Category talk:Liberalism in the United States

Request for comment

Should this category be including individual people who are identified, by themselves or others, as "liberals"? The issue in this instance is that the selection of people so categorized here is incredibly random, partial and highly non-representative: the entirety of its selection of people consists of Barbara Boxer, Sheryl Crow, Whoopi Goldberg, Kamala Harris, Truc Ho, Hubert Humphrey, Cynthia Nixon, Walter Reuther, Susan Sarandon, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Barbara Streisand and Elizabeth Warren. Namely, four prominent politicians, a political activist, a writer, five people who are politically irrelevant entertainment industry figures, and one entertainment figure who is technically also a political candidate but is not notable for that per se, but not the hundreds or thousands of other notable people (Biden? Clooney? Gillibrand? Franken? Obama? The Clintons?) who would also belong here if people were fair game. I distinctly recall that there was a past consensus against categorizing non-political figures by ideology, and restricting categorization even of political figures to their political party rather than trying to assign them to liberalism or conservatism in general — but I don't know if that's since been deprecated, or if some editors have just been ignoring it and need a tap on the nose. Bearcat (talk) 00:43, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Survey

• Comment You can edit Wikipedia yourself - have you tried and been prevented from adding the "hundreds of thousands" of entries you are suggesting to this category? if not then I think an RfC is premature. Edaham (talk) 05:15, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
• Comment per WP:SEPARATE it is a bad idea to include biographies (people) in a category that also contains non-people. Create a separate sub-category for Liberals in the US if you want to create a collection of bios. HouseOfChange (talk) 21:18, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Democratic politicians

I spent some time today removing a number of random Democratic politicians and entertainers from this category. I think its a misunderstanding of the category and topic in general. Democratic ≠ Liberalism with a captial L, which is a moral philosophy, not a political stance. Articles like Consumer movement, Great Society, Liberal hawk, and New Deal coalition belong here, but I have to argue that Taylor Swift, Seth MacFarlane, the TV show Broad City and every Democratic senator collectively don't necessarily belong. We can discuss clearer qualifications for inclusion as an individual, and I think it would have to do with writing and historic influence, i.e Frances Perkins, Felix Frankfurter or William Jennings Bryan. Essentially, could you write the article Liberalism in the United States without mentioning them? Thoughts?-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 14:46, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry if this doesn't fit in with the category. But like the Category:Conservatism in the United States, which seemed to have so many people, groups, among others around possibly far longer than any category or template. The category got so big; you guys had to make Category:American conservative people, in which I believe many users on this site had a field-day of adding 500+ people in Template:Conservatism in the United States maybe even more. I disagree with adding many of whom I don't think they had much of or any influence on Conservatism like the 17-year old C. J. Pearson, unlike those in liberal/progressive templates. So instead, shouldn't there be categories called American liberal people and/or American progressive people as many people like Jamie Raskin have those ideologies to make things fair. 2605:E000:1126:42A9:CC43:B85C:DC08:CE5F (talk) 19:08, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Basically being a "liberal" politician doesn't mean they're part of Liberalism the political philosophy. I know its the same word but they mean different things. If its important for you to create Category:American liberal people, you can start it or request it at WP:REQ, but I'm not sure its needed. I'm not sure we need Category:American conservative people either, both are ill-defined categories, in the sense that they don't have a clear definition of what to include and exclude. Like Category:Presidents of the United States has a defined criteria for articles that should be included, but conservative and liberal are more up to interpretation, particularly from the opposing viewpoint. We already have Category:Democratic Party (United States) politicians (and lots of subcategories under it) to group the senators and congressmen, for example.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 19:13, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Patrickneil, the category is for Liberalism in the United States, which is not some narrowly-defined political philosophy, as you can tell by its Wikipedia article. Prominent liberal politicians such as Franklin D. Roosevelt are clearly relevant and should be included. All Democratic Senators should not be listed in the category, but they should also not all be excluded. Russ Feingold's article (which you removed from the category) says, "When he broke with his own party, it was often because he was taking a more liberal or populist position than other Democrats. Throughout his congressional tenure, several ranking systems placed Feingold among the nation's most liberal or progressive senators." Feingold is repeatedly discussed as one of the most prominent liberal politicians during his tenure in the sources. I don't see any evidence that Taylor Swift or Seth MacFarlane are prominent liberal figures, but I am not understanding the removal of relevant political figures from the category when the sources in their articles support the category. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 19:31, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Patrickneil, I also don't think it can genuinely be argued that Category:American liberal people would not be a subcategory of Category:Liberalism in the United States. Terms are defined by how people use them, which is why "liberalism" in the United States is no longer the same as classical liberalism. If the subcategory you suggest doesn't exist, then the articles that would be appropriate for the subcategory would be appropriate for the larger category. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 19:33, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

I certainly agree the Feingold and Raskin are liberal politicians, and as you guys point out, there's good third-party sourcing for saying so. If you're saying they merit inclusion based on their influence in the field, I can see that argument, perhaps more so for Feingold, less for Raskin at least so far. But will their writing and speeches be the basis for Liberalism decades or centuries from now, in the way that FDR or Jennings Bryant are? The difference to me is between Plato and your Philosphy 101 professor, one goes in Category:Classical Greek philosophers, one probably doesn't. Let's just try to find better borders for the category in general. Sound good?-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 19:59, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't see how "placed Feingold among the nation's most liberal or progressive senators" is not relevant to liberalism in the US. Categorization is not only for the most influential people. While the IP may have went overboard with adding the category to pages, you should also be more discriminatory with your reverts. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 20:06, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I went a little overboard on this I just thought that it would be appropriate to add them into the category as there aren't any Category:American liberal people -esque categories when I put them in. 2605:E000:1126:42A9:CC43:B85C:DC08:CE5F (talk) 20:11, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Well I just suggested the category Category:American liberal people in Wikipedia:Requested articles/Social sciences/Politics and government, if it doesn't work, then Category:American conservative people should be the same. 2605:E000:1126:42A9:CC43:B85C:DC08:CE5F (talk) 20:43, 28 March 2020 (UTC)