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July 6

Category:Colonels

Delete - breaking down military personnel by rank is problematic for several reasons. Rank is generally temporary, due to promotion, demotion, etc. In addition, since this category doesn't distinguish by nationality or branch of service, the title colonel is almost pointless. Each military has different criteria for promotion, different levels of responsibility, etc etc. Some people, such as Colonel Khadafy (incidentally not in this category) are self-appointed colonels. Most countries' militaries have well-maintained categories like "XXX Army officers" which makes this category redundant. And finally, since it doesn't include criteria, I would imagine even Colonel Sanders or Colonel Tom Parker could be included in this category.Nobunaga24 00:14, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

comment - Kentucky colonels aren't colonels though. It's just an honorary title, like Nebraska admiral. It wouldn't belong as a subcat of colonels anymore than Nebraska admiral would belong to Category:United States Navy admirals. A category for Kentucky colonels would belong under honorary titles. The category colonels as it stands now is pointless. A Kentucky colonel category makes sense, just not here. --Nobunaga24 14:02, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'll accept that as true; I am not knowledgeable about Kentucky colonels.--M@rēino 14:54, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:South-East Asian historians to Category:Historians of Southeast Asia

Rename As the parentage and category text indicate, this category is for historians who study Southeast Asia, whereas the current name would be used for historians who are from Southeast Asia. Caerwine Caerwhine 00:01, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Philosophers by language

  • By the way, what do people think about the category Philosophy by language (either in place of or in addition to Philosophers by language). This suggestion, by the way, is not innovative. Take a look at the category tree under "literature," where you'll also find literature sorted by language as well as by nationality and region. Cheers, Universitytruth 19:44, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:German-language philosophers

These were created just the other day and are barely populated. The existing categories by country, by era, by subject are and by tradition are perfectly adequate, generating a large number of cateogories in some cases, especially when one takes into account that some philosophers are quite a few non-philosophy categories as well, so these ones are category clutter. The justifications put forward in defence of them are just as marginal as the case for classifying people by language as a general practice. Chicheley 23:53, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Jews on this list should be removed... They are not considered Germans 

    * Says you! They, most likely, considered themselves Germans.

Yikes. This does bring up one question I've had, namely: who is a "German" "philosopher"? Wouldn't it be easier, more pragmatic, and more inclusive to have a list (or category) of people who wrote German-language philosophy? For example, Salomon Maimon wrote very important German-language philosophy around 1800. (Kant said he was one of the only people who understood him.) But Maimon would by no means have identified himself as German: he was a Lithouanian Jew, and German was not his first language. But according to the title of this category (German philosophers), one would have to exclude this important German-language philosopher on ethnic grounds. I will hereby call for discussion on this, but I move that the category be renamed. I might actually suggest the following, as less cumbersome than "Writers of German-language philosophy"... How about "German-language philosophers"? I think that would be useful for categorizing, but also not exclusionary in unsavory ways. Universitytruth 20:23, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: Another rather significant test case is Immanuel Kant. If you define German philosopher as 'a philosopher from Germany,' then you have to exclude Kant. Who in their right mind would want to do that? The town where he was born, then called Koenigsberg, was part of East Prussia, which was part of the Holy Roman Empire. It was not part of Germany then. Today, the city is called Kaliningrad and is part of Russia. So is Kant a Russian philosopher? No. One could call him a Prussian philosopher, but that doesn't help either. You see? My point is that the most pragmatic thing to do is to sort German philosophy by the language in which it was written. Then there is no problem including Kant. There is also then no problem including Salomon Maimon, a Lithuanian Jew who was not ethnically German, not a German citizen, but wrote important philosophy in the German language.

It seems to me that what most people care about is important philosophy written in German, as opposed to written by philosophers with German blood or with a German passport. Since Germany has only existed since 1871, and has only existed with its current borders since 1991, sorting according to nation will *create* category problems. That's what I'm trying to avoid. I'd be interested in hearing responses from Chicheley, Caerwine, and Osomec. If anyone has alternate suggestions that can deal with the concerns I raise, I'm open to discussing them. Thanks! Universitytruth 13:53, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

    • There is of course the problem with what to do with changing borders over time. Actually for Kant, it would be easy to say that he was a German philosopher had he lived in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, but East Prussia which remained outside the of borders of the Holy Roman Empire, tho it had gained independence from Poland by then. In the absence of a Prussian philosopher category, German is the best fit, tho truly I do think we need the whole series of Prussian categories. On the other hand, Salomon Maimon is not a problem since he did his philosophizing in Berlin, so he clearly falls under the moniker of German. Caerwine Caerwhine 16:11, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Resignation (in the stoic sense). I see my suggestion is not popular, and am willing to concede this point. I would like to ask, though, if it would be appopriate to add a sentence or two to the page of the Category:German philosophers clarifying that geography plus language, rather than passport-holding, is the sorting mechanism? (By the way, Voltaire was in Berlin for a while himself. Not a German philosopher, though.) Cheers, Universitytruth 23:14, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete both per nom. Wikipedia uses a pragmatic approach, and we should stick with it. Universitytruth focuses on academic niceties but the purpose of the category system is to provide easy navigability. Sumahoy 01:04, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep both The category is not German philosophers, but German-language philosophers. I see nothing wrong with categorizing philosophers by the languages in which they wrote. This seems more useful than categorizing them by their nationality. -- Samuel Wantman 09:31, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Although I have already conceded the point (a day before Sumahoy felt it necessary to speculate on my mindset), I would like to thank Septentrionalis for seconding the suggestion to make a short statement on the cat page, which I have since done. I am actually profoundly interested in the pragmatics of searching and categorizing. It seems to me that most people wanting to learn about philosophy would want to know whether something is written in Latin, French, or German, rather than what sort of blood coursed through the veins of Baumgarten or Leibniz. That is, in the case of philosophers, there is I think at least as much interest in the texts they wrote as there is in their persons. I was trying to make a positive suggestion to help people sort through texts. Meanwhile, I think that a qualifying statement on the cat page for German philosophers can address the concerns I raised. Thanks to all for substantive discussion on this point. Cheers, Universitytruth 17:07, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep both - per SamuelWantman. I do not believe Universitytruth is making too fine technical distinction here. German-language philosophers probably influenced other German-language philosophers more than they have influenced French-speaking ones, for instance. Similarly, philosophers from colonial situations or from nations generally considered "provincial" often did not write in their native language. Tran Duc Thao is an excellent example - who would have heard of him in the West if he had written in Vietnamese? Is it any surprise that he had currency in France (whose language he wrote in) more than in Germany or England? The Finnish-Swede Georg Henrik von Wright published in four different languages, reflecting his academic tenure (England), nationality (Finnish), native tongue (Swedish) and philosophical tradition (German - he was an expert in Wittgenstein). I think Tran Duc Thao clearly demonstrates a need for these language categories, while von Wright illustrates a potential problem (loads of categories for a handful of philosophers) but still demonstrates their potential usefulness (there clearly are traditions that "stay in the language" more than in the nationality). TheGrappler 21:15, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I think both sides make a fairly good argument and both solutions presented are reasonnable provided they are handled correctly. In particular I find it very important to note that a creation of a German-language category should not be used as the perfect excuse for removing Jewish philosophers from the German philosopher category! Pascal.Tesson 21:43, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I quite agree. But the fact that a dual categorization system might encourage abuse of another categorization system shouldn't really be deciding factor in deciding whether this system stands or falls on its own merits. TheGrappler 02:08, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I agree as well. My interest in creating the language-based category was to be as inclusive as possible, though I recognize that Alexander Baumgarten would not be in the German-language philosophers category, though he would be in the German philosophers category. But that's fine, I think. Obviously, many philosophers would exist in both categories. But since language and nationality don't always overlap, I think the existence of this second category will help wikipedia to be more inclusive, and to do so rationally. I can also assure you that I'll keep my eye on the German philosophers category... (Have retracted my retraction based on recent comments by Samuel Wantman, TheGrappler, and Pascal.Tesson.) Universitytruth 04:49, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • This just in from the German wikipedia. Note that the article German literature redirects to German-language literature, which begins with this sentence: "Der Begriff deutschsprachige Literatur, aus geschichtlichen Gründen manchmal auch deutsche Literatur, bezeichnet alle literarischen Werke, die in deutscher Sprache verfasst wurden." Translation: "The concept of German-language literature, for historical reasons sometimes also German literature, refers to all literary works composed in the German language." If this is how the German wikipedia site regards things, why wouldn't we attempt to learn from them? Any thoughts on this? Best, Universitytruth 19:20, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. Sorry, I'm conflating discussions about literature and philosophy. Still, I think the point could be well taken. Will investigate German wikipedia now to see what it does with German vs. German-language philosophers/philosophy. Universitytruth 19:47, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ok. It's a semi-confused state on the German wikipedia page. The lists there do include "German-language philosophers" and "English-language philosophers," but then other lists are happily nationalistic with their "French philosophers" and so forth. And the list of "German-language philosophers" includes Leibniz and Baumgarten, who may have been German language speakers when they bought bread at the baker's, but who wrote philosophy only in French and Latin. I am more and more convinced that by having separate categories (nationality, region, language) to sort, we can create categories and lists that let people find what they are actually looking for. So if someone is looking for influential Germans in philosophy, one list (and category) can take them to Leibniz (languages of his philosophical works: French and Latin), Baumgarten (language of his philosophical works: Latin) and Kant (languages of his philosophical works: Latin and German). But if someone is looking to read influential philosophy written in German, then a different list (and category) can take them to Maimon (nationality: Lithuanian), Kant (nationality: East Prussian), and Wittgenstein (nationality: Austrian), all of whom wrote in German. Universitytruth 19:57, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Lyric legend and Category:Lyric fairy tale

Delete both as categories duplicate Category:Fairy opera - Kleinzach 22:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would recommend deletion rather than redirect as the other related cat Category:Fairy opera is also problematic and the consensus at the Opera Project is that that should be deleted as well. To give a bit of background to these superfluous opera cats: they were all created over a year ago and appear to be translations of specific Italian, French and German opera genres. Unfortunately after being translated they lost their specificity (they weren't backed up with articles) and ended up being used haphazardly. They are now fairly useless. - Kleinzach 11:30, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:IRT Broadway-Seventh Avenue stations

This category has no entrants, as all stations on this line are in Category:IRT Broadway-Seventh Avenue Line stations. Marc Shepherd 21:09, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete/Support; per above. Pacific Coast Highway (blah • lol, internet) 21:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Current British colonies

As British overseas territories notes, "colonies" haven't been known as "colonies" since 1981; they should be referred to as category:British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. — Dunc|☺ 19:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Convention centers in Canada to Category:Convention centres in Canada

Canadian spelling and consistency with sibling categories. Usgnus 18:35, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Ancient Constructions of Sri Lanka and Category:Ancient constructions of Sri Lanka

Merge both into their joint parent Category:Archaeological sites in Sri Lanka. -- ProveIt (talk) 16:51, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Young Entrepreneurs to Category:Child entrepreneurs

Rename At a minimum "Entrpreneurs" needs to be decapitalized, but it also needs a change of modifier from "Young" to "Child" to match the other subcats of Category:Children. Caerwine Caerwhine 14:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Defunct New York City Subway categories

Categories for defunct New York City Subway services
Categories for defunct New York City Subway lines
  • Category:Defunct BMT lines
  • Category:Defunct IND lines
  • Category:Defunct IRT lines
  • Delete all. These categories were formerly used to categorize defunct New York City Subway lines. The three categories simply segregated the three divisions (Template:BMT, Template:IND (NYCS), and ); each had no more than four articles. I have recategorized all member articles into Category:Defunct New York City Subway lines; and thus these now-useless categories should be deleted. --Larry V (talk | contribs) 13:58, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all per Larry V. Alphachimp talk 14:15, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all. Marc Shepherd 14:57, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all. The larger category is more useful since the article titles have BMT, IND and IRT in them. --Usgnus 06:42, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all per above. David Kernow 10:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Exalted (role-playing game) to Category:Exalted

There's no need for the "(role-playing game)" - even the main article is Exalted, not Exalted (role-playing game). Percy Snoodle 13:30, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:World Cup mascots to Category:FIFA World Cup mascots

Category:Football World Cup qualification to Category:FIFA World Cup qualification

After Football World Cup was moved to FIFA World Cup, almost all categories were brought to this new format, except these two. Conscious 12:09, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Fictional areas in space to Category:Fictional regions of space

An "area" is a 2-dimensional concept, space is 3-D, so this should not be called area. "zone", "region", or "volume" would be better. I also think using "of" instead of "in" would be better. 70.51.9.28 11:47, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Lyric tragedy

Delete as Category:Tragédies en musique already exists and is unambiguous in its French form. (It's a 17th/18th century genre of opera associated with Lully and Rameau). - Kleinzach 10:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. Fireplace 23:28, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as per nom. "Lyric tragedy" is highly ambiguous - after all, "Zoom" by Fat Larry's Band is a lyric tragedy. Grutness...wha? 01:46, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. Sumahoy 01:11, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Bus

As with "Truck", this category was created on 2006-06-24 despite there already being a suitable existing cat. I've recategorised all affected pages so now this category is empty. DeLarge 09:53, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Cinema to Category:Film

Film is synonymous with cinema. Geopgeop 10:08, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Romance opera

Delete as Category:Romantic opera already exists. - Kleinzach 09:50, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. The categories should indeed all be plural, however many of them are redundant, so perhaps it is better to do them one by one? - Kleinzach 10:11, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We could go through all the ones you're planning on nominating for deletion/merging/etc, and then pluralize whatever names remain en masse? If I understand your plans right, I think that might work out. Luna Santin 19:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, indeed. Thanks. - Kleinzach 23:18, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Impressionistic operas

Delete as this is not a meaningful opera category. - Kleinzach 09:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Truck

Created on 2006-06-24, although the category "Trucks" already existed. I recategorised all relevant articles so now the cat is empty DeLarge 09:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:ICUSTA to Category:International Council of Universities of Saint Thomas Aquinas

Acronyms are a no-no, right? --Howard the Duck 05:52, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:People in Japan to Category:Japanese people

This is supposed to be for both Japanese people in Japan (lots of them) and other people in Japan, but it is barely used. It is confusing and other countries don't have a matching category so Merge into Category:Japanese people. Nathcer 08:57, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Japanese garden to Category:Japanese style of gardening

The current name is ungrammatical. This category is about the Japanese style of gardening, both inside and outside Japan. "Japanese style of gardening" is perhaps the best option. Nathcer 08:36, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Monoid theory to Category:Semigroup theory

I have a feeling this will not exactly generated heated discussion... I think the categories should be merged. Currently, Monoid theory is a subcategory of semigroup theory. That's not an absurd idea in principle but in fact a lot of pages (for instance "aperiodic monoid") are very much relevant to semigroup theory and are in some sense hidden to the main page of the category. Given that both categories are scarcely populated there is not much advantage, at least for now, to distinguish the two categories. A unified category makes it easier to navigate the current content. Pascal.Tesson 03:09, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Weak merge Merge to Category:Semigroup theory. Scientifically speaking, I haven't got the foggiest, but if the theories are more or less compatible (which seems likely, since one is a subcat of the other), then it comes down to an issue of congestion. In this case, the parent has 15 articles, the subcat has 4; I'm not sure if that's enough articles to warrant a subcat, unless there's a more pressing reason. Luna Santin 09:30, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment maybe I can explain this issue for non-mathematicians. A monoid is a special type of semigroup but the two are similar enough that most of the tools and theorems of these theories are the same. Of course, I don't know every algebraist in the world but I don't think that there are many people who identify themselves as working in "monoid theory" (which incidentally gets very few Ghits). The term "semigroup theory" is generally understood to cover both aspects and, as far as I know, there isn't a single textbook dealing exclusively with monoid theory. Pascal.Tesson 13:10, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am intimidated but convinced. ;) Thanks. Luna Santin 19:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment there is no other parent currently. The only categories that would make sense are the parent categories of the semigroup theory category. Pascal.Tesson 13:59, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Antenna terminology to Category:Antennas

Based both on the "main" article for this category and on the population of articles already categorized in it, this category isn't really about terminology. It's about the entire subject of antennas in general. Terminology articles would focus on the origin and usage of terms, perhaps analyze their linguistic structure, etc. whereas the articles here have almost none of that and are instead chock full of information about how antennas work. (As a side note, I checked the American Heritage Dictionary via Answers.com and the proper plural here is indeed "antennas" rather than "antennae".[1]) Bryan 03:03, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Organisations by city

Proposal is to apply the "based in X" naming convention of organizations by country categories (Ex Category:Organizations based in India) to organizations by city categories. This will ensure consistency, clarity of wording, and will align nicely with the names of Category:Companies by city, which are sub-cats of the following, such as Category:Companies based in Philadelphia.

--Kurieeto 02:23, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Blatinos

"Blatino" is urban slang often used to refer to "a sexy ass" or to label "young urban gay men of color" [2]. Not only is the category horribly misapplied, but it has no place in an encyclopedia that hopes to gain the respect of academia. -- WGee 02:12, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Box Office Bombs

Poorly named, unclear inclusion criteria. However, no prejudice agains some sort of unprofitable films category. -- ProveIt (talk) 00:17, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


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