Subcategories are groups of books by the first letter in their title: Category:Books starting with A, Category:Books starting with B, Category:Books starting with C, and so on. This seems to me like a prime candidate for list articles instead, and a prime misuse of categories. This does not help us classify them in anyway because it is an arbitrary fact about the books—that a book title starts with a particular letter tells you nothing more about it, and that two book titles start with the same letter does not indicate any kind of greater relationship between them. Lists are the way to go. This will simply add unnecessary clutter to every article. Delete all. Postdlf 04:12, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Completely agree. Delete them all, and do it with alphabetical lists, which looks already well established starting at List of books. Someone want to program a bot to take care of all these? -- Netoholic @ 04:31, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

One advantage over lists is that it's a lot easier to add a book to a category than to a list. I like the idea of using categories, but I think we only need one, "Books by title". Breaking them up by letter doesn't accomplish anything. Keep books by title, merge the rest. anthony (see warning) 12:32, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

That's essentially the same as dumping every article on a book into the root-level category, "books", indifferent to any subcategorization. Not how we do things. Postdlf 13:40, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Then we should keep the subcategories. By the way, can you point me to a policy on this? anthony (see warning) 13:58, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I can point to the widespread practice of placing things in relevant subcategories rather than in one undifferentiated bottom-level category. Given the talk on this issue in various places, I'm sure it's shortly to become actual policy. Postdlf 23:53, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The point of categories is to find similar articles by subject. Noone is going to click on a category link that reads "Books starting with A". There is no information value in something so arbitrary. If you want "policy", there is non as such, but take a look at Wikipedia:Categorization#When to use categories. The first example of "Not useful" parallels this book discussion. -- Netoholic @ 15:28, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The point of categories is to categorize. One possible categorization is whether or not something is a book. Now, you seem to have something against large categories, for some reason, even though you admit there is no policy against this. So, if you don't want large categories, break it up by letter. I agree this isn't the best solution, and it's not the one I suggested above. If you don't mind large categories, just stick everything into "books by title". At the very least, put all the uncategorized books into Category:Uncategorized books and make that a subcategory of books. Not doing so is destroying useful information. anthony (see warning) 19:02, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What's so hard about categorizing a book by year of publication, genre, and author? That's an already well-established structure, so there isn't a need for a dumping ground. Postdlf 23:53, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's not hard to categorize one book. What's hard is to categorize lots of them at once. For instance, recategorizing all of the articles under these. anthony (see warning) 02:32, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Actually, re large categories, I was not against them in principle, but I learned from the Talk page that categories over 10k are not liked by the developers as they slow things down. If that's true I think that gives us a good, firm reason for taking a dislike to certain categories. I'm willing to take it on trust, but if anyone wants to check with a developer please do and report back. --bodnotbod .....TALKQuietly) 19:33, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think we should cater our categorization schemes to bugs in the software. anthony (see warning) 02:32, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps until they're fixed...? ;o) --bodnotbod .....TALKQuietly) 00:37, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

Delete all. --Gary D 02:37, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I oppose deletion of these unless the developers add a feature to automatically create divided pages, as with Special:Allpages/a --ssd 10:12, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I vote for deletion. I appreciate that the category of books by name is going to be enormous if one doesn't have divisions like "books beginning with A".

However, that is why this situation appeals for a list. Rather than having a Category:People whose names starts with A with a subcategory of Category:People whose names start with Aa, we have a List of people by name:A, which does an admirable job of structurally organizing the data.

Wikipedia:Categorization even gives an an example of a 'not useful' category a hypothetical category called Category:Musicians whose first name starts with M.

Anything one can do with a category, you can do with a plain old page; the category system just makes it easier. So we should use the category system for what it was intended, which is arranging related objects in a natural hierarchy. Category:Books starting with A is not part of such a hierarchy. --Saforrest 23:25, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

August 22

Category:Western art

Some kind of half-baked notion of mine a long time ago to subcategorize Category:Art—it never took off and is unnecessary. Postdlf 19:42, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Delete. It doesn't look like it fits into the current scheme. -- Solipsist 09:30, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Keep and populate. Category:Asian art seems to be doing quite well. This would seem to be a logical parallel. Shouldn't there be American art, Dutch art, etc? And shouldn't those be grouped here? -- Beland 04:08, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If you think this is worth keeping, perhaps you should populate it. Otherwise, it gets deleted on Sept 11. --ssd 04:56, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Category populated (1 subcategory) - could somebody do some more? --Francis Schonken 16:39, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If this goes, then Category:Western_art_movements_and_periods should go, too. -- Beland

August 21

Category:The Enlightenment

There is already a heavily populated (if poorly capitalized) Category:Enlightenment Philosophers. If we did need a parent category to contain all Enlightenment-related topics, it should at least follow the title of the article—The Age of Enlightenment, to which "The Enlightenment" is a redirect. Postdlf 21:24, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Possibly agree on renaming. But it might be too early to tell on the usefulness of the category - it was only created this morning. -- Solipsist 23:03, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There are other philosophical traditions;Enlightenment Philosophers are western. Some eastern philosophies view enlightenment as a fundamental topic. I was led to create the category in order to encapsulate a period in history. Should I be creating infoboxes instead of attempting to follow categories? Ancheta Wis 06:04, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Now what am I going to do with Eye of Providence? It is a perfect illustration piece for The Enlightenment. And what about its category, no less? Ancheta Wis 06:59, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I thought the Eye was a freemason symbol. As "The Enlightenment" is just a redirect to Age of Enlightenment, that should be the proper title for a category on that period. Furthermore, I just read the description you added to the category, and your focus on the Enlightenment as just something that provided the foundation for the American Revolution is too narrow. The Age of Enlightenment was first and foremost a European phenomenon that had effects in the colonies. Postdlf 09:51, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The difference is that the Americans did something with The Enlightenment; they started a country. That reaction then immediately reflected back to Europe and turned into something more serious, so that not even Thomas Paine could halt the murders of the French Revolution and the succeeding wars over the next two centuries. Category:The Enlightenment presents a supercategory for Category:Enlightenment Philosophers. The article Age of Enlightenment presents both names, btw. "The E, or Age of E" Ancheta Wis 12:43, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

OK, that's just _totaly_ American centric POV ;-) The Americans didn't start anything. The Native Americans had been living in North America quite happily for a fair few centuries. It was the British, French and Spaniards who did all the modern country establishment, the Americans just stole it because they didn't like the taxes and caught Europe on the hop whilst they had some internal problems. You didn't even start the ball rolling on revolutions, as Postdlf says, that was down to Europe. Britain had a revolution over 100 years before the Americans even thought of it (and largely before the Age of Enlightenment) — we were just ahead of our time and didn't make it stick :-) -- Solipsist 20:03, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I am starting to understand something:Richard Feynman is currently Categorized as a US Philosopher, which is ludicrous, because he despised them. When I worked on this article, I left this categorization alone. Based on my recent experience on this very Category page, I will strike Richard Feynman from the mis-categorization. Ancheta Wis 06:48, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree that looks odd. Feynman was added to Category:Philosophers on 16 Jun 2004, which would be quite early on in categorising. Since then a few people have refined the category, but until now no one has had the sense to remove him entirely. -- Solipsist 09:29, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Here's the category's current description, btw: "This category lists factors which aided the rise of the American Revolution. See The Enlightenment for positive factors; there were countervailing factors which led to the violence of the French Revolution, possibly due to social stratification in Europe." Sounds more like the subject of an article than a category. Is this just intended to be the intersection of the Age of Enlightenment with the American Revolution? It's not named as such, and I don't see how that can composed as a proper classification. Postdlf 10:37, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree that my writing is more in the spirit of an article, and that the mindset needed for Categorization is new to me. But the very names of Categories are at stake here. Those who wrote the article allowed that both names are used. The administration of the names should not be grounds for deletion. It comes across as an affront. Ancheta Wis 12:43, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

OK, serious hat on now. I've been doing a fair bit of work on Eye of Providence today. As far as I can tell its an interesting subject, but an irrelevance in terms of the current discussion — its really got a long history back to the Eye of Horus and isn't rooted in Age of Enlightenment thinking. As far as I can tell there is no strong connection between the Age of Enlightenment and the Eastern/Buddhist concept of Enlightenment. There is a justification for a category such as Category:Age of Enlightenment to cover a movement of thought wider than Category:Enlightenment Philosophers, including political thought and possibly scientific and artistic developments, but it would probably need a but more more examination. The situation is similar to one I'm looking at in artistic category, where vaious artistic periods and movements affect the visual arts, architecture and music at different times. Its not trivial, but I'm leaning towards 'Keep' under the name Category:Age of Enlightenment. -- Solipsist 20:16, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Then it sounds as if I were to rename the category in the handful of articles, it could survive in a new incarnation? as in Cat:Age of E.? It's funny what comes across on the back of a Dollar bill. The Founders still are affecting the citizens of The Republic, in unconscious subliminal ways. By the way, I am starting to understand that view among the categorizers of Wikipedia is playful, as the category names are merely tags to be shuffled and re-dealt. Ancheta Wis 21:38, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Upon reflection, Category:The Enlightenment has an implicate order, in the words of David Bohm, which is explicitly not implied in Cat:Age of E. In fact Cat:Age of E. implies an end to Enlightenment, whereas there is room for Enlightenment in the past, present and future in Cat:The E. Ancheta Wis 05:55, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

But then it becomes more of a topic rather than a classificatory category, and one that would essentially be the equivalent of a personal essay, unless you can show that the groupings you intend are actually recognized in academia. The Age of Enlightenment is a distinct and recognized period in intellectual history. Enlightenment as a distinct concept reaching across cultures and time periods is significantly less so, and will mostly result in equivocation. Postdlf 22:26, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Actually there is documentation for this universal concept which exposes itself in the Western world, in Art. If you look at Kenneth Clarke's Civilisation, he shows how Enlightenment (he called it the smile of Reason) collided with European social structure (violence was the result in 1800), and we are seeing it now in our own time (terrorism, beheadings, war, 9/11 etc in 2000). But Asian cultures honor the concept. I agree that Age of Enlightenment is a distinct historical period of European intellectual history. That is exactly the point for freeing the implicate order from the explicate order. Ancheta Wis 09:19, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Keep or rename. It's a valid and useful category to have. -- Beland 02:01, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Keep or rename. There are figures associated with the Enlightenment who are not philosophers -- notably the various Enlightened Despots -- and we kept having people stick the Category:Enlightenment Philosophers tag on them and having to remove it. -- Jmabel 07:43, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)
(--Francis Schonken 16:47, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)):
- Added "Classic era composers" as subcategory;
- Categorized under "History by periods" and "Western art"
- Rewrote category intro (NPOV: "as well...., as well.....,...")
- ~~Could some admin change category name to "age of enlightenment", as nobody seems to object to this~~? Oops, some do mind. In that case, I vote for keeping "The Enlightenment" as category name, with the new extended intro. Aditionally I created "Age of Enlightenment" as a REDIRECT category to "The Enlightenment" category (Is this allowed? It seems to work & it seems to solve any remaining problem from the discussion...)

Category:Neo-Psychedelia Groups/Category:Neo-Prog Groups

Both terms are too vague and ill-defined to qualify as real genres. Categorizing bands with such categories is pointless because each band will end up with a dozen different styles, none of which have any set meaning. Also, the categories shouldn't be capitalized (I'm kind of anal -- this upsets me). There was one article Neutral Milk Hotel in both, but I removed it, now they are merely both part of Category:Musical groups by genre. Tuf-Kat 17:44, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

Delete both. Genre subcategories should only be kept for broader, more recognized forms. Postdlf 21:31, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Keep Neo-psychedelia as this is distinct from psychedelic rock and is a term widely used in the British music press. Anyone categorising music whilst flipping through their favourite magazine may come across the term quite often and be tempted to recreate it on that basis. Psychedelic artists include aspects of the Beatles and Pink Floyd whereas neo-psychedelia more commonly refers to much more modern music like The Coral and The Super Furry Animals.... that's the large distinction, between old and new. --bodnotbod .....TALKQuietly) 18:09, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)
Delete Neo-Prog Groups - I like a bit of prog rock and rarely listen to psychedelia... yet I've often heard the term Neo-Psychedelia but hardly ever neo-prog. Not to say that I'm a total muso, but I read a fair bit of the music press: this is just IMHO. --bodnotbod .....TALKQuietly) 18:09, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

Non-wikipedia classification systems

 SEE: Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_deletion#Non-Wikipedia_categorization_systems

Sept 22

Category:Occupations and all its subcategories

This topic has some overlap with what is going on on wikipedia:categorization of people (e.g. "The Business Card principle") - as this discussion is however centered on a specific non-wikipedia classification system, I don't think useful to merge with "problematic categorization of persons" section --Francis Schonken 14:08, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse... This is a highly wordy collection of subcategories based on the Standard Occupational Classification System (that article has been strangely categorized under every subcategory within Category:Occupations too, which creates a lovely traffic jam at the bottom of that article). I for one cringe at the thought of fundamental articles such as actor and journalist being classifed under Category:Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations, or astronomer being classified under Category:Life, physical, and social science occupations. These are actual examples. Let's kill this, and kill the Dewey Decimal Classifications categories before our articles and categories start reading like the tax code. Postdlf 10:47, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I don't see why Category:Occupations needs to be deleted; it serves as a category of categories. But yes the hierarchy could be trimmed; your tax code comparison is on target. V V 13:07, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Right, "occupations" isn't a problem of course, but I didn't want to list every subcategory individually, and all this contains are these clumsily titled amalgamations, like they were only half-digested conceptually. Maybe I should list them all to make the point. Postdlf 18:48, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, my vote is keep them all. Right now there is no formal hierarchy for categorizing occupations themselves. This is useful in other reference media for the purposes of job comparison and research. I considered placing everything under Category:Occupations, but I think that would very quickly grow too large and pretty much require sub-categories at some future point. As such, I took a standarized system devised by the US government (not copyrighted) and created the structure. It is nice because everything is already defined on their website, so classification is a "no-brainer". The reason Standard Occupational Classification System has all the categories is to easily connect the article to the structure. I'm sure that can be changed in the future. Keep in mind, placement of actor in its occupation subcategory is not meant to be a primary classification, but articles on occupations tend to be light and I doubt this would be too intrusive. -- Netoholic 16:25, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

As noted above, Category:Occupations isn't itself the problem—it's all of its subcategories, except for maybe one (Category:Legal occupations seems quite clear and sensible). The government seemed to make some arbitrary choices in trying to minimize the number of categories, grouping together occupations that could be linked otherwise, and under headers that are simply laundry lists of what they contain. If the category needs to list all of its contents in order to properly describe them, it's not a good classification, at least not for our purposes.

As for classification being a "no-brainer", would those in sports medicine fit into Category:Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations or Category:Healthcare practitioners and technical occupations? Both? (that would be pretty) Why is Category:Management occupations separate from Category:Office and administrative support occupations? How is the "maintenance" listed in Category:Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations separate from that listed in Category:Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations? Just because it's done in buildings rather than to objects? What about air conditioning maintenance? Why was architecture linked with engineering in Category:Architecture and engineering occupations rather than included under Category:Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations? Why is it more important that farmers work with flora and fauna (Category:Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations) rather than that they produce goods (Category:Production occupations)? It's no answer to say "read the Standard Occupational Classification System manual", because quite frankly we shouldn't care about the manual, and do you expect wikipedia readers to know the manual so they can figure out which category an occupation article is included under? Categories shouldn't depend on criteria that are external to the subject they are trying to classify, such as what the particular choices of government bureaucrats were in trying to force occupations into a small number of groupings. Nor should categories merely try to group as many things as they can together without regard to whether they form a single, unified concept (and I think as a general rule the most valid categories are ones that are defined by actual articles) rather than a mere listing of subtopics. I can't say that the SOCS doesn't effectively serve the government's need for it, but it won't serve ours. Postdlf 18:48, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I guess I feel that when there is an existing classification system we can use, it is worth exploring. If you would like to propose an alternative, I'd say the community would welcome it, but until that happens, this one should be tried out. I have a feeling though, that the task of coming up with a Wikipedia-grown system will take a long time to hash out, and itself could constantly be debated. I draw the comparison to many other established category schemes in that this one is completely valid for its purposes, and because no other better system has yet been submitted. -- Netoholic 21:57, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Why not break up some of the stuck-together lumps in the SOCS system into simpler and logical groupings, such as "Sports occupations"? "Medical (or health) occupations"? And from there some parents may reveal themselves, like "Medical occupations" may be in "Science occupations" as well as one or two others, "Personal service occupations" (eh), something like that. There are two ways for a category structure to develop—start with a simple parent like Category:People or Category:History, and see what groupings of articles naturally form; or start with a specific article, figure out a specific category that it may belong to of which there are still other articles, and to which it bears a strong and useful relationship (i.e., Category:U.S. Army generals rather than Category:U.S. Army generals whose last name starts with P), and then figure out what parent categories would come together to compose it (Category:United States Army and Category:Generals), then work your way down (Category:United States armed forces --> Category:United States and Category:Militaries, etc.). It's all fairly intuitive, though you will need to know a little about the subjects to categorize them, and to check the preexisting category structure to make sure it fits and isn't redundant. Probably the best indication of how to categorize the occupation articles is the structure for categorizing the subjects of the occupations—see how art, medicine, sport, agriculture are categorized, and the occupations should be rather analogous. Postdlf 00:26, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The system involves only 23 categories. If you're proposing splitting them apart, you'll end up with a hundred in short order, which essentially would mirror other existing topic-based categories, and probably lead to many sub-categories cross-listed all over the place. You'd also have no guidlines for placement in them, so disputes would occur. As I said, this is a research tool for grouping similar occupations, and one that is "off-the-shelf" and ready to use for this relatively small-scale application - articles describing occupations. Don't delete it, just let it grow for a while and make changes (if the need arises) later. -- Netoholic 04:20, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Though it may have "only 23 categories", this reduction isn't a sign of simplicity because the category designations are anything but simple. Having sub-categories cross-listed in multiple places is a good thing if it shows actual relationships. If they show up in too many, however, it probably means that there's another parent category that could be formed to merge some of the connections. But categories shouldn't be merged just to reduce their number, unless of course you're the government simply looking for a method to sort data. As encyclopedists, we are trying to simplify concepts to their fundamentals, to classify an article as to what it is, and create groupings that aid to navigation of like articles. The SOCS categories don't accomplish any of these goals, but paradoxically end up complicating matters more through reduction because the reductions are arbitrary. Postdlf 07:44, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Keep on the reasoning that trying to replace a system the govt (not my govt by the way ;o) ) probably thought was the best they could do will probably be better than a system several hundred strangers arguing will end up with. Plus I found it fairly intuitive to add some articles to them when I felt the need. --bodnotbod .....TALKQuietly) 21:27, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)

Keep. There is no one category hierarchy in Wikipedia, nor should there. Categories are merely sets. One just needs to look at the many attempts people have made of "categorizations of everything" in the tech world to see that two or more hierarchies are often equally valid, when they are viewed from different contexts. gracefool |☺ 04:55, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Dewey Decimal Classification

My heart skipped a beat when I saw this and all of its subcategories—this isn't for classifying articles about the Dewey Decimal System, but for classifying everything under it. See, for example, the categorization of Category:Psychology and Category:Philosophy under Category:Dewey Decimal Classification 100 (yes, the subcategories get that specific).

Maybe I'm alone in this sentiment, but this seems an ill-advised project, especially since, best as I can tell, it is the sole work and initiative of only one user. This would logically spread like a virus to every main article on wikipedia (though thus far (from what I've seen) it has only been used to group categories rather than articles themselves). So...we need to have a broader discussion of the pros and cons of having this.

Thoughts? Postdlf 10:07, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It does sound like a hugely ambitious project. If it succeeded though, I think it would a good one. Do you propose deletion on the grounds that it would too big an "if", or because you don't think it would be a good one, assuming it succeeded? Pcb21| Pete 11:09, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I don't think it would be a good one because it would just end up in redundant clutter. Keep in mind that the Dewey Decimal system is supposed to group together like topics...while this sounds like just what we have categories for, that's the point—that's just what we have categories for, categories that should be titled with clear and concise labels so you immediately understand the classification. Dewey Decimal is by nature an arbitrary system of designations. The numbers bear no relationship to the subjects, so seeing "Dewey Decimal 001" or whatever at the bottom of the page would just add esoterica that is utterly useless, unless you're in a library. If clicking on "Dewey Decimal 001" takes you to related articles, it's obviously a category that could have been better served with, say, words as the category title. Postdlf 11:24, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Multiple catagory trees can overlap (to ideally form a Directed acyclic graph if you really wanted to know). This means you can simply have several systems of catagorisation all at once, one of which might be Dewey Decimal. There's simply no problem :-) If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, if it does work it does work. Other systems of catagorisation will stand or fall independantly of there being Dewey Decimal. Kim Bruning 12:25, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oh look, we already have lots of schemes! See Wikipedia:Category schemes. Ok, dewey decimal is just one more. Kim Bruning 12:47, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sounds like an excellent project for librarians who are sitting behind their terminals browsing after hours, -once they get word of it, that is. O:-) Kim Bruning 11:22, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This is a specialty classification, while Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia. It's clutter - this information can be given in the Dewey article, just as the subjects taught at the schools of the University of Oxford can be in that article rather than all categorized. Also, are we going to have a Library of Congress Classification set of categories? How about the New York Public Library classification, which doesn't seem to be even convered in WP yet ;( ? V V 12:39, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The Dewey Decimal system is proprietary, as the article states; the public libraries in the US pay fees to the administrator. It would be unwise to use it for classification in an unfunded project. Probably the one who is attempting to categorize in this way needs to be informed that it is grounds for liability. Ancheta Wis 13:03, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I started playing with it because Wikipedia:Dewey Decimal System (which is linked to by the Main Page!) was a mess. A tree of categories (instead of a tree of pages) would be easier to maintain.

I was not the first one to try to do it; User:Falcon Kirtaran also tried to use categories before, and other people tried to complete the tree under Wikipedia:Dewey Decimal System. Most appear to have given up. I recreated the categories (see User talk:Falcon Kirtaran and Wikipedia talk:Dewey Decimal System) because they couldn't be renamed (and Category:Dewey Decimal Classification 100 is better than Category:Dewey Decimal 100).

So, what should be done?

Keep with the categories?
Keep trying to make a tree under Wikipedia:Dewey Decimal System and keep it updated?
Or erase all mention of the DDC from the Wikipedia (except for the Dewey Decimal Classification article)?

Also notice that the same "possible copyright" notice (which btw was copied from Wikipedia:Dewey Decimal System together with the rest of the information in the categories) says that there is no problem if a sufficiently old version of the DDC is used. Since I'm copying the information from Wikipedia itself (Wikipedia:Dewey Decimal System and subpages), I suppose there is no problem that didn't already exist (I'm just shuffling things around, not copying from external sources. If there wasn't a copyvio before, there isn't one now).

cesarb 13:54, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I just thought of another possibility:

Create a List of Categories by Dewey Decimal Classification

Should be low-maintenance enough to be kept up to date.

cesarb 15:30, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think that's a great solution. Postdlf 19:44, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Agreed, would eliminate the duplication of categories under 'DDC' and be easier to navigate. porge 23:25, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree. I think the list option would be the best way for this to go, from the point of view of reducing clutter, ease of maintenance, and simplicity. PMcM 19:57, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

OK, what should be done now? Is this like VfD which needs 2/3 majority? If so, should we begin a vote on which of the 4 options should be used (notice that only one of them is "keep" for CfD purposes, the other three are "delete")? My vote would be abstain.

Also, what should be done about the "possible copyright" issue?

cesarb 21:05, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Abstain, since one of my categories is under the knife and about to be cast from paradise. Ancheta Wis 21:26, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Abstain, because I have a headache and have no idea what to do. I think its a worthwhile project that will grow into something useful, especially for those people who are used to browsing under the dewey system (lots of them) which is always used in libraries and so is in fact a fairly standard way of organising and referencing information. Falcon 21:44, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Library classification systems are not right for Wikipedia. These systems provide mappings from subject areas to codes that can be used to put books in a linear order on library shelves. But in Wikipedia there is no need to put articles in a linear order on a shelf. We can link to them or categorize them in any means we like. So we can use systems that are clearer and easier to use. I know I would rather see and use Category:Mathematics than Category: Dewey Decimal Classification 51. Gdr 22:25, 2004 Aug 22 (UTC)

I agree that the Dewey Decimal system is not a good match for WP's categories. I think the list suggestion is a good one. older≠wiser 00:41, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I also now understand that the list solution will keep everyone happy, for those keen to provide a Dewey solution do so, without it imposing on others. Doesn't really need a vote. Pcb21| Pete 09:05, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I completely support the attempt to keep a Dewey Decimal "window" on WP, whether or not it's a clean alignment. A list or lists would prevent cluttering the category heirarchy with half a dozen numerical classification systems which are similar but not quite the same as each other and the intuitive heirarchy. But the list would have to be so long that it would have to be split into multiple pages, possibly a small heirarchy. Which sound like categories to me. If we were to use the category mechanism to do numerical classification, I think the classification system's name or acronym should be in the names of subcategories, for clarity of navigation. Numerical systems have the advantage that only one backlink per system is necessary from any given category (hopefully). I vote to keep for now and try to make the category approach work and see what happens. No sense in squashing a promising experiment before it can come into its own. There's a possibility that there will be an obvious problem caused by multiple numerical systems at some point in the future, but maybe not. -- Beland 14:40, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The list would not be the same as categories. While with categories one is needed for each separate category, with the list a lot of the categories could share the same list (with the end result being 11 list pages against more than 1000 categories for the DDC).

I currently think the list idea is the best one (not the least of the reasons is that it would take a lot less work to create), but since I'm too involved in the situation my vote is still abstain.

cesarb 19:50, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

We can convert to lists later if this category tree becomes a problem in an obvious way, but I think it will probably be OK.

Let's do the the list thing. --Gary D 19:49, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'd say that classifying articles by Dewey Decimal would be worthwhile (if daunting): it would be a boon to librarians. I see no problem with this base category. I would suggest that it would be very useful to put most categories under the most precise Dewey Decimal number possible (or even under more than one, as applicable). I doubt it would be useful to put most articles directly into a Dewey-decimal-based category.

If this is going to be useful, it will need an associated WikiProject and a team willing to elaborate how it can be made to work, but it's not inherently impossible, and it could be very appropriate. -- Jmabel 07:38, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

Aug 21

Category:Schedule I, Category:Schedule II, Category:Schedule III, Category:Schedule IV, Category:Schedule V, Category:Schedule VI

Probably also a "non-wikipedia classification system" problem? --Francis Schonken 14:08, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

These refer to the various drug classifications of the Controlled Substances Act, all parented under Category:United States law. They are mostly empty categories—they appear to each contain one article of the same name, but these are merely redirects to the categories themselves.

These were started with the intention of actually classifying the individual drug articles by these categories, though only a few have actually been categorized under these. I don't believe that drug articles should be categorized based on how they are classified under any one nation's laws, though this should certainly be described in the text of the articles.

Though the categories each contain a brief description of the inclusion criteria for each schedule, the article on the Controlled Substances Act already includes an abundance of this information, and so the articles titled Schedule I, Schedule II, etc., should merely redirect there. Postdlf 21:46, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

While the titles reflect US law, the legal categories in general reflect the saftey, addictivenses, and medical useflness of the drugs. I think this could be a useful thing if the drugs were actually categorized. Categories should be deleted based on their usefulness, not based on how many things have actually managed to be added to the category, otherwise we'd delete 'em all in the first hour. --ssd 11:50, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think we should give this time to grow. anthony (see warning) 02:09, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If kept, I think that the categories should be renamed, perhaps to "Controlled Substances Act Schedule I", etc... A little cumbersome, but "Schedule I" isn't a very self-obvious title. Postdlf 19:16, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree that these categories should exist and I like the proposed better names. -- Beland 02:25, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I too agree that they should exist, and I went ahead and changed them all to the form Category:Schedule (x) controlled substances. —No-One Jones 21:36, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Delete. This strikes me as something that would better be done by Lists than Categories. We have categories of narcotics in the UK too and I find it unlikely that most (Western) countries don't similarly differentiate between cannabis and heroin, for example. The articles of each narcotic could rapidly get very untidy. Ssd's justification is a relatively good one, but this is a very US-centric way of categorising the "dangerousness" of drugs, especially given that decisions by politicians on narcotics aren't solely based on their medical effects and that some relatively-dangerous substances might not be illegal at all.

I think this is quite a silly way of categorising articles, if only for the abundance of categories that could end up on articles and the US-centric-ness. If we're gonna put drugs into categories to try to imply their dangerousness, why use the US way? Why not the British way, or the Australian way? I don't like the idea at all. — OwenBlacker 22:26, Sep 5, 2004 (UTC)

Agree that the current categories are wrong, but also that the proposed names are no better. I know NZ also has a "Schedule II", and many other countries probably use the same term, so these should be something along the lines of "US Schedule X Controlled Substances". porge 05:31, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Categories relating to fiction

I regrouped some topics here (some of them formerly in "problematic categorization of people" section), while

Top text of "people" category is clear that fictional characters are out of the "people" categorization tree;
Discussion of these topics is closer to what presently is going on on wikipedia:importance (see also discussion page of that topic) than what is going on on categorization of people page.

--Francis Schonken 14:08, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sept 1

Category:Fictional fairies

All fairies are fictional. Rick K 23:04, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC)

delete - I agree --bodnotbod .....TALKQuietly) 00:09, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)
comment—isn't there still a difference between fairies that people once believed were real (Queen Mab?) and fairies that were presented from the start as fictional? Just as there's a difference between deities first described in a self-labelled work of fiction and those that are simply no longer believed in? Postdlf 02:20, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Seems like something that might lead to problems, though. The only NPOV distinction I can think of would be people who were verifiably real but were considered fairies, and I can't think of any examples of that. Merge and delete. anthony (see warning) 10:24, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Agreed. Delete. -- Beland 04:33, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Let me make a point here -- in the category Category:Fictional characters by nature there are many subcategories such as Category:Fictional ghosts, Category:Fictional dragons, Category:Fictional vampires and so forth... Now *all* ghosts are fictional, all dragons are fictional and all vampires are fictional... But at this point I don't think it's really so significant to nitpick about the usage of the word "Fictional" (Moreover I think it might help show that we are not talking about articles that refer to dragons, vampires, ghosts in general, but rather to individual characters). On the other hand in the case of fairies the distinction between fictional and non-fictional (mythological) ones tends to be much more fluid as not having a religion of their own to canonically define them, tended to make their characters much more influencable from works of fiction -- Puck may be mythological, but most people nowadays remember that of Shakespeare or of Gargoyles or of Gaiman or some other version.

And then there's the other point, that the "fairy" category is sometimes very fluid, e.g. in the case of Ariel or of Puck himself (fairies or sprites?) So in short -- okay delete for "fictional fairies", replace with a "Fairy and sprite characters" Aris Katsaris 22:28, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I dispute the evidence above. I've seen some non-fictional dragons, and I'm not so sure about ghosts either. The only vampires I'm aware of are either bats or rabid. --ssd 02:48, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Disagree with deletion - we need to distinguish between "X comes from mythology and traditional folklore" and "X comes from a book/movie/TV show" (qv Category:Fictional deities). -Sean Curtin 19:14, Sep 5, 2004 (UTC)
- I agree. Keep. -- Pjacobi 18:36, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  - Then shouldn't it be Category:Fairies in fiction and Category:Fairies in mythology and folklore? Neutrality (talk) 02:01, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Keep. At least keep the idea. Morgan le Fay comes from legend (and in some texts it is said that the "ignorant" people called her a goddess). Melusine is from legend. So is Alberich. So is the Tooth Fairy, in a way. But Tinkerbell and the Blue Fairy are purely fiction. That most people think of Puck in respect to Shakespeare's play is probably true. But most people also think of Hamlet or King Lear mostly in respect to Shakespeare's plays. Legends and old tales can be novelized or dramatized and folk of legend, both natural and supernatural, can be novelized or dramatized. But I don't like the word fairy. It is out of style and especially doesn't work well for similar supernatural entities outside of European culture, supernatural beings who are not quite the same as gods (though there is often overlap) and who are generally thought of in a mass. Unfortunately we don't have a good English word. Sprite is too fay, too twee. Daemones might do, referring to various mysterious women who appear at birth to bless and curse, to Rumpelstiltskin, to the little people of some native American legends, to the Gandharvas, Yakshas and Apsaras of India, to the satyrs and nymphs of Greece, to Valkyries who choose mortal lovers or are forced to take one when their swan garments are stolen, and to all the various giants and boggles and goblins and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night. But are the lesser Tuatha D Danaan of Irish legend and folklore to be counted as gods or daemones? The Greek Circe is called a goddess, but she is in fact what medieval romances would call a Fay. Classification of supernatural entities is very difficult, especially as in many tales part of the point is that they are mysterious entities, are just there. The little man met in the forest is not explained. But one does want to distinguish beings known from folklore and older legend (whether or not also used in fiction) from beings known to be created for fiction. There are edge cases. I don't believe use of the name Titania as a fairy name predates Shakespeare, but Titania obviously is the traditional fairy queen more normally called Mab in Elizabethan literature. But the "King of the Golden River" is a fictonal creation as is the goblin in Davy and the Goblin. The fairies in Lewis Carrol's Bruno and Sylvie are certainly fictional. Many of those who appear in Neil Gaiman's Sandman series are not in origin fictional, any more than are Shakespere or Caliph Haroun Al Rashid or the god Loki, if by fictional we mean invented for literary fiction. Jallan 18:18, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

August 30

Category:Goddesses of Dungeons & Dragons and Category:Gods of Dungeons & Dragons

There is no need to distinguish gender for these articles. (Rant: Categories should be designed from the top down -- general to specific -- and only split apart when they either become naturally too volumous or when some other need for the separation is required.) -- Netoholic @ 03:13, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

August 29

Category:Fictional gods and Category:Fictional goddesses

We already had the category "Fictional deities" that could contain the elements of both these categories -- especially since those categories weren't that thickly populated (4 or 5 elements in each, I believe). Moreover the rest of the whole Category:Fictional characters structure doesn't tend to use different subcategs to contain male and female characters. Therefore I merged the few elements of Fictional gods and Fictional goddesses back into "Fictional deities" (noone objected since yesterday in their Talk pages I posted comments in either), and here ask the deletion of these two. Aris Katsaris 21:52, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I object (darn, I wasn't watching those pages). Why not split into male & female categories? The sex of pantheistic deities is pretty fundamental to their nature, IMHO. Also, these categories make it easy to distinguish between deities who have a sex and those who don't.

Seems to me that they had a decent amount of articles, especially when you consider their subcategories (gods & goddesses of D&D).

I don't understand why people are so keen to delete categories, when they have a clear purpose.

Oh, and also, from the top of this page: Do not depopulate the category (delete category tags from articles) until it has been voted for deletion. ��gracefool |☺ 22:05, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The gender of *any* character tends to be very fundamental to their nature also, but nonetheless we don't split categories into "Fictional male aliens" and "Fictional female aliens" or "Fictional female detectives" and "Fictional male detectives". Moreover you'd have the additional problem of not knowing whether to put the divinity of a character before its gender (as was now when Fictional deities was split into fictional gods and fictional goddesses) or put its gender before its divinity (Aka have categories of "Female characters" and "Male characters" and then have categories in those that say "Fictional Female deities" and "Fictional Male deities" -- in which case there'd be neuter deities left out.

Interjecting a gender into the category is practically a can of worms, especially since many fictional deities don't have a specific gender. As I said --- no other "fictional" category is segregated into male and female subgroups.

Apologies for depopulating the category -- the change in the rules of category deletion were only recent and I didn't notice them (earlier on depopulation was recommended). But as I said there were only a handful of specimens in each category to be removed. Most gods and goddesses had already been in [:Category:Deities]] already -- that should perhaps tell you something.

Lastly for gods and goddesses of D&D -- don't you think that a single category about these also (Deities of D&D) might even be a way around the naming problem mentioned in those pages? Aris Katsaris 23:27, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sorry for the harsh tone of my above comment - I was annoyed at something else when I wrote it ;/

Re the potential problem, the answer is simple: Make "Fictional goddesses" a subcategory of "Fictional deities" and "Female characters".

Fictional deities without a specific gender are no problem, they just belong in "Fictional deities". ��gracefool |☺ 00:52, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There's currently no categories for "Male fictional characters" and "Female fictional characters" -- nor do I believe we need to have ones, same way I don't believe we need to categorize deities by gender.

As a sidenote another problem is that several of the subcategories (e.g. Category:Middle-earth Valar don't care to make that distinction between male and female deities either -- and such is the case with pretty much *all* the fictional characters listed -- e.g. there's no "female Friends characters" and "male Friends characters" there's just Category:Friends characters -- and so forth. I really don't think that's a scheme we need to change. Female characters" would a very horizontal category -- such a thing would include about 50% of all fictional characters and become *very* unwieldy. Aris Katsaris 01:41, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I was responding to a hypothetical problem... To continue, you don't need Category:Female Friends characters, you just add the article to both Category:Friends characters and Category:Female characters. However, this is kinda useless at the moment, since there's no "intersection" tool for categories with which you could do something like "list all fictional female characters who are also Friends characters". So no, Category:Female characters shouldn't be made, at least not yet.

However, I don't think these problems apply to Category:Fictional goddesses, since it is unlikely to ever be the parent of many (if any) categories. ��gracefool |☺ 02:21, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Let them stay Merged into Category:Fictional deities, and delete these. -- Netoholic @ 02:27, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Delete. We don't classify other articles using gender (Category:Stage actors vs. Category:Stage actresses as one of many examples). —Mike 04:40, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

August 28

Category:Fictional characters belonging to minorities

Including subcategories, Category:Black fictional characters, Category:Fictional gays and lesbians, Category:Fictional Jews, and Category:Fictional Native Americans. We don't classify individuals by their race or ethnicity, real or not. I really think we need a strict category policy that limits categories for people to what they've notably done and where they've notably done it. Postdlf 19:22, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I created the Category:Fictional characters belonging to minorities only in the attempt to group the other four (already existing) categories you mention. I have no objection at all to the whole substructure being deleted, but in that case I think it'd be good if individual cfds were placed in the four subcategs. Other than that I'm okay with delete for the bunch of them. Aris Katsaris 20:25, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

One thing that immediately springs to mind is Fagin in Oliver Twist is a Jew, and Dickens calls him "The Jew" etc throughout and he is a stereotype. Dunc_Harris|☺ 23:38, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Do you mean minority in the real world or minority in the fiction? Is Hiawatha in Longfellow's poem Hiawatha a minority character? Are the few Christians and Jews who appear in Arabian Nights stories minority characters? Is Frodo Baggins the Hobbit a minority character? Jallan 23:57, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

When I created the supercategory, I thought that the reason someone had seen fit to create "fictional gays and lesbians", "fictional jews", "black fictional characters" and "fictional native Americans" was that these were real-life minorities according to the perspective of most modern-day Internet users. So Hobbits would probably not apply as it's not a real-life minority, and the fewness of Christians and Jews in Arabic tales would probably not be relevant either, as it's the modern-day (Internet-user) perspective we are seeing.

But as I said I'm not arguing in favour of retaining these categories, I just tried to group them according to the criterion they seemed to have in common, and which seems to made someone want to create them -- I can't think of any other reason to create the "black fictional characters" category. Anyway my vote remains to delete the whole bunch of these 4 categories+supercategory. Aris Katsaris 03:36, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This should be renamed. The characters don't exactly "belong" to minorities. They are minorities. anthony (see warning) 01:47, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think this should be included in the /unresolved debate on problematic aspects of classifying people. -- Beland 06:08, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think the word "minorities" here creates a series of potential paradoxes (e.g. looking at a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood of a predominantly Anglo city in a predominantly Hispanic state of the predominantly Anglo U.S. in the predominantly Hispanic Americas, who is the minority?) so the name is poorly chosen, but we have tons of lists of people by ethnicity (often masquerading as lists by nationality, but listing many people whose ethnicity matches the nation-state in question, but whose citizenship does not) so what's the problem with having categories, too, and I must be very tired to write a sentence this long, or reading too much German. -- Jmabel 07:26, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

Problematic categorization of persons

See Wikipedia:Categorization of people, and of course Wikipedia talk:Categorization of people (which at this point is probably more important than the article itself). --Francis Schonken 12:53, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

August 31

Category:People by political party

For a general discussion on how to apply categorization to people: see: Wikipedia:Categorization of people (and its discussion page).

This no-article, single-subcat child of Category:People (with nothing but 3 articles as grand-kids) is redundant to the lower-level cat Category:Politicians by political orientation, since people known for involvement in a party are a kind of politician. If deleted, move its kid Category:Libertarians into its above-mentioned shadow-cat(Category:Politicians by political orientation). --Jerzy (t) 23:05, 2004 Aug 31 (UTC)

Perhaps they mean Category:Famous people by political party. ��gracefool |☺ 23:42, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- (1) I am inclined to the view that has been stated in other cat discussions, that "happens to be" attributes, i.e. attributes of people who are not known for those attributes, are not encyclopedic enough to rate category linking, even if they are worthy of inclusion in the articles. (2) Even if it is eventually decided we can accommodate those as well, i would argue that in this early, chaotic, contentious phase of figuring out how to use cats, we need to simplify the problem by temporarily ignoring the "happens to be" attributes while we focus on the "known for" ones. --Jerzy (t) 02:15, 2004 Sep 1 (UTC)
Category:Political parties by nationality is superior and fits our categorization scheme better. Delete. ~~Category:Libertarians probably ought to be a subcat of Category:United States minor political parties, though I think the term "minor" is POV (albeit true.)~~ Whoops, rather it should be a subcategory of Category:Politicians by political orientation (though it should be renamed to Category:Politicians of the United States Libertarian Party instead of Category:Libertarians.) --Ardonik(talk) 00:26, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC)
- I proposed a destination bcz we need at least one. Which is not a question we should settle here, as long as there is at least one better cat than the deletiont candidate: not least bcz you can have it both ways. (Cats form a DAG, not a tree.) Category:Politicians of the United States Libertarian Party can and perhaps should be a descendant of Category:American Politicians, Category:Members of Libertarian Parties by country, and Category:American libertarians, as long as there are enough foreign lib parties and other US lib parties (and/or unaffiliated libertarians) to justify the cats. --Jerzy (t) 02:15, 2004 Sep 1 (UTC)

Keep. This is a logical subcategory of People, and there are many potentially useful subcategories. Not all members of a political party are "politicians"; I understand this term to refer only to people who seek public office, not just anyone affiliated with a given party. Each political party should have a category (or perhaps preferably a list-article) in which to put members of that party. There should be a standard name, such as, "Members of Country X Party Y". I think political party affiliation can easily go beyond simple membership into fuzzy, disputed, and controversial territory. Consider, for example, the question of membership in the US Communist Party in the 1950s, or membership in political parties advocating terrorism. In these situations, annotated lists are preferable. (By analogy to the unfortunately unresolved "Gay, lesbian or bisexual people" question.) Constructing category trees of people who have run for office on a given party ticket is a little easier and well-defined, thus suited for categories.

A logical tree should be built to connect the party-level articles to this category. Valid subcategories of this category might be things like "Politicians by political party" or the even more meta "Members of political parties by occupation" (if actors, writers, etc. get their own articles or subcategories) or "Members of political parties by country". The scope and organization of this category scheme should probably be discussed somewhere else, like a Wikiproject on this category's Talk page. After thinking about it for a little bit, it's not obvious to me what the best scheme is, and a quick poke around gives me the impression that the categorization of this genre is just beginning. In any case, it should be harmonized with Category:Political parties by nationality and Category:Politicians. -- Beland 07:08, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Category:People known in connection with misdeeds or punishment

For a general discussion on how to apply categorization to people: see: Wikipedia:Categorization of people (and its discussion page).

[Misplaced nomination by Netoholic @ moved here, since the issues are completely separate from the ones stated in the nomination under which it first appeared.]

Delete ~~ALL of Jerzy's categories mentioned above - including~~ Category:People known in connection with misdeeds or punishment. It's far too wordy and doesn't make for good categorization. -- Netoholic @ 02:27, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- It's as wordy as it needs to be to cover the ground it does. Your recommendation is to dump 6 categories back into the top of Category:People. No category should be deletable, IMO, w/o agreement upon a better category (or two, if necessary) to accept the subcats and articles in it. (Except those descendants for which access "from that direction" is shown to be somehow misguided. However, in this case -- unless i'm wildly misinformed -- the fact that the articles in this subtree are all bios means