Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/User

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Criteria for speedy deletion of user categories

As user categories are used slightly differently than general categories, user cats should have their own criteria for speedy deletion. However, we should not attempt to overload the CSD criteria with things similar to what can be found at Wikipedia:Overcategorization.

The following is the proposed text for addition to CSD:

User categories

For any user categories that are not speedy deletion candidates, use Wikipedia:User categories for discussion.

1. Empty categories (no Wikipedian user pages or sub-categories for at least four days) whose only content has consisted of links to parent categories or related articles. This does not apply to categories being discussed on WP:UCFD, WP:CFD, or WP:SFD, or disambiguation categories. If the category isn't relatively new, it possibly contained articles earlier, and deeper investigation is needed. (This criteria should match C1.)
2. Speedy renaming. Categories that have qualified for speedy renaming. (This criteria - 1 through 5 - should match C2.)
   1. Typo fixes (e.g., Wikipeians -> Wikipedians), but not changes between British and American spelling.
   2. Capitalization fixes (e.g., Wikipedians Who like star Wars -> Wikipedians who like Star Wars).
   3. Conversions from singular to plural, or back (e.g., Wikipedian -> Wikipedians).
   4. Renaming to conform with the "by country" categorization conventions.
   5. Abbreviation expanding for country names, e.g. changing "U.S." to "United States."
   6. Any category intended for Wikipedians that has no indication it is a Wikipedian category can be speedy renamed. "Indications" include, but are not limited to: "Wikipedians", "WikiProject", or a name of a Wikipedia-specific organization or grouping.
   7. User categories using "users" may be speedily renamed to replace "users" with "Wikipedians", except in the case of Babel-specific user categories.
3. Template categories. If a category is solely populated from a template (e.g. Category:Wikipedia cleanup from {{cleanup}}) and the template is deleted per deletion policy, the category can also be deleted without further discussion. (This criteria should match C3.)
4. User categories that are divisive or inflammatory. (This criteria should match T1.)

Comments

• Please note UC2.4 (which matches C2.4) - This may be a potential solution to the in/of/from discussion. See also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories)#Categories by nationality and specifically, Category:People by nationality which is apparently the standard for people. We can just substitute Wikipedian for people in usage.

• Also, 2.6 and 2.7 are new, per previous consensus. - jc37 12:14, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks pretty good. I might add that user categories populated solely by userbox templates should be treated as empty, and be speedyable (regardless of if the template was deleted) after 4 days, and possibly add in a speedy rename criteria such as "Uncontroversial renames to conform with currently established naming conventions" - That would allow alma mater cats and other such obvious renames to be speedied. Also might want to change #4 to say divisive or inflammatory. I can just see someone arguing that the category they made was only 1 of the two, so it wouldn't be speedyable. VegaDark 09:10, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Taking them in order:

• "...categories populated solely by userbox templates should be treated as empty..." - This could be rather controversial.
• "Uncontroversial renames to conform with currently established naming conventions" - I like this, especially if we define it similar to WP:RM#Uncontroversial proposals.
• "...or..." - changed.

Any other thoughts? - jc37 09:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Not that I can think of. I know the first could be controversial but I don't really see the point of categories where the only member is a userbox template, seems like doing that is just a loophole so your cat doesn't get speedied after 4 days when nobody joins. If someone can't be arsed to join a Wikipedian category they created, they shouldn't have made it in the first place IMO. VegaDark 09:40, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you're saying. How about any category that has only the creator (and possibly the creator's transcluded subpages), and associated userbox(es), may be speedily deleted? - jc37 09:51, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking about that, but I can forsee people complaining about 4 days not being long enough for people to notice the category. It also might encourage sockpuppetry just so their category won't be deleted. I can somewhat have sympathy for user cat creators if they actually add themselves to the category, but when they create a user cat and don't even add themselves I don't buy the "not enough time" excuse. I'd say allow it even if only the creator is in the cat (but can certainly be brought to UCFD if this is the case), it's just when they don't add themselves that irks me. VegaDark 10:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Creating a category just because you created a "cool" userbox that "somebody" may use, but you're not interested in? Makes sense : ) - jc37 10:10, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Category:Wikipedians_born_between_1995_and_1999. Perhaps I should add something about this in the speedy criteria? - jc37 10:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I think there are still many who disagree with deletion of categories like that, and deleting them is more of a de facto standard rather than something official, as I doubt adding in that to speedy criteria would get a consensus, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to try. VegaDark 20:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

UC4

I'm fine with all of the listed criteria, though #4 seems like its execution will be problematic. Nonetheless, it's a nice stick to have.--Mike Selinker 04:18, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understood/understand "...though #4 seems like its execution will be problematic." Are you meaning T1, and by corrolary UC4? (In other words, problematic to generally apply.) or that UC4 is problematic on its own? - jc37 07:20, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

A concern might be speedy nominations of support/anti- categories as editors' own judgment of what is divisive or inflammatory. User categories seen as "divisive" by some, a word used often, can lead to no consensus through discussion (e.g. global warming). This has no clear analogy with T1 that I know of, because there is more leeway with user cats. POV templates are taken to TfD, while inflammatory templates are pretty clear as to their intent; there isn't really an "in between" area. Truly inflammatory stuff can be deleted with G10 anyway, right? –Pomte 17:59, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I am not aware of the history of how T1 is working, bit UC4 looks very problematic to me; I welcome the intent, but it's much too loosely worded, and far too wide in its possible scope.

• "Wikipedians who support xxx sports team"? Divisive, I support yyy team, and the rivalry with xxx leads to fights at all matches.
• "fooish religion Wikipedians"? Divisive, my area in Belfast/Beirut/Bradford/Baghdad (or wherever) is divided on religious lines, and people from that religion should people of my religions.
• "Wikipedians interested in communism"? My country was destroyed by the commies, and this category must be a fancy label for communist supporters (and I hate them).
• "Wikipedians interested in democracy"? Imperialist swine: the armies which invade my country all say they are promoting "democracy". I hate those people.
• "Wikipedians who use the Firefox browser"? Smug swine, sneering at us all because they think they are clever not using the browser which came with their PC.

... and so on. In fact, just about any category can be legitimately labelled as "divisive or inflammatory", and this is much more troublesome with categories than with templates. A template can be undeleted, but once a category is depopulated, it can be a nightmare to restore it.

I agree with the intention behind UC4, but cannot support anything like this unless it is tightly defined to restrict its use. A wide-open CSD criterion like this one is a recipe for many future conflicts. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:28, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Starting over (sort of)

After reading the discussion above (again), I think we should fall back a bit and re-group. Though we have a speedy section on the UCFD page, it really doesn't get used much, because (though we've discussed it several times in the past), no one is really sure what should be listed there.

I've struck out U4, since it's the one that seems to evoke the most concerns. It can always be part of some future discussion.

The following 2 are obvious:

• Any category intended for Wikipedians that has no indication it is a Wikipedian category can be speedy renamed. "Indications" include, but are not limited to: "Wikipedians", "WikiProject", or a name of a Wikipedia-specific organization or grouping.
• User categories using "users" may be speedily renamed to replace "users" with "Wikipedians", except in the case of Babel-specific user categories.

In addition to these, there have been a few discussions that have had consistant results: Sporting group fans; alma mater cats; languages to default to their iso code; -N (native) used on any cats except spoken languages should be deleted; all zero level cats except english should be deleted.

I'll see about writing up "something" of a speedy listing criteria. - jc37 06:32, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, after spending some time at CSD, The only real "additions/differences" are:

• Empty user category - One which has no Wikipedian user pages or sub-categories for at least four days, whose only content has consisted of a potentially populating template, or links to parent categories or related articles.

• A Wikipedian category which has no indication it is a Wikipedian category can be speedy renamed. "Indications" include, but are not limited to: "Wikipedians", "WikiProject", or a name of a Wikipedia-specific organization or grouping.
• Wikipedian categories may be speedily renamed to replace some form of "users" with some form of "Wikipedians", except in the case of categories which are to follow Babel naming conventions.
• Any "zero-level" (0-level) category (see Wikipedia:Babel), except english (as this is the english-language Wikipedia), may be speedily deleted.

Thinking about making this a subpage of this page, and adding the category CSD as well, and then providing a link from the main page. - jc37 07:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Go for it! –Pomte 20:43, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed move

I'd like to suggest that this page be moved.

• Wikipedia:User categories for discussion to Wikipedia:Wikipedian categories for discussion

I think the reasons are obvious? : ) - jc37 17:05, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Fine by me. Might want to take this higher than just a few of us agreeing on this talk page first, though I'm not sure where. VegaDark (talk) 17:07, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Ambiguous. All categories are Wikipedian categories, i.e. categories within Wikipedia. User categories corresponds with userboxes and userpages. –Pomte 17:38, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually no. All categories may be Wikipedia categories, (or rather categories of Wikipedia - let's hear it for the genitive case : ) - But only the subcats of Category:Wikipedians are Wikipedian categories. - jc37 18:31, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

The overwhelming genetive case means that a Wikipedian is also known as a Wikipedia user, which means "Wikipedia:User categories for discussion", when neglecting the conventional colon, reads as "Wikipedia User categories for discussion", which is a lot more intuitive to a newcomer than prefixing "Wikipedian" with "Wikipedia:" as in the case of your proposal. When choosing between two alternatives with nearly identical meaning, the user-friendly case ought to prevail. –Pomte 02:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:" should be ignored, except as a namespace convention, the same way we ignore "Template" or "Category:" in naming discussions. Incidentally, on other wikis, what we call the Wikipedia namespace, is called the "Project:" namespace. - jc37 12:20, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you going to propose renaming Wikipedia:User categorisation as well? –Pomte 02:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I hadn't thought about it, but in looking it over, it should probably be renamed to Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians by location or something similar, since it seems to be only about the location cats. - jc37 12:20, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this page should be moved, and as for Wikipedia:User categorisation, that is so ancient it should just be deleted.--Mike Selinker 18:30, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

{{User category}} would have to be renamed as well, if not deleted. –Pomte 23:34, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Why in the world would we delete something just because it is old? --- RockMFR 01:50, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Similar to Pomte's comments above (and being a little snarky), won't that seem unwise when the only categories left are ones such as Category:User de and Category:User en? Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 14:20, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Archive ordering

I noticed that the UCFD archives are ordered reverse chronologically. Is there any particular reason for that? I honestly have no strong preference one way or the other, but I found it to be a bit curious. –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 06:10, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm guessing for ease of access: people are usually more interested in more recent ones if they're browsing.--Aervanath (talk) 17:26, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Yet again with the merging

See Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion#Merge_UCFD_here.2C_redux_redux.--Aervanath (talk) 17:42, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

No longer active

This page has now been merged with the main CFD page, and is no longer active.--Aervanath (talk) 05:09, 5 April 2009 (UTC)