Category talk:Missionaries

The problem
This category and its sub-categories are in a mess, largely as a result of a spate of ill-considered category-creation. I suggest that a lot of categories should be deleted or merged, and that others should be renamed to create a more logical and consistent structure.

Amongst the problems so far:


 * inconsistency of naming: we have and, but  and.
 * some inappropriate use of hierarchies, which in many cases is simply due to misnaming (e.g. is a sub-category of  and explicitly refers solely to to Christian missionaries
 * far too many underpopulated categories of Methodist missionaries. Mostly subcats of {Cl|Methodist missionaries in Asia}}, e.g.  (pop:1) and  (pop:1)
 * some grossly underpopulated categories of missionary by area of activity, many of which are not even categorised under : e.g.,  --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:42, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Initial proposal
To sort this out, I propose a few initial steps to improve clarity and reduce clutter, after which a further assessment will be needed on a final structure:


 * 1) rename  to  (already at CFD: see CFD 2007 Jan 18: Missionaries by denomination
 * 2) rename three categories which clearly refer to Christian missionaries:
 * 3) * to
 * 4) * to
 * 5) * to
 * 6) Delete the underpopulated missionaries-by-country categories: and.
 * 7) upmerge some grossly underpopulated categories of Methodist misonaries:
 * 8) * to
 * 9) * to
 * 10) * to
 * 11) * to
 * 12) I sugges that, and  are nowhere near heavily-enough populated to need a missionaries-by-denomination-by-country category, but that there are enough christian missionary articles for those countries to merit a christian-missionaries-by-country category in each case.  However, I suggest that the upmerging should await the renaming of the  to  (and likewise for China and India).

I do not think that will be the end of this ... but I hope that those steps will be a useful start, which will remove some clutter and anomalies, thereby helping to clarify the structure enough to make further decisions on what overal structure we should we aiming for.

I will seek comments on these suggestions before starting any CFDs or CFRs. Please place any replies below here (rather than annotating the above). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:42, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

"to" or "in"

 * It seems to me that the operative preposition should be to rather than in. These were missionaries to a place, not in a place. Missions are sent to a country, not in a country. Otherwise, I agree with the restructuring. — BrianSmithson 16:29, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Brian, the problem with that is that not all missionaries are sent overseas: they can also be sent within their own countries. (I have known people sent as missionaries from one part of Ireland to another, and in one case even within the same city. There are also particular types of mission which are usually internal to a country, such as missions to seamen).  I know that "to" would not be completely wrong for those own-county missionaries, but "in" seems to me to be more inclusive.
 * PW, what do you think? Have you encountered e.g. American missionaries deployed in America, and which terminology would you prefer? -BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:25, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for asking. "In" seems more all-inclusive.  "To" would imply from somewhere else.  "In" can include both natives and expats from elsewhere.  The only examples I can think of in USA are when, e.g., some were sent to frontier areas (e.g., California when it was just opening up).  Then it was Americans in mission to other Americans.  Another example might be Mormons, when they are sent on missions, whether internationally or within their native lands.  But again "in" will cover them all. Hope this is helpful. Pastorwayne 22:26, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, I see y'all's point. I was thinking about this from the perspective of Africa (my main area of interest on Wikipedia), where the missions have been historically from someplace else. I can accept that in would be a more inclusive preposition. — BrianSmithson 02:18, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * CFRs Since there seems to be consensus on this point, I have started the CFRs for Missionaries to India, Missionaries in Japan and Missionaries in China. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:39, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

my tuppence
Sounds like you have it all figured out, BHG. Thanks for your hard work. Of course, personally I think the cats and subcats are pretty much ok the way they are (the underpopulated ones, e.g.). But that is simply a disagreement over the usefullness of subcats. You do provide for some country and continent subcats, so that is helpful, too. The only other thoughts I have concern missionaries of other religions, but since you don't seem here to be addressing those, I will keep them to myself. I will gladly watch the progress of this reorganization, and will comment as seems appropriate and helpful. Thank you for your kind invitation to participate! Pastorwayne 12:03, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi PW, as you know, the general consensus is that subcats should usually only be created if they are need to divide an over-populated parent category, or if they are part of a series which will mostly be reasonably-well populated. Some day I hope we'll persuade you of the usefulness of that approach :)
 * As to the other religions, I think we should revisit that once we have uncluttered the Christian categories. For now, there do not seem to be many articles on non-christian missionaries (and I'm not entirely sure that the concept of "missionary" always translates neatly into other religions), but I think that once we have sorted the christian missionaries, it might be useful to restructure the others a bit ... but for now, there's enough work to do on the christians. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:24, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I support this general outline. In particular, subdivision by Christian subdenomination does not appear warranted at this point. I have found some of the subdivisions to be very confusing; they truly inhibit navigation. Dr. Submillimeter 12:41, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I too support the general approach. I'll have a more detailed look over the next few days (having been concentrating on bishops rather than missionaries). roundhouse 14:26, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * PS Cameroon is a good example of a cat that won't work very smoothly as it has been Kamerun (german), then split into Cameroun (French) and the Cameroons (British), and is now reunited as Cameroon. And some missionaries predated Kamerun. roundhouse 14:42, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * This issue with Cameroon is part of a much larger issue with categorizing people by geography, as geographical boundaries have changed over time. See the ugly debate on my proposed rename for Category:Immigrants to America, for example.  I have no suggestions on how to solve this problem at this time.  Dr. Submillimeter 14:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Category:Cameroon seems to cover all the predecessor states, so I think that is workable in principle.  It's just that it's way under-populated for now. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)
 * That's right. I'm the primary maintainer of the Cameroon-related categories, and I've been including articles related to the predecessor states and parts of the territory of modern-day Cameroon from before there was any large-scale societal organization at all (such as Monneba); this follows the sources I use. As for underpopulated categories, that's going to be a problem with many of the nations to which missionaries are sent; these are countries from which we likely have few if any contributors on Wikipedia, and those of us who take an active interest in them are kind of spread thin trying to cover everything. Certainly, there are at least a few more notable missionaries to Cameroon for whom an article could be created. I don't see the problem with this, as it's very useful for my own organization of articles, and I think it helps us to counter our systemic bias to have a link there at Category:Writers by nationality or Category:Activists by nationality that leads to Cameroonian examples. Leave them organized at a broader level, and those articles become just funny names lost in the mass of articles. — BrianSmithson 02:14, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem I have with it is whether a missionary in the 1800s (say David Livingstone) can be sensibly categorised as a Missionary in Zimbabwe (created in 1981 or so). (He isn't so labelled, yet.) It has been argued persuasively that Bishops of predecessors of the UM Church cannot be labelled as UM Bishops (this being UM POV) and this seems to me to be the same principle (as say Zimbabawe/Cameroon POV - I doubt whether Ian Smith would wish to be in category leaders of Zimbabwe). (I don't personally have any problem with small categories. Eg has 3 occupants.) The view I am reaching is that categories don't work as presently set up - too few of us understand them and the structure is accordingly chaotic. (Eg Joseph Merrick (missionary), Alfred Saker,  predate the existence of Cameroon/Kamerun. Heinrich Vieter is very nicely placed in Category:German colonial people in Kamerun, but less happily in anything mentioning Cameroon.  Pallottine mission to Kamerun is not a missionary.) roundhouse 13:36, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Roundhouse, I don't think that this issue is quite as difficult as it appears. Where there is there a successor state with the same boundaries (as in Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe or Burma / Myanmar), I don't think that's too much of a problem except for politicians: the Ian Smith example would be inapropriate, but is quite elegantly handled ny placing him in, which is a sub-cat of both  and.
 * To my mind, missionaries were sent to work with the people in a particular area, and it sems to me that the objective here should be to describe the area that those people were in: Myanamar and Zimbabwe seem to me to do well enough for that.
 * The alternative would be to create a whole overlapping hierarchy of former names for countries, which gets really problematic, and seems to me to impede clarity rather than helping it. (e.g. having a full set of separate categories for the Irish Free State and the Republic of Ireland would add next-to-no information, but generate irritating category-clutter). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I concur with BrownHairedGirl. If you check the sources on those Cameroon entries, they are all from books about the history of the modern entity known as Cameroon. Saker will be in virtually every Cameroonian history book you read, as will likely Merrick. Where things might get hairy is for nations whose modern borders don't necessarily correspond to any former entity (modern Mali and the Mali Empire, for instance). But there's no need to muddy things up for those cases where things are pretty clear-cut. (As for the Pallottine mission, it consisted of a bunch of missionaries, and the category is called Category:Missionaries to Cameroon.) — BrianSmithson 02:41, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I am quite surprised at BHG's position here. I think if you had more people working on Cameroon (or its neighbours) you would get strong objections to the various phases being lumped together. There is a pre-colonial phase, a colonial phase in 2 distinct parts with 3 distinct colonial powers, and a post-colonial independent phase. Things are hairy for the USA - see the cfd discussion - which has been relatively stable for 200 years. (A football team is not a footballer; a mission is not a missionary.) The waters are muddy; inaccurate categories are not going to produce clarity. is clear and even Mali can be included. I am pleased to see that Zimbabwe is handled better, with Rhodesian categories to reflect its existence as a Crown Colony (and I shall go and dispute  being a sub-cat of, on historical grounds). roundhouse 03:49, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I understand your point, and I know very well the history of Cameroon. And I disagree that folks would have a problem with this if there were more editors in this area. It would be counterproductive to create four or five categories for what are now single profession-, government-, and history-based categories, thus producing something like Category:Cameroonian writers, Category:Writers in Kamerun, Category:Writers in the Cameroons, and Category:Writers in Cameroun. Thank you, but no. One has only to open Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon or History of Cameroon Since 1800 to find that modern nationalist Cameroonian scholarship considers the elements of the pre-national entities (all of them) Cameroonian. At any rate, we are getting into a larger issue. I'm uncomfortable trying to decide too much about such issues in just one Category talk page. This is an issue that needs input from, at the very least, the editors of Africa-related regional notice board. — BrianSmithson 04:35, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

sub-denominations
In reply to Dr Submillimeter's point about subdivision by Christian subdenomination, I agree that there seems to be no need to categorise missionaries by different strands of (for example) methodism or presbyterianism (hope I am correct to assume that's what you mean by subdenomination). In general, I don't see any need so far to categorise the protestant denominations more precisely than by clusters (Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist etc) ... but I wonder whether there is any reasonably useful and straightforward way of grouping the likes of and. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * In addition, I don't think we need to rename before merging. We can just bring the whole lot to a merging nomination. Xiner (talk, email) 18:57, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Answering BHG Each of these (EUB, Moravian, etc.) are separate denominations. Thus, one would not want to lump them together.  That would be like putting Methodists and Episcopalians together.

I was actually referring to things such as Category:Methodist missionaries in Japan, which give a subdenomination and a country. However, it may be appropriate to merge some of the confusing Methodist subdivisions. Dr. Submillimeter 22:52, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * If we pick on Daniel Kumler Flickinger I would be content to see him placed precisely in Category:Bishops of the Evangelical United Brethren Church (as he is) and more generally in Category:Christian missionaries in Africa. (No more exact than this.) I see he was actually a Missionary Bishop ... aaargh, these are supposed to be something else. roundhouse 00:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

List of CFDs
To help keep track of what's happening, this is a list of discussions at WP:CFD relating to Category:Missionaries or its sub-categories. Plase list any further discussions as appropriate. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * 2007 January 18
 * CFR:Missionaries by denomination (proposed rename to )
 * CFR:Missionaries to Hawaii (proposed rename to )
 * CFR:Missionaries to California (proposed rename to )


 * 2007 January 19
 * CFD:Methodist missionaries in Africa (proposed upmerge to )
 * CFR:Missionaries to Cameroon (proposed rename to )


 * 2007 January 20
 * CFR:Missionaries to India (proposed rename to
 * CFR:Missionaries in Japan (proposed rename to
 * CFR:Missionaries in China (proposed rename to

Alphabetical list for Category:Missionaries
A one-off alphabetical list for Category:Missionaries has been generated and linked to from the category page. Carcharoth 04:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)


 * (Copied from the excellent Carcharoth's talk page) Category:Missionaries is a seriously messed up category structure! Many entries appear 4-5 times in different subcats. Seems like the location and religion subcatting went a little overboard. As of 20/01/2007, there are 1146 articles in Category:Missionaries and its subcategories, but if you take out the repeats, there are only 541 unique pages. I'll stick the list of those 541 pages on the category page. Carcharoth 02:49, 20 January 2007 (UTC) (roundhouse 14:07, 20 January 2007 (UTC))


 * Carcharoth also points out Special:CategoryTree; so we have this together with the list of 20/01/2007. This is worse than UM Bishops. roundhouse 14:07, 20 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I have just done a big exercise recategorising individual articles within this hierarchy, so the count of 1146 is a bit out-of-date. (Sorry, Carcaroth!)
 * I would expect that most missionaries would end up in at least two categories (one by nationality and one or more by mission-country), and most will also be in a denominational missionary category ... so I suspect that an average of 3 missionary categories per article is about what we should expect. That would give 541*3, which is 1623 entries, so Carcharoth's count doesn't seem unresaonable to me.
 * As part of the category-sorting exercise, I created seveal new Christian misionary-by-countryt categories, some of which are still quite small. I am not persuaded that all these new Christian-misionaries-by-area categories shoud all stay, but I thought that since mnay of the articles had no regional classsification, they would be useful in sorting out what regional categories we end up with. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:08, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Category:Missionaries by region of activity and Christian missionaries in the Middle East
First, do we currently need Category:Missionaries by region of activity, which looks like a duplicate of Category:Christian missionaries? Should this category be kept until Buddhist, Hindi, and Muslim missionaries are also differentiated by continent?

Second, is it appropriate to keep Category:Christian missionaries in the Middle East given that Category:Christian missionaries in Asia and Category:Christian missionaries in Africa already exist? Dr. Submillimeter 12:59, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Category:Methodist missionaries to British North America
Category:Methodist missionaries to British North America looks like it should be renamed or merged into another category. At the very least, the term "British" should probably be dropped. Does anyone have any suggestions? Dr. Submillimeter 17:06, 21 January 2007 (UTC)