Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 July 18



History of Kiev city

 * The following discussion is an archived debate regarding the category or categories above. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was no consensus  --Kbdank71 17:34, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Category:History of Kiev city to Category:History of Kiev

--Sdornan 18:35, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose The title distinguishes the city from the surrounding province. The same form is used for other Kiev categories. Seaaron 09:30, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Moved from speedy, and oppose. The rest of the greater category supports "Kiev city".--Mike Selinker 15:36, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose per both above Johnbod 16:26, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose per above. Ravenhurst 00:41, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Support. "Kiev Oblast" would be used for any categories about the district. "Kiev city" is just not grammatical in English. I think the following categories should be included in this renaming:
 * Category:Buildings and structures in Kiev city
 * Category:Kiev city culture
 * Category:Economy of Kiev city
 * Category:Education in Kiev city
 * Category:Neighborhoods and raions of Kiev city
 * Category:Sport in Kiev city
 * Category:Squares in Kiev city
 * Category:Streets in Kiev city
 * Category:Transport in Kiev city
 * Category:Visitor attractions in Kiev city


 * --Eliyak T · C 11:34, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Why is New York City grammatical in English, and Kiev City not??? Johnbod 12:05, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * "Kiev City," capitalized, would be grammatical, as a name. But is it ever called that? Another option might be "Kiev (city)" if you really think people are going to be confused. --Eliyak T · C 12:09, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * But the name of New York is just New York, not New York City. Unlike say Tuba City, it is only called "City" when ambiguity with the state named after it needs to be avoided, just as is being suggested for Kiev here. Johnbod 12:24, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * (<---) "New York City" is a well-established name. "Kiev City" is not. For comparison, Google searches find:
 * New York City / New York = 131,000,000 / 586,000,000 = 22.35%
 * Chicago City / Chicago = 1,200,000 / 216,000,000 = 0.56%
 * Kiev City / Kiev = 157,000 / 36,400,000 = 0.43%
 * These results include things like "Kiev City Guide" and other coincidental juxtapositions of "Kiev" and "City." Wikipedia should not use a name which is not in use elsewhere. As I said, if there is truly confusion about the name "Kiev," it should be "Kiev (city)" --Eliyak T · C 21:56, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I would support a wholesale move to "Kiev (city)", which is more correctJohnbod 01:23, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Me too.--Mike Selinker 01:51, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose changing to any ambiguous name. Hawkestone 14:14, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Rename to match the main article about the city, which is currently at Kiev. I would be happy changing to "Kiev (city)", but only if the main article (and History of Kiev) are renamed as well.  Otherwise, I think it should be renamed per nom.  We have Kiev (disambiguation), but the name "Kiev" without any qualifiers currently refers to the city in en.wikipedia.  Xtifr tälk 03:28, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:People by ethnic or national origin

 * The following discussion is an archived debate regarding the category or categories above. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was no consensus  --Kbdank71 18:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Suggest merging Category:People by ethnic or national origin to Category:People by ethnic or national descent
 * Nominator's rationale: Appears to be duplicated category schemes with slightly different names. I suggest merging the two. I don't have a preference for which name is kept. Dugwiki 14:58, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Additional comment I should point out that a person's current or former nationality would also be considered part of their "national origin". For example, if your nationality is American, then you are obviously also of "American origin".  And if your former nationality was Canadian, and you moved to America and became a citizen there, your national origin and former nationality would be "Canadian" and your current nationality would be "American".  Given all that I might suggest merging these two categories into "People by ethnic or national descent" since that is probably the slightly broader term (descent includes both origin and ancestry). Dugwiki 15:04, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose One is by country they emigrated from, the other by the country they emigrated to. How could they be merged?  Further down the trees subcategories should be parts of both hierarchies:eg Category:German-English people is a subcat of Category:People of German descent (a subcat of Category:People by ethnic or national descent) and of Category:English people by ethnic or national descent (sub-cat of Category:People by ethnic or national origin). All this is explained in the descriptions, although it takes a moment to get your head round it.  I agree the names of these two head categories do not adequately explain the difference, and would support a rename only.Johnbod 15:33, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, to respond, I'll start by pointing out that the category description of Category:People by ethnic or national origin is one sentence that reads exactly as follows - "This includes people to immigated to the country in the category name from a different country." That sentence doesn't even make any sense. Is the first "to" supposed to be a "who"? As currently written this isn't even a lucid description. (note:this typo now corrected to "who" by johnbod)
 * Second, we don't normally distinguish in categorization between "current" and "former" status. So we wouldn't normally distinguish between, for example, "current membership" and "former membership" of an organization.  By that general rule you likewise normally would not distinguish between "current nationality" and "former nationality".  Rather, you would include a nationality category for every nationality a person has legally held.  So if they used to be Canadian but now are American, they would be categorized as having both Canadian and American nationalities.
 * Third, the explanation that one is for what coutry someone immigrated to or emmigrated from doesn't appear to be accurate. The categories don't appear to be restricted to actual immigrees and emmigrees, but are also used for ethnic ancestry, categorizing individuals whose ancestors came from particular regions or ethnic groups.  Notice that not all the categories are even countries, for example, so you can't possibly have immigrated or emmigrated to or from them.  Likewise the titles of the categories don't in any way indicate the categories are limited to people who themselves moved from one country to another.
 * So therefore I think the reasoning behind the above response is flawed. John's description of the categories' use doesn't appear to match how they're used in practice, nor do the titles or category descriptions make that clear.  And even if you accept John's description, it's not obvious why a distinction should be made between current and former nationalities.  Therefore I still recommend merging the two. Dugwiki 19:25, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't see at all what you say "appear"s to happen. Please explain how your merge would work in practice, using the categories involved in Category:German-English people set out above.  These are extremely large and long-established trees.  There may be individual anomalies at lower levels, but these should be dealt with individually. Johnbod 19:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * People of German ancestry are categorized Category:People of German descent or a subcategory, and people of English ancestry are categorized under Category:People of English descent or a subcategory. Someone of verifiably joint ancestry according to their article would be categorized under both. If their current or former nationality is German, then they go under Category:German people or a subcategory, and similarly if their current or former nationality is British they go under the appropriate subcategory of Category:British people.  All of those things are or should already be occuring in all bios, assuming the articles are properly categorized. Dugwiki 20:41, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I should also mention that these categories being "long-established" is misleading. It appears that these have not been thoroughly reviewed or discussed previously in cfd since their establishment, and it's quite possible that the only reason they are still not merged is because the topic hasn't been threshed out here in detail. Sometimes it takes months or more to bring up discussion on categories, even large ones, but being around a while doesn't alleviate the categorization issues involved. So look at this thread as a way to more thoroughly and officially hash out exactly why these categories should be either merged or kept separated. Dugwiki 20:54, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * One last thing. As far as the merger itself it would seem to be fairly straightforward as a bot. All occurances of either category appearing in any article or subcategory are replaced by the name of the merged result.  It would be an automated process. Dugwiki 20:57, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * But "Someone of verifiably joint ancestry according to their article would be categorized under both" is wrong. You only go in the "descent" categories if you are living somewhere else. There is no Category:German Germans. I don't understand at all how your proposed merge would affect the categorisation of a) Germans living in England, and b) English people living in Germany, and frankly I don't think you do either. If you just merge the two categories you would have Category:People of German descent - only for people living outside Germany - and Category:German people by ethnic or national origin - only for people with German nationality, presumably mostly living there - both in the same category. How does this make sense? The former vs current argument is a red herring - these are not classifications that you can lose. Equally the combination of some non-national ethnic groups is ok by me - do you want to remove all African-American or Native American categories? Johnbod 21:03, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't see the problem with having the two categories you're talking about in the same parent category, assuming you keep the two. Also see my comments below that if your intent is to keep the categories for immigration of individuals then the categories should be renamed and the ethnic ancestry subcategories such as the African American ones should be moved to a category scheme dealing specifically with ethnicity, not nationality. Dugwiki 15:31, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Nuclear OPPOSE to any form of "descent from" category. We're all descended from too many different sources. Wryspy 00:48, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you're not aware that the "descent from" category already exists. I was proposing it be merged with the "country of origin" category.  It sounds, though, like you're proposing deleting the structure altogether, which I wasn't advocating. Were you saying that you want this whole thing deleted? Dugwiki 14:43, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * oppose These are well established categories with well established purposes. And the purposes are completely opposite of each other.  Merging just makes no WP sense.  Hmains 02:04, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment. The categories definitely need some work, especially since it appears that someone has gone through them and created categories like Category:Canadians of Finnish descent, in addition to and above the previously-existing Category:Finnish Canadians, which initially dealt with people of both full and partial Finnish descent. This appears to be the current category structure:

People by race or ethnicity & People by nationality /                          \  People by ethnic or national origin                         People by ethnic or national descent |                                                             | Fooian people by ethnic or national origin                         People of Barrian descent \                          /                                      *Fooians of Barrian descent* |                                           Barrian-Fooians

Unfortunately, this distinction between "origin" and "descent," if maintained through the hierarchy, leads to:

1                                                     People by race or ethnicity & People by nationality |       | 2                                          People by ethnic or national descent  | ,'                |                  `-|--. 3 (Fooian people by ethnic or national descent)  People by ethnic or national origin    People of Barrian descent |                 ,--\---'                       ,-\---'     | 4 Fooian people by ethnic or national origin    Fooians of Barrian descent   (People of Barrian origin) `.      |       ,' 5                                                    Barrian-Fooians ...which would probably make it necessary to go even further: 1                                                    People by race or ethnicity & People by nationality |          | 2                                             People by ethnic or national descent  | (People by nationality and ethnic or national descent)     |                  \__|____ |                          |             |                     |    \ 3 (Fooian people by ethnic or national descent) |  People by ethnic or national origin   People of Barrian descent |   |                               |          /                      |      /    |           |    |  (People by nationality and ethnic or national origin)   ---|--     | |   `--|---.                          /       |           | 4 Fooian people by ethnic or national origin    Fooians of Barrian descent   (People of Barrian origin) `.      |       ,' 5                                                    Barrian-Fooians

...which I'm sure we all want to avoid.

On the other hand, it appears that Dugwiki would like to categorize people only with categories of a single national descent (perhaps several categories per biography). People by race or ethnicity       People by nationality \       /                                      People by ethnic or national descent /                      \                     People of Fooian descent                     People of Barrian descent I think that the main problem with such a proposal is that it removes the level of categorization provided by ethnic/nation origin within a larger national population, which is important to have.--Eliyak T · C 09:33, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment. Somewhat related to the charts above, I think that one way to remove the ambiguity caused by the word "descent" would be to rename Category:People by ethnic or national descent to (exactly as typed) Category:People by ethnic or national origin and nationality and all categories "People of "Barrian descent" to "People of Barrian origin by nationality." --Eliyak T · C 09:47, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The Finnish-Canadian extra category says it is for Canadians of "full Finnish descent", which I don't think should be encouraged, but in practice seems to be for first generation immigrants, which I think is probably an acceptable distinction. I think the ambiguity in the names is only really bad for the very top two categories.  The facts (which I don't have a problem with) that both emigrants and their descendants are included, and also some non-national groups like Arcadians, makes a concise title of the length we expect from category names almost impossible.  The descriptions should certainly be improved. Johnbod 13:33, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Perhaps consider renaming to "immigrants and emmigrants" and restricting It sounds like there are conflicting explanations of how these categories work. Some of you are saying that they're supposed to be for people who immigrate to a country or emmigrate from a country, with one category for the country you immigrate to and another for the country you emmigrate from.  Getting away from whether or not such a scheme is a good idea, if that's what these are supposed to do then at a minimum I'd recommend renaming the categories to Category:Emmigrants by country and Category:Immigrants by country, the former to list bios by country of origin and the latter by country of arrival.  Then remove all biographies of people who are not immigrants. (They would still be categorized under the ethnicity parent categories and nationality.) Personally I think the two should still be merged, but this would be an alternative to at least make things clearer and to make this scheme distinct from nationality and ancestry. Dugwiki 14:50, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think hmains, Eliyak & myself have the same idea on how the categories are supposed to work (broadly anyway). The trouble with your proposal just above is: a) The tree includes eg Category:People of Cherokee descent, where no border crossing, or indeed travel, was involved, and b) the categories are not restricted to 1st generation immigrants. Indeed, in the case of the Cherokees etc, how could they be? This is also the main tree for Category:African Americans & other American cateories. There are probably relatively few Europeans beyond the 2nd generation in these categories, but not so in the US or Canada, or for Overseas Chinese, Africaners etc. Johnbod 03:20, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Which is part of the problem with the current set-up. It is attempting to mix current and former nationality of individuals with the ethnic ancestry of the individuals.  African American categories, for example, should be under the ethnicity parent categories, not nationality related ones.  Nationality needs to refer to actual national citizenship, not ethnic ancestry.  So if the intent is to have these two categories track individual citizenships, then I'd suggest changing the name to reflect that and moving the ancestry subcategories to the parental ethnic scheme. Dugwiki 15:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It is part of the nature of the current scheme, and certainly has complexities, but I'm not sure they are really problems. These are much the biggest part of the "parental ethnic scheme", namely Category:People by race or ethnicity, which otherwise contains only a few groups like Jews, native Americans etc. The categories we are discussing combine ethnicity and nationality, which I think is appropriate.  To say "Nationality needs to refer to actual national citizenship" is exactly the opposite of the traditional view of Nationalism; how does it relate to 19th century Poles, Irish, Czechs and their descendants?  Johnbod 15:58, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The reason nationality needs to be separated from ethnicity is that they serve very different legal purposes. For example, you can't have an "African American passport", but you can have a U.S. passport.  A Jewish American citizen isn't subject to laws of a "Jewish state", but he is subject to the laws of the United States of America.  So in the normal context nationality refers to one's citizenship and the nation who normally holds legal jurisdiction over the person, while ethnicity refers to the regional or national or social familial ancestry of the individual.  The parental ethnic category here would be Category:People by race or ethnicity, and categories which group individuals by race or ethnicity belong under that.  Categories which group individuals by their national citizenship, however, should be under Category:People by nationality. That keeps the distinction clear and also makes it easier for readers to find the subcategories they're looking for (eg As a reader I would expect to find African American ethnic categories under Category:People by race or ethnicity, not Category:People by nationality since there isn't an "African American nation".) Dugwiki 17:45, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Category:African Americans is naturally in both trees, as they are Americans of African descent. Johnbod 17:53, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, you beat me to it. After I submitted that I realized I picked a bad example. African Americans should appear in both places: in one place under ethnicity/race and also under Americans as a subcategory of "Americans by ethnicity". Jewish categories would be a better example.  Category:Jews is properly under ethnicity, but includes many nationalities so isn't a categorization by nationality. Dugwiki 17:58, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I'm still not seeing a problem here. Under C:Jews you have Category:Jews by country for English Jews etc, which is also a sub-cat of Category:People by ethnic or national descent. The more I look round these categories, the more the structure seems rather elegant, and working pretty well. Johnbod 18:12, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Compiled modified suggestions Since John and I have gone back and forth quite a bit, I think it would be helpful to lay out my modified compiled suggestions in one place.
 * Rename Category:People by ethnic or national origin to Category:Emmigrants by nation and Category:People by ethnic or national descent to Category:Immigrants by nation. So if a person's nationality changes from nation X to nation Y, they would be under a subcategory for X under Category:Emmigrants by nation and under a subcategory for Y under Category:Immigrants by nation.  (That's actually how it's already set up. This part is mainly a name change to make it clearer.)
 * Move categories which involve ethnic ancestry, as opposed to direct nationality, to be subcategories of Category:People by race or ethnicity. If my ancestors are from Europe, but I've never been to Europe, I personally should not be included in European national subcategories.  I could, though, be included under the corresponding ethnic categories which would be under Category:People by race or ethnicity.


 * Those two changes to the respective parent categories would make it so that a national category clearly refers to current or former national legal citizenship status, while ethnic categories refer to family ancestry. Some categories, like African Americans, might appear in both trees when an ethnic group is a specific subset of a national group. Dugwiki 18:16, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * But at the bottom levels all these categories are intersections of a nationality and an ethnic/national group, like Category:German-English people. I think what you don't like is that the "from" side includes both national and non-national groups: Africans, Germans, Swedes, Jews - all mixed up together.  In effect it treats the "from" national groups as ethnic groups. But that just reflects historical reality, and the way people think.  It would be absurd to say that only people born in the Republic of Ireland after Independence in 1922 or whenever could count as Category:Irish-Americans.  As for restricting the categories to actual emigrants, that would obviously not work for Cherokees, African/Asian/Mexican Americans, and how could it then be justified for Polish/Irish/Jewish/Norweigian Americans?  Also the articles would have to be manually sorted for place of birth.  Johnbod 18:44, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not absurd to say that only people who lived in Ireland are Irish-Americans if you're talking about dual citizenship. If you're talking about ethnic ancestry, then someone who has ancestors from Ireland can be said to have an Irish ethnicity.  But Irish ethnicity and Irish nationality are not the same thing, and they shouldn't be categorized as being the same thing.
 * Also your statement that "all the articles would have to be manually sorted for place of birth" isn't true. The changes I'm talking about are movements of the parent categories themselves, not movement of the articles within the subcategories.  The only articles that would change are ones that literally have the categories that are being renamed listed in their category tags, and those changes are done by automatic bots.
 * Finally, I'll turn the question around on you, John, and ask how it is you think legal nationality should be separated from ancestry under the current set up. Or if you don't think ancestry should be made distinct from legal status, then explain why not. Personally I would say that the two concepts are quite distinct and therefore need to be categorized distinctly at the upper level. Dugwiki 19:44, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The bottom level categories are combinations of nationality and ethnicity: Category:Irish-Americans is for Americans of Irish descent or origin,Category:German-English people for English nationals of German descent or origin. The "to" side is always a matter of nationality/citizenship, whilst the "from" side may be a national ethnicity (like say Swedish), or a non-national one, like African or Jewish, and may or may not involve citizenship, or past citizenship, at the individual level.  If you think there is a problem with this, please choose an example at the article level, and explain what the issue is. Johnbod 21:53, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Again, I didn't say the problem is at the article level. I said it's at the super-category level of the parent categories. The proposal I made above wouldn't change most articles at the article level - it would simply rename the two parent categories and move some of the subcategories around. Dugwiki 16:15, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * further comments and still opposed to any such change.  Category:People by ethnic or national origin is for immigrants; Category:People by ethnic or national descent is for emigrants.  This is clear, simple and non-confusing.  The names and structures of the categories are appropriate for their contents.  Hmains 21:13, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If that's the case then why not rename the categories as Category:Immigrants by national origin and Category:Emmigrants by national descent? (And if it were really as clear and simple as you're implying then we probably wouldn't have had a two page discussion about it already.) That would make it even clearer what your intent is with these categories.  There is also the issues I outlined above regarding trying to keep national legal status distinct from ancestral ethnicity, which the phrase "ethnic or national..." does not properly do. Dugwiki 16:11, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I also should point out that you recently changed the category description of the "origin" category to "This includes people who (or whose ancestors) immigrated to the country in the category name from a different country. In other words, these people or their ancestors were immigrants." Which means that it categorizes everyone by ethnic ancestry and that the categories are not limited to immigrants. (If my ancestors immigrated that does not make me an immigrant.)  So again, there appears to be confusion between whether this is categorizing immigrants by national status or categorizing people by ancestral regions.  Dugwiki 16:24, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * We have been over all this before. The bottom level of these categories categorise people of national status by ethnic or national origin. How many Cherokees or African-Americans are immigrants? Do you need to be born in Ireland to be Irish-American? The categories distinguish; the confusion is yours. Johnbod 16:32, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * And again I'm not talking about the bottom level categories; I'm talking about the parent categories in this specific cfd. I don't necessarilly have a problem with the bottom level category "Irish-Americans" which sorts people of American nationality by Irish ethnicity.  The problem is that these parent categories are mixing ethnicity and nationality at the same level of sorting in their descriptions and titles.  There needs to be some distinction at the top level of whether you are sorting by nationality or by ethnicity.
 * And as far as African-Americans and Cherokees, those are ancestral ethnicities. Category:People of Cherokee descent should be directly under Category:People by race or ethnicity, for example.
 * Which is my point. The category Category:People by ethnic or national descent should be restricted to just "national descent" and not "ethnic or national descent".  The direct subcategories current within it which are at the top level not nationalities should be moved to Category:People by race or ethnicity.  That way you know that at this top level you are looking at groups of biographies by individual nationality, not a mish-mash of nationality and ethnicity. Hopefully that helps clear up for you what I'm trying to explain. Dugwiki 23:13, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think maybe a specific example of what I'm looking for will help. I'll use Category:Irish-Americans.
 * Category:Irish-Americans will continue to have as its parent Category:People of Irish descent.  No articles with the category "Irish-Americans" would have to have that changed.  The other parent, Category:American people by ethnic or national origin, would be removed because it is for "articles on people who immigrated to the United States from other countries", but Irish-Americans includes many articles of people who did not immigrate to the United States at all.
 * Category:People of Irish descent, which is in this context referring to Irish ethnicity, will be under Category:People by race or ethnicity instead of Category:People by ethnic or national descent. Category:People by ethnic or national descent would be changed to "Category:Emmigrants by national descent" and restricted so subcategories with direct emmigrants.
 * Category:American people by ethnic or national origin is specifically supposed to be sorting articles about people who immigrated to the United States according to its category description. So it would remain a subcategory of Category:American people and also be part of "Category:Immigrants by national origin".
 * So as you can hopefully see, we're not changing the articles themselves. This is a reorganization of the parent categories to make clearer the distinctions between when you group by nationality and immigrant/emmigrant status and when you group by ethnicity. The two concepts at the very bottom levels can still intersect, and that's fine, but they shouldn't be combined at the very top level. Dugwiki 23:27, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, firstly I note this is a different proposal from your original and revised ones above. I think this one would be more practical, but firstly most bottom level sub-cats are not separate for immigrants and their descendants (the Finnish ones were noted above as an exception), so I don't see how this could be achieved without sorting through every article, and trying to work out if they are first-generation or not, which will not always be possible. But really my problem is I just don't see the point. The top level names are confusing, as I said right at the start, but no one has come up with a rename I think is an improvement.  The descriptions also need expanding (I have done bits).  But at the end of the day you I think the current scheme works well.  This tree is mainly encountered by users at lower levels - who apart from category wonks like us would want to look at the top level anyway?  Johnbod 01:08, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Given that I'm quite sure we're not going to reach consensus in the timeframe of this particular cfd, John, and given that this is obviously a pretty complicated discussion, I'll plan to simply revisit the issue at some point at WikiProject Ethnic groups and try and work things out with you and anybody else interested in the topic there. I think the ultimate goal would be to keep most of the bottom level categories intact, but adjust the top level names and make it so that the top level nationality categories are distinct from the top level ethnicity categories.  The two structures would merge at the bottom.
 * Anyway, at this point I'm positive we'll have a "No consensus" result here, so I'll hold off on further comments here and just come back to it again later on the project page. If there's some agreed upon change there, then we can do whatever renaming/merging is needed here at cfd. Dugwiki 15:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Super Smash Bros. items

 * The following discussion is an archived debate regarding the category or categories above. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was delete  --Kbdank71 18:14, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Suggest deletion of super smash bros. items


 * Nominator's rationale:
 * Keep this category will organize many varying items in the Nintendo universe. Also many of the articles in this category do mention that the item appears in the super smash bros. series.→ 0 4 1 7 4 4  19:15, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. A single item can be in too many different games for this to be defining. Clutter. Wryspy 00:50, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Otto4711 14:27, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Lochs of Scotland

 * The following discussion is an archived debate regarding the category or categories above. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was keep  --Kbdank71 17:29, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * lochs of scotland


 * Nominator's rationale:


 * Oppose Local terminology should be used for categories for English-speaking countries. Postlebury 10:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Where is this guideline from which you appear to quote? Note also that, even in Scottish English, Loch Katrine is still a lake. The current setup is effectively classifying by name, which is not a good means of categorisation. We do not classify the mountains of Scotland into Stobs, Bens, Beinns, Mealls, Càrns and so on, nor should we classify bodies of fresh water into Lakes, Lochs, Waters, Lochains, etc. --Stemonitis 10:58, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose, I am sorry, but the nominator is totally incorrect as regards Scottish usage. In Scottish English loch is a common noun. ie, we use the word loch as an English person would use the word lake. Please note that lochs encompasses both freshwater and saltwater bodies of water, ie. there are both lakes and fjords/estuaries/bays in this cat. Please note that we use national varieties of English in articles and cats; ie. Jamaican English in Jamaica-related content; Australian English in... etc. --Mais oui! 16:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I must have been unclear. I do not doubt that loch is a common noun; I was trying to communicate that lake is too, even in Scottish English, i.e. that to name the category "Lakes of Scotland" is in no way at odds with the use of local language. This would also mean that we can be more precise and less parochial by separating Scottish bodies of water into freshwater ("lakes") and salt-water ("sea lochs") in a way which is clearer to a general readership. --Stemonitis 16:52, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Nope. Scots never use the word "lake" when they are writing/talking about a body of freshwater in their native land. They say "loch" or "lochan", never "lake". Eg, "As I was giving the dog a walk round the loch ... ", never "As I was giving the dog a walk round the lake ... ". That just looks and sounds plain daft to Scottish eyes/ears. If, however, they are on holiday in Switzerland, Sweden or Suffolk, then it is another matter... --Mais oui! 18:00, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose, unless in en-sc.wikipedia.org this makes no sense. See for comparison Category:Lakes of Germany, Category:Lakes of France, Category:Lakes of Canada.  The local naming appears on the individual lake, not the category. LeadSongDog 17:56, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose Loch is the common usage in Scotland. Indeed see the usage even in the text on the main exception Lake of Menteith. Loch should be the category (whether filled with fresh or sea water). AllyD 18:14, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose Loch is the common usage in Scotland. If I were daft enough to suggest that because most of the highest mountains of the UK are in Scotland that the category 'Fells of the Lake District' should be changed to 'Bens of the Lake District' you would rightly think me eccentric and perhaps wonder why I imagined that colourful local usage should be replaced by inaccurate standardisation. Ben MacDui (Talk) 19:16, 18 July 2007 (UTC).
 * Category:Mountains and hills of the Lake District would be just as accurate as Category:Fells of the Lake District and more transparent, especially since many of the "fells" (c. 80%) are not called "Fell". Blencathra and Skiddaw may be fells, but that doesn't stop them being mountains. Even people in the Lake District recognise and use the words "mountain" and "hill" (several of the Lakeland entities are called "Hill"). "Ben" is not used in the Lake District, so the analogy is entirely inappropriate and misrepresents my arguments entirely. The only reason I can see for retaining the local names, given that the more widely understood names are also valid, is to increase quaintness and give an appearance of difference, which is not the purpose of categorisation. Neither of these cases is analogous to "British aeroplanes" vs. "American airplanes", where there is no overlap in nomenclature, and where using the local version is really important. --Stemonitis 19:36, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * And 'lake' is not used in Scotland, which is the point really. Ben MacDui (Talk) 21:02, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose We don't talk about the sea lakes of Norway only the fjords, and the same thing applies to the lochs of Scotland and the loughs of Ireland.--Bill Reid | Talk 19:30, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * A fjord is something specific, whether it be in Norway, New Zealand or Ireland, and not just any body of seawater. Freshwater loughs and lochs are just lakes. --Stemonitis 19:36, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Not so; in Norway the term is used in a very broad sense and to quote the Fiord article: "In Norway, the usage is closest to the Old Norse, with fjord used for both a firth and for a long, narrow inlet. In eastern Norway, the term is also applied to long narrow freshwater lakes (for instance Randsfjorden and Tyrifjorden) and sometimes even to rivers (in local usage, for instance in Flå in Hallingdal, the Hallingdal river is referred to as fjorden)" Bill Reid | Talk 12:46, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose Not anything to add really, it's all clearly stated in the arguments above. -- Cactus.man  &#9997;  19:57, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose Loch is not synonymous with 'Lake' . Only Freshwater lochs could be called lakes. The fact that the word Loch is used in for Salt and freshwater bodies of water in Scotland ought to be reflected in wikipedia.--JBellis 21:12, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose per all above. Ravenhurst 00:39, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose deletion as above Brendandh 11:02, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose per all above, pointless attmpt at standardisation. Edward Waverley 11:35, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment I also should point out that the great majority of the articles within this category are titled "Loch XXX". Keeping the category name as "Loch" would also keep it consistent with the titles of most of its articles. Dugwiki 15:13, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * comment It would help greatly if discussion could be more clear as to what is being proposed and what is being opposed. This discussion is very unclear. Hmains 07:14, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Reply to Hmains I think the nominator is proposing that the category under discussion is redundant and should be deleted, with all existing entries being moved to Category:Lakes of Scotland. The unanimous oppose comments above, err, well, oppose this proposal. Hope that helps. -- Cactus.man   &#9997;  18:35, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Hmains 21:20, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
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Category:Lightnings

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The result of the debate was rename/merge as nominated  --Kbdank71 18:12, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Propose renaming Category:Lightnings to Category:Lightning
 * Nominator's rationale:


 * Correction, Wikimedia Commons redirects to "Lightnings" but the Category itself links to commons:Category:Lightning instead of the extant Lightnings. At any rate, "lightnings" sounds like improper English all the way. -- EmperorBMA|&#35441;&#12377; 08:09, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Rename per nom Johnbod 23:19, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Rename per nom. Wryspy 00:49, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. The American Heritage dictionary has lightnings as a possible plural. Maybe it's British English?. --Eliyak T · C 10:46, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Rename - The OED doesn't have "lightnings" at all; it isn't British English. D 4 g 0 t h u r  04:41, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Rename per nom. I've never heard of the word "Lightings" Hawkestone 14:15, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Rename - The website http://www.m-w.com does not give "lightnings" as a plural form of "lightning". The plural with the s is probably a mistake.  Dr. Submillimeter 15:25, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
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Category:Professional Athletes from Flint, MI

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The result of the debate was rename/merge as nominated  --Kbdank71 18:12, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Suggest merging Category:Professional Athletes from Flint, MI to Category:People from Flint, Michigan
 * Nominator's rationale:


 * Merge per nom. Postlebury 10:47, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge per nom. Ravenhurst 00:39, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
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Category:Professional Athletes from Flint, MI

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The result of the debate was close, duplicate of directly above  --Kbdank71 18:13, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * professional athletes from flint, mi


 * Nominator's rationale:


 * Merge per nom. Ravenhurst 00:40, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
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Category:Former Royal Canadian Air Cadets

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The result of the debate was delete  --Kbdank71 18:10, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * former royal canadian air cadets


 * Nominator's rationale:


 * Keep What is a non-defining characteristic? For example, would Chris Hadfield only be defined as a Canadian Astronaut, and not an RMC of Canada grad or someone from Sarnia, ON? Sbmcmull 09:30, 18 July 2007
 * Comment - non-defining in this context means that I am asserting that none of these people is notable for being a member of the Royal Canadian Air Cadets, a Canadian national youth program for persons aged 12 to 18. Rather, these people are notable for their other accomplishments, and this detail is coincidental. Chris Hadfield would still be categorized as a member of Category:Royal Military College of Canada people, Category:Canadian astronauts, Category:Canadian Forces Air Command personnel, and Category:People from Sarnia, in addition to year of birth and being a living person.  You might want to have a section in the Royal Canadian Air Cadets article which would be a list of now famous Former Royal Canadian Air Cadets, rather than creating a category. --After Midnight 0001 21:06, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Understandable. I have now made a list of 'Notable Former Air Cadets' on the Royal Canadian Air Cadets page. Sbmcmull 14:15, 20 July 2007


 * Delete - People are not notable for their memberships in clubs when they were children. Dr. Submillimeter 09:00, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Then why not the same acrimony over the Category Eagle Scouts? There is a list of many famous former Eagle Scouts there Sbmcmull 09:43, 19 July 2007
 * Comment - Provide a link for the Eagle Scouts category, and I will nominate it for deletion. Its existence does not justify this category.  Dr. Submillimeter 15:27, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * However in the case of being an Eagle Scout, you can likely find multiple sources that indicate achieving that rank does help the individual get a boast in their early job careers. So that could be a defining characteristic. This affect is stronger for this achievement then for other scouting achievements like the Gold award in the Girl Scouts.  Eagle scout is also an achievement, something that the individual works to earn.  It is not simply membership like this category. Vegaswikian 20:46, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Air Cadets provide a similar boost within the Canadian context. And if the achievement is more important than membership, then we could also count 'Air Cadet Glider Pilots', 'Air Cadet Power Pilots' or 'Air Cadet Warrant Officer First Classes' as possible categories. Sbmcmull 21:40, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Category:Eagle Scouts Sbmcmull 15:45, 19 July 2007
 * Comment The category is nominated for deletion. Please review WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS.  Dr. Submillimeter 13:59, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete. Has been listified. Vegaswikian 05:21, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
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