Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/User/Archive 7

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length of time in WP:CFD/WU

I've been doing clean up for awhile now in the above link. I was wondering how long an entry should stay in Already deleted but not empty section before it is removed?--Rockfang (talk) 07:32, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Until it actually gets emptied. In the case of the category currently there, I don't think any of the users in the category re-added themselves, the category was simply deleted before depopulation, so it needs to be depopulated before it is removed. If the users had re-added themselves, then the listing should be moved to the commented out portion of that section. VegaDark (talk) 17:05, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

bot for UCFD

I was recently reading Wikipedia:User_categories_for_discussion#Category:Editor_Responses_to_RfA_Review. If a bot is ever needed for mass moves, my bot (RockfangBot) has been approved for it. Just put it on WP:CFD/WU and I'll do it.--Rockfang (talk) 10:10, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! That will come in handy. VegaDark (talk) 16:52, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but...

UCFD currently has no open debates for the first time that I can ever remember. I'm not sure if that's because of recent disinterest in UCFD or if it's because we have done such a good job of finding and nominating the bad categories, but perhaps it is time to tackle some of the cases we have been avoiding for years, such as:

  • A standard naming convention for "Wikipedians by Wikiproject" categories. Last time we discussed this the opinions were split on members vs. participants. Maybe come up with a new convention alltogether?
  • Elimination of the few remaining "Wikipedians who play" categories - Is playing an uncommon sport really worth categorizing? Also, how did the "Japanese-only video games" category survive the main UCFD deleting all video game cats? I'd support deleting these.
  • Elimination of the remaining "Wikipedians who like" categories- We have done a good job narrowing this down to just the TV show categories, but there is no doubt this is the most unencyclopedic standard naming convention we currently follow, and I would support renaming or deleting all these.
  • Renaming the whole babel system - Probably the hardest thing to accomplish on this list. Having a "User-x" naming convention over a "Wikipedians who are x proficiency in y language" never made much sense to me, and we should think about getting this changed (particularly for programming languages, or the understanding of a written language). Perhaps even the majority of the programming langage ones should be deleted, since the logic behind keeping these categories (from what I understand) is that they might be used to seek out users who can use that skill to develop some sort of tool to help Wikipedia. Surely a great deal of the (primarily older) programming languages would not be useful for this, and don't really have an encyclopedic purpose.
  • Eliminating some of the other constructed/dialect language categories, such as the "British English" or "Astralian English" ones- It does not help the encyclopedia to categorize such minute differences in language, one English category (or 2 if we include simple Enlgish) is enough.

Thoughts? Disagree? Anyone want to undertake/help me undertake any of these? VegaDark (talk) 19:34, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I think all of these are great ideas, but seeing as how people generally resist change, I'd suggest doing one at a time. "Wikipedians who like" might be the easiest to tackle, since people are already familiar with that. --Kbdank71 19:44, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Let's stay away from the babel/language system (or at least until the very last). It's fairly standard on more than just Wikipedia. (And I actually can see a value for some of the national varieties of English.)
If you want to tackle something, I'd suggest alma mater. I'd like to see it renamed to Wikipedians by campus. (Based on past discussions).
And Wikipedians by degree. A userbox is fine, but a category? "Just another editor" comes to mind.
And if you truly wanted to get energetic, how about deleting the whole "Wikipedians by interest" tree : ) - jc37 22:04, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
And Wikipedia:User categories for discussion/Wikipedians by programming language is still waiting on the back burner as well : ) - jc37 22:55, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I can see some value in the "Wikipedians by degree" tree. While some categories are undoubtedly too broad to be useful (Category:Wikipedians with AA degrees comes to mind), ones such as Category:Wikipedians with MPhys degrees might have some use. (Then again, maybe I'm reading too much into it.) As for the programming language categories, I think that this is a good place to start (or resume, technically). –Black Falcon (Talk) 01:50, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
So perhaps suggesting removing "general" degrees, while retaining those which refer to a specific topic? That would make a lot more sense to me.
And if someone wanted to make a new list of the prog lang cats and compare it to the existing one I made at the link noted above that would be great. (Else I will, eventually.) I think that that's something that had at least some consensus in that there was no standard and one would be helpful, so we could probably start on that one right away.
So to clarify: besides programming languages, what do at least us three have consensus concerning? - jc37 06:44, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
For my part, I'm in favour of the proposed changes to the programming language categories (renaming to expand the abbreviations and/or to get rid of the "User" prefix, and more generally considering which ones are useful for collaboration) and I'd also support taking a look at the remaining dialect categories (while some might be useful, I suspect most are not necessary). By the way, has anything happened with this proposal since April, or is it time to tag it {{historical}} or {{rejected}}? –Black Falcon (Talk) 20:06, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Another thing I'll note needs to be done involving UCFD regulars is file an RfC on a certain someone who continually adds themselves to the Category:Wikipedians by religion category after repeated attempts to get them to stop. It seems that is the next step after several discussions [1], [2], [3] on the matter. Either that, or simply remove them from the category and watch the drama start up again. VegaDark (talk) 01:12, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

It's not the right answer, but to be honest, I think if we can deal with some of the above issues first, perhaps issues such as the one directly above may eventually fix themselves. So I'm demurring from another fight "discussion" on that until we clean more house here, such as the things suggested above. But again, it's probably not the best answer, but it's seems to be working for now. (For example, with the exception of a few double standard "semi-contentious" cats, we really don't seem to have the issue of redlinked cats with more than a single member anymore - though I suppose I could be incorrect about that?.) - jc37 06:44, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
I just read through that and wow, what a mess. A bunch of drama over very little. I fully agree with not having people in a category not meant for people, but considering there are enough users on wikipedia who believe that "fun" "harmless" crap is a-ok, and will oppose any official attempt to wrench the Well endowed wikipedian[citation needed] from his playground that in the long run, you'll waste a lot of time and energy to get nothing done. I'm curious; since the Cheese eating, pooping Jesus has such disdain for UCFD, repeatedly saying there is no consensus for it to exist or operate and it's not policy, why shouldn't we just recombine it with CFD? After all, user categories are part of the category namespace, no different in the eyes(?) of the software, and CFD does have consensus to operate. Or we can just deny for now and fix more important things. --Kbdank71 20:49, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
A re-merge is quite doable, especially now that there is a separate "Working" page. (One of the main concerns of several bot owners.)
And I'd support it, mostly. My main concern now is more archival. Would it be easier to find something archived the way things are now, or the way things would be under CfD? Note that we could keep the topical index up to date (while discontinuing the archives once the processes were merged), which might help.
But be warned that there are those who, at least in the past, strongly opposed such a re-merger.
All of the above aside, I agree most with your last thought. Let's finish getting the house (mostly) in order beforehand. - jc37 05:36, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
I'd also favour a re-merge after we finish (mostly) "cleaing house", so to speak. (In fact, the question of why a separate process existed for user categories was actually what prompted me to visit UCFD for the first time way back in 2007.) –Black Falcon (Talk) 01:56, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and whatever happened to (since "from" and "in" had consensus, at least, last I recall) to renaming (or deleting - as appropriate) all the ethnicity (-ish/-ian/etc.) cats? - jc37 07:03, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that there is a lot of miscategorisation in and redundant categorisation between the "Wikipedians in", "Wikipedians from", and ethnicity (-ish/-ian) categories. For instance, a lot of "place of origin" userboxes categorise into the "in" categories. Moreover, it is not always clear whether "Indian Wikipedia", for instance, means: (1) a Wikipedian of Indian origin, (2) a Wikipedian editing from (i.e. living in) India, or (3) a Wikipedian with Indian citizenship. Again, most of the problems are caused by ambiguously-worded and -categorised userboxes. So, I'd be in favour of trying to improve the coordination between these category trees. (I recently had an idea for "Category:Wikipedians by residence: [location]" and "Category:Wikipedians by origin: [location]" categories, but I haven't had much time to think it through...) –Black Falcon (Talk) 20:06, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
I understand the idea, and I know you mean well, but: "ugh" @ the lengthy names. I've never liked the colonised names of the alumni cats. (Seems to me to be contrary to how categories are supposed to work. Accuracy in naming, as well as utility in naming.)
If you want a parent cat of "Wikipedians by residence", fine. But then having the parent name as a prefixed part of the names of all the subcats? Ugh.
We've had previous consensus regarding "in" and "from", let's merge the rest to them as appropriate, and move on from there? - jc37 05:36, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, the "ugh" factor is definitely there (the converted forms—Wikipedians residing in... and Wikipedians originating in...—are still "ugh", albeit in a different way). While I don't consider "in" and "from" to be ideal, I agree that they're probably the best options from a practical standpoint. –Black Falcon (Talk) 01:56, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Quick tangent here, but has anyone thought about just saying screw it, let the masses create any and every user category they want to? Let them all stay, regardless of "of", "in", misspellings, unused, trouts, whatever. Not saying I'd want that to happen, just wondering if that was ever an idea. --Kbdank71 21:01, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

More than once... However, I do occasionally make use of these categories myself, mostly to request translation of a particular sentence/paragraph in a source, and I know that others do as well. (In fact, I'm currently in need of a Wikimedia Commons administrator (or someone else with knowledge of US copyright law) -- I'll get to it eventually, and when I do I'll be using Category:Wikipedian Wikimedia Commons administrators.) That's largely why I keep coming back here, and also why I disagree with the laissez-faire approach to user categories that you mention in your comment above. A useless user category is never truly harmless because it hinders navigation, and while the presence of 1, 2, or 10 such categories makes no real difference, the clutter can add up quickly. –Black Falcon (Talk) 21:32, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
  • "...Let them all stay, regardless of "of", "in", misspellings, unused, trouts, whatever..."
If the point of a grouping is navigation, then a horde of variously named categries will be nearly impossible to find. Imagine if there were 15 different categories dealing with those who like Harry Potter. All with variant memberships (and 15 is on the conservative side, I believe). Lack of convention would stand in the way of editors being able to find other editors.
It's very similar to why we have naming conventions for categories which contain articles. Else readers won't be able to find what they might be looking for or interested in. It's a hindrance to navigation. Which is the cardinal sin of categorisation. So we have "conventions". (The intent of which is also to minimise bureaucracy.)
All that said, I believe that there are a fair amount of categories which exist mostly for IWANTMINE reasons, which have little to do with actual navigation. People tend to personally identify with their interests, and so they will fight for anything pertaining to their interests, even if there is no logical reason to do so. Merely: "If they get theirs, I want mine." Nothing encyclopedic, or collaborative at all about it.
WP:OC (and in this case, WP:OC/U) are example pages which have grown out of the XfD process, which I believe have been very helpful. For one thing, it lessens the Bite that newbies to categorisation may feel concerning "their" categories. Helping to show that this is in no way a personal attack on their edits, but that, in general, all such categories are frowned upon, and here's why. - jc37 05:36, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
Here's my thought: it would be a hindrance to navigation, sure, but only to user pages, which are not part of the encyclopedia. I have always thought (and will continue to do so, unless convinced otherwise) that user categories serve so little purpose as an aid to collaboration that we could just get rid of them all, and for the few where people were actually using it to collaborate, we would spend far less time in finding a replacement (such as a wikiproject) than we would having the same discussions day in and day out with the same people about the same categories. But since that will never happen, opening the flood gates may convince some people that user categories are not as useful as some proponents would like to believe, and make the whole UCFD process easier. (And I apologize for the tangent right in the middle of this thread) --Kbdank71 17:55, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
Smiles @ the anarchy resolution : )
And I've started to agree with you as far as utility.
Check out WP:OC/U. There are sections of appropriate user categories (atm, anyway). I think we'd address your concerns (and mine, and others') if we removed the "by interest" ones.
But until we do, we're kinda stuck with what we have. Unless you have more ideas? (I think the more ideas we throw at this, the more likely one of them might "stick" : ) - jc37 21:57, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
I too have found myself reevaluating the utility of some of the category trees. I used to think "Wikipedians by location" could be very useful for procuring free images of static objects and "Wikipedians by interest" could be very useful for collaboration on articles until I found out how many of the categories are actually populated by ambiguous or frivolous userboxes. I've also started to wonder about the need for Category:Wikipedians by language to exist separately from Category:Available translators in Wikipedia. However, I'm reluctant to propose merging the two category trees since Category:Available translators in Wikipedia seems (at least on the surface) to be oriented more toward actual collaboration, and I don't want to potentially dilute the usefulness of the tree through mass merging. –Black Falcon (Talk) 01:56, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
Ok, now there is a user category tree I can see the use for. Category:Available translators in Wikipedia is definitely for collaboration. It's to help the encyclopedia. Unlike Category:Wikipedians by language, which seems to be a collection of useless "look what I can do" categories. I agree that merging won't help any, and it'll take an act of Jimbo to delete them, as consensus is slim. Of course, that doesn't help the discussion any. I'll go read OC/U now. --Kbdank71 14:59, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Merge notice

Please see the above for the discussion. - jc37 05:21, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Discussion notice

Please see the above for the discussion. - jc37 10:17, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

List of all G4-able user cats

A long time ago I started a list in my sandbox (ignore the "All populated categories with "Wikipedian" or "User" in the name" portion) of all G4-able user categories. I think this list, if completed would be very helpful to quickly glance over to see if any of the links turned blue in order to spot quick speedy candidates. The topical index is great and should continue to be worked on, but it has its limitations in that it 1. Doesn't link to actual categories to see if they have been recreated, only links to the discussion and 2. Doesn't do much in the way of group noms, as there may be dozens of categories deleted in a single nom with a general name, and simply linking to the UCFD in these cases isn't going to help someone spot a recreation. Creating the list is a daunting task, however, as I have barely completed over a month's worth of UCFDs. I started adding another month today until I realized that I should probably get more input as to 1. Moving this to Wikipedia space (Now? Or perhaps once more is completed?) 2. Inclusion. Right now I only have UCFDs resulting in delete or rename, which would be about right if we only want the list to show G4-able categories. There are some borderline ones that have resulted in speedy delete, however, which I'm not sure would qualify as G4. I also added a note about not including C1 or G7 deleteions as those technically aren't G4-able, but the parameters for inclusion I should probably open up to others if my intent is to eventually move this to Wikipedia-space. Perhaps there are some more scenerios I haven't thought of. 3) Format of the list. There are definitely some changes that could be made here, but I wanted to make it so that all (or a lot, at least) of the categories could fit on a single page. If it gets big enough, perhaps would could split it by years, though. This was one of the biggest reasons why I wanted to come here, as I figured the way I am currently doing it probably isn't the best way we can come up with, and it would be easiest to deal with it now when only a month is done. So, thoughts? VegaDark (talk) 19:02, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Interesting idea.
My main issue would be WP:BEANS.
That said, perhaps a way forward would be to merely add such a section at the top of each month's archive? That way its not any more information than would be found on the page anyway? - jc37 02:28, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
I thought of that, but you would have to go through month after month (30+ clicks and counting) to check for recreations instead of the much-faster way of simply looking at a page or two. That being said, I'd prefer doing that to nothing. VegaDark (talk) 04:34, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Users of Sign Language

I noticed that there is no user category for those of us who use signed languages such as American Sign Language. Was this category previously deleted or never created? Honestly, I find it a very interesting thing to know if others use ASL, and think other signers would as well. musicalmeg20 (talk) 07:45, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

See Category:User ase. VegaDark (talk) 15:44, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! It was hiding in the abbreviation. musicalmeg20 (talk) 07:17, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Merge discussion, redux

I am planning to merge UCfD over to CfD effective at the end of December 2008, to allow for the archival cycle to finish, barring any objections. This is due to the inactivity in general on this end in terms of people adding to the discussion and creating nominations (Few besides User:VegaDark are even noticable here). Hopefully this transition will go smoothly, as it should also allow for smoother CfD archiving, as UCfD does not use the day logs that other XfDs do. Wizardman 01:38, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

No objections from me. --Kbdank71 17:13, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
I have some weak objections. I would kind of like to keep the two processes separate just because they rely on such totally different inclusion standards, it does not seem logical to require two entirely different guides for the same page. I don't see anything wrong with the way things go on here right now. Sure not many pages get nominated but I doubt more people will start patrolling and nomination more user categories just because the location where they are debated is changed and UCFD is getting along fine in terms of the number of reviewers it has, who are generally more experienced with user categories than the CFD crowd. Icewedge (talk) 01:42, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
For the split, I think that main concern was due to breaking bots.
So the UCFD working page needs to remain. (We can add a link at the CFD working page, similar to the link for "manual".)
As for my opinion on whether this is a good idea, I do agree with Icewedge, but I also agree with Wizardman that the page traffic is rather low.
Perhaps an option (which has been discussed before) might be to have separate log pages for UCFD (while still subpages of cfd). Due to the lower amount of noms, they could be monthly instead of daily (which is similar to the UCFD archives). - jc37 09:12, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
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