Wikipedia talk:Overcategorization/Archive 4

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Overcategorization. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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An informal poll

As a thought experiment, could we take an informal poll. I'm interested in thinking about this issue in hopes of coming up with better guidelines that will help shape the categorization system into something more manageable. So I'd really like to see how people would categorize Michael J. Fox, and another of my favorites, Roman Polanski. I'm looking for your long range vision of where you think we should be a few years down the road. -- Samuel Wantman 09:43, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Categorizing Michael J. Fox

(Please add your suggested category list for Michael J. Fox below)

My choices (in the order in which I would display them): Living people | 16961 births | Canadian citizens | Film and television actors | Child actors | Voice actors | Memoirists. It's simplistic, it's accurate, it's easy to find referenced information on the subject, and it avoids the incessant details on awards, specific performances, or specific places of residence. It also avoids the duplication of Canadian and American career categories. Dr. Submillimeter 10:17, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
- FYI, I think Fox became an American Citizen. -- Samuel Wantman 10:40, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

He did. Therefore, I would add the following to Dr. Submillimeter's list: "Naturalized citizens of the United States," which is an existing category. I would place it immediately after "Canadian citizens," which, by the way, is not an existing category. Its equivalent, Category:Canadian people, has a maintenance warning about overpopulation and specifically requests that articles be organised by subcat., which leads us back to many of the categories we are considering dropping in this test case.--Vbd | (talk) 01:07, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I basically agree with Dr. Submillimeter's pared-down list. However, I suspect that the category "Film and television actors" has previously been discussed and debated, with a deliberate decision made to have it divided into separate categories. While many, if not most, actors have careers that span the two media, some are known more exclusively for one than the other. MJF is unusual in having had very successful careers in both. I would suggest we keep the separate categories.

Please note: I am going to start a separate discussion about Category:Inductees of Canada's Walk of Fame and Category:Hollywood Walk of Fame.--Vbd | (talk) 01:07, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
It looks like many actors work in both film and television. Few could be regarded as exclusively working in one medium (excpet for people who worked before television became popular and people in the porn industry). I really do not see the need for subdivision. Anyhow, Vbd has made a good point: we will either end up working with a few big but simple categories that are easy to use from the article perspective but not the category perspective, or we can have multiple subdivisions that may be useful from the category perspective (if someone is looking for actors from Edmonton or something else equally strange) but which are difficult to use from the article perspective. According to an earlier comment, the German Wikipedia apparently uses a simplistic category approach. How do they handle the large categories? Are navigation templates for categories (the A-Z index boxes and similar utilities) sufficient for aiding navigation? Dr. Submillimeter 01:20, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Two quick comments: The German Wikipedia is much smaller than the English one, and not perfect either, so we shouldn't duplicate their methods. Also I think it's useful to have separate TV and film categories - many TV actors have failed to break into the movie biz, and the idea of categorization is to identify essential attributes of each subject, even if they've dabbled in other things as well. Xiner (talk, email) 02:24, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Of the current categories, off the top of my head the ones I'd say the ones that look like they might be possible candidates for deletion are -

Back to the Future cast members - Actors-by-film cast list most likely easily accessed from the corresponding articles
Inductees of Canada's Walk of Fame - Award winners, usually better to list
Disney voice actors - Actors by production company, many of these have been deleted
Hollywood Walk of Fame - Another award category, should probably just use lists

Of the remaining categories, he seems to have a lot of "people from" type categories. It's possible for people to have multiple such categories, but all of the locations should be notably mentioned in the person's article. So I suspect some of those categories can be safely removed from the article.

Finally, I would tend to agree that it seems silly to distinguish between film actors and television actors since almost all actors who do perform in one those mediums also perform in the other. My advice would be to merge all "television actors" and "film actors" categories into a single "film and television actors" category for any actor who does one or the other or both. (I'm probably ok with voice actors as a seperate category, though.)

So, after some of the hypothetical changes above, that would leave the category list as something like -

Still a lot of categories, but then again he is a pretty prolific celebrity. Dugwiki 16:02, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Categorizing Roman Polanski

(Please add your suggested category list for Roman Polanski below)

My choices (in the order in which I would display them): Articles with unsourced statements | Living people | 1933 births | Polish citizens | Jewish people | Film directors | Actors | Nazi concentration camp survivors | Convicted child sex offenders. Again, it is relatively simplistic and easy to verify. It avoids the endless numbers of award categories, and it avoids the duplication between Polish categories and Jewish categories. It also leaves categories that would generally be major biographical highlights for any individual (Nazi concentration camp survivors and convicted child sex offenders). Dr. Submillimeter 10:24, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
- FYI, according to his article, Polanski was born in France and kept his French citizenship. He is often referred to as Polish, having spent the first part of his life there (his family is Polish), and I suspect he has dual citizenship. -- Samuel Wantman 10:44, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

He is definitely Polish, and has been a French citizen since 1976. But many countries do not allow for dual citizenship, and France may be one of them -- I think he is no longer a Polish citizen. I would take "Polish citizens" out of Dr. Submillimeter's list, along with "Jewish people," and replace them both with "Polish Jews" to reflect his national and ethnic origins. The category "French citizens" does not exist, nor does "Naturalized citizens of France" (compare with MJF comments, above), and I can't quite figure out how to best capture his "Frenchness" within the existing category structure. I am unsatisfied with "French people" or "Polish French" people.
I think Polanski provides a good example of someone who is only a film actor, so I would amend Dr. Submillimeter's category, "Actors," to "Film Actors." I think that we have a separate problem with the award categories, some of which are more "listified" than others. I would argue that Category:Best Director Golden Globe should be listified -- oh, wait, I'm sorry, it already is (Golden Globe Award for Best Director - Motion Picture) (can I nominate the cat. for deletion then?) -- so Polanski would not need the category. The Academy Awards are even messier, but I am in favor of listifying them as well.--Vbd | (talk) 03:32, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

It might be a merge. Is he known as an actor now? I only know him as a director. Is the actor tag a defining characteristic? Xiner (talk, email) 03:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Check out his article, Xiner. It looks like he had an acting career in Poland, before he came to the U.S. Who knew? He also cast himself in a bit part in Chinatown. I'm inclined to agree that the actor tag is not a "defining characteristic." BTW, what "might be a merge"?--Vbd | (talk) 05:31, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

The Golden Globe cats, but never mind. I think the Golden Globe for films is not notable enough to get a category. Xiner (talk, email) 00:26, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposal posted at WP:CAT

I've posted a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Categorization, about overhauling how categorization works. In a nutshell, I'm proposing that the creation of new category pages be restricted. To create a category, you would need to first create a list and then nominate it for conversion to a category at CFD. Only approved categories could be created by an Admin or a bot. I'd appreciate feedback. Please take a look. -- Samuel Wantman 08:41, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

New overcategorization topic: Locations by event

In light of the results of my recent nominations on locations categorized by specific events (e.g. "WrestleMania venues"), I suggest adding this as another example of overcategorization. If people agree with this, I will draft something here. Dr. Submillimeter 10:34, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree. In my opinion, a list is much better than a category in the case of sporting events (and other big events). RobJ1981 11:18, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I second this—if the events in question merit an article then it should be absolutely no difficulty to note the venue there, or in associated articles. --Xdamr^talk 13:21, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd probably support this in principle. I'd want to see the wording, of course, but I agree that off-hand there's not much need to categorize arena and stage locations by the specific events they host. I would, though, be interested to hear if anyone has some reasonable sounding exceptions to that rule. Dugwiki 16:55, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I also agree in principle. It's almost a special case of Performers by performance. Any one of them is fine and makes sense ... but soon every event wants a category and every big stadium or major arena ends up in dozens of categories. I ended up having a long discussion with the creator of Category:WrestleMania venues; I told him I thought they would all be going awy eventually, but I'm in favor of keeping the information, but killing the category. I'd totally support doing any of these as Category:Categories to be listified then deleted. -- Prove It ^(talk) 17:49, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with ProveIt that these categories are like "performer by performance" categories. Since this idea appears to have consensus, I will write something tomorrow on this. Dr. Submillimeter 17:55, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, categories like Category:Super Bowl venues should be deleted. TJ Spyke 23:15, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Those are hardly defining characteristics, at any rate. >Radiant< 09:33, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Draft

Locations of specific events

Example: WrestleMania venues, Republican National Convention venues, Democratic National Convention venues

Avoid categorizing the locations of specific events, such as arenas that have hosted specific sports events or concerts, convention centers that have hosted specific conventions or meetings, or cities featured in specific television shows that film at multiple locations. For example, some very notable locations (e.g. Madison Square Garden) have hosted many sports events and conventions over time; categories for all of these events would not be manageable. However, this should not exclude the use of categories for general events (such as Category:National Basketball Association venues).

Here is a first draft of the new guideline. It looks like it needs work. Dr. Submillimeter 17:23, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks pretty good. The only part I'm a little confused on is the last sentence that says "this should not exclude the use of categories for general events...". What is a "general event"? The category example you provided of NBA venues is I think better described as an example where there are arenas that are specifically dedicated primarily to NBA events. But even on that category you have some things like the Staples Centre and other venues that are multi-purpose. So I'm not quite sure what the exclusion is you're trying to define. Dugwiki 18:08, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I wanted to indicate that categorizing arenas used for league games (such as NBA games in general) is OK but that categorizing arenas used for specific games (such as the NBA All-Star Games) is not. I am still contemplating how to revise the above text to communicate this effectively. Dr. Submillimeter 21:56, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Second Draft

Locations of specific events

Example: WrestleMania venues, Republican National Convention venues, Democratic National Convention venues

Avoid categorizing the locations of specific events, such as arenas that have hosted specific sports events or concerts, convention centers that have hosted specific conventions or meetings, or cities featured in specific television shows that film at multiple locations. For example, some very notable locations (e.g. Madison Square Garden) have hosted many sports events and conventions over time; categories for all of these events would not be manageable. However, this should not exclude the use of categories that indicate how the facilities are regularly used for some or all of the year (such as Category:National Basketball Association venues).

I rewrote the last sentence to indicate that "regular use" categories are OK but annual events are not. Is this an improvement? Dr. Submillimeter 17:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. --Xdamr^talk 18:46, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

New overcategorization topic: Performers by performance

In light of the results from the great January '07 debate on categorization of actors by appearance in TV or film series, I suggest adding "actors by performace" as an example of overcategorization. If other people (excluding Tim!) agree, I will draft something here. Dr. Submillimeter 10:36, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh definitely. This is very much akin to actors-by-film. >Radiant< 11:00, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
I've been waiting for this. I'd like it broadened to "Individuals by their creations or performances". This would cover actors, crew, painters, authors, film directors, etc... It is OK to categorize the creation by the creator when there is a SINGLE creator, but not when it was a collaborative effort. So it would be OK to categorize films by director, recordings by group, books by author, but never the other way round. -- Samuel Wantman 11:19, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm with Sam on the nature of collaborative works. "Books by author" works ok because there is only one author per book, but "Actors by film" doesn't work well because there are usually numerous actors per film which leads to an explosion of categories in the associated articles. Depending on the wording used I'm ok with an addition of this sort to the guideline. Dugwiki 17:02, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
To take the contrary side (which I don't agree with), one could argue that books are collaborative, since you have editors, and publishers, etc... I think if we were to get "technical", based on how directors are credited ("A Martin Scorsese film"), I think films could be categorised by director. (To see another example of this, see the Superman II controversy, or the Wizard of Oz.) All of this aside, we've agreed above that this page should reflect consensus on CfD. Last I knew, consensus was that performer by performance was Overcat, with the controversial exception of TV/Radio series. Creator by creative work (per me previously, and per Samuel Wantman above) needs to find consensus for such an overall sweeping guideline. - jc37 17:12, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the "collaborative" aspect refers to the parts being categorized. You could theoretically maybe do "Books by original publisher", for example, since there would only be one such pubilsher per book, or "Films by director" since there's usually only one director per film. The reason "Films by actor" is problematic is there are numerous actors per film. Dugwiki 17:30, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't disagree : ) - I do think that we should just have a separate section for Actors by film/Actors by production. I can see it being slightly separate from performers by performance. (Especially since it's currently controversial.) As far as I can tell from the several previous discussions both on and off CfD, performers by performance has consensus; Actors by production only has consensus as actors by film; and creators by creative work needs further discussion. - jc37 17:42, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Frankly, As unreliable as IMDB can be, it's gonna be more comprehensive in certain aspects than Wikipedia will ever be. Xiner (talk, email) 17:22, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

jc37 added the item to the page. I edited it to remove some offensive terms and to specify that it does include not categorizing people as cast members of specific TV shows, films, etc. (Note the reference to the Great January '07 Debate up above.) Dr. Submillimeter 18:02, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

A couple questions... 1.) Why is Hamlet's soliloquy offensive? 2.) Can you link to this "great debate" of January? so far all I find is that actors should be renamed to cast, per quite a few CfDs. - jc37 18:10, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

For #2, I presume you meant the January 25th discussion? Well, wow. that's what I get for being away from Wikipedia for a bit. After reading it and the related DRV, it seems that the result is to rename to "cast", and that Radiant is willing to delete any that are listified. I might argue that just because something is a list doesn't mean it also can't be a category. While I might agree that these categories should be deleted, I am concerned at how this is being implemented. - jc37 18:32, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

You're correct that being a list doesn't automatically preclude something from being a category. However, there should be a practical benefit to the reader to having both, because there is naturally an increased maintainence cost to having both. If the category isn't likely to be used by the reader and the list also provides as much or more utility, then there is little reason to have the category and it can be safely deleted. That's the situation you have with cast lists, for example, and why you don't normally need or want to have both a cast list in the main article and a category with the same information. Dugwiki 18:42, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

First, Hamlet's Soliloquy is not offensive; it just seemed to long. When I said "offensive", I referred to other things which I prefer not to repeat here. I apologize for not being more complete in my comments. Second, Samuel Wantman has been listifying all "cast members" categories. This will be nice, as the endless debates on "actors by performance" categories will come to an end. Dr. Submillimeter 20:00, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I haven't actually listified any category. What I have done is tagged all the categories in question with {{listify}} and started a discussion at CFD talk about how to implement Radiant!'s decision. I also quickly closed some redundant CFD's partly to get the question posted at DRV. Radiant!'s decision was reviewed and the closing was upheld. I am willing to speedily delete any category that has been listified, along with Radiant!. I am still unclear about the process by which this should actually happen, and this is being discussed. More input would be appreciated here. -- Samuel Wantman 21:03, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Alumni categories: needed or just overcategorization?

As I noticed Hulk Hogan has 3 alumni cats as part of his huge list of categories. It made me think, are alumni categories needed? Alot of the (wrestling) alumni categories at least: have list pages. As a side note: Hogan certainly needs some category cutting: 25 categories, with 5 of those being maintenance categories. RobJ1981 12:32, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

"Former alumni only" categories are generally frowned upon. Categories about membership in an organization should include both current and former members. My suggestion would be to cfd the categories you're talking about if they are, in fact, "former members only". Dugwiki 16:05, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

From the looks of it, all the wrestling categories are indeed just former alumni. But if the WWE alumni category (for example) had everyone listed: it would be a huge cluttered category. I don't think there would be a way to sort it. Seeing as how wrestlers come and go to WWE every year, subcats would be changed around all the time. One minute a wrestler retires, then the next he is back in action...and so on. WWE has been around since the 70s (even longer, if you trace it's roots back more), that's 1000s of people (if not more). I think the alumni list page works fine for the WWE case at least, so should the others just be listified? I believe some of the alumni cats are lists, but not all. RobJ1981 10:39, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

The frequent changing of "current" subcats is the main reason that categories usually don't distinguish between current and former members of a group. Of course, all rules in Wikipedia have some exceptions, and perhaps WP:PW has some additional insight on this. After all, their project are probably the ones who are most actively trying to maintain these categories. Dugwiki 16:27, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Eponymous celebrity category observation

Recently we had a bunch of cfds for eponymous categories about celebrities, such as Category:William Shatner and Category:Hilary Duff. For the most part, I agree that these categories normally aren't necessary as the main article serves as a superior navigational hub to find articles about the person. A reader who wants to know about books or films with William Shatner will almost certainly visit his main article first. Therefore most of the time these categories aren't needed

However, in reviewing these cfds it occured to me that one main exception to that rule of thumb is when someone's main article is split into several tightly related subarticles. In a case like that it might be that deleting the eponymous category would leave those subarticles orphaned in the category system. Since I found myself making this same comment repeatedly on cfd, I thought I'd also mention it here as a general comment on eponymous categories.

I'm not sure if we should include something about eponymous celebrity categories here, but I thought it might be worthwhile to mention this exception as a topic of discussion. What do you guys generally think about eponymous categories for celebs and making exceptions for when there are tightly related subarticles? Dugwiki 19:06, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm in general agreement. I don't think we have to distinguish between celebrities and any other type of eponymous category. All eponymous categories are superfluous unless they can meet the following criteria:

IS IT NEEDED? There are articles or categories that would not belong in any other category such as sub-articles that have no other home.
DOES IT ADD UTILITY? There are articles that are not linked to from the eponymous article, and there are enough of them that listing them would clutter up the article by adding links to the "See also" section or elsewhere. The category should have the potential to hold a reasonable number of articles and categories (over 15?)
IS IT PRACTICAL? The category follows categorization guidelines and does not otherwise disrupt the categorization system.

--Samuel Wantman

Should any of the articles have been merged? Xiner (talk, email) 23:47, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm in thorough agreement. As an example see Jan Smuts, and its associated category, Category:Jan Smuts - recently discussed above. The life of Smuts is dealt with in general terms within Jan Smuts, with deeper exploration taking place in the, at the last count, five sub-articles. As far as general categorisation goes the main article has the full complement of appropriate categories. This leaves the question of how the sub articles should be treated. Should they be categorised in the same way? Should we have both Jan Smuts and Early life of Jan Smuts categorised under Category:Prime Ministers of South Africa? As a matter of common sense, the answer must surely be no. As a result each of the detailed sub-articles find themselves contained within an eponymous category. The only alternative to this is to have sub-articles uncategorised, something which to my mind is at odds with the overarching intent of the category system.

Xdamr^talk 01:06, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I decided to be a little WP:BOLD and added a section to the guideline talking about eponymous categories for celebrities. I tried to base it on the comments above and on comments from the recent round of cfds for eponymous categories. I also tried to write the section as a general rule of thumb, not a hard and fast prohibition, and also explained the exception exemplified above by Jan Smuts of directly related subarticles.

Obviously please feel free to revert my change or make alterations if it doesn't sound appropriate or if you think the wording can be improved. :Dugwiki 17:47, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks a decent working policy as it stands. My particular manta when approaching these categories has been to look for a substantial number of directly relevant articles/sub-categories. Perhaps something could be done with this quantitative definition?

Xdamr^talk 00:29, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I intentionally left out a quantitative number of articles or subcategories since the raw number isn't actually what would be important. Rather, what's important is how the typical reader searches for the information in the category. So it's not so much whether a category has 23 vs 46 articles, for example, but whether or not the category is something readers would prefer to use over just using the main article for navigating the same links.

Now it is true that the number of articles and subcategories is an indirect factor. As the size of a category grows, it becomes more likely that you can't comfortably index all the associated links within the main article. So it's certainly possible that for people with an extremely large number of articles or subcategories you might have trouble getting all those links into a nice compact form to fit in the main article. In those cases, you might have to create a list article as a subarticle, which means you'll now have a main article divided into directly related subarticles. When that happens, you have a situation where an eponymous category to hold those subarticles might be handy.

Therefore rather than focus on a specific number of articles or subcategories, I think it's better to look at whether the main article can comfortably hold all the links involved and whether the main article is split into subarticles that are all linked together. Dugwiki 16:23, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't really thinking of a definite figure, just a 'substantial' number. This judgement would subtly vary according to the topic etc.

Xdamr^talk 22:13, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Bravo! (and a request for clarification)

I really appreciate the recent additions to the overcategorization guidelines. I am wondering, however, how the "Intersection by location" guideline might be applied to the "test case" we discussed above, Michael J. Fox.

Does this mean that Category:British Columbia actors and Category:Alberta actors can be deleted from his article? These seem analogous to the examples provided, "Quarterbacks from Louisiana" and "Male models from Dallas."
Does this guideline apply to Category: Canadian child actors or Category:American voice actors? Arguably, one might interpret these to be "Intersection by location" categories, while others might consider them to be "Intersection by nationality" categories.

Finally, is there a mechanism by which existing categories will be deleted based on any of the new guidelines? Do they have to go through the Cfd process? Or will a bot remove the Category:British Columbia actors tag from the 81 or so articles that are currently categorized that way?

Again, kudos for your efforts to improve WP!--Vbd (talk) 06:13, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

"Is there a mechanism by which existing categories will be deleted based on any of the new guidelines?" Perhaps there should be, but I suspect that anyone who went through the process of creating a populating a category would not take kindly to it being quickly deleted without discussion. The thing to do is to monitor new categories and find them early, before someone has put much effort into them. You could point to this page and explain that they might want to rethink their efforts. Perhaps a template for this would be helpful. Then, if they stop, you could empty the category and get it speedily deleted. I've been able to stop people from populating categories shortly after they are created, but have been hesitant to delete them without getting the creator's approval. -- SamuelWantman 06:22, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for answering my question about the retroactive application of the new guidelines.

Any thoughts on the location versus nationality question? I assume it is considered the latter. Though I know he has dual citizenship, I still don't understand why it makes sense or is helpful to list MJF as a [[Canadian xxx actor]] and a [[American xxx actor]]. But perhaps that is a question for another day.--Vbd (talk) 16:29, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The long term convention has been to diffuse professions into categories by nationality. I've never been fond of this convention, and would prefer non-diffused categories while we wait for category intersection, but I'm part of a very small minority. Clearly for some people and some professions nationalities are not helpful. -- SamuelWantman 20:02, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

FYI -- See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 March 13#Category:Canadian actor cats.--Vbd (talk) 08:31, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Superhero powers

I think that this CFD (currently on DRV here) could be relevant with respect to this guideline. Any thoughts? >Radiant< 15:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I think list pages would work alot better for powers. RobJ1981 16:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Performers by performance

For what it's worth, I preferred the earlier language that included examples of the application of this new guideline. Radiant's effort to simplify may have been too much of an edit. (Also, something about it doesn't look right). Please reconsider.--Vbd (talk) 08:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome to edit this page. I found the list of explanations too long, as compared to the other sections on the same page. Come to think of it, the description is also twice as long as most of the others. >Radiant< 08:50, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
- It is great when we can clearly explain what belongs and what doesn't in a very concise way. However, I constantly notice that people misinterpret guidelines that I think are absolutely clear. For this reason, I'm prone to replace prose with more examples, which is what I was attempting in finding precedents. I looked for precedents that discussed the issues as to why these categories are unacceptable. If we are to shorten this section from the way it was a few days ago, I'd hope we keep more of the precedents and shorten the prose. I was just starting on that, when Radiant! undid some of my effort. Had I continued, I would have tried to combine the examples mentioned in the second half, with the sub-groupings above, in a sense making several small sections, each with precedents. -- SamuelWantman 10:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  - Okay, let's revert my edit and take Sam's suggestion. Lengthy prose is probably less helpful than examples, at any rate. >Radiant< 11:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

A question

I have what may seem like a strange question: have we erred in having some focus in this guideline on categories that have a direct linkage to the notability of the article's subject? I am thinking specifically of a category like Category:American billionaires: this category seems to be an "arbitrary inclusion criterion" (why is $1 billion a better level of net worth for categorizing Americans than any other amount of net worth?) and so should be deleted, but the problem is that there are several individuals for whom this is the single reason they are notable, and without this category they will be left only in (non-uesful) categories that have no connection to their notability, like Category:Living people. Put another way, if an article is in only 1 or 2 useful categories, is it appropriate to claim that those categories are causing "overcategorization?" Put a third way, aren't there cases where it would be better to deal with overcategorization at the article level, instead of at the category level? Comments? UnitedStatesian 21:23, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

One thing that you can't do is leave an article orphaned in the category system in regards to key features. For example, all biographical articles should ultimately at a minimum include categories for the year of birth (if known), year of death (or "living" category), and a category tag for either their primary profession or other feature that makes them notable enough for their own article. Thus you shouldn't normally delete a profession category, for instance, if it would leave some articles without a corresponding profession tag in their category lists.

Now that all being said, overly subdividing professional categories and creating categories of random interesections of professions and other characteristics can lead to articles having too many categories and making it harder to use those categories for the reader. Thus you want to prune and merge apparently unnecessary categories that can be safely pruned or deleted to keep the category system as efficient to use as possible.

Thus at the article level, you're looking to make sure that articles have at least the basic, fundamental category tags associated with their respective subject areas. But you're simultaneously looking to reduce the number of categories that aren't actually necessary for readers to properly navigate articles. This guideline deals mainly with the paring portion of that equation but does allow for exceptions to avoid removing things that are needed. Dugwiki 21:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Relevant discussion on condensing categories

I have begun a preliminary discussion over at the anime and manga Wikiproject about merging the redundant subcategories of Category:Anime by genre and Category:Manga by genre which are currently creating a situation in which a multi-genred anime and manga series ends up in the categories for action anime, action manga, comedy anime, comedy manga, drama anime, drama manga, science fiction anime, science fiction manga, etc. Since the result of these categories is a large amount of overcategorization, I thought this would be an appropriate place to crosspost. --tjstrf talk 01:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Cat by supercountry region

Obviously we categorize a lot of things by country, and there's something to be said for grouping those "by country" categories into supercats that go by continent. However, I note quite a lot of supercats by a semi-arbitrary grouping of countries, such as "Middle Asia", "Scandinavia" and "Caribbean". I tend to think this is not all that useful. Please comment? >Radiant< 14:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Some groupings make sense because they are well-defined (e.g. the Caribbean). However, these groupings should not be used as an intermediary step between a continent grouping and a country grouping (e.g. a Scandinavia category with subcategories just for Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland should not be placed within a Europe category). When the boundaries of the region are fairly arbitrary (as for the Middle East), then the categorization is mostly useless because the region that is referred to is unclear. For example, exactly where would the airports in "airports of the Middle East" be located? The exception is when the category is used for a "fuzzy" topic (such as "Middle Eastern studies"). Each grouping may need to be addressed on a case-by-case basis. Dr. Submillimeter 14:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

It sounds to me that the issue is then with "directional"-based names:

The middle east
The west
The far east
The south (my favourite - the south of france? southerners on the island of GB? the Southern United States, per the Mason-Dixon line or at least a side in the american civil war?)
etc.

Another one that I can think of would be: "The Orient", as in "the Orient Express". (And does anyone use the term "occidental" these days?) - jc37 05:39, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, yes. Do we need categories like "Cities in Southern France" or will "Cities in France" suffice? "Economy of West Asia"? Etc. There are a few well-defined areas for which this happens (e.g. Scandinavia) which I find rather pointless, but "West Asia" is not objectively defined as far as I know, and which countries are "west" is up to debate and therefore not a good cat. >Radiant< 08:08, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, since this page is to be a result of CfD, and not substitute for it, are there any such cats which have recently been deleted, or any that should probably be deleted, and thus listed for discussion? - jc37 09:59, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Performers by performance

I took some time to find several of the CfD discussions which I previously had witnessed which caused me to originally propose Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_October_16#Performers_by_performance, and several others since then.

I also refactored the sections, since while looking I found a variety of examples which expanded the sections.

The performers by role set of examples is lengthy... And there were quite a few actors by TV series or actors by film which I didn't add else the page would have doubled in length : ) - That said, I wouldn't mind paring them somewhat, as long as we retain examples of each type. Any thoughts? - jc37 10:05, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I pared them down somewhat, removing individual nominations that were included in group nominations (like actors who portrayed Batman, and actors who portrayed Lana Lang). However, I think the varied listings should be useful, since they are varied, and since these have been typical recreations... - jc37 10:54, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

It's good, but there's no need to have twenty examples for that section when all other sections have two or three. Those, too, tend to get recreated at times. It's the idea that counts, we should not try to enumerate every instance thereof. >Radiant< 11:06, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree, to a point, but considering how contentious these have been in the past, etc. I think clarity in examples is probably a good idea. That said, do you see places where we can pare even further? - jc37 11:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I think we're fine for now. Thanks! >Radiant< 12:10, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Good snips/catches. I also split the performers by venue into a separate section. - jc37 11:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)