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This is a consolidation and copy of discussions relevant to the "award-winner" categories. All conversations are also archived in the chronological talk archives. Please note that this archive does not include all comments relating to awards, but only those discussion threads that were primarily dedicated to awards. The topic may come up in broader threads as well.

It was last copied 2013/05/8 from archives 1 - 10.


Nominees

I propose reverting the nominees sentence, to discourage all nominee categories. While I think it's just the kind of thing that's suitable in article text, as a category type I think it's unlikely to be of any enyclopedic value, and especially in the case of the lead example (Oscars) it will be unwieldy to the point of collapse. At very best it is only likely to generate woefully incomplete categories that aren't actually useful or informative, just frustrating and misleading. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:49, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

There is not and should not be, a category for Nobel Prize nominees because nominations are secret, and there is no way to verify such nominations. Academy Awards are unusual in that the lists of nominations are a fixed size, winnowed down from some earlier stage of nominations, and very widely publicized and easily verified. Some prizes, such as Grammys, also publicize fixed length lists of nominees, but others don't. Certainly, we should not have lists of nominees for a prize where such lists are open ended and/or not well sourced. I think part is worth more discussion. -- Donald Albury 13:01, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I've changed it to read we should not cat by nominees period, with the oscars as the (to my knowledge) sole exception. Possibly we should look into deleting it if it's as unwieldy as SMC claims. (Radiant) 10:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


Good overall. Specific comments

Looks good overall. Some specific comments -

  • Non-defining or trivial characteristics - My only concern here is that "non-defining" is somewhat vague. Certainly only facts verified in the article itself should be considered when categorizing, so if a fact isn't even worth mentioning in the person's article it likewise shouldn't be used to categorize them. But on occasion I'll see a category that some claim represents an important, defining trait while others don't. As an example, Category:Fictional mutes came up recently. I would consider muteness to be a pretty significant, defining characteristic for a fictional character, putting me in disagreement with Radiant in that cfd. The point, though, is that the phrase "non-defining" might be overly vague, and perhaps there is a more specific, objective set of criteria that could be used to narrow down the concept.
  • Award winners and nominees - The proposed guideline says that the rule of thumb is if an award doesn't have an article, then a person should not be categorized by receiving it. I would go a step further, and say that most awards should probably use lists instead of categories. There are many, many awards in the world, all of which consider themselves notable and which contain a great deal of overlap and redundancy. From a search standpoint, a user can just as easily find a specific award winner from a list article as from a category page, and likewise can tell by looking at someone's article if they won a specific award. So for the most part, categorizing by awards isn't actually needed, and might possibly create a problem with redundant or less significant awards creating excessive categories on a biographical article. Therefore I'd suggest considering limiting award categories to only those awards which are particularly prestigious and represent pinnacle lifetime achievements for the winners. (In other words, use similar guidelines for awards as for "Inclusion in a published list")
    I strongly concur that the categories for "winner of X award" just add unnecessary clutter. Especially with, for instance, prolific actors, prestigious scientists, and so on, they will have lots of awards. Lists are much better -- the person can have the list of their awards, and the awards can have the list of their award-winners. --lquilter 14:40, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Actors by film, or films by actor - I agree with this guideline, and in fact I feel the same reasoning also applies to television shows and video games. Most television programs and video games do not need their own unique categories for actor lists, and in fact list articles are a better way to present cast lists for those shows. I would suggest expanding this guideline to those media types as well. Dugwiki 18:58, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

(resulting subdiscussion moved to a seperate thread) Dugwiki 17:14, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

  • "Non-defining" needs clarification. Note that for whatever definition we give here, there will always be borderline cases that need to be discussed. I would say that "mute" is such a borderline case. I've narrowed down the 'awards' section per your suggestion. I tend to agree with what you say about actor lists for cvg, but note that most TV shows do in fact have a category for "cast and crew".


It seems clear that the topic of how to handle "actor-by-series" categories is pretty complicated in its own right. To that end, I'll start a new thread on this talk page specifically for that topic. I think having a seperate thread specifically for those issues will help keep those discussions in one place that's easy to find and review. Dugwiki 17:11, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


Awards and nominations

In looking over this section, and searching for good precedents, I notice that this topic may not have been clearly decided. Most minor and not-well-known award categories do get deleted. But there is more than just the Academy Award as an exception, most notably the Golden Globes. The section says this:

In general, the winners of all but the most internationally well-known awards should be put in a list rather than a category. It may nevertheless be useful to note the awards in the article. If an award doesn't have an article, it certainly doesn't need a category (and not every award that has an article needs a category). (The sole exception to this is the Academy Awards, which is currently under debate.) Nominees should not be categorized.

I suspect that in not too much time virtually every award of note will have an article written about it, and these categories will start to proliferate. If there are to be distinctions about which remain and which don't, this paragraph does not make those distinctions. I'm not certain that this has been hashed out yet. If it has, can anyone suggest a CfD discussion that makes this point well, and the result was delete? If it hasn't, we should probably discuss this more and nominate a test case for deletion. How do people feel about having these categories for the Golden Globes? If the Golden Globe categories were deleted, how can we justify the Academy Award categories? If the Golden Globe categories are to be kept, where is the line to be drawn? -- Samuel Wantman 04:49, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Honestly I don't have a problem with categories/sub-categories for winners of industry-wide awards. The Nobel Prize, The Pulitzer, the Oscar, even The Newberry Award. I am more concerned about nominess and cantidates than actual winners. Though obviously we should clarify that "industry-wide" doesn't include: The Springfield High School 12th annual Motion picture awards given by Mrs. Jane Doe's 5th grade class (the Springies : ) - jc37 10:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

  • I've thought for some time that the Academy Award nominee categories are ridiculous and should be lists (compare List of Best Supporting Actor nominees to Category:Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nominees). Now that tables can be sorted by various columns, I think the argument that such lists should be categories is even less tenable. Even the category for the winners (for the Academy Awards at least) contains far less information than an equivalent list. I've seen categories redirected to lists (one of the Star Trek episode lists?), which allows users to navigate to the list by clicking on a "category" link, but I really don't understand the seemingly very strong preference for categories over wikilinks in the article itself to much richer lists. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:07, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, I seem to recall several semi-recent CfDs resulting in "Keep the award, remove the nominees". So this shouldn't be a problem (Any one who can find the examples would be greatly appreciated : ) - jc37 11:49, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
  • "Nominees of X" is generally bad, and frankly, I think even the categories for "winner of X award" just add unnecessary clutter. Especially with, for instance, prolific actors, prestigious scientists, and so on, they will have lots of awards. Lists are much better -- the person can have the list of their awards, and the awards can have the list of their award-winners. The only two awards that everybody in the world has heard of are the Academy and the Nobel (right?) and I wouldn't do a winner of X award for anything else. --lquilter 14:40, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • What are people's thoughts on Category:Presidential candidates? Should there be exceptions the the no candidates rule? -- Prove It (talk) 00:22, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Maybe, however there needs to be two rules. 1)Only candidates who have officially announced their intention to run so we don't have a category filled with people who might run based solely on media speculation. 2)Separate by country. There is no reason to have the candidates for say the US presidential election with the candidates for the Ecuadorian presidential election. Koweja 00:43, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
  • In general I'm not too happy with cats for people who ran (or even intended to run but didn't) for a political function but failed to get elected, but it'd be reasonable to make an exception for presidents. Just not for the literally dozens of candidates for some function in some town. >Radiant< 10:01, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


Award winners

First, I did some (relatively) minor wordsmithing on award winners to try to clarify the second sentence, which was talking about what to do with an award if categorization is inappropriate. --lquilter 15:58, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Actually it turns out that what I thought was simply unclarity in the phrasing was not; Radiant pointed out to me that the phrasing was meant to be article about the award. So, I'm going to revert, and suggest here that we need more clarity in that section. Maybe "articles for the award or individual award-winners"? --lquilter 16:01, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Second, I would suggest that the last sentence is too narrow. It currently reads "If an award doesn't have an article, it certainly doesn't need a category (and not every award that has an article needs a category)." That's true, but doesn't offer much guidance. The vast majority of award-winner categories (Category:Award winners) have articles, so this sentence is just going to weed out non-notable awards or awards that people haven't yet documented in wikipedia. The real problem is that there are some fields with many awards and people/organizations/things might win many of those awards, leading to vast numbers of categories. Can't we come up with some more objective and narrow criteria? Say, for example, that award winner categories are merited only when the award is, itself, a defining -- not merely notable -- characteristic of that person. For instance, Nobel Laureates are defined by the Nobel. I honestly can't think of any other award that is so defining -- people might be nominated for and win multiple Academy Awards in multiple categories; introductions of them wouldn't always describe the person by the various specific academy awards. --lquilter 15:58, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

There's probably two seperate bars of entry to consider: the bar of entry to create an article about an award, and the bar of entry to create a category for the award. In my opinion, it should be harder to create a category for an award than it is to create an article about it. There are a couple of reasons for this:

1) Most award articles can also contain a list of past winners, or have an easily accessible link to a list article for them. So it's likely that a reader who wants to look at articles about people who won a specific award would be able to find the information within the article itself, or possibly one click away in a list article.

2) A list article will almost certainly be created regardless of whether or not you have a category. That's because for awards you need to list not only the person who won but also the year they won it and possibly information about why they won the award. You wouldn't simply want to give the names alphabetically with no other information at all. So almost without exception there will be a list in the article space giving a full breakdown of all the award winners, including year and why they won. That makes having the category for that award redundant, as a reader will already be able to find all the information he needs from that list.

3) Famous or highly notable people can win upwards of 50 or 100 awards and recognitions in their career, some more important than others. If most or all of those had their own winners category, you'd end up with 50 or 100 award-related categories in that person's article. In addition, the award is (hopefully) already listed in the person's article, probably in a "awards" section, with a link to the corresponding award article. So a reader will already have most or all of the information he needs about that person's awards in his article, and will have a link to the award's article to find other people who won the same award. From the perspective of assisting a reader searching for information, then, having these redundant award categories in the person's article offers little benefit, if any.

So, in my opinion, awards should only have their own unique winners categories if the award is extremely important or defining. That way the category could serve as a flag, of sorts, indicating exceptional importance of the individual. Knowing that someone won an Academy Award or a Nobel Prize, for example, immediately tells you that they reached the pinnacle of their industry. Therefore that level of top industry award is probably worth flagging. But less influential awards probably don't need the category. Dugwiki 18:21, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I generally agree with your argument. My caveat is that, without objective criteria, "extremely important" is open-ended. Another issue is that we can't prescribe here. I'm concerned about being able to demonstrate a consensus for this guideline if it is too detailed and restrictive. I know that what I would like to see in policies and guidelines and what there is general consensus for is not necessarily the same. --Donald Albury 14:03, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Dugwiki lays out many of my concerns; Donald Albury points out another of my general principles--which is not to have a hidden "super-notability" criteria for categories. ... This keeps leading me to thinking that we should have a general rule of "no categories for award winners" with a short list of pre-approved exceptions, like Nobel (maybe Academy--I've started rethinking my position about whether it is really that defining; but that's another discussion). But that runs smack-dab into another principle: no unnecessary bureaucracies, and no requirements to seek pre-approval for doing something.  ?? How to balance? Or is there a third way? ... This must have come up before, as there are other "guidelines" about what to do or not to do, and there must be exceptions; are there other guidelines/discussions we could look to as examples of rules-with-exceptions? --lquilter 19:48, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
  • While having common-sensical exceptions is acceptable, explicitly enumerating exceptions is not good (as this encourages people to add to the list, ultimately defying the point). >Radiant< 13:57, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree with all the replies above. The only reason I mentioned the possibility of a "super-notability" exception is that I'm pretty sure there are editors who want to make an exception for categories for Academy Award winner and Nobel Prize winners. I don't like the somewhat subjective nature of what it would mean to be "super-notable", though, so I could accept having no award winner categories at all, even for top industry awards. Both possible methods have their own benefit and downside. (If you allow the exception, it acts as a useful flag and is something readers are likely to use, but exceptions can be abused. If you don't allow the exception, you lose some search utility that readers might want. )Dugwiki 18:35, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I could go with no award winners categories at all, too. I initially thought we probably needed, say, Nobel and Academy (but what Pulitzer? and ...). But then if you just applied those two categories, it would be irresistible to subdivide them by the more specific award won or the year won. If they weren't subdivided, then it's really a big mix of unlike things; if we do subdivide them, then they're small enough sets to be adequately handled by a list. So the advantage, I think, is nill. ... --lquilter 13:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Still problematic

I was recently pointed to Margaret Atwood, which seems to suffer from having too many categories. Apart from a few standard categories and some award cats, here we see the following:

  • She is from Essex, and from Ottawa, and from Simcoe, and from Toronto as well (she's also alumna from two different places, but that makes more sense)
  • She's a novelist. And a woman. And a writer. And a poet. And a science fiction writer. And a short story writer. And from Ontario. And, guess what, a writer. And a woman. And a short story writer. And a woman. And also, a novelist.

She's also a literary critic twice and a feminist twice, but the above overdose of permutations of "some kind of writer" and "something else" is extremely redundant. Imho. >Radiant< 11:40, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Some of this might be a case of necessary redundancy as some of the subcategories you mentioned are intended to break up otherwise very large categories. However, some of the categories listed on her article sound like they could probably be removed from the article as totally redundant or even deleted in cfd. Specifically
  • Category:Canada's Walk of Fame appears to be an unnecessary award winner category. I would recommend nominating for deletion and listifying.
  • Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada is likewise an award winner category. This one might also qualify for possible listifying/deletion.
  • Category:Companions of the Order of Canada - another award category
  • Category:Booker Prize winners - another award category
  • Category:Pantheists can be safely removed from the article. The article appears to make absolutely no mention of her being a Pantheist. So even if she is one, it's apparently not verified within the article. (I went ahead and removed this category from the article myself.)
  • Do we need to break down Category:Women writers by both nationality and genre? I understand that Women writers is a large category, but is it actually necessary to subdivide it in multiple ways? Seems to me you could do one or the other but not both and still accomplish the goal of breaking up the category. I might recommend either merging all the by-genre categories of Women Writers and leaving by-nationality in place, or vice versa. (That's assuming we keep Category:Women writers in place, which some people want to delete entirely.) Dugwiki 16:00, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Note that I nominated Category:Authors selected for Canada Reads for deletion, which did contain Margaret Atwood.
Category:Booker Prize winners may receive stiff opposition to deletion, since it is a notable literary award that is the British Commonwealth's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. If the Booker Prize category is deleted, then all other literary award categories should probably be deleted as well, including Category:Pulitzer Prize winners. (This might not be a bad thing, but it might be really hard to get support for this. I myself do not know how I would vote.)
Civil award categories awarded by countries (such as the Order of Canada) have not been discussed at WP:CFD at all, so a nomination of Category:Companions of the Order of Canada for deletion by itself could fail simply because it singles out Canada. However, it may be appropriate to nominate a series of civil award categories from multiple countries (including Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients and multiple British knighthood categories) to discuss their merits. Dr. Submillimeter 16:35, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarifications, Doc. Note that I was only indicating these categories might be things worth reviewing for deletion because they fall under the general scheme of "categorizing by awards won". It's certainly possible that some or all of them have legitimate purposes. Dugwiki 17:38, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I think the categorisation of people is becoming somewhat of an obsession for some people. I see a recent featured article, the best of what Wikipedia has to offer, Charles Darwin is in 24 categories — including a dreaded eponymous category! — and nary a twitter in its FAC. Tim! 16:41, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Considering FAC deals with article writing style and proper citation I'm not surprised categorization isn't mentioned one way or another. Categorization is about article indexing, not article style per se. Dugwiki 16:50, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
P.S. The "dreaded eponymous" category in Charles Darwin appears to be a legitimate exception to the OCAT rule because it includes a number of subarticles directly related to Darwin that aren't easily categorized elsewhere. Thus the eponymous category is probably a needed supplement to the main article for navigation in this case. Dugwiki 16:52, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
P.P.S. I also notice that a couple of the categories in Darwin's article probably aren't needed. For example, he's under both Category:English scientists and its subcategories Category:English geologists and Category:English naturalists, meaning that the "scientist" category should be removed (articles normally aren't supposed to be in both a category and its subcategories if the subcategories are a subdivision scheme.) Also, there is the "family tree" category Category:Darwin — Wedgwood family which seems questionable (most family tree categories are deleted in favor of their associated list articles, in this case Darwin — Wedgwood family). I am removing the scientist category, and might recommend nominating the family tree category for deletion. Dugwiki 16:59, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
In this case Darwin — Wedgwood family is (at least at the top) a well-developed list, with extensive summary-style and annotations for the major members of the family. What the article doesn't provide is a pure index list, which is what the category provides. At long as the category page makes clear that it is only an index of the family, it is easier to use the category as a pure list, rather than the article. Carcharoth 17:23, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I have no problem with the article. I'm not so sure the category is actually needed for navigation, but that's a subject for editors to discuss if the category came up at CFD. Keep in mind also the potential problems of category explosion with allowing family trees as categories for most notable individuals. Go back far enough on a family tree and you'll have multiple intersections of trees from different notable ancestors. Dugwiki 17:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Good point. Burn family tree categories. Carcharoth 14:03, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Awards categories

I'd appreciate some advice on working out at what point award categorisation becomes overcategorisation. I started at Category:Medalists, and foolishly wandered upwards to Category:Awards and quickly became overwhelmed by the sheer number and diversity of awards categorised on Wikipedia. My question is when is a category needed as well as a list? Some examples:

I could go on and on, but that list is enough for now. What is the best approach for awards, and when should categories be used and when should lists be used and is it ever appropriate to use both? Carcharoth 19:33, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

  • I think in general using lists for awards is a better approach, because it allows us to tell when and why the person got the reward. Rather than a "category of gold medalists", I would want to read that John Doe got a gold medal for pole vaulting 300 feet. Rather than a "category of oscar winners" I would want to read that Jane Dee got an Academy Award for her stellar supporting role in Gigli. Et cetera. >Radiant< 08:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Just a general naming conventions note:

  • In past CfD discussions, it was pretty much agreed upon that except for laureates ("x laureates") and medalists ("x medalists"), the naming convention should be "x recipients". "(award) winners" should be avoided entirely.
  • "Lists of x" cats are different than "x" cats, since they (as named) are categories of lists.
  • Per WP:OC#Award winners, "the winners of all but the most internationally well-known awards should be put in a list rather than a category." - I think the language is a bit strong though, since until I recently found an example, there wasn't even a CfD example for this section (making it POV, and apparently not as a result of CfD). I'll tone down the text somewhat. That said, minor awards shouldn't be categorised. Which means that to determine "minor", the category should be listed, as nornal, at WP:CFD.

And I agree, these categories need cleaning up badly. (This has been on my "to do" list for months... sigh at distractions.) - jc37 19:00, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I think what defines the exceptions is going to probably have to be resolved on a case by case basis for now. I'd personally would almost like to have no exceptions and only use lists for awards, but that would be the most extreme way to do things and I doubt there's any consensus for that. How to decide when an award is "internationally well-known and individually defining" is difficult and subjective. I suppose some evidence you could look at in this regard would be to ask questions such as -
  1. Do award winners receive major international media attention? A Nobel Prize winner will be written about on the front page of every major newspaper, but most papers won't mention someone winning a "Carnegie Science Center Awards for Excellence" in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
  2. Is the award often mentioned in articles and interviews with the person? When a newspaper interviews the person, do they tend to mention that they won the award (ie "Olympic gold medal winner and professional wrestler Kurt Angle was in Pittsburgh today ...")
  3. Is the person fairly likely to be at the formal award reception? While actors don't always make it to the Academy Awards if they win, they usually do. But an actor who wins People's Sexiest Person of the Year award probably won't be at a ceremony for it (assuming there is one).
  4. Is the award governed by an international and/or very well respected body? The more localized or partisan the organization that oversees the award the less likely it is to be truly defining.
Just some questions to think about, I suppose, when looking at awards for possible exceptions to the rule of thumb against categorizing winners. Dugwiki 20:00, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
For me, my "demarcation line", if you will, is Newbery Medal recipients. The award should be at least as noteworthy as that, in my opinion. Yes, it's subjective, but it seems to work for me. See also the comment about spelling bees at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes#People. - jc37 20:44, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Another criteria might be whether the people and books (or whatever) involved have articles. Newbery Medal has all the book blue-linked. But Mythopoeic Award doesn't have all of them as blue-linked, though the article still looks acceptable to me. Another example would be Hugo Award for Best Novel, where all the winners and their books have articles, but the other nominees have some red-links. In some cases, such as Royal Medal, the red-links are due to being an obscure scientist from 100s of years ago, or a very recent scientist who is only just gaining acclaim. What this means for categorisation, I'm not sure. Carcharoth 10:33, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

One of the criteria I think of is whether the award/honor would be mentioned in the first paragraph of a recipient's biography. So, for example, Alexander Fleming should be listed in a category for recipients of the Nobel Prize (because that award is mentioned in the first paragraph of his article) but probably nothing else. Dr. Submillimeter 10:50, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

That works for me. Does anyone want to throw a couple of the categories onto CfD. Those that have nice list articles already in place, obviously. That might give a better example than the teen beauty pageant example we have at the moment... Carcharoth 11:22, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
The first paragraph rule of thumb actually sounds pretty good. The "blue link" rule, however, might not work too well. Keep in mind that things only have to be "notable" to have a blue link (ie they just have to meet minimal notability requirements to have an article). I guarantee that everyone who has won People Magazine's annual Sexiest Man Alive award is notable, and in fact the article contains no red links. But clearly this award doesn't come close to the highest level of importance type of exceptions we're talking about here. Dugwiki 15:21, 24 April 2007 (UTC)


Arbitrary inclusion criterion

In some cases, particularly sports, numbers are not arbitrary; there have been CfDs where people came down on both sides of the issue. For example, Major League Baseball players with 500 home runs or Soccer players with 100 or more caps. These cutoffs are widely seen as significant accomplishments and may justify categorization. Can we reach consensus on this one way or another and add it to the article? Matchups 14:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Well first of all, a particular number should have significant notable meaning in an official capacity to not be considered arbitrary. That would mean that for example the official professional arbiters of the sport itself convey special highly recognized awards at that specific number. There has to be something concrete and notable and written about attached to achieving that number.
Even if you have all that, though, a lot of the related awards are better handled as list articles per this guideline. So even if the award is notable and revolves around a particular numerical goal, the award winners are usually better listed as a list article than a category.
Therefore the two things to watch for with these numerical categories are 1) is there some official, concrete, notable award connected with that number? If not it's probably an arbitrary number. And 2) even if the number isn't arbitrary, does the list of award winners warrant a category? Most award winners should be done as lists. Dugwiki 16:18, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
  • It turns out that the "soccer players with 100 caps" are actually given membership of the "FIFA Century Club", thus with an official associated award it's not arbitrary. That's not really a good example. >Radiant< 12:55, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, that would more properly be Category:FIFA Century Club inductees or something to that effect, which illustrates what should probably be a guiding principle here: If the number equates to a named award, use the name of the award, thereby taking away the sole rationale for every having such number-named categories. >;-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:50, 8 October 2007 (UTC)


Shortcuts

After seeing WP:AADD thrown around as weapons, often with those involved not actually reading the entries, I am more than hesitant to see shortcuts on this page as well.

That said, I didn't remove them all, but just the lengthier ones (those that almost duplicate the header are unnecessary), and those that could be misconstrued (WP:OC#AWARD seemed a bad idea, for example.)

I welcome others' thoughts on this. - jc37 12:56, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

As you may have seen, I added them earlier, and the reason is that linking to them was such a nuisance without shortcuts. I was being WP:BOLD, and accept that there may turn out to be a consensus against them, though I'd be surprised.
On the substance of it, I think that the problem of people not reading the guidelines they cite is real, but that it is a social problem rather than a technical one, and that the more precise the link to the guidelines, the easier it is for everyone concerned to read it and learn about nuances which the every guideline contains.
I won't revert, but I'm disappointed that you removed the shortcuts. All that is achieved by removing the like of WP:OC#AWARD is that people will link to WP:OC. What's the gain there? Why not point directly to the relevant section? (Alternatively, without the redirects, editors can continue to do what many have been doing, and linking to Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Award_winners, which is simply a more cumbersome version of the same thing.)
As to the longer names, they are simply easier to remember an easier to copy, as well as easier to read. Why make things harder for everyone?
Finally, if these shortcuts are a bad idea, surely all the shortcuts in WP:NOT should also be removed? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Smiles at WP:WAX : )
But that aside, are you aware that the following works:
Shortcuts should be just that. Shortened ways to type. That said, if they can be confused, or are less than coherent, then they probably shouldn't exist. I'd rather that we learn from the problems of the past rather than repeat them. - jc37 21:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Great fun, citing WP:WAX. But it would have been better to have explained what distinction you saw a that makes shortcuts okay in WP:NOT and a bad idea here.
WP:OC#Award winners works, but it is longer than WP:OC#AWARD, and you have also removed the copyable direct link, which is one of the most useful aspects of those boxes. So I have reinstated that one, and several other short links.
The other, longer shortcuts, are useful too for their copyability, but let's split the difference and leave them aside. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:16, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Apparently you aren't in a "smiling" mood. C'est la vie.
"by removing the shortcut you have also removed the copyable direct link, which is one of the most useful aspects of those boxes." - Could you clarify? As far as I can tell, we can still "direct link" to the section.
And I'll stand directly against "award", since it's very much inaccurate, in that it might suggest "awards", rather than "award winners". While I realise it's likely well-meant, it's also a rather bad idea. - jc37 07:51, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, over-exposure to McCandlish has shortened my fuse :(
Sure, without the shortcut, you can still type in the link, if you rememberer it. I usually don't remember it, so I go to the page and copy it off the browser's URL box. But it's much easier to just select and copy it from box beside the section I'm reading particularly if I have found the section I want by scrolling down, in which case the link won't actually be in the browser's url box. It just makes life easier. The irony of this is that many editors at CfD just link to WP:OC, which is the least useful form of link (which part of the guideline does that refer to?)
As to the award winners, any shortcut is inaccurate. WP:NOTE doesnt mean what most people think it means, WP:CRYSTAL doesn't mean nothing forward-looking, and so on: all these links are just easily-remembered shortcuts, which can't possibly sum up what's in the guideline. The whole point of them is to make it easier for anyone to cite the correct part of the guideline and for everyone else to be able to actually read it. Not having a handy shortcut seems to me like a form of security through obscurity: if people don't get pointed to the guideline, they won't misinterpret it, and far too often the CfD debates don't cite any guidelines or policies. Is that better? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:59, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
PS the shortcuts you removed included WP:OC#NON-DEFINING for "Non-defining or trivial characteristic", WP:OC#CANDIDATES for "Candidates and nominees", and WP:OC#PUBLIST for "Published list". What's wrong with them? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:05, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
(de-indent) - Before delving into what should or shouldn't be included, I still think that there is a misunderstanding here of what is available already without the addition of the shortcuts.
You said:
  • "...it's much easier to just select and copy it from box beside the section..."
I'm going to presume the "box" is the new shortcut templates that you've recently added?
I guess what I'm asking is how is that any better than just copying the header?
Or to use an example: How is copying WP:OC#AWARD from a box next to the text that much easier than typing WP:OC# and copying "Award winners" from the header directly above the text? - jc37 11:30, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
It's easier because it's in one place, clearly signposted even to editors who aren't familiar with the linking and who may not be aware that a link can be assembled in the way you describe. Which not make it easier for people to link to the guideline to which they are referring?
Most guidelines address one subject, in a discursive fashion which explains all the nuances, and even when one particular section is most pertinent, the document should be read as a whole to explain the context; it would not be particularly helpful to have, for example, shortcuts to every heading in WP:BIO. However, OCAT is unusual in that it is effectively a list of mini-guidelines, each of which could stand alone. The only other similar guideline that I can think of is WP:NOT, which also has handy shortcuts.
Coming back to this discussion after a week's break, I'm puzzled by the objections. This is a small tweak which neither adds nor removes anything substantive from the guidelines, but makes them slightly easier for some editors to use. If you don't want to use them, that's fine, but I'm really struggling to see what the great harm is that you want a long discussion about each of them.
Since another editor has expressed support for the shortcuts, I am going to reinstate them. I suggest that they be left in place for a trial period of a few months, after which we can review how they have worked in practice. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Trial period? Bad idea in this case. Then we'll have links at CfD... That's one (of several) reasons that this should be discussed first now. - jc37 12:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I have two main reasons to oppose: Shortcuts of policies and guidelines (Including WP:NOT, and the "essay" WP:AADD, are regularly used inappropriately. Period. People read the shortcut, and presume what the policy or guidelines says. How many times have I run across this in an XfD discussion? Nearly every discussion.
But here's the deal: You know how to copy/paste the way I mentioned above. I'll WP:AGF that anyone else can as well, or at least that they can paste a full link in one way or other. There is no need for the shortcuts, just a want.
Now that said, shortcuts can have their value, and I don't mind buckling a little if we can agree at least on some accurate words. Shortcuts which are poor descriptors are just waiting to cause disruption. And lengthy shortcuts which are merely capitalised versions of the headers are a waste of time as well. So with that in mind, what are your suggestions? - jc37 13:06, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
(de-dent) - I re-added CANTIDATES, I guess it's clear enough. And for published list, I added TOPTEN, which seems clearer than anything I could think of that included the word "LIST".
You already know at least some of my concerns about AWARD. And I think "NONDEFINING"; "TRIVIA"; or even "NOTABLE" are probably not good ideas.
See also the entries under Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions#Pointing at policy. These shortcuts are often used in just such a way. See also: Wikipedia:WTF? OMG! TMD TLA. ARG! : ) - jc37 00:42, 7 December 2007 (UTC)


Awards

I can see not adding every award category to an article, say on Mother Theresa. But for minor people, I see no reason not to have their awards in categories, it ties them to similar people, and is an excellent navigation device. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 06:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

But then there'd be debates about who's minor enough to warrant this. The articles for the specific awards allow for this type of navigation. –Pomte 06:50, 27 December 2007 (UTC)


A couple of problems with this page

I was directed to this page as part of a recent CfD discussion with User:Lquilter. I'd like to mention a couple of problems I see with the guidelines here.

  • The page makes inappropriate use of the concept of notability. For instance: In general, categorize by what may be considered notable in a person's life, such as his or her career, origin and major accomplishments. I understand and agree with the sentiments, but the Wikipedia concept of notability cannot be used as a scale to rate aspects of a person's life (and the word "notable" in the sentence above is linked to the page on notability, exacerbating the problem). Here is a similar use with a similar problem: In general, the winners of all but the most notable awards should be put in a list rather than a category. On Wikipedia, notability is a binary concept: something meets the notability criteria, or it does not.
  • There are some weasel words that need fixing. For instance: In general, categorize by what may be considered notable in a person's life, such as his or her career, origin and major accomplishments. In contrast, someone's tastes in food, their favorite holiday destination, or the number of tattoos they have may be considered trivial. In the second sentence, "may be" are weasel words. If those things are generally considered trivial, we should say that; otherwise, we need to find better examples.
  • Generally, the page needs to do a better job of linking to discussions that document the consensus behind the principles it elucidates. For instance, the discussion linked to in the "Award winners" section (Miss Virginia Teen USA) provides only an example of a very specific reason for deleting a specific "award winners" category, rather than illustrating the more general consensus for limiting the number of "award winners" categories. Each type of undesirable category should be linked to one discussion, or a few discussions, with cogent arguments as to why this kind of category is generally undesirable.

Please take these suggestions in the spirit in which they are offered -- as suggested improvements. I don't mean to criticize, but to help users who are more experienced in this area improve this page. On that note, I'd like to say that the reason for my last bullet point is that I think a page like this does well to carefully document, for editors new to the area, what the consensus is and where it comes from. --Tkynerd (talk) 00:30, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I think this is helpful, and Tkynerd is quite right -- there should be better examples linked. (In fact, I would love to see more documentation of CFDs in each example. Maybe this has been proposed and rejected before?). --Lquilter (talk) 18:35, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, actually. It was decided that too many examples tends to crowd the page, making it more difficult to read. (I had added quite a few examples to Performers by performance at one point : )
That said, there are several sections that could probably use a few more examples, and some more current examples would also be welcome. - jc37 20:09, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Incidentally, I note that the lead post seems to be describing mostly the award winners and trivia sections. We're discussing the Award winners in a section below. I placed a comment on the trvia section around when this page was first created saying: "This section could really use some cleanup for concise clarity." Suggestions are welcome : ) - jc37 20:09, 17 January 2008 (UTC)



Award winners

Discussion

Award winners
Example: Miss Virginia Teen USA
In general, the winners of all but the most notable awards should be put in a list rather than a category. It may be useful to note the awards in the recipients' article. If an award doesn't have an article, it certainly doesn't need a category (and not every award that has an article needs a category).

I attempted a re-write per the concerns above.

Award winners
Example: Miss Virginia Teen USA
If there is no article for an award, then recipients of the award should not be categorised (and not every award that has an article should have a category of recipients). In general (though there are a few exceptions to this), recipients of an award should be put in a list rather than in a category.

However, in looking over Category:Award winners, I am doubting that this is accurate. Especially since I recall that (for some time) this section didn't even have any actual CfD examples. (I found the current example after some searching.)

This seems to be something that should be discussed on a case-by-case basis at CfD. Especially in terms of whether the award winners should be grouped as a list or a category (or both). - jc37 18:16, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The category Category:Award winners (and Category:Medalists which should really be merged) have for the most part not been pruned. Most award-winner categories that go to CFD are listified and deleted. I'm basing this on about a year's worth of watching CFD, so perhaps someone else has greater history with it than me. There definitely need to be better examples and better wording, though. --Lquilter (talk) 18:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Both categories seem ripe for a group nom to determine naming convention. I seem to recall that we had a previous consensus of:
  • X laureates
  • X medalists
  • X recipients (but only if the category wasn't more accurate as one of the above two names.)
If this is done, then laureates and medalists would be subcats of Category:Award recipients (the more accurate name, though "award winners" should probably be kept as a soft-redirect). - jc37 18:46, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Group nom for naming convention is the right way to go; I just did one for Category:Medalists, but please speak up & I/we can amend the nom to broaden the discussion as needed. I don't see the need for the subcats, myself, but definitely group discussion would be helpful. --Lquilter (talk) 21:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I'll be happy to nominate (or you can, if you wish), though help with the tagging would be welcome (know anyone with a bot/tool who could help?) - jc37 22:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
No, sadly; lack of a mac-bot is one of the things that's held me back from some mass category cleanups. --Lquilter (talk) 03:03, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
  • On another subject, I don't think this needed to be removed from the front while it was being rewritten. Despite the flurry of responses to the awards I proposed, I don't think we can conclude (certainly not from in-process discussions) that consensus has changed and the OC guidance on award-winners categories is no longer valid. The comment above correctly pointed out some issues that need clarification and I think it can be improved, but I think it can be done while the text is in the guideline. --Lquilter (talk) 03:03, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
    I'm not necessarily saying "Consensus has changed", I'm saying that I don't think that there ever has been consensus. I'm even noting that even the example I found concerning Miss USA is a poor example, since it was merely deleted because it duplicated (!) another category. With no references to CFD discussions, this section just doesn't meet the page criteria. - jc37 06:16, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
  • If I recall correctly, this was not a controversial proposal. I'll add more to Otto's list below; it will help us pick better examples. My sense (and we'll see if I'm right) is that top military/civilian awards, top science prizes, and top arts awards of various sorts have survived, and lots of others have been deleted. --Lquilter (talk) 22:30, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Some examples

proposal please

Summary of CFD archives on award-winner categories:

  • The anti-award-winner policy started taking shape in late 2006 / early 2007.
  • "Nominees for awards" categories are always out so far as I can tell.
  • Honorary citizenship categories are always out.
  • Honorary degree holders categories are out.
  • Top-X list categories always get deleted.
  • American ethnic or heritage intersections with award-winner categories always get deleted, although national subcategories of some major award-winer categories (e.g., Nobel laureates) are kept.
  • Other award-winner categories are a subjective call -- even fairly significant ones (Springarn) sometimes get deleted, while others are retained. Grey-area distinctions are hard to call or guess at and current policy provides little clear guidance.

All CFDs that I could dig out relating to award-winners are above (in the "show/hide" green section). There are scores of them, and I summarized my sense above. Can we please get some consensus on whether this should be in or out of WP:OCAT (I think clearly "in") and what language to use? (I was fine with the earlier language although I think it can be written more beautifully and needs a better example.). If you think it should not be in WP:OCAT, please sing out and explain your thoughts. --Lquilter (talk) 03:22, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

  • How about something like In general, the winners of all but the most notable awards should be put in a list rather than a category. People can and do win a number of awards or honors through their lives. Categorizing by every award or honor will lead to category clutter. While there is no bright-line rule for what qualifies as "the most notable," a good rule of thumb is to consider whether, upon being introduced, the person would be likely to be identified in terms of winning the award. "Nobel laureate" is likely to meet this standard. "Kids Choice Award winner" likely does not. Considering whether the award has an article is also a useful guideline. If an award doesn't have an article, it certainly doesn't need a category (and not every award that has an article needs a category). Otto4711 (talk) 18:35, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, I like the example (obviously), and in general you've phrased it well -- I particularly like the acknowledgment that this is not a bright line situation. I might tweak the wording to:
In general, the winners of all but the most notable awards should be put in a list rather than a category. People can and do win a number of awards or honors through their lives. Categorizing by every award or honor will lead to category clutter. While there is no bright-line rule for what qualifies as "the most notable," a good rule of thumb is to consider whether, upon being introduced to a general audience, the person would be likely to be identified in terms of winning the award. "Nobel laureate" is likely to meet this standard. "Kids Choice Award winner" likely does not. Considering whether the award has an article is also a useful guideline. If an award doesn't have an article, it certainly doesn't need a category (and not every award that has an article needs a category).
My edit in bold. --Lquilter (talk) 19:07, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Good addition. Otto4711 (talk) 19:30, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
JC37, the editor who took it out, had said that they weren't sure if there had been consensus, and had indicated that in searching the archives all they could find was the Miss Virginia Teen USA AFD. Unfortunately, that editor hasn't edited since the 21st, so we haven't heard back as to whether the concerns were satisfied. In light of the scores of AFDs I listed above, I think it's sufficiently demonstrated that there is consensus on AFDs, and that the text should go back in. Unless there's a good objection in the next day or two, I think we should put it back in. It doesn't help readers to come to this page & not see "award-winners" on the front, when there is such strong evidence that AW cats get deleted at a high frequency. --Lquilter (talk) 12:44, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
JC37 is back from wikibreak, so will hopefully be able to look at this soon. --Lquilter (talk) 12:58, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
As I noted on your talk page, the list is impressive : )
I'm having a hard time keeping count, would someone be willing to help list what's left after all the discussions above? (In other words, which award recipient categories currently exist.) - jc37 22:30, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Are you asking for a list of which ones have survived CFD? The current categories are at Category:Award winners and subcats, although of course not all of them have gone through CFD. --Lquilter (talk) 14:21, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
So can we honestly say that that grouping/listing is a group of the "most notable" (whatever that means), or are we saying that we're actually suggesting deleting the "least notable" (whatever else that may mean), as overcategorisation? - jc37 21:44, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

[undent] (1) (r to Jc37's question) I believe we are saying that if categories are not "defining", they are deleted as overcategorization. It appears to me that categories that are defining to a general audience (the Nobel) are definitively kept. Do you have some proposed different wording, or can you spell out the section that you think is ambiguous? (2) Also, again, I note that from CFD it does not appear to me that consensus has changed on this issue; by far most award-winner categories that go through CFD are deleted. There have been another ten or a dozen that completed since I finished the list and, if I recall correctly, virtually all were deleted citing this guideline. It needs to be put back in. Jc37, do you agree? --Lquilter (talk) 14:31, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Restored

I've merged and "edited down" the various versions of above, and restored the section to the main page. I didn't add any examples from the above, since there are so many, and probably should be discussed at this point. - jc37 11:10, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Man, I wish I'd noticed this back in February. What's included in the guideline is incredibly different from what's been proposed here, so different that it does not reflect IMHO any sense of having been "edited down" so much as "created from the whole cloth." The existing guideline as written gives very little guidance, as evidenced by a number of current and recent CFDs with comments along the lines of "the Nobel Prize is too high of a standard to set". I don't believe the version as written reflects consensus and I do believe the proposed wording (with modification for I hope added clarity) does. So I would propose that the existing guideline be replaced with:

In general, many award winners should be put in lists rather than categories. People can and do win a number of awards or honors through their lives. Categorizing by every award or honor will lead to category clutter. While there is no bright-line rule for what qualifies for categorization, a good rule of thumb is to consider whether, upon being introduced to a general audience, the person would be likely to be identified in terms of winning the award. "Nobel laureate" is likely to meet this standard. "Kids Choice Award winner" likely does not. Considering whether the award has an article is also a useful guideline. If an award doesn't have an article, it certainly doesn't need a category (and not every award that has an article needs a category). Reliable sources that attest to the prestige or notability conveyed by receiving the award may also bolster the case for categorization.

Otto4711 (talk) 09:41, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure how one is that much different than the other (except to be perhaps more "wordy" : )
I don't strongly oppose it's inclusion, if it can be made a bit more concise. - jc37 18:37, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

More thinking

Working with awards and award-winners and CFDs -- and now TFDs! -- all this time it occurred to me that perhaps the best solution is a single compressed template. So, I drafted Template:Awardwinners; other editors' thoughts would be appreciated. Maybe it'll work, maybe not, but I thought I'd at least ping some other folks involved in award-winner discussions for their opinions and thoughts. --Lquilter (talk) 19:19, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Examples

Repeating my request from above for some discussion about which examples to use. - jc37 22:34, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

See also my proposal above to expand the guideline to offer more guidance, which includes Kids' Choice Awards as another example. Otto4711 (talk) 09:49, 7 October 2008 (UTC)



Automobile awards

I was reading how "In general (though there are a few exceptions to this), recipients of an award should be grouped in a list rather than a category." I noticed Category:Automobile awards which has five sub-categories:

I think they should be deleted if those are the rules at Wikipedia:Overcategorization. But I tried to read the instructions at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion for deleting "group of similar categories or a category and its subcategories" and it all seemed very complicated. Is there a more experienced administrator who agrees with me and who could complete the nominations of them? I would be scared I would not fill out everything correctly. Chryslerforever1988 (talk) 23:20, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Just for the record, you are not what Wikipedia calls an administrator. All users can nominate categories for deletion but only administrators can delete them. (I'm not making the nomination) PrimeHunter (talk) 23:28, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Okay I think I did this properly. They are all nominated at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2008_March_2#Category:Dewar_Trophy. @PrimeHunter, What I meant was "I (a new user) find it complicated, could a more experienced user (like an administrator) help with the nomination. Chryslerforever1988 (talk) 18:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


Bold change: Award recipients

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Overcategorization § Awards (again)
 – —Bagumba (talk) 01:35, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I have just made a rather WP:BOLD change, to reflect what looks like clearly developing consensus at a number of CfDs , e.g. the one for Category:Prize-winners of the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 January 7, rewriting the text as follows:

If the winners of a notable competition are most of them not individually notable, there should normally be only a list, not a category. However, if the recipients are mostly notable enough to have individual Wikipedia articles or being obviously qualified for articles, a list and a category are both necessary. This is especially the case If the award is so important that all those receiving it will necessarily have a Wikipedia article.

I think this will provide a more appropriater guideline than the previous text, and avoid the need for multiple CfDs. DGG ( talk ) 21:27, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

And per WP:BRD, I have reverted the change.
Fistly, it's better to seeek consenus before changing a guideline rather than afterwards.
Secondly, it;s very dodgy to rewrite a guideline to suit your POV in an open CFD
And thirdly, it's downright sneaky to to claim an "emerging consenus" at a CFD which has been extensively canvassed in these edits, as you well know, since you are one of those canvassed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:39, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
  • I oppose the proposed change. This proposal goes against years of consensus in dozens of CFDs. (Annoyingly extensive list going back to 2005 available here.) The overwhelming majority of cases where award categories are nominated results in deletion of the category. The proposed criterion arbitarily sets the delete/keep boundary at "most", which presumably means 50%+1. We shouldn't be locked in to such a formulaic method, since often individual circumstances do matter. Incidentally, I had to close the discussions in question as being tainted by extensive canvassing, so as BHG says they are probably not the best thing to base an "emerging consensus" upon. But even if the discussions were valid, I don't see a consensus there that supports this circular reasoning. DGG was the only one to express it, as far as I can see. It is expressed more clearly here than in some of the discussions, where it was phrased in an entirely circular manner of logic. Good Ol’factory (talk) 09:16, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
I'll be continuing to argue for keeping all such categories at CfD that are in any way reasonable. I find that's usually the best way to start to change consensus. But just for clarity, the word "most" at Wikipedia usually does not imply a fixed , but rather an approximate boundary, & I';d be glad to change the wording to more clearly indicate that. And actually, I considered that a compromise--I'd prefer a lower boundary, at about 1/4, not 1/2 notable. Things are otherwise too busy to open another general discussion now, but I'll be back. DGG ( talk ) 05:16, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
It would seem to me that any setting of a boundary—even if approximate—would be arbitrary. It's open to you to argue that consensus should change but you can't change the guideline that represents past and current consensus without some evidence that it has indeed changed. Good Ol’factory (talk) 00:22, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Support The current wording is entirely unworkable and arbitrary. Kudos to DGG for offering an effective compromise here despite the usual obstinacy to any meaningful change at CfD. Alansohn (talk) 04:25, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Good Olfactory. Guidelines exist to record consensus, not to change it, and as Good Olfactory notes, the consensus against categories of award-winners is long-standing. DGG is quite entitled "to argue for keeping all such categories at CfD that are in any way reasonable", but not to rewrite the guidelines until consensus changes.
    DGG's proposal also confuses the notabbility of the competition with the notability of the winners; the two may sometimes be connected, but it ain't necessarily so, --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:45, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Support DGG's changes [1] actually make sense. Why have categories for the big awards people will most likely notice any attempts to remove, but not for other awards? Dream Focus 08:44, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Support The principle behind DGG's proposed changes is sound. The wording needs tweaking to deal with awards that are not competitions. --NSH001 (talk) 15:49, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose By their nature people can win a great many wards. This can lead to a category getting cluttered with a great many award categories. In general it seems best to just avoid award catgories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:36, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
  • If we are going to create a rule allowing awards categories maybe they should be generally limited to the top awards in the field. Otherwise we have the potential of having people in many categories for progressively more prestigeous awards. However I am not even sure if this is a good idea. I really think that listifying most awards winners is the best answer.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:39, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I think this needs your attention, there is no example given for deleted awards categories, whereas every other section has at least one. I have looked over the recent edit summary and could find no trace of this line disappearing. Is this an oversight or are there no examples as there is some disagreement as to what awards categories should be deleted? CaptainScreebo Parley! 14:33, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Award recipients

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Overcategorization § Awards (again)
 – —Bagumba (talk) 01:35, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I support the guideline but what are the criteria to allow still an award recipient category? The current definition just mention that there are a few exceptions:

People can and do receive awards and/or honors throughout their lives. In general (though there are a few exceptions to this), recipients of an award should be grouped in a list rather than a category.

-- SchreyP (messages) 22:16, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

  • The exception seems to be "the award is internationally recognized as the top award in the field, widely recognized outside the field, and seen to be a truly prestigious award". However I think we should go a step further and delete all awards cats. I really do not think there is a point in having a category for nobel prize winners. A list works just fine, and having awards cats just leads to people who get awards being in way more categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:30, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
And that is exactly what has happened. But I think the community consensus would be towards having more categories rather than fewer. StAnselm (talk) 20:41, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
This conflicts with WP:CLN, which says that overlapping lists and categories can exist. A stated advantage of categories is "Good for exploratory browsing of Wikipedia.". When Category:Award winners exists, it seems appropriate that readers would want to drill down to winners via categories, and not be force to go to a list. It would be more objective to limit categories by notable awards that have articles that meet WP:GNG or WP:LISTN, than to limit it further by "prestigious" awards that are reduced to WP:ILIKEIT or WP:IDONTLIKEIT debates.—Bagumba (talk) 17:59, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
The first paragraph of CLN says "... each method of organizing information ... is applied ... following the guidelines and standards that have evolved on Wikipedia for each of these systems." and the 4th para of CLN refers to WP:OC. It is therefore incorrect to say that CLN and OC are contradictory. WP:DEFINING says "One of the central goals of the categorization system is to categorize articles by their defining characteristics", award categories often contain articles that don't even mention the award - why, for example, is the CERN article in Category:Blue plaques ? This can occur with other categories, but is particularly prevalent with awards (example). DexDor (talk) 21:51, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Let's limit this thread to OC#AWARD specifically. Was the motivation to disallow most awards because some awards categories included members that were not verifiable? However, we have categories that sometimes have more damning BLPN issues with sexual orientation or religious beliefs, but we would not disallow those categories due to a few problems. Remove the uncertified members, don't eliminate categories.—Bagumba (talk)
I don't know the reasons (apart from what's on the linked CFDs), but verifiability isn't (IMO) the main problem. Take an article like Eiffel Tower - its WP:DEFINING characteristics (the things one expects to see in the lead) are being metal, a tower, a visitor attraction, in Paris etc; being a "Work designated as Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers" is not a defining characteristic (in fact, it's not even mentioned in the article). A similar category demonstrates another problem - only about 7% of the recipients of the award are in the category so anybody who is interested in what's received the award is much better off looking at the list article (which can be sorted in various ways, has explanatory information etc). DexDor (talk) 20:23, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
I take it that you are striking your earlier concern of "award categories often contain articles that don't even mention the award".—Bagumba (talk) 03:08, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Categories being incomplete should not be the motivation to delete them. There is no deadline. The category should be completed, not deleted. Lists and categories can co-exist.—Bagumba (talk) 03:08, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
No, it appears that you have not understood my comments. One problem with award categories is that often for the person/thing receiving the award it is so irrelevant/trivial that it's not mentioned in the article (and certainly not in the lead) and hence the article shouldn't be in the category (the Eiffel tower example). Some awards are given to people/things that do not currently, and may never, have a WP article - hence a list is better as it can be complete. There are a few awards (e.g. Nobel Prizes) where neither of these concerns apply (i.e. the award is normally/always referred to in the lead/text and the recipient is always sufficiently notable to have a WP article). DexDor (talk) 05:23, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


Overcategorisation from orders, decorations and medals categories?

I've started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Categorization#Overcategorisation from orders, decorations and medals categories?. --Paul_012 (talk) 17:48, 14 June 2012 (UTC)


material copied from Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Archive 15

I'd like some guidance on Wikipedia policy with regard to categorization of biography articles as far as the subject of the article's having been awarded honorary memberships, or otherwise recognized for achievements. How does WP:DEFINING apply in these cases? Many editors seem to be completely ignoring that rule of categorization in applying categories to articles.

An example is the Ban Ki-Moon article, which includes Category:Grand Crosses of the Order of Rio Branco and the Category:Grand Cross of the Order of the Sun (Peru) as well as the Category:Order of Friendship (Kazakhstan). Are any of these orders defining for Ban Ki-moon? Would his belonging to these orders be noteworthy enough that they should be mentioned in the lead for his article? Should not, under the guidelines, membership in these orders be included in WP in list form rather than by categorization?

If the consensus is to keep these forms of categories on the bio pages, then shouldn't the Categorization guideline page (and related guidelines pages) be modified to indicate that a different guideline is operative for honorary orders and similar non-defining categories? Dezastru (talk) 01:03, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I think all we have in the way of guidelines is WP:OC#AWARD, which just says that it's only the exceptional award that merits a category, and all others should be dealt with only by lists. And the question is whether the category should exist or not, not whether it should or shouldn't be applied to some individuals for whom it may be factually applicable but relatively unimportant. For the three you gave examples of above, taking a quick look at them, I'd be surprised if any survived at CFD, though note also that we're dealing with guidelines and not "rules", which is why anyone can create these kinds of categories and it's possible that there might be a consensus at CFD to keep them. postdlf (talk) 02:31, 24 November 2012 (UTC)



About Award recipients as a criterion of overcategorization

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Overcategorization § Awards (again)
 – —Bagumba (talk) 01:35, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Isn't it a bit vague, given that there are so many exceptions in Category:Award winners?--Inspector (talk) 03:33, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

The one thing that can be agreed upon by almost everyone is that not every award should have a category for its recipients. Where the disagreement begins is what are the categories for awards that should exist, and so far the only way that has been dealt with is case-by-case. Just because a category exists doesn't mean consensus would support its existence, so you have to be careful about figuring out whether a given category has been discussed before or not. Good Ol’factory (talk) 03:57, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm in favour of removing the "See also Category:Award winners" bit as it may encourage people to look there, find a category for a minor award and create a category for an even more minor award. We could also provide more guidance by changing the paragraph to something like:
Exceptions include Category:Nobel laureates and Category:Academy Award winners (these are internationally recognised as being the most prestigious awards in their fields).
DexDor (talk) 23:26, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I really see no reason why we should have any award categories. I think the nobel categories would be better just as lists. It would cut down on category clutter. We should limit categorization to what people did, not include awards they recieved at all. It would also make a much clearer rule. We could then apply the same to reciepients of medals and other distinctions that seem to be allowed way more than awards.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:05, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Are you in favour of the change I proposed above - as a step in the right direction ? DexDor (talk) 08:36, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
I would love to see something similar for albums and songs, too, with all the categorization by gold and platinum certification in a multitude of countries. See 21 (Adele album)...ugh! --StarcheerspeaksnewslostwarsTalk to me 00:38, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
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