Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/User/Archive 6

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Userbox

What is a userbox? How do userboxes relate to user categories? Hyacinth (talk) 14:16, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

A userbox is a small box designed to appear – generally by means of transclusion – on user pages. Userboxes sometimes contain wiki markup that places any page on which they appear into a user category. According to established consensus, "userboxes should not automatically include categories by default", and categories should only be created when it is thought that the existence of a grouping of users based on a certain characteristic (i.e. a user category) can foster encyclopedic collaboration. You can look through Wikipedia:Userboxes for more information. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 20:15, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
To quote WP:USERBOX in full, "Consider how useful the category would be to other editors before adding it to your userbox." That is apparently all the guidance we have on user categories at present. Hiding T 22:12, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
That sentence is archaic. Both Wikipedia:Guidelines for user categories and Wikipedia:User categorisation are dead. We should write guidelines that reflect what actually does and should happen. Wikipedia:Userboxes is probably the most appropriate place to do it. –Pomte 11:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
That sentence was a compromise between several warring factions of belief about categories and templates (userboxes).
As for the guldeines, let's work on something in a sandbox somewhere first. The point has been well taken that part of the userbox confusion is that we placed the Wikipedian categories' guidelines on the same page as the userbox guidelines. It was done merely for expediency - it was easier to say: just as such-n-such aren't appropriate for userboxes, so too are they not appropriate for categories. However, it seems that that has created confusion, in light of several recent discussions. I've been tinkering with something on my comp. Give me a day or so, and I'll make a sandbox page for collaboration. - jc37 11:59, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I was thinking that really vague and rough guidelines will do, since there is no consensus on the actual purpose of user cats. So long as blatantly narrow user cats are prevented, with no specific comments on fringe types. A brief summary of past consensus would be really useful to tell people what usually gets deleted and what doesn't, though it wouldn't exactly be a guideline.
On a related note, WP:UBX needs a clear rewrite to reduce confused questions about userboxes, and malformed userboxes. Right now, the category section appears before people even learn how to construct userboxes. –Pomte 12:23, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedian autograph pages

I believe Category:Wikipedian autograph pages contributes nothing to collaboration, and that it violates WP:NOT#SOCIALNET, particularly "user pages [...] may be used only to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia". However, I'm afraid that requesting a discussion may lead to heat and noise and drama. So my question is how others feel about this. User:Dorftrottel 15:47, January 15, 2008

  • I personally think the category and all the pages within should be deleted as not helpful to the encyclopedia, but I'm pretty sure there has been at least one Xfd/discussion on this issue resulting in keep. VegaDark (talk) 20:25, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
    • I think if all those keep votes (often enough "per User:BadExample") were appropriately disregarded and if such discussions were seriously broken down according to the validity of all reasonings and arguments, they would be clear-cut deletions, if not speedies. I'm all for driving home the message that WP:NOT#SOCIAL etc. Obviously some don't like that, but their liking should play no role in determining consensus. User:Dorftrottel 17:51, January 17, 2008

Collaborative?

How could user categories facilitate collaboration? How could user categories be verified as being used for collaboration? Hyacinth (talk) 00:48, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Imo, a category like Category:Wikipedians by Wikipedia collaboration includes a clear statement towards users' interest in collaborating on related topics. "Verification" as in positivism is of course not possible, and empirical data as to actual usage for collaborative ends would be tough to assemble, so it's a common-sense, plausibility-oriented call. E.g., Category:Motorcycle owners does not include a clear statement of interest in collaborating on related pages, and thus defending it as serving a collaborative purpose requires a far-fetched rationale. All such categories uniting people solely by real life leanings, hobbies, affiliations (often only spread via inclusion in userboxes) should be deleted and discouraged, with a clear message as to WP:NOT#SOCIAL. Another approach would be to allow only active WikiProjects to host Wikipedian categories, and actually relevant objective features like adminship. User:Dorftrottel 18:05, January 17, 2008
So what user categories would be kept? Wikipedians by language would presumably assist with collaboration but does not, in its title, claim to do so. Should it be deleted? Hyacinth (talk) 02:55, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be easier to assume that all categories express an interest in collaboration? Why else would someone create a Wikipedia category? Part of the problem with using Wikipedia categories for "social networking" is that since WP:NOT it doesn't work very well for social networking no matter what, against the rules or not. The guidelines for using user categories would then simply need to state that you are expected to be willing to collaborate on your interest. Hyacinth (talk) 03:02, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

A good point. -- Ned Scott 05:48, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Why else would someone create a Wikipedia category? To self-identify, or to affirm a social stance, as we see from the latest controversy. If the category names and pages aren't clear about this, only the people here will get it, while a few others will read the guideline (unless we stick some disclaimer template everywhere related to user categories). Another argument is that at the same time that motorcycle owners are not necessarily interested in editing articles about motorcycles, people interested in editing articles about motorcycles do not necessarily own motorcycles. –Pomte 07:43, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Wouldn't self-identifying or affirming social stances assist with collaboration? Also, people who own motorcycles and put themselves in a category stating so must be interested in editing articles about it. Thus I don't have a category on my user page for every object which I own, skill I have, or interest I share. I think if I put myself in "Category:Wikipedians with shoes" that I really care about shoes. Hyacinth (talk) 23:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
The category names aren't clear on the issue of collaboration. For example: "Category:Wikipedians by language" would presumably assist with collaboration but does not, in its title, claim to do so. Should it be deleted? Hyacinth (talk) 23:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
It should be renamed.
I think if "Category:Wikipedians with shoes" existed, a number of people would add themselves to it as a joke. In any case, self-identification isn't a sufficient condition for collaboration. A lot of people add every userbox that applies to them without turning off the associated category in the cases where they have no interest in collaboration. –Pomte 14:48, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
What do you consider sufficient condition for collaboration? Hyacinth (talk) 10:26, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
A name that clearly suggests it. –Pomte 15:27, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Such as? DuncanHill (talk) 15:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
[1] –Pomte 02:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

"Category:Wikipedians" does not clearly suggest collaborative intent. Should we delete that? Hyacinth (talk) 01:25, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't be silly, empty parent categories are for organizational structure. Same with "Wikipedians by..." categories. –Pomte 02:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Would you propose:
  • That all user categories be titled "Wikipedians interested in collaborating on articles related to..." except for empty parent categories and categories indicating skills obviously useful to collaboration including language proficiency.
? Hyacinth (talk) 10:39, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Sure, and I hinted at such a thing in April, but I don't expect the proposal to ever come to fruit. The bottom of user pages would look even more ridiculous than they are now, and be harder to read. Maybe instead of displaying "Categories:" then listing all those long names, the software would group together all applicable user cats under say "This user is interested in collaborating on articles related to:" and then succinctly list the topics. Or, do the same thing except not by tweaking the categorization system, but with a meta-userbox template that says this and links to the categories. I'll make such a userbox to show you what I mean. –Pomte 16:21, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

So you support a guideline which you find impractical? Hyacinth (talk) 01:22, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure, there is a hazy line between idealism and pragmatism. –Pomte 01:43, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

User categories vs article

Why do articles have categories? For navigation ("to help users find information" [[[Wikipedia:Categorization#When to use categories]]]), which inherently assists with editing Wikipedia. "What is the purpose of categories? There are two main ways to use categories: lists and topics." [[[Wikipedia:Categorization FAQ]]] If we wish to adopt this stance, we need to state why user categories differ and shouldn't be easily navigated. Hyacinth (talk) 01:34, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Why?

I understand that centralized deletion discussions have long precedent, but why are people using Wikipedia:User categories for discussion to discuss things like renames? Is there some reason not to use the talk page of the category? I for one would have been more likely to notice it there. Friday (talk) 14:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Suggest a parallel change for WP:CFD. –Pomte 14:45, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
A lot of times something comes up for renaming but ends up being deleted. It's also helpful to have all discussions in one central location. Just my two cents. --Kbdank71 21:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedians in x prefecture

Resolved
 – I've done it Hiding T 16:05, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I've closed the above debate as upmerge, but I've got to go out now and I need time to work out how to do this, either via awb or seeing how the bot pages work for listing this. It may take some time, and if someone wants to step in and handle it that's fine, but I am happy to do it as soon as I can. I hadn't realised it would be so complicated through AWB. Hiding T 15:02, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

Category:Rouge admins

Can someone nominate this category? I would do it myself but it would only be to make a point. If someone who actually feels it should be deleted could please nominate it, I think the resulting discussion would be extremely interesting. Thanks! ;) Equazcion •✗/C • 17:31, 12 Feb 2008 (UTC)

As much as I'd like to, it won't be me. Mine would be making a point too since Category:Gayass Wikipedians was humor/humorous as well but got slaughtered. - ✰ALLSTAR✰ echo 17:40, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
We went through a huge debate on this in December, and it's not going to be deleted, no matter how pointless, stupid, divisive, useless, or <insert your pejorative here> the category actually is. This one is a favorite of a whole slew of admins, and when it was nominated for deletion, they went into ZOMGWTF mode and squawked until the closing admin (who appeared to be sympathetic to the deletion arguments himself) closed it as "keep". These admins had seldom (if ever) ventured into UCFD before, and most of them have not been here since it (and two other admin-specific cats) were discussed in December. The discussion for this cat is Wikipedia:User categories for discussion/Archive/December 2007#Category:Rouge admins. Horologium (talk) 17:56, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I just saw that, some idiot neglected to post the oldcfd notices at the top of the cat talk page. Damn it to puss-spewing hell! Leave for a month and you miss out on all the best shit. If I would've been here for that discussion it would've been all the more interesting. Someone should nominate it again so I can participate. I'm salivating just thinking about it. Equazcion •✗/C • 17:59, 12 Feb 2008 (UTC)
That's a reason to oppose right there, whether you're kidding or not. So if you are out to disrupt things a bit, go for it. Otherwise, don't bother. ++Lar: t/c 18:01, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
The category clearly is and is stated to be a joke, and also clearly has no collaborative or encyclopædic purpose. It is also clearly pointless, divisive, stupid and useless. Consistency with other deleted usercats would require its deletion, but it's for admins not ordinary editors so I wouldn't hold your breath. DuncanHill (talk) 18:53, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Just had a thought - given that the category is a joke, is there any reason why non-admins shouldn't add themselves? DuncanHill (talk) 18:58, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I had the same thought, and added it myself a few hours ago. Equazcion •✗/C • 19:02, 12 Feb 2008 (UTC)
Why not just create Category:Rouge editors? EconomicsGuy (talk) 19:40, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

The category is a subcategory of Category:Wikipedia_administrators_by_inclination, that is, it's a category for those who are admins. Non administrators should not add themselves. I've removed Equazcion. If he adds himself back again I'd consider that as evidence of intent to disrupt or deceive. Sorry if that sounds a bit short but I don't have a lot of tolerance for someone whose first contribution to a discussion includes the phrasing "some idiot neglected to post the oldcfd notices at the top of the cat talk page. Damn it to puss-spewing hell! " As for the nature of the joke, it is a ha ha, only serious sort of joke, there is a great deal of truth in what is said there. As for a "rouge editors" category, that's fine by me. But please do not add non admins to admin categories, thanks. ++Lar: t/c 19:43, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

That wasn't my first contribution. I'm the original poster. I don't have a lot of tolerance for those who berate without reading the discussion carefully. Equazcion •✗/C • 19:45, 12 Feb 2008 (UTC)
OK, second contribution then. Point stands. You need to change your approach, in my view as this one won't give results you consider satisfactory. ++Lar: t/c 19:52, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
There's a place for humour on Wikipedia - if one is an admin that is. If, on the other hand, one is not an admin but is discussing a "humourous" admin-cat, then there is no place whatsoever for humour and one should change one's approach. DuncanHill (talk) 19:55, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
That's not quite true. There are plenty of places for humour on Wikipedia regardless of whether you are an admin or not. Falsely claiming to be an admin, the net effect of placing yourself in any category that is a subcat of Category:Wikipedia_administrators_by_inclination just doesn't happen to be one of them. Nor is casting aspersions on random people by referring to them as "some idiot". I'm not sure that your contributions are helping a lot either, actually. ++Lar: t/c 20:01, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Lar - I was making a joke about the imo excessively serious approach you appear to be taking to the discussion of a "joke" category. The post by Equazcion above to which you objected was blatantly humourous in intent, given the context and the target of the wikilink. May I suggest some tea? DuncanHill (talk) 20:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Just to let everyone know, if you want to see my full thoughts on this, see my talk page. I'm not carrying on the same argument with the same person on two different fronts. Equazcion •✗/C • 20:00, 12 Feb 2008 (UTC)
Most of the discussion is indeed carrying on there as, unfortunately, Equazcion has been blocked and can't currently post anywhere else. I say unfortunate not because the block was unwarranted, but because it was unnecessary, there was no need for Equazcion to push matters as he did. See also Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Block_of_User:Equazcion ++Lar: t/c 22:43, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
It's a stupid category, it was stupid of Equaczion to continue adding himself to it, and it's a stupid block. That is my opinion, really the only disruption I see here is from some overzealous enforcement of the "this joke is not permitted to non-admins" policy. DuncanHill (talk) 22:46, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I've seen that least one other editor has added himself to the Rouge admins category. Before anyone else feels the need to earn about as redundant block as you can earn just add yourself to Category:Rouge editors. No one is saying we can't do that and both categories are just for humor anyway. There is no need for all this drama - we have plenty of that as it is and it isn't getting any better recently which is why I don't really edit at the moment. Please don't contribute to making that situation even worse - that applies to both sides of this dispute. EconomicsGuy (talk) 21:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Speedy nominations

Why do we need a section for speedy nominations? If someone thinks a category is a speedy candidate they should just post a speedy tag at the category page. That's what speedy is, by definition; they don't need a nomination or a discussion. Regular nominations often end in speedies, but those who know they're nominating something that already meets speedy criteria shouldn't be posting a nomination here at all. Equazcion •✗/C • 00:15, 20 Feb 2008 (UTC)

I suppose that it's mostly for merge/rename nominations; a bot can perform the task much faster than a human editor. Black Falcon (Talk) 01:01, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I don't get what a bot has to do with it but okay. On a completely unrelated note, what are you using to create your edit summaries? Just curious. Equazcion •✗/C • 03:22, 20 Feb 2008 (UTC)
The results of most CFDs that end in "delete", "merge", and "rename" are carried out by bots; for instance, a human editor can add a category deletion, merging, or renaming request to the CFD working page and one or more bots will automatically perform it. As for my edit summaries, most of them are manually typed,[2] some are specified by me and generated by AutoWikiBrowser,[3][4] and a few are just default AWB edit summaries.[5] Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 04:18, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Ah okay, now I get it. And thanks for the info about AWB. Equazcion •✗/C • 04:27, 20 Feb 2008 (UTC)
At CfD "Speedy" Deletions take 2 days, rather than 5. Hence the separate section. - jc37 07:12, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
That doesn't seem all that speedy, since speedies for pages can be immediate. I'm still not sure why nominations are necessary for category speedies and not for anything else, aside from BlackFalcon's bot explanation -- but even then it seems speedier if when one person tags a category an admin simply assesses it themselves and takes the appropriate action, the way speedies work for everything else. Equazcion •✗/C • 07:16, 20 Feb 2008 (UTC)
Well, we defer to WP:CFD in this (and in most things). Perhaps the better place to ask for clarification would be WT:CFD. - jc37 07:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

User:Angr

User:Angr is indiscriminately supporting deletion on every uCfD. Should we note this for the closing admins? -- Ned Scott 05:25, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

If you wish, but to be honest, even if we were to presume "bad faith", this isn't the first time this has occurred here. "bad faith" comments can and typically are discounted by closers.
That said, I don't know if I'd characterise the comments as "bad faith". Seems to me just someone who, in general, sees most if not all Wikipedian categories worthy of deletion. A valid perspective, regardless if I agree with it. Compare that to some Wikipedians who were/are upset about the deletion of a category which they felt personal ownership, who then proceeded to "vote" delete in several discussions, and nominate categories for WP:POINT reasons. I don't think the two are comparable. (Though to be fair, unless User:Angr clarifies further, we cannot be sure of his motivations beyond face value. I'll stick to WP:AGF, for now : )
Incidentally, while we're on the subject, you have several comments that were possibly less than civil. If you're so inclined, would you go back through the page and see if there are any (as yet) unresponded to comments which you might edit? - jc37 05:51, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Ned, that simply isn't true. I'm only supporting deletion of the user categories that do not help build an encyclopedia. I quite intentionally did not support deletion of Category:Usernames editors have expressed concern over, because that one might actually have a benefit to the encyclopedia. But the MySpacey ones of "Users interested in this or that", "Users who like this or that", and "Users who speak this or that language" have no benefit to encyclopedia-building. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 05:55, 29 February 2008 (UTC)


Wikipedian by musical instrument categories

There are a number of categories along the lines of Category:Wikipedian trombonists-2 in Special:Wantedcategories - I undeleted that one, but then realized there were many more - none of the deletion summaries indicate a discussion (they're mostly just C1), and there are no apparent incoming links; I thought I'd ask here if there was a mass UCFD I'm not aware of before deciding whether to undelete these or fix the templates. —Random832 19:04, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

There is a note about this at Category talk:Wikipedians by musical instrument. It has to do with the big migration from Category:Wikipedians who play foo to Category:Wikipedian fooists. (Not all of the categories were moved.) There was some debabelization done at that point, and it looks like a lot of links were broken and not recreated correctly (or at all). Horologium (talk) 23:19, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
This was indeed a mess. I was working on it for awhile, and got sidetracked. This is a set of complex transclusions. I recently re-added the category to the widely used template which populates most Category:Wikipedians by musical instrument. So that's probably the source of the many redlinks. - jc37 03:22, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Category:Contributors to other Wikipedias by language

The subcategories of Category:Contributors to other Wikipedias by language currently follow the format Category:Contributors to the [language] Wikipedia. Thus, technically, the category titles do not imply that they are user categories and should not include articles (about notable Wikipedians). I'm not aware of any case where this has caused confusion, but is it worth renaming these to the Category:Wikipedian contributors to the [language] Wikipedia or Category:Wikipedians who contribute to the [language] Wikipedia format? Black Falcon (Talk) 01:49, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I was considering nominating these for that same reason. It will be a lot of work, but for clarification purposes I agree it should be done. Perhaps we can get a bot to do all the creations/moves? VegaDark (talk) 02:08, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I can do the tagging fairly quickly using AWB, but the implemention could require a lot of effort. (It depends on the degree to which the categories are template-populated; if they are solely or mostly template-populated, one could implement the moves fairly quickly using AWB by generating a list of templates based on transclusions on Wikipedia:Userboxes/Wikipedia/Foreign). Are you aware of any bots (except AMbot, whose operator - After Midnight - is on break) that have dealt with UCFD in the past? Black Falcon (Talk) 02:20, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Betacommandbot will usually do what needs to be done on the working page if I ping BC on IRC. VegaDark (talk) 02:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
OK, I will tag the categories and initiate the nomination. Black Falcon (Talk) 16:31, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Requested suspension of UCFDs for media and genre interest

In response to the recent request for suspending UCFDs for media and genre interest, I wonder whether it would not be more efficient to use this talk page to coordinate any reorganisation efforts instead of imposing a blanket suspension... Black Falcon (Talk) 17:51, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedians interested in history

(Link to the discussion: Wikipedia:User categories for discussion/Archive/February 2008#Category:Wikipedians interested in history)

Per a suggestion from VegaDark I'm posting a note about the above category here. The general category "Wikipedians interested in history" was recently depopulated by BetacommandBot after a limited discussion back in February based on a de-population nomination (I guess that's what you would call it) that argued that the cat "seems far too general and broad to facilitate any sort of collaboration by individual users in the category." VegaDark and I recently had a discussion about it on that user's talk page here which is more detailed than what follows.

I was in this category, which was the only "interest" category on my user page. I've never been involved in user category discussion before, but I find the de-populating of this cat (and quite possibly others like it) rather ill advised. It was based on the idea that the category would not facilitate collaboration between users, yet none of the users in the category were consulted (and I'm not suggesting notes should have been posted to all of them, maybe just a few active ones) to see if they felt the category was/could be useful for collaboration. While there are a number of more refined categories for historical interest which is great, personally I feel a general cat for all editors interested in history certainly could be useful. I doubt it was doing any active harm, and maybe it already had proven useful to some folks. We would not know because no one bothered to ask.

In the end I have a specific question and a more general one. First, could the de-populating of this category be re-considered? I think it could be a useful category for collaboration (see my comment on VegaDark's talk page for a more detailed rationale). I imagine that others might agree with that and would think the voices of those who have worked on history related articles and put themselves in the category should count for something here. Second, are general cats routinely de-populated on the basis of "will not facilitate collaboration between users" without asking a few of the users in the category if it is useful? Given that hardly anyone participates in UCFD discussions, it seems problematic to make sweeping decisions there about what cats do or do not facilitate collaboration.

I waffled on whether to even bring this up since it's not a huge issue but decided it was worth it in the end because I never really like it when small groups of people decide things which affect a larger group of other people wihout consulting them. Not trying to cast aspersions or anything as I'm sure all of the work here is done in good faith. Any thoughts would be appreciated.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 10:30, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

One other thought. I happened to click on the user page of Black Falcon (who voted to depopulate the history category here) and immediately noticed at the bottom of the page that Black Falcon is in the category "Wikipedians interested in political science." That's rather similar to the history category in a certain sense. I'm imagining that folks who supported removing people from the history cat were not thinking of history as an academic discipline but rather simply as "the past." But of course it is an academic discipline, and when thought of in that regard it's difficult to understand why we can have a cat for folks who are interested in one academic discipline but not another - particularly when they are as closely related as history and poli sci. I'd rather we kept both of them. Anyhow.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 10:42, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
The depopulation of the category certainly can be reconsidered and reversed, through discussion here or via another nomination. With regard to your second question, no: nominations to depopulate parent categories are fairly rare (aside from the few such nominations in the past month, I think that the last round took place about a year ago). That said, users in the category are generally not contacted, for a variety of reasons, including WP:OWN concerns, canvassing concerns, and spamming concerns (not everyone appreciates such notifications).
I think your point regarding the perception of "history as an academic discipline" and history "as 'the past'" is extremely relevant to the discussion and its outcome. The term "history" is ambiguous in that it can refer to either meaning, whereas "political science" refers to an academic discipline specifically. I admit that I had primarily perceived the category as being for those with an interest in the past and, in view of your arguments, would not oppose (somewhat selectively) repopulating the category and specifying its scope in the category description. I would prefer a more specific title and categorisation into the more specific categories, but can see your point regarding the potential usefulness of a category for history (as an academic discipline) in general. Black Falcon (Talk) 20:07, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks very much for your reply. Re: the contacting of users, as I said above by no means do I think it advisable to spam users in the category being discussed or even necessarily contact any of them, however when the specific rationale for depopulation or deletion is "this does not help these users collaborate" (as opposed to a rationale of, say, "a category for 'Wikipedians who love Uma Thurman' is completely ridiculous") it seems very advisable to at least ask a few of those users if it could be/has been helpful for collaboration before even having a discussion about it. Otherwise the folks discussing the cat are merely guessing whether or not the cat is useful without basing that on any evidence either way. This is a general point, and I think an important one, and I don't want it to be lost in the more specific discussion about the history category. I think it especially applies to "serious" (for lack of a better word) categories like "interested in history" which involve scholarly or other professional work (and thus probably include a number of people with actual professional qualifications)
If that category can be reconsidered here than I guess that makes the most sense to me since we are already discussing it. My suggestion (and I am open to others) is that we simply put everyone back in the cat who was there in the first place - basically overturn the previous decision (obviously editors other than myself would have to agree with that!). I guess that would entail rolling back a bunch of BC Bot's edits. I'd have to hear more about what you mean by "(somewhat selectively) repopulating the category and specifying its scope." As of now the depopulated cat serves as a parent category for more specific categories, so if we changed its scope that might create difficulties. I suppose we could create a whole new category such as "Wikipedians who are interested in collaborating on history related articles" but that would be pretty slow to populate, whereas the originally category would be relatively easy to repopulate.
I guess the best argument from my perspective is that having a bunch of editors in the general "interested in history" category does no harm whatsoever as I can see, while it arguably does some good. Perhaps a note could be placed at the top of the page encouraging editors to include themselves in the general cat if they wanted but also in more specific categories based on their interests.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:00, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
There's an additional issue to this that I can see. Due to this being an encyclopedia, and since, essentially, nearly every article is one of "history", and Wikipedians presumably being "interested in" this encyclopedia, this becomes a de facto "all-inclusive" category. In other words, essentially useless for the presumed use of navigation.
This is better used as a parent category, for sub-categories which would be (presumably) more clear in their inclusion criteria (the "political science" example, above, for example).
I think it's great that you (and others) are interested in history, but you (and others) can just as easily note that on your userpage, without needing a "category grouping" to note it. ("I'm interested in history.") You could even find one of a myriad userboxes and place that on your userpage as well. ("This user is interested in history.")
I hope this helps. - jc37 21:09, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
The point of a category would be to make it easier to find other editors who are interested in the same subject. I continue to think that a general category could be useful in facilitating that and I doubt anyone will convince me otherwise. Placing a note that I am interested in history (which is already on my user page) does not help me find other users, and having a "This user is interested in history" userbox is functionally the same thing as having the category (indeed two of the user boxes on my page, re: Twinkle and DYK, automatically placed me in a category).
The assumption in the argument "ultimately everything in the encyclopedia is about history" (which I agree with) is that a whole slew of editors will come to that same conclusion and then say "hey, I belong in the 'Wikipedians interested in history' category!," drop themselves into it, and thus make it overloaded and useless. I find that exceedingly, exceedingly unlikely. We are interested in who was/who would be in the category in practice, not in theory. As to navigation, the political science category seems to include several hundred users. I imagine it was a fairly similar number in the history category. So how is the poli sci one useful for navigation and the history one not? And, hopefully pardoning my verbosity, let me make another point here in how these categories could be useful in navigational terms given that some seem to think that is not possible. If I clicked on the history cat looking for users who might offer advice on a historical topic, I might well get a very large list. However if I've been at Wikipedia for awhile, which I have, I will probably recognize some of the editors and might already respect their work which would significantly narrow down who I would contact. Having a large list is advantageous because I can see a bunch of users, rather than clicking through a bunch of more specified categories with few people in them (the category for "interested in American history," my general geographic area of study in my doctoral program, has exactly one editor who seems interested mainly in military history, which is not at all my interest. I'd probably rather work with someone interested in French or Puerto Rican or Jamaican cultural or political history given the subjects I am generally interested in - hence a broader cat would be better).
I'm still waiting for a cogent explanation as to why it is so crucial for there to be no editors in the general history category. Note that I am not at all persuaded by the argument "because there will be too many people there so it won't be useful to you in terms of collaboration." That argument is completely speculative, and quite frankly it is a bit annoying to be told (implicitly) that I am wrong when I say that having a particular category of users grouped by a certain general interest would be useful to me in seeking out other editors with expertise/knowledge in history. I think I am a fairly good judge of what would or would not be useful to me, which is why this whole depopulation (undertaken by a few in the supposed interests of a larger group) got my goad in the first place.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 22:39, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Any chance of a further discussion on this? Should I be taking this somewhere else? I'd rather just hash it out here.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 18:38, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

To be perfectly frank, I'm thoroughly unimpressed with the quality of discussion here. I brought up a very legitimate issue, received a couple of cursory replies with no follow up to my questions (which remain largely unanswered), and then the discussion was archived. I am de-archiving this for one last try since I was specifically told this was the place to discuss overturning previous decisions (no one has really engaged with that issue, and my previous question about taking this somewhere else went unanswered). Since bringing this up I've also come across (randomly) the cat "Wikipedians who are interested in philosophy" which is, like the poli sci category I mentioned, quite similar to the history category. This decision to delete the interest in history cat was made by three people without any consultation of the editors affected, and now that one of the editors affected is questioning that decision their questions are being largely ignored. Again, I am far from impressed with the way the process seems to work over here. Given that essentially no one participates in these discussions, I would hope the editors who frequent this page would be particularly open to outside criticism of their actions. So far that is not the impression I am receiving.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 00:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
As one of the participants in the original CFD discussion, I apologise if you feel that your comments were being ignored. Although UCFD does receive quite a bit of traffic by many users, most of the focus is on the discussions themselves, and relatively few seem to regularly visit this talk page. ... For my part, I simply failed to notice your post of 29 March; my watchlist is quite bloated and I do not notice every change.
With regard to the points you have raised, I would like to offer two comments. First, on the issue of functionality, I would disagree that userboxes and user categories are similar. Userboxes provide information to those who seek information about a specific user; user categories provide information to those seeking out users (but not necessarily a specific user) based on a certain characteristic (such as interest in a subject). Second, on the comparison between the history and political science categories, I think that the ambiguity of the term "history", which could refer either to an academic discipline or to 'the past', is an important factor. "Political science", unlike history, refers to an academic discipline specifically.
Nonetheless, for the purpose of moving forward with this issue, I have drafted a nomination to discuss the (selective or full) re-population of the category, the text of which is below:

Per comments made here, I would like to initiate a discussion on the possible re-population of Category:Wikipedians interested in history. The category was depopulated per this discussion in February, based on the conclusion that it was too broad to be useful. As I see it, there are three options: (1) Do nothing. (2) Selectively re-populate the category with those user pages which were added manually (i.e. not through transclusion of any userboxes). (3) Repopulate the category in its entirety, including user pages added through transclusion of userboxes.

If there are no additional comments to this section within, say, 24 hours, or if there is no indication that a consensus can be reached through discussion on the talk page, then I will post the nomination to the main UCFD page to solicit more participation. Black Falcon (Talk) 02:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree with BF, and if such a discussion were brought back I would support doing nothing, as I am not particularly persuaded by your arguments, and believe the original nomination reasoning was sound. VegaDark (talk) 02:47, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the replies, and I have no problem with Black Falcon's proposal of posting the nomination to the main UCFD page. Could you briefly explain the distinctions between two and three? "Transclusion of userboxes" is not something I am familiar with. I was reading it as the difference between letting the category slowly repopulate or repopulating it by "undoing" all of the previous removals. Is that correct? I was not sure the latter would even be that feasible, and if so the slow repopulating would be fine with me. And just quickly on user boxes vs. categories - yes of course there is a distinction as you describe. I didn't explain it well, but I was simply pointing out that some user boxes do seem to automatically drop users into categories. The reason I would like to keep the general history category though is because I feel it would be useful in finding users based on a certain characteristic, not as a means to provide others with information about me specifically.
Anyhow, since it does not appear we will achieve consensus here per VegaDark and perhaps others, we can move forward with Black Falcon's suggestion as far as I'm concerned. In that venue the two main things I would like to hear those who feel as VegaDark does address are: 1) What is the precise rationale for this general category not being useful for finding users of a certain characteristic? I would hope that answers would address the arguments I have made for its usefulness and the simple fact that we have enormously large categories like "Wikipedians interested in philosophy" (which is not merely an academic discipline and which is incredibly broad) and "Wikipedians interested in India" (which could mean Indian food, film, music, history, geography, politics, languages, religion, etc.); 2) Even if it is only possible, but not certain, that the cat will be useful for finding users, what possible harm does it do to allow it to be populated?
Thanks to Black Falcon for the proposal to open a new discussion.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:16, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
The distinction between (2) and (3), as I had intended them, is between undoing any edits made to user pages only (#2) and undoing all edits made to achieve depopulation of the category (#3). Allow me to attempt to clarify that a bit more...
Most user categories are largely populated by userboxes which have a category attached – that is, any user who adds the userbox to his/her user page is automatically placed into a certain category. When a single userbox is used by many users, a single edit to the userbox by a single editor can add categories to the user pages of hundreds of editors. These users may or may not have any interest in collaborating on articles related to a certain topic. Other users add themselves to a category directly, by placing the category code (and not a userbox) on their user page. The distinction I suggested was between re-adding the latter users to the category (#2) versus re-adding all users to the category (#3), including those who were in the category because of a userbox.
Incidentally ... upon reading your comment, I realised that I had left out a fourth possibility: allowing the category to naturally repopulate without undoing any changes made so far. Black Falcon (Talk) 06:06, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I think that makes sense to me (this userbox/cat stuff is not my Wiki-strong point). But were their users in the category because of a userbox, and if so which one or ones? If there were I assume they were removed by somehow changing the format of the user box? Anyhow, I would be in favor of either returning to the status quo as it was before (whatever the means for that would be, and I'm not clear on that as of yet) or, if that is excessively difficult, just letting folks add themselves as time goes on (option four).--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 06:42, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Due to the time lag between the CFD closure (23 February) and the final depopulation of the category (22 March), I've been unable to determine whether (and, if so, to what extent) the category was populated by userbox transclusions. (If there were users in the category because of a userbox, you are correct that they would have been removed by changing the code of the userbox.) There may have been no user category, or one or more editors could have edited one or more userboxes to remove the category sometime during that one-month period.
However, I was able to find that the final depopulation involved manual removal of the category from the userboxes of ca. 130 users (see list) by a bot. So repopulating the category, if there is consensus to do so, is possible. Black Falcon (Talk) 07:02, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I have posted a nomination on the main UCFD page. Black Falcon (Talk) 18:55, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

CfD Notice

Since it involves categories and userboxes, I thought I'd leave a notice about the discussion here, for those who also might be interested. - jc37 18:45, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Relisted at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 April 6#Userbox categories. - jc37 15:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Guidelines

As per several discussions, I split the guidelines at Wikipedia:Userboxes to their own page at Wikipedia:User categories. That page is still transcluded at Wikipedia:Userboxes (to retain innumerable links to that location), so edit with care : ) - jc37 21:07, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposed guideline for uer categories relating to media and genres

There is a proposed guideline for user categories that are related to media and genres. - LA @ 10:11, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Can we close some of the open discussions that have been marked wait for the above proposal? VegaDark brings up a valid point: don't see why we should wait- proposed guidelines can take months to become an actual guideline, and that's even when there is consensus. No real point in keeping things open for possibly a very long time. Anything deleted can be recreated just as easily if necessary. --Kbdank71 20:31, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
"Wait" is as valid a comment as "Keep", "Delete", or "Rename". As such, "Waiting" would seem to be under the discernment and discretion of the closer, just like the other options. - jc37 20:38, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
True, I didn't think of that. --Kbdank71 20:48, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Overcategorization/User categories

Guideline proposal based on the last several years of discussions at WP:UCFD. Kudos go primarily to User:Black Falcon. - jc37 15:00, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Nice. When I'm home and off dial-up, I'll take an in-depth look at it, but at first blush it seems to cover most of the problems we've had recently with out-of-control category creation. Horologium (talk) 19:00, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

List of all user categories

I now have a list of all currently populated (or recently populated as well, as it seems) categories that have the word "wikipedian" or "user" in them, located at my sandbox. It makes for easy searching for a category with a particular word in it. Feel free to make any changes to remove false positives or empty/deleted categories, etc. VegaDark (talk) 00:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd always wanted to know how many user categories we have... :) Is the list bot-generated / automatically updated? Black Falcon (Talk) 17:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
It was generated by somebody with toolserver access on IRC (speaking of which, you and Jc37 still need to get on that!) and is not automatically updated, although I can request for an update whenever one is needed. Also, this doesn't include "Wikiproject x members/participants" categories, so it doesn't include all of them, but most are listed. VegaDark (talk) 00:32, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

What to do?

These are television wrestling shows, and I'm not sure where these should be categorised. They're not sports. They're not game shows. And they're definitely not "reality" shows.

At the moment they're just in the parent cat Category:Wikipedians by interest in a television series, which is probably fine. Just was interested in some insight/opinions. - jc37 20:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedians interested in sports

The "fans" categories are throughout. But that aside, the subcats could use some cleanup. Some of these should be parent cats and depopulated, etc. Interested in others' thoughts on this. - jc37 20:19, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

{{Oldcfdfull}} can now be used for UCFDs

A heads-up: Following a suggestion by User:Enric Naval, I modified Template:Oldcfdfull so it can be used for user categories. Just add the parameter |usercat=yes, and the discussion link will point to the proper archived UCFD discussion (the other parameters are of course still required -- see the template documentation for complete instructions). The template can (should) be added to category talk pages following keep decisions. Thanks. Equazcion •✗/C • 10:40, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://mdwiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion/User/Archive_6"