Wikipedia:Subjective traits documented in reliable sources are still subjective
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At categories for discussion, there are sometimes discussions that look a little something like this:
Category:Big fooians
- Nominator's rationale: This is a WP:SUBJECTIVECAT. —ObjectivityForAll (talk) 21:41, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Delete per WP:SUBJECTIVECAT. NoSubjectivityPlease (talk) 22:24, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Keep this is well-defined in these reliable sources: [1][2][3]. ReliableSourcesFan (talk) 22:38, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
ReliableSourcesFan has a very common misconception about WP:SUBJECTIVECAT, which reads:
Adjectives which imply a subjective, vague, or inherently non-neutral inclusion criterion should not be used in naming/defining a category. Examples include subjective descriptions (famous, popular, notable, great, important), any reference to relative size (large, small, tall, short), relative distance (near, far), or personal trait (beautiful, evil, friendly, greedy, honest, intelligent, old, ugly, young).
It does not say:
Adjectives which imply a subjective, vague, or inherently non-neutral inclusion criterion should only be used when they are widely documented in reliable sources.
Subjective descriptions are subjective regardless of how frequently reliable sources describe them that way. Plenty of reliable sources call things "big", "small", "young", "far", "tall", "short", etc., but that does not mean they are objective, defining characteristics.