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== Cycles ==

I found a cycle in the {{ccl|Universe}} subcategories tree: {{ccl|Universe}} --> {{ccl|Cosmology}} --> {{ccl|Physical cosmology}} --> {{ccl|Universe}}. I read somewhere that cycles should usually be avoided, but cannot find this advice in the guideline. What is the best course of action? --] (]) 15:50, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

:I call these nested categories, and it's a big problem in articles were people places multiple categories that are related (i.e., one being a sub of another). Articles should be placed in the lowest level category possible. I usually remove the higher level category. Multiple subcategories within a category are fine if the fork is appropriately related to the article. People sometimes search for articles or subject in different ways. I should have stated that this does not mean that ] should not be considered. --]<sup>]</sup> 16:01, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

:Universe seems like more of a list category to me, so I would delete Cosmology as a subcategory of Universe, following ]:
::''Although it is clear that a list category page might be subcategorized under that subject, it would incorrect to do it vice versa (to subcategorize a topic category under a list category).''
:&mdash;] (]) 19:01, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

::Done, thanks.--] (]) 16:46, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

== Concerns ==

I'm a little concerned about how categories such as ] and ] are used.

They came to my attention because of edits to an article about a former cabinet member whom I knew (his family and mine were friends for many years). He was of Jewish descent, his wife was of Scottish descent, and they and their sons were all Unitarians (as were we).

I don't know what's going on with the categories, but I have to ask: are they being populated on the basis that some names just "look Jewish" or what? – ] ] 20:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

:I think this sort of thing has been a perennial problem. Users often justify the existence of potentially problematic categories like this by saying inclusion can and should be based on reliable and neutral sources, but when it comes right down to it there are a lot of categories that are applied fairly willy-nilly, since any user can add them. ] <sup>]</sup> 21:48, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

:: Wouldn't it help if Misplaced Pages required that ''only'' when significant and reliable sources substantiate that any biographical subjects are or were practicing Jews can they be included in such categories? – ] ] 00:08, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

:::It would. I know at ] there is a policy regarding religion categories for living people—that religion categories should only be applied to a biography of a living person if: (1) The subject publicly self-identifies with the belief; and (2) The subject's beliefs are relevant to the subject's notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources. I've found that problems arise, though, because some users claim to be applying "Jews" categories as an ''ethnic'' background as opposed to a religion, they claim that whether the person observes the religion or not is irrelevant. If the person isn't living, I'm not aware of any policies that limit the way these categories are applied. ] <sup>]</sup> 01:14, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

:::: The {{tl|category relevant?}} and {{tl|category unsourced}} templates discussed at some length in ] (linked above in the Miscellaneous comments / Documentation section) may help as well. – ] ] 01:25, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

See upmerger nomination of {{cl|Jewish members of the Cabinet of the United States}} at ]. --] <small>] • (])</small> 13:37, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

== Categorising human settlements ==

A series of discussions at CFD over the last few days have revealed a number of problems in the naming conventions of the top-level categories for inhabited human settlements.

The issues are too wide-ranging to be resolved in the format of a CFD discussion, so I have opened a centralised discussion at ] to try to find a consensus on how to proceed.

Your contributions will be welcome. --] <small>] • (])</small> 22:39, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

== Eponymous categories for countries ==

(discussion moved from ])

Hi, what's with removing all the African countries from the category of African countries? According to ], they ought to be there.--] (]) 09:02, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

:Removing the articles for the pages of African countries from ] is not subject to the ''guideline'' at ]. When considering the category form a navigation point of view for ] it makes no sense to have a sub-category ''and'' article in ]. -- ] (]) - 09:08, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
::On the contrary, it makes no sense to take away the most relevant category from these pages. If you're a reader at, say, ], you're very likely to want to go to the category of all African countries (probably more than any other category), and we shouldn't make people guess that they have to go through the epoymous category to get there. This is exactly the situatino the guideline is talking about; we had an RFC on it last year and this was the consensus. Please don't do any more of these removals until it's clear that consensus has changed (e.g. through another RFC).--] (]) 09:12, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

:::The categories I removed, and the navigation function that you are referring to, is best handled by a template - in this case {{tl|Countries of Africa}}. -- ] (]) - 09:18, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
::::That's probably true, but once people are used to looking for categories for this sort of thing, we shouldn't take that option away from them and, again, expect them to guess that they're supposed to look for a navbox.--] (]) 09:21, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

:::::Readers can still get to ] if they click on the category name for the country and then the link to ]. Alternatively they can do a search for "African countries" which will take tham to ] via a redirect. It makes no sense to have an article and a sub-category of the same name in a category. The sub-cats are the first to be viewed followed by the pages in the category. Because of this order the subcats are more "powerful" and the pages are "subservient". Therefore, for navigation (especially to avoid cluttering up the cats and remembering there is only 200 links per cat) it is best to avoid the repetition of the subcat names as article in the category. -- ] (]) - 09:31, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

:::::{{tl|Countries of Africa}} is part of the footer templates. A reader will use templates and categories for navigation. -- ] (]) - 09:45, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
:::We have no idea where a reader wants to go after reading an article and to say a reader wants to go to the article about a different African country is pure conjecture. It may be the case ''on occasion'' that a reader wants to go from an article on one African country to another but that is but one of many directions a reader may choose to take. -- ] (]) - 09:42, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
::::Yes, so why take that option away (or at least, make it more difficult) just because of the totally irrelevant circumstance that the eponymous category happens to have been made a subcategory of this category? (It's quite illogical for it to be a subcategory - if we wanted to avoid the double-level categorization, we should move the eponymous categories out of the African countries category, where they have no logical business being, into something like "Category:African country categories".)--] (]) 09:58, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
:::::I must say that I side with Alan on this one. Kotniski, could you please detail why is "illogical for to be a subcategory" of "Cat:Countries of Africa"? To me it seems perfectly logical, but I'm willing to reconsider my position :) --] <sup>]</sup> 08:29, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
::::::Well, "Cat:Countries of Africa" should contain articles whose subjects are countries of Africa, and "Cat:Country X" should contain articles whose subjects are connected with Country X. The second is not in any way a subset of the first. (Example: ] belongs under ], but not under ], since Cairo is not a country.) I can tolerate this illogicality in itself, but the harm shouldn't then be compounded by using it as a reason to take articles out of categories to which they most definitely belong.--] (]) 08:38, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
:::::::I don't understand how this bothers you so much. It is assumed that only a category's direct children are explicitly members of the class it represents. The nesting property exists for purposes of navigation, not classification. In fact, not even the direct children of a category should be *instances* of the class the category represents, but merely topics related to it. For example: Most of the entries ] has as children (both articles and categories) are not automobiles; they're related topics.
::::::::That's because the automobiles category is treated as a topic category, rather than a set category (see ] for definitions). generally speaking though, categories with plural names are set categories. And the nesting property most certainly does exist for classification (see the way most set categories are broken down ''systematically'' into subcategories) - overloading it with a navigational function is generally frowned on (though I'm prepared to tolerate it as long as it doesn't result in navigation actually being made worse, as it is if you start taking articles out of their natural categories).--] (]) 10:45, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

:::::::As for harm in taking articles out of categories, I don't see why that's so harmful: from the article side, you still have the navboxes to access the other countries (in fact, that's even more convenient, 'cause you can see the remaining countries directly from the page you are, without having to navigate to the category page first; and from the category side, you still have Cat:Egypt under Cat:Countries of Africa, and there you'll find the article on Egypt. I would only see harm if no nav template is left to fit the navigational role the category was performing. --] <sup>]</sup> 10:18, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
::::::::You can't always see the navboxes, sometimes there aren't navboxes, people looking for categories shouldn't be expected to guess that on a particular occasion they have to look for a navbox instead. From the category page, why force people to make an extra click? I don't see the benefit of removing these articles from the category - except if, as Alan says - though not the case here - the combined list goes over 200 items, but then it's more logical and helpful to take the eponymous categories away (people can still find ''them'' with one extra click if they're desired, and people are less likely to be looking for them under a category of countries than for the country articles themselves), rather than take the articles away.--] (]) 10:45, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
{{outdent|10}}
You have good points there. I can't say I'm convinced, but I won't insist further on the issue, either. Besides, we can't reenact the RFC here. I guess the real issue here is that the category system has a fundamental flaw in this respect, but I can't point to the correct solution (to be honest, I haven't actually stopped to think of one). Anyway, I'll leave it to you and Alan. Thanks for taking the time to reply to my queries and present your views. --] <sup>]</sup> 13:03, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

:Theoretically speaking, the "correct" answer would be to do something like creating a Topic namespace. ] and categories for individual countries would be subcategories of ], and the individual country cats would be in the Topic namespace, e.g. ]. The Uganda article would be a member of both ] and ], and likewise for other country articles. Even if that's not feasible with the current software, any solution has to separate subjects that are members of a category from other subjects that are related to those subjects.
:PS: A quick-n-dirty hack would be to create categories with "(topic)" at the end of the name, e.g. ].
:&mdash;] (]) 12:37, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

::Codrdan, that sounds interesting, but I wonder if one wouldn't be able to find counterexamples... --] <sup>]</sup> 16:53, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

:::Maybe, I don't know. A topic is basically just a category of things related to whatever the topic is named after, and everything is related to itself, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. The only dark thought I've had about the subject is that a lot of the category tree might wind up being duplicated by a new topic tree. :) &mdash;] (]) 17:21, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Hello. What I noticed about the removal of this category from African countries is that it resulted in an inconsistency: France is still part of the category Countries of Europe and Suriname is still part of the category South American countries. However one continent is treated, the others should be treated the same. ] (]) 14:37, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

*] was the previous discussion of this matter (the advantages and disadvantages of the various approaches are set out there).--] (]) 08:44, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

:This disagreement seems--on both sides--to stem from some kind of ideological vision of what the category system should be rather than an pragmatic observation of what it most functionally is. It makes perfect sense to have an article and its eponymous subcategory in the same categories because they are the same topic, and thus should be categorized in the same way, so as to connect the same relationships and allow for the same navigation. It's not a relevant answer that a template can do the same job or do it better when no valid reason has been given as to why it shouldn't ''also'' be done by a category. A reader of an article should be able to immediately see what categories that topic is connected to, not just that it has its own group of subtopics in an eponymous category.
:It also makes perfect sense for single-topic categories to be placed in categories of which they are members, such as ] being in ], because Egypt is an African country. No one would expect ] then in turn to contain more African countries even if someone had never heard of Egypt, because nothing about its name suggests that. And even to the extent it is useful to think of different kinds of categories as either topic categories or group/series categories, this is not an absolute or concrete distinction, and nothing inherent to the category system requires us to treat this as such. There is no practical reason that they should not intersect where relevant and useful, and no reason to think that this would be confusing to anyone. ''All'' categories reflect topics; that some topics are primarily defined as a group of subtopics is no reason to segregate them from those that aren't and thus fragment the category structure (or place obtuse and unnecessary qualifiers on them, such as "topic"). That some editors somehow find this conceptually impure is really not a legitimate concern. ''']''' ('']'') 18:18, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

::> ''ideological vision of what the category system should be''
::The category system is a system of categories. There's no need to philosophise about it.
::> ''an article and its eponymous subcategory ... are the same topic''
::No they're not. An article is about a specific subject. Its eponymous category is about anything related to that subject, and those other subjects are not usually the same kind of thing as the subject itself. For instance, people from a given country are people, not countries.
::> ''A reader of an article should be able to immediately see what categories that topic is connected to''
::That's a good argument for including horizontal links, which can be done with navboxes. It's a great idea.
::> ''It also makes perfect sense for ... Category:Egypt being in Category:African countries, because Egypt is an African country.''
::No, No, No. Other than the ] article, ''none'' of the articles in ] is about an African country. They're about other things that are related to Egypt, but none of those things are themselves countries. Regular categories with plural names are supposed to be sets of things of the same kind, not topics containing all subjects related to those things.
::> ''topic categories or group/series categories, this is not an absolute or concrete distinction''
::Sure it is. A category is a set of things, and a topic includes anything related to those things. Categories and topics are obviously different things.
::> ''All categories reflect topics''
::Sorry, but that's just not what a category is. A category is a set, not a topic. Topic categories are really a crude hack in the category system. Each topic category should have "Things pertaining to" prepended to its name to make it a real category.
::> ''That some editors somehow find this conceptually impure is really not a legitimate concern.''
::Nice try :)
::&mdash;] (]) 19:50, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

:::A "specific subject" like ] is about the ], the ], the ].... If it couldn't be divided into substantive subtopics, then it wouldn't merit its own eponymous category.
:::"Each topic category should have 'Things pertaining to' prepended to its name to make it a real category." This is what I'm talking about. You act as if the kids are running the streets in confusion, thinking that ] contains countries of Africa (or upset that it does not!), because its parent ] is in ]. And adding the words "things pertaining to" would get the kids down off the ledge? I've never seen a sign of any such confusion, only a completely abstract complaint raised by a few that it is conceptually unsound to nest subtopics of a member of a series within that series. Just words. Apart from being in no way dictated by the way categories work (or by the word "category"), it is completely at odds with the whole point of categories, to aid navigation and editing through the grouping of related articles. By your logic, ] should not contain anything but ]; ] are not Egypt, and so should not be included therein. These are all just words, completely divorced from any practical considerations so far as I have seen demonstrated. ''']''' ('']'') 20:22, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

::::> ''By your logic, Category:Egypt should not contain anything but Egypt''
::::Good, at least you understand what I said. There seems to be a tacit understanding on Misplaced Pages, whether people know it or not, that categories with singular names are really topics, so the only thing I have to say about singular categories is that their names aren't quite correct. Obviously it would be stupid to have categories with only one article, so my acceptance of singular-name categories has nothing to do with theoretical logic. The problem we're having now is that you're trying to extend the informal topic-as-category model to plural-name categories, which really are categories.
::::Anyway, it's obvious that our disagreement is about the meaning of the word "category", so there's no point in trying to convince each other with logical arguments. The fact of the matter is that you're wrong as far as the definition is concerned, which you can discover by looking the word up in a dictionary, and we should also have some way of distinguishing between topics and real categories. BUT, I think you make a perfectly reasonable point that most people probably think in terms of topics rather than categories, so it might be good to somehow emphasize topics more. The only thing I don't like is your approach of trying to force topic pegs into category holes. It's a misuse of the terminology, so I would prefer an approach that explicitly uses the word "topic" to refer to topics.
::::&mdash;] (]) 21:29, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

*'''Opinion'''. Keep the articles in the categories of the same name. That makes the most sense from a practical standpoint, i.e. if we are considering what users would expect to find in a category. We can theorize about why this is wrong until the cows come home, but I think it's kind of a pointless exercise. ] <sup>]</sup> 20:50, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
*'''Comment'''. I agree with Good Olfactory: there's too much theology here, which unnecessarily complicates a fairly simple issue. Categories are a navigational tool, which group articles and categories related to a particular topic. The principle set out in ] is perhaps not perfectly worded, but it is still quite simple: don't take an article out a category it would otherwise be in just because it has an eponymous category. Categorise the article as if the eponymous categ did not exist, and add it to the eponymous category too. That's all.<br />Doing things this way means that a reader looking at {{cl|African countries}} has direct access to an article on each of countries without having to open up a sub-category. A navbox template is great, but it's a useful alternative, not a replacement for the category. --] <small>] • (])</small> 22:03, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
*Personally I think a category like ] should only contain the country articles and not their eponymous categories. <s>The subcategories should only be those that group other characteristic like ]. That way there is a list of counties to navigate by and subcategories for any charismatic that have been determined by editors to be needed.</s> ] (]) 22:27, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


Coming in late. Can't be bothered reading ''all'' of the above, though I've read much of it. This problem has been around for years. I think people let it go because they think it is too hard to solve, but actually it is pretty easy to solve. ] is an African country. Not everything in ] is an African country. But everything in ] is an African topic, sorted by country. This analysis yields the following category structure:
<pre>
Egypt —> Category:African countries
| |
v v
Category:Egypt —> Category:African topics by country
</pre>
Simple, accurate, correct. ] 23:37, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
:If I'm reading that correctly, yes! What are the parents for ]? ] (]) 02:52, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
::For now, ]. Once other countries and continents get treated the same way, then also ]. ] 03:10, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

:That's good. Maybe, for use in future discussions like this one, we could expand the text in the guideline about plural and singular names? So we don't have to rehash the subject every time? &mdash;] (]) 07:15, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

== Applicability of restrictions imposed on categories for their grandchildren. ==

Hi, at the moment ] is a child of which in turn is a child of which is a child of . This has been used as a rationale to add the ] category directly to ], even though the literature, via ], seems to indicate that this is unsupported by serious sources. While it is clear that ] is based in pseudoscience, it is not clear that ] is not better seen as or similar. Any thoughts on this? ] (]) 04:25, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
:Two answers. One, if we view categories as absolute ], then subcategories ''always'' inheriting the characteristics of their parent categories, no matter how many generations up, because a subcategory is nothing but a subset of the parent category. This would mean that ] is already "in" ], in which case ] should ''not'' be placed on ] because it would then be redundant, like putting France in ] and ]. Two, if we instead view subcategories more loosely, as a matter of topical relationships and hierarchies rather than as absolute sets, then there isn't necessarily a strict inheritance. This latter view seems more relevant here, both because it isn't possible to definitively state the whole universe of paranormal or pseudoscience topics, and because the topics overlap, but the paranormal is not exclusively a pseudoscience topic. Which would just leave you with a discussion on ] as to whether ] is an appropriate category based purely on the appropriateness of the label for ] rather than on any inevitability of the category structure. ''']''' ('']'') 04:53, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

:Are you really just asking about Ghost, or are you questioning whether or not Paranormal belongs under Pseudoscience? &mdash;] (]) 07:05, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

::I really am asking about ], there is no question in my mind that many articles in Paranormal are rightly called pseudoscience, but there are a number which strike me as falling outside the definition such as ] and indeed many of the articles in the ] consider : ], ], ], ], ], ] and many many more. You bring up a good point though, it does seem as though paranormal perhaps does not belong under pseudoscience, but that the pseudoscience label should be applied individually or to categories which are more definitively pseudoscience. ] (]) 08:05, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

:::Just for the record, what Postdlf said about topics not inheriting from their parents is incorrect. Topics are defined more broadly than categories, but they inherit just as strictly. Anyway, Paranormal is already a child of Folklore, and the boxes at the top of the Paranormal, Pseudoscience, and Folklore pages all say "Articles in this category should be moved to subcategories" and "This category ... should list very few, if any, article pages directly", so the Pseudoscience category declaration should be deleted and Folklore should not be added. The Ghosts declaration indicates that Ghost is already a member of all three parent categories: Paranormal, Pseudoscience, and Folklore. The only real question is about the relationship between pseudoscience and the paranormal. &mdash;] (]) 09:05, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

::::So what would the solution be? Move the truly pseudoscientific subjects from paranormal to a new category and remove pseudoscience as a parent of paranormal? ] (]) 12:12, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

:::::You mean something like "paranormal pseudoscience"? Maybe so. I started a new section for those categories. &mdash;] (]) 13:13, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

::::That's not unanimously the practice, based on how people categorize and on how people describe category relationships (even at CFD). Whether it should be is another question than whether it is. But how strictly people view it I think depends on the particular category tree we're talking about. ''']''' ('']'') 13:00, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

:::::There's a lot of sloppiness in the category system, so I won't argue with you about current practices. I just don't want people to think it has to be that way. &mdash;] (]) 13:13, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

We don't need a solution because there is no problem other than the general one that it's not clear what the category system is for. Even being in the pseudoscience category itself doesn't imply that something ''is'' pseudoscience, it could just be related. For something that is only in a subcategory, the presumption that it is a pseudoscience itself is even weaker. In the case of ] that's exactly what we need: Ghosts are somehow related to pseudoscience, but not strongly. ] ] 11:35, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

== Is the paranormal pseudoscience? ==

* ] raised a question in ] about whether ] is defined in terms of fake claims of scientific basis (]), or whether the ideas involved can be intrinsically ]. If there's ''not'' always a claim of some scientific basis, then ] shouldn't be a subcategory of ], and if there ''is'', shouldn't the ] declaration be deleted, since Folklore is an ancestor of Pseudoscience and Folklore is marked {{tl|catdiffuse}}? I know the template only mentions articles, so maybe there should also be some disambiguation about whether or not it's also intended to apply to descendant categories. &mdash;] (]) 13:03, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

:* This question was prompted by a discussion on ]. A number of arguments have been presented and at the moment the consensus seems to be that ] is either ''not'' pseudoscience or that only a part of the topic can be considered pseudoscience. ] (]) 06:04, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

::* The paranormal part of the subject is considered pseudoscience. The ] (NSF), in their 2006 report, equated "paranormal" with "pseudoscience" in an interesting manner. They quoted from a Gallup Poll that only used the term "paranormal", and then labelled all the beliefs in that poll "pseudoscientific beliefs". Very interesting and obviously conscious use of words by the supreme scientific body in the USA. . This is an authoritative use of the words that should not be ignored, in spite of the fact that Ludwigs2 has stated "''that the NSF screwed it up once.''" No, the NSF didn't screw anything up. They are an authoritative source on such a subject, and two RfCs have stated this to be true. -- ] (]) 06:53, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

:::* With respect, If they somehow believe that destroying the nuance of language and thought is the way to improve appreciation of the sciences then something is very very wrong. Again, please read ]. I agree that the NSF is an RS on their statement but that does not necessarily mean that our categorization religiously follows it, especially in the light of an to their use being or eccentric. ] (]) 09:31, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

::::* They screwed up on this one, either they were wrong or made misleading shortcuts; and there are plenty of reliable sources which contradict them. That source is simply not valid for this and shouldn't be used to push a pseudoscientific viewpoint of our folklore/tradition. In any case, they considered the subject in a pseudoscientific context, while ''we'' as an encyclopaedia should consider it in a historical and global context. ] (]) 16:35, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

* The paranormal is closely related to, and contains much that is, pseudoscience. The categorisation is not a definition and is clearly appropriate. <span style="font-family:Papyrus">] <small>]</small></span> 08:13, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

:* Verbal, it is true that categorization is not a definition, indeed it is a navigational aid, this doesn't help support the value of the NSF paper in our decision making process.

::* In the section above and in the discussion on ] it has been ventured that a new category fx ] should be created for articles which are uncontroversially pseudoscience, this would avoid confusion going forwards. ] (]) 09:29, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

:The question is, does "science" automatically entail an adherence to a monist materialist ontology, as the NSF statement seems to imply (that is, we believe that there is no physical explanation for something, therefore believing in that thing is in some way not scientific). Is science a method or a belief system? ] (]) 08:50, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

::* That's close to where they're wrong or misleading, believing in extra-scientific concepts doesn't imply believing in their pseudoscientific explanation, in any case it was irrelevant centuries ago and we should adopt a historical, as well as global, neutral point of view as an encyclopaedia, and it's evident NSF was only concerned with the pseudoscientific modern aspect of those subjects, so is not valid source in any case. ] (]) 16:35, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

:::* I think you're right to some degree. In the pre-scientific era, critical thinking hardly existed and wasn't expected in the general population, so belief was just belief. There were no recognized errors in judgment involved. It was purely simplistic thinking. The NSF statement is written in a modern context and is labelling modern beliefs in such things (listed in a modern Gallup Poll of paranormal beliefs) as "pseudoscientific beliefs". While this isn't directly applicable to this discussion of categorization, it does affect how this information and the NSF source can be used and dealt with in the ] article. As with all meta articles, it should cover the whole subject, and only if one portion is so large it overwhelms the article and causes undue weight problems, should that information be split off into a fork article. Until that happens (it's a small article at present), the article should cover the historical and social aspects, and note that in modern times the scientific community (which hardly existed previously) considers such beliefs (in modern times) as psi beliefs. That puts things in context, because people are living under a different paradigm in this age of enlightenment, and they are expected to benefit from and use critical thinking, and thinking that is informed by the advances in scientific knowledge and the widespread use of the scientific method by ordinary people, even if they don't realize it. Thus the article can deal with the subject as a non-pseudoscientific historical subject, and as a modern pseudoscientific subject. Times change, expectations change, and the article should discuss that fact. -- ] (]) 01:40, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

* I disagree with the idea of ]. It would be a trivial category intersection. ] must remain in ] anyway, because in general paranormal is dominated by pseudoscience. ] ] 11:38, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

:* I agree with Hans. That was very well put. -- ] (]) 01:18, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

::*If it would be the case that "in general paranormal is dominated by pseudoscience", then that wouldn't be enough for ] to remain in ] because you've just got an overlap; you've not got one fitting entirely inside the other. Putting those categories one inside the other would be like putting ] inside a hypothetical category ]:sure, there's significant overlap but that ignores the existence of flightless birds. And that's jsut assuming the truth of your statement. ] (]) 02:07, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

:::* To solve that problem, we coud just make them parallel members of ]. ] is already a member. -- ] (]) 00:57, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

*'''Paranormal is not pseudoscience'''. A paranormal concept like Ghost or UFO is not pseudo-science. It is a concept or a belief. An attempt to prove or disprove a paranormal effect through scientific methods is science. An attempt to prove existence of a paranormal effect through unscientific methods is pseudo-science, as is an attempt to prove anything through unscientific methods. Articles on the unscientific experiments belong in the pseudo-science category, but not the subject of the experiment. Suppose there was a group who claimed to have experimental proof that eating rhubarb prevents AIDS. An article on the experiments and the skeptical reaction to them might well belong in the "pseudoscience" category. Rhubarb does not. ] (]) 14:50, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

:* I disagree. Ghosts and UFOs are not pseudoscience because they are not normally treated as worthy of "scientific" study. But they are examples of paranormal, and sufficiently so that they fall into that category. Now it happens that if you look at ghosts and UFOs ''as paranormal topics'', that then they are pseudoscience because when you think of them in that context you are thinking more of ghost hunters and alien abduction than of Hamlet and Star Trek. ] ] 15:11, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

::* I am not quite sure what your concern is, the problem at the moment is that there is no way to explicitly exclude an article from a grandparent category, so we need neater demarcations. It simply doesn't make sense to have ] considered pseudoscience. It wouldn't matter that much except that there are certain ramifications to editors and article content of being in the pseudoscience branch. We can move the truly pseudoscientific articles into a better category in an orderly fashion, use the ''article summary inclusion trick'' to retain control of where they intersect non-pseudoscience articles. I agree that many articles in the paranormal category are strongly related to pseudoscience, but I doubt it is most. Witness the majority of articles within ], ](dragons, pseudoscience, really?). According to our present situation ] is under Arbcom pseudoscience restrictions, so are 350+ Ghost Films and 127 fictional ghosts. The navigational value of going from ] to ] is not particularly convincing. ] (]) 16:07, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

:::* Grandparent categories are ''only'' a problem if you read anything more into them than that you can navigate to them in two steps. Normally not even the categories an article is in should be considered in this way. It would make perfect sense to put ] into ]. Not because he did any pseudoscience, but because he laid the foundations for dealing with whether something is a pseudoscience or not. (At the moment the article on him doesn't even discuss pseudoscience, though, so people would be a bit puzzled.) We had a similar discussion with the LGBT category, which can also mean "this guy hates the gay" (no big problem) or "this person is part of the LGBT debate because some people think they should properly out themselves" (huge BLP problem).

::::* The reason categories immediately applied to an article are a problem is that one can see them on the article and people being to speculate about why they are there if it's not obvious. With grandparent categories it's clear why they are grandparents: "OK, Mogwai is in Ghosts, that makes sense. Ghosts is in Paranormal, that makes sense. Are Mogwais paranormal? No idea. Paranormal is in Pseudoscience, that makes sense. Are Mogwais pseudoscience? Obviously not, but of course that's not intended here." ] ] 19:06, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

:::::* Unomi, if you ''really'' want to pursue this further, then '''please''' discuss this with categories about non-contentious things. Discuss it with fruits and vegetables and food. Or with cities and states and countries and villages and towns. Or anything. You will find odd corner cases and counter-examples everywhere, and as soon as you start talking about them there is disruption. Don't mix this with the pseudoscience disruption that we have already.] ] 19:11, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

: Many of the articles in the "paranormal" category are also in the "pseudoscience" category, and many are not. The article on ], the movie, belongs in the "Ghost movie" category, and by inheritance in "Ghost" and "Paranormal", but does not belong in "pseudoscience". The movie is not an pseudo-scientific attempt to prove the existence of ghosts. It is a movie. The article on ] links to ], the main article for a category with the same name, which is correctly included in "Psychology", "Paranormal" and "Pseudoscience". Two categories may include a significant set of articles that belong in both. That does not mean either category belongs in the other. Many religions include beliefs that may be categorized as paranormal. Few claim that these beliefs can be tested scientifically. Why needlessly insult the believers? (Hit an edit conflict when I went to save this. Think I am strongly agreeing with Unomi.) ] (]) 16:14, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

*'''Paranormal is not pseudoscience''' While most of the attempted explanations of paranormal subjects are pseudoscientific in nature, it doesn't mean those subjects are themselves pseudoscience. Put otherwise, the targets of pseudoscience, be they real, folklore, fiction or otherwise, are not themselves pseudoscience (except if originating and considered only in pseudoscientific contexts). For example, the earth is not pseudoscience, even if some people think it's flat and use pseudoscience to 'prove' it. Ghosts are no more pseudoscience, they are beings of folklore. They are viewed as paranormal beings in our modern cultures, but this aspect is minor compared to the historical cultural/folklore aspect, and the pseudoscientific aspect of ghosts is extremely minor in comparison. We should definitely not present a pseudoscientific viewpoint of our folklore/tradition. Now as whether ] should be a subcategory of ], most paranormal topics have been subject to pseudoscience, but they're not pseudoscientific in themselves and pseudoscience is not essential for most of them (with some exceptions), I don't think pseudoscience is essential enough to paranormal, and one can see in the article ] that pseudoscience is only trivially mentioned, thus it should not be a surcategory, and it would be against the ] since most articles in ] are not expected to be in ], though that guideline is hardly followed in practice. Agree with Unomi and Aymatth2. In any case, the POV pushing for presenting folklore and tradition objects, or the belief in them, such as ], ], ] or ], as pseudoscientific should stop. Pseudoscience is of extremely minor relevance to them. ] (]) 16:35, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

*Maybe this discussion deserves its own page. You might be interested in ]. ] (]) 09:46, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

=== Arbcom has abolished NPOV in this area ===
'''Comment'''. Clearly, there are different views on whether the paranormal should be classified as pseudoscience, but the same applies to much of what is labelled pseudoscience. By categorising fields of study as study as "pseudoscience",[REDACTED] is making a thoroughly POV editorial judgement in favour of one side of a debate

We wouldn't do this in other fields: businesses and bankers are not categorised according to the language of Marxist analysis, nor are non-Christian people categorised as ]. Why is this area allowed to retain such a POV categoristaion structure? Because arbcom says so.

The arbcom ruling summarised in the box at ] explicitly says "Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience."

Looking at the ], I see that the first principle is "Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view, a fundamental policy, requires fair representation of all significant points of view regarding the subject of an article" ... and the next one is "Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view, a fundamental policy, requires fair representation of significant alternatives to scientific orthodoxy. Significant alternatives, in this case, refers to legitimate scientific disagreement, as opposed to pseudoscience".

In other words, NPOV goes out the window when scientists call something pseudo science. By the same logic, non-Catholic christian ministers should be labelled as "pseudo-clergy", because the ] does not recognise the validity of their ordinations.

And before the denunciations start flying, no I don't have any interest in UFOs or astrology or any of the topics in {{cl|Pseudoscience}}. I just don't like seeing one belief system being or intellectual approach being categorised according to the derogatory labels of those who follow a different path. We might as well categorise the ] under {{cl|Blasphemy}}, since that's what some critics of Catholicism call it. --] <small>] • (])</small> 17:53, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
:Many ideologues and fundamentalists would claim that by presenting their claims to absolute truth as equal to others, we are adopting a POV no matter our claims of neutrality. The fact is that Misplaced Pages necessarily has a pro-science and pro-scholarly "bias", and that our ] is really an expression of that "bias". This is unavoidable, as it is inherent in and necessary to the mission of constructing a comprehensive secular and scholarly encyclopedia, and it is embodied in the ] policy. Accordingly, our definition of ] values above all others "aterial that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable; this means published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses." This means that sources and their claims that are not tested, testable, or based upon sound methodology are disfavored compared to those that are, and mainstream scientists and scholars trump simple majorities. ] is simply a field or claim that purports to be scientific, but that fails to adhere to proper scientific methodology. And we have the views of the scientific community to guide us in what qualifies as pseudoscience, such that claims that are rejected as pseudoscience by the bulk of the scientific community should be verifiably identified as such and not as scientific, no matter the claims of its followers. To do otherwise would ] to unreliable sources (those that are not peer reviewed or based in sound methodology and scholarship) at the expense of reliable sources, and at the expense of verifiability. ''']''' ('']'') 18:26, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

::The literature of the Roman Catholic Church includes many examples of levitations, apparitions, miracles, and so on that could reasonably be considered paranormal. They are not pseudoscience. Efforts to explain these effects using dubious "scientific approaches" may well be categorized pseudoscience. Religious beliefs should not be, either directly or indirectly. To label a belief as pseudoscience is ridiculous. I believe it is ]. But until I try to prove that belief using lasers and geiger counters, nobody should label my belief as pseudoscience. ] (]) 00:04, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
:::Right, to qualify as pseudoscience its proponents need to attempt to practice or present it as science when it in fact fails to qualify. And scientists are the most reliable source for determining what purported "science" actually falls short of proper standards and so is instead pseudoscience. ''']''' ('']'') 01:08, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
::::*And the people with the beliefs themselves are the most reliable source on whether they were even trying to make those beliefs scientific in the first place. Beliefs can of course be neither science nor pseudoscience, because they neither are scientific nor purport to be. These do not need to be talked about it terms of being scientific or not at all. Non-Christian religions might not be classed as heathens, but some are inadvertedly classed as 'paranormal' and, from there, 'pseudoscientific'. But religion is one of those things which are generally neither scientific nor pseudoscientific. ] (]) 02:07, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
::The above comments set me off on a different train off thought, and maybe it partly explains the controversy. To me "science" is a collection of careful observations and measurements, theories to explain those observations, and formal processes to test the theories. "Pseudoscience" is slipshod on observation and weak on process. But perhaps there is another view that science is the known truth about the way things are, "proven facts", and pseudoscience is everything else. I see "ghost" as a concept, something that does not fit into the current framework of observation and theory, and that seems implausible. But I would not label it as pseudoscience. Maybe there are ghosts, but we have not found ways to detect them, or perhaps there is no way to detect them. Can something undetectable exist? That is too deep for me. When a claim is made that ghosts have been detected, and the claim cannot be substantiated through scientific tests I would label the claim as "pseudoscience", but only the claim, not the concept of a ghost. For other people, I suppose, anything that has not yet been detected and firmly placed in the theoretical framework is considered "not science", so pseudoscience. I suppose the Higgs boson, exotic hadrons and superstring theory would count as pseudoscience in this sense. I don't like it, but understand the viewpoint. ] (]) 02:16, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

::Adding to that, if a superstring theory was proven incorrect, or if ghosts were proven not to exist, I would still not consider either concept to be pseudoscience - but I suppose some people would. Think I am talking to myself. ] (]) 02:29, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

:::I can see how people would come up with the idea too but the problem is that so much of what people do in society has nothing to do with science. Also, the very fact that there is such level of disagreement shows the categorisation should not be that way: articles and categories should only be part of categories when it's certain that they fit there. ] (]) 16:15, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

:This is not the case at all. We no more categorise fairies as pseudo-science, than we categorise Islam as a heresy. We do not count the various anti-popes in existence as equivalent to the pope in the Vatican. In the same way we do not count New-age theories of "crystal vibrations" as equivalent to the piezoelectric effect. The analogy can be extended in various ways, most anti-popes followings (if they have any) die out soon after they do, pseudo-scientific theories tend to follow the same ephemeral path, leaving their imprint only in the language, and then rarely ( "animal magnetism" "some kind of chemistry" "good vibes" ). '']&nbsp;]'', 18:24, 24 April 2010 (UTC).

== List of existing categories ==

Where can i find list of existing categories to put my article in ?--] (]) 18:20, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

:Look inside ]. There's an alphabetical list in ]. &mdash;] (]) 19:33, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
::And, if you excuse my blindness, at the bottom of the categorized page. I will put the link you gave on my home page, just in case, thank you.--] (]) 20:59, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

== how to link to category in article text middle without adding to category? ==

How do I link to a category in the article's middle and without adding the article to the category?

I can put the category page title into the article's middle but if I link it then it doesn't show at all in the article's middle but instead becomes a category that includes the article, which is erroneous.

The article I tried this in is ] and you can compare the and the . Scroll to the Schools List section and compare the second paragraph of the section of each version.

If there's a good method, I'd like to add it to the Categorization page.

Thanks.

] (]) 02:24, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

:Put a colon in front of it, as in <nowiki>]</nowiki>. ] 02:28, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

::Did the edit to the article and found your method was already in ]. Thanks. ] (]) 16:32, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

== Categorization of article content ==

] - the dispute over categorization of article content. An opinion of an uninvolved editor requested. Opinion of Baltic editors is already known and disputed, hence is '''not''' requested.

The issue is that part of article content, directly and immediately related to the article subject, falls into categories "Holocaust" and "Nazi collaborators", which Estonian editors try to remove from everything related to WWII history of Estonia. Please comment. ] (]) 02:34, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

== How to generate list with all subcategories ? ==

How can I generate automatically a list with all the articles and subcategories of a certain category? For example I need a list with all articles in the subcategories of ], is there any tool for that? Thanks -- ] (]) 21:37, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

:Don't worry about "by industry", you just want to know all the members of either ] or each of the individual Romanian industries. Unfortunately, generating complete member lists doesn't seem to be a high priority around here. &mdash;] (]) 23:41, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

:: Darn. Shouldn't be that hard to implement such thing in ] for example. -- ] (]) 07:44, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

== Dependencies, overseas territories, etc. ==

How should such territories like Greenland, the Faroe Islands, the Falklands, Guam or Puerto Rico be dealt with for categories sort by country? Should these categories be categorised under Foo of Denmark, Foo of the UK or Foo of the US, or should they be categorised right under Foo by country? <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 20:21, 15 April 2010 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

:From a quick glance at Puerto Rico categories, it looks each of them follow both patterns. ] (]) 02:13, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

::I would also guess that usually they are properly placed in both. Greenland, for instance, is properly referred to as a "country", but it is one country within the "Kingdom of Denmark", which we often just call "Denmark". It's not as correct to call some of these territories "countries" (like Puerto Rico, perhaps), but in the interests of consistency and predictability, it makes sense to put them in both. I know specifically that there are certain British editors that do get upset when categories for Scotland are omitted from the "by country" tree and only included as a subcategory of the United Kingdom category. ] <sup>]</sup> 02:26, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

::: It appears to be different from country to country. For instance what you mentioned isn't the case for Bermuda and Aruba.

:::Scotland usually isn't regarded as a dependency or overseas territory on lists of countries around the world. <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 09:41, 17 April 2010 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

::::Nor is it usually regarded as an independent state. I'm just providing various examples for the varying types of countries. It is true for Aruba. Aruba is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. My point is that it's just easiest to treat every country, dependency, and territory as a country within the "by country" categorization scheme. ] <sup>]</sup> 21:45, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::Probably not an unreasonable position. However I think that we may need to add something to the guidelines. ] (]) 22:20, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

:::::: Exactly. The current situation is rather messy.. and there are editors who are so keen to hunt around for dependency/overseas territory categories and remove them from 'by country' categories, on the ground that they aren't independent sovereign states. <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 07:38, 20 April 2010 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

::::: From what I observed the approach to Bermuda, Aruba, and Guam, Puerto Rico are rather different. Categories of the former two are not subcategories of the UK and Netherlands counterparts. For the latter two, such categories are subcats of those for the US. It may perhaps be a cultural or custom matter... British overseas territories are traditionally not considered to be part of the UK... whereas for places like Åland it's readily considered to be part of Finland. <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 07:43, 20 April 2010 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

;Just to note here
The discussion here was initiated and continued by 119.237.150.205, the IP incarnation of a banned user who uses categories and templates for nationalist NPOV purposes. The real answer here is that constituent parts of sovereign states have various levels of independence and some may properly be countries and some are not. There is not, and cannot, be one simple guideline. The troll here wishes to seek out a statement that all constituent countries are equally "countries" by Misplaced Pages standards in order to pursue his own nationalist agenda. ] (])
:Even if that is true, I don't see why (with categories) there "cannot" be a simple guideline. Categorization is far from the be all and end all of determining what a territory's status is. Categories are more for ease of navigation, not necessarily for precisely defining the exact nature of a territory's international status. ] <sup>]</sup> 21:35, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

:: How can a simple guideline be drawn?

== ] ==

This guideline has been identified as a possible candidate to contain a ''core'' . Can you please have a look ]. ] (]) 14:51, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

== Link to preceding and succeeding category ==

Where categories follow a clear numerical or chronological sequence, e.g. ] clearly follows after ]), is there a standard way of linking them, maybe via a template that links to the preceding and succeeding category? (such as you get with the ''prevseason'' and ''nextseason'' parameters in ]). This would be useful as you wouldn't have to navigate back up to the parent category to get to the next category along. --] (]) 23:51, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

:As far as I know, there is no standard. But a sports project that might know better than I do. ] (]) 06:59, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

:{{tl|WorksYearHeader}} does that for chronological lists of creative works. &mdash;] (]) 08:19, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
::Thanks, that should work well for single years. For the examples I quoted above though, I don't think it would work as each article (season) spans two calendar years, i.e. second half of one calendar year and first half of next calendar year. I'll have another think about this one - might need a new template or adapted template. --] (]) 13:05, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

== Ethnicity and BLP concerns ==

The proliferation of ethnicity-related categories and their inclusion in articles with no references to sustain them is a troubling problem in regards to BLP concerns. Take for example {{cl|European American basketball players}}. I went through just the A's in the category and found that NONE of those categorized articles had a single reference or even mention of European ancestry. ], who added the category to many of the articles, argued when discussing another race-related category that we should interpret a person's ethnicity/race using pictures of that person. I find this to be absolutely ridiculous. Is there any way we can prevent such "interpretations" and speculation?--] 13:40, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

:I've never heard that claim before, probably for good reason. If the facts represented by a category are not even mentioned in the article (let alone sourced), then that category should be summarily removed. I don't believe at all that ethnicity is appropriate to guestimate from a photograph (particularly since self-identification is given some weight, especially for multi-ethnic/racial individuals), and if the article does not even mention the subject's ethnicity, then it's obviously unimportant to that subject and therefore an inappropriate basis for categorization. If we're going to categorize ethnicity (which I have always been opposed to, but what can you do), then we should do it only when it is meaningful. ''']''' ('']'') 14:28, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

::Tangential, but I think many ethnicity categories should either be deleted or have narrower scope. ] (]) 14:42, 21 April 2010 (UTC)


== List “hierarchy”(?) of categories ==
:::There always seems to be a relatively broad agreement that these ethnicity categories are problematic. And yet the proliferate and are one of the most well-developed schemes in WP because of the edits of a limited number of editors. I really wish we could figure out a way to deal with this seeming contradiction in general belief vs. what actually exists. ] <sup>]</sup> 21:38, 21 April 2010 (UTC)


Hello, could you please tell me how to sort categories in the correct order at the footer of a page, if there is such a thing? Or is there a guide page I can consult?
: I can't believe that any serious Misplaced Pages editor would consider a picture suficient basis to determine someone's ethnic background. Let alone document it in a Misplaced Pages category. If there would turn out to be any thruth to that, sanctions should be considered.
Many thanks. ] (]) 10:48, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
: I would like to add that there are tags that might be used before summarily removing a category (especially if the likeliness of the category being relevant isn't farfetched). See ] for their usage. ] (]) 22:01, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
:{{replyto|ChrisAdair}} ] says {{tq|Eponymous categories should appear first. Beyond that, the order in which categories are placed on a page is not governed by any single rule (for example, it does not need to be alphabetical, although partially alphabetical ordering can sometimes be helpful). Normally the most essential, significant categories appear first.}}
:You don't say which page this concerns, so I can't make suggestions. But an article that I created fairly recently is ]. From the article title, we have three key elements: (i) Cambrian Railways; (ii) 4-4-0; and (iii) locomotives. There is no category covering all three of these at once, so I looked for categories for the overlap of any two of the three elements: {{cl|Cambrian Railways locomotives}} exists, as does {{cl|4-4-0 locomotives}}, so I put those first. There is no category covering the other combination (Cambrian Railways 4-4-0), so I skipped that. Next, I looked for other things mentioned in the article for which a category exists, and found those for the year of introduction (which I added chronologically) and also the manufacturers (which I also added chronologically), so put those in next. Lastly came what might be called "miscellaneous" categories - {{cl|Scrapped locomotives}} and {{cl|Standard gauge steam locomotives of Great Britain}}, which I added alphabetically.
:Anyway, some people try to sort the whole list alphabetically: but there is no consensus for this, see: ]; ]; and ]. --] &#x1f339; (]) 13:18, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
::This is great. Thank you so much! ] (]) 17:55, 8 December 2024 (UTC)


== Preventing unintended hierarchization ==
::I have to agree with Debresser that if this is true, I find it extremely troubling that an established editor would be assigning ethnicity categories based on a ''photograph''. Yikes. ] <sup>]</sup> 22:08, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
:::See here for the conversation.--] 21:35, 24 April 2010 (UTC)


Is there an established way to prevent/reverse incorrect categorization of subcategories of categories named after people? E.g. a way to prevent ] from being a subcategory of ] via ]? ] (]) 21:53, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:Another editor challenging my removal of uncited ethnicity and race categories. ] is rounding up editors to try to re-establish these categories. Any help with this situation would be appreciated. He even tried the Mayumashu defense of showing a picture to justify his assertion of ethnicity.--] 21:44, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
:{{replyto|Star Garnet}} I don't see any of these three categories inside either of the other two. --] &#x1f339; (]) 22:21, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
::I'm not "rounding up editors" (it was simply asking for help from another user) nor am i plotting to do anything dastardly. I'm simply trying to figure out a consensus of some sort and question the rampant removal of information. This category thing has been brought to my attention as something that has been a problem in the past, and I in no way wish to make anything worse. ] (]) 21:53, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
::Of course it's not directly categorized as such; the tree here is Actresses from Dayton, Ohio → Actors from Dayton, Ohio → People from Dayton, Ohio, by occupation → People from Dayton, Ohio → Dayton, Ohio → Jonathan Dayton → Members of the New Jersey Legislative Council → Members of the New Jersey Legislature → State legislators of the United States ] (]) 22:27, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:::] should only be categorized as ] (and possibly other eponymous category holders). Dayton's personal categories belong to his article; none apply to his category. -- ] (]) 00:51, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::The problem was that ] had been put into ] instead of the otger way round, and same with the "History of ..." category. I've reverted both. ]] 08:09, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::The problem still is that ] is in 5 categories that don't apply to 18 out of 19 members of that category. To illustrate: ] doesn't belong in ]. -- ] (]) 13:13, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::You are correct Michael. See ]. ]<sup>]</sup> 13:33, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:<table class="infobox vcard; width=200px;"><tr><th colspan="2" class="infobox-above summary">New Jersey's at-large congressional district</th></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="infobox-subheader"><i>]</i></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="infobox-label" style="white-space: nowrap;">Created</th><td class="infobox-data">1789<br>1801<br>1815</td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="infobox-label" style="white-space: nowrap;">Eliminated</th><td class="infobox-data">1799<br>1813<br>1843</td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="infobox-label" style="white-space: nowrap;">Years active</th><td class="infobox-data">1789-1799<br>1801-1813<br>1815-1843</td></tr></table>
:Taking a step back, does ] need to exist ''at all''? It feels sort of borderline to have a category that collects:
:# Articles about places named after him
:# Articles about his relatives
:# The majority of the category's pages, articles about elections in which he ran <small>(sidenote: Do we ''really'' have separate articles for ] '''and''' ]?)</small>
:# ] (in which he was implicated)
:# ] (to which he was elected)
:That last page also contains this masterpiece of an infobox → , presumably constructed by the Misplaced Pages Cabal of Misplaced Pages Redundancy Cabal. ] (]) 03:44, 15 December 2024 (UTC)


== Removal of "First-run syndicated television programs in the United States" category ==
== About categorizing redirects ==


Recently I have noticed several edits of articles about television shows that removed "First-run syndicated television programs in the United States" and replaced it with "First-run syndicated game shows" (as in ]) or "First-run syndicated dramas" (where appropriate). Shouldn't the original category be left in place, since the new category does not mention "United States"? ] (]) 14:49, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
In the fictional example of a man called John Smith who was also a musician called Johnny Rocket, where we want to categorize the "Johnny Rocket" redirect in a musicians category (so it shows up on the category listing), should we also place the John Smith article in the musicians category? Past discussion concluded that it should (because otherwise the category won't show up on the article page at all - too bad that it results in double listing at the category). Given that the guideline has jsut been edited to say something different, has consensus changed on this point? --] (]) 06:10, 29 April 2010 (UTC)


:Yes - this looks to be a very new editor who perhaps does not have that understanding, so would suggest addressing that directly with them. ] (]) 15:40, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
== About subcategories ==
::Thank you, @]. ] (]) 19:48, 14 December 2024 (UTC)


== Excessive ancestry categories for royals ==
When categorising a redirect as R from Spanish-language terms, should I live the R from alternative language cat? --] (]) 16:51, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


Royals, especially Medieval royals, will almost always have a mother from elsewhere, sometimes a different place each generation. This leads to lots of categories. On top of this sometimes the statement of their nationality is questionable. We have many pre-1479 royals from the Crown of Castile in 4 or more Spanish people of y descent categories. Calling anyone Spanish that early is open to question, and that many categories bring defining is questionable. Especially when their ancestry is really part of a tran-western Europe royals order, not clearly belonging to any specific "ethnic" group. This seems like a set of categories that is imposing a later understand on people in a way that dies not make sense. These categories might make sense for some post-1700 or so royals, but I think we should exclude all royals from about that year and back from descent categories. They make progressively less sense as we go further back. I think descent categories are in some cases justified, but we have placed them on way too many articles where the information is not defining. In a number of articles it is not based on any text in the article itself.] (]) 23:07, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
:R? Your question is unclear. ] (]) 23:33, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


:{{ping|Johnpacklambert}} The examples you provide don't seem like they'd be in line with ]. Placing people into categories that sources in the article do not support sounds like the category version of ]. ] ] 21:57, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
::R means redirection. I'm asking if once you have a redirection categorised with a subcategory, you still have to let the parent category included (R from Spanish is a subset of R from alternative language). ] (]) 06:17, 1 May 2010 (UTC)


== When to diffuse large categories? ==
:::I would say no. ] (]) 06:46, 1 May 2010 (UTC)


See ] for background. Even if nothing changes in this specific situation, I think ] and ] should be clearer about when they apply, because I've kind of become jaded over time that people can even learn how the categorization system works in any consistent way. ] ] 21:49, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
::::Yeah, but is there something about this in the MoS? I want to be sure before removing thousands of cats. Other opinions? ] (]) 07:18, 1 May 2010 (UTC)


:I stated my position on the SCOTUS case categories in the linked thread. Although I disagree with Clovermoss about how the SCOTUS case category ought to be handled, I do agree with Clovermoss's observation that the categorization documentation does not adequately explain criteria for when categories should be non-diffusing. Frankly, I'm not sure I could make the argument that Women scientists should be non-diffusing based on it, despite it being the lead example. That said, I caution us to remember that categorization is socially fraught and a bad place for hard-and-fast rules, so attempting to divine an explicit set of criteria for it may not be a perfect path either. One issue that this has raised is just the fact that it is difficult (and perhaps impossible) for either Clovermoss or myself to refer to why past Wikipedians decided to make this category non-diffusing. Indeed, the talk page only shows ]. What if it's just inappropriate to label a category non-diffusing without an explanation/discussion on the talk page? ] (]) 22:39, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
==Content of category pages/format==
::I think that discussion about whether or not a category should be non-diffusing is a good first step because I do not like the cumulative impact of inconsistencies that happen otherwise. As for women scientists, that's the only example where I feel like I can understand why it's actually non-diffusing. {{Tq|Subcategories defined by gender, ethnicity, religion, and sexuality should almost always be non-diffusing subcategories}} gives an explanation, while the content about ] simply gives an example of what would otherwise be an overcrowded category and not ''why'' it's an inherently diffusable one. ] ] 22:51, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
I've updated ] to follow the guidlines in ]. I plan on going through the 300ish ] cats and giving them this consistent format. I've tried looking at other music portals, but there isn't a lot of consistency. There is no "best practice" section in the article ]. Someone please help! Semi-related question below: ] (]) 20:27, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
:::I have added a few words to make the why clearer, though . ] ] 22:59, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
*I think in most cases we should avoid diffusing a tree at all if it has less than 200 members, and maybe go bigger. Some examples. Since there are 197 current countries and more possible ones diffusing an occupation with less than 200 total articles by nationality will mainly lead to small categories and will invite lots of unneeded 1 article ones. With 50 states diffusing an American occupation Category at below 200 is also problematic and likely to lead to small categories. The same is true if diffusing by county in Texas with 254 counties. I wish we had better ways to avoid the 1 and 2 article categories that hinder instead of help navigation.] (]) 14:49, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
*:{{ping|Johnpacklambert}} I suppose there's a difference in scale between a category that has 100 or 200 articles in it, compared to one with thousands (like the one above). I'm cautious of assigning any sort of strict numerical cutoff because that seems like it could cause issues with gaming. A good start may just be a few more examples (are you aware of any? You seem to be much more interested in categories than I am) where people have argued a lot about whether should be diffusing or non-diffusing and how people formed a consensus about what was "right". ] ] 23:37, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
*::The problem is that for the most part every occupation has been diffused by nationality. Ambassadors have been hyper diffused so that we have almost every combination of x Ambassadors to y. As one example ] has one article.] (]) 00:19, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
*:::I looks to me like there are 22 articles in ] (there is some overlap) with 24 sub-cats and 1 direct article. The largest category has 4 articles. This diffusion makes it very hard to use to navigate between articles. There are almost as many sub-cats under ] as there are articles.] (]) 00:25, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
*:It depends. It is not necessarily the case that diffusion must lead to a plethora of small categories. To take your example of diffusion by US state, the defining characteristic you are categorising may not be equally spread among the 50 states. There are not many citrus farmers in Alaska. ] (]) 11:51, 19 January 2025 (UTC)


:] marked that cat as non-diffusing . I'm sure he had a good reason for it at the time, and that reason might still be applicable, or it could be that there are now a lot more articles in that cat than there used to be (or that some other circumstance changed – perhaps a ==See also== to the cat has since been replaced with a link to ]?) and it shouldn't be tagged that way. Just because something was tagged once upon a time doesn't mean that consensus can't change.
==Content of category pages/portal links?==
:For myself, I would usually recommend against diffusing if there are fewer than 200 articles in the category, and in favor if there are more than 2,000, but it needs to be driven by the content. Some large groups can be divided neatly. Other large groups can't. Some smaller groups might even want to be divided because that's typical for the subject area (e.g., subdivide "Music videos in Ruritania" by year because that's what we do with the matching cats for larger countries). I don't think that we need (and I don't want) a single, simple rule for all cats. ] (]) 08:22, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
The article ] has no guidance on the placement of portal links? I've updated ]. It has four links to other portals. At first, I thought it was overkill. Now I think it is proper for them to remain. Any help on my questions is greatly appreciated. ] (]) 20:27, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 08:22, 21 January 2025

See also: Misplaced Pages talk:Categories for discussion and Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Categories
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List “hierarchy”(?) of categories

Hello, could you please tell me how to sort categories in the correct order at the footer of a page, if there is such a thing? Or is there a guide page I can consult? Many thanks. ChrisAdair (talk) 10:48, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

@ChrisAdair: MOS:CATORDER says Eponymous categories should appear first. Beyond that, the order in which categories are placed on a page is not governed by any single rule (for example, it does not need to be alphabetical, although partially alphabetical ordering can sometimes be helpful). Normally the most essential, significant categories appear first.
You don't say which page this concerns, so I can't make suggestions. But an article that I created fairly recently is Cambrian Railways 4-4-0 locomotives. From the article title, we have three key elements: (i) Cambrian Railways; (ii) 4-4-0; and (iii) locomotives. There is no category covering all three of these at once, so I looked for categories for the overlap of any two of the three elements: Category:Cambrian Railways locomotives exists, as does Category:4-4-0 locomotives, so I put those first. There is no category covering the other combination (Cambrian Railways 4-4-0), so I skipped that. Next, I looked for other things mentioned in the article for which a category exists, and found those for the year of introduction (which I added chronologically) and also the manufacturers (which I also added chronologically), so put those in next. Lastly came what might be called "miscellaneous" categories - Category:Scrapped locomotives and Category:Standard gauge steam locomotives of Great Britain, which I added alphabetically.
Anyway, some people try to sort the whole list alphabetically: but there is no consensus for this, see: Misplaced Pages:Bot requests/Archive 61#Create a BOT to alphabetize and organize categories automatically; Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Categories/Archive 4#re alphabetizing categories on the article pages; and Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)/Archive 114#Create a BOT to alphabetize and organize categories automatically. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:18, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
This is great. Thank you so much! ChrisAdair (talk) 17:55, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Preventing unintended hierarchization

Is there an established way to prevent/reverse incorrect categorization of subcategories of categories named after people? E.g. a way to prevent Category:Actresses from Dayton, Ohio from being a subcategory of Category:State legislators of the United States via Category:Jonathan Dayton? Star Garnet (talk) 21:53, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

@Star Garnet: I don't see any of these three categories inside either of the other two. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:21, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Of course it's not directly categorized as such; the tree here is Actresses from Dayton, Ohio → Actors from Dayton, Ohio → People from Dayton, Ohio, by occupation → People from Dayton, Ohio → Dayton, Ohio → Jonathan Dayton → Members of the New Jersey Legislative Council → Members of the New Jersey Legislature → State legislators of the United States Star Garnet (talk) 22:27, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Category:Jonathan Dayton should only be categorized as Category:Misplaced Pages categories named after speakers of the United States House of Representatives (and possibly other eponymous category holders). Dayton's personal categories belong to his article; none apply to his category. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:51, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
The problem was that Category:Dayton, Ohio had been put into Category:Jonathan Dayton instead of the otger way round, and same with the "History of ..." category. I've reverted both. PamD 08:09, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
The problem still is that Category:Jonathan Dayton is in 5 categories that don't apply to 18 out of 19 members of that category. To illustrate: Jonathan Dayton High School doesn't belong in Category:Continental Congressmen from New Jersey. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:13, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
You are correct Michael. See WP:EPONYMOUS. DB1729 13:33, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
New Jersey's at-large congressional district
Obsolete district
Created1789
1801
1815
Eliminated1799
1813
1843
Years active1789-1799
1801-1813
1815-1843
Taking a step back, does Category:Jonathan Dayton need to exist at all? It feels sort of borderline to have a category that collects:
  1. Articles about places named after him
  2. Articles about his relatives
  3. The majority of the category's pages, articles about elections in which he ran (sidenote: Do we really have separate articles for 1794 United States House of Representatives election in New Jersey and 1794–95 United States House of Representatives elections?)
  4. Burr conspiracy (in which he was implicated)
  5. New Jersey's at-large congressional district (to which he was elected)
That last page also contains this masterpiece of an infobox → , presumably constructed by the Misplaced Pages Cabal of Misplaced Pages Redundancy Cabal. FeRDNYC (talk) 03:44, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Removal of "First-run syndicated television programs in the United States" category

Recently I have noticed several edits of articles about television shows that removed "First-run syndicated television programs in the United States" and replaced it with "First-run syndicated game shows" (as in Juvenile Jury) or "First-run syndicated dramas" (where appropriate). Shouldn't the original category be left in place, since the new category does not mention "United States"? Eddie Blick (talk) 14:49, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes - this looks to be a very new editor who perhaps does not have that understanding, so would suggest addressing that directly with them. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:40, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
Thank you, @Nikkimaria. Eddie Blick (talk) 19:48, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Excessive ancestry categories for royals

Royals, especially Medieval royals, will almost always have a mother from elsewhere, sometimes a different place each generation. This leads to lots of categories. On top of this sometimes the statement of their nationality is questionable. We have many pre-1479 royals from the Crown of Castile in 4 or more Spanish people of y descent categories. Calling anyone Spanish that early is open to question, and that many categories bring defining is questionable. Especially when their ancestry is really part of a tran-western Europe royals order, not clearly belonging to any specific "ethnic" group. This seems like a set of categories that is imposing a later understand on people in a way that dies not make sense. These categories might make sense for some post-1700 or so royals, but I think we should exclude all royals from about that year and back from descent categories. They make progressively less sense as we go further back. I think descent categories are in some cases justified, but we have placed them on way too many articles where the information is not defining. In a number of articles it is not based on any text in the article itself.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:07, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

@Johnpacklambert: The examples you provide don't seem like they'd be in line with WP:DEFINING. Placing people into categories that sources in the article do not support sounds like the category version of original research. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 21:57, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

When to diffuse large categories?

See User talk:Clovermoss#SCOTUS case categories for background. Even if nothing changes in this specific situation, I think WP:DIFFUSE and WP:DUPCAT should be clearer about when they apply, because I've kind of become jaded over time that people can even learn how the categorization system works in any consistent way. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 21:49, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

I stated my position on the SCOTUS case categories in the linked thread. Although I disagree with Clovermoss about how the SCOTUS case category ought to be handled, I do agree with Clovermoss's observation that the categorization documentation does not adequately explain criteria for when categories should be non-diffusing. Frankly, I'm not sure I could make the argument that Women scientists should be non-diffusing based on it, despite it being the lead example. That said, I caution us to remember that categorization is socially fraught and a bad place for hard-and-fast rules, so attempting to divine an explicit set of criteria for it may not be a perfect path either. One issue that this has raised is just the fact that it is difficult (and perhaps impossible) for either Clovermoss or myself to refer to why past Wikipedians decided to make this category non-diffusing. Indeed, the talk page only shows a primitive non-consensus from 2005 on the same question. What if it's just inappropriate to label a category non-diffusing without an explanation/discussion on the talk page? lethargilistic (talk) 22:39, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
I think that discussion about whether or not a category should be non-diffusing is a good first step because I do not like the cumulative impact of inconsistencies that happen otherwise. As for women scientists, that's the only example where I feel like I can understand why it's actually non-diffusing. Subcategories defined by gender, ethnicity, religion, and sexuality should almost always be non-diffusing subcategories gives an explanation, while the content about Category:Rivers of Europe simply gives an example of what would otherwise be an overcrowded category and not why it's an inherently diffusable one. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 22:51, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
I have added a few words to make the why clearer, though . Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 22:59, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
  • I think in most cases we should avoid diffusing a tree at all if it has less than 200 members, and maybe go bigger. Some examples. Since there are 197 current countries and more possible ones diffusing an occupation with less than 200 total articles by nationality will mainly lead to small categories and will invite lots of unneeded 1 article ones. With 50 states diffusing an American occupation Category at below 200 is also problematic and likely to lead to small categories. The same is true if diffusing by county in Texas with 254 counties. I wish we had better ways to avoid the 1 and 2 article categories that hinder instead of help navigation.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:49, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
    @Johnpacklambert: I suppose there's a difference in scale between a category that has 100 or 200 articles in it, compared to one with thousands (like the one above). I'm cautious of assigning any sort of strict numerical cutoff because that seems like it could cause issues with gaming. A good start may just be a few more examples (are you aware of any? You seem to be much more interested in categories than I am) where people have argued a lot about whether should be diffusing or non-diffusing and how people formed a consensus about what was "right". Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 23:37, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
    The problem is that for the most part every occupation has been diffused by nationality. Ambassadors have been hyper diffused so that we have almost every combination of x Ambassadors to y. As one example Category:Ambassadors of Benin to Germany has one article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:19, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
    I looks to me like there are 22 articles in Category:Ambassadors of Benin (there is some overlap) with 24 sub-cats and 1 direct article. The largest category has 4 articles. This diffusion makes it very hard to use to navigate between articles. There are almost as many sub-cats under Category:Ambassadors as there are articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:25, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
    It depends. It is not necessarily the case that diffusion must lead to a plethora of small categories. To take your example of diffusion by US state, the defining characteristic you are categorising may not be equally spread among the 50 states. There are not many citrus farmers in Alaska. Mhockey (talk) 11:51, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
Hmains marked that cat as non-diffusing almost 15 years ago. I'm sure he had a good reason for it at the time, and that reason might still be applicable, or it could be that there are now a lot more articles in that cat than there used to be (or that some other circumstance changed – perhaps a ==See also== to the cat has since been replaced with a link to Lists of United States Supreme Court cases?) and it shouldn't be tagged that way. Just because something was tagged once upon a time doesn't mean that consensus can't change.
For myself, I would usually recommend against diffusing if there are fewer than 200 articles in the category, and in favor if there are more than 2,000, but it needs to be driven by the content. Some large groups can be divided neatly. Other large groups can't. Some smaller groups might even want to be divided because that's typical for the subject area (e.g., subdivide "Music videos in Ruritania" by year because that's what we do with the matching cats for larger countries). I don't think that we need (and I don't want) a single, simple rule for all cats. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:22, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
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