User talk:Let'srun/Archives/2024/February

College coaches categorized by every college thry coached at

I think this heads towards performer by performance territory. There are many coaches in half a dozen or more such categories, some in over 10. Some were at some of these locations only 1 year. I am wondering if we should limit these categories to head coaches of a sport. I am also wondering if in some sports, like college football, if thd type of non-head coach they are might be defining enough to categorize by. Categories are supposed to be defining. I am a past culprit of institution tagging people for minor connections. I am thinking with coaches the categories should be limited to hrlead coaches of a sport.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:13, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

To test my theory more I started on the category Michigan Wolverines football coaches. The first person in the category Jahmile Addae was a graduate assistant at UofM. Is where someone was a graduate assistant defining? If it is, should they be lumped in with coaches, although not doing so would lead to more category clutter. Looking at his career it looks like Addae would more properly fit in "Gridiron football college defensive coaches in the United States" or however we want to word the category, paired with an "Gridiron football college offensive coaches in the United States" and any other coach type categories we have, and then we could remame the main categories to be "Gridiron football college head coaches in the United States" which we would subdivide by institution if they were of a size that such a subcat was justified.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:22, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Another option

What if for division III football we had a NCAA Division III college football coaches?John Pack Lambert (talk) 05:19, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

American military sports coaches

This is an interesting category. It has 62 sib-cats. Literaaly 31 are 1 article ones. That might amazingly be thd least of its problems. The bigger problem is many articles say nothing about the military time at all in the text. These categories are mainly also put in thd college football coacjes tree. Why? I havd no idea. Other than most of the men here were also college football coaches. However Bob Friedlund is illustrative. He was a military base football coach in 1943, a college player in 1946, played pro a few years and then was an assistant coach at 3 or 4 colleges. The article says nothing of his military time in the main text.John Pack Lambert (talk) 05:24, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of War on I-4 (disambiguation)

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Speedy deletion of Draft:ESPN West

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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1891 Manhattan Athletic Club football team

Check out the new content/sources. Do you still think it should be deleted? Cbl62 (talk) 01:03, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Apologies, just saw this. Will look at the new sources in a bit. Let'srun (talk) 15:17, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Alaska Nanooks

I just noticed we have Alaska Nanooks rifle coaches. With 1 article. The whole tree of college rifle coaches in the United States is categories with 3 or fewer articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:46, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

It has 6 total categories. I believe because 2 coaches coached at more than 1 location we have only 7 total articles. So we have 7 categories between the parent and the subcats to facilitate navigation of 6 articles. This seems very unneeded.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:49, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

You are probably right. Will take a closer look later. Let'srun (talk) 15:16, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

College field hockey coaches in the United States

College field hockey coaches in the United States has 25 sub-cats, and 1 direct article. Only 1 sub-cat has 5 articles. Everything else is less. I see no reason why we could not merge all these to 1 Category and the respective College coaches cats.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:54, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

if I counted correctly the Category has only 23 articles and 2 redirects. So we have a 26 category structure to support that many articles. This seems excessive.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:57, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree, although my focus right now is elsewhere. May take a look later if nothing is done. Let'srun (talk) 19:15, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Categories for discussion

Let'srun, you're going way overboard with the these categories nominations for deletion/merger, like Category:King Tornado football, which part of long-established categorization scheme. These nominations of a waste of time. It would be far more productive for you to begin a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football about these low-population categories. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:21, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

With all due respect, I will follow the consensus of CfD rather than a WikiProject, although I am open to hearing alternative solutions. Let'srun (talk) 14:33, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Which "consensus of CfD" are you talking about? A general policy consensus or specifical consensuses that arise from specific nominations? Jweiss11 (talk) 18:22, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

These nominations are different from each other. I don't see how it would be productive to consult the CFB WikiProject when they aren't the same, other for them to encourage me to stop nominating their categories, as you are attempting to. Let'srun (talk) 19:34, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

With exception of those messy turn-of-the-century athletic club categories, these nominations really are not that different. The rest are analogs within a well-established and well-organized scheme. What would be most productive is if you stopped cherry-picking low-population categories from the well-established scheme and nominating them. It's a waste of everyone's time. Jweiss11 (talk) 19:56, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Small football categories plus overcategorization

I have been trying to see if there was a solution to the fact that we have lots of college football coaches in 5 plus, and a few in 10 plus, coaching categories, plus lots of thd coaches categories having under 5 articles. It looks like my temporary solutions have not for the most part been accepted. However the Military football coaches in the United States (are these college coaches at all? They coaches teams on military bases. Most of them for short times while in the military), been separated off seems to be holding for now. At present that Category is all under 5 subcats. I am less than sure a 1 year stint coaching a military base football team is even defining to the people involved. In at least one case it is not even mentioned at all in the article text. The fact that the lead of college football coaches in the United States has lead to breaking all college coaches out into by team categories has some odd results. College rifle coaches in the United States is a structure with more categories than total articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:51, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

College football coaches of defunct teams in the United States

This seems to be a way to organize teams. At least it has not been objected to yet. I just introduced this layer in the Category, but the teans were categorized as defunct before. Do you think that if we do not have a specific category fir the team a coach coached, he would be placed directly in College football coaches of defunct teams in the United States. Or is this a cade where it is worth organizing subcats, but not defining to the individual, and such a coach should be placed directly in College football coaches in the United States?John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:55, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Coaches by state

I noticed we organize high school sport coaches in the United States, at least in some sports, by state. Do you think this would be a useful way to organize college sport coaches? I have to admit I am conflicted about this. High school coaches are much more likely to stay in the same state, although most of our high school coach articles are on college coaches who had short times at the high school level, or notable players who later coaches high school. We have very few articles for whom the high school part of their coaching career is defining. A few others are politicians who were teachers and high school coaches earlier in their career. High school coaches will often coach multiple places in the same state. While some college coaches do do, they are more likely to criss cross the country.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:04, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

College men's soccer coaches in the United States has 67 direct articles. It has at least 129 sub-cats with 4 or less articles. I am not sure what upmerging would do to the parent size. I am also wo during if someone who coached 3 or more sports at the same college really needs to be in the coaching cats for all those sports. I am not sure much about what the effects of the by state categories would be. Do you have any preliminary thoughts?John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:07, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

John Pack Lambert, we have high school football and basketball coaches broken down by the state in which they coached high school. The rationale here is that it would not be necessary to break them down by individual high school team like we break down college coaches by individual college team. Rolling up by state gives us manageable populations of articles in the categories. Note that we also have American football and basketball coaches by state (by origin of the coach). For example, see Lou Saban. His origin is Illinois, hence he is included in Category:Coaches of American football from Illinois, and he coached high school in South Carolina and Florida, hence he is included in Category:High school football coaches in Florida, and Category:High school football coaches in South Carolina. I think it's unnecessary to break down American football and basketball coaches by state (by origin) categories into college subcats or to create new categories for college football and basketball coaches by state of employment. Jweiss11 (talk) 15:15, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

The current system is leading to lots of small categories. Categories in general should not exist with less than 5 articles. There are lots of college football and basketball coaches categories with less than 5 articles. It also leads to excessive overcategoruzation which would be reduced in it was by state and not by school. However, for the time being I was thinking if applying this to college track and field coaches. That Category has over 200 direct articles, about 60 1 article sub-cats and only 3 sub-cats with 10 or more articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:04, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Why are small categories, particularly ones that are part of well-defined and well-structured hierarchy, such a problem? Seems like you and Let'srun are working on a solution in search of a problem. Jweiss11 (talk) 19:08, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Small categories are a problem because they hinder navigation and make finding things a problem. The general consensus is that categories should not exist when they have less than 5 articles. Categories are to aide navigation and do not serve that purpose if they are too small. I would argue American college track and field coaches in the United States, with over 250 direct articles and with about 60 1 article sub-cays is not a well developed tree, but is a poorly diffused tree that serves to hinder not aid navigation.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:16, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

There are in the neighborhood of 4000 colleges in the US. There are also many past colleges that no longer exist. I am thinking some sports would be better organized at the state level.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:11, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't think ease of navigation hinges as much on the total number of categories, as it does not the way those categories are structured and the parallelism between neighboring branches of a tree. The more parallel and analogous things are, the easier it is to guess correctly where something will be and find it. Jweiss11 (talk) 19:46, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Agree with this point. Let'srun (talk) 20:25, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that would work well overall to organize coaches by state, just due to the inconsistency that would result, but I understand where you are coming from. Perhaps there is another solution that can be had. Let'srun (talk) 19:17, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

what would be inconsistent. We already accept coaches by state at the high school level. We would leave in place the college specific categories when they are large enough. We would also only do this for structures that have enough to justify state breakout. That means at least 250 articles. We would only break out stakes that will have at least 5 articles. It might lead to some people in multiple categories, but no worse then if categorized by team. I think it is doable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:31, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

JPL, what you're doing with the college track coaches is inconsistent with how we break down college coaches for other sports. Individual college sports programs are generally notable in a way that high school sports programs are not. Hence, colleges are broken down by program/school and high schools by state. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:28, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Most college track and field programs we do not have enough articles on to justify having a serpate category for coaches. We break lots of things by state, there is a whole tree under Category:Sportspeople by state or whatever it is named. I think as an intermediary layer this is an improvement.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:27, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

• Well, we have Category:Sportspeople in Ohio, etc. I am not sure what the parent is named.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:28, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Maritime Privateers football coaches

I have to admit I think the closing of this discussion was wrong. Those arguing to keep the Category seemed to largely rely on the deprecated small cat rule and ignore the narrow cat rule. I have investigated the situation more. All 3 people in the Category are also categorized in other college coach categories. So we can just merge them to Maritime Privateers coaches. This only has 5 articles. The other 2 are baseball coaches. One can be upmerged to Maritime Privateers coaches and College baseball coaches in the US, which currently has direct biographical articles, and y he other is in another by team coached Category, so he can then be upmerged to Martime Privateers coaches alone. This will leave Maritime Privateers coaches with 5 articles, which is the minimum reasonable size fit a Category. I think this would be an improvement, and it would not directly place anyone in college football coaches in the United States.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:16, 19 February 2024 (UTC)