User talk:Johnpacklambert/Archives/2024/September

Holy Roman Empire vs Germany

Hi, I see you created Category:Engravers from the Holy Roman Empire, made it a subcat of Category:German engravers, and are moving engravers from this parent to child. However, "German" is not a parent of "Holy Roman Empire", the HRE was larger and encompassed things never considered "German". Putting it the other way around, "German" as a subcat of "HRE", would make a lot more sense. Or else keeping them as two parallel cats, which can both be present in articles. Can you please make the necessary changes and undo or correct edits where you recatted people? The same applies to other groups than engravers, if you made the same change for others as well. Fram (talk) 09:32, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

• No. The Holy Roman Empire was called the "Holy Roman Empire of the German nation". German also includes more recent people. While there were non-ethnically German people in the Holy Roman Empire, this recategorizing for something like engravers makes sense. Before 1805 splitting people by ethnicity, especially in the Holy Roman Empire, does not make sense, and that is really before the nationalist movements come about. The nobility in Bohemia largely spoke German regarless of their ancestries, and Austria as a distinct place is on the level of Saxony and several other German states. There are sub-cats of the Holy Roman Empire that make sense like Austrian Netherlands, but what does not make sense is double categorizing people. Because of the huge overlap between German and Holy Roman Empire it does not make sense to place people in both categories. Since German exists until the present it does not make sense to make it a sub-cat of the Holy Roman Empire category. Since we have not split engravers by century, we do not have German categories to be subcats. However people in both the Duchy of Prussia and the Principality of Schleswig saw themselves as German but were not in the Holy Roman Empire. We are much better off not placing people in categories that use modern demonyms that invoke modern countries in the early modern era when we have a good alternative. This applies even more to the other main change I have done which is moving people into the various sub-cats of Nobility from the Holy Roman Empire. Nobility is organized by country not by nationality. In the era at least from 1648-1805 Germany and Holy Roman Empire are used as synonyms. They are the same place. Yes, the boundaries are different than modern Germany, which is why Holy Roman Empire and from the Holy Roman Empire are better names for categories, but the places are the same, and I would argue we should avoid German categories in that time period and only use HRE categories, with sub-cats for Bohemia, the Austrian Netherlands and other places as reasonable. However as said we do not have a by century scheme for engravers. Parenting of categories does not have to have 100% equivalency, especially for past historic countries. It is a loose equivalency and in part designed to avoid over categorization. It is also justified because we do not want to impose artificial modern boundaries on past people. An engraver working in Prague, Vienna, Hamburg or Munich in 1710 was working within the Holy Roman Empire and there is a connection between them we should recognize when creating categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:23, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
• In 1800 Germany and the Holy Roman Empire are used as synonyms. Everything in the Holy Roman Empire in that year was considered Germany. This is the same situation as the Ottoman Empire (referred to on maps in 1912 and earlier as "Turkey") and Turkey. While use of "Germany" for the whole of the medieval Holy Roman Empire is rare, we probably can find some cases. Anyway, with placement of historic countries under modern ones they do not need to be an exact fit. The main end result is calling an engraver "from the Holy Roman Empire" is a more precise way of describing them by time, and sometimes more accurate, then calling them "German". Having them in both categories is overlap. HRE is a more precise category, and at least for those whose work was before 1805 the only one we need. We do not need people in both categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:35, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

• • While I agree that I should not have suggested reversing the order, I don't agree with almost anything else you said here. I'll just put the cats next to each other and have people in both, as they are not synonyms. You will have difficulty finding many sources describing Jean-François de Neufforge or Pieter Casteels III as German (or from Germany), even though they were born within the HRE. For example in Category:17th-century painters from the Holy Roman Empire the different countries or regions are subcategories, and Germany is here a subcategory of the HRE (with the addition of the century it makes sense in this direction). I've just went through a lot of Category:Holy Roman Empire cats, and none of them seem to a subcat of the corresponding Germany cat. Random example, Category:18th-century clergy from the Holy Roman Empire has Germany again as the subcat, not the other way around. Fram (talk) 12:49, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
    • That scheme is wrong. There is no coherent definition of Germany in 1750 that does not include the whole Holy Roman Empire. Having German as a sub-category of the HRE is an anachronism that we should not have. I do not care if HRE is a sub-cat of German, but I do not think people should be in both German and HRE categories, at least if they were not active after 1805. This is a cat overlap issue. It is the same general issue as to why we do not put people in both German writers and German-language writers. If HRE is not going to be a sub-cat of German, we should not place people in both X-occupation German categories and X-occupation from the Holy Roman Empire categories who were only active before 1805. We should for pre-1805 active people place them in the X-occupation from the Holy Roman Empire cat. This rule applies to X-occupation from the Holy Roman Empire. X-century occupation from the Holy Roman Empire and X-century occupation from Germany categories are a different story.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:07, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
      • You seem to be arguing that putting people in "18th c engravers from Germany" is right, but putting them in "engravers from Germany" is wrong? Fram (talk) 13:13, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
        • No, my actually argument is that we should not have "18th-century German x" at all and should renamed all of them to "18th-century from the Holy Roman Empire". Also, right and wrong are too strong of words. Categories are useful to navigation. My argument is someone who was an engraver from the Holy Roman Empire should be in ":Category:Engravers from the Holy Roman Empire" or a sub-cat thereof. Someone who was an engraver from the Holy Roman Empire, who was only active as such in 1805 or earlier should not be in a by nationality category not under the HRE unless they moved outside the HRE (or were outside the HRE before they moved there). What the various sub-cats of the HRE category are called is a different issue. If we could find a coherent group I would accept "Sorbian engravers in the Holy Roman Empire" as an acceptiable sub-division, but I do not think ethnicity is clear enough in the arts at that time to make the ethnicity + locations + occupations category scheme make sense. I do think that having ethnicity + Austrian Empire + occupation categories would be justified (Czech artists from the Austrian Empire for example) but that is a seperate issue. So this is my idea. German engravers is either a vaguely relevant but not perfect fit of Engravers from the Holy Roman Empire, so people are not in both categories, unless they worked after 1805.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:20, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

          >My argument is someone who was an engraver from the Holy Roman Empire should be in ":Category:Engravers from the Holy Roman Empire" or a sub-cat thereof.

          And that's the reason I spent time to update all the templates to add Category:Occupation from the Holy Roman Empire to pre-19th-century German occupation categories. Mason (talk) 20:19, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

All 11th to 18th century German categories should be renamed "from the Holy Ran Empire"

All existing categories for Germans from the 11th to 18th century should be renamed to "from the Holy Roman Empire". These are by nationality categories. Thry need to link to a nationality. The accepted name of the place during that time period was the Holy Roman Empire. Germany was not a defined sub-section of the Holy Roman Empire. It was a synonym of the Holy Roman Empire that covered all the complex sub-sectioms of the Empire with their own varied and complex meanings. There is no coherent and consistent way to define German as a designation of nationality on a scale less than the Holy Roman Empire. We should use name categories things like "Musicians from the Holy Roman Empire" etc. There might be some recognizable sub-categories of Holy Roman Empire other than German, but there is no defined coherent group of Germans as a sub-section of the Holy Roman Empire. It does not make sense and we should not do things that way.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:57, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

I know that you don't like the current system, but modern users of wikipedia describe people using "german". I hope that you'll find a way to live with the current compromise of parenting all the german categories within that period by HRE categories. Mason (talk) 18:49, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

It is not a compromise. It is you imposing your amachronistic ideas on other peoples work. It 8s just plain wrong, inaccuare and creates false ideas of division. This is even more so with the false and misleading Austrian categories. People also oftrn talk of people from the Ottoman Emoure as "Turkish" and the name Turkey was used for it. We have accepted that that is an unworkable system. References to Germany and Germans at least at the category level when speaking of the Holy Roman Empire are equally unworkable and should be scapped. The 11th-18th century German catehories are all wrong and should all be done away with.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:01, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

How is it not a compromise to have HRE parent categories to every German category? I know that you don't like the existence of german categories. My point is that most people use them, and there's a reasonable interpretation that German is a defining category. Again, I'm not saying your point is incorrect, but... Wikipedia is about compromising and seeking consensus. Mason (talk) 20:11, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Dutch golden age painters

We have differing descriptions of this period as from 1585-1702 and from 1575-1725. The Dutch Republic funtionslly existed from 1568 until 1791. I think we should abandon this sonewhat arbitrary and not clearly defined category and instead create the clearer Painters from the Dutch Republic.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:48, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

September 2024

Before adding a category to an article, as you did to Adam Tas, please make sure that the subject of the article really belongs in the category that you specified according to Wikipedia's categorization guidelines. The category being added must already exist, and must be supported by the article's verifiable content. Categories may be removed if they are deemed incorrect for the subject matter. Please don't just remove people from categories you think are anchronistic. Please place them into the right century, really anything that leads to a net improvement to the category. You recently removed several ambassadors who were the last person in a category. Please don't do that. It's disruptive and is something that we have talked about. Mason (talk) 18:32, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Please explain why you're removing people, like, Alexander Kikin from [[Category:18th-century people from the Russian Empire]]. It's really disruptive for you to remove everyone from the century if they've died before 1718. They still belong in the century. Mason (talk) 18:47, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

The Russian Empire was formed in 1721. No one who died before 1721 could possibly be from the Russian Empire. What is disruptive is when people go around and impose edits without knowing history.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:03, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Ok, but you do realize that the intent of the category is to contain everyone who is russian within that century? Mason (talk) 20:08, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

No, the category is limited to people who were subjects or nationals of the Russian Empire. The category is specifically named to contain people based on being subjects of the Russian Empire. People who were not subjects of the Russian Empire do not belong in the category. If they died before 1721, or if they were no longer nationals of the Russian Empire starting in 1721 but had foe some time prior to 1721 been nationals of the Tsardom of Russia they do not belong in the category. Or if they were ethnic Russian people who lived in another polity they do not belong it the category either.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:12, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

My point is that you are removing them from the 18th-century people category tree. We've discussed this before. They belong in the century category, even if you have problems with the nationality intersection. Mason (talk) 20:14, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Please don't remove people from the FOOth-century people tree. The people you are removing are still 18th-century people. Mason (talk) 20:15, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I also thought that this was for the sake of navigation, even though the Russian Empire was not proclaimed until 1721. But we now have a situation where we cannot put someone in Category:18th-century people from the Russian Empire because the naming is confusing and Category:18th-century Russian people is a redirect instead. I am not sure why some people thought this was a good idea to rename all the categories. Mellk (talk) 14:50, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

They fir perfectly well in Category:People from the Tsardom of Russia. The Tsardom of Russia existed only from 1547-1721. It is a much better way to group people than by century. We have the same situation with people from Austria-Hungary which existed from 1867-1918. Really we do not need to break down people from short lived policies by century at all. The fact of what politely they were from is clear enough, and breaking people down by clearly distinct country they were nationals of is far superior to breaking them down by century, which is an arbitrary division of years with no actual meaning. This really comes into play when we have a huge number of articles that say people were from the "long 19th-century" which is an often used convention to group history from 1789 until 1918. This especially applies to the Russian military personnel of the Great Northern War, since in the case of military conflicts the country people are in the military of is how we are defining them.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:56, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

So if someone defined as Russian spent half their life in Tsardom of Russia and half their life in Russian Empire, the polities are more important when categorizing them? Mellk (talk) 15:01, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

They do fit well within the Tsardom of Russia, but they also belong in the 18th-century. How do you want to handle folks who belong at the intersection of pre-russian empire but they're in the 18th century and they're russian? I don't think removing them is a sustainable solution because of all the intersecting categories that assume that the 18th-century covers the entire 18th century. Mason (talk) 23:09, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

We could of course create an 18th-century people from the Tsardom of Russia Category. As I have said I do not think we should be splitting Tsardom of Russia people by century at all but we could do this.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:16, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Hmmm..., I'm not sure that that's a better solution, but I appreciate you suggesting altneratives. How would you feel about adding a diclaimer of sorts to the 18th-century from the Russian Empire category? Mason (talk) 00:04, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

As long as it has that name it cannot include anyone who died before 1721, or was not a subject of the Russian Empire. Period. If you want to change the scope you have to change the name and that will require CfD. The current name mandates it scope starts with 1721 period. Since most people who were alive in 1715 were alive in 1722, and since most people who died before 1721 were at least partially also active before 1701, the issue here actually effects very few actual people and since the scope of the Tsardom of Russia is only 1547-1721 it is not like people are getting lost in an overly large Category, so I thinknthis is not really a big issue. I guess we could state "people active from 1701-1721 but not active after that year can be found in Category:People from the Tsardom of Russia". That is about all we can legitimately say. We have lots of other category gaps in the by century scheme. We do not I believe have any 20th-century people from the Ottoman Empire categories, but the Ottoman Empire lasts until at least 1922. I think because if this we realistically should not have any Turkish people by century categories, since out Turkish people categories only cover people from 1922 to the Present.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:32, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

That's an interesting comparison with the Ottoman Empire. I'll think about that as an alternative, but in the meantime, people make sure to not fully remove these people from the century tree. Mason (talk) 00:52, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Why can we not have Category:18th-century people from the Russian Empire as a subcat of Category:18th-century Russian people instead? It is already a subcat of Category:Russian people by century. I do not think putting people in Category:18th-century people is a good solution. Mellk (talk) 20:45, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I think you'd have more success making Russian Empire the parent category, similar to how HRE is the parent of germany. (I think that placing people in 18th-century people is an improvement over what JPL typically does. Is it good? No. Is is better than nothing, yes.) Mason (talk) 21:51, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I do not see the difference here if the people from the Russian Empire categories are already subcats of the Russian people categories. If Category:18th-century Russian people is instead a subcat of Category:18th-century people from the Russian Empire, then we will still have the same problem as now concerning people who died before the Russian Empire was proclaimed, unless no one is bothered by the name of the parent category. Mellk (talk) 22:00, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

That's a fair point. My thinking was that it would behave like other categories at are not fully nested within the parent category. 🤷🏻 Mason (talk) 22:16, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

• My understanding was that by century categories exist to subdivided other things, not because we think the intersection of being alive and doing so in a certain century is by itself defining. I have added Kikin to the 18th-century people category. On the issue of the Ambassadors in question they were Ambassadors for the Dutch Republic. The Netherlands was formed in 1815 and did not exist before then. We should not be forced to keep people in false categories just because they happen to be the only article in the category. Even more so people should not be forced to look at categories that are clearly dmfalse before removing them just to make sure that there are no other articles in the category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:32, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

  It's still deletion out of process regardless of your intent. I've offered to look at any category you find and nominate any that I agree with you on. Mason (talk) 20:43, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you for restoring the 18th-century category. Typically, there's an occupationxcentury intersection that you can add them to. Mason (talk) 20:45, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

  I would say that all the Ambassadors from the Netherlands categories that have under 5, and especially those with only 1 or 2, articles should be upmerged. Not just because a lot of these people were pre-1815 and so not agents of the Netjmheelands at all, but because since ambassadors are not default notable the idea that many of these categories will ever expand is not really justified.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:47, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

• The 3 sub-cats of Ambassadors to Prussia with 1 article also should be upmerged to the general Ambassadors to Prussia Category. The same is probably true of the 2 article Ambassadors of the Ottoman Empire to Prussia. This should probably all be renamed to Ambassadors to the Kingdom of Prussia, since we really care about Ambassadors to the great state named the Kingdom of Prussia, that existed from 1701-1871 when it became the German Empire. An ambassador pre-1701 would have been sent to Brandenburg to Berlin. There would not have been Ambassadors to the Duchy of Prussia itself after about 1625, and if we had such articles (which seems unlikely) they could be placed in an Expatriates in the Kingdom of Prussia category if we had enough to justify that. The general rule is that we use disambiguation all the way down, so since Kingdom of Prussia is the lead article we use Kingdom of Prussia in all categories relating to it. This is the sane reason we have Ambassafors to China not Ambassadors to the People's Republic of China, since the article China is about the current country. I think we have a Prussia article that oddly tries to cover the Free State of Prussia (1918-1945), the Kingdom of Prussia and the Duchy of Prussia, even though the last was basically the aane as the post-1772 Province of East Prussia. We do not have a people from Prussia Category, we have a People from the Kingdom of Prussia category with several sub-cats that really should be renamed to conform to that parent.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:07, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

  Great! Mason (talk) 21:11, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

  Also Category:Russian people of the Great Northern War only holds a military personnel sub-cat, which is also in the Great Northern War military personnel category, and is otherwise connected to the Russian tree, so this would seem to not be needed to connect its sub-cat and since it has no direct contents I see no real reason to have it.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:17, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

  I don't know if it used to have non-military people in it. I'd like to leave that as is. Leaving it in the russian tree is helpful for navigation because people expect to find it there. Mason (talk) 21:24, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

• In general we should try to not create excessive overlapping categories. This means that it would be ludicrous to split the Austria-Hungary Category by century. Because we would end up with a category covering 18 years and another covering 33. People categories bring split to cover less than a century is excessive. I think though we should upmerge 17th-century Russian people into People from the Tsandom of Russia. The Tsardom of Russia existed only 174 years, that is a period of time such that any further time dividions of it are excessive.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:04, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
• There are currently 27 1 article sub-categories of Ambassadors of France.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:17, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
• Recreating 18th-century Russian people is the worst possible solution. Russian directly is a horrible way to describe people from the Russian Empire or the Tsardom of Russia. Many of these people would not have seen themselves as Russian, even though they were subjects of the polity. As we go further back the very nature of what is and what is not Russian becomes very disputed. It is much better to clearly link people to specific polities that have clear definition, than to use ethnic modifiers that they may or may not have recognized as applying to themselves. We want to avoid in any way making statements that show us favoring one or another of later nationalist movements in the area. We want to categorize people by their clear connections to the states that existed during their lifetime.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:52, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

  This does not follow WP:DEFINING. Either someone is called Russian or not. They are not instead called "Tsardom of Russia people". But I take it you are content with the Russian Empire categories all being subcategories of the Russian people categories? Mellk (talk) 21:01, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

  No people are subjects of the Russian Empire. A large number of people in the Russian Empire were not Russian but they are defined as being subjects of the Russian Empire. This is a standard way we define lots of people. It is how we define people from the Ottoman Empire. I still think the category People from the Russian Empire should not be under the Russian category, exactly like how we do not but People from the Ottoman Empire under the Turkish people category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:11, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

  If they are not considered to be "Russian", then we would put them in other categories, such as Category:19th-century Finnish people, unless your suggestion is to get rid of those categories too. Mellk (talk) 22:26, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

• Past discussions make it very clear we do not use Russian Empire before 1721. This was a matter of discussion at CfD back in 2018.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:59, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

  Can you point to that CFD, because I find it difficult to believe that the solution was to yeet all 18th-century Russian's from the category if they died before 1721. Mason (talk) 22:18, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

  • They are not Russians. They are People from the Tsardom of Russia.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:28, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

• The People from the Holy Roman Empire Category would be much better divided up with People from the Electorate of Saxony by century, People from Bavaria by century and so on. Those are the divisions that make the most sense and conform most closely to the reality on the ground. Modern nationalism does not really begin in that area until after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire. The Austrian Empire and more so the Austro-Hungarian Empire is a collection of ethnic groups where while thry concenrmtrate in one part of the Empire, you can find people of various ethnic groups spread throughout the Empire. The Holy Roman Empire exists before most national awakenings, and so it is probably best to avoid demonyms as much as possible and use People from Foo at all levels and in pretty much all cases.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:28, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
• If you look at the size of the category Military personnel of the Tsardom of Russia. The fact that it has 1 by century sub-cat with 4 and another with 14 articles makes no sense. These people would be better off in the broader military by century cats and just in military of the Tsardom of Russia cat. What we have right now is a division into too small of categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:45, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Diplomats categories

I think in the case of diplomats categories I think we should limit membership to people who were in the diplomatic service of that country. So a British person who only ever was a diplomat for the Russian Empire would go only in Diplomats of the Russian Empire not in British diplomats.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:59, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure that that's workable, because they might still be defined by being a British diplomat. But it is an interesting idea. Mason (talk) 00:06, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

For diplomats categories we should only define people by the country they worked for. Anything else is silly and leads to lots of misleading categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:17, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

• I have noticed a lot of people are at the same time in British diplomats and Diplomats of the United Kingdom. Yet the latter category is a subcat of the formed. I think we need to stop this duplicate category assignment. On the other hand Ambassadors of Russia and other ambassador categories are in their country's expatriates category. Yet because of people who get appointed ambassadors at large, or ambassadors to international organizations based in that country, so that the Belgian ambassador to NATO is not an expatriate, the Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations is not an expatriate, and so on. I think we should change the relationship of ambassadors and expatriates to see also, and say that we will not place a person in a general expatriate category when they are in a general ambassadors category. So a person in Ambassadors of the United Kingdom does not go in British expatriates. Nor would we place someone in British Ambassadors to France in British expatriates in France. However if he also lived in Spain long enough to count as a British expatriate in Spain, in roles other than as an ambassador, we could place him in that category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:12, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

17th-century Indonesian people

I think this category should be renamed to 17th-century people from the East Indies. Indonesia is formed in the 1940s, and the word and concept really are born after 1900. It is highly anachronistic for us to call people Indonesia before that year.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:05, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

The failure of non-diffusing categories

I just came upon the article on Antonio de Zamora who was when I found it only in 2l3 categories. The category for his year of birth. The category for his year of death and Spanish male writers. I added him to Spanish dramatists and playwrights. So at least the article now conforms yo non-diffusing rules. One of the rules that is supposed to make diffusing fully by ERGS characteristics less likely is the last ring rule. This is that in most cases even if an intersection meets other ERGS rules we do not diffuse by it at the lowest level of diffusion. So we can have Anerican women scientists because we diffuse scientists as chemists, biologists, physicists, geologists etc. However we would not have American women physicists unless we further diffused physicists. There are some categories where there is say Zimbabwean women geologists (I do not know this is an actual example, but this phenomenon exists) where there is only 1 article in the intersection of an occupation and a nationality, and it has a women's sub-cat, so the 1 article is the only article in either category. Other cases there is 1 article in the gender neutral parent and 1 article that has been fully diffused to the child category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:06, 3 September 2024 (UTC)