Category talk:American novelists/Archive 1

Link Pulitzer winners here?
It is strange that this list article does not include a hyperlink to

Pulitzer_Prize_for_the_Novel_winners

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Pulitzer_Prize_for_the_Novel_winners,

and I cannot figure out how to add it. It is apparent that this as been purposely made difficult to do, because I know how to edit other Wikipedia articles.98.67.102.118 (talk) 20:10, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Done. Aristophanes68 (talk) 06:37, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Group ethnic novelists into one category, like a genre?
I can't decide if the ethnic categories need to be delinked from this page all together, or if they should be grouped under an "Ethnic novelists" heading, treating ethnic novels as a genre akin to mystery novels, etc. I know the parallels aren't exact, but for purposed of organization, it might make more sense to keep the subcat list mostly to genres. Just a thought. Aristophanes68 (talk) 06:35, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Criteria?
Should this be for professional novelists? Or anyone who has written a novel? Even if only one? Mystylplx (talk) 23:30, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Sexist and other discriminatory subclassifications
See the New York Times op-ed by Amanda Filipacchi, pointing out that relegating women novelists to a subcategory removes them from immediate visibility and thereby lessens their prominence. (See Amanda Filipacchi, "Wikipedia’s Sexism Toward Female Novelists", The New York Times, April 28, 2013 (online April 24, 2013).) It seems clear that content-based subcategories like "mystery novelists" are very different from subcategories like "black novelists". I suggest that the authors in categories of the latter type not be removed from the main list. On the other hand, putting mystery novelists in a separate list seems fairly reasonable to me. Zaslav (talk) 01:00, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The solution to this seems simple. Create an "American Men Novelists" subcategory. SteubenGlass (talk) 01:44, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * This solution assumes gender binary.. what about novelists who do not identify as either gender?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.36.148.198 (talk) 19:12, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Make an "Other Novelists" subcategory then... 64.134.47.57 (talk) 22:07, 25 April 2013 (UTC) Heterosapian


 * I'm amazed not to see more discussion here. Thanks for the post, Zaslav! Until/unless someone provides a reason not to do so, I'm gonna participate in putting American female novelists back on this list. I realize there's a category-merge proposal, but until that's resolved, it seems clear that it's discriminatory to move all the women off into a separate list (and remove them from this one) while not doing that with the men. --Elysdir (talk) 01:58, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Addendum: The note at the top of the category page says "Pages in this category should be moved to subcategories where applicable. This category may require frequent maintenance to avoid becoming too large. It should directly contain very few, if any, articles and should mainly contain subcategories." If the decision is therefore made to remove all the American male novelists into their own category, then I'm fine with also removing the female ones. (I guess that would leave only those of indeterminate or non-binary gender on this page, unless we make more categories for them.) But the current situation, with female authors removed but not male authors, is clearly untenable. --Elysdir (talk) 02:04, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * As pointed out in the New York Times op-ed www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/opinion/sunday/wikipedias-sexism-toward-female-novelists.html, removing women (bur not men) the category of "American Novelists" on the basis that women (but not men) should be in a subcategory is rather blatently sexist.  I suggest going through the Category:American women novelists files and putting back every instance of a woman deleted from this category. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 02:25, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Yep, that's what I've been doing. It turns out to be easy to add a category: just log in, go to the author's page, scroll down to the category list at the end of the page, and click the "+" button. Then type in "American novelists" and click OK. --Elysdir (talk) 02:39, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, regardless of the desire to keep the size of these huge categories down, it seems like American Women Novelists needs to be a subset of American Novelists. I'm guessing this is coming about, though, not through a systematic purge of "American Novelists" (though I could be wrong) and that people editing women writer's pages are adding them to only one category. Can American women novelists be an automatic subcategory of American novelists? Sammermpc (talk) 03:28, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It really does seem to have been an attempt at a systematic purge; see below about user Johnpacklambert. Here's an example from the history for Kay Boyle: "00:04, 12 April 2013‎ Johnpacklambert (talk | contribs)‎ . . (11,416 bytes) (+6)‎ . . (removed Category:American novelists; added Category:American women novelists using HotCat)". Note too that on the American women novelists page, there are a lot of authors listed with last names starting with A and B, but very few for most other letters; it appears that Johnpacklambert started going through alphabetically but didn't finish. --Elysdir (talk) 17:50, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I've notified User:Johnpacklambert that he's being talked about here. He may want to weigh in. -GTBacchus(talk) 17:55, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * This is a significant problem not just for the category "American Novelists", but any other categorization in Wikipedia that segregates out women or those in a minority demographic group, but keeps the non-minority males in the main category. There should be some guidance put in effect to correct all such cases. Suw7 (talk) 04:09, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * It is unsurprising that she could find a number of female American authors who were not included in this category... there are also many male American authors not included in this category. This appears to be a simple case of false dichotomy.  It was and is entirely possible for an author's article be in both or neither of the categories of 'American novelists' and 'American women novelists'.  Her description of what is happening as being that articles are being 'moved' from one category to the other simply doesn't reflect what is actually being done. An author can be added to or subtracted from each these categories entirely independently, but that op-ed makes it sound as if a given author is in just one category and the author's entire article was demoted because it was added to the category 'American women novelists'. The op-ed fails to mention that most of these pages are in a dozen or more categories each!  As to the deeper meaning of the absence of a particular author from the 'American Novelists" category, if I wanted to make the argument that Wikipedia discriminated against male Science Fiction authors I could cherry pick a bunch who aren't included in this category - George R. R. Martin, Samuel R. Delany, Roger Zelazny, Vernor Vinge,  Frederik Pohl, E. E. Smith, Larry Niven, Robert Silverberg, Dan Simmons, Kim Stanley Robinson, John Scalzi, for example.  Does this demonstrate a bias against male Science Fiction authors?  Is Amanda Filipacchi more quintessentially an 'American novelist' than any or all of these authors?  I'd answer no to both questions.   --Noren (talk) 06:07, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * In general it's not degrading to dual-categorize a given page, but when the second category is applied inconsistently (e.g. only to women and not men) there's a problem. The solution is to dual-categorize all these authors in their gender-specific category, or actually replace the category with the more specific one, or just put everyone back in the single main category. CaseyPenk (talk) 06:26, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The single main category includes over 3000 articles and probably needs more articles moved to subcategories, not more articles added to it. And the "segregation" that Filipacchi complains about derives from us having Category:Women writers which actually aims to provide an easy way to look for detailed information on the subject. Subcategories separate these women by century, historical period, literary movement, and nationality. I find it very useful when searching for writers otherwise overlooked. Dimadick (talk) 06:42, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The problem is not having a subcategory for those who are "searching for writers otherwise overlooked." The problem is deleting writers from the main category. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 12:50, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * No, it wasn't a false dichotomy. It appears to have been one Wikipedian trying to move a lot of authors out of one category and into another. See notes about Johnpacklambert elsewhere on this page. As for the authors who are missing, please add categories for them too! --Elysdir (talk) 17:53, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

So what is the consensus? Split the category by gender, or not? A status quo of separating out the women and not creating a distinct list for men is not acceptable. Avt tor (talk) 06:40, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I made a poll below that lays out the different options. CaseyPenk (talk) 06:52, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

So create the male novelist category. Don't move the female ones back if you're going to have to move them all out again later. Don't let one drive-by columnist who evidently made no attempt to understand how wikipedia works create busywork for everyone just because she found a soapbox to stand on. --Quadalpha (talk) 06:54, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * If there was some deliberate decision made to create the current categorization scheme please do link to the page where it was discussed. Otherwise, this seems to have been an arbitrary decision made by one or a handful of editors without consensus, which very much goes against Wikipedia guidelines. CaseyPenk (talk) 06:57, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I've done minimal research, i.e. I looked at one page that was edited. I found that the editor who changed to the "American_women_novelists" category was anonymous, i.e. just an IP address, and for the one author I looked at, also added the category "Housewives". Anonymous and political just looks like vandalism to me, i.e. calling for relatively quick resolution (Undo) without a lot of hand-wringing. Avt tor (talk) 07:14, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Point taken. Though it seems a very odd and terribly inefficient way to espouse sexist views. 'I'm gonna anonymously go on Wikipedia and change the sub-categorisation! That'll learn'em.' --Quadalpha (talk) 14:22, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

It's worth noting that a single user, Johnpacklambert is responsible for the vast majority of these edits. He has made thousands of edits, removing African Americans from the category "American Television Actors", and erroneously placing female authors of young adult fiction into the American Girl Authors category (intended for books in the American Girl series). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.9.227.42 (talk) 16:18, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * This is not a list, this is a category. Categories containt their sub-categories.  Categories are not meant just to list things, but to group them in useable ways.  It is unhelpful to put articles in too many categories, thus in general if we put articles in a gender-specific sub-category we do not in the main category.  We do not put people in Category:American women writers in Category:American writers.  The better solution to this issue is to put people in genre-specific sub-cats of Category:American novelists as well as in gender-specific sub-cats.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:59, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Do you support gender-specific sub-cats for men and women writers, or just for women? -GTBacchus(talk) 18:02, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with gender specific categories for men. I am the person who created Category:American male actors which has been fought against by some people who actually support Category:American actresses.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:20, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Wrong. The better solution might have been to put people in gender-specific sub-cats, but that's not what you did. You isolated the women writers while leaving the men writers in the category. If you had simply subcategorized male and female writers, maybe doing it alphabetically, there would be nothing to talk about. Instead, people have had to discuss and start to implement a solution to the problem that was created. Avt tor (talk) 18:45, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment The rhetoric about the history of classification here is missing a lot of points. 1-I have to say it was very misleading of the NYT writer to not point out that every article in this discussion is in multiple categories. Hillary Joran which seems to be a somewhat autobiographical article, or at least an editor of that article uses that name, is in 10 categories.  It was placed in Category:American novelists a year ago in April, but was in Category:Women novelists for six months before that.  I do know that some of the contents of Category:American women novelists were moved from Category:Women novelists without ever having been in that specific American category, some did not have any American categories, some were in Category:American women writers and some were in some other categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:20, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

This is somewhere between being a manufactured crisis and Catch-22. If it's important to separate out women novelists as a special group (and the insistence that this is so is how we got here), then the rules about sticking a page in one level of a hierarchy dictate this separation. Something has to give, and this rule shouldn't be it. Mangoe (talk) 20:02, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Which is why we have two tasks here: first, do something to placate those we've inadvertently offended, and second, revisit our overall categorization system to find a way to present our information in a useful AND non-offensive way. -- LWG talk 20:11, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * ...which is likely impossible, because offensiveness is literally subjective. I could even argue that WP:NOTCENSORED means that we don't have to overhaul our category system just because someone takes offense at it. Mangoe (talk) 20:34, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * We don't have to, but if we can without great harm to the project, we should, and I think this is one of those cases. -- LWG talk 20:42, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * False reasoning on several points. It's not just "someone", it's the New York Times (and other media). "Offensiveness" is not the question, discrimination is the issue. WP:Categorization/Ethnicity,_gender,_religion_and_sexuality says "Also in regards to the "ghettoization" issue, an ethnicity/gender/religion/sexuality subcategory should never be implemented as the final rung in a category tree. If a category is not otherwise dividable into more specific groupings, then do not create an E/G/R/S subcategory." So this is not a new problem, it is a situation where an established guideline exists. Not to mention the common sense value of avoiding discrimination via ghettoization. Avt tor (talk) 21:57, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Just looking at the History for Harper Lee, the American Novelists category was deleted by User:BizarreLoveTriangle with Revision as of 01:16, 22 February 2013. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:49, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Edit war
People are adding the "American novelist" category to these pages, which is good. Appear at least one editor, User:C.Fred is reverting these edits. I posted a comment on his talk page. Avt tor (talk) 17:53, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it be best if everyone held off on the edits while we discuss below what we actually want to do with these categories? -GTBacchus(talk) 17:56, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The current situation is clearly wrong; the vast majority of commenters agree on that. Undoing the incorrect removals from the categories seems to me to be a worthwhile thing to do while we debate what the long-term best solution should be. --Elysdir (talk) 18:15, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok, so this is the 'R' step of the BRD cycle. I can work with that. My preference is to follow the zero revert rule, but I have to remember that makes me a minority. -GTBacchus(talk) 18:17, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It's much easier to sort out the mess first before adding or removing hundreds of categories. It's also important to assume good faith. Span (talk) 16:00, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Comment
There is an extensive ongoing discussion at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_April_24#Category:American_women_novelists. That discussion began before this one did, and it doesn't appear to be settled. I'd say the best course of action is to not move everyone around until a consensus has been reached at both places. AgnosticAphid talk 08:46, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

By century sub-cats
I think we will be able to empty this category by moving people to by century sub-cats. Two things to keep in mind. 1-novelists should be put in the centuries when they published novels, not all centuries they lived in. 2-a person can be in more than one century cat, as long as they had novels published in more than one century. 3-if there are really tricky cases, I would say leave them here, but so far I have managed to move everyone I really tried, so I am not sure there are any undoable cases.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:45, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * check out ANI for a dispute on same. Thoughts welcome. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 02:59, 3 May 2013 (UTC)


 * You really don't get it, do you? Purely technical solutions will not really solve the problem. And, of course, your suggestion actually is much more political than technical. Neonorange (talk) 06:05, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Neonorange. Which problem exactly are you talking about? And which suggestion is political? Sorry I just don't understand the context of your comment.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 06:26, 3 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Context: the discussions taking place on the three talk pages for Category:American novelists, Category:American novelists, and Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 April 24 section 1.2 American women novelists - and in the wider world. Which suggestion is political? Well, ALL the suggestions are political - taken in the context of the role that access to knowledge plays.  More particularly what I mean is any suggestion that obfuscates what was wrong in moving 'American women novelists' entries from the de facto master category of American novelists and that thus throws up walls to changes that that fullfill the promise of Wikepedia to empower users. Neonorange (talk) 02:42, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * wha?? Sorry, I'm not reading your logic here. something about knowledge, power... can you clarify what you mean? And by the way, "purely technical solutions will not really solve the problem" is a tautology... it is true in almost any given situation -- but what are you specifically trying to say about the specific suggestion under discussion here? --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:57, 5 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't see why we need to empty this category. If I wanted to look up all american novelists with surnames starting with Z, or a specific surname (families often generate multiple novelists over more than one century), could I still do that if they are all diffused into century categories?--Milowent • hasspoken  13:55, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Milowent - its a great question, and this question is really at the heart of the issue. So allow me to provide two answers:
 * American novelists - has always existed, and always will - certainly needs work, but that's the list we have - you should be able to find most people on that list. But, it's likely incomplete - some new novelist added yesterday won't be there. Such is the nature of lists on the wiki.
 * Recursive enumeration of category membership, per the link I posted on top of ==> link. As you will see, there are 6700 novelists in the category as sub-cats. There are only 3900 in the main cat. So if you're using  to search, you are missing out on 3000 bios. That's why recursive enumeration is the only way to get all of them. Let me know if that makes sense. You might ask a similar question - how can I see all ? Well, if you go to the cat, you will be sorely disappointed, as at least 300 of them have been diffused. But if you click on link, you can get all 355 of them, because most have been diffused to more specific sub-cats already.
 * Now you may say, screw that, I don't wanna have to recursively enumerate and click on some stupid external link, and I don't trust American novelists, it will always be out of date. Why can't they all be in the head cat? The reason is, this violates a key principle of our current categorization system, as elaborated in WP:Categorization - if everything starts bubbling up, dogs and cats start playing together, and all goes to hell. If you consider another tree, all Animals would now be in, by the same logic. Now, there wouldn't be any reason to not send and all of its subcats - all 6700 - up to  - because X out on the interwebs wants a list of all American writers. But that's not very fair to the poets, so now you have to bubble up all of the other sub-cats of American writers, and stick all the poets and journalists and essayists and non-fiction writers and everyone, so the  category would now have umpteen thousand bios - 6700 novelists, 3700 poets, and so on. This also makes it *much* more difficult to address categorization issues - how can you find people who should be moved to a more specific category? If everyone is in the head, then you have to look at every bio. Whereas with , which is fully diffused, if a single bio shows up there, it's easy to spot and diffuse down the tree, as you're not trolling through a list of thousands. In the absence of true wikidata-style category intersection (e.g. tagging each person with characteristics such as male, novelist, american, gay, cuban, poet, etc), diffusion is what makes category navigation manageable. I welcome your thoughts and responses to the above. It's a wildly imperfect system, but bubbling people up actually makes things worse.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:18, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * We really need to follow consensus. Many of us want to keep American novelists for a variety of reasons. If it's not working - my questions are these (purely rhetorical, no need for a wall of text) - not working according to whom? Not working because something's fundamentally wrong with the current categorization system? If the latter, then that's what needs to be addressed. Lots of voices have been stifled and I've seeing too many changes being made without discussion by editors who seem to lack a fundamental understanding of literature. Truthkeeper (talk) 16:27, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Listen, if consensus is (somehow) that all sub-cats of American novelists will henceforth be non-diffusing, I'm not going to stand in the way. That seems to be what you're suggesting. But it would be an exception to how every other single category on the whole wiki works today, so you'd have to defend "why"? And then you'd have to ask, should every sub-category of also be non-diffusing? And if that is non-diffusing, shouldn't we also make every sub-category of  non diffusing as well? And why only writers? Why not actors, and politicians, and everything else? And so it spreads through the wiki, and soon every single writer is in, which says, today, "This is a container category. Due to its scope, it should contain only subcategories."
 * There's a deeper structural issue which could be solved with category intersections, but that's a totally different discussion. As mentioned above, non-diffusion makes it extremely difficult to put people in categories, as you have no idea if they've already been sub-categorized or not until you open up the bio. If there are tens of thousands of bios, they will never get correctly sub-categorized, so then you might as well say screw the whole category system, just put everyone in American writers, nothing underneath, and go do something else. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:03, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Surely this for-the-convenience-of-editors issue could be resolved with that CatScan tool of yours, right? Why not just post the category-scanning links on the talk page of the relevant superordinate category and keep the editor's issue out of the view of readers? --Carwil (talk) 17:18, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It's the other way around - currently media wiki only displays direct members in a cat. To display all recursive sub-members, we could add a link to catscan. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:48, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Choosing indexing categories
Well, we certainly have some very motivated categorizers. Even if JohnPackLambert doesn't know why split them, and Obi-Wan says (on the same page) "the main utility of splitting large categories is so that you can better categorize things … you know which ones would still need to be categorized at a more specific level," they sure have a lot of energy to get that splitting done. What's the rush? I confess confusion. Still, please ignore this uneasy feeling if you wish, and proceed to my question/proposal...

Already having some genre novelists as subcategories here, we've been brought a century-based category system. Since everyone wrote in one or two centuries, this system is not discriminatory, and it seems like a reasonably plausible way to look up people. So, is their home state (I guess). And the number of books they wrote. And their genre. In fact, in an ideal Wikipedia, we might automate all these kinds of browsing. In the interim, we want people to be multi-categorized if they fit several criteria (20th century, 21st century, mystery novelist), right?

All of this sounds lovely, if only we could eliminate the "but I want one big list" problem. Well, we can. Create Category:American novelists by name and add everyone to it. It's been done on other wikipedias (said someone in one branch of this many-paged discussion); it's easy; and it could make everyone happy.

Hoping for a positive reception. Sorry to begin the conversation with snark, but y'all need to take this task a little less seriously.--Carwil (talk) 17:47, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * done American novelists. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:06, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * We still need the category novelists for the novelists. Writer is different than novelist: writers write essays, poetry, short stories, plays and so on; some novelists can be diffused (if wished) to categories by genre, but others can't. Some novelists need to be in the novelist category. I don't know how much more clear this can be made. Truthkeeper (talk) 19:17, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * No, you've been clear enough. Let me be clear: in, 50% of the letters are "American novelist". This is a diffusing-by-century subcat. Which part of that do you not understand? If you don't like the novelist-by-century categories, please bring them to CFD - until then this is a valid diffuse per WP:Categorization - as a more specific type of novelist. I'm sorry you're so emotionally attached to the words "American novelist" without any decoration in front or back, but you're going to have to get over it.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:10, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * In some cases you're using writer and in other novelist, such as writer here and novelist here, . It's not consistent. Has nothing to do w/ being emotionally attached - but I would like to see consistency. I would, too, like you stop treating me like a teenager - I'm far far from that. Truthkeeper (talk) 20:22, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I do not intend to treat you that way, so apologies. If you look more carefully at Hemingway, you will notice that he is in, so with that edit you just added him to the parent, which is diffusing (read the top of ). In other words, your talk about willing to be banned etc was all to remove the words "20th century" from the front of the cat he's in. Again, he remains an American novelist and an American writer - he's just a more specific type of one, one from the 20th century. If you don't like the cat , please bring it to CFD - it may be deleted, and then you will have won. Anyway, can we take this particular discussion to Hemingway's page, it's off topic here.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:24, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * You categorized him as 20th century American writer but not as 20th century American novelist - there's a difference. It's not about winning - it's about doing it correctly if it's to be done and it's being done inconsistently. Have a look at Edith Wharton who is now in the parent - somehow, somewhere this needs to be discussed and consensus achieved before they're messed up more than they've already been. My suggestion is for everyone to take a deep breath and back off for a week or more - but I keep saying that. This is exactly the place to discuss it - but a better place would be wikiproject novels so as to get more input. Truthkeeper (talk) 20:30, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but that's patently false. Show me any revision where I left Hemingway *not* as a novelist. Any revision. Not a diff, a revision. But I completely agree, we need to be consistent. I'll look at Edith also.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:44, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Preferred gender classification style
See above for a discussion of the classification of American novelists by gender. I'm creating this separate thread to list out the possible options for moving forward. I'm hoping we can reach a consensus as soon as possible, because the current situation is inconsistent and perhaps unfair.

Here are the possible solutions as I see them (feel free to edit this list and add more as you see fit):
 * Status quo: Keep the current (inconsistent) scheme of haphazardly assigning authors to one or more categories.
 * One category to rule them all: Put all the American novelists, male and female alike, in the general Category:American novelists. Delete Category:American men novelists and Category:American women novelists.
 * Diffuse both genders: Remove Category:American novelists for each author. Put each author into either Category:American men novelists or Category:American women novelists as appropriate.
 * Dual-categorize both genders: Put all the American novelists, male and female alike, into Category:American novelists. Additionally, put each author into Category:American men novelists or Category:American women novelists as appropriate.
 * Diffuse women but not men: Delete Category:American men novelists. Keep Category:American women novelists and move women out of Category:American novelists.
 * Dual-categorize women but not men: Delete Category:American men novelists. Put women in both Category:American women novelists and Category:American novelists.

Please chime in with which route you prefer. This is not a vote. CaseyPenk (talk) 06:48, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I think moving the women writers into the same category with the rest will render them invisible. The reason Women writers exists is because Women's writing in English is a specific area of literary study and the category scheme allows readers to search and study the subject. Ignoring these entire area strikes me as incredibly sexist. "Women's writing. What's that? Nothing important". On the other hand no "men's writing" exists as either an article or a subject of literary studies. Though I would not be opposed to a new category of "men writers" becoming a subcategory of Category:American men by occupation which currently only includes actors, comedians, dancers, escorts, models, monks, prostitutes, singers, and sportsmen. Dimadick (talk) 07:04, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I would recommend dual-categorizing both genders. Reasons: There are three contradictory impulses in the area of gender equity.  (1) Opposing the tendency to treat the male as the default (for example, always identifying men-only categories as the category rather than "men whatever category"); (2) countering the male-as-default or overwhelming emphasis on male activity by highlighting female participation in category whatever; and (3) harboring doubts about whether separating only women out, as if they're always a special case of category X, is entirely desirable.  By being strictly equitable, dual-categorizing both genders actually responds to all three impulses, AND makes it harder for those who won't recognize the problem to complain about "special treatment."  On a side note, the very absence of a category "men's writing" and existence of a category "women's writing," as noted by Dimadick, is another artifact of the male-as-default tendency and also a reflection of an assumption that women doing anything is a special case.  One day, hopefully, undergraduates will be asked analyze this Wikipedia Talk Page and associated media items and try to explain what all the fuss was about (in a five-page essay, of course).  HistorianK (talk) 10:57, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with this as most balanced. BTW, the persistence that "women's writing" being based on an "assumption that women doing anything is a special case" is driven by feminists and sexist thinkers alike.  Separating women out can be to celebrate or to marginalize and even Feminists wrestle over this one. Mattnad (talk) 11:34, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I also want to chime in in favor of this approach. This way, people that want lists of men or women for research purposes etc can have it, without one gender (or, as some solutions might have it, two) being removed from the default category. Lateralus1587 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:15, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with this approach. It doesn't relegate any author to second-tier status (based on gender), but allows somebody looking for writing specifically by a man or woman to find it. Aonyx (talk) 20:33, 25 April 2013 (UTC)\
 * HistorianK speaks for me, except more lucidly. Serpyllum (talk) 22:22, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think this makes sense as well Egret (talk) 00:11, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Like someone else mentioned, these are huge categories “men novelists” and “women novelists”, but obviously still necessary.
 * There should be one category to rule them all. Then maybe subcategories by genre en then MAYBE by gender (BOTH genders!).
 * Of course there are more male writers than there are female writers! We all know why! And even though it might be a lot of work to put a tag on each male writer, so be it!
 * And while we are at it, what about mixed sexes and cross-sexuals? Shouldn’t there be a category for them as well? Should there be subcategories on each article e.g. musicians, actors, rulers, paedophiles, psychopaths, rapists, freedom-fighters, priests (oops, there are no female priest, right?)…


 * The whole English language takes the male sex as default, just like any other language.

But that is one way of looking at it and in my opinion, it belongs to the past!
 * How about this:
 * Women and Men are both genders of the Human Race and have equal rights, therefore are in one category and treated equally in the language. This does not mean they are equal. Scientists have proven quite a while back that men are not the stronger sex just like they have proven there is no such thing as human races. Therefore the so-called Arian-race is not and cannot be the superior race.


 * Personal note: I’m light-skinned and a proud member of the female gender, but not a feminist. And I want the same wonderful things for my brother and sister alike!
 * Dual-categorize both genders: Put all the American novelists, male and female alike, into Category:American novelists. Additionally, put each author into Category:American men novelists or Category:American women novelists as appropriate.


 * I'd say (in order of preference) one category, dual categorization of both genders, or diffusion of both genders. Just singling out women authors reinforces the assumption that authors are men by default.  To make the category smaller, authors should be moved into subcategories based on characteristics of their novels (such as the genre subcategories that already exist) wherever possible.  But moving authors into subcategories based on personal characteristics (gender, ethnicity, height, or whatever) isn't appropriate. Klausness (talk) 11:44, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I'd argue for dual categorization of both, for the reasons HistorianK lays out above. "American women writers" is a useful category, but it should not come at the expense of moving women out of "American writers," and there's no reason not to give men the same treatment here. 152.160.99.172 (talk) 11:52, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I'll go with dual categorize women novelists. There are people who have a scholarly interest in looking up women writers, so simply merging them back into the parent category and deleting the women novelist category will frustrate that search.  Keeping the category makes sense: the point of an encyclopedia is to be useful, and if people find the category useful, it should stay.  However, American women novelists are still American novelists, so they should stay on that category-- leaving them out would mean that somebody doing scholarship on American novelists would be missing all the women novelists.  As for whether there should be another category American men novelists, that does satisfy a sense of symmetry, but as far as I can tell, there aren't people who have scholarly interest in looking up specifically male novelists, so I don't think it's actually a very useful category.
 * As for the option of splitting the category into two, male and female, and deleting the main category: meh. This would be useful only if single most important thing about American novelists is whether they are male or female, and that is so important that they need to be categorized separately.  But I don't think is correct.  Geoffrey.landis (talk) 13:01, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with the arguments for dual categorization.Sinusoidal (talk) 13:15, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I believe dual categorization is best. I'm surprised to find so many defenders of the current schema here. Whatever the intention -- even if it is to make the female writer subgroup more visible -- it is clearly sexist for male writers to be the default. If a list of American Major League Baseball players only included white players by default, confining minority players to a separate subgroup, I think we would agree that's racist. The same goes for the exclusion of women from the default category of American writers. Perhaps this kind of thing is why Wikipedia editors are 85% male. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.173.25.74 (talk) 13:17, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I also agree with dual categorization. At the very least, women novelists should be left on the main list. I was astonished at this happening in 2013, even though I know most Wikipedia editors are male. Don't assume malice, though! I like Crotalus's suggestion below. Evangeline (talk) 16:31, 30 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Diffuse them all: All three of the categories "American Novelists", "American Women Novelists" and "American Men Novelists" are so broad that (if populated with every appropriate article) they would have many thousands of entries each.  I don't see why such huge categories are particularly useful.  If there's some use for gigantic categories that I'm not aware of then I'd instead agree with the arguments for dual categorization.  All of the articles we are discussing already have many other categories that are more specific, and I think that's where the utility for adding categories lies.  (As a postscript, I don't understand why the independent and uncorrelated decisions to keep of diffuse the non-gendered generic category and the gendered ones are treated as if they are an 'either or' decision above- in principle those should be in different polls.) --Noren (talk) 13:40, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I'll vote for dual categorization -- preferably of both men and women, but that will require someone making an ongoing effort to go through the men and tag them as male novelists.  I want to put in a strong objection on the grounds of logic against the "diffuse" option for women and not men, which appears to have been the implicit choice behind the set of actions that led to the controversy.  American women novelists is a subset of American novelists, just as 19th century American novelists, or American mystery novelists are subsets.  There's no logical argument for excluding a group from the overall list just because the sublist exists.  And while there might be an argument for removing all authors from this category and making this page just a list of overlapping subcategories, in practice, it's a lot of work to do, and my guess is that people would just keep adding names back in.   If you think this page is too long-- tough, it's like complaining that there are too many kinds of insects -- your objection is to the world as it is, which is what the wikipedia page reprsents.  Izbit  —Preceding undated comment added 14:01, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I also support dual categorization of both, and it should be clear that any solution that leaves a list of predominantly or entirely male "American novelists" is utterly unacceptable. I deplore the remarks about "hand-wringing" above; I'll repeat this from an earlier response because it's unanswerable and I don't want it to go unnoticed: "I'm surprised to find so many defenders of the current schema here. Whatever the intention -- even if it is to make the female writer subgroup more visible -- it is clearly sexist for male writers to be the default. If a list of American Major League Baseball players only included white players by default, confining minority players to a separate subgroup, I think we would agree that's racist. The same goes for the exclusion of women from the default category of American writers." Languagehat (talk) 14:15, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Dual-categorize both genders: Separating everything out imposes an arbitrary view of literary history and classification. --Quadalpha (talk) 14:24, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Given the current situation, I'd prefer the "One category to rule them all" solution suggested in the poll. But this controversy is merely symptomatic of a larger problem with Wikipedia's categorization system, which was never carefully designed in the first place but instead simply grew organically. A hierarchical system for categories is, IMO, all wrong. Instead we should be focusing on broad top-level categorizations, and the software should have automatic and easy-to-use support for category intersections. For instance, an American female novelist would be included in the categories of "Novelist", "American", and "woman" (as well as whatever other categories were applicable to her specific biography). Few people would pull up categories these broad directly, but if the software supported intersections, then readers who wanted a list of all American novelists could search for articles that included both "American" and "novelist". The gender breakdowns would still be available, but only for those who wanted them. And if someone wanted to view all female novelists (not just Americans), they could use that intersection as well. Such a system would be far more flexible and extensible than what we currently have, and would help avoid unintentional bias like we've seen here.  *** Crotalus ***   14:28, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * This is an excellent suggestion, which I don't recall seeing before. Is there any possibility of implementation, or is this simply some very appealing wishful thinking? -GTBacchus(talk) 17:35, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're suggesting that instead of having categories, we have tags for each article. I like this idea, but speaking as a software engineer, am skeptical unsure of the feasibility of such a large change. But in anycase, it's a great idea. Is it possible to make a suggestion to the developers? Transcendence (talk) 18:17, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Dual-categorize both genders. Brought here in outrage at poor meta-journalism from the Guardian covering the NYT article (on their front page, no less!) Dual categorize, per most of the arguments above. If the main list is unmanageably long, so be it - flag the top of the page with links to the more manageable sublists. I also strongly agree with Crotalus above that some level of automation and intersection should be built into categorization on WP, but I guess that's an issue for another day/another forum. DanHobley (talk) 16:22, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Question - I'm reading the comment above by User:Noren, and I find myself wondering about the usefulness of enormous categories. Would we be better served if all of these articles were sorted into categories such as "American Male Novelists born 1700-1800" and "American Female Novelists born 1920-1930"? (I'm assuming here, by the way, that the twentieth century makes sense to break up into decades, not that female novelists should be grouped by decade and male novelists by century. Also, that assumption is totally beside the point.) I see the usefulness, for research purposes, of making it easy to find novelists of a particular gender, but I don't see why the parent categories "American Male Novelists" and "American Female Novelists" should actually be populated. -GTBacchus(talk) 17:33, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment The long precedent is that the intersection of females and writing is notable and classificable, the intersection of men and writing is not. I actually would argue that in some areas the fact that a man is the writer is notable though.  I think children's fiction is more heavily written by women than men for example (although I could be wrong on that line, and can think of a bunch of men who wrote it off the top of my head, so it is not like men don't write notable children's fictions).  However the biggest issue I see here is that whatever we do, we should do it on a much broader level.  We should not limit it just to the US and just to novelists.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:08, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Diffuse both genders plus diffuse to genre specific sub-cats. This is what I think we really should do.  Some will say "well, whu didn't you do that before" since I was the person who did a good portion of the diffusion (although the category was created by other editors months before I added anything to it), however that was because there was no precedent for "men novelists" categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:11, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not too sure about using genre as another level of categorization, because it's awfully hard to pin down in so many cases. Why not decade of birth? -GTBacchus(talk) 18:22, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * At present we have 9 sub-cats that are by genre, more or less. Only two, graphic novelists and historical novelists, use novelist in the name.  The others are crime, spy fiction, thriller, fantasy, mystery, romatic fiction and science fiction.  However Category:American fantasy writers is also a sub-cat of Category:American fiction writers, which is the parent to this category, Category:American short story writers, Category:American dramatists and playwrights, and 5 genre categories.  One Category:American horror writers is not a sub-cat of this category.  In the case of science fiction and fantasy categories I also wonder if those should not include sceeenwriters as well.  Maybe we should create Category:American horror novelists for example.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:45, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * What a mess. I'm liking Crotalus' suggestion above more and more. Writers can be classified by genre, by form, by time period, by nationality, by gender, and probably in a dozen other ways that people would care about. It's not clear to me that we have a very good way of handling all of that with our current category system. -GTBacchus(talk) 18:53, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Dual-categorize both genders I understand the concern with enormous categories, but Wikipedia isn't print, it can handle large categories. Diffusing both genders also sends the strange message that male and female American novelists don't have anything in common. Finally, any approach that treats genders differently seems indefensible. Fitnr (talk) 18:38, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * This will not be the effect if we leave them together in the sub-cats like Category:American horror novelists. I think that is probably our best move forward.  The three entries in American horror novelists are in specific by gender American novelists cats and that cat, so they are in Category:American novelists two ways.  As it is the one woman in that category was not moved to Category:American women novelists from Category:American novelists she was moved from Category:American women writers, apparently because the fact that Category:American fantasy writers is a subcat of Category:American novelists was the reason she was not in both.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:52, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Dual Categorize now, as there seems to be very little objection to this and it will remove the immediate source of ill-will towards the community. Once we've removed ourselves from the situation of defending a potentially sexist system, we can have a useful discussion about categorization in general and maybe implement some of the more novel suggestions above. -- LWG talk 19:02, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I would like to note that the root cause of the problem seems to be with how Wikipedia handles displaying members of categories. The Category system is hierarchical, which means that all members of a sub-category are ipso facto members of any parent category.  However, Wikipedia doesn't display things that way, it only displays direct category members rather than displaying the full set of members.  If a Category page always displayed the full set of members (both direct and sub-category), this controversy would likely never have occurred.  And it would make good sense in a lot of ways.  To think of another example brought up earlier, insects:  if I'm looking for all members of "Insect", that should include beetles and butterflys alike, regardless of whether they are tagged at the Insect level or not.  If the display and/or search by category were managed this way, the correct answer would be to always pick the most specific applicable category(ies).  In doing so, the article would automatically appear in any parent category.  However, given the way things currently work, I think dual-categorization is probably the best approach--it most accurately reflects what a hierarchy of categories means. eyrieowl (talk) 21:18, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Dual-categorize both genders, although I would be interested in the suggestion proposed above by Crotalus (although I also recognize the difficulty involved in implementing it). It just seems to be as if dual-categorizing is the fairest choice at this time.--Slon02 (talk) 23:58, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Dual-categorize both genders Based on the rationale of folks above, I think at this point the correct step is to dual-categorize. Meanwhile, we should continue the discussion on appropriate categorization. Also, since we're talking about novelists here, perhaps we should ask more members of WP:NOVELS and WP:BOOKS to chime in to this or follow-up discussions? Olegkagan (talk) 01:02, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Diffuse women but not men, this is the status quo. Wikipedia policy categorically rejects dual categorization. I agree with User:Spanglej below, we should not let the media impose their view of political correctness on Wikipedia. Add a link to List of novelists from the United States to the top of the category page. Start general discussion on dual categorization. The real solution might be technical, a tool for automatically generating a list from a category, sub categories included. We might also add some generic warning on American people category pages that they mainly contain white males and one should look into the subcategories. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 01:08, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * P.S. – Gender studies (i.e. women's studies), African American studies, and ethnic studies in general are established academic fields in the US. Therefore it is scientifically justified to have subcategories reflecting the research interests of scholars in those fields. I do not know if men's studies really exists, apart from being a sub discipline of women's studies. And yes, there used to be something called Nordic theory, focusing on the doings of white Anglo-Saxon males and their ilk, but it was deemed pseudoscience ages ago. --- Petri Krohn (talk) 01:27, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Gender Studies includes all of women's studies, men's studies, and LGBT Studies. As to whether  men's studies exists, in academia if it has academic programs and peer-reviewed journals (e.g., The_Journal_of_Men's_Studies), then it exists.  It may be very new, but it does exist.  HistorianK (talk) 16:59, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Diffuse both genders - If the premise of the original effort (that the generic category is too large) is correct, putting them all in the top-level category is ill-advised; the 'obvious' solution is to break it up into a bunch of smaller ones, and include those in the top-level category (i.e. make Category:American men novelists and Category:American women novelists members of Category:American novelists). Putting all articles in both the sub-category and the top-level category is just silly; the whole point of sub-categories is to avoid having to do that. Noel (talk) 01:34, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Diffuse both Although I will point out that, for people who are rightfully concerned about forcing people into the gender binary, it theoretically could be American male or female novelists; male/female are sexes, men/women are genders. Also, as this could have potentially wide-ranging effects on categorization in general, there should probably be an RFC... ~  Amory (u • t • c) 01:53, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Dual-categorize both genders -- in my personal opinion, this is the only solution that makes any sense at all. "Diffuse both" frankly reminds me of apartheid or other noxious practices. (Sorry! Just sayin' what I feel.) If the list is really too long (and it does look like it), I would much prefer to see it divided into centuries by the writer's date of death: "American ... novelists, 21st Century," "American ... novelists, 1901-2000," and "American novelists, 1900 and earlier." Those still alive at the time of writing obviously be 21st Century. If necessary, the 20th-Century Novelists could be further subdivided into "American... Novelists, 1901-1950" and "1950-2000," or even by decade if really necessary. --Potosino (talk) 02:37, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Dual-categorize both genders - Whatever is done, it must be done equally to all listed articles. Honestly, a vote or an executive decision needs to be done here.  We can't just edit war over it. EvergreenFir (talk) 02:53, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * ^Four categories 1) American novelists. sub-cat A) Male novelists, B) Female Novelists -- overcomes systemic bias, makes finding people easier and why not help users more easily find those they are looking for. C) Also, appropriate would be transgenderd category since gender is not exclusively a binary consideration. Calicocat (talk) 04:14, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think dual-categorization would be redundant and against policy. While sympathetic to equal splitting, I think what matters is whether gender is inherently relevant with all novelists or only relevant with some. Some literature does support the idea of gender being relevant with authors, such as works of fiction typically featuring a protagonist that matches the gender of the author or focusing on themes seen as more representative of the gender of the author. There may be a basis for saying that the gender of the author, male or female, is inherently relevant to the work of a novelist.-- The Devil's Advocate tlk.  cntrb. 05:28, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Diffuse both As per Amory, Noel and others. If the size of Category:American novelists is too large, then dual-categorizing (or one cat) isn't really an option here. James xeno (talk) 05:43, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Parallel discussion at CfD - There is a similar discussion happening at Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_April_24. It is probably not wise to continue two discussions simultaneously.  This discussion here seems to have more nuance and more recognition of the subtleties of categorizing; whereas the CfD discussion is more of a merge/dont-merge survey.  But the CfD has more editors participating.  It looks like the CfD, so far, is leaning to a "merge" resolution (too early to tell for sure).  So maybe this talk page should suspend its discussion until the CfD is finished; this talk page could resume the conversation (e.g. how to do the merge) after that CfD finishes.   --Noleander (talk) 10:21, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Dual-categorize both genders - Forget the sexual politics and simply look at it from the point of view of an encyclopaedia user. What might a person want to research? American Novelists (any and all)? Check. Men specifically? Check. Women specifically? Check. If, in 50 years time, the logs show that there were a billion perusals of American Novelists, 100 million of Women and only 20 million of Men, or any other distribution, who cares? All of those users will have been served. Frankly, I was surprised to hear that this is even something that's being discussed, let alone with such apparent difficulty. 78.144.69.219 (talk) 17:53, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * – Dual-categorize both genders Defuse both genders-I don't think there is anything particularly useful about having a 'American Men Novelist' section intrinsicly, but if we are trying to clear individuals off of the 'American Novelist' category, I guess it's not too bad of a plan.  I wouldn't go out of my way to populate the category unless the novelist in question A)Is notable in some way for being male (perhaps a writer in a field dominated by women), or B) Resists sub-categorization through other attempts.  The credible argument raised by the NYT is that by having a 'catch all' category for women, and not for men, you are giving men a better chance at remaining in the 'American Novelist' category, which some people take as being important.  Since i'm in favour of getting everyone out of that category and into subcategories, crating a male specific 'catch all' works fine enough for me.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pjjmd (talk • contribs) 21:48, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Edited to strike through bold text, because I made a mistake.Pjjmd (talk) 22:01, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * One category to rule them all — I don't think segregating authors of different genders is a good idea, nor adding people to multiple overlapping categories. In the longer term, I agree with Crotalus. The current system of categorization is untenable, and we need a new, more flexible way of tagging articles. — Shmuel (talk) 22:21, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Dual-categorize both genders As Fitr wrote, "I understand the concern with enormous categories, but Wikipedia isn't print, it can handle large categories." --Wintersweet (talk) 22:23, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * One category to rule them all - whether male/female or something else, they are all still novelists. It's that simple. We can diffuse as well, slice and dice as much as we want, but it's really nice to have one giant category as a starting point. Truthkeeper (talk) 18:51, 27 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Dual-categorize both genders or dual-categorize women but not men - Gender categories can be of interest when looking at trends within the literary tradition of a nation or culture, but that doesn't require that they are ghettoised. There should be an overarching category of "novelists" that includes all novelists and is not gendered. A separate category of men novelists smacks of tokenism, as male novelists (and straight white male novelists) are still the default, but if there is demand for it then I don't have a problem with its existence. -Kez (talk) 10:41, 30 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Dual or One - There may be a reason to have categories of gender to point out those who bucked the trend in history, but it should be non-diffusing 174.62.69.11 (talk) 23:28, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Dual-categorize writers of all genders - For consistancy and ease of access (I'm guessing it'd probably make things easier for bots, scripts and addons). Wikipedia is not print, and Category:American films is nearly 5 times as big. - Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:10, 4 May 2013 (UTC)


 * One category to rule them all - The current situation leads to untenable and weird consequences, we need to improve it. My main objection to dual-categorisation is that assumes that gender is always a salient feature. When investigating novelists, I personally don't care whether they're female, male, or other. While female novelists are an area of study, this classification is better handled by a list. I agree with those who would argue that this (and related categories) are in need of diffusion, but it does not follow that race or gender are good classes with which to apply that diffusion. There are other attributes that are more pertinent and less controversial. --Andrewaskew (talk) 05:42, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Relevance of gender
The purpose of categorization is to serve the interests of users by helping them identify groups of articles that are related in a relevant way. We would not group articles about people on the basis of their hair color, eye color, blood type, weight, height (with the possible exception of basketball players), or astrological sign. Categorizing people on the basis of attributes that are not associated with their job description is clearly not relevant or encyclopedic.

The guideline WP:Categorization/Ethnicity,_gender,_religion_and_sexuality references professions where, say, gender is sufficiently relevant that including it as a category is meaningful. In the example mentioned, it is clearly the case that politicians reaching the level of head of government face unique challenges in many countries if they are not women, so showing their gender is relevant. It is not at all clear that this applies in the case of novelists. Forty years ago it may have been the case, but looking at the field in more recent decades, women who have wanted to become writers have simply sat down at their keyboards and wrote. It is true that women in society still face a variety of challenges due to discrimination, and that some authors incorporate this into their writing, but that is a matter of content, not labelling; one might categorize a writer as "feminist", but that can apply to writers of either (any) gender. The question of having categories for novelists on the basis of gender is whether this actually serves the interests of users, or whether it is simply a matter of labelling, to mark individuals for having different levels of privilege. I.e., would one label teachers for being women? Would one label authors for being white? Is gender a uniquely identifying category for authors? A friend of mine, when she decided to join the Navy back in the '70s, could have been said to be a feminist pioneer. When she later decided to be an author, not so much, that was just something she wanted to do. The women's-studies point applies to issues that all women face, but I don't know what challenges authors face as authors because they also happen to be women.

The more I think about it, the more problematic this seems to me. I question the relevance of categorizing authors by gender; it looks like just labelling, i.e. marginalization, which is how this became a subject of controversy in the first place. The Wikipedia guideline is clear that gender per se is not a reason for categorization. If there is a reason to identify women (or men) authors on the basis of gender, I'd want to hear the case made in feminist terms, not just on the basis of someone's obsession with "policy" or subcategorization. Avt tor (talk) 11:20, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Read Women's writing in English.
 * Read WP:RECENTISM. You say that barriers to women writers have have been eased in the last 40 years. Maybe true; but Wikipedia is not simply about the last few decades. For most of the history of publishing, women have been a minority, and in the 19th-century, women writers were pioneers. If women novelists are no longer categorised as such, readers lose the ability to find sets of articles on those pioneering women. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:13, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The problem of sexism against writers didn't arise from the writers, though. People don't acquire sexist or racist attitudes by looking at articles about historical figures. Avt tor (talk) 18:09, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * And this is why the question of agenda arises: (redacted) Avt tor (talk) 18:13, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * We don't categorise on the basis of sexism against people. We categorise on the basis of WP:DEFINING characteristics, and by their intersection when that intersection is itself a legitimate encyclopedic topic ... so read Women's writing in English to see why this intersection is a legitimate encyclopedic topic. --13:30, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Categories are for readers, not to satisfy our notions of how things ought to be categorized. If there are lots of people who would like to browse a category of female authors, then why should we deny them that? In the ideal, people could browse by complicated critria like "female Polish non-fiction writer from the nineteenth century who didn't write on politics". Right now, the category system is the closest thing we provide to such functionality, so insofar as we can allow people to browse by categories that are of general interest, then I think we should. Women writing is a topic of general interest, with lots of academic departments pouring lots of funds and energy into focusing on it. The NYT took notice precisely because this is a category that people care about. Let's not act as if it doesn't exist. -GTBacchus(talk) 16:55, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * That's exactly the question that I'm asking. Are there lots of people? Is this of general interest? Certainly I know writers who do not consider their gender to be a variable of their writing, any more than their hair color or height. Remember that the reason the controversy arose was when women writers discovered that they were being labelled. This is a problem that happened this month when someone started going through and re-categorizing the articles. Is this a decision to be made by content contributors to articles, or is there a reason to label everyone that happens to belong in a group? I take note that, as of a couple days ago, there were two articles in the "American men novelists" category, which is to say it is being populated in response to the controversy. What's the agenda here? That's the question. Avt tor (talk) 18:09, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * "Are there lots of people?" I'd say so, yeah. While I agree there are women writers who don't consider their gender important - and good for them - there are also thousands of people studying women writers as an academic topic, writing dissertations about women writers, right now. Do we need concrete evidence of this? Shall I dig up names of journals, and find lists of articles on women in literature that were published this last month? I could do that for you, if it would help. As for the "American Men Novelists" category, that was clearly created and populated in response to this, with the apparent "agenda" being equal treatment. Unless there's a consensus to get rid of categorization by gender, which there doesn't seem to be, then we should treat the two usual genders even-handedly, right? -GTBacchus(talk) 06:19, 27 April 2013 (UTC)


 * What BrownHairedGirl said, but also: The problems of women in X (including literature) have not ended with the mere ability to access the field. In literature in particular, women writers continue to have trouble gaining equal recognition in an environment that frequently continues to be systemically biased towards men.  See, for example: this 2011 article in the New Republic, VIDA's 2012 count of book reviews and reviewers by gender, and just to stick my personal genre oar in, Strange Horizons' 2012 F&SF count.  It's much the same in other fields - access is possible, but equal recognition (and compensation!) remain elusive.  So yes, it's still relevant.  HistorianK (talk) 17:09, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Avt tor, you would be wise to assume good faith and back off the personal attacks. This is a question of categorisation policy. Span (talk) 19:04, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * No "personal attack", I've just observed the chronology. Ramping up changes during the discussion (i.e. after controversy emerged) seems questionable.


 * I was asking whether labelling novelists as women served the interests of the user (and article subject) community. My opinion is that there is a social change underway, in the same way that women actors no longer refer to themselves as "actresses". We are moving away from gender-based language as that promotes gender-based categorization (in society, never mind Wikipedia). Of course any individual opinion is not definitive, hence my question.

I still question whether this categorization should proceed independently of content updates. There may be a case to note this for individual articles, where it is relevant to the article subject (i.e. the person is fine being identified by gender) or to those specifically interested in the subject. But I question whether it is appropriate to label people in the absence of such considerations. It is not clear to me that a systematic labelling serves the interests of subjects or users. Avt tor (talk) 20:28, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * "Ramping up changes during the discussion (i.e. after the controversy emerged) seems questionable." It does? Trying to make changes in response to a problem that arises seems "questionable"? It seems to me like the obvious thing to do: a problem comes up; we address it. What's less questionable, not doing anything? I think you're absolutely right about the social change underway, but it's just beginning. We're still in a world where categorization by gender is carried out, in academic and other settings, by women and men alike, for reasons of scholarship and research, among others. It will be great when we get to the point where everyone thinks categorization by sex or gender is old-fashioned and irrelevant, but in 2013, we're not there yet. Wikipedia reflects the world we document, as opposed to being an engine for social change. -GTBacchus(talk) 06:19, 27 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, ramping up changes that contribute to the problem identified does seem questionable, and is not the same thing as resolving the problem. I'm seeing the "men novelists" as much more "separate but equal" than "equal". I don't know what everyone thinks, but I know what the guideline on categorization says, and I know there are many professions, in fact the default legal situation, where considering someone's gender as a job attribute would be a human rights violation. Which is the background from which I asked the question.
 * I'm not an academic. You don't need to cite journals; I'll take your word on this. The social change I described may be more apparent in my social circles than in society at large. On that point I'd consider my question answered. Avt tor (talk) 07:26, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd say we're reaching some kind of understanding. As for "ramping up changes that contribute to the problem identified", I think we can question the judgment of the person making the changes, but I see no warrant for assuming that anyone's intention was to "contribute to the problem". All I see here is people working in good faith to resolve a situation. My sympathies are with you, regarding gender identification in general. I'm a mathematician, and we tend to really, really not care about gender when we're thinking about mathematics. If someone wanted to study mathematics by women in particular, it would seem strange. On the other hand, I've seen the question raised of whether women, on taking their place in the field, will end up developing math in a different way than men typically do. That's kind of an interesting question, and not quite a mathematical one, nor necessarily sexist to ask. These musings, however, are a bit off-topic, so I'll stop. -GTBacchus(talk) 07:41, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Not making any assumptions about intent, just looking at the pattern of effect (in context of what has been actually said). Good faith plus bad analysis results in moving in the wrong direction, causing user complaints calling for action. I suppose rephrasing my question might be "Do we forestall the next round of complaints?" If not today, then at least the question has been asked. Avt tor (talk) 07:54, 27 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Linking to someone's personal facebook page is a personal attack, especially since the question of how to refer to the wife of an official who also has some official standing directly connected with being the wife of that official is totally irrelevant. Next I am going to be attacked because at some point in my medieval history class I uttered the word "Episcopa" to refer to the wife of a bishop in the early Chistian church, and did not grant her full standing as bishop as well.  If we never subdivided categories at all, we would have every article in one category.  There is nothing wrong with adding articles to categories, it makes it much easier to find them.  As I have noted elsewhere some articles involved we not in Category:American novelsits or any sub-cats but only in Category:Women novelists before I edited them.  Now I hate to think what scare-mongers at the NYT would have said about that if they came across it.  Would they claim "wikipedia is implying the women who write novels are not really American".  Stop trying to see hidden agendas, and really, really, really stop accusing people of bias because they want to give a name that is better than "mission president's wife" to a term that is currently officially refered to as such.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:30, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks to Avt tor for asking a simple, defining question. For better or worse, it's clear that there is scholarly and public interest in Women's writing in English as a category. There are anthologies, reading guides, college courses, and tenure lines for university professors. This is a well-established category.
 * However, I'm not so sure that "American women novelists" passes the same test. (As put on Categorization/Gender,_race_and_sexuality: "If a substantial and encyclopedic head article (not just a list) cannot be written for such a category, then the category should not be created.") Can anyone speak to this?--Carwil (talk) 18:26, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * What would the article be called? American Women Writers or Women in American Literature? Here is one of the oldest sources on the topic: Cone, Helen Gray in American Literature." Century Magazine 40 (1890): 921-930. Here is a modern article that list another 15 full lenght books on the topic. For a quick read, here is a History of American Women Writers. We might even have a separate article for Black Women in American Literature. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 01:32, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Except "Black women in American literature" would be about how black women are treated as subjects in American literature, I think what you want is "African American women novelits" or something along those lines, which I think is an article we could create.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:31, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I hope category American women novelists gets kept.
It's important to have women listed in both categories (American women novelists and American novelists) - this is a critical category for women's studies and those seeking easy access to American women novelists. Just my two cents! SarahStierch (talk) 18:39, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * and I know there is a discussion taking place on the category afd page. I just felt like saying my two cents outside of that total mess of a discussion which will most likely result in something happening that shouldn't happen. SarahStierch (talk) 18:51, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree that having the sub-categories is important. Looking at the discussion above, most seem to lean towards the dual categorization option, which would leave men and women in the main category, but also retain the subcategories. That seems most useful to me. AstroCog (talk) 13:17, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

American women novelists should remain in this category
In recent days, both Forbes and the New York Times have featured short articles on the practice of removing American women novelists from this category and assigning them to the American women novelists subcategory. I'm not sure that this is sexism—rather, I think people aren't taking the time to read and understand Wikipedia's categorization guidelines. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the guidelines appear to state that subcategories defined by gender or ethnicity are non-diffusing subcategories. As such, it would seem that American women novelists should remain assigned to this category as well as being assigned to the American women novelists subcategory. Jlaffan (talk) 22:46, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, there is no reason to specifically put women back in this category because they are women when they are already in Category:American romantic fiction writers or other similar sub-cats. That is what some editors have been doing, undermining the clear directive to diffuse.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:31, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, but there are male authors in multiple categories as well. American Authors is general enough that many authors of both genders will exist here and on another category page.  Therefore all American authors should be represented on this page, and leave the sub-categorization to the sub-categories.  Diffusion is only useful in creating specificity, which is not the purpose for such a large category. Doctor Rhapsody (talk) 00:12, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * What next, are you going to advocate that we put every American we have in Category:American people. Anyway, what you actually are advocating would be more we put all these people directly in Category:American writers.  It is not useful to put poeple directly in a high-level category that is very large when they can be put in legitimate subcats like Category:American historical novelists.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:36, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * A historical novelist is still a novelist and some authors write both historical novels and other types of novels. A search for an author based on a single attribute is no guarantee the search will succeed. Truthkeeper (talk) 16:11, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
 * JPL, you assert, "it is not useful to put people directly in a high-level category that is very large when they can be put in legitimate subcats," and I totally disagree with this assertion. It is useful, perhaps not to you. There are people who find it useful, and those are some of the people we're serving with this project. The dogma that large categories need to be broken up is just that - a dogma - and several of us are suggesting that it needs to be questioned. -GTBacchus(talk) 16:26, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
 * In addition, I've just read that we originally decided to eschew large categories for performance reasons, which are no longer issues. In the face of that, and multiple readers saying that they find large categories useful, I think the claim that large categories need to be broken up in order to be useful is totally unsupported in doubt, and should be abandoned reconsidered before its used as a basis for future actions. -GTBacchus(talk) 16:59, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Changing how categories of people are displayed
I suspect part of the problem is that, while the category display pages might have originally been intended for editors to help them classify articles, they are now also used by readers for browsing, to look for members of the category.

That being the case, I think the best long-term solution is to revamp category displays to better meet the needs of browsing readers. In particular, I suggest that people placed in one category of people also be automatically displayed in broader categories of people, without the reader having to click through sub-category links or otherwise having more narrowly categorized people disadvantaged in the listings.

This needn't take a lot of work to implement, and could make the category pages more fair and useful for readers. I've written a post on how and why to implement this on my blog (where I also discuss how I've implemented it in my own catalog, and address some of the more common objections I've seen to the idea). JohnMarkOckerbloom (talk) 16:13, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Interesting post. The problem is, wikipedia categories are haphazard, so any algorithm that would attempt to bubble people up automatically would fail, for about 10 different reasons that I've elaborated on elsewhere - where you go in the tree, and how high up, is highly context dependent - and depends on if the article in question is already in a sibling, aunt, or niece cat as well. I think another reasonable alternative is to *display* recursively any members - by default it would show 3 or 4 levels down, but you could ask it to display any arbitrary number - currently has a link at the top which enumerates all articles recursively. There's also been a lot of discussion about category intersection, which would eliminate most categories entirely, and you would just intersect woman + writer + catholic for example, so I actually hope we end up going to that solution instead. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:30, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Inclusion of awards cats as subcategories of
Hi, I've noticed there are pulitzer prize cats as a subcat of. However, we also have Category:American literary awards, which covers a wide gamut. My inclination is to remove the pulitzers - even if they are given to novelists. The other option would be to pull in all of the other literary awards that are given to novelists. otherwise, it's inconsistent - if we're including the awards cats, we should have all or none IMHO. My vote is for none (could put a link at the top if necessary to redirect people to the awards categories). --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:35, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Since the current award is not limited to novels, but to fiction in general, it really does not make sense to have it here.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:12, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've removed them.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 01:10, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Sub-category names
One of the oddest parts of this category is it has a lot of sub-categories, that might not work as sub-categories. We have for example Category:American mystery writers as a sub-cat. However were all mystery writers novelists? If so, than we should not have people in both categories. In fact, we already have a workable solution with List of novelists from the United States, which maybe we should rename List of American novelists.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:36, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Redundancy to List of novelists from the United States?
This page seems to overlap substantially with List_of_novelists_from_the_United_States. Is there a reason for that? Should they be merged? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sinusoidal (talk • contribs) 13:24, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, the simplest answer is, we have lists and categories for the same thing.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:21, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Sub-category rename
I am wondering if people would prefer we rename Category:American romantic fiction writers to Category:American romantic fiction novelists or if we should create the later as a sub-category of the former. I am going to see if I can get an insight on whether any person in the category did not write a novel.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:43, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * After looking at the category, it seems that the vast majority of the contents wrote novels, if not all of them. I am going to propose the rename.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:46, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

A genre diffusion proposal
Some have talked about having a category like Category:American general novelists, or Category:American novelists with no specific genre. The problem is that we do not do generic categories at all, they are specifically discoraged. What I think we should do is, at least if we do not go with a general diffusion of both genders in have a heading on this cateogry that reads: "Americn novelists should be in this category in most cases. Even those in gender and ethnic sub-categories should be in this parent category, as well as those in the prize sub-category.  In the case of those who wrote specific genres, they generally should not be in this category directly.  The one exception is for novelists who wrote some works in a designated genre, but who also wrote many works that were not in that genre."John Pack Lambert (talk) 05:26, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The example that comes to mind the fastest is Charles Dickens. He clearly belongs in Category:English historical novelists.  However while "A Tale of Two Cities" was a historical novel, his other notable works like "David Copperfield", "Our Mutual Friend", "Great Expectations" and many others were not.  Thus the historical novelists category does not cover all his work as a novelists, and so he should remain in Category:English novelists as well.John Pack Lambert (talk) 05:29, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Some people are making things worse
A recent edit to Cherry Adair went against the clear directive tht we should seperate this category by genre where possible. Adair has long been in the romatic fiction sub-cat. I then added her as well to the women novelists category. Someone then came along and added her to the novelists category as well, which was entirely unhelpful since it is clear that people in the genre-sub-cats should not be in the main category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 07:16, 26 April 2013 (UTC)