Category talk:Buzzword

Poorly defined?

This seems to me like a poorly defined category. Does it cover only present-day English-language buzzwords? Or buzzwords of all times, places and languages? Or somewhere in between? What sort of citation should be required to include an item in the category? -- Jmabel | Talk 03:21, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

My original idea was for present-day buzzwords (like synergy). In fact, I created it because Synergy needed a home. But I have no say on how it will end up being used.

As for a citation, I thought that something in the article saying it is currently being used as a buzzword would be enough (after all, the decision is on the article, not on the category).

I'm not too worried about this category; if it ends up being a bad idea, someone will put it up on WP:CFD (and that's why I'm adding articles one at a time to it from the list at Buzzword, instead of adding the full list at once — less work reverting if it turns out to be wrong).

--cesarb 23:32, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This might be a nice idea for a category if it was not so negative. As it stands, I find this category dangerously negative, supply amunition for well-meaning but ignorant Wikipedian Police who delete articles right and left without really knowing anything about the subject field (watch out for being labeled a neologism, which in the article is a synonym for "buzzword"). Also, it's so mutable - today's buzzword is tomorrow's regular word or archaicism. Appreciative Inquiry a buzzword? I don't think so. kosboot (talk) 17:40, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

CFD Discussion

• Category listed for deletion on April 8, 2005. Consensus was to Keep (marginal). The following discussion from CFD is now closed and should not be modified.

Inherently POV, controversy-provoking label. No straightforward, objective way to determine what belongs here or not. --Smithfarm 18:43, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Please see my comment about it at Category talk:Buzzwords. Also, I have never thought of it as a "controversy-provoking label". If it is, I'm sorry. No vote. --cesarb 19:26, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. I don't think the term "buzzword" is inherantly POV. Some of the examples on the buzzword article are a little iffy, but I'm sure we could come up with proper inclusion criteria. --Azkar 19:57, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. I agree with Azkar. As for objectivity, there's a pretty good definition of a buzzword in the article. Does word x match it? Then it belongs in the category. Don't see the problem here. -Kbdank71 20:02, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: I can see where the potential for controversy is not obvious -- after all everyone has words they consider "buzzwords". In the Wikipedia context, the controversies arise over what belongs in the category. It's like having a category "Racist pigs", but a couple of orders of magnitude more subtle. For example, scientist Wikipedians don't like the term "paradigm" so they put it in the buzzword category as a subtle way to belittle the concept. The same applies for the category Pseudoscience, which scientists have stuck on a bunch of articles. I'm not saying Buzzword and Pseudoscience don't warrant articles of their own -- they do -- but having them as categories gives people ammunition for pushing their POV agendas in articles on things they don't like. Although they can't prevent the articles themselves from being on Wikipedia, with these categories they can at least put belittling labels on. This is a kind of "collateral damage" of having categories - they are useful, but can be abused. Shouldn't they be reserved for things that are completely straightforward with no potential for controversy? I read the categorization pages but didn't see any policy on POV as it relates to categories. --Smithfarm 20:29, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: Since you are commenting here, could you sign your nomination? ☺ --cesarb 22:56, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Actually I do think Smithfarm has a point, so I'd go for weak delete. Radiant_* 08:23, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: By the way, completely straightforward with no potential for controversy doesn't seem to include China, Taiwan and their related categories... ☺ --cesarb 13:10, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I got a similar answer on Category talk:Pseudoscience when I tried to explain why that category was too POV to have around. Somebody brushed me off by saying there are more serious category POV issues than this one on Wikipedia, implying that those should be dealt with first. Doesn't that beg the question, though? By the way, I found a small paragraph on POV categories in WP:CG, here it is:

"Categories appear without annotations, so be careful of NPOV when creating or filling categories. Unless it is self-evident and uncontroversial that something belongs in a category, it should not be put into a category."

That seems to suggest a strict set of criteria ("self-evident and uncontroversial") for inclusion in a category. It also seems to suggest that categories with potential for controversial application should not be created. --Smithfarm 13:37, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Neologisms?

Why is this in Category:Neologisms? Not all buzzwords are neologisms. "Paradigm" is easily a century old. I don't know how old "synergy" is, but it was already a buzzword in the 1960s. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:49, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

I've removed the link. Synergy comes from the Greek synergos ("working together"), so I doubt it's a neologism. --Merovingian (t) (c) 11:18, 7 October 2005 (UTC)