Category talk:Years by country

Category for every year?
I started creating categories such as Category:1823 by country, but I got second thoughts. It would clutter this category, and the benefit is dubious. I'm stopping for now and I wouldn't object if the categories got unlinked from this category, deleted or grouped differently (e.g. to "1820-1840 by country"). If deleted, then of course the existing articles should be redirected to the (main) year category. Common Man 01:17, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Is there a way to do a straw poll about this? We should decide, and either create the missing categories or delete these ones. Ziggurat 00:05, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I think we should create the rest, look at something like Category:1996, it is already pretty crowded and having another "1996 in XXX" for 100+ countries is going to completely crowd out everything else - SimonLyall 07:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
 * And look where we are five years on! __meco (talk) 13:11, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

RFC about categorization by past or current country
When categorizing articles about past political and military events, we tend to categorize them (only) in the tree of the country that existed in the past during the event. For example the Battle of Austerlitz took place in the former Austrian Empire and the battle field is currently in the Czech Republic. For categorization it means that the article is in Category:1805 in the Austrian Empire but not in the tree of the Czech Republic.

However, when it concerns non-political events, e.g. establishments of buildings and structures, the existing categorization practice is a bit different, then many articles are categorized by current country rather than by past country. For example Andechs (restaurant) is in Category:15th-century establishments in Germany but not in the tree of Category:Duchy of Bavaria.

Should we keep the two different existing categorization principles next to each other, or should we enforce that all goes into past country categories only? (I'm assuming that all into current country categories is definitely not an option.) Marcocapelle (talk) 13:50, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Earlier discussions (about single categories), e.g.:
 * Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_April_8
 * Categories_for_discussion/Log/2017_August_25
 * Categories_for_discussion/Log/2017_August_26 (differently closed than the previous one)
 * Categories_for_discussion/Log/2017_October_9

Survey

 * No change (for now) -- I believe that the current system makes sense. For example, Andechs (restaurant) exists today and is located in modern-day Germany. I don't see a need for a change, although I'm open to other perspectives. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:00, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This section is headed RfC but was not tagged with rfc until today. – Fayenatic  L ondon 23:02, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
 * See current CfD: Categories for discussion/Log/2017 December 24. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)
 * Comment, in this discussion User:BrownHairedGirl raised a very important point. We currently have, e.g. Category:Prehistoric Bulgaria, Category:Ancient Bulgaria, Category:Medieval Bulgaria etc., for almost every current country. So at some point in the category hierarchy we have to let go the polities of the time. Or alternatively if we would delete these categories then nobody would ever be able to navigate through the entire history of Bulgaria and that would be a very bad favor to Wikipedia users. Marcocapelle (talk) 09:44, 2 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Comment - without doubt we should get rid of anachronisms, and hence all establishments and events should be listed by contemporary entities. First of all, logically - it doesn't make any sense that after Turks had occupied the Byzantine Empire, establishments in Byzantine Empire would become establishments in Turkey - this is simply rewriting history. Furthermore, anachronism is going against the Wikipedia guidelines for article stability whereas the geopolitical reality is however constantly changing; let's assume that Scotland becomes an independent Republic in 2019 - do we recategorize all pre-2019 establishments and events as if they were in the Republic of Scotland? This is a titanic work and should not take place per WP:STABLE policy. Same applies for the case of Iraqi Kurdistan declaring independence or Catalonia separating from Spain - those events happen all the time; Just to remind you - South Sudan separated from Sudan in 2011. Third, we have a pretty stable community consensus at most discussions to get rid of anachronisms in categorization (examples are countless).GreyShark (dibra) 07:48, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
 * The confusing thing is that two interpretations are possible - and will always remain possible. Let's take the 9th-century Byzantine building that is now in Turkey. Your interpretation is: the building was built in the 9th century while it was in the Byzantine Empire. Another, equally valid, interpretation is: it is now a building in Turkey while it was established in the 9th century. And the latter (as I see happening in practice) is the interpretation of a large amount of editors who aren't involved in CfD discussions, especially with non-political items like buildings. Marcocapelle (talk) 09:19, 2 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Comment - note that German categories have recently been renamed to Holy Roman Empire per 2017 October 9 discussion, so the case brought above concerning Germany is invalid.GreyShark (dibra) 07:51, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Not quite, in this discussion we merged years in Germany to centuries in Germany. Marcocapelle (talk) 09:10, 2 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Third option: cross-categorize. This is the only way to actually serve readers. We have no idea whether someone is looking for a manufacturing company establishement in 1894 in what is now the Ukraine (or whatever the case may be) on the basis of it being a Russian Empire company and mentioned in the context of manufacuturing weapons in one of that government's wars; or looking for it in the context of it being a present-day still extant company in Ukraine that's over a century old. The first editor likely has no idea if the company still exists or that it's in what's now Ukraine, and the latter editor probably has no idea it was once part of the Russian Empire's war machine and might not know anything about Ukrainian–Russian history at all. The categories exist to serve the readers, not vice vera. We cannot have the tail wagging the dog just because in a perfect world we'd like a more linear category structure.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  13:35, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Where there is a fairly close match, categorise using the historical name only, and include this in the hierarchy for the current country (e.g. Category:20th-century establishments in Poland, including Congress Poland; Category:20th-century establishments in Myanmar, including Burma). Leave redirects for those years and the current name. Where there is not a close match, allow content to be categorised by both the historical polity and the current country; this will be both educational and helpful to readers. – Fayenatic  L ondon 10:35, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: the dynamics of this are changing due to Marcocapelle's ongoing project to merge small categories for years/ establishments etc in old centuries. The hierarchies were originally built with detailed intersection categories by year and country. In many areas these year-by-country categories have recently been merged e.g. to century-by-country and year-by-continent, giving us fewer small categories. Category:12th-century establishments in Romania (as part of ), alongside Category:1142 establishments in Europe, feels a more acceptable anachronism than "1142 establishments in Romania". – Fayenatic  L ondon 11:55, 26 January 2018 (UTC)