Category talk:American novelists

Stalemate
Ok, we seem to be at a bit of a stalemate here. All novelists have been diffused, except for around 75, quite famous, authors, who remain comfortably in the category. Given the intense media scrutiny around this issue, I think this result is not acceptable. Either all novelists should be there, or none.


 * Fix 1: My proposal is, given the support given above to "Option 1", and the lack of support for an RFC on American novelists, is that we agree that current consensus per above is to diffuse the rest of the American novelists to the by-century categories, and explain the rules for diffusion of "Option 1" on the American novelist category page. At the same time, we start a new conversation over at Wikiproject Literature or Wikiproject Novels (which is a better place for this sort of discussion anyway) about a broader RFC on the Writers tree, which would address diffusion to by-century-nationality categories, in what cases can gendered/ethnic sub-cats be created, how to deal with genres, etc. Such a broader RFC did seem to have some support, and I would support it and even help draft the language (I've never done one so need help). The broader RFC would also, depending on the outcome, override any consensus we come to here. Alf.laylah.wa.laylah has another idea, which I will let them propose below. Any of you are of course welcome to propose another way out. I happen to like my proposal, as it only involves moving 75 more bios, and there was broad support for Option 1 listed above.


 * Thus, in short:
 * For now, diffuse the remaining 75 novelists to the by-century tree, and any other sub-cats as necessary
 * Start an RFC on the whole tree to address this at scale. Any consensus reached there would override what we decide here.

--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:59, 22 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Fix 2: I agree with Obiwankenobi about the new conversation about how to deal with diffusion and subcategories. However, I propose that in the interim we have a bot put all entries in subcategories of American novelists back into the parent category recursively without removing them from the subcategories for now.  This would return us essentially to the status quo ante and allow us to have a conversation about the subcategories under circumstances which are not so maddening to a number of people who've worked hard on those articles and understand them quite well.  Additionally it would be more in line with the consensus reached at the CfD on American women novelists to undiffuse that subcategory back into American novelists rather than into by century subcategories.  It would also have the beneficial effect of looking good to the world outside without needing arcane explanations, which will allow us to have our conversation in peace without being harried by more bad press.  More bad press is certainly coming, too.  Finally, by leaving authors in the subcategories the hard work of the people who have put them there won't be undone. If they're still in the subcats a bot can perfectly easily take them out of the parent cat as put them into it should consensus dictate that result.  I won't make my arguments here about why every single subcategory of X-country novelists ought not to be diffusing, but will wait for a larger scale conversation to do that.  Since Obiwankenobi and I agree about the need for a larger conversation, the only difference here is about what to do with the subcategories in the meantime.
 * Thus, in short:
 * For now, undiffuse all American novelists to Category:American novelists while leaving them in any subcategories they're in.
 * Start an RFC on the whole Writers tree to address this at scale. Any consensus reached there would override what we decide here.

&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 14:26, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Positions
In order to keep this from becoming as unreadable as previous attempts at this discussion, I propose that editors put a short statement here about which option they support (new Fixes should be added at will, of course) and that threaded conversations be kept in the next subsection. If this doesn't seem like a good way to organize the discussion feel free to change it. I'm putting a sample support to show what I envision. I won't make my own statement now because I'd like to see how people feel about this method of proceeding. We can take this explanation out of here if the method's acceptable. &mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 14:43, 22 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Support Fix 1 - Generally it is common practice to diffuse articles into their more specific categories and placing all of the articles in one place does not help anyone, it's not maintainable, manageable or useful in any shape or form. I don't see why there should be concern with placing authors in small groupings, it makes them easier to find. About the only good solution to this is a good tool on Wikipedia which allows us to show intersections of tags, otherwise diffusion should be our default, Sadads (talk) 15:36, 22 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Support Fix 2 - As proposer.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:38, 22 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Support Fix 1 — We seem very close to consensus on option 1 above, and fewer than 100 pages would need to be moved to make this happen.--Carwil (talk) 18:22, 22 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Support Fix 2 - Truthkeeper (talk) 18:25, 22 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Support Fix 1 Fix 2 is a non-starter. Because then you would have to ask, why don't we put them into the higher cat than even novelists? Because clearly they are that too and then the higher one from that and the higher one from that. Then you end up with 50+ cats in an article and the entire category system collapses. There's a reason why diffusing to the lowest categories is the way it is done across the entire wiki. Silver  seren C 20:51, 22 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Support Fix 1 - There is currently no controversy about who is in Category:American politicians, because nobody is there; it's fully diffused. If everyone can be found in by-century categories, I don't see a problem. If there is a problem with that, I'd like to hear about it. I believe that the advantages of a full top-level category are still present with a few by-century categories. -GTBacchus(talk) 04:39, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Support Fix 1 per GTBacchus. If a writers' category is too large to be browsed easily (and that seems to be the case here), "by century" seems the only neutral and comprehensive way to diffuse, and it's a legitimate way to categorize the subject within the field of study (I once took a course in "20th-century American novel", for instance). If I understand this correctly, no novelist will be removed from the comprehensive century categories due to any further categorization. Stephen King was given as an example of a novelist who would appear in two century categories; I see no problem with dual categorization for century-straddlers, with the trivial issue of whether it's the life or the career that's being categorized (I'd say the career: if you were born in 1895, you're not a 19th-century novelist). Cynwolfe (talk) 14:33, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Support Fix 1 The vbig problem with fix 2 is that it makes it impossible to easily notice new articles created and not put in apprpriate sub-cats.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:02, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Support fix 1 as nom. Also, I agree with JPL - having everyone in the head cat makes it much more difficult to find new articles in need of further categorization.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:34, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Threaded conversation

 * RE: Fix 2 - a minor point - the status quo ante was around 3700 novelists in the head, and the majority of genre-novelists diffused in the children. This bubbling up would result in around 6700 novelists in the head cat, so not quite the same as it was, but whatever, the old way was also broken.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:33, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Indeed. This is why I qualified it with "essentially."  In any case, moving just the ones that were there before would probably be impossible for a bot.  Anyway, is a small thing.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:53, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

@Sadads: Since Fix 2 proposes to leave them all in the subcategories it won't be any less useful. Readers who find the long list of names daunting can ignore them and use the subcategories until we find a more permanent solution to our problems.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:55, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Comment and suggestion - it doesn't make sense, given the relatively short history of the novel as a literary form, to define by nationality & century. Wouldn't it be better to have a container category called "Novelist" (for novelists of all nationalities, genders, and centuries), and then in the next level define the century, going back to the 18th, and then yet another level to define nationality? Finally, if necessary, diffuse out by genre. As it is, we have Category:18th-century American novelists with only 9 entries - which is probably about right. Better would be to make that a container category for all 18th century novelists, regardless of nationality. I'm sure there's a reason this can't be done, that somehow it will affect the tree, but throwing it out as a suggestion to think outside the box, and also to make consistent with something like Franz Kafka who is categorized as a 20th century novelist (which imo is correct). This by the way might be Fix 3. Truthkeeper (talk) 16:20, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It already is done. We have Category:18th-century_novelists, in fact a whole Category:Novelists_by_century tree, going back to the 2nd century - for whatever that's worth (not the place to debate that 2nd century category, BTW). In this case, "American" diffuses the more general category - this is pretty typical. There are also French/British/etc equivalents.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:27, 22 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Fix one requires zero novelists in the root category. And it serves as a demonstration of how a neutrally diffused category would look, complete with two links to comprehensive lists (List of American novelists and the Search Tool). Implementation question: What are the obstacles to moving the last authors out? Can we get opponents on those pages to come discuss here?--Carwil (talk) 18:30, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Some people are protecting famous authors. Most of the ones I know about have been personally invited to this discussion. In any case, we can just let the discussion run its course, then we can point anyone who disagrees with either result to the consensus here. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:40, 22 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The trouble is that not everyone agrees that it's possible to have a "neutrally diffused category" in this case. A number of people find the subcategories, even the supposedly objective ones like by-century, highly objectionable if they're meant to be diffusing. In this conversation we're trying to decide what to do while a conversation on that issue is held, not what should ultimately be done. My suggestion is meant to (reversibly) assuage the feelings of those who oppose diffusion while the merits of diffusion are discussed. If the larger discussion reaches consensus on diffusion we just have a bot remove the parent category from all the novelists and no harm done. Obi-Wan (correct me if I'm wrong, OWK) also agrees that a larger discussion is necessary but wants to finish diffusing the category while the discussion is held and then if the larger discussion reaches consensus against diffusion we have a bot undiffuse and no harm done. This current discussion is only about the interim state of the category while the larger discussion is going on. I suppose that a Fix 3 could be to leave the category in its current state while the larger discussion is held;kind of a cease-fire.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 18:51, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Right, I'm fine with a larger discussion about writers in general, covering many topics, but we do need to resolve the stalemate, one way or the other; a cease-fire is bad for everyone, as then an article gets written that Wikipedia has decided there are only 75 real American novelists.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:54, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * There should be an article to that effect because that's exactly what the diffusion effort has done. No matter how much you try to shoehorn some novelists into categories, they simply won't fit. Given that, the only other alternative is allow all novelists to have the novelist label. Truthkeeper (talk) 18:57, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I couldn't agree more - you can't always put novelists into genres. Which is why, is an undifferentiated novelist - just grouped by century, which is neutral and difficult to debate.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:06, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It's not difficult to debate, actually, and it's not neutral, and it shouldn't diffuse. But we're saving those arguments for the real conversation.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:13, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Alf laylah, can you please tell me what makes by-century categorization not neutral? I don't see that, so I'm curious. Thank you. -GTBacchus(talk) 16:55, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Sure. As used in practice in our categorization scheme, "Xth century novelist" means "published a novel in century X."  People have argued that this is a defining characteristic because reliable sources and high school classes evidently use the terminology to describe novelists, e.g. "Hemingway was a 20th century novelist."  The parsing of the sentence  in the interpretation used to place novelists into these categories is that "Xth century" is a determiner that limits the scope of the noun "novelist" based on centuries in which the novelist published.  However, this is *not* what is meant in reliable sources who use the phrase.  Let me digress for a bit.  In English, often an adjective describes a noun.  E.g. in "red car" the word "red" is telling us something about the car.  But it's also possible to make phrases where the noun in fact tells us something about a (usually) nominalized adjective.  E.g. "American dream" is not used to to say that a particular dream is American, but to to say that the dream tells us something about Americans.  Not every dream that happens to be dreamt by an American is an American dream.  This is the way that the determiner "Xth century" is used in the study of literature.  Not every novel published in century X is an Xth century novel.  The novel has to be thought to reveal something about the century in order to be called this.  Whether given novels are Xth century novels is a subject of widespread debate among scholars on the subject, which wouldn't be the case if the phrase were being used as its being used to define these categories.  Sure, every book or class on the 19th century novel is going to talk about Dickens and Eliot, but very few if any are going to mention Upton Sinclair, currently in the category because he published some novels in the 19th century. Similarly books and classes on the 20th century novel will cover Hemingway and Roth but rarely Thomas Hardy, even though he published some novels in the 20th century.  I doubt that when it comes time to teach the 21st century novel that Roth will be included, even though he's in our category, because he is a 20th century novelist, not a 21st century novelist.  In their drive to diffuse the American novelists category, these by-century categories were created for the purpose of having objective criteria that can be applied by editors who won't take the time to understand the subject of each article, but that makes them contrary to how the words describing them are used in reality.  It's letting the editor's ease trump the reader's need, like so many of our categorization decisions.  There are other problems with these categories too, but that's the one about objectivity.  I have to say again that I have no problem with these categories existing.  I only have a problem with them being seen as a legitimate and objective way to diffuse their parent category.  They are not.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 20:51, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I have a graduate degree in English as well as classical studies, and I have no idea what this means. My area of specialization in English was "16th-century non-dramatic literature": that meant precisely "non-dramatic literature written in the 16th century", though of course one might account for those who wrote a little earlier or later. Surely you aren't saying Hilary Mantel is a 16th-century novelist because she writes fiction set in that period? Such usage seems a little … strenuously arcane. Or deconstructionistically postmodernist. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:08, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm going with strenuously arcane for $500 Bob. Wow - it's a very interesting missive above, but, yeah, we're talking categorization here, not postmodern deconstructuralizationalism of the modern novel, the novelist, and the quintessnialness of it all. Alf what you seem to be proposing is that we could potentially create a 20th-century (genre) novelist category, and then we'd scour the sources and syllabi and find which ones are *really* 20th century novels and which ones are just plain old 19th-c ones written in the 20th century. Remember, now, we're talking about 6700 novelists. It's just not workable, and it would violate a lot of rules about categorization annotated at WP:OCAT. I think you misunderstand what the category system is for, in the first place.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:57, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Cynwolfe; I see I forgot to add that being written in a given century (give or take a decade-ish) is necessary but not sufficient for being an Xth-century novelist. Hilary Mantel is not a 16th century novelist and I don't know whether or not she's a historical novelist or a 21st century novelist or what.  But really, how is Upton Sinclair a 19th century novelist?  How is Thomas Hardy a 20th century novelist?  Anyway, I'm just answering a question I was asked.  I wasn't making a proposal about anything.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 22:09, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I think Am. lit is a bit different for a lot of reasons that I won't go into. But generally the fields of study are Early American Literature (with the Civil War as the cut-off in some cases) and American Literature from the Civil War. Of course, too there are Chicano studies and Women's studies and African American studies and Asian studies, and now also Native American studies (all in literature). Generally Am. Lit is not broken into centuries and certainly novels aren't. That's why I didn't respond to an earlier comment about 18th cent. Am. novelists. Upton Sinclair by definition is a 20th c. American novelist; I'd put Edith Wharton and Henry James in the 19th c. I'd put Hardy, not American, in the 19th c. So, we seem to have created our own definitions. But I'm learning that the category system on WP is arcane to say the least. Truthkeeper (talk) 22:25, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Or "Victorian novelists" for Brit lit. Truthkeeper's periodizations are of course valid and useful, and categorization by century doesn't preclude this kind of categorization by periodization. But if "American novelists" must be diffused (I don't feel strongly about it, but am persuaded by arguments that it's too friggin' big to peruse and be of any use), then I see "by century" as the simplest and most neutral way to do it. Contra the delightfully erudite argument above, it's useful in this instance for the very reason that it's merely chronological, and otherwise meaningless: it's like the alphabet. We don't object to the fact that writers are alphabetized when we visit a category page, even though in an alphabetized list of all novelists ever, Virginia Woolf would be near the bottom of the list, and Dan Brown nearer the top. (The sound you hear is me gagging.) Chronology is simply another arbitrary organizational device like that. Cynwolfe (talk) 00:37, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah... I haven't been thinking of categorization by century as a stylistic matter. I can see that some novels might be considered to be strongly associated with the century (or decade) in which they emerge, and that those are quintessentially "of" that time period and deserving of special recognition for that. Great. However, when I've been talking about categorizing novelists by century, I mean by "nineteenth century novelist" nothing more nor less than "novelist who was active in the nineteenth century". I don't mean "writer of Nineteenth Century Novels", in some sense beyond the strictly literal and chronological. I get the impression that I'm not totally in the minority on this point. I do think it would be desirable to have text at the top of the category page explaining the precise criteria for membership in the category, since what we're talking about really is quite cut-and-dried. Nobody has to evaluate Hardy's work and decide which to which century he belongs. He's just listed in each century in which he published at least one novel. Some people have been active in two centuries; so it goes. -GTBacchus(talk) 01:12, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Like I said, I was just explaining my position and not making a proposal. On the other hand, if the whole idea is to diffuse the parent category (which I don't really see the need for, but that's for another time) I think it'd make a lot more sense to do it alphabetically, since I think we could easily get a consensus on that if and when there's a consensus to diffuse.  Possibly it would be good to change the names of the by century categories to reflect what the inclusion criteria really are.  Alternatively we could use the Library of Congress system (I don't know the details off-hand but they do manage to keep each author in one chronological grouping), which would at least be objective in the context of our decision-making and is the product of scholarship.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 01:26, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. :) What's a better way to name by-century categories to indicate they aren't to be taken as stylistic claims? Regarding alphabetical versus by-century... hmm. I can see running into complications with alphabetical categorization in cases where writers use pen-names, especially if they'r no entirely consistent with their pen-names. There are also writers who change their name at some point during their writing career. I'm not saying these are insurmountable problems, but they're something to think about. I'm not, in principle, opposed to categorization by first-letter-of-last-name if people find that preferable to by-century categorization.  I'd be interested in knowing more about how the Library of Congress categorizes novelists, but I'm not sure I have time to dig into it myself. -GTBacchus(talk) 02:06, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Look, I think this is a red herring, but we can deal with Alf's "novelist wrote in century X but is actually century Y" issue nonetheless. There are three cases we have to consider:
 * 1) A novelist who only wrote in one century and is never claimed by any sources to be in a different century
 * 2) A novelist who wrote in both centuries (Joseph Conrad is one of these)
 * 3) A novelist who wrote only in the 19th century, but who reliable sources call a 20th-century novelist Here's a link to such a claim for Joseph Conrad (if we ignore the fact that he also wrote in 20th-c) "In this sense, Joseph Conrad can be considered either a 20th-century novelist or a 19th-century novelist"

1 and 2 can be dealt with relatively easily. 1 gets put in the century she wrote it, 2 gets put in both centuries. The last case, #3, that of someone who was writing before or after their time, can also be dealt with by simply listing them in both categories. Again, this doesn't need to be difficult, there aren't that many cases to worry about. Also, for anyone who doubts whether the term 20th-century novel or 20th-century novelist is in fact a thing, just try a google book or google scholar search, these terms are used all over the place (one essay here for example - (there may be *other* terms too, but saying this isn't a way people talk about literature is provably false from umpteen reliable sources). In the worst case possible, a novelist might be in one extra century cat that sources say she shouldn't be in, but I don't think this is such a terrible outcome.

Finally, FWIW, the library of congress categorizes modern literature as follows:
 * French literature:
 * Modern literature
 * Individual authors
 * PQ1600-1709 16th century
 * PQ1710-1935 17th century
 * PQ1947-2147 18th century
 * PQ2149-2551 19th century
 * PQ2600-2651 1900-1960
 * PQ2660-2686 1961-2000
 * PQ2700-2726 2001-
 * American literature:
 * PS700-3576 Individual authors
 * PS700-893 Colonial period (17th and 18th centuries)
 * PS991-(3390) 19th century
 * PS3500-3549 1900-1960
 * PS3550-3576 1961-2000
 * PS3600-3626 2001-
 * PS3600-3626 2001-

Does anyone see a resemblance here? ---Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 06:04, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * A perfect example of what I'm talking about, Obi-Wan. The names of the LOC categories are the same as ours but the meanings are different.  How do I know they're different?  Because each novelist is in only one of them.  They have some criteria for sorting novelists into those categories which are (a) different from "author published a novel in this century" and (b) assign a unique category to each author.  There is no resemblance to our system here other than the names of the categories.  What I was suggesting above is that we use actual LOC assignments of authors to their categories in order to put authors into our categories.  Look up their novels in the LOC catalog, see which *single* category they're in, and put them in that category here.  I don't grant that their categories are globally objective but they're objective in our context and they may not be objectively useful but they're useful to readers in the sense that people are used to them.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 12:09, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * As someone recently said, the category system is not a scalpel, it is a sledgehammer. If you really want to go through all 6700 novelists, identify any duplicate categorizations (actually you can do this with catscan, I can show you how if interested), and then go to the Library of Congress and see how that author is categorized, and then eliminate a duplicate category, say for someone who published one book in 19th-c and 20 books in 20thc, I'm not going to revert or stand in your way. Also I note that LOC sometimes ghettoizes by gender, but that's another issue...--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:41, 24 May 2013 (UTC)


 * As an interjection, this would be an 'inherently' useful thing to do if you added the library of congress numbers to authority control in the process. Revent (talk) 05:22, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The LOC numbering has a specific purpose, providing unchanging identification numbers to books. Since Wikipedia is not paper, and pages can have multiple categories, many of its considerations are unnecessary. For reference, this is the LOC's base rule on numbering: "If a number has already been established for the author, use it." So if an author had their 1903 novel cataloged, and it turns out they also wrote in 1897, the later book goes in 1900-1960 range. The only exception is works written in multiple languages, each of which get a separate author number. Details here.
 * Now, to return to the three cases Alf.laylah.wa.laylah mentioned: (1) and (2) are straightforward single and double century cats. For (3), I would urge a WP:DEFINING criterion for X's inclusion in the century X didn't write in. But go for it if you're convinced.--Carwil (talk) 12:38, 25 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Query - Fix 1 says: "For now, diffuse the remaining 75 novelists to the by-century tree, and any other sub-cats as necessary." My question is this: how to diffuse any of those novelists who have the misfortune of writing simple novels that can't be shoehorned into a category? Where will they go? I'd like a clear and simple answer to this. Thanks. Truthkeeper (talk) 23:13, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It's a good question. Let's take an example - Mary, an African-American woman who wrote 2 novels in the 1950s, just regular old novels - no genre really. She would go in (diffusing),  (non-diffusing), and  (non-diffusing). So the answer is, if none of their novels fit into a genre, then you just don't put them in any genre categories. If she then wrote 3 more novels in the mystery theme and was called a mystery writer by RS, then she'd be added to the mystery writer genre cat as well (but not removed from any other cats as a result). What this means is, in the new-world-order, genre cats would no longer be diffusing (they were sort-of diffusing previously). Those calling for all novelists in the head cat are saying the same thing, by the way - that genre categories should be non-diffusing. So the only real difference between Fix 1 and Fix 2 is whether the century cats are diffusing or not. If you like, you can suggest a real novelist, and I'll tell you how I would categorize according to Option 1, and then we can discuss.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:23, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I asked for a simple answer. You give an example of a female African American novelist. Now tell me this: where does the white male novelist go? Use as few words as possible. Thanks. Truthkeeper (talk) 23:26, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * (diffusing), (non-diffusing)  (assuming American men novelists cat is kept. If not, then just the 20th-c cat. that's it.) --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:36, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Next question - thank you for the succinct answer. Now, let's say he have X number of novelists in those categories. Along comes Stephen King, a male 20th/21st century novelist, but he's been diffused to horror or some such, and Michael Connelly, also male 20th/21st century, diffused to mystery, and they say: "wait a minute! I write novels, I'm prolific and my sales are huge. Why doesn't WP categorize me as a novelist?" How are we to answer? Again - use as few words as possible. (Btw - I'm logging out in about 20 minutes and won't be back for a while). Truthkeeper (talk) 23:43, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok, quickly, King would be in both 20th/21st like you say, and would be in the horror genre as well. So he'd be just like the other more vanilla novelist, but with an *additional* category (not fewer). So if you looked at the list of ALL 21st-c novelists, he'd be there, and he'd also be in the horror category. And there'd be NO ONE in the head cat. NOT A SINGLE PERSON. That's the important thing to remember. No-one gets to be up top. I guess that would be my answer. (sorry Mr. King, you've been diffused to a by-century cat. C'est la vie, take it up with obiwan, or better yet, kill him off in a gruesome way in your next novel, er, horror novel, er, 21st-century horror-novel-written-by-a-male-writer-from-Maine..erg. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:47, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * As it see it, the problem is only being pushed down a level. So no one will be in the head cat, but X number who can't be defined will be in the by century cat, and others, like King who can be defined, will be diffused even more. This is the very situation that brought us here in the first place. But if we establish consensus to follow that pattern, fine. I'd only request that we don't try to create categories which don't exist (I've seen this happen on some pages). Anyway, time's up. Back later. Truthkeeper (talk) 23:55, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * By my count, every American novelist is in a by-century cat. Some are in two. And I'm with you on avoiding categories that don't exist.--Carwil (talk) 03:45, 23 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Question. Is it the case that if "American novelists" becomes essentially a container category (or at least in the sense that no individual novelists will remain there), all novelists will be neutrally categorized by century (with some in two century categories), and all novelists will remain in the century categories regardless of how they might be further categorized? Cynwolfe (talk) 13:49, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:59, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * To follow up your comment above, novelists would never be removed from the by-century cats, and the cats are based on when the novelist was active - not when they were born. So you just look for when they published their first novel, and when they published their last. A fuller description of the approach is given under "--Option 1--", listed a bit further above.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:42, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * So, which century cat for someone who only published in the year 2000? ;) -GTBacchus(talk) 16:52, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * omg not another one of those discussions. ugh. I'm not even going to go there. :) --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:02, 23 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Those who published works in 2000 have been put in the 20th-century American novelists cat. Those who published works in 1900 are in the 19th-century American novelists cat.  Generally, 2000 is considered to be in the 20th-century so we so categorize. There are lots of people who seem to have published their debut novel in 2000, but so be it.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:12, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Phew, glad that's sorted in such a logical manner. Truthkeeper (talk) 23:47, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, actors was always a tougher case, and I generally didn't place into a new category with one outlier. Of course the really messy thing about actors is things like Category:19th-century American actors which probably should be bigger than it is, but lots of actors we only have information on their film careers, not their vaudeville/stage careers beforehand, at least not enough to say that if they first appeared in a film in 1908, and we have information that they previously were appearing on vaudeville, do we know they appeared in the 19th-century or not. It is very head ache causing.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:03, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Category growth
The category has now grown to 90. I am not sure if any have not been put in appropriate by century sub-cats.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:05, 26 June 2013 (UTC)