FOLDOC}}, we now properly attribute all texts imported under GFDL 1.3's "relicensing" clause (added at our behest) explicitly. The documentation has been updated to explain how to attribute FOLDOC content added after that. There is no longer a need for a tracking category, as we're license-compliant with all of the current FOLDOC-derived content we include. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:25, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment if we include current FOLDOC content, then the reworking of {{FOLDOC}} works against it, since it would be wrong. Shouldn't the template have been split into two, or parameterized to show pre-2008 inclusions. 70.24.248.211 (talk) 07:04, 15 April 2012 (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:Hate[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. However, I am nominating it for Speedy renaming to Category:Hatred to match the head article Hatred.--Mike Selinker (talk) 06:22, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Hate (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Nominator's rationale: This requires pejorative WP:OR judgment on the part of the categorizer and are therefore unsuitable for an encyclopedia. It requires permanent pov labeling which is usually unsuitable for emotions. People and organizations are not in a permanent state of hate or any other emotion. Encyclopedias, to be taken seriously, should not be assigning labels.

There are no categorical labels (yet) for "greed", "lust", "envy", "gluttony", nor the emotion "sloth." Let's hope we can keep it that way. Student7 (talk) 13:27, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment Well, I would say the Westboro Baptist Church is in a permanent state of hate as an organization, but true to the point Cat:Hate groups was deleted because it was being used for POV-pushing and as an attack category. The main article is Hatred, which is a far broader concept than reflected by the current category's contents.- choster (talk) 14:23, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep While we do not have categories for "greed, "lust," "envy," "gluttony," or "sloth," we do have categories for other emotions, as can be seen in Category:Emotions, and it is as valid of an emotion as Category:Love. Seeing how there are actually no people or organizations that belong in this category, I do not see this as "assigning labels" in any way.--New questions? 18:13, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete choster seems to think that his personal views on what constitutes "hate" should be used to build a category. There is no neutral, agreed upon way to define what falls under hate. Since the Westboro Baptist Church does not engage in criminal acts or physically threaten people, it is unclear why they qualify for this category at all. The fact that people are so quick to put them in it shows that this is a bad category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:14, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • That isn't remotely what I say. I merely point out that "organizations are not in a permanent state" of X is flatly wrong; most organizations are formed around some sort of purpose, and so almost by definition are in some permanent state of X. I am pointing out an overstatement because overstatements undermine arguments even when they are valid, to give the proposer an occasion to amend.- choster (talk) 00:24, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment the inclusion of the SPLC groups list is even more problematic. They designate as hate groups groups that merely advocate a change in the laws to protect the life of unborn children. This category reeks of point of view advocacy.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:16, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment however how does it make sense to group together Sexiasm and Islamophobia? Assuming the first one can be assumed to be the same as hate seems to be a major jump.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:49, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep it is a natural sub-cat of its parent categories and there are certainly enough articles and real activities on the subject. Hmains (talk) 02:39, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep Perfectly reasonable category to manage. Greg Bard (talk) 02:01, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - This is simply synthesis/extrapolation/WP:OR. Nearly every one of the articles on -isms/-phobias/etc. require references. (Something not possible in categories.) Further, the bald title of "hate" (not the more specific "hate crime" or "organisation which hates/dislikes/discriminates against") is very problematic itself. Imagine in the reverse case of "love", for example. In that case, wouldn't we include most churches, charitable organisations, and the like? And if we did, wouldn'tt that too be WP:OR? This is a broad, vague category, which has dubious membership requiring referencing, and which should clearly be deleted as WP:OR. - jc37 22:15, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and salt. Category is vague. Category is entirely subjective. Per student7's argument.Benkenobi18 (talk) 12:40, 25 April 2012 (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:Pseudonymous rappers[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: keep.--Mike Selinker (talk) 06:26, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Category:Pseudonymous rappers
  • Nominator's rationale The general rule of categories is that they are built around shared characteristics of those involved, not shared chracteristics of names. We do not have Category:People named John or Category:Politicians named John. We also do not have Category:People who legally changed their name. All these people have in common is that they are rappers (which we have lots of other categories for) and they at least at times go by something other than their real name. There is no clear way in which this group is distinct from most rappers. In fact it at least seems most rappers do not go by their real name.John Pack Lambert (talk) 05:29, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Procedural close This (along with several other categories) was created to diffuse Category:Pseudonyms. I'd be fine with having a discussion about deleting the whole scheme, but why pick one category? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:35, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment the reason to pick one category is because the arguments about pseudonyms differ depending on what occupation the people are involved in. Writers using a psydonym are really concealing their identiy. Rappers doing so rarely actually hide anything, they just project a different aura. However then there is the question of when it is a pseudonym and when it is an abreviation of their name. Thus there are occupation specific issues in pseudonym categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 07:28, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment a much higher percentage of rappers use pseudonyms, so it is even a less useful destinguishing characteristic. Anyway not all musicians ever perform live, and some instrumentalists may perform in ways people do not see them, so their issues are distinct from rappers. On the other hand, if you want to discuss all musicians you can either add them to this nom because they are similar to this, or start a new nom.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:18, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reluctant keep. AFAICS, a rapper having a pseudonym is so routine that it is not a defining characteristic. However, once we have Category:Pseudonyms and Category:Pseudonymous musicians, the rappers are going to be added there. I agree with Chris Cunningham that it makes more sense to have them in a separate rappers category. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:28, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I have nominated the rest of the pseudonymous categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:31, 18 April 2012 (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 players of American football of Hungarian 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: Delete. Timrollpickering (talk) 11:13, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Category:American players of American football of Hungarian descent (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Nominator's rationale: Per WP:OC#EGRS, an American football player being of Hungarian descent is not notable.  Mbinebri  talk ← 02:56, 11 April 2012 (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:Theatrical producers[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. Timrollpickering (talk) 11:12, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Propose merging Category:Theatrical producers to Category:Theatre managers and producers
Nominator's rationale: Merge Because the two occupations are often difficult to separate, we've traditionally kept theatre managers and producers under a single category. I think it's a reasonable solution so I propose merging and keeping the redirect to avoid this problem in the future. Pichpich (talk) 02:15, 11 April 2012 (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:Notable faculty Forest Lake Area High School[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: UpMerge to Category:American schoolteachers. - jc37 22:17, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Propose renaming Category:Notable faculty Forest Lake Area High School to Category:Forest Lake Area High School faculty
Nominator's rationale: Rename to avoid the meaningless "notable". Another option (and actually my preferred option) is to simply upmerge to Category:American schoolteachers since the actual school is not really the defining feature. Pichpich (talk) 02:08, 11 April 2012 (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:Great Basin tribes[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. Timrollpickering (talk) 11:12, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Propose merging Category:Great Basin tribes to Category:Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin
Nominator's rationale: These categories are duplicates; however not all indigenous peoples in the Great Basin are actual tribes. The main article for the category is Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. Uyvsdi (talk) 01:45, 11 April 2012 (UTC)Uyvsdi[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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