Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 May 14
May 14
Category:World Cup of Baseball
Category:Formula 1 Designers
Category:Women obsessed characters
Category:Actors by film series
Actors by series categories
Category:Tucker Family
Category:Jewish communities destroyed in 1948
Category:Spanish language novels
Category:Newspapers by publication frequency and one layer of subcats
I question the practicality of categorizing newspapers by how frequently they are published. This is not a defining characteristic. We already have better classifications of newspapers, e.g. by country. >Radiant< 14:26, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep and populate, as a defining characteristic of a newspaper. A weekly newspaper has a different focus to a daily (e.g. Sunday newspapers). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:11, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep Defining characteristic. Postlebury 12:57, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Category:Charmed Powers
Category:Spanish-language writers
Category:British people of French descent
Category:South American writers
This category only had two entries: a Peruvian poet, and a subcategory of "South American writer stubs." The many other South American writers are categorized under nationality, for which see Category:Latin_American_literature. This category was not being used, and serves no useful purpose. Suggest delete. Jbmurray 11:17, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment And it might be worth adding that Category:South_American_writer_stubs manifests the confusion that plagues Wikipedia's distinction between South, Latin, Central, and Meso America... There are a bunch of (e.g.) Panamanian and Costa Rican writers in there, who as such are not paritcularly South American. What would make sense would be to reserve "South America" for the rather limited set of articles devoted to that continent's geography, and stick to Latin America for most other uses. For instance, there's little point maintaining separate categories (or articles) for South American culture and Latin American culture. But I guess that's another nomination. --Jbmurray 13:00, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment -- actually, the culture (and thus the literature) of South America is quite different from that of Central America, or the Caribbean, or Mexico. This is why they all need separate categories, but they will all fall under the main umbrella Category:Latin American writers. Even in South America there are major differences, i.e. Argentina's culture is very Europeanized, while Bolivia's is very indigenous. --Wassermann 09:29, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment Once again... South America is a geographical category rather than a cultural one. The literature and culture of South America are not sufficiently different from that of (say) Central America for there to be courses or programmes in South American literature. Or rather, the continuities and similarities far outweigh the differences, without denying further internal differentiations. Hence we have Latin American Studies, Professors of Latin American literature, and so on. (Formerly, especially in literary studies, the category was Hispanic or Spanish America, but this is today mostly outmoded. And its true that some Latin Americanists would describe themselves as also, for instance, Andeanists or specialists in the Southern Cone, or indeed Central Americanists... but never South Americanists; the term doesn't exist.) --Jbmurray 13:36, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment -- actually, the culture (and thus the literature) of South America is quite different from that of Central America, or the Caribbean, or Mexico. This is why they all need separate categories, but they will all fall under the main umbrella Category:Latin American writers. Even in South America there are major differences, i.e. Argentina's culture is very Europeanized, while Bolivia's is very indigenous. --Wassermann 09:29, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep, but rename to Category:Latin American writers to match Category:Latin American literature, but use only as a container category. The national categories should be subcatted under here rather than directly under the literature category, as is done with Category:British literature and Category:British writers. I think that it is worth retaining these Latin American categories as subcats of the Category:Latin American culture tree, but that Category:South American writer stubs should also be renamed to Category:Latin American writer stubs (but that should be a separate nomination at WP:SFD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:02, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment I've been thinking about this suggestion. I think it's worth a try, to see how it would work out. It's certainly a step forward. So as nominator, I'm happy to change my proposal to rename. (I'll probably put forward a bunch more renaming/deletion proposals down the line to try to rationalize the whole series of South/Latin/North/Central/Meso American problems.) --Jbmurray 07:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
::Comments -- yes, by far it is easiest to start by lumping them all under "Latin American writers" (the largest umbrella category), since you can't get any larger than that except possible Category:Spanish-language writers. Then, if desired, you COULD have 'trickle' down categories of like "Central American writers," "South American writers," "Caribbean writers," etc. So, after this category's name is changed I may actually recreate this "South American" writers category JUST FOR the countries of South America (since I am personally interested in that continent), but it would of course be a subcategory of this larger (soon to be) "Latin American" one. --Wassermann 08:59, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep, per BHG. A Musing 15:14, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep -- I'll populate this category real quick. --Wassermann 08:26, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
:Rename -- I agree with BrownHairedGirl -- rename to Category:Latin American writers, and then create the other categories I mentioned above to create more specific regional/continental categories with this "Latin American writers" category at the helm of all of those. --Wassermann 08:29, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Reply Wassermann, which categories above? I'm getting increasingly confused, and fear that the unintended result of my proposal to start simplifying and making these categories is that they are becoming ever more complex and unmanageable. --Jbmurray 09:05, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- KEEP, no rename necessary -- Yes, I am a bit muddled myself, but I'm going to fix all of this right now by creating the broad umbrella Category:Latin American writers. Under this main unbrella category will fall this category (hence my new keep vote instead of rename), plus Category:Central American writers and Category:Caribbean writers since all of these regions are considered part of Latin America as a whole. Add to that Category:Spanish-language writers (includes Spain, but oh well). Any others to add or create besides these? --Wassermann 09:29, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Wassermann, again thanks for your enthusiasm, but do you think you could go about your fix in a collaborative manner? I've spent a while working on these categories, and would be happy to work with you (and other editors), but suggest that some thought and communication go into the effort. I put forward these delete proposals as an step towards simplification. I'm open to hearing other suggestions, hence I agreed to BHG's idea for a rename rather than a delete of this category. But by making the multiple changes you've made in the last few hours, things have become much more complex. --Jbmurray 09:33, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- And most Caribbean writers are not Latin American. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:43, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Wassermann, again thanks for your enthusiasm, but do you think you could go about your fix in a collaborative manner? I've spent a while working on these categories, and would be happy to work with you (and other editors), but suggest that some thought and communication go into the effort. I put forward these delete proposals as an step towards simplification. I'm open to hearing other suggestions, hence I agreed to BHG's idea for a rename rather than a delete of this category. But by making the multiple changes you've made in the last few hours, things have become much more complex. --Jbmurray 09:33, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment Wassermann has now rather muddied the waters with a rapid series of category creations and categorizations etc. I can't be bothered reverting his constant reverts. It seems to me that this discussion has now been rather overtaken by events, at least for the moment. And there is more duplication and clutter than ever. I would have liked to have tried out Brown Haired Girl's solution. But there we go. --Jbmurray 10:02, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment I think Wassermann and I are coming to more agreement now, and the waters are less muddied. Category:Latin American writers has been created. The question is whether or not this should be a rename or a keep. I would still go for a rename, which would now involve simply deleting Category:South American writers and, for good measure, Category:Central American writers, too. But I'll sleep on it. --Jbmurray 10:36, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Well, however much I sleep on it, the category continues to be redundant. So delete still. --Jbmurray 18:55, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete This construct still presents many of the difficulties: Latin America itself is ambiguous (see the article, but some usage would lump in Belize and Suriname, others would include/exclude Haiti; not all Latin American writers have something in common with each other, except being lumped in an ambiguous geography with others so lumped: Mexican literature is quite different from Argentinian, and both quite so from Brazilian. Simply, put Latin America however defined is quite heterogeneous. The attempt to cobble together all of Latin America into a single culturo-linguistic entity is usually done objective in mind; what is that objective here? If this is kept is must also be proper to have a Category:European Community writers because they too - when viewed from without - are as much a single community (or more so, given their supranational governmental structure and its use of the singular rather than "Communities"). Carlossuarez46 20:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Don't delete This is a necessary head category. I'm happy to leave the renaming issue to local editors & a future settlement. Johnbod 01:17, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- It is a subheading of Category:Writers by nationality, is Latin American or South American a nationality? the EU or EC is a much better candidate for such terminology; why collective and marginalize Latin (or South) Americans? Carlossuarez46 19:04, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- For one thing the great majority write in 2 languages, not the 34 or whatever the EU officially uses. Most South American writers are in a national category also, which is fine by me. Not everyone can remember which South American country a given writer comes from, especially as many have moved to other countries etc. Johnbod 21:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment This is one reason I've been persuaded that rename is a better solution than delete. "Latin American writers" is a good head category, in line with Latin American literature. "Latin America" is a cultural category. South America is not, as it's purely geographical. (Nor is the EU, as it's a poliical category.) There's no such thing as South American literature. There are, for instance, no courses or professorships in that non-existent topic. On the other hand, Latin American literature is an important and valid field (albeit one whose limits are indeed, like the limits of Latin America, somewhat contests). --Jbmurray 09:47, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Johnbod's argument is equally valid for Europe: Not everyone can remember is a particular writer is Slovak or Slovene or Czech, and people move around, from Romania to France; Poland to England; Germany to Italy; England to Greece; etc. As noted by Jbmurray there is no South American literature, but there is Latin American literature, just like there is European literature, also a common discipline in US universities, and professorships, etc., further strengthening the analogy. Carlossuarez46 23:24, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- For one thing the great majority write in 2 languages, not the 34 or whatever the EU officially uses. Most South American writers are in a national category also, which is fine by me. Not everyone can remember which South American country a given writer comes from, especially as many have moved to other countries etc. Johnbod 21:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Category:20th century video games, Category:21st century arcade games and Category:21st century video games
Category:Chaotic BattleZone
Category:Jewish mathematicians
- The following discussion is an archived debate regarding the category or categories above. 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.
The result of the debate was ...
I've spent quite some time reading through this. There are more arguments to delete than to keep, but I am more concerned about the arguments being made pro and con, than the number of "votes". Over all I think the rationales for keep boils down to the following. 1) Jews are a nation, 2) this category fills out a hierarchy of Jews by occupation similar to other religions, and 3) the connection between Jews and mathematics is non-trivial.
I think the first argument is not NPOV. This is just asking for more contentious debate. The entire 'Occupation by nationality' categorization convention we have created is not a policy. It has inherent notability problems. Its origin at Wikipedia is the result of early constraints on the categorization system. There are many subcategories that would fail the 'notable intersection' test.
The second argument also has problems. If we decide to remove a hierarchy of non-notable intersections and they were members of a different hierarchy, then that other hierarchy will not be fully populated. This is the case with some of the examples mentioned, such as Category:Hindus by occupation and Category:Roman Catholics by occupation. The occupations listed are directly related to the religion, as most of them are, and probably all of them should be. This is quite the norm with categories. Just because we have a hierarchy, it does not mean that it should be fully populated with subcategories. This is a well established categorization practice. If we are not vigilant about removing non-notable category intersections we will weaken the value of the entire categorization system. So this argument is moot. It really boils down to the third argument which is notability.
The relevant guideline for the third argument is the notion that a reasonable article could be written about the subject of of Jewish mathematics or Jewish mathematicians. Let's assume that an article could be written about Jewish mathematics, even though I don't see any evidence in this debate that it could. The Jewish mathematicians in this category are notable because they are Jews and they are mathematicians, not because they are scholars of Jewish mathematics. If there are scholars of Jewish mathematics, they should be in a category renamed to make the distinction clear because otherwise it will be filled with Jewish mathematicians who are not scholars of Jewish mathematics. If there are such mathematicians, someone can create the category with a non-ambiguous name and start populating it.
This leaves the notion that there is something special about being Jewish and being a Mathematician. The problem with all of these intersections is that on the surface they all look reasonable and important. Whenever someone sees one ethnicity, religion, sex, etc... listed, they will want to include their own. Having all of these intersections populated is unworkable, and we have often removed many of the ones that have non-notable connections. The connection has to be more than just having a disproportionate number of people in the field. There should be something intrinsic or historically significant that connects the group of people with the profession that justifies having the category. In other words, the category should be useful in the pursuit of some avenue of study. The reason to have a category of Jewish mathematicians is because it would be useful for studying some topic which I'll call "X". If you are studying this topic "X", you'd want to look at the articles in Category:Jewish mathematicians because you will find out more about "X" because "X" is discussed in these articles. If the category doesn't help in the pursuit of learning about "X", then you don't need the category. I have not seen any evidence in this debate that "X" is anything besides "Mathematicians that are also Jews". The topic "Mathematicians that are also Jews" is not a topic worthy of having a category. Therefore, the result of this discussion is "Delete".
This was a long and drawn out debate. I am coming to believe that most of the categories that lead to these long debates should be deleted just because they are so divisive. I hope that everyone can look to create alternatives that are less controversial. If there is something to be said about "Mathematicians that are also Jews", then create List of Jewish mathematicians, add lots of citations. Lists such as these might be able to survive in a middle ground, not quite notable enough to become a category, and notable enough to survive AfD. Also, If anyone has a problem with my decisions, I hope you can discuss it with me before going to DRV. Shalom. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 08:48, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Procedural nomination. This category was deleted as part of a prior nomination. The deletion was overturned at deletion review and is now here for separate consideration. Please review the two prior discussion. As thge closer of the deletion review I'm abstaining. ~ trialsanderrors 06:05, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
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- The two previous CfDs are here: [1] [2]--Brownlee 14:51, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Note Both severely lacked a good amount of comments and both ended in "no consensus" not "keep." If you want to count numbers, the first one seems to be a clear majority for delete. Bulldog123 17:31, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Nevertheless they were clearly not a consensus for deletion.--Runcorn 18:09, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- But categories for deletion lacking a wide input and reaching no consensus are usually encouraged to be relisted. Bulldog123 18:26, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- I just added relisting the no consensus decision to the policy section so it might not have been as clear when this was closed. Vegaswikian 20:48, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- But categories for deletion lacking a wide input and reaching no consensus are usually encouraged to be relisted. Bulldog123 18:26, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Nevertheless they were clearly not a consensus for deletion.--Runcorn 18:09, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Note Both severely lacked a good amount of comments and both ended in "no consensus" not "keep." If you want to count numbers, the first one seems to be a clear majority for delete. Bulldog123 17:31, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep The arguments were put forward at length on the talk page of this category and the previous two (unsuccessful) CfDs.--Newport 08:54, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete Irrelevant intersection. There is no Jewish way of doing mathematics. Was properly deleted and should not have been overturned. Postlebury 10:11, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment This argument ha already been rejected. There is no French or German way of doing mathematics either but it is accepted that we have mathematicians by nationality. The fact that so many mathematician have been Jewish shows that it is a relevant intersection. Very many Jewish mathematicians were born in one country but spent much or most of their lives in another, so categorisation by nationality is not very helpful for them.--Brownlee 14:45, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Reply. Not quite, that argument has been rejected by some editors, but not refuted. As per my comments below, being a refugee doesn't undermine categorisation by nationality: it just means that some Jewish people will be classified as (for example) both German mathematicians and British mathematicians. The reason we sub-categorise mathematicians by nationality is the same as the reason we categorise all occupations by nations: because nationality is one of the major biographical attributes for all people, and is a useful reflection of one of the major markers for where heir influences were felt (for example, the career and work of an English businessman or academic is more frequently assessed in the context of other English businessmen or academics than with French or Germans). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:48, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- I think, to be specific, that the style of Nicolas Bourbaki is a French style of doing mathematics. It would be wrong to assert that all French mathematicians tend towards that style or that all non-French mathematicians don't, but it is a very specific style and is very strongly identified with France. —David Eppstein 00:04, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment This argument ha already been rejected. There is no French or German way of doing mathematics either but it is accepted that we have mathematicians by nationality. The fact that so many mathematician have been Jewish shows that it is a relevant intersection. Very many Jewish mathematicians were born in one country but spent much or most of their lives in another, so categorisation by nationality is not very helpful for them.--Brownlee 14:45, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
DeleteAgreed. Neither religion nor ethnicity are relevant categorizations for mathematicians. Geometry guy 11:04, 14 May 2007 (UTC)- I haven't necessarily changed mind re deletion, but although I have generally found the arguments presented so far for keeping this category either fallacious or contrary to current policy, there have been one or two editors who have made me feel that I should make a more considered response than this initial one. This does not affect at all any of the arguments I have made below: I stand by all my arguments and my refutations of any flawed (and occasionally ill-informed) reasoning which has been used to support this category. Geometry guy 21:51, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Why not?--Brownlee 14:45, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- It is up to those who wish to make an exception for Jewish ethnicity/religion to give reasons why such categorization is relevant for mathematicians. Consensus on this issue was reached here. The importance of relevance is explained with admirable clarity by BrownHairedGirl immediately below, and I note that no one has yet addressed her concerns directly. Geometry guy 15:55, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Consensus was not reached on deleting an ethnic category; it was not even discussed.--Runcorn 18:09, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- This (somewhat moot) objection has already been hammered to death in the DRV, and is one of the reasons we are all having to go over this again in this CfD. However, you have not answered any of the other points, and I have replied to your comment below. Geometry guy 20:40, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
*Neutral for now, but leaning towards delete. First, I'm not entirely clear why the April 29 CfD was overturned at DRV. I have read the recent deletion review, and it seems that a common thread in the "relist" or "restore" votes was the category should have been discussed separately from other religions, because Judaism is both a religion and an ethnicity. A further argument was that Judaism should also be considered as a nationality.
I have also reviewed the discussions at CfD 2006 Sept 12 and CfD 2006 May 12 … and after reading it all, I have yet to find a single clear statement of a valid reason for keeping this category.
It's a general principle that we do not divide occupations by religion or ethnicity, unless there is evidence that the intersection is itself notable: in other words, that people of that religion or ethnicity will be practising that occupation in a particular manner because of their religion or ethnicity. We have generally accepted that the intersection is notable in the case of literature and philosophy (and indeed elsewhere in the humanities), where religious traditions and beliefs frequently do have a strong influence; and we have also accepted that case in law and politics, so we have categories of Jewish lawyers and Roman Catholic politicians.
So this category does not fit the general map of intersection categories which we keep. There have been a lot of arguments at DRV and CfD which amount to WP:USEFUL or WP:ILIKEIT, neither of which are valid reasons for keeping a category. Before making up my mind, I want to hear the arguments. Is there any any reliable evidence that there is a particularly Jewish way of doing mathematics?
A further argument at previous CfDs and at DRV was that Jewish people should be regarded not just as an ethnic/religious group, but as a nationality. So far, that looks unlikely to me as anything other than a minority view: the article Jew opens with the sentences "Jews are members of the Jewish people, an ethnic group originating in the Israelites of the ancient Middle East and others who converted to Judaism throughout the millennia. The ethnicity and the religion of Judaism are strongly interrelated, and converts are both included and have been absorbed within the Jewish people." Does anyone want to offer evidence that this is wrong? (Note that the important article Who is a Jew? is asking a different question, so please don't just link to that article as an answer. It asks who is a member of the group, but he issue here is what the group is).
So on the evidence so far, there is no reason to keep this category. But at DRV there were many editors who argued that there was something to add, so before confirming my !vote, I want to hear their arguments. Does anyone have anything to say that actually addresses the questions I have raised? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:41, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- I was one of those editors who thought this would be the appropriate place to discuss the differences, though I also expressed skepticism as to whether the category would survive. I accept the idea that Judaism is both ethnicity and religion, and wouldn't question the idea that a "Jewish writers" category, for example, should survive. But can someone make the case for this being a notable intersection, where ethnicity (or, indeed, any element of Judaic history or culture, including religion) has some significance?A Musing 14:25, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete; we categorize mathematicians by nationality as well as century, not by ethnicity or religion. Hence we don't have Category:African-american mathematicians either, for instance. >Radiant< 13:21, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Seems like a rather bureaucratic rule, that we only do certain intersections and all others are irrelevant. Why not have another category if someone shows the relevance of the intersection?A Musing 14:26, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Why? Because there are important correlations between nationality and the type of mathematics one does, due to the differing educational emphases in different nations, and national pride in certain subjects; Hungarians are known as great combinatorists, for instance. Although there have been historical attempts to make similar claims for religion, they have I think been founded less on evidence and more on bigotry. —David Eppstein 20:16, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Because from that argument, a person with eight "traits" (e.g. a female african-american post-modernist author from Iowa born in 1960 with a college degree who won a Booker award and is active in politics, hardly implausible and several people have more) would have two to the eighth power categories, or 256 categories. That is why we restrict it to relevant intersections. >Radiant< 08:28, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- My question wasn't why restrict it to relevant interesections. My question was, why should there be a "rule" that once we have categorization by nationality or century, that we should not categorize by other relevant intersections? If it is shown that this is a relevant intersection, should the presence of the nationality or time period schemes be considered at all. A Musing 11:32, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep Category:Jews would be far too large a category if there were no subcategories. It is accepted practice to classify Jews by occupation; since so many Jews have been forced to be refugees, it is at least as good a basis as Jews by nationality. What distinguishes mathematics from other occupations?--Brownlee 14:49, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Question. Brownlee, do I understand you correctly? I take it that you are arguing that Jewish people should be in all cases be an exception to the general rule on classification by religion and ethnicity? The tragic fact that so many Jewish people have been refugees doesn't seem to me to add up to a reason for a separate Judaism-by-occupation category tree, when we have been removing other religion-by-occupation and ethnicity-by-occupation categories. Refugees can be categorised like other migrants under both the country they left and the country the emigrated to. So a Jewish mathematician who emigrated to the United States would be categorised under Category:Jews by country as Category:Polish Jews and Category:American Jews), as well as under Category:Mathematicians by nationality as Category:Polish mathematicians and Category:American mathematicians. There's no need for them to end up in a huge Category:Jews, and the articles already in that category should be dispersed to the various national categories. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:17, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- I am saying that mathematicians should not be an exception to the classifications by occupation!--Brownlee 15:28, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- No, that's not quite the effect of what you are saying. Step back a level: your argument isn't really about mathematician. You are arguing that because some Jewish-ppl-by-occupation categories have not been deleted under the wider deletion of other ethnicity-or-religion, that there must therefore be some general exception for all Jewish-by-occupation categories. Why? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:34, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- I am saying that mathematicians should not be an exception to the classifications by occupation!--Brownlee 15:28, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment It is well established at CfD that Jewish-by-occupation categories are generally kept; why are mathematicians different?--R613vlu 15:39, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Not so far as I have seen, it isn't. Do you have any comparison of the fate of jewish-ppl-by-occupation categories nominated over the last few months, or whatever longer period you choose? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:51, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Question. Brownlee, do I understand you correctly? I take it that you are arguing that Jewish people should be in all cases be an exception to the general rule on classification by religion and ethnicity? The tragic fact that so many Jewish people have been refugees doesn't seem to me to add up to a reason for a separate Judaism-by-occupation category tree, when we have been removing other religion-by-occupation and ethnicity-by-occupation categories. Refugees can be categorised like other migrants under both the country they left and the country the emigrated to. So a Jewish mathematician who emigrated to the United States would be categorised under Category:Jews by country as Category:Polish Jews and Category:American Jews), as well as under Category:Mathematicians by nationality as Category:Polish mathematicians and Category:American mathematicians. There's no need for them to end up in a huge Category:Jews, and the articles already in that category should be dispersed to the various national categories. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:17, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete per "Non-notable intersections by ethnicity, religion, or sexual preference" rationale. Tarc 15:21, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment In view of the fact that a remarkably high proportion of mathematicians are Jews, and several people have commented on this, why is it non-notable?--R613vlu 15:39, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Any references for that assertion? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:51, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment Yes, reference provided below.--Epeefleche 22:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- What about the remarkably high proportion of mathematicians that are Caucasians? Category:Caucasian mathematicians should exist? Bulldog123 17:36, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment The proportion of Jews that are noted mathematicians is much greater than their representation in the general society of their countries, as is detailed below. That distinguishes them from Caucasians.--Epeefleche 22:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment Nope. It's the same EXACT argument. Caucasians (defined as those of European descent), as a whole, represent a minority of the world's population, but probably over 90% of the world's significant mathematicians. So Category:Caucasian mathematicans is just as significant as Category:Jewish mathematicians if you want to use that argument. Bulldog123 16:56, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment The proportion of Jews that are noted mathematicians is much greater than their representation in the general society of their countries, as is detailed below. That distinguishes them from Caucasians.--Epeefleche 22:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Any references for that assertion? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:51, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment In view of the fact that a remarkably high proportion of mathematicians are Jews, and several people have commented on this, why is it non-notable?--R613vlu 15:39, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep Notable intersection.--R613vlu 15:39, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete, possibly after listifying. There is no jewish style of mathematics. We generally sub-categorize by nationality not religion/ethnicity. And we can categorize these people under Jews-by-nationality and Scientists-by-nationality. We can even make a list of Jewish mathematicians. The one thing that our guidelines do not allow is making a category of Jewish scientists. The few substantive arguments in favor (ignoring all the vacuous WP:ILIKEIT and WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS arguments) have addressed why these people should be classified as Jews (which they already can be), but not why we should have an intersection category (i.e. why this qualifies for an exception under our guidelines). In the absence of any valid argument for an exception to our general guidelines, the category should be deleted. Xtifr tälk 17:10, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep Needs to be populated, though. Looks like it's included under "Mathematicians by nationality." I see that "Basque mathematicians" is included under that one as well, even though Basque is not a nationality in the strict sense either. In any case, I would say this is definitely more valid a category than, say, "Basque mathematicians" or "Bengali mathematicians," given that one could probably write a better article about the relationship between Jews and math than one between Basques and math. Mad Jack 17:12, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- So your argument is "Two other crappy categories exist, so we should keep this one?" By the way, "Bengali" and "Basque" also refer to regions. Jewish doesn't. Writing an article on either Jews and math or Basques and math would be almost entirely original research. The presence of the article itself screams original research. Bulldog123 17:28, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. Not so. See, e.g., the articles, books, etc. listed below on Jews and math.
- So your argument is "Two other crappy categories exist, so we should keep this one?" By the way, "Bengali" and "Basque" also refer to regions. Jewish doesn't. Writing an article on either Jews and math or Basques and math would be almost entirely original research. The presence of the article itself screams original research. Bulldog123 17:28, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- I think this is Ep's comment. You probably signed it with a page break instead of the tilde. Ep, all you're doing is looking up "Jewish mathematicians" on a search engine and pasting the results. One of your links is even a cache from a search engine. You also haven't separated out the results that actually gave you anything of worth on "Jewish mathematician" from results that gave you "German-Jewish mathematician," which often is about just one person. I think you were already given this example but what about Greatest Black mathematicians, African American Mathematics, Black Mathematicians and Their Works, and African American mathematics. So you think we can write an article on Black mathematics and have the category Category:Black mathematicians too? Bulldog123 16:56, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment Per the Note_a_Vote template the following should be known. Mad Jack, Newport, Brownlee, Osidge, Holdenhurst, Avi, Epeefleche, and R613vlu come from a sect of wikipedia editors well known for their tendency to keep any controversial articles or categories on Jewish topics. This is known because they were previously WP:CANVASSed for a different category because of their opinions. See details in the deletion review. Though they are allowed and should be allowed to express their opinion, it is also very important, per the note_a_vote template, to note that they are not representativie of wikipedians in general but rather representative of a small sect of wikipedians. That being said, please continue expressing your opinions. Bulldog123 18:02, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Any other violations of WP:AGF and WP:NPA you care to commit? -- Avi 16:15, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Wish to prove how this is a violation of WP:AGF or WP:NPA? Bulldog123 16:28, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- "but it's important for the closing administrator or bureaucrat to know how representative the participants are of Wikipedians generally." The template was not up at the time I put this comment, and it IS important to know this, even if everyone participating is doing so in good faith. Bulldog123 16:41, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment The following should be known. Bulldog, Radiant, Xtifr, and Sleep on It come from a sect of wikipedia editors well known for their tendency to seek to delete any controversial articles or categories on Jewish topics. See, e.g., details in the deletion review. Though they are allowed and should be allowed to express their opinion, it is also very important to note that they are not representativie of wikipedians in general but rather representative of a small sect of wikipedians. That being said, please continue expressing your opinions. --Epeefleche 22:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Any other violations of WP:AGF and WP:NPA you care to commit? -- Avi 16:15, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- WP:POINT Ep. You didn't even fix my typo when you copied and pasted that. Bulldog123 16:56, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- These cross accusations are unhelpful. It is better just to give the diffs and let the reader decide for themselves. As I understand it, the comments Bulldog123 makes are partly based on the following:
- These are messages from Epeefleche about the Jewish figure skaters CfD to users including Brownlee, Holdenhurst, Newport, Osidge, and R613vlu. However, while these last five users have not (in my opinion) added much to the discussion, and while Epeefleche got off to a bad start by using a lengthy boiler-plate argument, Epeefleche is now (again in my opinion) making a more serious attempt to engage with the specifics of this CfD. I think this is to be applauded, even if we are disagreement over most points! Geometry guy 01:20, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. Isn't this discussion long enough, with sufficient appropriate substantive material for us to discuss, without making innacurate accusations about what happened in another vote? I guess not ... OK: there was no vote stacking. That charge was false. Below is what I wrote in the prior vote that is alluded to. For some reason, my colleagues have in their above comments not referred to it. (In defense of those that may have missed this, without my permission Radiant had removed my below comment from the talk page in that discussion ... the result being that the admin who closed the discussion did not see my comment before reaching his decision ... so they might have missed it as well). I hope to avoid any more discussion on this subject, though, as I think it more helpful for us to stick to the issue before us than let some editors make unsubstantiated and refuted misrepresentations and charges against me, and thereby derail the discussion of the substance of this discussion.
- Vote stacking? As to the charge of "vote stacking," all that I did was alert some of the people who had voted in the "Jewish fencers" and "Jewish sportspeople" votes that there was another vote pending on the same subject. This is not wholly dissimilar, as I indicated to Radiant, from the directly prior comment on his discussion page, in which he was alerted to something that related to his own prior vote.
- Ep, you contacted people who didn't even participate in those Cfds. You contacted people saying " they are nominatinig Jewish sportspeople categories" again as if there was some conspiracy to delete Jewish sportspeople categories. Please stop skewing your intents and flat-out lying. At least admit to your mistake. Bulldog123 04:57, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
- The only Wiki policy that I saw that was close to bearing on this issue, which was not applicable here, was that: "It is considered inappropriate to ask people outside of Wikipedia to come to the debate in order to sway its outcome. Such comments ... may be tagged ... noting that a user "has made few or no other edits"." I did not ask anyone outside of Wikipedia to vote.
- Further, I did not do anything anything disruptive. See WP:CANVASS). As the arbitrator in the article mentioned was "fine," I engaged simply in "a reasonable amount of communication about issues [and did not contact] a number of people who do not ordinarily edit the disputed article." In fact, as a number of editors who had voiced the opposite opinion in the parallel debates had (somehow) been aware of this vote and voted their past feelings yet again, I think that it would have been more disruptive if the people on the non-delete side of the vote were not aware of the vote. All that I did was engage in what the Arbitration Committee has ruled is part of Wikipedia's common practice: "[t]he occasional light use of cross-posting to talk pages."
- I would also point out, in passing, that among those users whom I contacted, as you can see from my talk page and his, was Kolindigo, the fellow who nominated this for deletion -- i.e., the main person on the opposite side of this issue. Just as I alerted Radiant that his decision to delete was up for review, though his views were clearly contrary to mine. And I notified the theWub, who had deleted all of the individual categories. These contacts, though few in number, were not even one-sided.
- True, someone (it is not apparent who) put an eye-catching notice on the top of the deletion discussion page that started with "ATTENTION!" It may have some nice graphics, but the suggestion is unfounded. It may well not have been appropriate, but I noticed that all that the notice said as a substantive matter was that deletion decisions are made on the merits of the arguments, not by counting votes. While I felt -- and communicated quite clearly to Radiant and others -- that there was no "vote stacking" here, but only behavior clearly acceptable under Wiki guidelines, I also noted that the notice itself pointed out that there would not be any effect if there were vote stacking -- given that rather it is the arguments, not the number of votes, that is of moment.
- That Radiant (and others) should: 1) accept the unfounded assertion, which was incorrect, and then 2) suggest that their acceptance of the assertion is a basis for deleting the category, is wrong-headed. The number of votes did not matter, as the notice states. It would be non-sensical in any event to, where the arguments presented otherwise would not result in a deletion decision, to delete the category because some arguments only came to the attention of the decision maker as a result of such a communication -- appropriate or not. In short, there was no vote stacking, and had there been any it would not have influenced anything, so it should not lead to deletion where the result would otherwise be non-deletion.
- And not only did Radiant in making his decision point to alleged vote stacking, but even in this review discussion Rockstar points to it as a basis for his conclusion that deletion is proper here. ("I don't like the fact, furthermore, that the DRV nom is also accused of votestacking and canvassing.") Similarly, Xtifr writes above in his delete vote explanation that "the suggestions of canvassing are troubling." I note that both Rockstar and Xtifr are careful to say not that I vote stacked, but that I was accused of such. Well, that accusation was unfounded, and the fact that it influenced Radiant, Rockstar, and Xtifr indicates that their decision were based in part on incorrect accusations.--Epeefleche 01:01, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
--Epeefleche 16:09, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- So you're saying you choose those people to inform "randomly"? How come some of them haven't edited in months then? You think they might come back just to vote on the cfd? Sorry, I'm not buying into this excuse. Bulldog123 16:56, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete for the same reason as mentioned in the DR. I have my doubts about listification because it seems to assert the same messages as a category. That this somehow is a notable intersection. But there is a much stronger connection between myopia and being a mathematician than there is between any ethnic group and being a mathematician. I wouldn't imagine Category:Mathematicians with myopia or any similar list or article being made. Bulldog123 18:02, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. I am unaware of articles, books, etc., such as those refered to in these comments with regard to 'Jews and math,' exisiting in such number with regard to 'myopia and math.' In the absence of such evidence, I find it difficult to attribute any weight to the above comment.--Epeefleche 22:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep After two failures to get a successful CfD, and a back-door deletion overturned at DRV, it is hard to understand what motivates those still pressing for deletion - they have produced no new arguments.--Runcorn 18:09, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- I found your objections above more lucid than most of the others opposed to the deletion, so I was somewhat disappointed by this disingenuous justification (and also by the fact that you did not attempt to answer User:BrownHairedGirl's questions). One of the reasons the previous CfDs reached no consensus (especially the second, more carefully argued, one) was that it was felt that several categories should be considered together. The CfD for Category:Mathematicians by religion was a response to that. Now that all these other categorizations of mathematicians have been deleted, the case must really be made why Jewishness is notable and relevant for mathematicians specifically. I have seen no such case made anywhere on this page so far. Geometry guy 20:34, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep I understand the reasons for triple intersection deletions. I believe that double intersections such as this one are very useful. Although there is no Jewish mathematics, there are many Jewish mathematicians whose lives/careers was different from lives of other mathematicians because they are Jews. I take this a self-evident unless someone doubts this fact (examples are abundant). Mhym 18:24, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Then you would support just about any intersection with Jewish. Jewish laundromat owners is ok because their lives are different from Gentile laundromat owners. Also why wasn't Category:African-American mathematicians not kept for that reason? No one would argue most African Americans lead the same lives as whites in the United States for the majority of their history there. Bulldog123 18:30, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- What you are saying is silly and mildly offensive at the same time. This assumes that being a laundromat owner is notable AND there was some kind of discrimination of Jews because they owned laundromats. Neither is true. I would agree that this does extend to many notable professions such as Jewish scientists, Jewish film directors, Jewish bankers, etc. I did not follow the African-American mathematicians discussion. I would vote to keep it for the same reason. Mhym 18:45, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- That is not what you said at first. Thanks for clarifying. Except for this case there is no evidence that particularly Jewish mathematicians were discriminated against to the point of notability. Generally any University positions, and obviously only at times of such continued anti-semitism (such as in revolutionary Russia or Nazi Germany). And in the case of Jewish film directors and Jewish bankers there is absolutely no support for what you are saying. Plus, a huge amount of the people listed in such a category would have no relation to the reason for the category's existence. Bulldog123 18:51, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- I agree with the last (and only the last) sentence you wrote. However, WP is not the place where such distinctions have to be made. In fact, the perpetual return of this issue has a bad aftertaste. For example, Category:Women mathematicians doesn't seem objectionable to anyone, while most women in that category faced no discrimination and there is no female mathematics that I know of. Mhym 19:57, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- I have to put my professional hat on to answer this point, which I normally do not like to do in Wikipedia. I am not a big fan of having a Category:Women mathematicians, but there is a case for it, since there is evidence that women are particularly disadvantaged in mathematics, as compared to (say) biology. Whether this disadvantage is caused by discrimination is a matter of debate, but noone can deny the remarkably low numbers of women in mathematics.
- I have not noticed the (anecdotal) claims made above that the numbers of Jewish mathematicians is "remarkably" high, but neither is it particularly low. This makes the intersection not notable. There is not a need or justification for this category any more than there is for Category:Jewish biologists, Category:Jewish chemists, Category:Jewish physicists, Category:Jewish astronomers,... the redlinks go on and on. Geometry guy 20:17, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Further Mhym is not addressing SPECIFICALLY Jewish mathematicians, but rather any Jewish intelligentsia during anti-semitic times. There is 0 evidence Jewish mathematicians were more oppressed than any other Jewish intellectual during Nazi purges and Russian pograms. Therefore it is still not a notable intersection. Though I do not necessarily support Category:Women mathematicians, I think we can save that for another cfd and discuss it there. This might be another example of WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. Bulldog123 21:14, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- 'Comment. Bull's comment is off-point. There is no need to show that Jewish mathematicians were more oppressed than other Jewish intellegentsia. Just, if anything, that they were treated differently than non-Jewish mathematicians. See "Non-notable intersections by ethnicity, religion, or sexual preference." --Epeefleche 16:33, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Further Mhym is not addressing SPECIFICALLY Jewish mathematicians, but rather any Jewish intelligentsia during anti-semitic times. There is 0 evidence Jewish mathematicians were more oppressed than any other Jewish intellectual during Nazi purges and Russian pograms. Therefore it is still not a notable intersection. Though I do not necessarily support Category:Women mathematicians, I think we can save that for another cfd and discuss it there. This might be another example of WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. Bulldog123 21:14, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- I agree with the last (and only the last) sentence you wrote. However, WP is not the place where such distinctions have to be made. In fact, the perpetual return of this issue has a bad aftertaste. For example, Category:Women mathematicians doesn't seem objectionable to anyone, while most women in that category faced no discrimination and there is no female mathematics that I know of. Mhym 19:57, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- That is not what you said at first. Thanks for clarifying. Except for this case there is no evidence that particularly Jewish mathematicians were discriminated against to the point of notability. Generally any University positions, and obviously only at times of such continued anti-semitism (such as in revolutionary Russia or Nazi Germany). And in the case of Jewish film directors and Jewish bankers there is absolutely no support for what you are saying. Plus, a huge amount of the people listed in such a category would have no relation to the reason for the category's existence. Bulldog123 18:51, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- What you are saying is silly and mildly offensive at the same time. This assumes that being a laundromat owner is notable AND there was some kind of discrimination of Jews because they owned laundromats. Neither is true. I would agree that this does extend to many notable professions such as Jewish scientists, Jewish film directors, Jewish bankers, etc. I did not follow the African-American mathematicians discussion. I would vote to keep it for the same reason. Mhym 18:45, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Then you would support just about any intersection with Jewish. Jewish laundromat owners is ok because their lives are different from Gentile laundromat owners. Also why wasn't Category:African-American mathematicians not kept for that reason? No one would argue most African Americans lead the same lives as whites in the United States for the majority of their history there. Bulldog123 18:30, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. notable, relevant, and the previous discussions do not seem to me to have given the required majority for deletion.--Smerus 19:07, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Can you prove its notable and relevant? Bulldog123 21:14, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. Yes -- see discussion of notability, and references to articles, books, etc. on the category.--Epeefleche 22:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete non-notable intersection. My answer might be different if the category were to list mathematicians who were specifically persecuted for their (real or imagined) judaism, but that's not what this one is. —David Eppstein 20:16, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- implement Wikipedia:Category intersection and make all these discussions go away. There are really two question this category addresses, 1) finding mathematicians who are jewish, 2) finding jewish people who mathematicians. For the most part the religion or ethnicity of a mathematician is not of great interest so 1) does not meet keep criteria. However I can see that people might be interested in the professions of jewish people. I can see legitimate reasons for why a person might want to study the range of professions of a race or sex or religion, especially those who are brought up under a particular faith. For example someone might be set the task of writing a essay on a famous jewish scientist. Deeper research might be looking to see if particular groupings favor particular ocupations. It is our job as an encyclopedia to provide information and make it easy for this information to be found. It is not ours to judge what are valid questions to ask.
- Yes I do have small interest in the faith of a mathematician, as faith can bring with it a whole curtural background which can influence the type of mathematic someone undertakes - what are seen as the important questions in that faith. I recently had chance to edit Kanti Mardia, a Jain. That fact in itself is of interest as you only come across Jains, in this case his Jainism is of significance as he has published works on Jainism and science, an Jainism did have import for Mardia the person. Hence I have no problem with a Category:Jains but I'm less thrilled about a whole tree. These are largely orthogonal charateristics and should be treated as such. --Salix alba (talk) 20:18, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete Appears to be a random intersection of religion and occupation as described in Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Non-notable intersections by ethnicity, religion, or sexual preference. There is also a flawed argument above that just because Category:Jews is large means that it needs to be subdivided by occupation. It could be subdivided by other means related to Judaism, for example, or could even not be subdivided at all (it doesn't necessarily have to be subdivided). Keep in mind that all articles in this category will presumably already have other "mathematician" category tags, meaning that there is little benefit to duplicating that kind of tag here. Dugwiki 20:32, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment I already voted earlier, so let me add a different kind of thought. The problem is technological rather than conceptual. If Category:Jews and Category:Mathematicians are allowed, compiling the intersection should be easy. Unfortunately, as of now, there is no way I know (beside using "advanced google search") to do that. I would be perfectly happy to delete the directory if there was such a tool. Similarly, for those who suffered from discrimination or worse there are numerous categories such as Category:Holocaust victims. Given appropriate tools no need to have a special cat for Mathematicians who are Jews and Holocaust victims. I say it would be better to develop the tools (or in my case wait till someone else does) than argue this over and over again. It makes sense to keep all barely reasonable cats in the meanwhile until this happens. Mhym 21:01, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Userfy (term?) it? Bulldog123 21:14, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep.
- 1. Notability. Wiki policy calls for sensitivity towards "notability."
- To determine what notability means here, see Wikipedia:Notability (people), the notability criteria guideline for Wikipedia. That guideline states, inter alia, that "Notability ... is based on the following criterion: The person has been a primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works .... This criterion includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, magazine articles, books, scholarly papers, and television documentaries ...."
- Thus, where Jewish mathematicians are noted as such in multiple non-trivial published works, such as newspaper articles, magazine articles, books, and the like, they meet the notability requirement.
- I'm sorry that I have to interrupt here, but your answers to my comments below show that you have not understood what Wikipedia:Notability (people) is referring to. It is about whether someone is notable enough to be included as an an article in Wikipedia. And of course, very many Jewish mathematicians are! This is an entirely different question to determining whether the category of Jewish mathematicians is a notable and relevant intersection per WP:OCAT. Geometry guy 00:10, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Articles and Books. Such is the case with Jewish mathematicians. See, for example
- "JEWISH MATHEMATICIANS",
- This is a list of (mostly relatively recent) Jewish Mathematicians, together with footnotes to explain how their Jewishness was established (maternal grandmother, Jewish father etc.). Sadly it is not clear that consent/agreement was sought. In particular the list includes Issai Schur. Anyway, the fact that there are Jewish mathematicians (there are mathematicians of most religions and ethnicities) does not demonstrate the notability and relevance of the intersection per WP:OCAT. Geometry guy 20:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- I, for one, am unaware of a requirement that consent be sought to reflect that someone is Jewish. Any more than consent is required to reflect their date of birth, country of origin, or spelling of their name, for example. Please reference that requirement, if it exists. In addition, as the Wiki notability language that I shared demonstrates, the focus here is on the fact that they are Jewish but on the fact that the fact that they are Jewish was noted.--Epeefleche 22:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- There is no requirement, but as the notion of Jewishness is not well-defined, it is polite to ask or make historical enquiries whether someone regarded themselves as Jewish or not. See User:IZAK and User:Arcfrk's comments below. But this is a side issue. Geometry guy 00:10, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- This is a list of (mostly relatively recent) Jewish Mathematicians, together with footnotes to explain how their Jewishness was established (maternal grandmother, Jewish father etc.). Sadly it is not clear that consent/agreement was sought. In particular the list includes Issai Schur. Anyway, the fact that there are Jewish mathematicians (there are mathematicians of most religions and ethnicities) does not demonstrate the notability and relevance of the intersection per WP:OCAT. Geometry guy 20:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- "Mathematics in Jewish Sources",
- This is a list of papers, mostly by B. Tsaben and D. Garber. These papers are mostly in Hebrew, but appear to be talking about the mathematics produced by Jews in ancient and medieval times. The ones I could read were interesting: one concerned the Talmudic value of π; the others concerned work of 12th Century Jewish mathematicians. This shows that there were Jews doing mathematics in ancient and medieval times, just as there are today. This is not news, nor does it demonstrate notability and relevance. Geometry guy 20:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- See my above comment.--Epeefleche 22:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- This is a list of papers, mostly by B. Tsaben and D. Garber. These papers are mostly in Hebrew, but appear to be talking about the mathematics produced by Jews in ancient and medieval times. The ones I could read were interesting: one concerned the Talmudic value of π; the others concerned work of 12th Century Jewish mathematicians. This shows that there were Jews doing mathematics in ancient and medieval times, just as there are today. This is not news, nor does it demonstrate notability and relevance. Geometry guy 20:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- "James Joseph Sylvester: Jewish Mathematician in a Victorian World" (hardcover book),
- Sylvester was a great Jewish mathematician who lived in Victorian times. I don't see what this shows. Geometry guy 20:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- See my above comment. As the title of the book suggests, and this goes far beyond what is required, the fact that he was Jewish was far more than a footnote. In fact, it makes it into the title of this book.--Epeefleche 22:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Of course it is more than a footnote. And our article on James Joseph Sylvester, although it refers to and categorizes his Jewish background, is utterly inadequate. He was a very notable Jewish English Victorian Mathematician. This does not mean, however, that there should exist Category:Jewish Victorian English Mathematicians. Geometry guy 00:10, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Sylvester was a great Jewish mathematician who lived in Victorian times. I don't see what this shows. Geometry guy 20:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- "Mathematics" in the Jewish Encylopedia,
- This discusses Talmudic mathematics and the work of some Arabic Jewish mathematicians, i.e., mathematicians who were part of the Arabic (language) culture of mathematics, which continued the Greek tradition c. 600-1400 (e.g., some of the ones studied by Garber and Tsaben). Then it goes on to discuss translations of these works and gives a list of more modern Jewish mathematicians. This shows that Jews were involved in mathematics throughout history, but does not demonstrate the notability of the intersection per WP:OCAT. Geometry guy 20:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- See my above comments.--Epeefleche 22:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- This discusses Talmudic mathematics and the work of some Arabic Jewish mathematicians, i.e., mathematicians who were part of the Arabic (language) culture of mathematics, which continued the Greek tradition c. 600-1400 (e.g., some of the ones studied by Garber and Tsaben). Then it goes on to discuss translations of these works and gives a list of more modern Jewish mathematicians. This shows that Jews were involved in mathematics throughout history, but does not demonstrate the notability of the intersection per WP:OCAT. Geometry guy 20:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- "Mathematicians under the Nazis," by Sanford L. Segal,
- From the review In fact, the "mathematicians" discussed in the book are for the most part non-Jewish. Geometry guy 20:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- From the review, the book discusses Jewish mathematicians under the Nazis, as one category of mathematicians under the Nazis ... parallel to what we are seeking to do here with the creation of a category of "Jewish mathematicians."--Epeefleche 22:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- This possible merits an article about Jewish (and other) mathematicians under the Naxis, but not a category. Geometry guy 00:10, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- From the review In fact, the "mathematicians" discussed in the book are for the most part non-Jewish. Geometry guy 20:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- "Jewish Mathematics" at Gottingen in the Era of Felix Klein," by David E. Rowe,
- This further demonstrates the unsurprising fact that Jews, like almost every other ethnic or religious group, do mathematics. Geometry guy 20:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- The issue of course is notability. I am not sure if it is being suggested that every ethnic and religious group has articles, in this abundance, entitled ... for instance ... "Aborigines and Math."
- An abundance of articles on Jewish mathematicians does not make a category. Geometry guy 00:10, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- This further demonstrates the unsurprising fact that Jews, like almost every other ethnic or religious group, do mathematics. Geometry guy 20:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- "Although Jews constitute only 1.8% of all Americans, more than 50% of all members of the division of mathematics and applied mathematical sciences of the U.S. Academy of Science are Jewish. Furthermore, 61% of all winners of the lifetime achievement award in mathematics are Jewish.... the winners of 41% of the Wolf Prize in Mathematics are Jews; 42% of the winners of the Bocher Memorial Prize in mathematics are Jews and 44% of the winners of the Frank Nelson Cole Prize in Algebra and Numbers theory are Jews. The number and contributions of Jewish mathematicians is so great and so long that they cannot be reproduced here.".
- This is an unsourced statement at the beginning a short page on the work of the great Jewish mathematician and computer scientist John von Neumann. Because it is unsourced, we do not know how these data were compiled (presumably the figure of 1.8% is taken from a poll or census; but, as can be seen from the above JEWISH MATHEMATICIANS link, it is not so clear what criteria are used to establish the Jewishness of mathematicians). However, quibbles over the figures are not the main point. These statistics shows at most a correlation between being Jewish and being good at mathematics, not a causal effect. As mentioned previously there are many Caucasian mathematicians, but this does not mean the intersection category is notable per WP:OCAT. Category:male mathematicians is another rather obvious case. At the other extreme, among Americans, there are undoubtedly disproportionately few Category:hispanic mathematicans and Category:black mathematicians. Those who wish to argue that this correlation indicates a causal relation between being hispanic/black and being no good at mathematics, would undoubtedly and justifiably be branded as racists. Geometry guy 20:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- I'm sorry that you did not see my prior comment on Caucasians. A vandal deleted it, as he has repeatedly done with many of my comments on this page. It impedes our discussion. I have addressed it, yet again, above however. As to the question as to whether there is any causal effect, I for one do not see that as an issue for this discussion. It is a question of notability, not causation.--Epeefleche 22:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- No, we are trying to decide whether this is a relevant intersection per WP:OCAT. The fact that there are many notable Jewish mathematicians is irrelevant to this question. You sideskirt the issue here, but are more explicit in your restored reply re Category:Caucasion mathematicians, where you are using the apparent correlation between Jewishness and achievement in mathematics as a justification for the category. My argument above would suggest that such an argument, which confuses correlation and causal effect, without giving further justification, amounts to racism. Geometry guy 00:10, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- This is an unsourced statement at the beginning a short page on the work of the great Jewish mathematician and computer scientist John von Neumann. Because it is unsourced, we do not know how these data were compiled (presumably the figure of 1.8% is taken from a poll or census; but, as can be seen from the above JEWISH MATHEMATICIANS link, it is not so clear what criteria are used to establish the Jewishness of mathematicians). However, quibbles over the figures are not the main point. These statistics shows at most a correlation between being Jewish and being good at mathematics, not a causal effect. As mentioned previously there are many Caucasian mathematicians, but this does not mean the intersection category is notable per WP:OCAT. Category:male mathematicians is another rather obvious case. At the other extreme, among Americans, there are undoubtedly disproportionately few Category:hispanic mathematicans and Category:black mathematicians. Those who wish to argue that this correlation indicates a causal relation between being hispanic/black and being no good at mathematics, would undoubtedly and justifiably be branded as racists. Geometry guy 20:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- "JEWISH MATHEMATICIANS",
- It is mentions such as these that demonstrate the importance and notability of this classification -- which is what Wiki policy focuses on.
- In addition, as is indicated in the Wiki bios of some of the more prominent examples, anti-semitism played a role in the careers of some Jewish mathematicians, who were often treated differently from non-Jewish mathematicians. For example, Jews in the former Iron Curtain countries (and as you can see from their bios, a number of them finally emigrated from those countries when they were able to do so). In addition, many Jewish mathematicians in anti-semitic countries such as those in Nazi Europe faced the same, and greater, difficulties.
- 2. Heritage. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) Categorization of people (3.3 Heritage), demonstrates that a category such as "Jewish mathematicians" is clearly contemplated by Wiki policy. It says: Heritage ... People are sometimes categorized by notable ancestry, culture, or ethnicity.... A hyphen is used to distinguish the word order: .... Concurrent citizenship may be reflected by duplicating the occupation (for example, Category:Jewish American actors."
- 3. Nationality. Also, given that the Jews are a nation, and not solely a religion, it is clearly not appropriate to delete.
- The Wikipedia entry for "Jew" indicates, inter alia, that Jews are "members of the Jewish people (also known as the Jewish nation ...)." The Wiki definition of "nationality" states, inter alia: "Generally, nationality is established at birth by a child's place of birth (jus soli) and/or bloodline (jus sanguinis)." Thus, in the (unusual) case of Jews, a nation that was largely dispersed 2,000 years ago from its homeland and geographic borders, it is not appropriate to delete. The Jewish nation lives largely, though now not wholly, in the diaspora. Under Israel's Law of Return, all members of the Jewish nation are automatically entitled, by virtue of being members of the Jewish nation, to return to the geographic borders of Israel, and become Israeli citizens.
- Other religions are, in the "normal case," distinct from the nation. In other words, there was not a Protestant, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, or Aethiest nation per se. Those who are members of these religions are not members of a nation or "people." Jews, peculiarly, are not just a religion, but are also a nation.
- This deletion effort appears to be in part a continued effort by a number of editors to delete categories that relate to "Jewish __." As noted, some editors in this discussion formerly tried to delete the categories "Jewish sportspeople" and/or "Jewish Fencers" in the past, for example. Their efforts were rejected. And yet, they are trying to do the same here. --Epeefleche 21:04, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Reply. Epeefleche, that was a long contribution, but I'm afraid that it mostly misses the point, largely because it appears to be a lightly edited version of the same boilerplate text you have used in numerous previous discussions (you haven't even removed the "figure skaters" comment from a previous CfD). It would have been more helpful to have focused on the precise issues here than to have simply dumped in your standard mini-essay.
On the question of Jews as a nation, I note for example Are the Jews a Nation?, which concludes '... Because of the inaccurate connotations that have attached themselves to the term "nation," the term can no longer be used to accurately describe the Jewish people.' There's clearly a debate on this subject, but the point is well made: that in terms of wikipedia's distinction for categorisation purposes between nationality and ethnicity, the notion of 'nation' when applied to Jewish people is closer to the meaning of "ethnic group" than nationality.
On notability, there are many red herrings, the first being that there have been individual notable Jewish mathematicians (obviously true, but irrelevant to the need for a category). Your most persuasive reference is the article on John von Neumann, which makes the claim that Jewish people have been disproportionately prominent in American mathematics (it's unreferenced, by a notable academic, so I assume it's accurate). However is not the same as suggesting that they were doing maths in a Jewish way; it makes a great case for keeping the List of Jewish American mathematicians.
You also point out that Jewish people in Eastern Europe were persecuted under the Nazis. That's not exactly news, but you offer no evidence that mathematicians were persecuted more than other Jewish people, so that's no reason to make a category of Jewish mathematicians, which in any case would necessarily include (for example) American-born mathematicians.
Finally, it's mischievious of you to say that the nominations for Category:Jewish sportspeople and Category:Jewish fencers were rejected, when in fact they were closed as "no consensus" (A and B). Additionally, as IZAK lists below, many Jewish occupational categories were deleted (e.g. C, D, and E). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:43, 15 May 2007 (UTC) - Comment. The boiler plate has now been patched up: see this diff for the version about figure skaters instead of mathemeticians. Geometry guy 13:18, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. BHG says above that she fears that my above contribution "mostly misses the point" "largely because it appears to be a lightly edited version of ... boilerplate text." I find that puzzling.
- Revisiting a Familiar Issue. Here the central issue is one that has been discussed already in a series of prior efforts to delete categories of 'Jews engaged in various activities.' It makes sense that, where the issues are the same (e.g., 'are the Jews the same as any other religion, or are they a nation and a people as well?'), the same points should be considered. Nothing to fear -- boilerplate is a very good thing in such a case.
- Notability. Well-worn discussion is enough. No need to go further -- we don't explore "notability" of other nations' mathematicians, for example. Just close the discussion there. To satisfy anyone who is not quite convinced, however, I've gone even further and reflected a number of examples that reflect notability of this category as well.
- BHG is skewing the language of the entry as to whether Jews are a nation in a way that is at odds with the statement at the beginning of the entry to the effect that they are. That said, I note that even BHG indicates that there is a debate here. All that we need of course to keep the category is a lack of consensus. If that boils down to a reasonable debate as to whether Jews are a nation, so be it. No need for our purposes for further discussion.
- On notability, BHG fails to take note of the fact that the references above focused not on individual notable mathematicians ... tossing in as a footnote the fact that they are Jewish, but on individuals as Jewish mathematicians, or they even focused on the category itself. Earlier, BHG posed questions as though BHG was in search of truth, looking for such references. Now that BHG has them, for some reason BHG fails to appreciate them as being directly responsive to BHG's request, and persuasive.
- Heritage. Also, BHG's suggestions on this point do not jibe with the Wiki language under Heritage, which I quoted above. Clearly Wiki does view focusing on "Jewish ____ ____" as reasonable, and expected.
- Made-up Criteria. Having received direct responses to questions on the issues of the notability of Jewish mathematicians and their representation in the larger category of Jewish mathematicians, BHG then throws up an even higher bar of your BHG's making -- suggesting that they have to have done math "in a Jewish way." I'm sorry, where does Wiki require that? That's simply not the standard that we must reach for the category to be viewed as notable.
- Persecution. Nor is there any requirement that we demonstrate as BHG suggests that Jewish mathematicians were persecuted more than other Jewish people. BHG misses the point. (Nor would I suggest that they were.) The suggestion is simply that the Jewish people (a segment of which are mathematicians) were on the whole persecuted in a manner that distinguishes them from other mathematicians in their "national mathematicians" groupings.
- No Consensus. And no, to respond to BHG's last point, the attempts to delete Cat:Jewish sportspeople and Cat:jewish fencers were rejected. The reason that they were rejected was "no consensus." That is a (and in fact, a primary) reason for rejecting such attempts. It would be perfectly fine with me if the end result is the same here ... nothing more is sought than precisely the same bottom line result as we had with those cats. That we don't delete the category.--Epeefleche 23:53, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Reply Epeefleche, I don't know if there is much point in replying to you, since your first response to my last reply was to edit your earlier comments to remove issues to which I drew attention (see WP:TPG). I also dislike the tone of your response, and ask you re-read WP:CIVIL, and to desist from comments such as "as though BHG was in search of truth". It is quite possible to disagree with someone's conclusions without impugning their integrity.
- The section you quote on heritage was added to the guideline on naming (not on categorisation) without prior discussion by one editor. In any case, you are relying on the wrong guideline, because the issue here is not the naming of the category, but whether or not it shoukd exist. It's entirely consistent to a have guideline saying "here is how you name this type of category" and another one saying "but it should be rarely created". You choose to ignore the second part, which is Wikipedia:Overcategorization.
- Your whole argument is based on the axiom that Jewish people must be treated as a nation, as per any other nation. You can assert that all you like, but assertion does not prove the case, and you did not respond to the references which I provided to the relevant wikipedia articles which frame the issue differently. (see also plenty more references such as [24]).
- Your assertion that a persecuted group deserves an intersection category wrt to any profession, regardless of whether the persecution was relevant to the profession is simply unworkable; if we followed that line of logic, we'd have thousands of irrelevant intersection categories, such as gay matematicians or disabled mathematicians. (And while we're on the subject, I dislike finding that a discussion of the relevance of Jewishness to a categorisation issue is interupted by irrelevant references to the history of persecution; that seems to me to be an unpleasant mirror of an anti-semite's insistence on dredging up every gripe they have ever had with Judaism or Jewish people).
- The question of the whether they were doing maths in a Jewish way is central to the relevance of the intersection, unless we start by accepting your unproven assertion that Jewish=nation in the sense that France=nation. See WP:OCAT.
- Please re-read what I write about your references: they demonstrate that there have been a lot of notable Jewish mathematicians. But they are notable as mathematicians, not as Jewish mathematicians; the fact that they are Jewish is not relevant to why or how they did well in maths. Suppose there were references can show that has been a disproportionately high number of lesbian mathematicians; that would not of itself justify a category.
- The "no consensus" point. There's world of a difference between a failure to achieve a supermajority in favour of something and the other situation of having a clear decision not to do something. Try reading WP:CONSENSUS.
- Finally, please be WP:CIVIL enough not to accuse another editor of using "Made-up Criteria" (WP:NPA is relevant here. You could have simply asked for the reference, and I would have pointed you to WP:CATGRS and WP:OCAT. If you want to reply to this, please do try to leave out the personal attacks. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:34, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment.I have to keep this truncated, but just wanted to respond to the first points while I can. BHG -- you pointed out, correctly, that there was the use of the phrase figure skater where the word mathematician was intended. It was fixed, and your more important general comment regarding boilerplate was addressed. Please explain why that is a problem.
- As to my tone, which you indicate you dislike, I'm sorry to hear it. I reread the rules on civility, and fail to see a violation on my part. I stand by my comment to the effect that you posed comments as though you were in search of the truth (e.g., show me the references to support the assertion as to the high proportion of Jewish mathematicians), and then when presented with the evidence you requested (which you could have found yourself with a simple google search) you simply ignored the point and moved on to your next objection. I do not see the consistency between that behavior and the "searching for the truth" image that you strike in your commments.
- In addition, I note that in many of your comments you make unsourced comments as to what the Wiki rule or practice is. It would be helpful if you were to source them. For example, "that argument has been rejected ... but not refuted"; "The reason we sub-categorise ..."; "It's a general principle that ..."; "this category does not fit the general map of intersection categories which we keep." It all sounds terribly authoritative. But while you wikilink as well as anyone here, you leave those on-high sounding statements unsourced. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Epeefleche (talk • contribs) 23:26, 16 May 2007.
- 'Reply Epeefleche, WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA apply because you attacked me personally rather than the points made. And now you have just done it again: what exactly is so difficult about about saying that you don't understand and asking for clarification, rather than launching straight into accusations of bad faith?
- As to why editing your contriubutions is wrong, please read WP:TPG. You wrote what you wrote, and I by editing it you mad it appear that my reply was nonsense, which is why WP:TPG says that you should not rewrite your comments on a talk page.
- WP:TPG permits me to edit my comments. Furthermore, the text of my response reflected the fact that your comments were noted, but that the weight of them was IMHO illusory. In any event, so all can see it clearly, yes -- you correctly pointed out a mistake, which a helpful editor corrected (and indicated was corrected). Your reply was not incorrect in pointing out what the prior edit had said, before the typo was cleared up. This of course does not bear on the strength of your comment, but I just wanted to clarify that you made an accurate comment in that sense. If anyone thought otherwise, despite the above comments, I sincerely apologize.--Epeefleche 22:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- As to your charge of ignoring evidence, please read what I wrote. I did not ignore the point; I considered the evidence and explained that because it noted an intersection but not a causation, it did not provide the evidence needed to show that Jewishness was important part of these people's contributions to mathematics. You were answering a difft question to the one I asked; you don't accept the relevance of my question, but please have the manners to assume good faith and not to characterise an interpretation/relevance dispute as "ignoring the evidence".
- You want a guideline to justify those comments on intersection categories: WP:OCAT and WP:OCAT, which I cited several numerous times in my reply to you when you asked for references. I'm sorry if I did not wikilink every single point which could have been linked, but since you have not responded to any of the points in which I did draw your attention to those guidelines, it's rather weird to complain about the ones where I didn't. Please could you try to focus on wikipedia policies and guidelines?
- You also complain about my saying in previous CfDs arguments were rejected but not refuted, without providing a reference. I'm sorry, but as you know there is no way of wikilinking directly to a particular exchange in a CFD discussion; and I stand by my point. The same point applies to this discussion; you reject my point about the difference in test to be applied, but have not refuted this by reference to the relevant policies and guidelines which I cited. Rather than accusing me or anyone else of bad faith, please could you try to show why it is wrong to insist per WP:OCAT that the "Jewish mathematicians" is a valid category only if it is a relevant intersection? I know that you claim that a WP:OCAT test is not relevant here, but there I am a long way from being the only editor to disagree with you on that point. So if a WP:OCAT test is applied, do you still claim that this category meets it? I'd be grateful if your reply could focus on substance rather than repeating your personal allegations about me. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:38, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Reply Epeefleche, I don't know if there is much point in replying to you, since your first response to my last reply was to edit your earlier comments to remove issues to which I drew attention (see WP:TPG). I also dislike the tone of your response, and ask you re-read WP:CIVIL, and to desist from comments such as "as though BHG was in search of truth". It is quite possible to disagree with someone's conclusions without impugning their integrity.
- Delete per David and Geometry Guy Feydakin 21:30, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete per David and Geometry Guy, "non notable intersection"--Cronholm144 22:35, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Strong Delete per previous discussion; non-notable, and contentious, intersection. Frankly, I see no consensus to overturn at DRV, either. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:28, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete Subdividing Jews by nationality is sufficient. If they are also subdivided by occupation they end up in four, six, eight Jewish categories, when it is sufficient to make the point that they were Jewish once. Mowsbury 01:53, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete Per Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Non-notable intersections by ethnicity, religion, or sexual preference. BRMo 05:20, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete as it's a Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Non-notable intersections by ethnicity, religion, or sexual preference and because there is no such thing as "Jewish mathematics" as this name implies. See my views at User:IZAK/Deleting lists and categories of Jews which notes the precedants for deleting such categories IZAK 06:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC):
- Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2005 April 15#Category:Jewish American economists
- Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2005 April 15#Category:Jewish American philosophers
- Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2005 August 31#Category:Secular Jewish philosophers
- Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 January 11#Category:Jewish-American singers
- Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 June 16#Category:Jewish American spies
- Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 June 20#Category:Jewish groups
- Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 August 8#Category:Naturalized Jewish citizens of the United States
- Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 September 3#Category:Self-hating Jews (alleged)
- Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 December 26#Category:Self-hating Jew
- Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 January 10#Category:Jewish-American businesspeople
- Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 February 15#Category:Converts to Orthodox Judaism
- Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 March 10#Category:Jewish Economists.
- Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 March 10#Category:Jewish inventors
- Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 April 14#Category:Jewish figure skaters.
- Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 April 25#Category:Jewish American figure skaters
- Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 April 25#American lawyers by ethnicity
- Comment. What a nice long list of deletions - however, only two or three of them are actually relevant. Most of those deletions were 3-intersections - American AND Jewish AND xxxx, while this a 2-intersection category, many of which have been discussed and kept in the past. --Eliyak T·C 21:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Strong Keep -- the deletion of this category was a huge blunder...not only did it result in the loss of a large mass of carefully compiled data, but it also left all of this category's former members to be simply recategorized/merged in to Category:Jews. As stated, this resulted in a HUGE loss of data, and in many/most cases the separate generic Category:Mathematicians category was NEVER added to these articles to make up for this lost info. List of Jewish American mathematicians exists, so why not this category as well? --Wassermann 06:45, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Reply Wassermann, the existence of a list does on its own not justify the existence of a category, or vice versa; per WP:CLS, they have different purposes. You are probably right that the merger of the category was implemented badly (it should have been listified and upmerged to both Category:Jews and Category:Mathematicians), but a badly-implemented category deletion is a different matter to a merger which was bad in principle. This time, you have !voted to keep without any evidence that this is a notable intersection. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:50, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Reassuring comment (I hope ;) — There are 3325 people in the List of mathematicians: it is not sensible to place so many people in Category:Mathematicians (where only 58 people are currently listed). Instead mathematicians are placed in subcategories by century, by field and by nationality, and WikiProject Mathematics has been pretty good at doing this. Consequently very little data (if any) was lost during the upmerge: indeed mathematicians should only have been placed in the generic category if they were not in any of the subcategories. Geometry guy 11:55, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete. Useless intersection. —Ruud 15:51, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete per Mowsbury --Horvat Den 19:35, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep Well-populated and sourced. Secondly, Jewishness does have some differences from other ethnicities in that it also functions at times as a nationality (especially before the establishment of Israel). As mentioned abbove, Jews were often treated as second-class citizens and forbidden various positions or occupations (e.g., Gustav Mahler ) due to their being Jewish, regardless of the number of centuries their ancestors may have lived in the country in question. As such, their nationalistic identity was most often considered "Jewish" as well, and I believe that this should be reflected. -- Avi 20:28, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep Similar to Category:Arab mathematicians. Consider deleting both together or keep both separately. Carlossuarez46 21:00, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Your comment and !vote puzzle me. On the cfd for Jewish figure skaters you wanted to delete it because there was no Jewish way of figure skating. Are you saying here that there is a Jewish mathematics and are you implying it is comparable to Arab mathematics, for which the category Category:Arab mathematicians refers directly to Ancient or Medieaval mathematicians? You believe Jewish mathematicians is comparable to that? And please no WP:ALLORNOTHING requests. All or nothing nominations will get overturned as this one did when it was together with all the other religious categories. Comments on the deletion review discuss the difference between the Arab mathematician category. Sleep On It 09:49, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Obviously, mathematics is different than figure skating. How you skate is not dictated by what you believe. How you approach number theory with all its esoteric components (>3 dimensions, multiverses, infinity, zero, and others beyond my reckoning) may well be, and furthermore, whether you are willing to stick your neck out to challenge the established belief system may also be impacted by whether you're already viewed as an outsider. We have an article Jewish science and we have Islamic science, mathematics are a branch of science (so we are led to belive; although some would argue it's part philosophy - perhaps another reason to keep the cat). Are you saying that an article Jewish mathematics or something similarly titled can never be written? If you aren't then the intersection is valid. If you are then I think you are wrong. Apart from the accomplishments of the various mathematicians categorized here, we have nascent Jewish mathematics/number theory articles already: Gematria, Kabbalah, etc. Treating like for like is the best way to counter WP:BIAS. Carlossuarez46 19:22, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Categorization should follow the justification, not vice versa. Notability and relevance of an intersection cannot be justified by potentiality. If there is an article on Jewish mathematics that could be written with NPOV and NOR, then write it! I couldn't do it, even as a professional mathematician, because I have not noticed anything to distinguish Jewish mathematics! I reply to your "like with like" assertion as part of a more general reply hereafter.
- Comment. Responding to the above, "Non-notable intersections by ethnicity, religion, or sexual preference," to the extent that it may be relevant, states: "You should be able to write a substantial and encyclopedic head article ... for the category .... Please note that this does not mean that the head article must already exist before a category can be created, but it must be at least possible to create one. (emphasis added). The urls that I have set forth in my comments indicate that there was enough material to write scholarly articles and books about Jewish mathematicians, leading me to think that there is good reason to expect that armed with them any like-minded editor could write a substantive head article. But the ability to do so is all that is mentioned -- there is clearly no requirement that one be in fact written.--Epeefleche 16:53, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Categorization should follow the justification, not vice versa. Notability and relevance of an intersection cannot be justified by potentiality. If there is an article on Jewish mathematics that could be written with NPOV and NOR, then write it! I couldn't do it, even as a professional mathematician, because I have not noticed anything to distinguish Jewish mathematics! I reply to your "like with like" assertion as part of a more general reply hereafter.
- Obviously, mathematics is different than figure skating. How you skate is not dictated by what you believe. How you approach number theory with all its esoteric components (>3 dimensions, multiverses, infinity, zero, and others beyond my reckoning) may well be, and furthermore, whether you are willing to stick your neck out to challenge the established belief system may also be impacted by whether you're already viewed as an outsider. We have an article Jewish science and we have Islamic science, mathematics are a branch of science (so we are led to belive; although some would argue it's part philosophy - perhaps another reason to keep the cat). Are you saying that an article Jewish mathematics or something similarly titled can never be written? If you aren't then the intersection is valid. If you are then I think you are wrong. Apart from the accomplishments of the various mathematicians categorized here, we have nascent Jewish mathematics/number theory articles already: Gematria, Kabbalah, etc. Treating like for like is the best way to counter WP:BIAS. Carlossuarez46 19:22, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- The comparison with Category:Arab mathematicians has been brought up several times before. Anyone who finds this category comparable to a Jewish one has simply not checked their facts. In fact they probably haven't even bothered to click on the link. The category concerns mathematicians in the medieval arabic culture (the Arab/Islamic empire/civilization of c.600=c.1400) which continued the Greek tradition and played a key role in the development of mathematics (Hint: algebra, arabic numeral, algorithm; the clue is in the name). This intersection is extremely notable and relevant, and consequently there is no essential difficulty in deciding which mathematicians belong to it.
- Most people supporting the Jewish mathematicians category have not investigated the specifics, and so come up with pointless comparisons like these. This shows a complacent disregard for the Mathematics WikiProject which has worked so hard to produce the articles that might go into such a category. The Arab mathematicians category is not, has never been, and never will be, a category for listing members of an Arab ethnic group. You don't get in here by having a grandfather who preached in a mosque!
- However, as a gesture of goodwill to those who are too lazy to check out the category for themselves, here is the current list: Al-Hajjāj ibn Yūsuf ibn Matar (786–833), Muhammad al-Fazari (c. 800), Al-Kindi (801–873), Thābit ibn Qurra (826–901), Ahmed ibn Yusuf (835-912), Sinan ibn Thabit (c. 900), Muhammad ibn Jābir al-Harrānī al-Battānī (853–929), Ibrahim ibn Sinan (908–946), Abu'l-Hasan al-Uqlidisi (c. 952), Ibn Sahl (c. 940-1000), Ibn al-Haytham (965–1039), Ibn Tahir al-Baghdadi (980–1037), Al-Jayyani (989–1079), Arzachel (1028–1087), Yusuf al-Mutamin (c. 1082), Jabir ibn Aflah (1100-1150), Al-Samawal (12th C.), Ibn al-Banna (b. 1256), Abū al-Hasan ibn Alī al-Qalasādī (1412–1486).
- No one post 1500, and there never will be. The category may be badly named, and should clarify its scope in case an editor misunderstands, but these issues have absolutely nothing to do with the current CfD, and there is no reason at all why these issues need to be discussed in tandem. Geometry guy 22:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Your comment and !vote puzzle me. On the cfd for Jewish figure skaters you wanted to delete it because there was no Jewish way of figure skating. Are you saying here that there is a Jewish mathematics and are you implying it is comparable to Arab mathematics, for which the category Category:Arab mathematicians refers directly to Ancient or Medieaval mathematicians? You believe Jewish mathematicians is comparable to that? And please no WP:ALLORNOTHING requests. All or nothing nominations will get overturned as this one did when it was together with all the other religious categories. Comments on the deletion review discuss the difference between the Arab mathematician category. Sleep On It 09:49, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep per Avi. People say we do not categorize by ethnicity or religion but by nationality only (actually by geographical area - Bretons and Basques have their own occupation categories). But what is so different from a mathematician in France or Germany- they do math full stop. There is no difference or real usefulness in pointing out the "nation" other than a sense of national or ethnic identity. Why should Jews be deprived of that when peoples who are not a diaspora are not? Gustav von Humpelschmumpel 22:46, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete. We do not have categories Jewish biologists/chemist/physicists, nor Christian/Muslim/Hindu mathematicians, so there has to be a damn good reason to maintain a separate specific category of Jewish mathematicians. From a religious or ethic point of view, there is nothing special or particularly interesting about a Jew being a mathematician. From the point of view of mathematics, there is nothing special or particularly interesting about a mathematician being Jewish. Zilch, nada, niente. 88.233.34.73 00:21, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Yeah, yeah, there is a lot of "interesting" about Category:Georgian mathematicians, Category:Tanzanian mathematicians, etc. Give me a break. Just because Jews did not have a country for 2 thousand years, should we say NO to this category but award it to tiny category Category:Latvian mathematicians, none of whom actually lived much in Latvia anyhow. The cats are about people, made by people, made for people... WP is not a source code. Some sensitivity towards Jew, please... Mhym 01:06, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- I.e., WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. As far as countries go, there is Category:Israeli mathematicians. Judaism is not a country, no matter how saying so may offend your sensitivities. —David Eppstein 01:45, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Well, we are not discussing Mathematicians of Jewish persuasion category, so Judaism has nothing to do with this. There are secular Jews in that cat, or even those who were converted. And other stuff always exists. So does WP:IAR. Jews are clearly an exception to the rule. Mhym 02:03, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Please also show sensitivity towards those who are often listed as Jewish, without any consent (sometimes even if they are still alive). Regarding the second point, please define "secular jew" in a way that could be used to say which mathematicians are secular jews. Thanks. Geometry guy 22:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- I.e., WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. As far as countries go, there is Category:Israeli mathematicians. Judaism is not a country, no matter how saying so may offend your sensitivities. —David Eppstein 01:45, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Yeah, yeah, there is a lot of "interesting" about Category:Georgian mathematicians, Category:Tanzanian mathematicians, etc. Give me a break. Just because Jews did not have a country for 2 thousand years, should we say NO to this category but award it to tiny category Category:Latvian mathematicians, none of whom actually lived much in Latvia anyhow. The cats are about people, made by people, made for people... WP is not a source code. Some sensitivity towards Jew, please... Mhym 01:06, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete. All the rational arguments were made before, many times, by very qualified editors and mathematicians, including Geometry Guy, BrownHairedGirl, Septentrionalis, David Eppstein, and many others. I would like to offer two comments. The first comment concerns a point that has been addressed before, but got lost in recent back-and-forth. Some Jewish mathematicians did not wish to be identified as such. A notable case in point is Issai Schur. I believe it is unethical in the very least to insist on labeling people in a way that they may find objectionable. The second one is a personal anecdote. A famous Jewish-Russian otkaznik and mathematics professor, during a personal meeting, turned to me, looked straight into my eye, and asked sharply: Are you Jewish? Being from Russia, I felt the chills. Arcfrk 03:38, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- delete per many above (the list given by Arcfrk does nicely). While it is possible that certain types of ethnicities or religions have had intersections with mathematics that are important by themselves (I don't think anyone would claim that classically Arab mathematics and Greek mathematics had definite meanings and are significant intersections in that regard) but no one has given any reason to Jewish mathematicians as a relevant category. JoshuaZ 04:39, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Strong delete Everyone outside of the pressure group mentioned on the DR wants this category deleted. Many of the keep voters, with a few exceptions, jump in to put keep for any reason they like and then jump out to avoid responding to anyone's questions or comments. I truly no longer WP:AGF. It feels a lot like an effort determined to make this cfd into a no consensus conclusion instead of providing strong arguments for keeping it. No one has yet to prove their claims that this is a notable intersection or why Jews somehow deserve to be given special treatment in this circumstance, except that it is their personal opinion. Sleep On It 09:02, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep It is a notable intersection because of the remarkably high number of Jewish mathematicians. Further, many mathematicians were or are of Jewish nationality; for example, all Soviet or Russian mathematicians would have "Nationality: Jewish" on their official documents.--Simul8 12:35, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment This is category does not become notable just because there have been a lot of them. The same applies to Category:Left-handed footballers and category:Blonde blue-eyed actresses. Postlebury 12:59, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. Of course, as is discussed above when a parallel argument was raised, there is no evidence proferred of the number of books and articles with regard to Category:Left-handed footballers and category:Blonde blue-eyed actresses, per se. That makes those categories clearly distinguishable in the sense of notability.--Epeefleche 21:44, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment This is category does not become notable just because there have been a lot of them. The same applies to Category:Left-handed footballers and category:Blonde blue-eyed actresses. Postlebury 12:59, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment The substantive arguments appear to be as follows:
- We should recognize Jews as a race or nation, as well as a religion. This is not consensus; for example, this comment.
- Of course Jews are a race or nation, as well as a religion, otherwise how could anyone who is not a strictly orthodox Jew be described as Jewish? Would you edit every biography of a Jewish person who was not strictly orthodox to remove references to his or her Judaism?--Runcorn 21:35, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Hoorah, you have got the idea! Yes, Jews can be described as a race or a nation, and there is no reason to edit every biography. But we are talking about whether we should routinely recognise Jewish subcategories. In fact we do not, but apply tests of notability and relevance, and your answer explains why this is currently the policy. Geometry guy 22:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- "otherwise how could anyone who is not a strictly orthodox Jew be described as Jewish?" Thanks, but I would prefer not to base our policy on a POV inconsistent with both Reform and Conservative Judaism. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:40, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Of course Jews are a race or nation, as well as a religion, otherwise how could anyone who is not a strictly orthodox Jew be described as Jewish? Would you edit every biography of a Jewish person who was not strictly orthodox to remove references to his or her Judaism?--Runcorn 21:35, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Quite right - the only sensible policy is that anyone who is described as Jewish by reliable sources is or was Jewish, and their degree of religious observance or otherwise, and indeed their precise ancestry (as long as they themselves are described as Jewish) is an irrelevance.--Holdenhurst 12:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Jewishness can be defining when Jews are persecuted. For most of the persecutions of the Jews, this is inconsistent with reason 1; converts were not persecuted, but retained. This also does not apply to most Jewish mathematicians; I would have no objections to Category:Emigres from Naziism, although I see no particular point to dividing it by profession. It would, of course, contain a substantial number of Gentiles. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:29, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Question - I am starting to lean toward a keep here for one reason and one reason alone: the argument above that Jews should be recognized as a nation, and that there are some multi-national societies that do (Soviet or Russian mathematicians are noted above, but I'd also cite to the Ottoman empire, which recognized separate Jewish law for many purposes); to the extent that Jews are treated as a separate nation, it would strike me that the idea of "Jewish mathematicians" is at least as relevant as that of "French mathematicians." Does that mean we should throw out all national classifications of mathematicians, because they're all irrelevant intersections? I come to think it should be the whole tree or nothing, and am thinking that there is a case for the whole tree. I do not think we need to have a state structure to have a national identity (for example, we categorize Greeks during the Ottoman period as Greeks), and there is a good argument that the Nation of Israel should be treated as predating the State of Israel.A Musing 15:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- The validity of categorization by nationality, and whether or not Jews form a nation, these are not really questions we can answer in this CfD. A higher level policy decision is needed. I'm sympathetic to the idea that Wikipedia might run a bit more smoothly without categorization by nationality (and the world might as well!), but such categorization is routine here, for better or worse. And currently, the policy is not to consider Jews routinely as a nation, and there are good reasons for this as well as arguments against.
- If you are truly still undecided, take a look first at Talk:Georg Cantor, and witness the unedifying and colossal waste of editors' time discussing largely irrelevant issues of religion (and the edit wars which accompanied it). Then, if you still lean towards believing that this is a worthwhile category, explain how to decide whether Cantor belongs to the "Nation of Israel" or not. Geometry guy 19:08, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- So is it suggested that just because there is room for doubt about whether one person was Jewish, we shouldn't have this category at all? If there is a politician with an argument about whether he was Jewish, should we delete Category:Jewish politicians? There is doubt about whether Alexander Grothendieck is German; should we delete all the German categories?--Runcorn 21:30, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- You have again got the point. With Category:Jewish politicians there is a clear case for notability and relevance of the intersection, which makes it possible to decide whether someone should be included. For this category, no one has demonstrated notability or relevance of the intersection, so there is no way to decide whether having a Jewish great grandmother is sufficient for membership or not. Geometry guy 22:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- So there is such a thing as Jewish politics - Jewish politicians differ from other politicians of the same nationality and party - in a way that doesn't apply to mathematics? And Jewish actors? Anyway, this doesn't address Runcorn's point, which is that the fact that occasionally there is some doubt about which category someone should be in does not invalidate the whole category system.--Simul8 10:25, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- I would add that classification by "nationality" is equally irrelevant and often misleading. For example, Lipman Bers is a Jew who was born in Riga, Imperial Russia and thus listed for unknown to me reason in Category:Latvian mathematicians. He studied in Prague and spend much of his life in New York, thus he is also in Category:American mathematicians. Clearly, him working in the US and him studying in Prague made more impact on his mathematics than his misattributed birth country (Latvia became independent in 1918). On the other hand, Leonhard Euler is listed only in Category:Swiss mathematicians despite spending much of his life in Russia and what is now Germany. Can somebody explain this all to me? Ugh... In summary, any categorization (at times even seemingly innocent like male/female) can lead to difficulties and confusions (see e.g. Lynn Conway). WP folks just need to get used to that and give cats benefit of the doubt. Mhym 22:21, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Euler is Swiss, Russian, and German, depending on what standards you apply. Wasn't Bers a citisen of Latvia between 1919 and when he went to college? If I weren't sick of it, I'd add Danish and Russian cats to Georg Cantor (the problem with Jewish cats there -even granting that the Jews are a race- is the thinness of the evidence). That's what categories are for; to allow multiple inconsistent classification.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- In this situation it is quite common to list mathematicians under both the birth country and the country (or countries) in which they worked in. Or have you not noticed? Geometry guy 22:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Hmm... Leonhard Euler is in Wikipedia:Featured articles, so hundreds of people looked at it. In other words, if I have not noticed this, neither did all of them. Mhym 23:06, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- In fact, the way I see it - there is no good answer to the problem. If Euler is both Swiss, Russian and German (I challenge you make the change and see how quickly you get reverted!) then you are advocating inclusiveness; so why not have Jewish mathematicians then? If you are saying "No! No! No!" - Euler was no Russian, I say OK. Then Lipman Bers is not Latvian. He is certainly not Imperial Russian - must be Jewish-American then. Mhym 23:11, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Categorization by nationality is a routine here on WP. It has many flaws, and we try to make the best of it, by being flexible and adding multiple categories to mathematicians who migrated (especially if they adopted another nationality). If you want to change policy, give it a go, but you cannot do it at this CfD. If you don't want to change it, but can't live with it, go to another website. Geometry guy 23:25, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks, this discussion is useful. I have been thinking about the issues with categorization by nation a fair bit of late, especially in the area of literature. The same issues that arise with Georg Cantor also arise with Rumi, for example, where there are edit wars over the extent to which he is Persian or Turkish or both (surprisingly, the edit wars don't focus as much on Arab, and there's also a justification for that). Looking at the general flaws with categorization by nation, are there more or fewer for a Jewish nation? If you look at nationalities with large diasporas, such as Greek, Chinese or Armenian (and note there was no Greek or Armenian state for most of the last two millenia), how do we deal with them? There is a formal Jewish nation both in ancient times and currently, there is a diaspora in between, why not include it among other nationalities? Related to these questions are whether we should subsume Catalan to Spanish, for example, or Native American to American, etc. At this point, based particularly on the Greek example, I'm weighing in with Keep, but I'd like to see a broader discussion of the use of categorization by nation in the historical context. Note that I am explicitly not relying on the idea of Judaism as a religion or ethnicity, and that I am assuming that we want to categorize by nationality. On the defining characteristic issue, I am concluding that "nationality" is being treated consistently as a defining characteristic on Wikipedia, and that there is good reason to have a comprehensive categorization scheme by nation. I would be very open to revisiting the last assumption, that there should be a comprehensive categorization scheme by nation.A Musing 12:18, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- You have again got the point. With Category:Jewish politicians there is a clear case for notability and relevance of the intersection, which makes it possible to decide whether someone should be included. For this category, no one has demonstrated notability or relevance of the intersection, so there is no way to decide whether having a Jewish great grandmother is sufficient for membership or not. Geometry guy 22:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. In addition to the other sources above regarding and reflecing the notability of Jewish mathematicians, here are a few more (will give others later, if I have time):
- "Jewish mathematicians in the German-languaged academic culture," Exhibition at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, March 2007,
- "Ernst Steinitz and Friedrich Wilhelm Levi - German Jewish mathematicians and their families in the 19th and 20th centuries, by Harald Gropp, Universität Heidelberg, 2005,
- "The effects of fascist anti-Jewish persecution on the Italian mathematical milieu," by A. Capristo, Center for American Studies, Rome (paper considers impact of anti-Semitic laws on the Italian mathematical milieu at the end of the Thirties. Figures on aryanization of this sector of Italian academia are provided. Reference is made to unsuccessful nomination of Jewish mathematicians to the Accademia d’Italia. Consequences that the persecution against the Jewish scholars had in aggravating the isolation and the gap between the Italian and the international mathematical community between the two world wars is considered), and
- Reference to publication entitled "Jewish Mathematicians," covering up to 1550.
- Links to men referred to a German-Jewish doesn't prove anything. Links to an event announcement with the word "Jewish mathematicians" doesn't prove anything. Basically, showing us your google search is not showing us notability. Showing us many well-established publications showing the so-called "Jewish mathematics" as there are many publications showing, for example, the correlation between wealth and education...that is evidence. And naturally you're going to find some publication with that title, that still doesn't prove it is general enough for an encyclopedia. I can find links to support a random position too, such as the Latvian category that was bothered:
- Latvian Mathematicians
- Latvian Mathematical Society
- Mathematics in Latvia through the Centuries
You can find anything to support a point of view. Sleep On It 02:19, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. To the contrary. These demonstrate notability in precisely the manner called for by Wiki, per the above discussion. And yes, I would have no problem with a category of Latvian mathematicians. Your comment puzzles me -- are you suggesting that you would have a problem with such a cat?--Epeefleche 22:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep Some ethnicity/occupation deals are unimportant. For example there hasn't been much study or interest in "Jewish figure skaters." However others have a historic significance. Jews were in some cases a bridge between Arabic and European knowledge, while in other cases their views or origins related to their treatment in math faculties. This is discussed some in A Beautiful Mind (book).--T. Anthony 03:22, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Reply That's an important point, and it's the first one that I have seen so far which addresses the the question of whether Jewish mathematicians do their maths in a Jewish way. I'm sure that you are right about the significance of those people as a bridge to the medieval practice of Islamic maths, but this role is restricted to a very small subset of Jewish mathematicians. It would be better to have a list (or preferably a substantive article) on the important contribution to maths made by these people; but their contribution is not highlighted by including them in a large category which includes all those 20th century Jewish mathematicians who have had no part in the historical bridging role. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- List would also be fine. The thing is usually when that's suggested as an alternative, on anything, it either doesn't happen or gets deleted. Granted there is a List of Jewish American mathematicians, but that's actually less relevant then many cases I'm thinking of. Simply being Jewish was generally more significant in Medieval times, Tsarist Russia, and sometimes Germany. I don't know if I was saying though that there is exactly a "Jewish way to do math", but I could see their being a cultural/historic significance of Jewish people in math. (Note: Relating to things said way above I'm pretty certain I was not involved in the DR on this, but I might check for certainty,)--T. Anthony 10:31, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- I think that a bare list of names would be vulnerable at AfD, but a list which explained why these peoples were significant and connected would be much better, especially if it included a brief note on each person. However, the fact that such a list does not yet exist seems to me to be a very poor reason to keep a category of which these people are a small subset. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)
- List would also be fine. The thing is usually when that's suggested as an alternative, on anything, it either doesn't happen or gets deleted. Granted there is a List of Jewish American mathematicians, but that's actually less relevant then many cases I'm thinking of. Simply being Jewish was generally more significant in Medieval times, Tsarist Russia, and sometimes Germany. I don't know if I was saying though that there is exactly a "Jewish way to do math", but I could see their being a cultural/historic significance of Jewish people in math. (Note: Relating to things said way above I'm pretty certain I was not involved in the DR on this, but I might check for certainty,)--T. Anthony 10:31, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Reply That's an important point, and it's the first one that I have seen so far which addresses the the question of whether Jewish mathematicians do their maths in a Jewish way. I'm sure that you are right about the significance of those people as a bridge to the medieval practice of Islamic maths, but this role is restricted to a very small subset of Jewish mathematicians. It would be better to have a list (or preferably a substantive article) on the important contribution to maths made by these people; but their contribution is not highlighted by including them in a large category which includes all those 20th century Jewish mathematicians who have had no part in the historical bridging role. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep or delete Category:Islamic mathematics--Sefringle 03:42, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- The only explanation I can think of for you to have made this comment is that you didn't even click on that link. Category:Islamic mathematics is about an important historical period in mathematics, and explicitly on the category page mentions that its contributors had multiple faiths despite the category name. It has nothing to do with classifying modern mathematicians by religion or ethnicity. —David Eppstein 04:23, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep It's very simple; this is notable because several people have commented on the number of Jewish mathematicians. Any other definition of notability violates WP:NOR.--Osidge 08:21, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Reply Osidge, you are mistaken, because you are considering categories as if they are articles; WP:NOR applies, but not as you claim. If you read WP:CAT, WP:CLS and WP:OCAT, you will see repeated insistence that categories do not, for example, categorise trivial intersections. There are lots of thoroughly relable and verifiable references about, for example, income levels in particular areas, but those are deprecated by Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Arbitrary inclusion criterion. I could list many more examples, but the whole of wkipedia's categorisaton practice is based on restricting categories to signbificant attributes. We include articles if there are reliable sources, but the categorisation system only works because we don't just accept any non-original research as justifying a category; we apply a long series of other tests. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:52, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- I don't follow this. It is alleged that this intersection is non-notable and even trivial. Sources have been produced that it is notable, significant and certainly not trivial. What other criteria override WP:V?--Simul8 08:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- The issue is not that WP:V doesn't apply, but rather that it is not sufficient to justify a category. See Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Non-notable intersections by ethnicity.2C_religion.2C_or_sexual_preference: "people should only be categorized by ethnicity or religion if this has significant bearing on their career". For the overwhelming majority of people in this category, there is no evidence that bring Jewish has a significant bearing on their career (you may have noticed hat I have repeatedly been pressing for evidence of this, and the only evidence available has been that cited above by T. Anthony which relates to a a particular set of Jeewish mathematicians at one stage in history). It probably did have a major bearing on other aspects of their lives, so it's quite appropriate to categorise them as Jewish people --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:44, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- I don't follow this. It is alleged that this intersection is non-notable and even trivial. Sources have been produced that it is notable, significant and certainly not trivial. What other criteria override WP:V?--Simul8 08:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Reply Osidge, you are mistaken, because you are considering categories as if they are articles; WP:NOR applies, but not as you claim. If you read WP:CAT, WP:CLS and WP:OCAT, you will see repeated insistence that categories do not, for example, categorise trivial intersections. There are lots of thoroughly relable and verifiable references about, for example, income levels in particular areas, but those are deprecated by Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Arbitrary inclusion criterion. I could list many more examples, but the whole of wkipedia's categorisaton practice is based on restricting categories to signbificant attributes. We include articles if there are reliable sources, but the categorisation system only works because we don't just accept any non-original research as justifying a category; we apply a long series of other tests. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:52, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Keep Abundant evidence has been offered above that being Jewish and being a mathematician are correlated so it must have affected many people's careers. BrownHairedGirl admits that it did have a demonstrable effect on some mathematicians, so she must concede that the category should exist for them. There is a clear attempt at a double standard here. If someone was born in one country but emigrated as a young child, their place of birth is of little relevance, but nobody would delete their national category of country of birth.--Holdenhurst 12:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- When you're ready to present that "abundant evidence" do let everyone know. Bulldog123 16:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Bull, I'm sorry ... a vandal has been deleting my comments on this page. I've restored it above.--Epeefleche 22:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Holdenhurst, I would welcome a special category (or list or template) for those pre-modern Jewish mathematicians whose Jewishness led them to take a particularly significant role linking European maths to Arabic maths. But what we are discussing here is a category where that sort of significantly Jewish maths would be a very snall minority. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:02, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Bull, I'm sorry ... a vandal has been deleting my comments on this page. I've restored it above.--Epeefleche 22:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- When you're ready to present that "abundant evidence" do let everyone know. Bulldog123 16:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment Concerning the above and the previous "its very simple" keep argument. The issue of notability keeps cropping up, so I took the trouble to read some of the "abundant evidence" that a casual reader may find on this page. I don't believe any of this evidence demonstrates notability and relevance per WP:OCAT. Furthermore, most of the use of this evidence demonstrates a standard confusion between correlation and causal effect. Even worse, some of these conclusions are actually racist. To see that you have to turn the issue around, and imagine we were discussing a category such as Category:Jewish criminals and had found a correlation between being Jewish and being criminal (I don't believe there is such a correlation, but I imagine the deletion of such a category would not be contested). It is probably less inflammatory in the present context to change ethnicity: there are disproportionately few black and hispanic mathematicians in America. Is this because they are congenitally no good at mathematics? I doubt it. I expect it is because they are relatively poor. This is the distinction between correlation and causal effect. Blur it at your peril! Geometry guy 21:21, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment A few new comments are talking about Judaism being a religion which somehow influences mathematical thought. This would be an argument for the Category:Mathematicians by religion CFD, which was upmerged. For some reason the complaint that the ethnic part of the Jewish "race" was not mentioned is no longer being expressed, but rather that RELIGION has something to do with it and that is why this category should be kept is being expressed. However, it can be proven that for, possibly, over half of the people ready to be categorized under Jewish mathematician, their religious affliation is atheist or agnostic. So..Question: Does everyone who is arguing that the Jewish religion has some relation to mathematicial thought SUGGEST we only include religiously Jewish people in the categories? If not, why not? Bulldog123 16:17, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. I'll be prepared to do that when we no longer include the Oklahoma City bombers and Cassius Clay as Americans. But until then, to respond to the above Bull comment, my answer would be no.--Epeefleche 22:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment In that I agree with you Bulldog, in that there likely is nothing special about Judaism the religion that makes its mathematics notable. However, there is something notable about Jews as a nationality, which they have been for the majority of written history-- a people without a land, identified through a combination of religion, ethnicity, and geneology. Perhaps a comparison would be the Roma, but even they tended to be more associated with the local nationalities as they would assimilate religiously. Jews, being both ethincally and religiously distinct, were most often treated as their own nationality, and not afforded the privileges that most citizens of a country had - to the point, as noted above, that their identity papers were often stamped "Jew" as opposed to Catholics, Protestant, or atheist members of a country who were not so identified. I am not certain that there is any other such group over the past 2000 years or so, where the nationalistic identity is so tied with the ethnic and religious identity, and that is why I feel that the category should be considered a nationalistic one, such as "French Mathematicians" as much as an ethnic/religious one, and why I still strongly feel it should be kept. -- Avi 21:24, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- But you cannot say that this "Jewish nationality" is by any means a wide viewpoint or even supported by much research or accepted by the general community, therefore I personally cannot accept it. At the same time, I know that a significant amount of the mathematicians being categorized in that category would not accept it either, given what we know of their biographies. And because some people may find this category entertaining or useful, we're going to give it a "special" exception? People were arguing that categorization by nationality makes no sense either, but we're not asserting that nationality and being a mathematician has anything in common, because categorization by nationality is just a way to divide regions and prevent too many names from being in one category. Although there might be some relationship between nationality and mathematics (English mathematicians are often known for statistics, Russian for probability, and Polish for cryptology) these have more to do with PROXIMITY than with actual nationality. I think Geometry Guy did a good job of explaining this. By admitting that the Jewish religion has nothing to do with mathematics, you are keeping this category (by most peoples views, not necessarily your own) because of a belief that there is an INHERENT relationship between the Jewish ethnicity and mathematics. If this is true it would take HARD research and lots of it to prove that it is notable enough for a category. Otherwise, we are just providing a special exception to Jews because a group of users want it and that isn't fair to the many categories that were already deleted under the overcategorization reasoning. You need to provide reasoning for the Category:Jewish mathematicians category, and why having someone categorized as a Jew (if it is substantially proven a person identifies as such) and categorized as a mathematician isn't good enough. Bulldog123 17:30, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete After a lot of debate, I can't find any persuasive reason to keep this category. The most commonly-advanced reason is that Jewish people are a nation, and therefore should be categorised and sub-categorised like any other nation; but not only is the evidence for that rather tenuous (stretching the concept of "nation" in a manner first developed by antisemites), it also as the consequence that it would lead us to create categories of Jewish criminals, Jewish rapists etc. I hate that thought, but we can't have it both ways: either Jewish people get subcatted like the people of any other nation (in which case we get those offensive categories as well as the professional ones), or we asses categories case-by-case, applying Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Non-notable intersections by ethnicity.2C_religion.2C_or_sexual_preference etc.
As to the WP:OCAT tests, plenty of links have been posted, but as geometry guy says above, they demonstrate "confusion between correlation and causal effect". These are notable mathematicians who achieved their notability because of their contribution to mathematics; some of those who record the achievements of Jewish people have written about these folks, just as they rightly celebrate other Jewish achievements, but there has been only one piece evidence which comes near to meeting WP:OCAT#Non-notable intersections's test of relevance:their eminence in maths was related to their Jewishness, or that they did maths in a Jewish way. That evidence (from T. Anthony) relates to a particular group of mathematicians at a particular time: those who served a bridge between Arabic and European knowledge. That group mirrors those who Geometry Guy notes as being categorised under Arab mathematicians; a specialist subset of mathematicians from a particular era, not a catch-all for all mathematicians who happen to be Arabs. If someone wants to make a similar category for Jewish mathematicians, that'd be great, but we are talking here of a general catch-all category. Since there is no general reason to keep Jewish occupational categories and no specila resaon to keep this particular intersection, it should go. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:02, 18 May 2007 (UTC) - Delete - At this point, can I just say that it somehow seems disturbing that Jewish people are categorized by profession in general whereas people of other religions are not categorized this way (especially given the comments in User:IZAK/Deleting lists and categories of Jews). Otherwise, I have little else to add to this debate. Dr. Submillimeter 08:17, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- This is not really correct. We have Category:Hindus by occupation, Category:Roman Catholics by occupation, and Category:Muslims by occupation. We also have ethnicity/occupation cats like Category:Romani people by occupation, Category:Asian Americans by occupation, Category:American writers by ethnicity, etc. The main objection seems to be when this is used for anything besides writing and music. In particular when it's used in mathematicians/scientists as mathematicians/scientists aren't human beings per se so much as they are machines to do science or math.--T. Anthony 13:04, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
- There is no objection to having such categories, as long as WP:OCAT is applied to determine whether particular subcategories are notable. Geometry guy 07:22, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete - Whether or not Jews are nationality, ethnicity, or religion I can't comment on, but I can say that this category has proven to be quite a hassle on many articles. The most prominent being Georg Cantor mentioned above. I would agree that the current way the category is used is Overcategorization and would use that as my basis for delete. I would strongly support however a category which only included Jewish mathematicians from the Middle Ages period, as I'm sure some exist that could be compared to Arab mathematicians. I see that this might be an All or Nothing nomination and so I would call for a delete unless the category was trimmed to only include those from that significant period. --Tellerman
- Comment We can't delete a category every time an editor chooses to argue about the validity of applying the category to one article. In the case of Cantor, the argument is about how much weight to give to those sources that deny his Jewish ancestry compared to those that call him Jewish. Whether to apply this category is a side issue there. The category German Jews is just as much in dispute there - should we delete that too?--Runcorn 07:36, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
- No one is proposing to delete this category because of an argument over one article. However, this article illustrates the kind of debate that would only intensify, if this category is kept, as it is repopulated. The problem is that without a clear purpose for the category, there is clear no way to decide who belongs in it. This is what WP:OCAT is for, and why it should be applied in this case. Geometry guy 07:22, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment--Notability. Some editors have referred to "Non-notable intersections by ethnicity, religion, or sexual preference." Others have questioned whether the citations above to urls, books, articles, and exhibitions relate to notability. The aforementioned guideline indicates that notability can be reflected in the fact that the category is itself recognized as a distinct and unique cultural topic in its own right, and that one could possibly write a substantial and encyclopedic head article for the category. The above urls support notability as measured by this standard--if articles (some scholarly) and books are being written about "Jewish mathematicians," surely it is possible to write such a head article for the category.--Epeefleche 16:23, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Except you haven't proven there is a way to write an article, with no original research, on "Jewish mathematics." Unless of course you want to talk about what Nazis considered "Jewish mathematics." That of course included many gentile mathematicians who the Nazis just wished to discredit too. In the same way there is "Aryan mathematics." You would support Category:Aryan mathematicians, Ep? Also, could you make sure to sign all your comments? There are a few comments above and I think they're by you but I can't tell. Bulldog123 16:31, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment To make sure you have a name when you speak of Jewish mathematicians of the same era as what you call Arab mathematicians, take an example of Abraham ibn Ezra. He is the man credited with invention of the symmetry of binomial coefficients [25]. He was born in 1092 in what is now Spain in the times of caliphate and died at a place which is in France now. He also traveled all over in between, including spending a significant amount of time in England. I doubt he would be happy to hear he was a Spanish or French or English mathematician. Who was he then?
- In general, it is only since the Age of Enlightenment that Jews were recognized as citizen of other countries. Prior to that, they were not allowed to enter universities, etc. In certain countries, like Saudi Arabia Jews still cannot be citizen if I am not mistaken (as well as Chrisians I think). My question is why Jews should forced in cats of the country of their birth if for centuries they were denied basic civil rights by these very countries? Why not consider Jews as a nation which survived for two thousand years without a statehood? Mhym 18:10, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment Mhym's argument applies equally to relatively recent (in some cases, still-living) people who fled Eastern Europe or the Nazis (sometimes as children), particularly if they lived in one country for a few years then went to live somewhere else. Are they Russian, British, American?--Runcorn 07:36, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment This is a logical fallacy. You're overextending and oversimplifying the original argument so that is loosely applies to a few more people in the category. People are whatever the bulk of external sources say they are. I have never in my academic life read someone post-Spanish Inquisition be described as a "Jew" and nothing else. John von Neumann, Hungarian. Robert Oppenheimer, German. etc. They're still descended from Jews but even prominent researchers such as Cavalli-Sforza write that there is greater genetics similarities between a Hungarian Jew and a Magyar than a Hungarian Jew and a Polish Jew. The question of what someone's nationality is is defined by the law and processes of citizenship (if we ignore culture). The bad assumption is that stripped of a permanent home, emigres of Naziism somehow lack a nationality. This is totally false. Most countries define citizenship by birth, duration of stay, or heredity. I doubt there is a single example of a person jumping from country to country so often that a nationality cannot be ascribed to them. If someone like that were to exist, the heredity nationality of their parents (as most countries would have it) applies. Nobody is ever really "stateless," not even the Roma. Bulldog123 17:30, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
- On the latest statement - I am afraid you are mistaken. Citizenship given to Jews is a relatively recent and (let me repeat) not a universal development. It certainly did not stop in 15-th century as your post-Spanish Inquisition comment suggests. Jews were often expelled, but when not they were barely tolerated, witness the history of Venetian Ghetto (and The Merchant of Venice since we are on the subject). Jews in pre- late 18th century Venice were certainly not Italian nor the Venician citizen. They were Jews, the nation on their own. Thus the Israeli law of return. Mhym 00:21, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
- So you're saying citizenship didn't exist for Jews during the Nazi era? No, right? This then shows it doesn't pertain to any modern mathematicians. Your discussion once again is not specifically for keeping this category, but just theorizing that somebody may be left out of a nationality mathematician category. You're not giving specific examples that would somehow pertain to keeping the category as it is now. All I said about nationality post-Spanish inquisition was that I have NEVER seen anyone post-Spanish be called simply a "Jew" and nothing else. Even if they don't have citizenship by law at that time, their cultural, linguistic, and regional locations still put them in a blanket nationality category. In the same way, there were no such people as "Italians" until the mid-19th century, but people of the Italian city-states are still frequently given the blanket nationality of Italian because of their linguistic, cultural, and/or especially regional characteristics. So for the portion of time you detailed, the few mathematicians that existed are not at risk of being left out, and even if they were, it wouldn't be a reason to keep this particular category. Also, "recent" is an overstatement. Bulldog123 04:57, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
- Not sure what s/he feels, but to me the Nazis would be an example of backsliding and s/he is mostly talking about the period before Jewish Emancipation. That would be a different date in different countries, but it started about 1791 and was relatively complete by 1878. Exceptions to that being Russia and Spain where Jewish Emancipation came later. Although Jews may have been equal citizens in Rhode Island before 1790, for the most part they did not have full citizenship anywhere before that date. I'm not sure if there is a way to limit this to pre-Revolutionary times. (Whether we mean American or French Revolutions)--T. Anthony 08:22, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
- So you're saying citizenship didn't exist for Jews during the Nazi era? No, right? This then shows it doesn't pertain to any modern mathematicians. Your discussion once again is not specifically for keeping this category, but just theorizing that somebody may be left out of a nationality mathematician category. You're not giving specific examples that would somehow pertain to keeping the category as it is now. All I said about nationality post-Spanish inquisition was that I have NEVER seen anyone post-Spanish be called simply a "Jew" and nothing else. Even if they don't have citizenship by law at that time, their cultural, linguistic, and regional locations still put them in a blanket nationality category. In the same way, there were no such people as "Italians" until the mid-19th century, but people of the Italian city-states are still frequently given the blanket nationality of Italian because of their linguistic, cultural, and/or especially regional characteristics. So for the portion of time you detailed, the few mathematicians that existed are not at risk of being left out, and even if they were, it wouldn't be a reason to keep this particular category. Also, "recent" is an overstatement. Bulldog123 04:57, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
- On the latest statement - I am afraid you are mistaken. Citizenship given to Jews is a relatively recent and (let me repeat) not a universal development. It certainly did not stop in 15-th century as your post-Spanish Inquisition comment suggests. Jews were often expelled, but when not they were barely tolerated, witness the history of Venetian Ghetto (and The Merchant of Venice since we are on the subject). Jews in pre- late 18th century Venice were certainly not Italian nor the Venician citizen. They were Jews, the nation on their own. Thus the Israeli law of return. Mhym 00:21, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment This is a logical fallacy. You're overextending and oversimplifying the original argument so that is loosely applies to a few more people in the category. People are whatever the bulk of external sources say they are. I have never in my academic life read someone post-Spanish Inquisition be described as a "Jew" and nothing else. John von Neumann, Hungarian. Robert Oppenheimer, German. etc. They're still descended from Jews but even prominent researchers such as Cavalli-Sforza write that there is greater genetics similarities between a Hungarian Jew and a Magyar than a Hungarian Jew and a Polish Jew. The question of what someone's nationality is is defined by the law and processes of citizenship (if we ignore culture). The bad assumption is that stripped of a permanent home, emigres of Naziism somehow lack a nationality. This is totally false. Most countries define citizenship by birth, duration of stay, or heredity. I doubt there is a single example of a person jumping from country to country so often that a nationality cannot be ascribed to them. If someone like that were to exist, the heredity nationality of their parents (as most countries would have it) applies. Nobody is ever really "stateless," not even the Roma. Bulldog123 17:30, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
- Usually such migrants would be categorized by both country of origin, and the country in which they settled. I fail to see a problem with that. Geometry guy 07:27, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete, non-defining, controversial and thus hard to maintain, many similar categories deleted before. Pavel Vozenilek 01:45, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
- Delete. I think the logic for deletion presents a strong, clear and convincing case. Maybe the strongest case to keep is the one that says for a limited number of people this intersection is notable. If you accept that logic, the correct decision is to delete this category, find a name that does not cover everyone, notable or not, at this intersection and then create and categorize the few articles that would remain. The objection is to a badly named and overly populated category that contains people who are not notable at this intersection. Vegaswikian 23:15, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
- I've found this discusssion interesting. Amidst the many flawed arguments for keeping this category, there have been some which gave me pause for thought, particularly the comments of User:A Musing. Nevertheless, in the end Category:Jewish mathematicians is anomalous amoung Category:(ethnic/religious group X) (scientific field Y) and there is a reason why this is so: intersections of this form, like Category:Muslim mathematicians or Category:Jewish astronomers are not notable under the current guidelines WP:OCAT and I haven't found any arguments here which change my mind about this. What has given me most pause for thought is the notion of nationality. Categorization by nationality is controversial and difficult to apply, particularly in an historical context and Wikipedia:Categorization of people#By nationality and occupation seems to me to be somewhat underdeveloped. In practice what generally happens is that people of the modern era are categorized in an inclusive way, so that a person who was born in X, but mostly worked in Y, then naturalized as a citizen of Z gets all three categories. For people in more historical eras, compromises are made.
- This is an issue that needs a wider debate, and there is some signs that such a debate is beginning. User:A Musing has suggested to me that he leans towards keeping this category until something comes out of such a discussion. I fail, however, to see what that would achieve. Deleting this category loses no information, and it can easily be recreated once there is a clear understanding what categorization by nationality means in an historical context in general, and for Jewish people in particular. There may be a case for creating instead Category:Medieval Jewish Mathematicians, for example. On the other hand, while these issues remain unsolved, keeping this category goes against current guidelines and is a recipe for trouble. As BrownHairedGirl points out, a general categorization of Jewish people by occupation is untenable, so at the moment we use WP:OCAT to determine whether such a category by occupation is notable. Those who wish for a wider classification of Jewish people by occupation need to initiate a debate on the subject, perhaps in the context of a wider debate on nationality.
- For Category:Jewish Mathematicians no particular case has been made. Keeping this anomaly will do nothing to further this wider debate. It will only create further headaches for mathematician article editors, as membership of a poorly defined category is disputed. So I stand by my earlier view that this category should be deleted. Geometry guy 07:22, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. 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.