User talk:Johnpacklambert/Archives/2024/January

Category:Lieutenant field marshals of the Austrian Empire has been nominated for merging
Category:Lieutenant field marshals of the Austrian Empire has been nominated for merging. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 01:53, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Agronomists
Many sub-cats of agronomists by nationality only have 1 or 2 articles. This would seem to be unhelpful for navigation.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:41, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Category:Lawyers from British North America has been nominated for merging
Category:Lawyers from British North America has been nominated for merging. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 01:04, 3 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Lawyers are very much defined by the political unit they are in. So the arguments against this category are particularly weak.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:37, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Category:Writers from British North America has been nominated for merging
Category:Writers from British North America has been nominated for merging. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 01:04, 3 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I find this and the two nominations above it highly odd to say the least. The recent discussion on categories related to British North America emigrants and immigrants, or at least some such categories, resulted in keeping it. The discussion about similar categories for People from the Thirteen Colonies by occupation resulted in keeping them. That is a much more analogous issue than the one presented in the argument. British North America was a broad area, but it was for the most part geographically united and makes about as much sense as the Thirteen Colonirles as a unified political unit. It also has the advantage of being the unit make at least from 1783. Thirteen Colonies exist for over a century before the 13th Geirgia is formed, so it is for most of the period an anachronistic name.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:09, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Category:Medical doctors from British North America has been nominated for merging
Category:Medical doctors from British North America has been nominated for merging. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 01:04, 3 January 2024 (UTC)


 * British North America was a clear area that had clear boundaries from 1783-1867 and beyond. Movement within it was easy, and the best way to describe its residents is as nationals of British North America. It is unlikely that for some of the smaller colilonies the intersection if that Colony and occupation will ever have enough articles. This is a unit with defined boundaries, to treat it as similar to the From the British Empitlre categories is just plain silly.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:36, 3 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Robert William Weir Carrall was a medical doctor who got his degree from a university in the Province of Canada, and a few years later began to practice in the Colony of British Columbia. If he cannot be defined as a medical doctor from British North America, we would most logically categorize him as a medical doctor from the Province of Canada and a medical doctor from the Colony of British Columbia. I am not sure that such small categorization is needed, and I am not sure it is justified with either the size of our actual potential content nor the ease of moving from one part of British North America to another.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:07, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The issue as always is that people are not DEFINED by being from British North America. A good rule of thumb is to look at how people are being described and use that as the basis for a category. Mason (talk) 00:04, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * You are wrong. People are defined as being from British North America, just as they were earlier defined in a slightly different area as being from The Thirteen Colonies.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:12, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Do you see people described as "British North American"? Mason (talk) 01:14, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * here https://books.google.com/books?id=UEhWpAgl2l8C&pg=PA229&dq=%22British+North+American+people%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjQo_mbycKDAxVCpIkEHT4HBz4Q6AF6BAgGEAM#v=onepage&q=%22British%20North%20American%20people%22&f=false is a book of the American Civil War that refers to British North American people. So yes I do see people described as British North American.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:25, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks; however, that's the general population, and doesn't really get at my point. What I meant was individuals, do you see individual people being described as a British North American physician or lawyer or writer? Mason (talk) 03:54, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Categories under people by former country
I have just done an analysis of the categories under People by former country. I only paid attention to the top level categories. In some cases the top level category uses People from X (such as People from the Republic of Ragusa), but its sub-cats all use Ragusan. People from the Kingdom of Prussia has some categories that are Scholars from the Kingdom of Prussia, Writers from the Kingdom of Prussia, etc, but also has others that are Prussian physicians, etc. I may not have found all the relevant categories because of how they are organized, some sub-cats might refer to indedepent-places (it is hard to know, when some units had different statuses over time, and there was not an agreed upon international definition for these ideas until well into the 20th-century, and we still do not fully agree on these). There might also be some stuff under People by ethnicity that more properly would go under People by former country.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:19, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I also excluded the sub-cats of People of the Thirteen Colonies from my analysis.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:20, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * My initial reports if for People by former countries, we have 5 former countries where we use "People of Foo" as the form. At least 3 of these are Kingdoms from Ancient China. We have 16 "Ancient + Fooian people" categories, almost all for people from Ancient Greek city states, but also Ancient Romans, Antcient Egyptians and Ancient Libyans. We have 165 categories that use the form People from Foo. To be fair a lot of these are where it is Foo Empire or Foo Republic or Republic of Foo, but we do have People from Bohemia. Other places using the People from and just a name with no Kingdom, Republic, Confederation, Sultanate, British, French, etc. modifier are People from Biafra, People from Tanganyika, People from Funan (which was actually a loose collection of states), People from Kamarupa (which seems to be named so to exclude Kamrupi people not from the Kingdom), Category:People from Clazomenae (which is an ancient City-State), People from East Francia (which might be another think that needs the modifier, which might cause us to ask why other directional counstries do not use it), We have the "German people from former countries", which has a sub-cat "People from former German states", Some categories there use just "people from foo" without a Kingdom or other modifier, but some are hypenated names, and some it is not clear if they were fully independent. We have 10 or so categories using "people under foo", 1 that uses Ancient Greek people from foo, 27 that use "foo dynasty people", since these include writers, artists and other people not connected with the government, I am thinking "People from the Qing dynasty" or especially in the Qing case "People from the Qing Empire", might be a better name. I sorted out 36 as fooian people, but some of those do not use an ending that is very clearly a demonym, so some might go in the 28 that use Foo people. We have categories with names like "South Vietnamese people", I do wonder if we really should use both directional modifiers and a demonym together, I have the same concern about "Dutch Antillean people", that could be pased as "People in the Antilles who are Dutch" or "People from the Antilles who are Dutch", when what we want is "People from the Dutch Antilles". There are a few others like "Mercian people" that might well be good to rename to make it clear that they are meant to be people from a specific place, not a category for people who in some way have that identify long after that place existed. There are especially in the sub-cats some other cases where we might want to look at the names to make sure they are limited to people who are nationals or subjects of the independent country, not to people connected with the region after it lost indepedence.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:46, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I sorted out the colonies categories in a different set, but what is and what is not a "colony" is not always clear. However I found 7 of those use of, 46 use from and 58 use Foo people. Dutch Antillean is the only past colony using that form, but it was technically a constitute kingdom. I did not look at current colonies (most of which are classes technically as something else), where we do have interesting forms like French Polyensia (is this People from French Polynesia, or French people in Polynesia?, the later could include French people in Hawai'i, and French people in New Zealand, especially before 1850). I also did not include the sub-cats of the 13 colonies there, and there might be a few other Colony categories in the current US I missed in the count. I believe it does include the individual colonies that later became Canada, so Province of Canada people in one of the 58 Foo people categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:53, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Category:Educators from the Colony of Queensland has been nominated for splitting
Category:Educators from the Colony of Queensland has been nominated for splitting. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 04:52, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Category:Educators from the Colony of South Australia has been nominated for splitting
Category:Educators from the Colony of South Australia has been nominated for splitting. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 04:53, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for January 4
An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Thomas Cunningham (Canadian politician), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Colony of British Columbia.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 06:06, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Category:Revolutionaries from the Russian Empire has been nominated for merging
Category:Revolutionaries from the Russian Empire has been nominated for merging. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. asilvering (talk) 18:30, 6 January 2024 (UTC)


 * A large number of the people in this category were revolutionaries involved in various efforts in the 19th-century. Some of them were executed for their efforts in the 19th-century. Others were involved in the 1905 Revolution. Many died before the Russian Empire fell or emigrated elsewhere before it fell. There are huge numbers of people of various ethnicities who fought the Russian Empire. To retroactively call them "Russian" is misleading. Being a revolutionary is basically an act of opposing the existing government, so it very much matters what government you are opposing. What might be more problematic is calling you a revolutionary in a nation where you support the existing government. So most people who would be revolutionaries in the Russian Empire would be not revolutionaries any more in the Soviet Union. There might be an argument to be made that people should not be classed as amorphous revolutionaries, but instead as people involved in the 1917 Revolution or the 1905 revolution. Others may lack actually involvement in a revolution and may better be classed as activists. A few in the Russian Revolutionaries cat were residents of the Soviet Union who seem to have come to dislike the government, but it is not clear they fomented actual "revolution". There are lots of these people who died before 1917. Lots of others were clearly acting at least as anti-governmemt agents, spreading the doctrine of a revolution, for years if not decades before that date. I am not sure we should be as comfortable calling a person a revolutionary just because they handed out pamphlets and were thrown in jail for it as we are, but I think calling them revolutionaries is standard in the sources, though it was also a badge of honor to have been a revolutionary against the Russian Empire if you lived in the Soviet Union. It might even be argued that we should name the Category "Revolutionaries against the Russian Empire", and define the category as the group of people who sought to overthrow the Russian Empire. You have people of various ethnic groups, not just Ukrainians, but Poles, Finns, Tatars, and many other groups, some of them living in both St. Petersburg and Moscow, who seek to end the Empire, as mentioned above in both 1805 and earlier.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:34, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I am also not sure if we have a coherent way to differentiate the rebels Category from the revolutionary Category. Decembrists are in both. That was 1825. So no one involved in it was alive in 1721 when the Russian Empire was formed, and I do not think anyone who was an 1825 Decembrists was still alive when 1817 dawned. Probably none were even alive in 1805. Not who were participants in a rebel movement/revolution 80 years before. We accept all sorts of by century categories where people get in 2 just because they were involved in some endeavor across an arbitrary line. Here, we want to categorize people by what they were fomenting a revolution against. So if we have someone who sought to overthrown the Russian Empire, and later waged efforts to violently overthrown the Soviet Union, go ahead and place them in 2 categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:40, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Nomination of Katie Millar for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Katie Millar is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Katie Millar& until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished. Let&#39;srun (talk) 22:28, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

People from Austro-Hungary by descent
I believe the Category Italian Austro-Hungarians should be renamed Italian people from Austria-Hungary. Here is why. 1-the parent is People from Austria-Hungary. We should be consistent in using the from form. 2-mushing demonyms is messy. It is not clear if these are ethnic Italians in Austria-Hungary or people who are Austro-Hungarian in Italy.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:23, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Category:French expatriates in pre-Confederation Canada has been nominated for merging
Category:French expatriates in pre-Confederation Canada has been nominated for merging. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 04:57, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Category:Expatriates from Newfoundland Colony in the United States has been nominated for splitting
Category:Expatriates from Newfoundland Colony in the United States has been nominated for splitting. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 04:58, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Deaths in French Algeria


A tag has been placed on Category:Deaths in French Algeria indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. Liz Read! Talk! 05:23, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Tuberculosis deaths in the French colonial empire


A tag has been placed on Category:Tuberculosis deaths in the French colonial empire indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. Liz Read! Talk! 05:23, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Category:Educators from the Colony of New South Wales has been nominated for splitting
Category:Educators from the Colony of New South Wales has been nominated for splitting. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 04:51, 4 January 2024 (UTC)


 * One advantage to this category is it allows us to avoid 18th-century Australian categories. Which we really do not want, since to the extent there is anything in Australia in the 18th century that links to the modern country it is only from about 1788 on.John Pack Lambert (talk) 05:05, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Category:Philanthropists from the Dutch East Indies has been nominated for splitting
Category:Philanthropists from the Dutch East Indies has been nominated for splitting. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 02:49, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

City founders from the Russian Empire
I am not sure if this is the best name. It might better be named founders if cities in the Russian Empire. Although I am also not sure if city I'd the best word. Maybe it should be founders of populated places in the Russian Empire.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:28, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Russian city foundes
This category only has 3 articles. All are people who were from the Tsardom of Russia. Based on the size and contents of the city founders Category I really think we should just merge these 3 articles there.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:17, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Category:1962 establishments in Western Samoa
The entire hierarchy Category:20th century in Western Samoa only has 3 articles. This one was added by you, overriding the specific rationale of recorded in the preceding edit summary.

Because of your drive-by edit, an entire parent hierarchy was built by. This is now up for merging at Categories for discussion/Log/2024 January 9.

Please look around the existing hierarchies before creating additional categories. – Fayenatic  L ondon 12:53, 11 January 2024 (UTC)


 * It looks like there are only 3 articles here, and no other categories even under 1960s establishments in Samoa. I am thinking the best solution is to upmerge the articles to 1960s establishments in Samoa and place them in either 1962 establishments or a non-licational subcat.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:51, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I really think we need to generally look at how small many of our by year categories are and upsurge many of them.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:54, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Small categories
Wikipedia has too many small categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:20, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Category:Nazis who committed suicide in Nazi Germany has been nominated for merging
Category:Nazis who committed suicide in Nazi Germany has been nominated for merging. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 22:37, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Naomi Wilson (disambiguation)


A tag has been placed on Naomi Wilson (disambiguation) requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G14 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a disambiguation page which either
 * disambiguates only one extant Wikipedia page and whose title ends in "(disambiguation)" (i.e., there is a primary topic);
 * disambiguates zero extant Wikipedia pages, regardless of its title; or
 * is an orphaned redirect with a title ending in "(disambiguation)" that does not target a disambiguation page or page that has a disambiguation-like function.

Under the criteria for speedy deletion, such pages may be deleted at any time. Please see the disambiguation page guidelines for more information.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 09:44, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Removing people from more specific canadian emigrant categories
Can you walk me through your reasoning for removing people from more specific Canadian emigrant categories to the vaguer Emigrants from British North America category? For example, doesn't make sense to me, because isn't "pre-confederation" entirely nested within british north america? Mason (talk) 14:55, 13 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Emigration is a matter of moving from political unit to political unit, that are distinct. We do not have immigrants to Vermont, Michigan, etc. So it would be reasonable to categorize people by leaving British North America, not a specific Colony. If they moved from the Colony of New Bruswick to the Province of Canada we would not call them emigrants. So we are treating British North America as a unit that the people who stay within are not in the act of immigrating, so this is the unit people are emigrating from, not the individual colonies. In Luke manner we have immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies, not immigrants to Massachusetts, Immigrants to Connecticut, Immigrants to Pennsylvania, etc. The Thirteen Colonies were not for most of their history cohesive politically, but thry were seen as a cohesive unit and I do not think we want to say Benjamin Franklin was a Massachusetts Colony e.igrant to the Colony of Pennsylvania.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:16, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
 * There is a Canada at least from 1842. It did not include New Brunswick. Your attempt to say someone born in 1848 in New Brunswick was born in "British Canada" is just plain wrong. Canada does not include New Brunswick at that time.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:22, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
 * That's not how the category nesting structure works though for canada, we nest former versions of countries in the modern version. Mason (talk) 22:21, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
 * We do not have emigrants from Nova Scotia, emigrants from Ontario, emigrants from BritishColombia for the current provinces, so there is no current province to nest emigrants in. So that is not relevant at all to categorizing emigrants. Also, since from 1842-1867 there was a Province of Canada, and we Aldo have Rupert's Land and some other units that transcended modern boundaries we really can not nest all former colonies in categories for modern places.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:25, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
 * A person born in the Colony of Nova Scotia who emigrants to the US would most logically be placed in Colony of Nova Scotia people and emigrants from British North America to the United States. For one thing if they were born in the Colony of Nova Scotia, then did a few years schooling in the Province of Canada and then emigrated, which Category do we put them in. Unless we are willing to have a Category emigrants from the Colony of Nova Scotia to the Province of Canada, I do not think we should subdivide emigrants from British North America more.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:29, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Noel C. Gardner


The article Noel C. Gardner has been proposed for deletion&#32;because of the following concern: "Doesn't meet WP:PROF or WP:GNG."

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Boleyn (talk) 18:50, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Category:Artists from the Province of Canada has been nominated for splitting
Category:Artists from the Province of Canada has been nominated for splitting. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 21:26, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The Province of Canada is not the same as "pre-confederation of Canada era", it is a specific area that merged with the Province of New Brunswick and the Province of Nova Scotia to form the Dominion of Canada. It has very different boundaries than modern Canada.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:28, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
 * We split artists by current Province of Canada. We have no argument why a past Province, which did not correspond with any current provinces, since in incorporated parts of modern Quebec and Ontario, but not all of either, should be excluded from this division.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:43, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

We should avoid verbatim use of old sources
I believe we have too many articles copied verbatim from pre-1925 sources. This is an unwise practice that avoids using and consulting current scholarship on the topics.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:11, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Anatomists by nationality
Antagonists by nationslity has 40 sub-cats. 20 of those have fewer than 5 articles. I think it would be much better for navigation for the 20 subcats to be upmerged to Anatomists.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:21, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

What is the difference between anatomists and ohysiologists
what is the difference between anatomists and physiologists? Is it big enough to justify 2 separate Category trees?John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:43, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Pioneers and settlers categories
I think all pioneers and settlers categories are either too vague, too arbitrarily defined, or essentially focusing on a narrow aspect of a person's life. In most cases we have similar scipe categories, such as Colony of South Australia people, which is much clearer than South Australia settlers, or People from Arizona Territory, which is more obvious in its definition that Arizona pioneers. Montana pioneers may be the oddest, since it says it is a category for people who belonged to a particular group, so it will exclude the residents of early Montana Territory who mattered the most, sonce many were dead by the time that group was formed.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:19, 18 January 2024 (UTC)