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August 18[edit]

Category:Television series created by Dan Schneider[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. -- Tavix (talk) 16:27, 6 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: C2D: Dan Schneider (TV producer). Trivialist (talk) 21:52, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I doubt there's much confusion as to which Dan Schneider the category is referring to. The other three listed on the dab page are a port, a baseball player, and a CEO. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 11:59, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose The disambiguator is not needed in the category name. It is sufficient for it be appear in a link to the main (bio) article. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:59, 21 August 2016 (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:Impact of events[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. (non-admin closure) Marcocapelle (talk) 04:51, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: A categorization branch created by Stefanomione, I don't see a meaningful distinction between these two terms. There is also a third, Category:Aftermath of events, which may be redundant too. I'm open to any other solution, including deletion. Keep in mind that our decision as to which to keep (if any) has, well, consequences because in addition to subcategories that would need to be renamed, he also created (bizarre, imo) parents like Category:Effects and Category:Consequences, before moving on. So maybe let's just start here. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 21:06, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - it looks like Stef was categorizing based on the exact wording of categories - e.g. if Category:Economic impact of immigration‎ had been named Economic consequences of immigration‎ (exactly the same topic) I suspect he would have put it in the consequences category. DexDor (talk) 22:26, 18 August 2016 (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:Minor planets named for members of Monty Python[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. -- Tavix (talk) 16:31, 6 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Per this related CfD, the same circumstances apply WP:SMALLCAT (5 instead of 4), WP:NONDEFINING, WP:TRIVIA and I'd add that 4 of the 5 are already redirected to the same group article. I don't know whether the remaining one meets policy or was simply ignored, but a category with 2 entries isn't really useful. MSJapan (talk) 19:35, 18 August 2016 (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 people of the War in Afghanistan (2001–14)[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. For the record, the sub-cat remains in Category:American military personnel by war, which is also part of Category:American people by war. This deletion is without prejudice to re-creation if anybody wants to populate it with additional contents, e.g. civilian war correspondents. – Fayenatic London 21:32, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: No other countries have this People of ... subcategory that only contains the Military personnel subcategory. Unhelpful unique empty category is hierarchy. Pppery (talk) 16:43, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Upmerge to parent categories. I agree with nominator, this is an unnecessary category layer. Marcocapelle (talk) 11:46, 28 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep since it's part of Category:American people by war. I think a better proposal would be merging American people by war (and subcats) with American military personnel by war (and subcats), but this needs to be a separate discussion. -- Tavix (talk) 17:51, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Upmerge per nom. I agree that if all we have is a military personnel subcategory, we don't need a general "people" category to house it. Good Ol’factory (talk) 03:37, 29 September 2016 (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:Wikipedians by Wikipedia talkpage[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. (non-admin closure) Marcocapelle (talk) 05:02, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Is there a reason for a category like this? Seems like it'd just be a list of User talk pages. -- numbermaniac (talk) 08:28, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ehm... It had something to do with Hafspajen... But I've forgotten what exactly :) Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:12, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete unless someone can come up with a sensible reason for categorizing Wikipedians by characteristics of their talk page. DexDor (talk) 22:33, 18 August 2016 (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:Marine mammals of Hawaii[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. -- Tavix (talk) 17:53, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: That, for example, Killer whale or Common bottlenose dolphin is found in the sea around Hawaii is a WP:NON-DEFINING characteristic of those species. See related discussion Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2016_August_4#Category:Cetaceans_of_Australia. If this category is deleted then then a note could/should be added to Category:Mammals of Hawaii noting that it excludes marine mammals. This could be listified, but many of the articles in this category make no mention of Hawaii in the article text. DexDor (talk) 06:41, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I created the category as a way for readers to learn about Hawaii, not about marine mammal ranges. I am open to other ways to achieve that goal. Of interest, perhaps, is that Hawaii has no native terrestrial mammals. Lfstevens (talk) 16:32, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
A list (like List of marine mammals of Australia, List of fish of Hawaii and other lists in Category:Lists of fauna of Hawaii) would be much more appropriate than this category. We don't normally add a category tag to an article for something that isn't a defining characteristic, let alone something that isn't mentioned in the article text (and hence isn't cited). DexDor (talk) 22:44, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete -- Putting category for every country where an animal occurs is a variety of category clutter that we have been steering away from for some time. With marine mammals, it is much better to limit the categories to the oceans in which they occur, unless their distribution is very limited. No objection to a list. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:05, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete that some animals that live in the ocean occasional come on or by a particular US state in non-defining to these animals.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:48, 10 September 2016 (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:Wales castle stubs[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. -- Tavix (talk) 16:25, 6 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Only 12 articles left as stubs. Propose deleting category and upmerging template to Category:Welsh building and structure stubs and Category:United Kingdom castle stubs. Dawynn (talk) 11:53, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep A useful category for managing stubs on Welsh articles - was used in recent editathons (Awaken the Dragon and Anglesey-Gwynedd challenge). A few months ago this category had about ~20 members. The editathons brought it down to 2. It's now increasing again. Upmerging would hide the entries in a category of ~200 which is not useful for an important element in the history, architecture and culture of Wales. Robevans123 (talk) 09:38, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I had intended to support the proposal, but I find Rob's rationale compelling. Deb (talk) 14:40, 11 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, for stub categories we have 60 as the minimum size and this category is far off. Marcocapelle (talk) 07:42, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
AFAICT the limit of 60 is a guideline for proposed new stub categories (Guidelines). I don't see any guidelines that say that stub categories should be removed when the number of entries falls below 60. Additionally, categories (in general) for the United Kingdom usually have four sub categories (England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales) which is a useful sub-categorization regardless of the number of elements in each sub-category. Robevans123 (talk) 09:33, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very strictly speaking you are right, but it's entirely obvious that stub categories aren't meant to be small. Many stub categories have ~200 articles so that shouldn't be an objection. Marcocapelle (talk) 07:24, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: In the past, we have deleted many stub categories where the contents have dipped to low numbers due to expansion of articles. Here, a user is suggesting that 60 is only the minimum recommended size to create a stub category, and that this cut-off does not apply when we are considering whether to keep a stub category. It would be helpful to hear some further views on this interpretation.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Good Ol’factory (talk) 05:08, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as no substantial reason has been given for deletion. CFDs like this add to the workload at CFD and (depending on the outcome) may add to watchlist noise on articles (or does it?) whilst doing little/nothing to improve the encyclopedia - especially if the category is later re-created when the number of stubs rises again. I would prefer the limit for the creation of (article side) stub categories to be larger to reduce the amount of maintenance/noise (such as this CFD) they cause (editors can also use category intersection tools and talk page stub categories to identify articles of interest to them), but once a category has been created what is gained by deleting it (by upmerging to several parents)? I suggest the nominator draws up a guideline for when stub categories should be deleted/upmerged and when that's got consensus it'll avoid/reduce the need to have discussions like this at CFD. DexDor (talk) 06:19, 18 August 2016 (UTC) Amended DexDor (talk) 06:16, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per above. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 15:37, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per above. Seems useful enough. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:28, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Upmerge template as nom. This is not a stub category that is ever likely to be repopulated. I note that the two "new" items mentioned are no longer there; I suspect that they never belonged in the first place. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:09, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note there are currently three simultaneous discussions about application of WP:SMALLCAT to stub categories, here and here as well. Marcocapelle (talk) 20:24, 1 September 2016 (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:Slave owners[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, as views seem roughly split on the issue. Going forward, it might be fruitful to have a discussion over the membership of these categories as there has been some dispute over who should be included. I'd recommend those willing to have that discussion to do so at the category's talk page. -- Tavix (talk) 22:34, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Category:Slaveholders and its subcategories were deleted in a 2007 CFD. These deletions were reviewed in a 2014 DRV, where there was no consensus on whether the categories should be re-created. Since the DRV, these categories have been created and populated. Given the age of the previous CFD, it's probably time that we address this again. One of the rationales for deletion in 2007 was that while this status is criminal and seems outrageous in most societies today, in the past and in many societies it was relatively trivial, unremarkable, legal, and hence non-defining. We have a pretty good list at List of slave owners. I acknowledge that this is a difficult issue; please let's keep the discussion civil. Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:53, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • 1860 Census Let's start with some numbers from the 1860 American census: of the total US Population, 1.3% were slaveholders but that includes Free States. In Mississippi, 3.9% of the total population were slaveholders. (That chart has a slave owning families category but I'm not sure how "families" are defined so I did the division myself for those two percentages.) I wasn't able to find clear numbers for the Roman Empire. Presumably, because Wikipedia focuses on notable people who tend to be wealth, the percentage of our articles for slaveholders would be higher than the general population. RevelationDirect (talk) 04:00, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: Numbers are irrelevant. Compare to the Category:Singers. Probably everyone sings, even if only in the shower. Good Ol’factory's point is also beside the point: when a persons principle source of wealth or status comes from their owning slaves, it becomes a defining factor, just as when a persons principal source of income or status comes from singing, then being a singer becomes a defining categoristic. Leutha (talk) 10:03, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete – 'Has employees' sounds like the modern equivalent, which might sound defining and disgraceful by 2200 but at the moment is not defining. This is applying a modern pejorative in retrospect. Oculi (talk) 12:28, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom & per Oculi; not defining - until recent times, presumably nearly every nobleman (and perhaps noblewomen where women were entitled to own property) had unfree laborers, serfs, vassals, servants, menials, chars, whatever exchanged labor for no more than room and board and weren't free to walk off, smells like slavery to me; craftsmen had their apprentices, abbots their acolytes, etc. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:29, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep — definitely a useful category. I agree with Leutha that it should not be decided by numbers; I also think it a matter of viewpoint whether being a slave owner was ever trivial/unremarkable and therefore non-defining (of course not every slave owner is anyway notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia). The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership at UCL website (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/ ) is worth a look. Proscribe (talk) 19:37, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or purge so that it contains only people who are notable as slave owners - not politicians, doctors etc who happened to own slaves which (as others have pointed out above) at some times/places for such people was not unusual (see WP:NON-DEFINING, essay WP:DNWAUC etc). What about Ancient Rome (e.g. Julius Caesar refers to "Young wealthy Roman boys were often taught by Greek slaves")? DexDor (talk) 06:00, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep — useful categorisation. Notable individuals whose wealth, political position or social status is derived or supported by slave ownership is neither trivial nor unremarkable. Most of the free population in slave societies did not own slaves.
By the logic of arguments for deletion mentioned above:
1. the percentage of slave owners in relation to the wider population
2. suggestion that chattel slavery is akin to employment (Slavery is the very opposite of employment since employment requires payment. To be a slave is not an occupation.)
Since, in most slave societies, the enslaved outnumber their owners by that logic Category:Slaves should also be up for deletion. Eartha78 (talk) 14:49, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"Slavery is the very opposite of employment" is incorrect - from the perspective of the owner/employer (which is relevant here) both involve the owner/employer expending resources (pay for employees, fences etc to stop slaves escaping) and getting labour in return (and the slave owner may be providing shelter, food, maybe even medical care - albeit perhaps more to protect their "property" than for concern about welfare). "To be a slave is not an occupation." is incorrect - in wp categorization we interpret "occupation" broadly (not just paid employment; it includes hobbies, being a prisoner, murderer etc if that's what makes the person notable), but that's not relevant here as this isn't a discussion about Category:Slaves. DexDor (talk) 21:20, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I am no expert in WP catgorisation. In the case of chattel slavery, enslaved people were property. Describe them as commodities, property or labour perhaps. But they were not employees - they were property. In the same way one may own a ship or a stable of race horses. Slave owners would have also had conventional employees and other forms of bonded labour. To be a slave is not an occupation, it is a legal or social status. An enslaved person may have an occupation but being a slave is not it. Both of these points were matters raised to address previous comments above. Eartha78 (talk) 11:02, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, as a complimentary category to the Category:Slaves & Category:Slave traders trees. This category should only be deleted if the rationale for doing so includes all related complimentary categories. If that argument cannot be made (and it has not), then keep.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:10, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any guideline/policy that says categories should have complimentary categories? - There are many cases where we don't - e.g. we have a category for people who are (notable) doctors, but we don't have a complimentary category for people who have used the services of a doctor. At CFD we very usually discuss one category (or a few very closely related categories) without discussing "all related" categories - in fact, I don't see how CFD could work if "all related" categories had to be discussed at the same time. DexDor (talk) 21:20, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not well-versed in all the category guidelines; I'm just using common sense. I suspect some guideline somewhere mentions complimentary categories—WP:SMALLCAT says unless such categories are part of a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme, for example. I use the word complimentary as a stronger form of your use of related (i.e. one can have many relatives, but a fewer number of compliments, i.e. significant other(s)). Regardless, whether or not a guideline exists, why would you evaluate CfDs in a vacuum? Complimentary categories should be taken into account, either directly or indirectly, since most well-structured hierarchies have them—if they don't, fine, possibly 1 more reason to delete. Maybe all the complimentary categories are similarly useless and should be deleted for consistency, etc.
Category:People who have used the services of a doctor has its own set of problems (probably why it doesn't exists) and is basically a straw man.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:59, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Keep, Having created the American slave owners category in its current incarnation, I'm inclined to recommend keeping it, but at the same time I have come to recognize the possible problems with the category's inclusion criteria. For example, James Buchanan is mentioned in List of Presidents of the United States who owned slaves, one of the two lists I used to help populate the category, but may not be considered a slave owner because he immediately transferred the two slaves he purchased into indentured servitude, and for that reason, I did not include Buchanan in the category.--TommyBoy (talk) 22:36, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment -- This can be used as a kind of ATTACK category, due to the change in attitude to the subject since emancipation. I only sampled the general (not the American) category. I suspect that most of the people in that would be better categorised as Category:Plantation owners in the West Indies, in effect the gentry of the West Indies. Such people almost inevitably used slaves to cultivate their land, and that could be explained in a headnote. As some one else said, if you were a planter, you had slaves, not employees. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:19, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Plantation ownership is not synonymous with slave ownership. The labour force of plantations in the British Empire, (which includes the Plantations of Ireland), could also include indentured or bonded labour, transported convicts and the labour of free people, in addition to chattel slavery. It is not necessary to use a euphemism when referring to slave ownership. In addition, not all slave owners, even during the time of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, were planters. Eartha78 (talk) 15:29, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose deletion of the American category if the link to the 1860 census is correct, then the notion that 'every noblemen did it' is clearly not applicable. Moreover, the US example is noteworthy because -- as so many have pointed out, including Lincoln himself -- the practice of owning slaves was such a stain upon the American experiment, as a society based on the notion that all men were created equal. For slave owners in antiquity, we know it was indeed commonplace. But owning slaves into the latter half of the 19th century, in the world's "greatest" democracy, is significant enough for me to merit the category. 15:42, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Keep -- Keep using List of slave owners for notable slave owners. Otherwise, if the individual meets with Wikipedia's General notability guideline and has an article for them and their ownership of slaves is mentioned in article... It is a useful category. It might be useful to subdivide category by US State to make it more navigable. Not a trivial category worthy of deletion. It will, of course, be highly populated given notability guidelines for inclusion in wiki, especially for US politicians from the 18th and 19th centuries when slave ownership tended to be nigh synonymous with those categories.
I think the way slave ownership was addressed in previous discussions, the category and status was made the seem unremarkable when it was in fact remarkable and often helped contribute to the individuals being notable enough for inclusion in wiki.
I am not really buying the use of the category as a pejorative, which seemed to have been part of the deletion in 2007. "This is basically an anachronistic slur", seems to misunderstand the power play involved in slurs, especially with how many slurs evolved out of the non-slave owning end of slavery. Adding Category:American criminals by crime, above this category would be pejorative and inaccurate, and should not be done. Being a slave owner was not criminal yet. People tried for peonage would belong in both categories
The general category of slave owners needs to be subdivided by region in parallel with what was done with the American category. CaptainStegge (talk) 20:35, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, while I agree with nominator that WP:NONDEF applies, I wonder if we can define a further characteristic of slave owners that does make the characteristic defining in the period that these people were living? For example (just making up something now for illustration) Category:Cotton planters owning slaves. In other words, I'm suggesting diffusion and containerization here. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:11, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with CaptainStegge that for the U.S. it would be useful to divide by state, and perhaps for the Caribbean by Island. As regards Africa this would be more tricky as most of the countries people were in have been re-arranged through colonialism. As regards Marcocapelle, I am not sure whether separating by commodity that the planter traded in would necessarily be helpful. I feel that with a regional breakdown having an additional separate category Category:Cotton planters might work out better.Leutha (talk) 10:10, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete These categories function as a way to disparge people for actions that were in many cases non-defining, and in some cases due to the nature of inheritance law, not even actions. A person could inherit a slave, and never interact with them at all.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:50, 10 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I think "many cases non-defining" is stretching it and same with "some cases due to the nature of inheritance law". The latter I would say is a small minority of cases. I can think of one instance off the top of my head in wiki with the latter, and that individual has an extensive section of his wikipedia page devoted to complicated views of slavery he had. Such complicated views of slavery (inheriting but not wanting them) should be discussed in article.
I do not think it is used disparagingly. It is used descriptively. The categories above the category "Category:American slave owners" are "American People by Status" "Slavery in the United States" and "Slaver owners" above those the only one even questionably disparaging is "Category:White supremacy in the United States", but that idea did help build the institution. There is nothing in those categories that is not descriptive of the attitudes of the time. There is no trying to criminalize or otherwise portray anachronistically values-wise
As to the non-defining issue, as said before the wealth generated because of slavery contributes to high percentage of American slave owners in wiki. If they did not have the wealth generated by slavery, as well as the economic and political power that comes with it, is highly doubtful that any one of them would have met the notability standards for inclusion in wiki. Percentage-wise, we know that most Americans did not own slaves, even most Americans in the southern states. It was a very small percent. Those numbers can be found mentioned above. A category that would meet less with the standards would be something like Category:Member of an American slave-owning family. Though even then that rate in the South has been estimated at 33%, which is still not that common.
Leaving out the category of slave owners creates a bias of sorts. It obfuscates the role of the individual in history as a slave owner.
If American slave owners is a NONDEF, the category "Category:19th-century American politicians" is pretty much as well. It as a category is pretty heavily populated. It will include people who might have only spent a year of their total life in elected office. People who might have gotten elected and contributed no notable legislation, and spent most of their lives being lawyers, farmers, or something else. That category does not distinguish between notable 19th-century American politicians and non. There are a few in that category who were mayors or members of state legislatures, but nothing beyond that. I do not know the statistics, but I would think mayors and members of state legislatures would be at similar rates to slave ownership rates in the South. Wiki does have some notability guidelines for politicians, but they are pretty minimal.
Maybe notability guidelines should be developed for the slave owner category, but that seems like it could to bad places such as how many slaves does a person have to have to be notable, how long did they have to him them, etc. The question should not be is if slave ownership is NONDEF (because it was), but what the notability guidelines should be for inclusion in the category. The category needs to be developed, not deleted.CaptainStegge (talk) 22:05, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Some of the above comments ignore how this category is used as a "throw them under the bus category" and how it at times is used to advance specialized attacks on the integrity of modern groups because people connected with the group owned slaves over 150 years ago. This category basically functions as a way to declare the contents guilty of crime, even though their actions were at the time 100% legal. It also allowsto accuse them of other actions with no evidence at all.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:29, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The "throw them under the bus category" has been addressed in full imo in previous parts of this discussion. The category as it currently exists does not criminalize being a slave owner. The categories above it do not anachronistically judge the behavior. There is nothing on the category's page criminalizing it. That leaves the mere words of the category itself, which are descriptive and not accusatory. The only way it could, would be by what knowledge of slave owning a reader of Wikipedia brings with them, but that is beyond our control as editors. How perceptions of slavery in the US have shifted over time in the US is better left to the article Slavery in the United States.
"It also allowsto accuse them of other actions with no evidence at all." How does it? This argument has no evidence at all. The category is not American malevolent slave owners or American benevolent slave owners, it is simply American slave owners. If an individual was noted for treating their slave well, that should be discussed in the article for that individual. Likewise, if that individual was noted for being an abusive slave owner. The American category does not inherently presuppose anything beyond that the individual was 1. American 2. an owner of slaves. The categories as they current exist keep the complexity of slavery present without criminalizing it. CaptainStegge (talk) 20:19, 18 September 2016 (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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