Jump to content

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2016 July 16

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
< July 15 July 17 >

July 16[edit]

Category:Lyrics Of Two[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. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:00, 24 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Category not needed for single article, per WP:SMALLCAT. Tassedethe (talk) 23:40, 16 July 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 that sometimes use mobile devices[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. ~ Rob13Talk 01:35, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: In 2016, this makes as much sense as "Wikipedians that sometimes wear shoes". The subcat, Category:Wikipedians who edit by smartphone, which serves a collaboration-related purpose, should be kept, and "moved up" in the category structure, but is nominated for renaming, below. [PS: If kept, the one in this CfD nomination it should be renamed to "Wikipedians who use mobile devices".]  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:46, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: The result of this nomination depends on the below nomination, so relisting along with it.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ~ Rob13Talk 21:20, 16 July 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 who edit by smartphone[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. Reasonable arguments were made for and against and there doesn't appear to be any clear consensus for the many alternatives considered (keep, merge, rename, and delete). ~ Rob13Talk 01:37, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Just for clarity, and to be more 2016 instead of 2010; most such mobile editing, on a regular basis by logged in and thus categorizable users, is probably done with tablets, not phones. [See also CfD of parent category above; the one in this nomination would need to be recategorized to take the place of that one.] — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:46, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge into the new Category:Wikipedians who use mobile devices, along with the previous item. gidonb (talk) 03:17, 12 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose There is nothing unusual or controversial about editing on a tablet. On the other hand, published reports by Wikipedia experts such as Andrew Lih and WMF staffers claim that it is highly impractical to edit by smartphone. My own editing proves that this notion is wrong. It is therefore useful to have a category of editors who use smart phones specifically, to foster collaboration and best practices. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 19:15, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ~ Rob13Talk 21:20, 16 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete -- It seems a trivial category to me. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:01, 18 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Observation: Cullen328's statement – "There is nothing unusual or controversial about editing on a tablet. On the other hand, published reports by Wikipedia experts such as Andrew Lih and WMF staffers claim that it is highly impractical to edit by smartphone." – is actually a strong though unintended argument in favor of the proposed rename. Lots of editors do in fact edit via mobile devices, and hardly any of them are phones, so a more general cat. has much higher collaboration potential (they're the editors I would tap for advice and comments if I were to start a "Help:" page on mobile editing). By way of analogy to Cullen's case: It is also "highly impractical" to edit Wikipedia while piloting an airplane, and me writing an essay of tips for how to do so would not necessitate a whole category for it and for people who want to try it, especially if it were being confused with a much more legit category of "Wikipedians who edit while traveling", more broadly. At most, "Wikipedians who edit by smartphone" could be retained as a little-used subcat of "Wikipedians who edit by mobile devices". We actually need the latter, and probably do not need the former at all, much less as an actual competitor to what is properly the parent category, should both be kept.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:07, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reply The problem with your observation is that what Andrew Lih wrote is incorrect, though he wrote it in good faith. It is not impractical to edit by modern Android smartphone, which is 87% of the smartphone market. I have made tens of thousands of productive, properly formatted edits by smartphone. I have answered thousands of Teahouse questions by smartphone. Other editors often ask me for advice about smartphone editing. I took a major biography George Meany to Good article status, and every one of those hundreds of edits was by smartphone. This is a useful category for those of us who edit by smartphone, and for anyone interested in the experiences of smartphone editors. I am not a miracle worker. No known editor claims to edit Wikipedia while piloting an airplane. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 21:12, 22 July 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:Vietnamese disability organisations[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: reverse merge. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:03, 24 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Upmerge this redundant category Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:38, 16 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct, I got the order wrong in the proposal. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 23:36, 16 July 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.

Members of the Sejm YYYY-YY[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: renamed to Option C. -- Tavix (talk) 21:37, 29 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Propose renaming:
OPTION A: Members of the Sejm (YYYY–YY)
OPTION B: Members of the Sejm YYYY–YY
OPTION C: Members of the Polish Sejm (YYYY–YY) added later, to address concerns in the discussion
Nominator's rationale: to remove un-needed verbosity, without loss precision. Politicians frequently categorised in several such actegories, so brevity helps to avoid category clutter on articles.
The Sejm (Polish Parliament) has existed under a variety of different incarnations of the Polish state, and AFAICS it has always been known commonly simply as the "Sejm". The list at Sejm (disambiguation) shows that no other country has had an institution of similar name. So the full name of the state is redundant: the dates alone create a unique and unambiguous category. In all cases, these by-term categories will continue to be categorised in the constainer categs for the appropriate regime: Category:Members of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland and Category:Members of the Sejm of the Polish People's Republic.
I have presented this nom as two options:
Option A simply removes the redundant name of the state
Option B also removes the redundant name of the state, but additionally removes the brackets around the dates. These brackets are un-needed, and are not used on some other similar categories (e.g. Category:MEPs 2014–19&c, Category:UK MPs 1910–18 &c, Category:Greek MPs 2007–09 &c, Category:Wales AMs 1999–2003, Category:Members of the Scottish Parliament 1999–2003‎ &c).
I prefer option B. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:29, 16 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • WikiProject Poland has been notified. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:26, 16 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rename. As nom suggests, the Sejm is the Sejm, and each category doesn't need to specify the full name of the Polish state at the time. I have no preference for A over B—happy with either and to go with consensus on which is better. Good Ol’factory (talk) 00:22, 17 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rename but I would prefer "Polish Sejm" as the dabpage does indicate that the term sejm has in the past been used for other assemblies. Since people elected several times get multiple categories, one for each sejm, it is important that they should be kept short. This is why we have "UK MPs", without the abbreviation expanded. We certainly do not need the full name of the state every time, when both the communist and present republics are both commonly known as Poland. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:10, 18 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Sejm of the Republic of Central Lithuania, which existed for only a months after Republic of Central Lithuania general election, 1922.
  2. Galician Sejm, aka Diet of Galicia and Lodomeria 1861–1918
  3. Silesian Sejm or Silesian Parliament 1920–1939
  4. The Saeima (Latvia) and Seimas (Lithuania), both translated as "Sejm in Polish.
Taken together, I think this is too much ambigutity. So I agree: it needs to be "Polish Sejm", to avoid confusion. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:16, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I don't think adding the "Polish" is necessary, since the article is at Sejm, and it's a clear primary meaning. Good Ol’factory (talk) 23:34, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Good Olfactory: You and I have a long-standing philosophical disagreement: I prefer unambiguous category names to avoid miscategorisation, whereas you prefer to stick more closely to parent articles. That is the issue here.
      In this case, I think that the degree of ambiguity is low, and I am more concerned to reduce the excessive verbosity of the current categories. So I don't want a disagreement over "Polish" to hold up the renaming. I'll go with whatever the wider consensus is on that point. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:14, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • (Is it "longstanding"? It seems like only yesterday ...) Given that the categories already contain a thorough (and we agree, overkilling) disambiguation of Sejm, it would be fair to retain "Polish" as a disambiguator if there's no consensus either way. It's a larger step to remove all of the disambiguation, as I'm in favour of, so I think we should go with the smaller step in the absence of consensus to go all the way. Good Ol’factory (talk) 00:32, 27 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        • Thanks, GO. I have created an Option C to use the "Polish Sejm" format, which will makes the closer's job easier if they find that's the preferred solution. I think we a consensus to go for that, but without prejudice to any further nomination to remove the word "Polish". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:29, 27 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rename to A - I would argue that there is no other 'sejm' during the years 1947 onwards to cause any problems with people mistaking the category for another lower-house of parliament. The only thing that exists is the "Contract Sejm" that ran 1989–1991 in the PRL, but does not cause any date-clash with the RP Sejm for obvious reasons (it being the predecessor). Selecting C would not make it unambiguous - the current format is unambiguous and that's why it has existed up and until now, "Polish Sejm" can still refer to the Kingdom or Republic. I think A is fine (I personally think the brackets make it look much cleaner). Nicnote • ask me a question • contributions 07:43, 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:Senators of Legislature VII of the Kingdom of Sardinia[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. In the absence of any explanation of why we would divide life-term politicians by legislative session, the merge arguments have consensus both by quality of arguments (based on precedent from other category trees, mainly) and the numbers. ~ Rob13Talk 01:59, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: I suggest that Category:Members of the Senate of the Kingdom of Sardinia is not sufficiently large at this stage to justify dividing it by legislative sitting. Good Ol’factory (talk) 03:40, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Listify - Given that there's no article on the government of the Kingdom of Sardinia or its various branches, a list of members by sitting might be a good first step toward an eventual article. Ibadibam (talk) 03:18, 9 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Ibadibam: Just make a list of four names? Or do we you know of a source that could be used to make a better list? Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:51, 12 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • I read up on this at Statuto Albertino (which incidentally is the article on the government of Sardinia), and apparently Sardinian senators were appointed for life, so it doesn't really make sense to divide them by term. I also find it strange that this category is for the seventh legislature, and the categories for the Italian legislature start at the eighth. I would love to hear from Zee money, who created all those categories, to understand what's going on here. Ibadibam (talk) 19:07, 13 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        • The Kingdom of Italy was the legal successor state to the Kingdom of Sardinia, so the 7th legislature of Sardinia was succeeded by the 8th legislature in the Kingdom of Italy. But yes, if they were lifetime positions in Sardinia, we really don't need to divide it by legislature. Good Ol’factory (talk) 02:41, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hello, Ibadibam and Good Olfactory, this is Zee money. I am right now translating articles from the Italian wikipedia, and I have noticed large numbers of Italian-language articles without any English-language materials. The Italian wiki divides the Senate and Chamber of Deputies by term, for the Kingdom of Sardinia, Kingdom of Italy and republican eras, thus I will organize according to how it is done on the Italian wiki. I will be creating a number of articles from the Italian (and other European nations) wikis in the next few weeks. Please leave it for now so it will not disrupt my organizing. The categories will expand as things develop. Thank you. Zee money (talk) 08:46, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The category has been checked with its Italian-language equivalent, it is up to 14 articles. Zee money (talk) 09:06, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Pending an answer to Good Olfactory's question.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ~ Rob13Talk 16:22, 16 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. If an answer to #1 is not forthcoming from the editor, I think we should merge, since I and the other participant believe as far as we can tell that these are life-senators. Members will be included in every legislature category until their death, and in any case there are really not enough articles at this stage to justify dividing by session. It's natural that the Italian wikipedia will have greater coverage of this topic than we have right now, and maybe they need subcategorization, but we do not. Good Ol’factory (talk) 05:31, 18 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment -- If they are life senators, they should not be categorised by electoral period, any more than we do that for the British House of Lords, whose membership is similarly for life. However, I struggled with this one, because we are missing articles on the governance of Sardinia as constitutional monarchy; at least, I failed to locate them. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:19, 18 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Other than Statuto Albertino, which describes the founding document, and Kingdom of Sardinia, which doesn't go into much detail, I think English Wikipedia has no articles on this period. Ibadibam (talk) 22:58, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • The senators of the Kingdom of Italy, the successor state, were life-senators, so it makes good sense that those of the predecessor senate were as well. Good Ol’factory (talk) 02:29, 21 July 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:NCAA Division I wrestling coach navigational boxes[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. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:17, 24 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: This sub-tree has an extra layer of pointless categorization. All current wrestling coach navboxes are from the NCAA Division I, so there's no reason to have an extra layer of sub-categorization. ~ Rob13Talk 16:06, 16 July 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:Serbian male golfers[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: do not merge. Good Ol’factory (talk) 03:42, 29 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Per WP:SMALLCAT. Category without a great deal of growth potential. Has only one entry and the category that I propose merging to only has this subcategory. ...William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 12:27, 16 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as part of the larger scheme of Category:Male golfers by nationality. Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 17:13, 16 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Lugnuts, and per WP:SMALLCAT, which the nominator WilliamJE should read before using as a rationale. It doesn't apply to categories which are a part of an established series. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:45, 16 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment @Lugnuts: and @BrownHairedGirl: The subcategory, Male or female are used when golfers of both genders and then not even always. Portugese golfers category is totally male but it is not broken down to a subcategory Male Portugese golfers. On the other hand Finnish golfers has one female entry but isn't broken down by gender. I don't see the purpose of breaking down Serb golfers by gender when there is only Serb golfer categorized of any gender. Frankly Serbia isn't much of a haven for pro golfers at the moment. The one entry is a golfer born in Yugoslavia, raised in Australia[1] and since college lived in the USA. Serbian golfer might not be the right label to start with. ...William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 22:11, 16 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reply I don't care enough about golf to argue this further, but do pls read WP:CATGRS. And if you realy do want to merge, then few gawds sake merge to both parents -- i.e. Category:Serbian golfers and Category:Male golfers. Like so many of WilliamJE's nominations, this one tries merging an intersection to only one of its parents, which has the disruptive effect of removing articles from one part of a category tree. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:55, 17 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The only 'Serbian' golfer so far categorised, Zoran Zorkic, is already in 'Male golfers' via Category:American male golfers. (The article is not detailed enough to establish whether he is in any sense Serbian, apart from being born in a place which is now in Serbia.) Oculi (talk) 00:05, 18 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge – change to keep, as the category structure is now both extensive and established. Category:Male golfers by nationality is neither large nor well-established, despite having been in existence for several years. Oculi (talk) 23:19, 16 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Oculi: See WP:CATGENDER: sportsperson categories should be split by gender, except in such cases where men and women participate primarily in mixed-gender competition. So golfer categories should be gendered, and the poor start in the male categories is grounds to finish job rather than start ripping out the progress made so far, just because it's incomplete. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:03, 17 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose -- Except show jumping, men and women compete separately in almost every sport: otherwise the men would always win. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:21, 18 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge golfers are golfers, no indication that these are limited to professional golfers. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 20:52, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Golf competitions are gendered. Either men and women compete separately, or they compete in pairs of one man and one woman, in which case gender is still an issue.
      So thsi is a gendered sport, and per WP:CATGRS its players should be categorised accordingly. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:50, 24 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment following Oculi's comment above, I have now diffused Category:Male golfers to by-nationality subcats. Category:Male golfers by nationality now contains 62 subcats. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:00, 24 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep In sports such as golf the competion is 100% by gender. So splitting by gender, even with only one gender represented makes sense.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:16, 25 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge based on my thoughts at User:BU Rob13/SMALLCAT is not a suicide pact. Having a category for a single article is not helpful to our readers, and having two categories for a single article is just downright absurd. Keeping things in established trees merely for the sake of uniformity rather than because the established trees aid navigation is overly bureaucratic. We're here to build an encyclopedia, not to categorize for categorization's sake. He can also be placed in Category:Male golfers to remain in that tree. ~ Rob13Talk 01:41, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reply. Rob, I'm afraid that essay seems to me to be rather shallow, in that it generalises too much from some edge cases, and doesn't distinguish the many different types of smallcats. This case illustrates rather well why it is mistaken.
      What we have here is a set of articles (Category:Golfers) which are wholly diffused by both nationality and gender. In other words, if we have an article on a golfer from foocountry it is one of the subcats of either Category:Male golfers by nationality or Category:Female golfers by nationality. None of the Category:Fooian golfers contains any individual bio.
Contrary to Rob's assertion, that helps readers. It means that a reader looking for a bio can look at Category:Male golfers by nationality or Category:Female golfers by nationality and see very simply: if the category doesn't exist, we don't have an article which of that type. This merger would remove that completeness ... and far from helping our readers, that makes navigation harder.
And how far do you go with this logic? All the arguments for deleting Category:Serbian male golfers apply equally to Category:Serbian golfers. And if we upmerge Category:Serbian golfers, the article then ends up in Category:Male golfers and Category:Serbian sportsmen. How on earth does it help a reader looking for a Sebian golfer to have to trawl through such diverse parent categories?
This merger-mania also makes maintenance harder, which makes it less likely that it will be done.
The status quo is easily maintained. If there is a bio in Category:Golfers or Category:Male golfers or Category:Female golfers, then diffuse it. If the category exists, add the article to it; if not then create it.
But if we start removing the single-article categories, that job becomes much harder, which makes it much less likely that it will be done. If we don't diffuse everything, then an editor looking to do diffusion can't act on an individual article. Instead they have to analyse the whole set in order to determine whether a potential new category will meet whatever size threshold has been set. That makes the job a lot more harder and time-consuming, which makes it less likely that it will be done. And that hurts both editors and readers.
Mergers also makes the categorisation more complex, because articles now have to be placed in multiple categories in order to enusre that they are in all relevant category trees. The more individual categories needed for each article, the less likely that the full set will be applied. And one of the things I have noticed recently is that both the nominator here WilliamJE and the essay-writer Rob have been repeatedly proposing mergers only some of the required parent categories. In other words, they aren't just making it harder for other editors to maintain articles in the full set of relevant category trees; they are actively pursuing top-down solutions which (by oversight or design) will cause that disruption.
Some other circumstances raise different issues. But in cases like this, the only suicide pact is Rob's desire to force other editors to go through a whole series of hoops in order to do routine maintenance tasks. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:05, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That's certainly one way of looking at things. The other way is that most readers don't know categories like the "by nationality" category exists and we're very lucky if they click on Category:Serbian male golfers in the first place. How many people will go "Huh, guess there's no similar articles" and give up when they see a one-article category? Quite a large portion. It's doubtful they'll follow the chain up two categories and then browse for similar nationalities. I'm not forcing editors to do anything; I'm arguing my opinion on what most benefits our readers. That's how consensus works. ~ Rob13Talk 13:46, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe, Rob. We don't know much about the usage patterns of categories, since the only data available to editors is individual pageviews rather than navigation patterns. But if readers are not able to figure how to get from a category to its parent or its subcats, then we have a much more fundamental problem ... viz that the whole hierarchical category structure is no use to readers. If that's the case, then we need a very fundamental rethink of why we bother maintaining the category system.
Even without the more sophisticated usage data, we can still learn a lot from the data we have. For example, this chart shows that Category:Golfers by nationality is viewed about 6 times more frequently than the parent Category:Golfers. That shows that of the readers who do use the golf categories, a high proportion of them do know that categories like the "by nationality" category exists.
As to the I'm not forcing editors to do anything argument, I'm sorry, but that response is either naive or disingenuous. I explained above your approach makes it much harder for editors to maintain the categories, which means that the maintenance is less likely to be done ... and if the categories are not maintained, the reader is the one who loses out.
Maybe I have missed something, but my brief scan of your contribs doesn't seem to show much of this hard graft of populating categories (rather the also-useful, but difft task of rearranging them). I have been populating and maintaining categories for ten years, and can tell you with certainty from that experience that there is massively less work in maintaining complete categ structures than in maintaining those which are intentionally kept incomplete. If you like, I can expand on how that is the case ... but the important thing is that if categories are easily maintained, then it is much more likely that they will be maintained. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:02, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I think the value of things like "by nationality" categories are the ease of finding related articles for editors (i.e. those who will be familiar with the categorization system). It helps editors find articles to improve, articles which don't already exist (by omission), and helps bots work on articles (when done carefully). Category structures can also aid machine-readability. I also think readers are more likely to look at subcats from parent categories than vice versa. I think it's fairly obvious based on how visually prominent subcategories are on the page; basic ideas of web design would suggest they'll receive more clicks. This is often supported by page view data: Category:Golf has more average views than Category:Golf by country and you notice that spikes in the former tend to correlate at least partially with spikes in the latter. ~ Rob13Talk 16:16, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As for populating categories, I've recently been contributing to stub sorting, but I'm doing so primarily with my bot, not my main account. ~ Rob13Talk 16:17, 26 July 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.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2016_July_16&oldid=1074816632"