Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 September 30



Category:Shamrock Rovers F.C. goalkeepers

 * The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an 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 discussion was: Upmerge to Category:Shamrock Rovers F.C. players and Category:Football (soccer) goalkeepers. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:16, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The result of the discussion was: Delete. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:13, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * shamrock rovers f.c. goalkeepers


 * Nominator's rationale: Over-categorization. I cannot find any other football club with an equivalent category. A similar category for West Ham United F.C. was the subject of a CfD in October 2007 - see Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 21:47, 30 September 2008 (UTC)


 * This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football related deletions. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 21:56, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. – PeeJay 22:01, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Upmerge to Category:Shamrock Rovers F.C. players and Category:Football (soccer) goalkeepers. Occuli (talk) 23:45, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Upmerge Seems the most sensible thing to do.--Albert.white (talk) 23:27, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete If this is kept it would lead to thousands of similar categories for every football club for every position. Ridiculous overcategorisation. Djln --Djln (talk) 19:43, 3 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. 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:Shamrock Rovers F.C. Irish international footballers

 * The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an 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 discussion was: delete (I checked a sample of articles, they are already in Category:Shamrock Rovers F.C. players and Category:Republic of Ireland international footballers). Kbdank71 13:41, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


 * shamrock rovers f.c. irish international footballers


 * Nominator's rationale: Over-categorization. I cannot find any other football club with an equivalent category. A similar category for West Ham United F.C. was the subject of a CfD in October 2007 - see  Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 21:47, 30 September 2008 (UTC)


 * This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football related deletions. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 21:56, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. – PeeJay 22:02, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Upmerge to Category:Shamrock Rovers F.C. players and Category:Republic of Ireland international footballers. Occuli (talk) 23:48, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Bohemians have a category on this and it is helpful and not an over categorization. A lot of work went into this and Rovers only have three sub categories. I understand deleting the goalkeepers. Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rovers Forever (talk • contribs) 11:14, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I hate it when people use the argument that they've put a lot of work into things. Once you submit "your work" to Wikipedia, it becomes Wikipedia's work, and it's up to the community to decide what to do with it. Also, just because Bohemians have a similar category doesn't mean this one should stay. In fact, if this one gets deleted, then the Bohemians one probably should be too. Finally, your "compromise" over the goalkeepers category is irrelevant and is unlikely to save this one from deletion. – PeeJay 07:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Overcategorisation. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  16:07, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep The international category should be kept.--Albert.white (talk) 23:25, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Why? You can't just oppose the proposal without giving a decent reason. – PeeJay 07:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Again it is a useful and valuable resource. Rovers have the most Irish international players of all Irish clubs. Calm down Peejay —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rovers Forever (talk • contribs) 12:27, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

You delete this while this remains here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Bohemian_F.C._international_footballers. Again a lot of time and effort went into this and the fact that it ends up deleted says a lot about moderators here. Get a life. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rovers Forever (talk • contribs) 13:45, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. 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:Fictional monsters

 * The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an 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 discussion was: Dismantle (see extended closing comments below) Carcharoth (talk) 10:51, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Closing as dismantle (diffuse the contents and rework the category to be fit for purpose). Needs to be done manually because this is a complicated category structure that can't be picked apart by a bot. I will list this at Categories_for_discussion/Working/Manual. The arguments that the category is too broad are valid. The opposing arguments are not convincing and indicate that clean-up is required in any case. All articles currently in the category should be examined to see if they are in a specific "fictional creatures" category, and if not, moved to an appropriate specific category (or a general category if they are not a specific fictional creature) and the "Fictional monsters" category tag removed. The parentage of the current subcategories of Category:Fictional monsters also needs to be carefully considered (currently, they are: Category:Alien user templates, Category:Fictional dragons, Category:Fictional amorphous creatures, Category:Fictional goblins, Category:Fictional trolls, Category:Fictional yeti, Category:Kaiju, Category:Fictional ogres, Category:Fictional vampires, Category:Fictional werewolves). Note that I moved one subcategory as uncontroversial tidying up: see here. There are also several articles with the word "monster" in their title: Cookie Monster, List of Doctor Who monsters and aliens, Herry Monster, Mister Mind and the Monster Society of Evil, Monster, Monsteroso, Monsters of Final Fantasy, Moo (Monster Rancher), List of Silent Hill monsters, Telly Monster, Trekkie Monster and Universal Monsters. Possibly these could be used as the basis for a reworked category (no deletion review needed). For the record, I'm listing here (in a small and collapsed section) all the articles in this category (this is not a requirement, just something I do to preserve a record of what was in a category around the time of the deletion discussion). Relist for deletion if the work has not been done within one month. Carcharoth (talk) 10:55, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Blue Meanies (Yellow Submarine), Bogeyman, Oogie Boogie, Martin Brundle (The Fly), Seth Brundle, Charade (Soulcalibur), Chemo (comics), Chief Blue Meanie, Chimera Ants, Clayface, Clover (creature), Cookie Monster, Creature Commandos, Ben Daimio, Dark Bladers, Characters in the Deltora Quest series, Demons Three, Digimon (creature), List of Doctor Who monsters and aliens, Don Pimpón, Doctor Doomsday, Doomsday (comics), General Wade Eiling, Elektro (comics), Elmo, Doctor Finklestein, Flukeman, The Frackles, Giganto, Gill-man, Gobbledok, Godzilla, Gog (Marvel Comics), Googam, Gorgilla, Gorn, Gossamer (Looney Tunes), Graboid, The Grinch, The Groke, Grover, Solomon Grundy (comics), Herry Monster, Hulk (comics), Killer Croc, Killer Moth, Kraken (Pirates of the Caribbean), Krakoa, Kreegan, L'Autre (character), Left Hand (Vampire Hunter D), Lifeform (comics), Ling-Ling, List of magical creatures in Winx Club, Lucifer Hawk, Maestro (Marvel Comics), Man-Bat, Man-Thing, ManBearPig, Mandrill (comics), The Major (Hellsing), Mister Mind and the Monster Society of Evil, Modern adaptation of the Minoan-Mycenaean figure of Talos, Monster, Monsteroso, Monsters of Final Fantasy, Moo (Monster Rancher), Samer el Nahhal, Nebiros, Necrid, Nurse (Silent Hill), Onslaught (comics), Paifu, Parasite (comics), Patchwork Man, Leena Peisa, Psycho Rangers, Tomi Putaansuu, Pyramid Head, Quozmir, Rabbit of Caerbannog, Recurring enemies in The Legend of Zelda series, Roger (Hellboy), Salad Fingers, Sally (The Nightmare Before Christmas), Shaggy Man (comics), She-Venom, Shelob, Shredder (TMNT), List of Silent Hill monsters, Jack Skellington, Skulk, Sugar Man, Mohinder Suresh, Sweetums, Jussi Sydänmaa, TIM Defender of the Earth, Tarantula (Marvel Comics), Pantyhose Taro, Telly Monster, The Race (Worldwar), The Terrible Dogfish, Those We Don't Speak Of, Tim Boo Ba, Titano, Trekkie Monster, Trigon (comics), Un-Men, Universal Horror, Universal Monsters, Valtiel, Violator (comics), Vlad (Caminhos do Coração), Wampus, Wendigo, Zoe (Sesame Street)


 * fictional monsters


 * Nominator's rationale: Delete - Vague over-reaching category with no hope of an objective inclusion criteria. Editors are apparently dumping any fictional character that's non-human in form they happen to run across into this cat. The contents are almost completely random and arbitrary. Betty Ross was included, because out of a 46-year publishing history she became a harpy for two issues. She-Venom and Carnage are included but Venom isn't. Swamp Thing and Man-Thing were in but not The Heap. And...Nuclear Man?! I took a stab at clearing out some of the entries to see if something could be made of it but gave up in despair. I don't think it's salvageable. Otto4711 (talk) 21:26, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep: Dissatisfaction with coverage of this particular category doesn't mean it isn't of interest. This just sounds like a clean up issue of an otherwise valid category. BookhouseBoy (talk) 00:09, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * What, per Wikipedia policies and guidelines, is the objective definition of "monster"? Otto4711 (talk) 01:32, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The definition is given in the monster article. "The term "monster" refers to a being that is a gross exception to the norms of some ecosystem. Usually characterized by an ability to destroy human life or humanity, more than an example of "survival of the fittest", natural law, or innate evil." Dimadick (talk) 14:21, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * First, that definition is unsourced and second, Wikipedia is not a reliable source for itself. Otto4711 (talk) 14:33, 1 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep "monster movie" is a valid film genre, so there are things that are validly called fictional monsters. 70.51.8.75 (talk) 05:18, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * And the subjects of those movies, vampires, werewolves and the like, are found in the specific categories for them (Category:Fictional vampires, Category:Fictional werewolves, etc.). Otto4711 (talk) 13:32, 1 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete, category invites original research through speculating upon, analysing and interpreting primary source. Hiding T 13:33, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. Valid concept. If inapropriate articles are added, simply remove. Dimadick (talk) 14:19, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Doing that looks like it will leave two or three articles. So not a valid concept for categorisation on Wikipedia. Hiding T 15:26, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong Delete - This category could include the misshapen monstrosity, the superhuman, and even the serial killer/rapist. It's too broad in inclusion, too vague in definition, and the members are already categorised elsewhere in similar, more specific cats, which means it's also duplicative. - jc37 23:27, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Something people care about and look for. Useful for browsing. A very clearly defining characteristic of figures in fiction, some of them obviously very famous. Monster in the sense used here is not ambiguous. When an author creates a monster as a character, its usually rather distinctive.DGG (talk) 02:04, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Clearly, based on what's included, "monster" in the sense used here is quite ambiguous. What does "a being that is a gross exception to the norms of some eco-system" mean, and how is this category bounded or limited in any way? Any being with a single super-power qualifies as a monster under that definition. Hell, in the Star Trek universe James T. Kirk qualifies as a monster because, since his blood is based on iron, he is a "gross exception the the norms" of the eco-system of the planet Vulcan. Otto4711 (talk) 02:33, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * In what sense is this useful for browsing? And in what sense can we speak to authorial intent and remain within WP:OR? This is better handled in article space than category space. An article would be much more useful than a category.  Category space is not the place to write articles. Hiding T 22:53, 5 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep A defining characteristic of the characters in the articles included. I applaud Otto for his cleanup work, and continued work will be needed to police this category, just as with every other category that exists in Wikipedia. Reliable sources to support the "monster" attribution should be verified, as needs to be done across all of Wikipedia's categories. Alansohn (talk) 02:43, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. Too broad.  --Kbdank71 14:11, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete, too vague. There are no concrete inclusion criteria beyond anyone's subjective sense of what "monster" may connote, as the hodgepodge of current entries illustrates: aliens, robots, muppets, animated dolls?  Protagonists and antagonists, humanoid and non-humanoid...  This is useless.  Postdlf (talk) 16:07, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. Man I was craving to close this as delete, which for me serves as a sign that I need to voice an opinion, not close it. Otto sets out the problem well, as do the others who have opted for deletion. It's too vague, potentially too broad, and probably not definable in any acceptable way. Good Ol’factory (talk) 07:16, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. Overly broad if nothing else.  Based on the main article for monster, this may be better covered under the legendary creatures categories which I know we also have some issues in the names.  The fact that the category needs policing to limit the contents to appropriate articles indicates a problem with the name or the inclusion criteria. Some of the keep arguments are based on how it can be used and in most cases read like an WP:ILIKEIT type of argument.  In the end there is overlap between monsters and legendary creatures. Better to use only one then to confuse things using two names to describe the same thing.  If anyone really believes that deleting would damage something then simply merge the contents into Category:Legendary creatures but I suspect that some of the articles are also included in that structure eliminating the need for a merge. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:08, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. 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:Northwest Mounted Police forts

 * The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an 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 discussion was: rename to Category:Royal Canadian Mounted Police forts. Consensus building at its best. Good Ol’factory (talk) 07:11, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Propose renaming Category:Northwest Mounted Police forts to Category:North-West Mounted Police forts
 * Nominator's rationale: The official spelling of the force's name used a hyphen. Indefatigable (talk) 19:38, 30 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Rename to Category:Royal Canadian Mounted Police north-west forts to match Category:Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers. These are the only 2 subcats of Category:Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I have no opinion on the need for the '-'. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:33, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: the name "RCMP" was not in use until 1920, by which time the forts were obsolete, so using "RCMP" in the category title seem anachronistic to me. "NWMP" was the contemporary name of the force at the time the forts were in use. Indefatigable (talk) 16:22, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * So, would it be sufficient to add that explanation to the introduction of the category? Also, according to Royal Canadian Mounted Police the name at the time of the merge was Royal Northwest Mounted Police with North-West Mounted Police being an earlier name.  And all of this stuff redirects to Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  Given the location of the main article, I think that I'll stand by my suggestion pending other suggestions. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:39, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, how about Category:Royal Canadian Mounted Police forts then? The "north-west" part is not needed. Indefatigable (talk) 17:56, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Works for me. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:25, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll agree with the Category:Royal Canadian Mounted Police forts solution. One of the articles says that the fort was still in operation for several years after the NWMP became the RCMP, and another one says that the RCMP later revived the fort as a training ground, so it's not quite accurate to say that the forts were wholly defunct by the time the RCMP came into being. Bearcat (talk) 13:52, 3 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. 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:Anti-Turkism

 * The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an 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 discussion was: Delete. While there was some discussion, it supports the fact that this is a POV category with issues. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:53, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * anti-turkism


 * Nominator's rationale: POV inclusion cat. except for the main article Anti-Turkism (which is ripe with pov issues), none of the presently included articles fit. Soman (talk) 19:07, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment In its current state the category mostly covers political enemies of modern Turkey and political parties banned for one reason or another. Both highly inapropriate. However Midnight Express (film) does fit as a work of art with a decisively negative depiction of the Turkish people. Dimadick (talk) 14:29, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment the notion that opponents of the political system in Turkey would be 'political enemies of Turkey' is definately a pov notion. The notion that Kurdish nationalism is inherently 'anti-Turkish' is also definately pov. --Soman (talk) 14:39, 1 October 2008 (UTC) Sorry, i missed the passage 'Both highly inapropriate.' in dimadick's comment (thus judging his/her comment in the opposite way). sorry for that, sometimes i read to to rash. --Soman (talk) 18:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. 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:Radio Tales

 * The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an 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 discussion was: no consensus. Kbdank71 13:51, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Propose renaming Category:Radio Tales to Category:Radio Tales episodes
 * Nominator's rationale: Rename. The articles are all for episodes and I don't envision that there's a lot of other material for other articles relating to this particular series. Otto4711 (talk) 17:53, 30 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Rename to Category:Radio Tales programs – The term “programs” is correct for the separate installments of an anthology series. The term “episodes” suggests that the programs are all continuations of the same story, which they clearly aren't – see Episode for the Wikipedia definition.  I have copy edited all the individual Radio Tales program pages on Wikipedia to remove the term “episode” and replace it with “program”.  Soundout (talk) 21:19, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Not to be contentious, but we have for example the anthology episode Category:The Twilight Zone episodes, Category:The Outer Limits episodes, Category:Robot Chicken episodes, Category:Masters of Horror episodes and so on. Whereas for radio, "program" is used to refer to the show not to individual periodic broadcasts, c.f. Category:Radio programs. Naming convention seems pretty clear. Otto4711 (talk) 21:35, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Also not meaning to be contentious, but I'd submit that precedent is not a good enough reason to continue using a term incorrectly. According to the official Wikipedia definition, an episode is "a part of a sequence of a body of work, akin to the chapter of a book".  In Dictionary.com, an episode is "an incident, scene, etc., within a narrative".  With that in mind, we can not consider "Frankenstein (radio)" and "Beowulf (radio)" to be episodes, because their subject matter bears no relationship with each other -- and the same is true for all the programs in the series.  Here might be a better solution -- Rename to Category:Radio Tales dramas -- since the Wikipedia definition is this: "Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance".  This seems more appropriate.  Soundout (talk) 21:58, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not a reliable source for itself, and common sense should tell us that the likelihood that anyone is going to say that a broadcast unit of a show like "The Twilight Zone" isn't an "episode" of the series is extremely low. Otto4711 (talk) 22:42, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Putting aside any conjecture about what people might think about the definition of the word 'episode', Radio Tales bears more in common with Masterpiece Theater than with the Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits, since both Masterpiece Theater and Radio Tales adapt classic works of literature for broadcast media. The "Masterpiece (TV series)" article does not ever use the term "episode" -- it refers to its individual dramas as either "programs" or "dramas", but never "episodes" -- since that terminology would be factually incorrect.  If the Wikipedia article is not strong enough support, you can visit the Masterpiece Theater official website, which also never uses the term "episode", always instead using either the term "drama" or "program". Soundout (talk) 23:18, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

*Rename to Category:Radio Tales dramas Soundout (talk) 14:26, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I am striking your !vote as you are only permitted one per CFD discussion. Otto4711 (talk) 00:28, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Third Party Opinion: At first glance I thought this was an actual category about a genre of radio drama, but upon further research it seems to be a spin off list of the a main article, which already contains a list of each episode (Radio_Tales), rather than an actual category. I see no reason it can not be simply added to existing categories, such as Category:American radio drama, where it is not currently listed. Likewise I see no reason why it needs it's own Subcategory in the Category:National Public Radio programs in addition to the programs page listing. Why does this show merit it's own Wikipedia category? Soundvisions1 (talk) 21:53, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It's as much a legitimate category as any other category that gathers episodes of a series, not to get al waxy. The single most defining characteristic of these articles is that they are articles about episodes of this particular series. Someone coming across a random article in the category may wish to see other similar episodes and this is an instance, given that it appears someone plans to write individual articles about each episode, where per WP:CLN the list and the category are strongly complementary. Now if someone wanted to make an argument for merging the episode articles per WP:EPISODE I would be amenable, after which should consensus be to merge the category would become unnecessary. Otto4711 (talk) 00:28, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Regarding Otto4711's suggestion of merging the episode articles per WP:EPISODE, the notability of the individual episodes of the Radio Tales series has already been discussed -- see Articles_for_deletion/The_Time_Machine_(Radio)_et_al the closed AFD discussion resulting in speedy keep Soundout (talk) 13:32, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * That really should have been closed as keep per WP:SNOW as the AFD was not technically eligible for speedy keep. Just to clarify, I don't care if the articles are merged or not (although I note there was some support for discussing merger in the course of the AFD). Otto4711 (talk) 16:44, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The majority opinion regarding merger for the articles in the aforementioned discussion was that there were too many articles for a merger to be practical or feasible, and that the individual articles were noteworthy enough on their own to be kept. The creation of "Category:Radio Tales" allows these articles to be organized in a way that removes clutter from other categories.  The only issue here is in regards to the name of that category, whether it be "Category:Radio Tales" or "Category:Radio Tales episodes" . Soundout (talk) 17:27, 5 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. 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:Speech-language pathology

 * The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an 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 discussion was: rename. Good Ol’factory (talk) 23:59, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Suggest merging Category:Speech-language pathology to Category:Speech and language pathology
 * Nominator's rationale: Exact same topics; miscoordinated creation thereof. Timurite (talk) 18:37, 23 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Kbdank71 16:51, 30 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Rename per nom. With no objections, why not rename? Vegaswikian (talk) 06:34, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Support No reason for separate categories that are clearly addressing the same subject. Alansohn (talk) 03:51, 5 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. 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:Legendary creatures in fiction

 * The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an 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 discussion was: rename. Kbdank71 13:44, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Rename Category:Legendary creatures in fiction to Category:Legendary creatures in works of fiction

These creatures originated in legends, folklore, etc., rather than in the fictional works noted. - jc37 15:51, 30 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Rename - as nominator. - jc37 15:51, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Rename to Category:Fictional legendary creatures per naming convention. Otto4711 (talk) 17:47, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment wouldn't that be confused with fictional works with fictional legends? Those creatures would not be "real" legendary, but "fictional legendary". (This comment assumes a difference between legend and common fiction) 70.51.8.75 (talk) 05:20, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. Isn't legendary about as vague as famous?  If so, then I'm leaning delete. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:36, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I think in this instance it means mythical, it is a fairly well established term. I'd support a mass rename of all legendary creatures to mythical creatures, but doing just the one seems redundant. Hiding T 13:38, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Rename per nom, I'm getting my head in tangles trying to work out the implications for "Fictional legendary creatures", and I'd like to see in works of fiction be the standard, to be honest, since it has more flexibility in other areas of the category tree. Hiding T 13:38, 1 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Rename per nom. These are mostly modern depictions of rather ancient legends. Dimadick (talk) 14:32, 1 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. 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:Inhibitors

 * The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an 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 discussion was: rename. Good Ol’factory (talk) 23:54, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

inhibitors
 * Rename to Category:Enzyme inhibitors - Use complete term for clarity, and consistent with main article. It's also worth noting that I just added the "missing" parent cat, -- the proposed rename will thus make more sense to readers in that context.   Cgingold (talk) 13:04, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Rename as per above. This was also the intended meaning when I created the category back in 2005. Karol (talk) 15:10, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Rename per nom. Term does have modest potential to be misunderstood without the clarifier. Bearcat (talk) 07:09, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * As a matter of fact, I've subsequently discovered that there are several categories for other kinds of inhibitors that have nothing to do with enzymes -- for some reason, they had never been added into this parent category. Cgingold (talk) 19:24, 1 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Rename. Long overdue. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 13:46, 2 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. 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:Deaths by age

 * The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an 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 discussion was: delete.  There are many arguments here on both sides which are along the lines of "keep/delete: nobody has made any good arguments to delete/keep", which is not a good argument to keep or delete.  While not exact, this is similar enough in my mind to this prior CFD, this prior CFD, and this prior CFD to establish precedent for not categorizing by what amounts to a trivial characteristic.  This is not to say that with these categories, you cannot find, for example, someone else who also died when they were 45, but I can't see, nor has anyone explained below, why we should categorize this way (aka why it is defining), nor has anyone explained why we should ignore WP:NOT.  What people have done, is point instead to WP:DEATHAGE, which not only isn't policy and doesn't seem to have consensus for its status as a proposed policy/guideline, but appears to have been created to try to hold off a CFD exactly like this one.  That all said, I'll hold off emptying and deleting these categories for the inevitable DRV to be filed.  Just remember that consensus does not mean counting votes. . Kbdank71 15:39, 7 October 2008 (UTC)


 * category (and subcategories)


 * Nominator's rationale: Overcharacterization, difficult to maintain. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:12, 30 September 2008 (UTC)


 * and subcategories:
 * deaths at age 28
 * deaths at age 29
 * deaths at age 33
 * deaths at age 45
 * deaths at age 48
 * deaths at age 72
 * deaths at age 78
 * deaths at age 79
 * deaths at age 81
 * deaths at age 83
 * deaths at age 93
 * (and probably a few created while I was writing this) Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:12, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Cgingold (talk) 01:53, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You beat me by about 2 minutes. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 01:56, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that, Arthur -- didn't mean to preempt you! I hadn't the faintest idea that you had barely finished setting things up. (I'm still hoping to hear from the creator.) Cgingold (talk) 10:16, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Added
 * deaths at age 46
 * created after the category creator commented here. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 23:19, 2 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete all per nom.  Lugnuts  (talk) 06:50, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete all per nom. Occuli (talk) 08:12, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Speedy delete as recreated content, otherwise delete as utterly trivial. Otto4711 (talk) 10:00, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Death at age 0 for these. Category:Centenarians, which old-time regulars will remember all too well, is a different matter. Johnbod (talk) 23:05, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd like to note, for the record, that a very clear consensus against categorizing people by their age of death was established a long time ago, so back in January I added a note to WP:OCAT indicating that CFD had an established consensus against categorizing people by death trivia. Within the last week, however, it appears to have been arbitrarily removed by an editor who was specifically in the process of sandboxing a revision to death date and age which would automatically plug the person's death age into a category link to generate inclusion in the applicable category within this tree. Delete and smack a few people around. Bearcat (talk) 06:57, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I removed the paragraph from WP:OCAT because I saw no discussion about the addition of the paragraph at WT:OCAT and I have still not seen any evidence of a prior CFD on the topic. Since additions to OCAT are based on CFD precedent, I removed the paragraph. If you think the removal was incorrect, just give a link to the prior CFD. --Pixelface (talk) 23:40, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you have a link to the prior established consensus? That may influence me to change, but for now I cannot find it. --Banime (talk) 02:09, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Several editors and I had agreed there should be such a series of categories following an AfD in which we all felt this was the solution. We have talked about it mostly on my talk page and WP:Death by age. The noms reasons are "overcharacterization" and "difficult to maintain," which are not flat-out policies, but rather someone's (the nom's) own opinions. This is not overcharacterization, as one's age of death is generally viewed significantly somehow in describing a deceased person. Also, this is not any more difficult to maintain than the categories of deaths by year, which are well-maintained. This reason does not cite any Wikipedia policies stating why these categories should be deleted, and is this CfD is doing nothing more really than soliciting votes to agree with the nom (see WP:PERNOM and WP:Follow the leader). The "pernoms," which are not in support of an actual policy, therefore must be discounted as votes, as this is not really a deletion proposal with any valid standing. This also does not fit into the WP:SPEEDY criteria, because this is being disussed via a CfD. For this reason, if these categories are recreated promptly following deletion. Sebwite (talk) 01:41, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:Death by age clearly shows there's no consensus for inclusion, and, if Bearcat is correct, someone is overriding a previous consensus. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 14:17, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * "Overcategorization" the actual term, has WP:OCAT which is indeed a guideline. Is it defining that someone died at age X? Only in a few cases - Mozart, Edward V of England maybe. For most modern notable people, who live long into retirement, it is certainly not. If fully filled, these cats would have thousands of members each. What use is that to anyone? Johnbod (talk) 15:10, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment For one thing, a.) There is no limit as to the number of articles that can be listed in a category. The category Living People has hundreds of thousands of articles included. b.) WP:OCAT refers to overCATEGORIZATION, not overCHARACTERIZATION, the term the nom used as the reason. c.) When you read an article about a person who has died, several basic facts are listed about the person's death. These include their time of death (we have categories for that, by year), their cause (we have categories for various causes of death), and importantly, their age. A person's age of death IS a significant factor in making a judgment rearding a person's death. The guideline under WP:OCAT was seemingly placed there conveniently regarding this discussion, can be easily added and removed at any time, and should therefore be discounted until a more thorough concensus can be reached. Sebwite (talk) 18:02, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, the guideline was placed there in January, and was recently removed by you . Let's get the facts straight.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 18:29, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure Arthur Rubin just used the wrong word by mistake; he's quite clearly referring to WP:OCAT. And for what it's worth, the consensus against categories of this type has already existed for at least a couple of years, and the clause about it in the OCAT guideline was placed there nine months ago, not yesterday. The only thing that changed within the lifetime of this discussion was that one of the people who agreed with you on the utility of creating these categories arbitrarily removed the statement, and then I reverted that because he didn't have a consensus to do so — the consensus against such categorization and the OCAT statement about it both long predate this discussion. Bearcat (talk) 13:56, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * So it should be quite easy for you to provide a link to the prior CFD. --Pixelface (talk) 23:59, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The onus is not on me to prove that a longstanding consensus exists. The burden of proof is on the extraordinary claim. Bearcat (talk) 18:45, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Additions to Overcategorization are based on CFD precedent. So where is the precedent? Give a link to a CFD, a discussion, anything. If a "longstanding consensus" exists as you claim, it should be possible to link to a discussion where that consensus was formed, instead of asking everyone to trust your word alone. All I've seen so far is a link to a CFD about Category:Entertainers who died in their 20s (which could be described as needless cross-categorization). I see this CFD, this CFD, and this CFD (where you argued to delete) and that's not what these categories are. --Pixelface (talk) 21:18, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It is clearly defining whether someone is alive or not! And "living people" can be used as an index for those not sure of the name etc. Neither applies here. I really don't understand why some people are so keen on this? Are you actuaries? Johnbod (talk) 14:24, 3 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep per Sebwite. "Overcharacterization" and "difficult to maintain" are not valid reasons for deletion.RobDe68 (talk) 19:08, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Per the rather clear arguments provided at WP:Death by age. This is an obviously defining characteristic directly calculable from birth and death dates. If you know both, there is very little difficulty in maintaining, unless some people are reanimated or resurrected which will indeed be a maintenance nightmare. The oft abused -- and drastically overused -- excuse of "overcategorization" (especially in its current states) needs to be given a swift and sure death. I will be happy to calculate its lifespan given creation and termination dates. Alansohn (talk) 20:33, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * So a brand new wikiproject that has had less participation then this discussion should trump an existing guideline? Something about that seems so wrong. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Additions to WP:OCAT are based on CFD precedent. So provide a link to the prior CFD. Sebwite brought up the idea for this category in an AFD. Before the category was created, there was support from Sebwite, Hersfold, DGG, Josiah Rowe, Banime, Matthewedwards and me. Explodicle didn't care either way. And TenPoundHammer said it "might be too narrow a categorization", but it doesn't conflict with WP:OC. I don't know what "wikiproject" you're talking about. --Pixelface (talk) 00:04, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete as trivial overcategorization. I disagree that these are of comparable utility to the birth/death year categories, as sharing a birth year or death year with other individuals anchors their lives to the same period of history.  The length of time someone lived, however, does not tell us much of anything about that individual without context, and the comparisons between random individuals are not likely to be meaningful: compare someone who died at age 28 in Ancient Rome with someone who died at age 28 in modern Rome, or someone who died at age 28 in 2008 in San Francisco with someone who died at age 28 in 2008 in Darfur.  Postdlf (talk) 22:47, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete: With "X year births" and "X year deaths" categories (wich are an accepted use at categorization of biographies), a category for the age when dying is completely redundant. The issue of one year more or less if died before or afer birthday is completely trivial to justify a category Benito Sifaratti (talk) 01:07, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * If some is born (or dies) on December 31, they will be in a different category that someone who is born or dies January 1. Doesn't that make birth and death year categories trivial? Alansohn (talk) 01:11, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * No, because the year changes for everybody at the same time. The age, on the other hand, changes only for that 1 person. The birth or death of a notable individual at a given year is important not just for that individual, but also for the year itself. The age, however, is important only for the individual: it may be considered trivial, and with those non-trivial categories already used, the age one is redundant. Knowing the birth and death years we can know if the man lived a long or a short time, or if he was alive by the time of a certain event. The age is just A - B or A - B -1: if the only useful idea of the category is to set if there is a year less or not, then that's a very trivial purpose for making a category. In fact, it's very close to WP:OC Benito Sifaratti (talk) 00:58, 4 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep. Categories of year of birth, year of death, deaths by cause, and even, in some cases, deaths by location, are already established. As all of those are to remain, then deaths by age should also remain. The argument that categorising the deceased by age is too trivial to keep is proven false, by the very fact that the kind of categories I've just listed are important and relevant enough to be kept. The argument that it is not reasonable to compare deaths by age in different parts of the world and in different eras, because life expectancy varies massively across those parameters does not justify scrapping age at death categories. If that kind of argument were valid, then categories such as murder and suicide would have to be scrapped - they vary massively across the world, so much so that you cannot compare their rates across the world on the same scale using a bar graph. Similarly, if that were a valid argument, the proportion of people who die from each cause has varied massively through history. Based on the argument of major variation across time, deaths from cancer should be scrapped, as, throughout human history, only a very small fraction of deaths were from cancer, but now a very substantial minority of human deaths are from cancer (for example, in the UK, in 1900, 5% of all deaths were from cancer, whereas the figure is now 27%). Therefore, deaths by age categories should be kept, along with various categories of death by year of occurrence, cause, and location. Werdnawerdna (talk) 17:51, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment&mdash;beyond arguments that these death by age categories are no worse than other categories (I personally don't see the death by cause categories as useful either), I haven't seen an explanation as to why these categories are helpful. Postdlf (talk) 18:57, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * See WP:USELESS if you consider that to be your argument. Sebwite (talk) 21:56, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * That link definitely supports deletion! Johnbod (talk) 01:50, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Unlike article content, which WP:USELESS addresses, categories exist to serve two basic functions within Wikipedia: to classify articles by defining characteristics of their subjects, and to group articles by virtue of their shared defining characteristics. If they aren't particularly useful for those functions, they shouldn't exist.  Postdlf (talk) 18:12, 6 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep as per Werdnawerdna and RobDe68. There are many irrelevant categories at Wikipedia like Worst Actress Razzie winners or Auxiliary Territorial Service officers, and Deaths by age certainly is not. Also, you've got a "Living people" category with over 292,000 articles. Isn't that difficult to mantain!?--Fluence (talk) 21:36, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep all, Arthur Rubin's reasons for deletion are invalid. I have yet to see a link to the prior CFD from "a long time ago" which established "a very clear consensus against categorizing people by their age of death" according to Bearcat. So it's not overcategorization. And it's not difficult to maintain if death date and age is altered to handle it automatically. It's not trivial that James Dean died at 24. It's not trivial that Kurt Cobain died at 27. It's not trivial that Jeanne Calment died at 122. Before the category was created, there was support from Sebwite, Hersfold, DGG, Josiah Rowe, Banime, Matthewedwards and me. TenPoundHammer said it "might be too narrow a categorization", but I doesn't conflict with WP:OC. Finally, Category:Deaths by age is as valid a category as Category:Deaths by cause. --Pixelface (talk) 23:55, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. I have yet to see a reason to keep this in the discussions above. Pointing to Category:Living people as a reason to keep this and pointing out other categories which could be deleted as well seems to be a WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS type of argument. Category:Living people is a special case category and it in no way can be used to justify these categories, there is simply nothing that ties these together as a group that should be kept.  In the end, this is another case where AfD dropped the ball into the CfD court.  That does not mean the category should exist.  It simply means that AfD said so and that does not make it so.  Vegaswikian (talk) 00:22, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Despite the repeated comments about death by age being "trivial", representing "overcategorization", or of some supposed ball being dropped, it seems that the media does not share this same bizarre opposition to age at death (or its calculation), treating it as a rather defining characteristic. One day's worth of obits from The New York Times includes "J.L. Chestnut Jr., Early Leader in Civil Rights Movement, Is Dead at 77", "Milt Davis, a Cornerback on 2 Title-Winning Teams, Dies at 79", "Elinor Guggenheimer, Advocate for Women, Children and the Elderly, Dies at 96", "David Jones, Film Director, Dies at 74" finds that every single obituary includes age at death in the title of the article. I could provide thousands of other obituaries from thousands of other publications, all of which treat age at death as one of the most defining characteristics of the individual covered in the article. The newspapers also seem to have no difficulty confronting the issue that one's age changes on their birthday, as in "Charlotte Kohler, Literary Journal Editor, Is Dead at 99", where the Times recorded her ages as 99, noting that "Ms. Kohler died a day before her 100th birthday." It seems that this "trivial" "overcategorization" only exists in the minds of a small handful of Wikipedia editors, and nowhere else. It seems that far to often it is editors who spend way too much time in the CfD court who have developed a rather bizarrely restrictive definition of the category system. This is a characteristic that could not be any more defining and worthy of a category and there has been no legitimate Wikipedia policy argument offered to justify deletion other than various versions of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Alansohn (talk) 00:29, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The UK papers I read rarely mention the age, though of course they always mention the dates. Equally most WP articles don't bother to mention the age of death, a clear demonstration it is usually not significant in itself. Johnbod (talk) 19:40, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Remember that we can't use Wikipedia as a source. Even so, age at death is a standard infobox parameter that is automatically calculated for any article that has an infobox. The question is not if there are some articles or newspapers that don't mention it, but are there enough sources that do. I can provide you with millions. Alansohn (talk) 19:50, 5 October 2008 (UTC)


 * That the media mentions the age, does not mean we have to divide all people who died at the same age in one group. To look at two current examples Kitty Genovese and Elisa Bridges have nothing in common except that they both died at age 28. That fact is too trivial. Garion96 (talk) 02:20, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * This attribution of triviality is entirely arbitrary. What do people born in 1937 or who died in 1962 have in common other than they were born in the same year or died in the same year. That the media consistently mentions the age, incredibly often including that age in the title or lead sentence of the obituary, is the clearest possible evidence that this is a defining characteristic. Alansohn (talk) 02:38, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * So is the attribution of usefulness. True, I am not big fan of born in xxxx categories, but to group people born in the same year at least makes more sense than to group people who died the same age. Garion96 (talk) 02:46, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * And still no case being made for keeping. Clearly WP:IDONTLIKEIT does not fit the reasons being presented for deletion.  What is the difference if someone dies when they are 73.99999 years old or 74.00001 years old?  Do we round these into categories since there is no difference between some small differences?  Why is something that makes sense as part of a news article mean that it needs to be categorized in the encyclopedia?  Clearly this is over categorization.  Vegaswikian (talk) 06:50, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong delete - Overcategorization. I assume this category scheme is based on the deletion debate at Articles for deletion/List of people who died before the age of 30 (2nd nomination) which closed as delete. Garion96 (talk) 01:00, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep A perfectly reasonable way to do things. The age at which people die is not an trivial characteristic; we record the dates, and we usually in fact say specifically the age. Alansohn is right: this is one of the main ways of categorizing people--when you here of someone, one of the things you want to know is how old the person is; if dead, you want to know how long he lived. The interest does tend to be more in the extremes, but if the system is set up, it might as well be used for all. The categories can be assigned automagically, as Pixelface says. Some might think if they had to be maintained manually that the effort might be best spent otherwise (I'd disagree there as long as there are those who want to maintain it)--but that's not at all the case; WP  is a computer database, and we should make use of  the facilities it makes possible. One of the key functions of a database is in fact cross-categorization. I think overcategorization is an obsolete reason altogether for deleting categories that can be automatically maintained. There remains a tendency to think like we were paper. There is no actual argument for deletion except idontlikeit.  DGG (talk) 01:57, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * After seeing support for Sebwite's idea for the categories, and after Hersfold suggested the categories could be handled automatically with age (and also support for automatic categories by Josiah Rowe), I edited Death date and age/sandbox to see if the categories could be assigned automatically. They can. If death date and age were to contain this code, it would produce output that looks like this. That change would put approximately 29,000 pages about dead people into around 122 different categories. If someone adds the category to a page manually (and death date and age is already present), the category still just appears once at the bottom of the article. --Pixelface (talk) 03:23, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * 29,000 is only the tip of the iceberg - we have 549,000 articles tagged by the Biography Project, which is still missing many. Most of these must be dead, though many older figures don't have reliable birth or death years. Even so the more "popular" ages for dying will potentially run into five figures per category. For what? Johnbod (talk) 16:47, 5 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep I don't like the WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS arguments but feel nonetheless that the categories provide good information in a well organized manner. I can't see anything wrong with keeping them, I think age of death is important enough to categorize over. --Banime (talk) 02:06, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * As I noted above, if someone has a link to the prior established consensus mentioned, that would influence me to possibly change my decision. --Banime (talk) 02:10, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep -- I find the keep arguments convincing. I think the request for a link to the discussion where the consensus to delete is said to exist is a very reasonable request.  Geo Swan (talk) 02:52, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * comment - I personally don't know/care if this is recreated content or not, I just think it is a bad idea. I did saw one related discussion. Categories for deletion/Log/2006 September 24. To me that one was actually a little bit less trivial than the current scheme. Garion96 (talk) 03:26, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. A person's age at death has only an indirect effect on that person's life (i.e. it is not defining). Its significance is subjective, since various people can age at different rates, and also can have notable achievements either early or late in life. To make an absolute distinction between someone aged 92 and someone aged 82, or someone aged 42 and someone aged 32, seems difficult to me. It is also not something that is immediately apparent about a person. Categorization by year of birth and death, and even location and circumstances of death at least make more sense, because this places the person in their historical context, which cannot be said here. I also think that the argument that newspapers always report the age at death is faulty. The age of the deceased is only of interest during the period immediately following death. Later, it becomes most important to know when the person lived, but not for how long. --Eliyak T · C 03:39, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't doubt that you feel strongly about the supposed "indirect effect", but the same argument could be made about year of death: "The year a person dies has only an indirect effect on that person's life (i.e. it is not defining). Its significance is subjective, since various people die in different years, and also can have notable achievements at different years in their life. To make an absolute distinction between someone who died in 1926 and someone who died in 1936, or someone who died in 1992 and someone aged 1982, seems difficult to me. It is also not something that is immediately apparent about a person. Categorization by age at death at least make more sense, because this places the person in the context of how long they lived." Can you point to any Wikipedia guideline or policy other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT? Alansohn (talk) 03:50, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I would not feel too badly about deleting the Category:Deaths by year categories as well. My argument is that the age of death is not a defining detail of an individual, and fails the first and most basic criteria at WP:OVERCAT, as well as the guidelines for useful categorization at WP:CATEG. I also state that it is not reasonable to argue that the other "deaths by" categories validate this one, which is even less defining. The age at death may be a defining attribute of the person's death, but usually a person's death is not especially notable at all when compared to the other aspects of their life. --Eliyak T · C 13:17, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I know that you don't feel it is a defining detail, but I have yet to see an obituary that does not list it and one would be hard pressed to find an encyclopedia article that doesn't include age at death. To flip your logic around, "The year of death may be a defining attribute of the person's death, but usually a person's death is not especially notable at all when compared to the other aspects of their life." I understand that you have a personal bias against this defining characteristic, but I still see no policy objection other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Alansohn (talk) 19:33, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Deleting the "Death by year" categories would single-handly wipe out the largest existing collection of biogrpahical metadata. The categories are the largest, followed closely by the infobox data, then (a long way behind) by the Persondata metadata. Carcharoth (talk) 06:44, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - At the time I notified the creator of these categories about this CFD, no editor had yet expressed support for keeping them. I was undecided, but hopeful that a robust debate would ensue -- and so it has, allowing me to consider all of the arguments on both sides. In the end, I am persuaded that the arguments for keeping outweight those for deletion. Cgingold (talk) 13:01, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep I'm generally inclusionistically minded, and in this case this is the type of hierarchy that I think is useful and which will be most welcomed by users. I do not find the argument against of this being particularly hard to maintain credible. __meco (talk) 16:25, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. It makes much more sense to treat "age at death" by automatic categories than to treat it by a list.  The latter would indeed be a challenge to maintain, but the former is practically automatic, so the "difficult to maintain" argument is completely hollow.  There are also statistical reasons why categorizing notable people who died at x age could be useful — for example, seeing whether artists who died young are more or less likely to achieve lasting fame than those who live long and healthy lives.  —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:41, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - why not make this a hidden category or devote a project to using biographical data to generate this and other stats from standardised data such as Persondata? The aim should be to get the biographical data only being used a few times. Having the same information used in the text, in infoboxes, in categories, and in Persondata, means the same information is being repeated three or four times and this is incredibly inefficient. Carcharoth (talk) 06:42, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the notion of having this hierarchy as hidden categories is well worth considering. I think we could have a lot more categories which would be useful to researchers but which are simply combinations of existing categories (e.g. politicians by vocation, musicians by age to add another perspective to the current debate) if they were hidden and didn't annoy users by "cluttering" the categories section. __meco (talk) 07:30, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Hidden categories would be great. Personally I still see no use in those categories, but this way they won't indeed clutter the categories section. Garion96 (talk) 09:02, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Such usage of hidden categories has been opposed. Hidden categories, as I understand it, are to be restricted to only Wikipedia internal categories, such as cleanup. And the further thoughts sound not unlike Category intersection. - jc37 11:34, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Hidden categories are a new thing and I'm sure the discussion which you are referring to has gone largely unnoticed. I'm quite interested in the categorizing issue in general and and would like to be able to participate in a renewed discussion on the use of hidden categories. And as is well-known consensus can change. Yes, the last part of my musing involves the concept of category intersection, and with the hidden category function we could make ourselves some preliminary experiences with how to work with this without being very disruptive. __meco (talk) 12:30, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * You may be "sure", but I think you'd be mistaken. (And the discussion was definitely broader than this one : )
 * As for the rest, while you may deem it interesting, or at least worth musing about, none of it would be implemented as a result of this discussion. Which makes it moot here. - jc37 12:40, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Can you provide the link to that discussion? __meco (talk) 12:53, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * One of the earliest discussion was at the Village Pump in February 2008. See here. I think the discussion jc37 is referring to is the one mentioned there, which has now been archived and is at Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Archive 10. Is that the discussion you meant, jc37? Carcharoth (talk) 23:20, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - I would still like to hear what encyclopedic relationship between Jane Doe, a (hypothetical) woman who died in 1871 at the age of 33, and Richard Roe, a (hypothetical) man who died in 2008 at the age of 33, is established merely by their having been the same age at death. "People might be interested in knowing who else was the same age as somebody who died" is not an encyclopedic relationship. Dying at the same age as someone else is no more encyclopedic than those "Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy and Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln" sorts of trivia that I'm sure would be more than welcome on any number of trivia sites but have no place in a serious encyclopedia. Otto4711 (talk) 15:41, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * They both had a lifespan of 33 years. That's a trait they have in common. Speaking of Lincoln, how are "People murdered in Washington, D.C." and "Deaths by firearm in Washington, D.C." more "encyclopedic" than "Deaths at age 56"? Explain how Jane Doe and Richard Doe both being born in 1910 is an encyclopedic relationship. Explain how both dying in 2008 is an encyclopedic relationship. Explain how both of them dying of pancreatic cancer is an encyclopedic relationship. All you've done is say "that's not encyclopedic, that's trivia" when it comes to age of death. The age at which a person dies is a defining characteristic. You can look at Deaths in 2008 for evidence of that.
 * José Medellín and Rolf Bae both lived for 33 years. But I had to search for ", 33" at Deaths in August 2008 to find that out. 122 different age of death categories would be, in my opinion, the simplest way to sort articles about dead people that have a known birthdate and deathdate.
 * Category:Living people was kept by decree Jimbo Wales. Category:Living people has over 307,000 articles in it according to this tool. An editor can click on related changes and check every change to every one of those articles. Category:Dead people has over 244,000 articles in it according to same tool, yet it has no such use. Dead people aren't simply placed in Category:Dead people. It's just a basic parent category. To an editor who wants to know which edits have been made recently to articles about dead people, they have to check recent deaths, YEAR deaths, deaths by cause, deaths by location, etc. I personally think it would be much easier if there were 122 age categories editors could check to review changes to articles about dead people with known birthdates and death dates. I suppose if you had a user subpage with a list of all 244,000 articles about dead people on it, I'd take that too.
 * Besides the ability to check related changes, you don't think readers would be interested in knowing which notable people died when they were a reader's age? Which notable people died at the same age? Which notable people died at 20? 50? 100? I seriously don't see any cons to having the category.
 * The category can be generated from death date and age. If a person's birthdate and deathdate are not known, the categories obviously would not apply. If a person's birthdate and deathdate are known, I think death date and age would be an appropriate addition to an article, don't you? --Pixelface (talk) 21:03, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Where are the independent reliable sources that indicate that "people who died at the same age as other people" is the subject of independent research, such that a few paragraphs or more could be written on the topic per WP:CAT? That two people separated in time and space by centuries happened to be the same age when the died is coincidence, not encyclopedia fodder. Regarding your counter-examples, if you believe that "deaths in Washington DC" or "Deaths from pancreatic cancer" or any other category is unencyclopedic, then by all means bring it here for discussion. The existence of one category does not justify the existence of another. And again "it's interesting" is not a particularly strong argument. There are all kinds of things that people may find interesting that are not included in Wikipedia because they do not belong here. Otto4711 (talk) 01:00, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Hopefully, someone will rustle up some solution that allows people to do this kind of analysis to their heart's content and not impinge on those who don't want to do (or see, or hear about) this kind of analysis. All the information is there. It is just a matter of extracting the data and generating the lists. Possibly not on Wikipedia, or if on Wikipedia in some project space or other place where readers don't get distracted. The added bonus would be that this would avoid perennial discussions on this topic, and that would be a win-win situation. This is all fairly indisputable. The question then is what attitude to take? Is it best to take a narrow, hardline view and say "Wikipedia is not a way to analyse biographical data", and say "delete" and not much else. Or is it best to in addition to the rejection, to recognise the demand and to try and channel it in a new direction and encourage the analysis to be done a different way, with a different method? Carcharoth (talk) 01:14, 7 October 2008 (UTC)


 * What this about wanting to have all dead people in one category? That's silly. The real aim should be to have a category with all people (whether alive or dead) in it. That way we can finally have something useful to help generate disambiguation pages for people with the same surname. Seriously. Pick a random but fairly common surname. Now try and find all the articles we have on people with that surname. Don't assume our disambiguation page will have all of them. Do searches and see just how many are not on the disambiguation pages. Now look up some obscure person with that surname and try and find out if we have a Wikipedia article on them. Try linking to their name in several different ways, with full name, initials, and so on. Then have a look at something like Wikipedia talk:Suggestions for name disambiguation/Batch 3 and come and help out with that (ask for a new batch of names disambiguation page suggestions to be generated). Carcharoth (talk) 23:00, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete all Overcategorization and trivial. I don't find sorting X person born in year 100 and died in 179 with a person born in 1900 and died in 1979 to be relevant, even though both happened to be 79 years old. Reywas92 Talk  00:02, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete, overcategorization. Stifle (talk) 13:33, 7 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. 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.