Oppose. - A little background info first, if I may:
All Whyte notation wheel arrangement articles for steam locomotives I ever worked on mention five equivalent classification systems: UIC, French, Turkish, Swiss and Russian. I made provision for all five when I created Template:Infobox steam wheel arrangement in October 2016. See 4-6-2 for an example.
Ever since I first began creating locomotive articles in 2010, Template:Infobox locomotive made provision for three classification systems: Whyte and UIC for steam and UIC and AAR for electric, diesel-electric and other powered boxcars. No provision was made for the widely used British or Commonwealth system for electric and diesel-electric locomotives. When I expanded this infobox in January 2016, with a large amount of help from Frietjes and DePiep, I added an option for the Commonwealth system.
At the same time I began revisiting Whyte notation wheel arrangement articles (see e.g. 0-6-6) and recategorising them into their applicable new sub-categories:
Example 0-6-6 was already in Category:0-6-6 locomotives in this case. Since Category:0-6-6 locomotives is a sub-category of Category:Whyte notation, which is already a sub-category of Category:Locomotives by wheel arrangement, I removed Category:Locomotives by wheel arrangement from the 0-6-6 article since I considered it unnecessary duplication within the same category tree.
For the UIC equivalent of the 0-6-6 wheel arrangement, I created a new Category:C3 locomotives as a sub-category of Category:UIC classification.
I did the same with the non-steam classification systems (UIC, AAR and Commonwealth). My plan was to unclutter Category:Locomotives by wheel arrangement and to sort all the varieties of the different classification systems together by system in a more orderly, logical and understandable fashion.
The reaction to the aformentioned by Andy Dingley was in his usual style whenever I’m concerned, with no trace of WP:AGF, accusations disguised as discussion and with an insult of inflexibility tossed in for good measure right from the outset.
Now, on to Dingley’s suggested mass deletion of categories, beginning with Category:2B locomotives and with another 34 added by him since:
Dingley: This category is firstly irrelevant. The entries described here (as can be seen from their titles) were described as Category:4-4-0 locomotives, not as 2B. The two terms are synonyms from two description schemes. The 4-4-0 (Whyte notation) was the one used for them both contemporaneously, and today.
How is it irrelevant, unless you want to believe that a locomotive article on Wikipedia is only of interest to those who live in countries where the Whyte notation is predominant? A large percentage of SA locomotives were designed and built in Europe, especially Germany and also Italy where the much more eloquent and descriptive UIC system was/is used, so these equivalent systems are both well known in South Africa and, I’m sure, in other countries with historical British ties who also shopped for locomotives elsewhere than just North America or the UK. Besides, what’s being talked about here are not articles but categories. Since when are there restrictions on Wikipedia to prohibit an article from being categorised in a related and relevant category?
Dingley: The choice of scheme used to describe any group (or individual locomotive class) should be chosen on the basis of what is most relevant to that group. There is no need to describe every class by every naming convention. Many of the conventions would (sic) inappropriate or anachronistic, many cannot reflect the subtleties needed for some particular classes, there is also a problem where some names overlap between classes, but have different meanings. It should not be a goal on WP here to describe everyset (sic) of classes by every classification, or even to try and apply one classification across everything (as I suspect was the goal here).
Now Dingley seems confused since he now talks about articles while this exercise was started by him to delete categories, meant to sort related articles together in related groups in an index format.
Dingley: The category is also incorrect. Their UIC description should be "2'B locomotives", not "2B locomotives". The difference is significant. There are no known examples of a UIC 2B locomotive - that would be an empty category.
This is not true!. The very first ever known 4-4-0 tender locomotive had no bogie and would therefore be classified 2B under the UIC classification. Besides, the category description reads: “Locomotives classified 2B or 2'B under the UIC classification of locomotive axle arrangements.” Is that unclear or confusing in any way?
In naming the category, and also those other 34 since added into this argument, I opted for the generic and simpler 2B instead of the more specific 2'B for the simple reason that more specific descriptions would soon get out of hand and become unmanageable. Take the Pacific, for example: There’s no need for separate categories for all possible permutations such as 2C1, 2'C1 and 2'C1' (actually much more: 2'C1n2, 2'C1n2t, 2'C1'n2, 2'C1'nv3, 2'C1'n2t, 2'C1'h2, 2'C1'h4), almost all of which were used in South Africa, when a generic category Category:2C1 locomotives can accommodate the whole lot.
Dingley: This category is broken and needs to be fixed, at the least. It is also so obscure as to count as a WP:NEOLOGISM, not a category worth fixing. The Category:4-4-0 locomotives already did everything we need.
Nothing is broken and nothing needs to be fixed. All the categories concerned here are valid. Once again Dingley seems to be confusing articles with categories – the word “category” does not appear anywhere in all the text about neulogisms on Wikipedia and it seems to me Dingley does not actually understand the meaning of the term. In assition, by “did everything we need” is meant, I suspect, “did everything Dingley needs”. This is Wikipedia, whose aim is to disseminate knowledge to everyone, not to restrict it to some. - André Kritzinger (talk) 12:14, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
