User talk:Clevelandkentevans

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Categories and Disambiguation pages
Thanks for the extra detail on the name Sidney. By the way, disambiguation pages do not have categories, except for disambiguation. They are not articles. --Bejnar 23:20, 16 February 2007 (UTC) "If topical categorization of the disambiguation page seems to be needed, please bring this need up for discussion at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation. Experience has shown that ad hoc and un-discussed category creation is controversial and prone to create agitation among the many editors working in the area of disambiguation." Consensus on topical categorization is rare. --Bejnar 18:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
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From a fellow BtNer
(This is JennaR from Behind the Name) It was refreshing to see a well-organized name etymology on Wikipedia( for [Alan]). I looked at the contributions, and saw it was the work of the illustrious Clevelandkentevans of BtN. Keep up the great work -- I've been trying to improve some of the name entries here as well. Nomenphile 02:52, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject you might be interested in
I thought you might be interested in joining WikiProject Anthroponymy. You seem to show a great interest in the subject matter and your help would be greatly appreciated. We need a lot of help with this wikiproject since it has just been set up. Remember 02:53, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Categories and subcategories
I note that you have been adding Category:Given names to various pages today. Thanks for trying to help, but please note that "Usually, articles should not be in both a category and its subcategory": see WP:CAT. If a given name page is already in appropriate sub-categories i.e. both by gender and national original, it does not need to go in the Category:Given names as well. Would you be able to reverse the edits where not needed, please? Kind regards, Fayenatic (talk) 23:22, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Dear Fayenetic -- Thank you for your concern, but the very reason I have added those names to the general category is because I simply do not agree with the EXISTENCE of the subcategories as separate entities within the overall category of "Given Names". I particularly object to the existence of a category called "Feminine Given Names" when there is no category called "Masculine Given Names". That is just sexist, IMHO. And in English speaking cultures, you simply can't 100% categorize given names as either Masculine or Feminine. There is no law that says one cannot give a child any name one pleases in English speaking cultures. In Germany and Scandinavia, there are such laws, and so it might make sense to have such categories in a German or Swedish language version of Wikipedia. But there are no such restrictions on naming according to gender in English speaking countries. There are scores of examples of names which have switched their predominant gender of use from masculine to feminine because of that. It makes more sense to me to discuss the history of the use of each name by gender under articles dealing with each specific name, rather than making an arbitrary categorization of some names as "masculine" or "feminine".

I also don't think that categories of names by language should result in the name involved being taken out of the overall list. What is the definition of a "French given name" any way? Is it a name that etymologically speaking was first used in France, or is it a name which is regularly used in France today? Those are two separate definitions. Kevin, for example, was the #1 name for boys born in France in the 1990s. By usage, it is now definitely a French name, even though it didn't historically originate in France.

Taking invidividual items out of the main category and hiding them in a subcategory is only useful if everyone is going to agree on what subcategory an item will belong to, and so people hunting for it will know to look for the name in a particular subcateogry. If someone is looking at the general Given Names list for "Kevin" and doesn't find it, how are they supposed to know which subcategory to look under? What if what they are trying to find out in the first place is the original language it comes from? They wouldn't know to look under "Irish names" then.

There may be many other topics where the rule of removing articles from the category list when they are under a subcategory is appropriate, but I think this simply doesn't work for the subject of Given Names. Clevelandkentevans 21:08, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:08, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:33, 23 November 2015 (UTC)