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There do not seem to be any firm policies for category deletion, so let me suggest some... If you object to anything here, feel free to add comments and/or suggest alternatives, especially if you disagree with the time lengths I've randomly chosen. --ssd 22:59, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)
For empty categories:
If the category is empty and obviously the delete is non-controversial, it gets deleted and immediately delisted from this page.
If a category is merged into another, respelled, or recapitalized, it can be deleted and delisted immediately; deletion log comment should include the name of the new category.
For non-empty categories:
If a non-controversial category has more than 3 items in it, it can not be deleted, and can be delisted from this page within 7 days; 2 days if more than 10 items.
Non-trivial discussions of categories not deleted should be moved to the category talk page before delisting.
Non-empty categories can't be deleted before they are emptied.
Categories about which there is some debate should be kept and delisted after XX days without debate if no consensus is reached.
Controversial categories that have reached consensus to delete should begin to be emptied by participants after XX days.
(Alternately) Discussions not obviously resolved within a few days could be moved to Vfd, as discussion quality tends to be higher there. See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Category:Atheism and agnosticism for an example. Keep this page for categories with no debate or minimal debate or spelling debates.
---
So are these policies (specifically some form of debate prior to deletion) being followed? I see lots of categories that I think are potentially useful such as third albums disappearing without any debate I can find. People seem to be taking it upon themselves to determine "triviality", which is not in the Wikipedia spirit. Is there some reason why categories cannot simply be listed in vfd? Jgm 18:20, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
No one has voted in any of these policies. They are, IMO, preliminary policies and guidelines. Your more specific query about the album categories can be answered here: Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Eighth_albums - UtherSRG 18:33, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Well, if they are preliminary then I strongly feel you should not be deleting things in the absence of a policy. Jgm 18:41, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Empty categories with poor descriptions will be deleted. There's no point in keeping them, because if they are worth keeping, it is trivial to add a good description and parent categories. Less trivial is editing articles to put them back in the category. If you feel so strongly about the category, do the work to justify keeping the category. However, emptying articles from a controversial category before a consensus is determined is not a good thing. --ssd 01:59, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I have below proposed merging CFD and VFD. Barring that, categories whose deletion the lister thinks might provoke substantive debate should be deemed welcome on VFD by WP policy. I agree that the category should not be emptied first.--Gary D 23:20, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
old discussion
This page isn't mentioned in the Deletion policy. What do the guidelines for deletion need to be here? Can empty categories be deleted immediately? Angela. 01:37, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I don't see why not. Having the category empty and orphaned is itself somewhat of a consensus. Perhaps wait 24 hours and make sure nothing new shows up? Idunno. Does the category article need a note like with Vfd to indicate its pending doom? --ssd 03:46, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps speedy deletion, but coupled with instant undeletion if it is contested later? Angela. 12:21, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Sounds good, but category articles are typically so short I doubt even that would be necessary. --ssd 12:40, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Having the category empty and orphaned is itself somewhat of a consensus. - no, that is completely untrue and does not illustrate how things are currently being run. There is nothing consensual about one person taking it upon themselves to orphan a category before listing it here. As is currently happening in some instances. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 02:43, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)
Delisting process
What about delisting? As per speedy deletion, too? Or x days? Any archiving? - UtherSRG 23:00, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)
vfd
Ummm... I think I might have made a mistake. a lot of the categories listed in vfd said that they should be moved to cfd, so I did. But now that I read the heading at the top of cfd, I notice that it's only for categories that are emptied... Is there an official policy on this page? I can't find it. - DropDeadGorgias(talk) 16:54, Jun 4, 2004 (UTC)
I don't think there is one, at least not yet. My suggestion: Listing pages that are not yet emptied is okay, but not recommended, and if the category is not empty at the time, the person listing the category should say so at the time. A non-empty category (i.e. one with articles linking to it) should not be deleted without first having the relevant articles amended to the proper category (or to no category if it's determined that the category is wholly spurious). On consideration, a category should be empty before it gets listed. Although if new articles find their way into the category between listing and when a consensus to delete is reached, then the newly linking articles wil need to be edited first. -Sean Curtin 17:43, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I don't think non-empty categories should be listed for deletion. You should get a consensus on the category's talk page to remove the links to it before deleting it. Non-empty ones should not be deleted, so these links would have to be removed anyway. It will surprise people less if they are removed before deletion rather than after and gives them a chance to object without having to go to Wikipedia:votes for undeletion. Angela. 01:04, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Listing categories for deletion before emptying them
As I understand it, CFD operates parallel to VFD, in that candidate categories are voted on and may be either kept or deleted, rather than this being a maintenance page with listed categories being automatically deleted. For that reason, I suggest listed categories not be emptied before being listed, so that if they are voted to be retained, all the emptying work does not need to be undone. --Gary D 23:11, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
At any rate, what I really think needs to happen is that the CFD and VFD pages be merged. The people likely to be interested and the policy considerations for deletion or retention are not that different as between categories and articles. --Gary D 23:11, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I don't see any need for a second category for deletion...what's wrong with putting both articles and categories in the same one? --ssd 01:35, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I guess it feels semantically wrong to me, since pages and categories are treated differently elsewhere in the system. I don't know. Perhaps it's because the point of categories is to categorise; lumping pages and categories into a single category that only talks about pages therefore seems odd. -- Avaragado 09:25, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Sexy Ladies, according to FHM, who may be entirely correct
The FHM sexy ladies list raises an issue for me due to its inclusion of a particular media opinion as a category in Wikipedia. Besides that, its too damn long IMHO. -Stevertigo 19:38, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)
What to do with controversial categories?
I think that, contrary to VfD policies, a category should be kept only if there is a consensus in favor of keeping it. Because of the impact that categories have in classifying articles, only those that have substantial, noncontroversial support should remain. There should be some guiding principles to assess whether a category should be kept:
It must not misconstrue the nature of an article. By this, I mean that categories operate as a shorthand for what an article is about and even why an article was written about that subject. This goes to the triviality issue above as well, in relation to whether an article's relationship to the category is trivial rather than whether the category itself is trivial.
Categories are important because they function to classify the subjects of articles—they appear with an even greater claim of factuality and objectivity than the content of articles. They should be limited to what is somehow integral to understanding a subject, rather than something that simply happens to be true about it. Trivial information can be buried at the bottom of an article with no problem, but trivial categories bury the article itself. Postdlf 23:29, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)
These are all good ideas when talking about guidelines for categories, and probably should be listed on the category creation page. However, they don't address what to do with categories about which there is some debate. My goal here is to formulate a rule to allow me to delete the debates currently on this page after they are sufficently stale. --ssd 16:09, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)
If there is not an overwhelming and well-reasoned consensus in favor of keeping the category, it should be deleted. I would even suggest weighting votes of admins who are more familiar with wikipedia content as a whole, and have a better idea of how the content should better interrelate and be classified. I'm reluctant to say at any rate that this should proceed purely along the numbers in the way that VfD does. Postdlf 21:21, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I would invert the above; if there is not a clear consensus to delete, a category should be kept. If a category has contains less than two entries after a reasonable amount of time (on the order of months) then it isn't really a category and should be put up for deletion. Certainly keeping possibly-marginal categories around for a while is less harmful than, say, incorrect articles. Jgm 02:36, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
An incorrect article can be corrected by editing the article. An irrelevant category may marr hundreds of articles that it poorly classifies. Categories are not mere content, a bit of text subsumed into an article. They function to classify an article, to tell a reader what its subject is. What does it mean to "keep" a category? Does that mean simply not deleting it, or does it mean maintaining its category tag on every article that has been placed under it? If Category:Women who wear C-cup bras is created, should that mean that applicable articles should remain classified under it as long as it exists? That's quite a lot of power for the category's creator to exercise over a potentially large number of articles. And if a category survives CfD, then does that mean that removing those category tags is vandalism? If not, then "keeping" a category doesn't mean much, because editors who don't like it can simply remove all of its content. I certainly would if someone started classifying articles on women by their breast size. But if keeping a category means that articles must remain categorized under it, then we better be damn sure we are only keeping the most sensible, and the most overwhelmingly supported categories. Postdlf 03:16, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I think you are blowing it out of proportion. A category with "hundreds" of items in it obviously already has overwhelming support, and most likely shouldn't be deleted; renamed or split perhaps, but not deleted. Categories with one or two items are the ones that are the problem here. Deleting them after a month of non-growth is an interesting idea. --ssd 03:49, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
No, I've seen stupid and trivial categories with hundreds of items in it get populated entirely by one errant editor—it isn't necessarily any indication of community support or consensus, just that one person wants to spend a lot of time on a bad idea. And I think there are many categories with one or two items that may grow as more articles of a kind are created. It doesn't make any sense to delete a category that is a highly logical classification and holds a place for a series of articles of which there are obviously many more to come, just because those articles haven't all been created yet. The amount of content in a category shouldn't determine whether it gets kept, but rather the logic of its classification. Postdlf 05:13, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I've seen this, and I had to think about it. I think the short answer is that by allowing stupid categories, no permanent harm is done. If one editor can put hundreds of articles in a category, one editor can remove them too. If anything, more harm is done by not having the category, as you may end up with hundreds of articles in scattered categories which might all really be the same category spelled several ways. If hundreds of articles are all in one wrong category, at least we know where they are so we can move them easily. I agree the name of a category should be carefully selected. I agree that some categories are just silly or overly narrow (or overly broad) or overly trivial. Many existing categories have one item; I'm not sure if this is because they are too narrow (or otherwise worthless), or if people just haven't (yet) done the work to put articles into the categories. These are all policy questions I will not try to answer right now. What I'd like to answer here now is this: What policy for category deletion would best help answer these questions? What conditions would best finish an on going discussion about a category? --ssd 21:14, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
What is this page for?
There seems to me to be a confusion about what the page is for. The top of the page states that categories should be empty. However, some people are - as with the FHM 100 - effectively taking it to mean "votes for category deletion". The page seems designed to draw admins attention to orphaned categories that are no longer useful. But the community seems to see it as a VfD for categories. I think this needs to be cleared up. --bodnotbod 22:42, Jul 11, 2004 (UTC)
I agree that its not clear. Categories can be extremely well populated in no time, and its not proper to delete them before its clear they should be, to say nothing of the difficulty of reverting these without a bot. So, we need a bot to remove these. Part of it is just the fact that WP:RC goes by so quickly now; it used to be the place to see whats going on; now you blink and 500 edits have slipped through... -Stevertigo 05:14, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I think there is quite a fundamental problem with the purpose of this page, because the current header poses a chicken-and-egg problem: if you've already orphaned a category, there is basically no point listing it here, except to get the attention of a sysop/admin (cf. Wikipedia:Speedy deletions); but if you haven't orphaned it, and just want to have it discussed, there's no guideline of where to do so - should it go to WP:VfD? It would be tremendously unproductive if people start emptying categories, listing them here, and then having to re-fill them because of a consensus to keep.
Essentially, this page should either be the clearing-house for all category-related deletions (with discussion as necessary, à la VfD) or it should be clearly labelled as the equivalent of Speedy deletions, with the same provisos and links to the full VfD that that page carries. Personally, I think the latter function is undeserving of its own page, while the former may serve to take some weight off the over-burdened VfD in a fairly logical way.
In other words: we should either change this into a debating page for [potentially] non-orphaned categories, or kill it. - IMSoP 17:50, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
There are currently no standards on speedy deletes that fit categories. The categories that get deleted here without any contest are already empty. Almost all of those are empty because the articles in them were moved to a better category--usually with a more consistent spelling or capitalization, and they are usually listed as such. If you put them up on speedy delete, there would be no standards at all, and a lot of placeholder categories that are currently emtpy (easily in the 100's) could end up on speedy deletes and deleted. If you disband this page, you may as well make emptying a category and blanking its article equivalent to deleting the category, as nobody will ever find it again anyway. I think if redirects and page move worked with categories, there would not be nearly so many categories wanting deleting. --ssd 22:04, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
The same situation still seems to pertain as when I asked my original question... have we advanced at all? --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 22:00, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)
I think this should move to a subsection of RfC, as it's really for category disputes, not category deletions. anthony(see warning) 11:38, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Frustration - deletion without discussion
I've just realised category:alcoholics has disappeared. I started the category. Added people to it. I now find that someone has presumably orphaned it, then called for it to be deleted, all without me noticing what was going on and having a chance to make the case for the category.
Is there an archive of the CfD page? I can't find a link to one. I have no idea what the arguments for deleting the category were. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 21:01, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)
CfD is a bit of a pleonasm. Categories cease being important when they're empty. Cat:Alcoholics passed through CfD indeed, UtherSRG is the category janitor:
11:43, 19 Aug 2004 UtherSRG deleted "Category:Alcoholics" (content was: 'Alcoholics are people who have great difficulty controlling their alcohol consumption to the extent that it affects othe...')
17:33, 11 Jul 2004 . . Bodnotbod (As I understand it, the person who originally proposed this category be deleted has withdrawn the request, so I've removed the boiler plate. See CfD.)
"CfD is a bit of a pleonasm. Categories cease being important when they're empty." - This is precisely the problem I outlined above, which appears not to have been resolved. What's happening is that someone creates a category, populates it. Someone who dislikes it depopulates it then lists it for CfD. In effect this is saying that the population of a category cannot be taken at face value.
I agree - and have changed the main rule from depopulate the category to do not depopulate the category (delete category tags from articles) until it has been voted for deletion. I didnt write the first version, and was following it when I ran into the FHM category (perfect bad example). If the issue is that someone is overpopulating a bogus category in violation of NPOV, then they need to be stopped in process. Maybe an arbitrator like MyRedDice or Maverick can issue a quick injunction if requested. If its vandalism, they can be blocked, but if its POV, I think we need an arbitrator judgment. -SV 15:46, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I hold up my hand here, I have created category:alcoholics, category:gay icons , category:suicides (actually, that last may have been someone else). At any rate they have all been deleted (or nominated for deletion) for reasons I'm not entirely unsympathetic to, and perhaps my creation of them should be regarded as a result of not fully appreciating when a category should be created and when one shouldn't. By which I mean, that I have reasons that I would use to justify their creation, however if they are not reasons that satisfy some policy then I will accept their passing.
But the question I raised in another section above seems not to have been resolved. People are listing populated categories. Depopulating them. Someone comes along to vote on the nomination - sees that it is unpopulated and says "hey! what's the point of it!".... it cannot be a good state of affairs - this is not the way to run category deletions and I think it needs to be resolved. Am I missing something here?
Furthermore, I think the 3 cats I mention should be used (if they are all deleted) to formulate a firm policy on why such categories are not acceptable in Wikipedia so that we don't run the same debates through again and again (see the GBLT debate overleaf. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 22:11, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)
At the very least, we could list "major" decisions in an archive of some kind with either a summary or the full listing of arguments for and against. It would be nice to come up with a codified policy that expresses a unified theory behind those decisions, but that might be more trouble than it's worth. -- Beland 00:53, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I think it's absolutely vital that a policy is formed to stop people categorising people under their favourite... well hobby sounds odd, but... I think anyone that has a deep interest in something will know of famous people that share that interest/predeliction/suffered that fate and may be sorely tempted (as I have been) to categorise people on that basis. So we need a policy to point to if the community has decided that that is undesirable (and I'm not even sure that's proven).
Plus, I've looked at the above again. User:UtherSRG is the category janitor? I shall direct him here to ask how his deletion edit summary on cat:alcoholics was not misleading. He has put content was... followed by the definition I wrote. This gives the entirely misleading impression that the category was empty. It was only empty once it was emptied by... UtherSRG! I really think we need some more input here, so I'll be canvassing for a proper debate. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 01:57, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)
Here's an example of consensus not being sought let alone ignored: [1] , [2] , [3] , [4] , [5] etc, etc. Forget which category this is and examine the underlying procedure. It is trivial for one person to go around and depopulate a category before listing it here and essentially presenting the jury with a blank category. This cannot be the way to approach category deletion.
I think policy has to be to list populated categories (except when there never has been anything in it) and discuss whether the category is to be depopulated and then deleted. Arguments over whether individual articles should be in a category would go on the articles talk page.
At the moment there is so little interest in this compared to VfD that it is being run as a fiefdom with far too little input from the community. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 02:56, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)
I agree that this should be given more attention and that VfD's approach is better. However, I've gotten the impression that among Wikipedia users categorization tends to be more of an afterthought. Would a process change really encourage more interest? I'm curious what percentage of articles don't have any categories. (And what percentage of those are miscategorized or not fully categorized?) —Mike 05:38, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)
One problem is that categories are too hard to navigate. It is too hard to work out which categories an article belongs too - it often requires searching through multiple unrelated trees etc. There needs to be a way to view the whole category tree. IMO, until then, categories will always be a mess. ··gracefool |☺ 05:49, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Could part of the mess be alleviated if the WikiProjects didn't gloss over the categorizing of the articles? The project pages are very useful but many times don't fully address how the articles should be categorized when they are written. Also, should we start including the "standard" category tree (that is one or levels) into the category talk pages? But I'm not sure how helpful that would be. —Mike 06:30, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)
Well from what I can see, its actually a slightly different story. If you look at Bod's examples more carefully, you will see a pattern in the timing which suggest to me User:UtherSRG removed the Category:Alcohoics from a couple of articles around the 9&10th Aug. The category itself was then relisted for deletion here by on the 17th Aug by User:Sethmahoney and received some agreement. User:UtherSRG then deleted the category itself on the 19th August, then went round tidying up the articles which still pointed to it.
So this is not a case of depopulating a category then listing it for deletion because it is empty. The category was deleted for being POV.
If there is a problem here, it would be that it looks like that deletion discussion did not last very long, and it may be that the {CfD} notice was not attached to the category a second time. Both of these might have been due to confusion after the category had been listed before, coupled with more concrete discussion on POV problem categories in the meantime. -- Solipsist 07:06, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Damn. All due apologies to UtherSRG for that misrepresentation. I'm a bit too fired up about all this, I think.
However, certainly when the FHM category went up, someone was depopulating it even as the votes were coming in. I'm not even sure if I'm able to investigate how things have been proceeding without admin powers as only admins can see the history/fossils of a deleted category, can't they? --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 17:20, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)
Actually, I've just noticed the top of the project page does now say not to depopulate the category. Good. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 17:26, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)
Stevertigo wrote: If the issue is that someone is overpopulating a bogus category in violation of NPOV, then they need to be stopped in process. Maybe an arbitrator like MyRedDice or Maverick can issue a quick injunction if requested.
I think it would make more sense to make the top of this page suggest not depopulating completely, in general, but accept that in certain cases (vandalism, POV problems, overpopulation) that partial or (in rare cases) complete depopulation is reasonable. Martin 17:42, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Just been looking at the project page history. this is the moment alcoholics died. Hardly a resounding discussion: one person listed it, one person agreed, a third person went ahead and depopulated/deleted.
What this tells me is that we need to recruit people to the page. Y'know, I think what's going on is understandable... categories are new, there's bound to be lots of rough edges, so this process is very young and hasn't attracted the interest it needs to get a decent debate going. Perhaps I'll go over to VfD and pick on a few regulars, ask them if they want to get involved. Can't tonight, have to go now. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 17:48, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)
I'm suffering from a similar frustration right now. User:Duncharris is busy moving articles from categories like Category:Welsh athletes (and those for other nations of the UK) to Category:British athletes, because "they normally compete under the British flag", even though there are legitimate reasons for keeping the nations separate (they compete separately in the Commonwealth Games, and there are already categories like Category:Welsh people to make the hierarchy useful) and it would have been trivial to make Category:British athletes a supercategory of the individual nations. He ignored my protestations, listed the categories for speedy deletion, and they were summarily deleted without further discussion by User:Chris 73. I've raised this on Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion as it seems to make a mockery of any kind of process. Grrrr.... -- Avaragado 18:21, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I guess there's cause for a pause. A call for a slowing down. How you do that with many thousands of editors, I don't know.
I've seen reasons for deletion now that say "if somebody asked you what you're reading, would you say "I'm reading about an alcoholic." Someone says "no, nobody would ever say that. DELETE". But I really WOULD say I'm reading about alcoholics. I'm deeply interested in alcoholics.
Researching the category, I found an alcoholic GOLFER. Now, that interests me.
People have said, well, if you're going to do that... why not categorise people as having blue eyes. OK, doesn't interest me. BUT. One of the things I remember seeing about categorisation was that you wouldn't only look at one category... you'd be able to VENN DIAGRAM people... so you could do people that are over 6ft tall, with blue eyes, born in Sweden, who play guitar (but not as their main profession). So, we need to decide.
It wouldn't offend me at all (as it seems to do with others) to categorise people with, say, 20 categories. That wouldn't disturb me, annoy me.
If you look at ONE categorisation as their being, their soul then that would be odd. But I think I see it that categories dilute, the more someone is categorised the more Venn style searches they turn up in. Thoughts, anyone?
I admit it, I'm a morbid bugger. But also trained as a journalist. Sometimes I may really want to know just who died in a car crash.
If the community decides that's wrong, OK. But we really need to make that clear. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 00:35, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)
I also am extremely uncomformtable with the way category deletion is being handled. I would like to see this page used ONLY for the trivial cases of categories that are clearly redundant (populated or not) or mispelled, where the category is not really being deleted, but merely renamed (or merged), or empty due to lack of legitimate members for an extended period of time. Categories should not be deleted merely because they are empty--they must be empty because nobody is filling them at all. I would like to see all other category deletions ("this is not NPOV" or "this is stupid" or "kind of half-baked notion") to be taken to Vfd. Any category mistakenly placed here if not refuted quickly, I think should be moved there for further discussion. Note that I would support reorganization discussions like with Category:Winter Olympics here, although even that probably should be on category talk:categorization or something.
As to categories such as Category:people with blue eyes, the developers have already said that this type of category is inappropriate, as categories with more than about 10k slow the database down too much. --ssd 04:51, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
To summarize, I think these types of things should be handled here:
Merges:
Mispellings to be merged into a correctly spelled category.
Redundant categories to be merged (i.e., People of Spain vs. Spainards)
Pluralization and capitolization mistakes -- same as mispellings.
(nearly) empty categories:
Categories that have remained empty for an extended period of time with no hope of being expanded
categories that can inherently never have more than two or three items (i.e., recently deleted Category:Mathematics and computer science) especially if these items would work if merged back into the category's parent.
I can't really think of much else that would not be better off discussed on Vfd.
On a side note, I am tempted to start a page called Wikipedia:Nearly empty categories that need help (or just Wikipedia:Category cleanup), where small categories would be listed, and collapsed/merged into a parent category if not expanded within a month. --ssd 05:09, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Ah, well the 10k rule gives us an excellent reason for disallowing certain categories, and I immediately withdraw my above support for allowing things like blue eyes etc. I'm quite keen on this idea of handling categories on VfD. it is a well attended page, and I don't see why people cannot deal with both issues on the one page. I'll pester an admin and see what they say. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 18:55, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)
Hi, I noticed you have played down - to the point of inefectiveness - the notion that categories should not be depopulated before listing on CfD.
To my mind, this is an error. The reason being that it cannot be right that someone can act alone, depopulating a category and then listing it for community consensus. Surely the default position should be that a community is invited to look at the category first and action follows in the wake of that? Please let me know your thoughts. Regards, --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 19:44, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)
To be honest, that phrase -- no, dictate -- was added a short while ago as a result of some minimal discussion on this talk page. It is absolutely unenforcable, since the changes in category are made on each member article. As such, "Categories for deletion" is really no such thing. I propose that it be re-branded as "Categories under review". Under that moniker, any potentially or actively disputed categories can be listed here as they are now, but with the intent that consensus as to the best categorization method is discussed. I don't see any reason to debate "deletion" per se, because someone can just re-categorize pages at will. Only when those changes which are controversial should be listed here for discussion. The results of that discussion can be archived for future reference. Empty categories, as a result of discussions here, can be deleted as needed. -- Netoholic@ 00:08, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
As I said on the project page (moved to below), changing the category of an article or two is fine, but imposing your view on a large number of articles at once is annoying to say the least, and akin to inserting your own POV into every article (categories are inherently POV, but that's another discussion). Don't confuse the issue by talking about individual changes.
"Don't depopulate before listing" is very enforceable, as it is easy to see when someone does it.
If "Don't depopulate before listing" is not enforced, this page is largely useless. The alternative to this page is edit-wars over categorization. ··gracefool |☺ 07:18, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
This page already is largely useless. I agree to changing it to categories under review, and think it should be made a subpage of RfC a la article disputes. Adding a history function to the category itself would greatly improve things, but this would likely be a lot of work. anthony(see warning) 11:43, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
"Categories under review" does sound better. It reinforces the idea that if you create a category and then want to delete it 5 minutes later, you can just mark it for speedy deletion. ··gracefool |☺ 23:29, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Any objections to changing the scope of this page from "for deletion" to "under review" ? -- Netoholic@ 04:47, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Moved from the main page
I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but policy now is that you should not depopulate the category until it has been voted for deletion (taken from the top of this page). ··gracefool |☺ 03:29, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
That wording change was made 4 days ago, and I do not see anywhere that consensus on that phrase was ever decided. It flies in the face of Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages until a discussion is held about that point. -- Netoholic@ 03:45, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I agree, there is no consensus on that. Even if a category survives CfD, that cannot be in any way construed as a lock on editing any particular article to remove a category tag. Inclusion within a category must always remain debatable even if the category itself will not be deleted, certainly no less so than the manner in which article content must never be frozen except by consensus through peer editing. Postdlf 04:03, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
My bad in assuming there was consensus. But what's the point in doing the vast majority of the work of deleting a category, before anyone has agreed to delete it? It seems like a very bad policy to me - for example, lets say I don't like Category:Rock music for some reason. So I go and remove all the articles from it, then I list it here for deletion, where others decide to keep it, and someone else has to re-add all the articles to the category. Removing articles from a category is like blanking a page and then listing it on VfD (but worse, because it takes so much more effort to re-add categories). ··gracefool |☺ 04:40, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I myself tend to favor the idea of a presumption against new categories, exactly because they can have an effect on so many articles. Established categories that many have used really aren't threatened in this way. If you've created a questionable category that you have personally populated with 300 articles, then don't be surprised if others are eager to undo all your hard work and no one helps you stop it. However, a category like Category:Rock music is not one that is likely to be depopulated without a flurry of reversions from people watching included articles and subcategories, exactly because it is so clearly useful and basic. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think that this usual process of common editing will protect the most valid categories. It will also disfavor those that are less useful but perhaps harmless and so will possibly survive CfD, but that's simply the risk you take in creating a category: that someone else won't like his articles of interest included and will remove the categorization. Just the same as the risk you'd take in adding a section on parking lots to every article on a U.S. city—it's likely to get reverted regardless of whether you manage to get a policy discussion going on whether the info should be part of the standard format. Otherwise, would you propose protecting every article included in a CfD category until the end of the vote? Can't say I like that idea. Postdlf 06:27, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Again, I have this gut feeling (and I guess I'll have to mooch around in prove this at some stage) that the above is a skewed vision of what is happening in practice. This is portraying events as if a category is created, added to a large number of articles, then a large number of people vote against the category by removing it from an article they're watching. I think what happens in practice is that someone doesn't like a category and finds it extremely simple to mop them all up as an act of individual preference.
And we still have people saying category is orphaned anyway when it is orphaned because someone has orphaned it out of individual effort. I say again, this cannot be a healthy approach. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 00:58, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)
I wish there was an easy way to access history of pages that use to be in a category. --ssd 07:43, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I think that would be useful. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 00:58, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)
I'm not proposing protecting the categories of every article individually. I am proposing that every article in the category is not systematically removed, until a decision is made at CfD. If you want to remove one or two articles from the category, fine. If you want to remove them all, you want to use CfD. ··gracefool |☺ 08:47, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I'd agree with this. And also, if you wish to remove one or two, not the whole category, you should say why in the edit summary, or if this is insufficient, on the talk page of the article. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 00:58, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)
What about when the entire category consists of two or three entries? Is that systematic removal? I'd say it's perfectly fine to do, especially for obvious mistakes (mispellings, redundant categories), but for the sake of etiquette you should leave a note on the talk page of the user who created the category and (obviously I hope) not do it repeatedly if someone objects. Getting specific, I created Category:Americans, not realizing there was already Category:American people. I don't see the problem with someone moving my entries, deleting the category, and leaving me a note on my talk page. But instead the category sits here on this page for a week or whatever wasting everyone's time. anthony(see warning) 11:48, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Yeah, three or four articles is okay. So shall we remove the "Many editors consider" and turn it back into policy? ··gracefool |☺ 23:22, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I think this problem would be best solved in the long term by taking this information out of the articles and putting it into the categories. Instead of storing the category information in the child pages, you'd store it in the parents. Marking a category in the old style would still work, but this information would be moved to the category page itself. Thus we'd get history, we'd be able to make moves, standardization of sort keys would be easier, renaming of links would be possible, we'd have a good notion of redirects, we'd be able to mass add lots of articles at once, and we'd be able to include articles which haven't yet been created. In the mean time, as I'm not sure how much work this would be, we'd still need to work on these interim solutions. anthony(see warning) 11:57, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea. Although it would be slightly harder to add add a single article to a category, it would be quicker when adding many articles. And it would make reverts etc. possible, rather than ridiculously time-consuming as now. ··gracefool |☺ 23:29, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
An example driving my bloodlust for category deletion
Here's an example to ponder, Category:Air forces. It has thirty entries, but not thirty articles—instead, it contains thirty subcategories, one each for the air force of a particular country. Each of these thirty subcategories contains just one article, identically titled with the subcategory, on that country's air force. Each of those subcategories is also assigned to a second parent category on the military of that particular country. I have not checked all those country military categories, but the ones I checked, and I suspect all the rest, contain only one entry, that country's air force subcategory. All in all, a boatload of subcategories for not too many articles. Even if articles are eventually added on other military branches of those countries, it makes far more sense to assign those two parent categories to the article on each country's air force, rather than inserting these myriad doomed intermediate subcategories. By "doomed," I mean that by definition these thirty subcategories will never have more than one article. Sure, taxonomy is fun, and we can busy our days drawing smaller and smaller boxes until there is only one angel dancing on the head of each pin. For the reader, though, it means extra steps drilling up and down to see what could be conveniently collected into larger logical groups for easy perusal. Let us take pity on the poor reader. --Gary D 09:45, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I agree there is a trend for overcategorization. Perhaps this should be brought up on the Village Pump or Votes for Deletion to get a wider audience. --ssd 12:42, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I disagree - why assume that categorization must follow article development. Can't category development lead to articles being written? It might even be a good idea if new articles can be created via a category listing, to auto-include the category tag. The only issue is wether those categories are properly named (Category:Rebel Alliance was previously Category:Rebellion ;) and that the categories are NPOV. With article pages, we can let things develop a bit in a wrong direction before changing them. With cats, misclassification can quickly seed more misclassification and POV, and needs to be dealt with quickly, otherwise it gets overpopulated and then nobody wants to do anything about it. Bots. -SV 15:32, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Archived old material
I got sick of this page being huge. I deleted some stuff that was resolved simply, and archived both interesting resolved issues and unresolved issues more than two weeks old. I believe I left placeholders on the page for unresolved issues. I hope I didn't step on anyone's toes, but the page was just too big. --ssd 22:13, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Intro layout
If consistency is what we're looking for, I'll just note that WP:VFD does not have the full template. I'm not unhappy with the current layout, even though the Resources box takes up a screen and a half. It does split the paragraph to the left of itself rather weirdly, though. -- Beland 04:37, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
What browser are you using? With Safari it looks fine. The resources box is less than one page in length and only occupies the right half of the page. The paragraph on the left looks ok. —Mike 05:39, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)
I'm sure it's less than a page on your screen; mine runs at a rather low resolution. I'm using Galeon. Here's a screenshot. Bad rendering in Galeon. -- Beland 07:07, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Ending in September, 2004, there was a poll about whether or not to merge WP:CFD and WP:VFD. The final result was no merger with the following final tally:
No merger: 11
Merge CFD with VFD: 1
Merge with RfC: 1
The issues of unresolved votes and getting enough people to pay attention to WP:CFD were also raised.
Yes, because this would expose category deletion questions to the presumably larger VfD group, and the considerations behind article deletion and category deletion are somewhat similar. --Gary D 02:00, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Vote no: categories and pages should be dealt with separately
I would say no; VfD is huge and slow-loading as it is. I like the idea of separate project page types going to separate chopping blocks: IfD, VfD, TfD, CfD. If VfD has the most traffic, it's only because we need to advertise the other project pages more. --[[User:Ardonik|Ardonik(talk)]] 23:26, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)
I also think no; people involved in categorisation are not necessarily the same community as are involved in new pages patrol. I do think that Speedy Delete should be allowed for non-controversial category deletion, e.g. misspellings.-gadfium 23:40, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
No. Some of us don't care at all much about being involved with categories and wouldn't want to see material that is mostly irrelevant to our concerns on VfD which is already sometimes very large. Keep category deletion in a separate listing for those who do care very much about being involved with categories and are aware of past debate and decisions in that area. I presume most of those people know about the category for deletion listing. But moving an individual catgeory deletion discussion from CfD to VfD if consensus cannot be reached here makes sense. Jallan 00:02, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
No. Categorization schemes themselve should be discussed. Deletion of the category page itself is of minimal concern. -- Netoholic@ 00:09, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
No, for reasons previously stated. —Mike 02:04, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)
No, primarily because CfD should not be directed by the same policies or standard of review as VfD—as Netoholic termed it, "categorization schemes" are at issue, which affect the larger structure of wikipedia and many articles at once. The standards for relevance, factuality, and notability should thus be higher than would be applied to a decision on a single article. Postdlf 02:36, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
No. There are different issues and different policies involved (as previously stated). Discussion and maintenance of these policies should be kept separate. Noisy 12:26, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I feel this would lead to more community input/a broader consensus. There is a risk of confusion, so I am open to other avenues to generate more input into category deletion discussions. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 19:14, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)
Since it currently looks like my proposal is going to be voted down, I would plead with anyone who is interested to put the project page on their watchlist and take part in category deletion discussions. My proposal was really an attempt to get more debate going on CfD - I care little how exactly this is achieved. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 03:00, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)
No vote yet. I agree that we need more people participating in CfD, but I don't think that VfD is the place to do it - its already busy enough, and handling categories there could lead to a little confusion. I'm also not sure of a better way to get more people involved, though. Maybe we should do some brainstorming... -Seth Mahoney 23:43, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)
I just realised I hadn't included an end date for this poll. It is looking very much like a done deal anyway, but I figured one should be included. I set it to be 14 days after the poll opened - this was rather arbitrary, but it's a straight 2 weeks. If it seems a little long it's primarily because not many people seem to be coming here. If my decision offends you, I'd please ask that you consider the fact that the status quo is almost certainly going to win out, and I think we all have better things to do than argue about a closing date that will - in all likelihood - effect nothing. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 10:30, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks so much for the much-needed cleanup, Ssd...
I've proposed that when there's a consensus to keep, we put the discussion on the Category's talk page. I did that for "German economy" with the following note:
"This category was nominated for deletion, but no clear consensus to delete was reached. The discussion is recorded below for future reference."
--Beland 05:48, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
OK, I did this for all the other pages that were kept. -- Beland 01:37, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Poll: How to reach closure for controversial categories?
What should be the procedure for closure in cases where there is no clear consensus after 7 days? (Not including controversies related to Wikipedia:Categorisation of people.)
1.) Just close the discussion.
2.) Extend discussion for another week...
2A.) ...keeping it on CFD.
2B.) ...after moving it to /unresolved.
2C.) ...after posting it to VFD.
2D.) ...after moving it to the category's talk page.
3.) Leave it on /unresolved indefinitely.
4.) Create a special thinktank page, or otherwise whip up interest in a broader discussion of underlying issues. (added 9 Sep 2004)
Summary of votes
1
2A + 4
2B + 2C + 4
2C
2C
4
Votes
I vote for 2C. Controversial categories should get wider attention. It's fine for a smaller community of people interested in categories to decide the less controversial cases. -- Beland 21:18, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Based on further discussion, I'm thinking a staged approach might be good. We could move to /unresolved 7 days after nomination. We would then post a link on VFD and/or RFC, and ask people whether 1.) this is simply a matter of coming up with an appropriate compromise from a complex discussion, and implementing it (and asking people to do either of those things), or 2.) there are broader, underlying principles at stake. If (2), there may be other categories in /unresolved that should be grouped together, or un-nominated examples; these would be collected in a thinktank page and interest whipped up if there are no other major Categorization discussions going on at the time. If after, say, 60 days, a dispute has not been resolved and has not been made part of a broader discussion, it should be declared "keep" and documented on /resolved and/or the category's talk page. So, more like 2B + 2C + 4. -- Beland 04:20, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
1. Follow the same procedure as for articles. If there is no consensus to delete after seven days, the category stays, no matter how controversial. -Seth Mahoney 21:44, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)
2C, if we can't get consensus here, put it to a wider discussion. If still no consensus, then keep the category.-gadfium 02:51, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I vote for bringing up the category on Vfd (or similar) where the debate will get wider exposure. --ssd 06:47, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
2A, followed by 4 if needed. -Sean Curtin 03:14, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)
If the discussion is unresolved for some time this means that probably there is some broader issue to be solved first;
WHIP UP some discussion about that broader problem: I could give a list of ideas what "whipping up" could mean, but think this depends very much on the topic.
I suppose in most cases a workable solution can be achieved within a week or two.
Looking at /unresolved, the Category:People cases sort of form an over-arching theme, whereas the other problematic cases present more unique issues. It's unclear to me that there are actually broader issues at stake for all of the Misc. cases. There might be something about classification schemes in general to consider, but each of those disputes in question has substantial additional unique considerations. But, I added this as an option in case anyone else wants to vote for it. -- Beland 13:11, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
(--Francis Schonken 16:29, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)): Oops, already regrouped "/unresolved" before reading this (had two additional groups in the end, see comments written on top of the new groups). Re. "misc.":
-> "Books by title" - dunno, maybe gets automaticly solved if "Non-wikipedia classification" gets sorted out? - maybe this is something merely technical? Suppose I'd give this one somewhat more time, for finding out whether there is really a broader problem, or something that can be solved in a few simple steps.
-> "Western art" and "Enlightenment": I applied part of the solutions proposed in the discussions, only can not rename "Enlightenment" category to "Age of Enlightenment" - could someone do that (see note added to that topic on "/unresolved")? I understand from what I read that this would close the discussion (apart that both categories could profit from being a bit more populated). Suppose part of the problem of not getting resolved was because of being "paralised" on CfD page (note that "Enlightenment" didn't even have {{CfD}} notice). For this ones maybe some time on RfC might've been better than immediately CfD? Or was RfC tried first?
-> exotic music groups: dunno, seems minor: Think nobody would object to follow Bodnobod's suggestions first (keep one, delete the other): maybe this "de-problemizes" enough to get going again.
Great minds think alike...thanks for your reorganization there; it seems useful. No one mentioned RFC (Note by Francis Schonken: Anthony did, in the coments section of the first poll above); CFD is sort of the canonical place to discuss this kind of issue. I am starting to appreciate more the idea of dealing with broader issues. Perhaps the best thing to do is to accumulate things on /unresolved, and occasionally attempt to extract themes. If we do identify a broader theme, like the non-Wikipedia classification system problem, that does seem like it's time to make a special page in the think tank and post on RFC. Some of the Misc. problems are there only because someone hasn't implemented the suggested solution, like the musical genre thing. Personally, I didn't feel comfortable implementing anything because I'm not familiar with the subject matter. Perhaps we should have a heading for things that are close to resolution, but just need someone to take charge and untangle the mess of comments. Or perhaps a post to a popular page asking for more attention is appropriate to bring in more expertise/energy. If you want to take a stab at resolving some of the implementation roadblocks, feel free. We should probably only have one mega-controversy going at a time, so perhaps after a tentative Category:People policy emerges from the current discussion, we can start thinktank pages for outside categorization schemes and categorization of fictional entities (note by Francis Schonken: I expect some sort of broader resolution for this last one from the wikipedia:importance discussion). -- Beland 04:08, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Poll: What do to with controversial categories after closure?
If there is still no clear consensus to delete or keep after closure has been reached, what should be done about the category?
Keep the category (documenting the decision on the category's talk page; also documenting on /resolved if the discussion was of general interest)
Delete the category (documenting on /resolved if the discussion was interesting)
Summary of votes
Keep: 4 + 1 from previous poll = 5
Delete: 0
Votes to keep
Keep. Not all categorization schemes will be useful to all people, but as long as there's a sizable minority that finds them useful, they should be kept. -- Beland 21:20, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Keep if there is no clear majority vote for deletion. Category deletion should be held to the same rules as article deletion. -Seth Mahoney 21:42, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)
Keep, those who support a category are responsible for providing the information that fall within the category and would not support it if the information did not exist. Fred Bauder 22:03, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)
Keep, see also comment to previous poll. --Francis Schonken 07:42, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Votes to delete
Comments
Poll: What do to with empty categories with potential?
What should be done with empty categories that have the potential for
being populated?
Delete them until they are needed.
Leave them alone.
Give the "keep" faction 7 days after posting to populate the category with existing articles, then revisit the question anew.
Summary of votes
Rule 3
Rule 3
Rule 2, second choice rule 3
Rule 3 but for two weeks
Rule 3 but for one month
Rule 2 if "obvious potential"
1 if no verbal description, 2 if orphaned but textful, 3 if not orphaned and textful
1 or 3 with a minimum of three children to be worthwhile
Votes
I vote for 3. It both helps determine whether or not the category is currently needed, and helps categorize articles that need it. -- Beland 21:18, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
3, or possibly leave them for two weeks, though how we come to a decision on whether or not a category has potential is a bit up in the air. -Seth Mahoney 21:43, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)
2, leave them alone, 3 would be the second choice. Fred Bauder 22:05, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)
3, all categories should be populated, preferably when first created.-gadfium 02:49, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
3, but only for completely empty categories (i.e. "zero" articles). "Poorly populated" categories are different matter: if after 7 days there are more than zero articles, the category is no longer empty, and the "reconsideration" would be an automatic yes, unless all articles in the category are misfits and are to be removed from the category (zero again). VOTE WITHDRAWN because of lack of definition of what "empty category" means (see comments in vote of user:French Tourist, and comments section below) --Francis Schonken 19:12, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'd vote for 3 except I think a week is too short. Only completely empty categories should be deleted, and if it has potential (and good criteria for filling it), a much longer time should be given, even if it is totally empty. A month might be right for some potential categories. --ssd 06:52, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
2, for categories with obvious potential—if for some reason no one had yet bothered to populate Category:U.S. Supreme Court justices beyond a couple articles, it would be silly to delete it because it's blatantly obvious that there are plenty of articles to put in that grouping. Even if all of them hadn't been written yet, they would be eventually. Postdlf 23:32, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Tons of possible variants, at least if I understand correctly empty in the question as meaning having no member and no subcategory ! We suppose the category is empty, OK, but is it orphaned ? is its text void ? My choice would be 1 for a category which is textless, be it orphaned or not (I mean if its "edit" window contains only [[category:...]] statements (possibly none)). This is a bit rough but the category can be very quickly recreated if useful, the loss of information is low and I feel it is a priority to contain the potential surabundance of categories. If the category is orphaned but not textless, I would vote 2 -the text can give some useful info like a "See also..." or hints about how to fill the category whose erasement would be a loss. If the category is neither orphaned nor textless, I vote for 3 : it can be very useful for instance to have a complete collection of categories, say like "Institutions of (every country in the world)", half of which will be empty, but which would all be filled with the same advice about what is and what is not relevant in this category, and it would be stupid that "Institutions of Chad" for instance gets erased because nobody has noticed it was part of a coherent collection of categories. --French Tourist 19:07, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I suppose we need a similar poll (but with more options) for "poorly populated" categories? Or is this not an issue? --Francis Schonken 08:17, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I've suggested in the past that we need a page for categories needing cleanup -- including filling, resorting, subcategorizing, etc. --ssd 06:53, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
If a person runs across an empty category with potential, wouldn't it make more sense to just add some articles to it rather than taking the time to post it for deletion? Unless you can't tell if it has potential (i.e. you can't tell what to look up to put into it), in which case it would have to be listed for discussion. I'm not sure that "Categories with potential" is a useful distinction - if you already know enough about the subject to know that it has potential, you can just add articles to it. --[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 00:12, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
(--Francis Schonken 19:55, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)): "empty" is in my view not the same as "not populated", so there's something wrong with the poll question: a category is only empty when:
there is no category text (neither "category definition", nor any other explanatory text)
there are no supercategories (i.e. the category is orphaned)
there are no subcategories
there are no other "wikipedia" tags, like "redirect" tags, inter-language tags,...
the category is not populated (i.e. there are no articles referring to this category, which for some categories never was the intention, because they were created in view of being a supercategory only, like e.g. category:people - I sometimes use the term "umbrella categories" for such categories, but I don't know whether that is a clear term)
the discussion page of the category has no content worth saving
example 1: a category with a good category definition, while otherwise empty, should not be thought of as a candidate for deletion, but as a candidate that needs one or more supercategories (and/or subcategories), so that wikipedians would know where to look when they need it.
example 2: "redirect" categories should never be "populated" in any way. Maybe "redirect" categories are not something to promote very broadly, but they can be a tool to put an end to an endless discussion over alternative names for a same category (e.g. "age of Enlightenment" - "the Enlightenment": presently both categories exist, one of them a redirect to the other)
Categories are intended to organize things. If they are completely empty, they are not organizing anything and should be deleted without thought. Meaningful categories should have a total of at least three articles or subcategories. Maurreen 15:42, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
This page is backwards
The other … for deletion pages list newest entries at the bottom, not at the top as is done here. Should not this page be changed so it is more consistent? [[User:Anárion|Ана́рыён]] 12:25, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I think the other pages would be better off changing, actually. Aris Katsaris 17:53, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Agree with first writer. The 'forwards' list orientation shows which categories have to be processed first. Vacuumc 01:19, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)
I also agree with Anárion. New entries should be entered at the bottom of each day. RedWolf 01:50, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Aris. I like it the way it is. Kbdank71 20:09, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Lots of opinions are different pages though. Hard to change all of them... Penwhale 02:08, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Ironically, TFD is thinking of changing to this way round, since in many ways it makes a lot more sense to list new things at the top. Many (most?) of the cleanup-style pages (Cleanup, move to Wiktionary, cfd, vfd, for instance) work this way round and it makes more sense in a lot of ways. New items are the first thing looked at, older items are close to where they'll end up (the "filtration tank" at the bottom of the page). Grutness|hello? 06:41, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Links into encylcopedic space
An accidental entry could confuse someone looking for Computational Fluid Dynamics, hence the entry at the top of the page. 132.205.15.4 06:48, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Post a note or template on WP:VFD inviting further comment.
Unresolved discussions that are part of a larger theme (e.g. the classification of people, non-Wikipedia classification schemes) should be grouped together and spawn a Category:Policy_thinktank page if appropriate.
If there is no consensus to delete one week after posting on VFD, the decision shall be keep.
If a category has no children:
If there is a consensus that it should not exist, then it may be deleted after the normal time period.
If there are any votes that an empty category should exist, then it may not be deleted just for being empty until at least 30 days after nomination.
Categories that should exist but it is clear are missing articles or subcategories should be added to Category:Underpopulated categories.
In my browser (IE 6.0), using the Classic skin, the Deletiontools table and the Table of contents are overlapping each other. RickK 06:49, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)
Proposed codification of policy on disambiguation categories
We have decided several times to disallow disambiguation categories. Shall we officially codify this? -- Beland 22:58, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Ah! The state of this page says a lot about wiki.en... Just to add a note on what the portuguese wiki decided for disambiguate categories. We created a custom message saying that the category is equivalent to the better one and that the present cat should be kept empty. In this way, the multiplication of categories as fishes and bread was severed. It works quite well. Cheers, [[User:Muriel Gottrop|muriel@pt]] 15:46, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Should we create some sort of "disambiguation categories" category to put them in, so they don't turn up as orphans? [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 01:23, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Not precisely. I was thinking more along the lines of redirects (oops), which seems to be what Muriel was also referring to. I did, however, just find this, which probably should be linked from somewhere around here if it is to be considered official: Template talk:Categoryredirect. -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]]
Cleaning up this page
This page is a mess! The policies specify that nothing should be here for longer than seven days, but that clearly is not happening. I've been trying to do some cleaning up.
I don't think it is particularly helpful to dump huge blocks of text at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/unresolved, so I've been trying to somehow figure out how to resolve as many older issues as I can. Because there aren't very many folks voting here, there often is no consensus, not because consensus couldn't be reached fairly easily, but simply because there were only two voters and one of them voted keep and the other delete.
With that in mind, I would appreciate it if those who are keeping an eye on this page would look at discussions for listings from October (or earlier) and comment wherever possible. Any other suggestions? -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 23:22, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps it is time to use the VfD method of making pages smaller? {{Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/PageName}} seems like a good idea. Especially since the CfD and unresolved pages are quite large now. 132.205.15.43 05:37, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I originally proposed that anything that was not resolved here in a week shoudl go on Vfd, not sure why nobody liked that idea. Anyway, I was doing cleanup here for a while, but I've just been busy lately, not had time, sorry. I'll get back to it in a few weeks when things are less hectic on my end. --ssd 04:31, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
We actually did decide that controversial questions should be posted to VFD; see Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion_policies#Controversial_decisions. Moderators just haven't gotten around to actually doing it. We also decided it was a good idea to let things sit on /unresolved for a bit, so that related controversies could be identified and decided together, but many things have been stewing there for far too long now.
I will try to work on the USA/American question; if someone will re-post the entire Terrorism section to VFD, that can be cleared up right away. It will just default to "keep" if we don't consense on "delete" within a week thereafter, and if that happens people will probably try to refine the categories for greater wikiharmony.
I think the fiction-related questions are moot, considering that all of these categories have been deleted; these should probably just be moved to /resolved.
Perhaps after the Terrorism section is resolved, we can post the People section. Actually, what I would recommend is that someone take a look at Wikipedia:Categorization of people and come up with a consistent proposal for what to do about each of the listed categories, and just post that.
Then if we can also conquer "Non-wikipedia classification systems" and military terminology, that would clear out most of /unresolved for now.
In general, we might want to re-argue the most controversial topics one at a time, so active pages don't get too big and interested parties have time to comment.
BTW, I dislike the template-based VFD way of doing things, but if other people are fond of it, I won't complain too loudly. -- Beland 10:02, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Yes, please use the VfD method ({{Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Category Name}} or {{Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Category:Category Name}}) – ABCD 00:20, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
At the moment (17:18, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)), the page is over 200k. {{Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/DayListEntry}} could atleast split the page up into differing days, and compress the main page a bit. 132.205.45.110
Here are my thoughts on sending listings to VfD:
First, it's confusing. The policy says to cross-list at VfD but there is no procedure specified. If we are to continue this, we should move the discussion to a sub-page of CfD, then start a sub-page at VfD which directs voters to the CfD page. Or something consistant. It's confusing to put things in two places at once, but the current VfD policy requires a sub-page.
The one time I listed a category at VfD, the immediate reaction was "what are you doing, this shouldn't be here!" The results, in the end, were not any different from the results at CfD.
If we want to keep this policy, perhaps some discussion with VfD folks would be in order. There need to be clear guidelines specifying when a controversial decision goes to VfD. My personal feeling is that controvesial decisions do not get any less controvesial when they are brought to VfD. Bringing a vote to VfD is mostly useful when there just isn't enough input.
I tend to put large, controversial discussions on their own sub-pages when I archive them. The resolved page should list only brief summaries of the decision (e.g. "Category:X kept and inclusion policy defined" or "Category:X deleted as inherently POV") or else a brief summary and a link. I may go ahead and start working on condensing that material. I think it's useful to have a full record of recently-discussed decisions, though. (Check out "Category:Eccentrics" under resolved.)
Another suggestion might be that if you know you are listing something that is going to take up a lot of space, you can go ahead and put it on a sub-page. You don't have to be an Administrator to take initiative on these things. A lot of times, I end up just shoving things in resolved or unresolved because I don't have time to do any more than that if I'm the only one taking care of the back-log. -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 21:53, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
For the majority of listings, it would be silly to start a separate page. Over the past couple of days, when going through the items that are one week old, I've deleted all but one or two with no attempt even at archiving, because there simply wasn't any discussion to speak of. The typical listing at CfD still consists of the nomination for deletion, and nothing else. Most category changes are undisputed.
Taking care of the backlog that's more than one week old would make it a lot easier to see where we need to go with the main page. (We've never been caught up as long as I've been here.) I do think that I'll end up putting things on unresolved on their own sub-pages. If they've made it to unresolved, they probably merit it.
I've completed my reorganization (but not all of the summarizing) at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/resolved. If some folks could take a look and tell me if that's acceptable, I'll do the same thing for unresolved (which is a larger project), except with all pages archived instead of summarized. --Aranel ("Sarah") 14:56, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I agree, a separate page for each listing is really unnecessary overhead. Some really highly trafficked nominations would benefit from being moved out to invididual pages, to keep the main page size down (plus reduce the churn on the main page edit history); plus to which, you'd probably want to archive those discussions anyway, and if they are already on their own page, that becomes trivial.
At some point in the future you might want to go to "sub-page per day", but I don't think there's enough traffic here most days to justify it yet. Noel(talk) 06:04, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
"CfD: Propaganda" gone?
OK, maybe I'm blind, daft, or both. What happened to the CfD: Propaganda record? I looked in both \resolved and \unresolved (and this article), but it seems to be completely gone! What gives? --NightMonkey 02:01, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)
OK, now I'm really going nuts. It's not there, either! Where has it disappeared to this time? And, to stop bothering people about this - is there a method for searching the "Special"/"Project" pages instead of pleading for help here? --NightMonkey 05:04, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, James. Yes, I agree with your sentiments, and send my sympathies. Perhaps we'll just have to wait for this category to really be abused en-masse before greater attention will create enough opposition to it. --NightMonkey 06:16, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)
Moved from main page
Olympics
Another note: Is it necessary to post such detailed logs here? -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 18:03, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Well, I just wanted folks to see what I did, since different subcategories got different treatment. Since no one has made any complaints, I've deleted the spew (and yeah, it does bulk up the page). -- Beland 02:32, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Comics
Whoa! I guess I wasn't paying attention but could someone please explain what the new system is supposed to be for comics writer/artist article categorization? The MOVE_ commands above appear to indicate that "artists" are being moved to the "writers" category, which makes no sense to me. And I don't see any explanation or discussion on the talk pages of any of those categories. ←Hob 00:07, 2004 Nov 25 (UTC)
I will be posting stuff about renaming articles and fixing body text (so that "prefecture" is capitalized when part of a proper noun) on Wikipedia:Cleanup. Pearle is working on the category titles as I type. -- Beland 00:41, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Delisting items
A policy question: can one withdraw requests of one's own making at will (even if discussion has already taken place), or are there to be left on the list until consensus is reached? (The policy I deem appropriate is that the submitter should be able to withdraw motions when no comments have yet been added, but not afterwards. I was just wondering whether there is an established procedure.) -- Itai 11:02, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I don't know whether there is a policy. If not, your proposal sounds good to me, although I'd add that if the person submitting a category de-lists it before the first comment is in, that obviously doesn't count as a failed attempt to delete the category, so anyone else could list it at any time, as if the first listing had never occurred. JamesMLane 17:19, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Well said. I concur. -- Itai 03:01, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
If you do delist a category that you yourself suggested (and assuming, of course, that it didn't just get seven "delete" votes), it would be helpful to copy the discussion (if there is any) or post a brief mention on the talk page for the category, in case someone remembers seeing it and wonders what happened. You should also be clear about what you are doing in your edit summary.
If you were the only one who wanted a category deleted, and you've changed your mind, I see no reason why we should continue to discuss it. (Also, if you remove it yourself in that case, it saves me and the rest of the cleanup crew the trouble of removing it later. ;) -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 21:52, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
06:41, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)