• Delete all. --Gary D 02:37, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Category:Goddesses of Dungeons & Dragons and Category:Gods of Dungeons & Dragons

There is no need to distinguish gender for these articles. (Rant: Categories should be designed from the top down -- general to specific -- and only split apart when they either become naturally too volumous or when some other need for the separation is required.) -- Netoholic @ 03:13, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Discussion about "depopulating before posting for deletion" moved to the Talk page. -- Netoholic @ 00:15, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Fictional gods and Category:Fictional goddesses

We already had the category "Fictional deities" that could contain the elements of both these categories -- especially since those categories weren't that thickly populated (4 or 5 elements in each, I believe). Moreover the rest of the whole Category:Fictional characters structure doesn't tend to use different subcategs to contain male and female characters. Therefore I merged the few elements of Fictional gods and Fictional goddesses back into "Fictional deities" (noone objected since yesterday in their Talk pages I posted comments in either), and here ask the deletion of these two. Aris Katsaris 21:52, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I object (darn, I wasn't watching those pages). Why not split into male & female categories? The sex of pantheistic deities is pretty fundamental to their nature, IMHO. Also, these categories make it easy to distinguish between deities who have a sex and those who don't.

Seems to me that they had a decent amount of articles, especially when you consider their subcategories (gods & goddesses of D&D).

I don't understand why people are so keen to delete categories, when they have a clear purpose.

Oh, and also, from the top of this page: Do not depopulate the category (delete category tags from articles) until it has been voted for deletion. ··gracefool |☺ 22:05, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The gender of *any* character tends to be very fundamental to their nature also, but nonetheless we don't split categories into "Fictional male aliens" and "Fictional female aliens" or "Fictional female detectives" and "Fictional male detectives". Moreover you'd have the additional problem of not knowing whether to put the divinity of a character before its gender (as was now when Fictional deities was split into fictional gods and fictional goddesses) or put its gender before its divinity (Aka have categories of "Female characters" and "Male characters" and then have categories in those that say "Fictional Female deities" and "Fictional Male deities" -- in which case there'd be neuter deities left out.

Interjecting a gender into the category is practically a can of worms, especially since many fictional deities don't have a specific gender. As I said --- no other "fictional" category is segregated into male and female subgroups.

Apologies for depopulating the category -- the change in the rules of category deletion were only recent and I didn't notice them (earlier on depopulation was recommended). But as I said there were only a handful of specimens in each category to be removed. Most gods and goddesses had already been in [:Category:Deities]] already -- that should perhaps tell you something.

Lastly for gods and goddesses of D&D -- don't you think that a single category about these also (Deities of D&D) might even be a way around the naming problem mentioned in those pages? Aris Katsaris 23:27, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sorry for the harsh tone of my above comment - I was annoyed at something else when I wrote it ;/

Re the potential problem, the answer is simple: Make "Fictional goddesses" a subcategory of "Fictional deities" and "Female characters".

Fictional deities without a specific gender are no problem, they just belong in "Fictional deities". ··gracefool |☺ 00:52, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There's currently no categories for "Male fictional characters" and "Female fictional characters" -- nor do I believe we need to have ones, same way I don't believe we need to categorize deities by gender.

As a sidenote another problem is that several of the subcategories (e.g. Category:Middle-earth Valar don't care to make that distinction between male and female deities either -- and such is the case with pretty much *all* the fictional characters listed -- e.g. there's no "female Friends characters" and "male Friends characters" there's just Category:Friends characters -- and so forth. I really don't think that's a scheme we need to change. Female characters" would a very horizontal category -- such a thing would include about 50% of all fictional characters and become *very* unwieldy. Aris Katsaris 01:41, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I was responding to a hypothetical problem... To continue, you don't need Category:Female Friends characters, you just add the article to both Category:Friends characters and Category:Female characters. However, this is kinda useless at the moment, since there's no "intersection" tool for categories with which you could do something like "list all fictional female characters who are also Friends characters". So no, Category:Female characters shouldn't be made, at least not yet.

However, I don't think these problems apply to Category:Fictional goddesses, since it is unlikely to ever be the parent of many (if any) categories. ··gracefool |☺ 02:21, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Let them stay Merged into Category:Fictional deities, and delete these. -- Netoholic @ 02:27, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Delete. We don't classify other articles using gender (Category:Stage actors vs. Category:Stage actresses as one of many examples). —Mike 04:40, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

August 29

Category:Towns in Nevada

Officially, there are no "towns" in Nevada—the only municipalities are cities. Only content was a CDP (now in Category:Unincorporated communities in Nevada), a mislabelled city, and an article on an air force base CDP demographics, now merged with the main article for the base. Postdlf 21:19, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Modern music and Category:Pop music

Not sure if I need to list these, as there's nothing inherently wrong with them. I just fixed some redudancy in the music category, and these are no longer needed. Tuf-Kat 20:54, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

What have you replaced Category:Modern music with? -Seth Mahoney 05:10, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

Nothing precisely. Some of the articles went to Category:Musical eras, Category:Musical groups by genre or other categories. Tuf-Kat 20:10, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

Category:Counties in Nevada

Redundant with the already populated Category:Nevada counties. User:Hemanshu has struck again—see the extensive list below from August 19th of his many redundant and often senseless categories that had to be deleted (like creating a category specifically for cities in a particular Texas county, of which there was only one). I had already left him a note on his talk page about it which he apparently ignored—I will try leaving a more pointed one. Postdlf 19:33, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

August 28

Category:Fictional characters belonging to minorities

Including subcategories, Category:Black fictional characters, Category:Fictional gays and lesbians, Category:Fictional Jews, and Category:Fictional Native Americans. We don't classify individuals by their race or ethnicity, real or not. I really think we need a strict category policy that limits categories for people to what they've notably done and where they've notably done it. Postdlf 19:22, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I created the Category:Fictional characters belonging to minorities only in the attempt to group the other four (already existing) categories you mention. I have no objection at all to the whole substructure being deleted, but in that case I think it'd be good if individual cfds were placed in the four subcategs. Other than that I'm okay with delete for the bunch of them. Aris Katsaris 20:25, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

One thing that immediately springs to mind is Fagin in Oliver Twist is a Jew, and Dickens calls him "The Jew" etc throughout and he is a stereotype. Dunc_Harris|☺ 23:38, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Do you mean minority in the real world or minority in the fiction? Is Hiawatha in Longfellow's poem Hiawatha a minority character? Are the few Christians and Jews who appear in Arabian Nights stories minority characters? Is Frodo Baggins the Hobbit a minority character? Jallan 23:57, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

When I created the supercategory, I thought that the reason someone had seen fit to create "fictional gays and lesbians", "fictional jews", "black fictional characters" and "fictional native Americans" was that these were real-life minorities according to the perspective of most modern-day Internet users. So Hobbits would probably not apply as it's not a real-life minority, and the fewness of Christians and Jews in Arabic tales would probably not be relevant either, as it's the modern-day (Internet-user) perspective we are seeing.

But as I said I'm not arguing in favour of retaining these categories, I just tried to group them according to the criterion they seemed to have in common, and which seems to made someone want to create them -- I can't think of any other reason to create the "black fictional characters" category. Anyway my vote remains to delete the whole bunch of these 4 categories+supercategory. Aris Katsaris 03:36, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

This category does not fit into existing category structure. Should it be renamed, or should its articles be distributed to other categories? (which ones?) --ssd 03:32, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

August 27

Category:Chronometry

Tagged for speedy deletion - was not a candidate, so relisted here. No real sense of why it got tagged for speedy. Snowspinner 05:23, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

• Delete. I tagged it for deletion because nobody's found it necessary since I created it a month ago. --Eequor 06:17, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• I find it amazing that such categories are not speedy deletions. Is there a rationale for this or any discussion, or should I take it to the pump? Is there meaningful history? There certainly isn't meaningful content. anthony (see warning) 12:31, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

August 25

Category:Winter Olympics

Merge with Category:Winter Olympic Games -- Chuq 23:15, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I found the category structure here to be a bit strange. This is what it currently looks like:

   I. Category:Olympics (containing many "Summer Olympics" and "Winter Olympics" articles)
        A. Category:Olympic athletes
        B. Category:Olympic Games
             1. Category:Olympians
             2. Category:Summer Olympic Games
             3. Category:Winter Olympic Games
        C. Category:Olympic sports

All of the miscategorizing of articles aside...what types of articles would go into Category:Olympic Games that wouldn't go into Category:Olympics. Is there enough of a difference between the two categories that they are both needed? Also notice that the only parent category of Category:Olympic Games is Category:Olympics. Could the subcategories under Category:Olympic Games be moved into the Category:Olympics and then have the former category deleted?

Second, what is the difference between Category:Olympians and Category:Olympic athletes? If they are the same, which would be the more appropriately named?

I think a more simplified (and better) structure would appear as follows:

   I. Category:Olympics
        A. Category:Olympic athletes
        B. Category:Olympic sports
        C. Category:Summer Olympic Games
        D. Category:Winter Olympic Games

Comments and suggestions please. —Mike 05:27, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

Good point Mike. I'm reorganising these as I can. My eventual plan is (unless someone gets in and does it differently first!):

   Note - this heirachy was changed by Chuq 10:42, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC) 
   I. Category:Olympics
        A. Category:Olympic athletes (merge with Category:Olympians)
        B. Category:Olympic sports
        C. Category:Olympic Games
             1. Category:Summer Olympic Games
                  i. Category:2004 Summer Olympics
                       a. 2004 Summer Olympics
                       b. 2004 Summer Olympics medal count
                       c. Category:Nations at the 2004 Summer Olympics
                            ...
                       d. Category:Events at the 2004 Summer Olympics
                            ...
                       e. Category:Athletes at the 2004 Summer Olympics
                            ...
                  ii. Category:2000 Summer Olympics
                       (etc)
             2. Category:Winter Olympic Games
                  i. Category:2002 Winter Olympics
                       (etc)
                  ii.  Category:1998 Winter Olympics
                       (etc)
        D. Olympic torch
        E. Olympic symbols
        F. Category:Olympic medals (instead of Category:Medals of the Olympic Games)
             1. Category:Recipients of the Pierre de Coubertin medal
                  (removing Category:Pierre de Coubertin medal which seems unnecessary)

Alternatively, Paralympics can be categorised separately. -- Chuq 05:50, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• That looks ok. Though I'm still thinking you could have the categories numbered 1-4 as subcategories of Category:Olympics. The only reasons I would see to have Category:Olympic Games is 1.) if you have articles (or several subcategories) that belong in that category instead of the main Category:Olympics, or 2.) if Category:Olympic Games has other parents besides Category:Olympics. —Mike 06:20, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)
• I much prefer the more simple structure (I, plus A, B, C, D), rather than having endless categories for each of the individual Games. Noisy 14:42, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• I don't see how four categories is "endless"—right now, at least, I'm not seeing the need for the parent "Olympic games." Postdlf 19:08, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Shouldn't the Category:Olympians include such articles as Zeus, Hera, ect.? Gentgeen 07:40, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  Category:Olympians is too ambiguous and Category:Olympic athletes should be retained as the category name. —Mike 01:32, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)

• Paralympics is not part of the Olympics organization any more than the Special Olympics, Pan American Games or Gay Games are - and should not be a subcategory of Olympics. Davodd 09:34, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)
• Ok, I have removed Paralympics articles, and added a few others to the list above, the only other change I would make it what a couple of people here have suggested, move 1. and 2. up to the C, D level. I use 'Games' with a capital G to refer to the event where all the nations gather and compete in sports for a couple of weeks. -- Chuq 10:42, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Considering User:JohnCrawford's new categories, I would suggest adding the structure as shown on letter F above. —Mike 04:12, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)

August 24

World War I people categories

Category:World War I people - Austria-Hungary, Category:World War I people - Australia, Category:World War I people - France, Category:World War I people - Germany, Category:World War I people - United Kingdom, Category:World War I people - Canada have all been replaced by more conventionally named categories. They have been depopulated and can be deleted. Geoff/Gsl 06:36, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

August 22

Dungeons and Dragons planes

Category:Elysium, Category:Gehenna, Category:Limbo, Category:Pandemonium, Category:The Abyss, Category:Ysgard, Category:Bytopia, Category:Baator, Category:Mechanus - All of these are terms D&D has borrowed from elsewhere; they all are empty or have very few articles. The rest of the D&D Plane articles should probably go too; I don't think more than one category on D&D planes of existence is really necessary.

Sure, most terms are borrowed from elsewhere; however, this can be said of thousands of articles - terms are always being used in different contexts. The point is, in which context is the term used most often; a Google search on many of these words will turn up mostly pages on D&D planes.

Deleting these categories is reasonable, but not their parent, or the articles belonging in it. gracefool |☺ 22:53, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Delete - These articles are far too specific to keep, but the articles within should not be removed. They should all be grouped under Category:Planescape or Category:D&D Planes stuff or something similar. -Erolos 23:04, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Delete. I've added 3 categories to the list, now all the subcategories of Category:Outer Planes are listed. I've added {{cfd}} to all of them.

However I don't think Category:Outer Planes should be deleted. It currently contains 10 articles, and this number can be expected to grow. gracefool |☺ 23:22, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Creationism

• Some kind of half-baked notion of an anon user to combat IZAK's addition of "see also" sections to articles and is unnessecary.

Node 05:22, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• • Keep. Just looking at the "see also"s on creationism gives four flavors: Young Earth Creationism, Day-Age Creationism, Old Earth Creationism and Evolutionary creationism. Those that are categorized are currently placed in the bottom-level Category:Religion, though they are certainly sub-subtopics rather than fundamental religious concepts. Where else should we put them? There should eventually be an article on the Institute for Creation Research, and there should also be a subcategory included for notable creationist advocates. Creationism as a phenomenon is kind of its own thing within Christianity, so these are appropriately grouped separately. Postdlf 07:33, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Agreed. Keep. -Seth Mahoney 17:29, Aug 23, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Neutrality (talk) 23:01, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Concensus is to keep, but someone emptied it anyway. Would anyone care to refill it? --ssd 21:24, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Repopulated with seven articles—I'm sure that this will eventually fill with more too (much as I hate the subject). ; ) Postdlf 19:14, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Keep. But there should be a superior category to which the Category:Creationism belongs. The other siblings to Category:Creationism within this SuperiorCategoryToCreationism would include alchemy which apparently Sir Isaac Newton and John Maynard Keynes thought were important explanations, theories, hypotheses, or studies. Probably Newton believed his own theories of creationism as much as he believed his own theories of gravitation as much as he believed his own theories of alchemy. And probably, if you had asked Newton about the mechanism of burning, he likely would have recited to you his own theory of phlogiston. Perhaps this SuperiorCategoryToCreationism which has the logical children alchemy, phlogiston, creationism, astrology, geocentrism, . . . is named Category:Discredited hypotheses. But in any case, the Category:Creationism should remain. ---Rednblu 00:03, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Obviously, we can't have the ridiculously POV Category:Discredited hypotheses - I don't see creationists or evolutionists accepting this as a parent of their respective categories. ··gracefool |☺ 00:41, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Surely in a neutral point of view there are still standards for what is a discredited hypothesis! ---Rednblu 01:00, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
      • Either way, I doubt that creationism would belong there, since it's more of a religious belief, not a scientific hypothesis. One might just as well as call the Olympian gods a "discredited hypothesis" or the fact of Persephone's abduction by Hades as the reason for the seasonal circle. And either way "discredited" seems by a very fuzzy set and as such not particularly well-suited for categorization schemes. Aris Katsaris 01:31, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
        • I doubt that Sir Isaac Newton would have made the distinction that you are making between "scientific hypothesis" and "religious belief." Certainly, Newton's writing on "the nature of God" did not have the religious character of looking for a dogma that would give him comfort. In my opinion, Newton's religious writing had the character of trying to figure out the vast and enormous forces of the universe by the power of his own secular and unsuperstitious insights. ---Rednblu 02:56, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Western art

Some kind of half-baked notion of mine a long time ago to subcategorize Category:Art—it never took off and is unnecessary. Postdlf 19:42, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Delete. It doesn't look like it fits into the current scheme. -- Solipsist 09:30, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Drugs cheats in athletics

I think Category:Drugs cheats in sport and Category:Drugs cheats in athletics need to be merged. --ssd 16:09, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Do we really need either of these categories? —Mike 07:58, Aug 23, 2004 (UTC)
• Sports is one topic I will likely never write on, but the titles alone are pretty awful—"drugs cheats"? If this is going to be kept, shouldn't it be something closer to "Athletes sanctioned for drug use"? As is, it seems to be inviting categorization just based on allegations that perhaps have had no consequence, rather than actual judgments by sports authorities. Postdlf 08:08, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Delete both. Not only are the category names a problem, their application is also a problem (for example the World Anti-Doping Agency is in there). However, the real problem is one of POV. If you put a sportsperson into this category it implies their whole career was based on taking drugs which may not be true. The List of athletes found guilty of using banned drugs looks like it could handle this better. If it is kept, then merge and rename. Separate subcats for eg athletics shouldn't be necessary as anyone in these categories is presumably also categorised somewhere in Category:Athletes too. -- Solipsist 09:48, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. List, not category. Gdr 13:23, 2004 Aug 24 (UTC)
• Delete. -- Infrogmation 02:45, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Occupations and all its subcategories

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse... This is a highly wordy collection of subcategories based on the Standard Occupational Classification System (that article has been strangely categorized under every subcategory within Category:Occupations too, which creates a lovely traffic jam at the bottom of that article). I for one cringe at the thought of fundamental articles such as actor and journalist being classifed under Category:Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations, or astronomer being classified under Category:Life, physical, and social science occupations. These are actual examples. Let's kill this, and kill the Dewey Decimal Classifications categories before our articles and categories start reading like the tax code. Postdlf 10:47, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I don't see why Category:Occupations needs to be deleted; it serves as a category of categories. But yes the hierarchy could be trimmed; your tax code comparison is on target. VV 13:07, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Right, "occupations" isn't a problem of course, but I didn't want to list every subcategory individually, and all this contains are these clumsily titled amalgamations, like they were only half-digested conceptually. Maybe I should list them all to make the point. Postdlf 18:48, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, my vote is keep them all. Right now there is no formal hierarchy for categorizing occupations themselves. This is useful in other reference media for the purposes of job comparison and research. I considered placing everything under Category:Occupations, but I think that would very quickly grow too large and pretty much require sub-categories at some future point. As such, I took a standarized system devised by the US government (not copyrighted) and created the structure. It is nice because everything is already defined on their website, so classification is a "no-brainer". The reason Standard Occupational Classification System has all the categories is to easily connect the article to the structure. I'm sure that can be changed in the future. Keep in mind, placement of actor in its occupation subcategory is not meant to be a primary classification, but articles on occupations tend to be light and I doubt this would be too intrusive. -- Netoholic 16:25, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

As noted above, Category:Occupations isn't itself the problem—it's all of its subcategories, except for maybe one (Category:Legal occupations seems quite clear and sensible). The government seemed to make some arbitrary choices in trying to minimize the number of categories, grouping together occupations that could be linked otherwise, and under headers that are simply laundry lists of what they contain. If the category needs to list all of its contents in order to properly describe them, it's not a good classification, at least not for our purposes.

As for classification being a "no-brainer", would those in sports medicine fit into Category:Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations or Category:Healthcare practitioners and technical occupations? Both? (that would be pretty) Why is Category:Management occupations separate from Category:Office and administrative support occupations? How is the "maintenance" listed in Category:Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations separate from that listed in Category:Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations? Just because it's done in buildings rather than to objects? What about air conditioning maintenance? Why was architecture linked with engineering in Category:Architecture and engineering occupations rather than included under Category:Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations? Why is it more important that farmers work with flora and fauna (Category:Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations) rather than that they produce goods (Category:Production occupations)? It's no answer to say "read the Standard Occupational Classification System manual", because quite frankly we shouldn't care about the manual, and do you expect Ireland Information Guide readers to know the manual so they can figure out which category an occupation article is included under? Categories shouldn't depend on criteria that are external to the subject they are trying to classify, such as what the particular choices of government bureaucrats were in trying to force occupations into a small number of groupings. Nor should categories merely try to group as many things as they can together without regard to whether they form a single, unified concept (and I think as a general rule the most valid categories are ones that are defined by actual articles) rather than a mere listing of subtopics. I can't say that the SOCS doesn't effectively serve the government's need for it, but it won't serve ours. Postdlf 18:48, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I guess I feel that when there is an existing classification system we can use, it is worth exploring. If you would like to propose an alternative, I'd say the community would welcome it, but until that happens, this one should be tried out. I have a feeling though, that the task of coming up with a Ireland Information Guide-grown system will take a long time to hash out, and itself could constantly be debated. I draw the comparison to many other established category schemes in that this one is completely valid for its purposes, and because no other better system has yet been submitted. -- Netoholic 21:57, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Why not break up some of the stuck-together lumps in the SOCS system into simpler and logical groupings, such as "Sports occupations"? "Medical (or health) occupations"? And from there some parents may reveal themselves, like "Medical occupations" may be in "Science occupations" as well as one or two others, "Personal service occupations" (eh), something like that. There are two ways for a category structure to develop—start with a simple parent like Category:People or Category:History, and see what groupings of articles naturally form; or start with a specific article, figure out a specific category that it may belong to of which there are still other articles, and to which it bears a strong and useful relationship (i.e., Category:U.S. Army generals rather than Category:U.S. Army generals whose last name starts with P), and then figure out what parent categories would come together to compose it (Category:United States Army and Category:Generals), then work your way down (Category:United States armed forces --> Category:United States and Category:Militaries, etc.). It's all fairly intuitive, though you will need to know a little about the subjects to categorize them, and to check the preexisting category structure to make sure it fits and isn't redundant. Probably the best indication of how to categorize the occupation articles is the structure for categorizing the subjects of the occupations—see how art, medicine, sport, agriculture are categorized, and the occupations should be rather analogous. Postdlf 00:26, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The system involves only 23 categories. If you're proposing splitting them apart, you'll end up with a hundred in short order, which essentially would mirror other existing topic-based categories, and probably lead to many sub-categories cross-listed all over the place. You'd also have no guidlines for placement in them, so disputes would occur. As I said, this is a research tool for grouping similar occupa