Jump to content

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2015 November 27

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
< Wikipedia:Categories for discussion | Log

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Johnpacklambert (talk | contribs) at 08:16, 5 December 2015 (→Category:Clairvoyants). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

< November 26 November 28 >

November 27

Category:MonmouthpediA

Nominator's rationale: We don't normally place article pages (e.g. Monmouth Police Station) in WikiProject categories. The talk pages of articles related to this project are in Category:MonmouthpediA-related articles, which is how pages of interest to a particular WikiProject are normally categorised. An alternative to deletion would be changing the text of this category (which currently says "This category is for articles ...") and purging of article pages. DexDor (talk) 22:03, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
MonmouthpediA and (for example) John Rolls (d. 1801) may both be notable subjects, but the John Rolls article makes no mention of MonmouthpediA so any relationship to MonmouthpediA appears to be a WP:NON-DEFINING characteristic of that person. Thus, even if there was a category for articles about the topic of MonmouthpediA the John Rolls article wouldn't belong in it. Cf Category:Articles linked to by Toodyaypedia which categorises talk pages. DexDor (talk) 16:47, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
but many of these notable subject wouldnt have been written without the effort put into the project in the first place, making Monmouthpedia the reason they werent lost and therefore a defining characteristic. The sad thing is you can find 1000's of notable subjects when you look into the history of any place that should be covered but arent. Until a project like this comes along they never will be written about. Gnangarra 00:37, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Re "Monmouthpedia [is] the reason they werent lost and therefore a defining characteristic" - WP:CATDEF says "A defining characteristic is one that reliable sources commonly and consistently define the subject as having...". If the John Rolls article was created as part of MonmouthpediA then that's a characteristic of the article, not a characteristic of the person who is the subject of the article. DexDor (talk) 07:00, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete whatever the notability of the encyclopedia project, we don't categorize this way. We don't have Category:Topics appearing in Encyclopedia Britannica. This is a bad category as it does not cover topics about Monmouthpedia, it categorizes topics contained in it / worked on by it. This is not the type of categorization that should be used on article pages, it is instead the type found on article talk pages, such as when WikiProjects banner talk pages to indicate they work on the article, or have it in scope. -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 05:04, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I was the creator back in 2012. I probably thought, as I do now, that this was about the Project itself rather than project articles. Apart from the Monmouthpedia article, there do not seem to be any valid other members. (Interestingly that article is NOT a member!) welsh (talk) 19:39, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment From what I can glean, this is a process within Wikipedia created by Wikipedians. This category is sort of the inverse of how categorization actually works around here: Subjects are categorized by what defines them, whereas this subject is defined by what is categorized in it. The members of this category may be defining in terms of how they relate to the subject, which of course is Monmouthpedia, but it doesn't work the other way around. Has Monmouthpedia played a vital role in the history & development of any of the contained topics? No, they existed long before it did. They played a role in its development; it did not play a role in theirs. This is a very backwards approach to categorization. Could I just create my own little wikicommunity, have it gain some momentum, and then place it as a category tag on articles I wish to be within its scope? And as for nom's suggestion to purge of articles, at present there are only two non-article pages in the category, a template and a subcategory. I'm inclined to have this deleted. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist (Speak quickly) (Follow my trail) 02:26, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete there are tons of local wikis, to categorize the articles that overlap each does nothing to help THIS encyclopedia. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 01:09, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Clairvoyants

Nominator's rationale: It goes without saying that clairvoyance has always had a rocky relationship with science. This category might be haphazardly applied to articles whose subjects only claimed to be clairvoyant, but the truth is that we may never know for certain if clairvoyance is real, let alone that these people really were clairvoyant. And even if they really are/were clairvoyant, the alternative name (or something similar, e.g. "People who claimed to be clairvoyant") would still not be wrong either. It's way more objective. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist (Speak quickly) (Follow my trail) 21:15, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
that argument is WP:OR and synth in drawing your own conclusion. Gnangarra 00:48, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't, it's actually taking a step back and acknowledging what sources say without endorsing it. I actually find your argument below to be more rife with OR and synth - someone claiming to be clairvoyant doesn't make them clairvoyant; we can certainly say they claimed to be, especially if they tried building a career out of it and in the process became a notable (for our purposes) figure. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist (Speak quickly) (Follow my trail) 02:13, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • oppose if a person identifies as a clairvoyant, and is recognised as a xlairvoyant then they are a clairvoyant it isnt wikipedias responsibility to make judgements about the authenticity of any such claims nor to censor those claims by adding disclaimers Gnangarra 00:48, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose -- Personally, I do not believe anyone is a clairvoyant, but that is my POV. The nom is seeking to impose a similar POV on the category. If a word of scepticism is desirable, I would suggest that the appropriate place for it is in a headnote to the category, not in the title. Peterkingiron (talk) 18:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • It actually seems to me that my nomination is actually trying to get away from any sort of POV whatsoever by making it as neutral as possible. The alternative I suggest is accurate regardless of whether the subject were in fact clairvoyant or not - it allows for the possibility; it's actually inclusive. It's as objective as possible. It does not endorse a viewpoint science has not yet legitimized, but neither does it preclude the possibility that clairvoyance is real. It's our way of saying, "We know that the people represented by these articles made a big deal of being called clairvoyant in their lives, but while we don't know if the claims are genuine, we won't deny them either, and we acknowledge that they exist to such an extent that they are a WP:DEFINING characteristic appropriate for use in sorting the articles." If/when science comes to the conclusion that clairvoyance is in fact real, we can revert to the title currently in use, but in the meantime it actually seems to me that the title as it exists imposes a POV that believes clairvoyance is more legitimate a claim than we can verify that it is, regardless of whether any to whom it is applied were genuinely clairvoyant. (And I know that it's generally bad form to reply to every individual post in a discussion, I know a page saying this exists or at least once existed but I don't care to search for it - and to anyone who would raise this objection I say only: Tough cookies. I have the right to clarify my intentions, no matter if it takes one post or a thousand.) Zeke, the Mad Horrorist (Speak quickly) (Follow my trail) 19:06, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, or alternately, Category:Self-declared clairvoyants. "Clairvoyant" is POV; similar to calling something a Crime, a Myth, a Lie, a Truth, whatever. Move to NPOV title. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 01:12, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Self-declared clairvoyants would cause different problems - for example what if a person (or even an animal) is notable for appearing to make unexplainable predictions, but doesn't use the word "clairvoyant" to describe themself? DexDor (talk) 07:16, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
But "Clairvoyant" has a lack of truth problem, which for an encyclopedia is a BIG problem. The wordsmithing to include include crabs: Category:Animals claimed to be able to predict future events, and one could add in all the augury entrails, flights of birds, and what have you. We have similar claims with the various messiah claimants categories as some of those folks claimed they were Christ, never saying "messiah" - not even sure Jesus used that word in scripture at least. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:01, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Category names are deliberately kept short; the category text is the place to explain more precisely what the inclusion criteria are. Categories are merely a means to navigate to articles; it's the articles that contain facts (truth). I.e. a reader shouldn't rely on the fact that the article (about a person) is in Category:Foos as meaning that the person satisfies their definition of a foo. For example, Christa McAuliffe is categorized as an astronaut even though she wouldn't appear on a "List of people who've been to space" and (as not a professional astronaut) might be more accurately categorized as a "space flight participant". Do you think that her article being in categories whose names contain the word "astronaut" is a "truth problem"? DexDor (talk) 07:55, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think "truth problem" might best be replaced with "unscientific". For her, we can prove that she has done things to qualify as an astronaut, so that category is valid in that there's such a thing as an "astronaut" & we can prove it, we know what it is, and we can prove she's a valid candidate for that category as such. With "clairvoyants", on the other hand, the way the category name is written now, it sends the wrong message - that Wikipedia endorses such claims when no one, let alone Wikipedia which of all things places such high emphasis on citations & source reliability, can verify that such a thing is even possible. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist (Speak quickly) (Follow my trail) 14:24, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The statement "<person> is clairvoyant" is a statement about that person's abilities which is very unlikely to be true. Thus, I would !vote to rename/delete a category named "People who are clairvoyant", "Clairvoyant people" or similar (unless, of course, we ever get scientifically accepted evidence that there really are people who belong in such a category). However, the statement "<person> is a clairvoyant" is (or at least, can be read as) a statement about that person's occupation/hobby etc (or, in Wikipedia terms, the person's reason for notability) - so I'm much less bothered about a category named "Clairvoyants". Whilst there may be a slight advantage (in terms of accuracy) in inserting the word "alleged" (or similar) into the category name it would be likely to lead to debates about changing other categories (Astrologers?) so I prefer to keep the category name simple. DexDor (talk) 22:31, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Opposition to Francoism

Nominator's rationale: This category (which currently contains one article and has no parents) appears to have the same scope as the target category. DexDor (talk) 18:59, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The anti- category is the more established category, but I'd be happy with a merge in either direction. DexDor (talk) 22:15, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Categories in Health Care

Propose we should standardise, as far as possible, using Healthcare, which seems to be the predominant usage, rather than Health Care. At present there is no consistency.Rathfelder (talk) 17:56, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

These categories are mostly outside the scope of Project medicine. They are about the organisation of hospitals and clinics and money. Categories I would propose to change include:

Rathfelder (talk) 22:14, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support using "healthcare" instead of "health care", since it is shorter, and less open to misinterpretation when used in phrases, deciding when to separate health/care into its constituent words in two separate portions of phrases. -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 05:10, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Action

Nominator's rationale: What a mess. Though nominally the main article for this category is Action theory (philosophy), it seems to be conflating Action (physics) and Action (philosophy), with a bit of Action (fiction) thrown in there too. The simplest solution would probably be a split, though I'm open to other ideas. BDD (talk) 04:41, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Could you explain what the text and parent categories of the two proposed categories would be? Many of the articles currently in this category probably wouldn't belong in either of the proposed new cats. I've removed a film from the category and I can't see why, for example, rock climbing should be in this category when hundreds of similar activities aren't. DexDor (talk) 19:16, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support in principle -- I would suggest that the nom creates the two proposed categories and adds them to the relevant articles. It is not reasonable to expect the closing admin to undertake a split. When this has been done the present category can either be deleted or converted to a dab-container category. Peterkingiron (talk) 18:36, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_November_27&oldid=693844842"