Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 December 22



South Dublin

 * 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: It seems we have consensus for a rename to something, and no objection to the South Dublin (county) form, so I will move the categories there.  Another CFD to discuss removing the disambiguator may be held at anytime.. Courcelles 05:37, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

The local authority is of course called "South Dublin County Council", but South Dublin County Council website refers to the area of the county simply as "South Dublin". In previous discussions at CFD Dec 8, four sets of categories for other non-traditional counties of Ireland were renamed to remove the "County" suffix which had been added by the same editor who created these categories. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:22, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Propose renaming:
 * Category:South Dublin County to Category:South Dublin
 * Category:Buildings and structures in South Dublin County to Category:Buildings and structures in South Dublin
 * Category:Education in South Dublin County to Category:Education in South Dublin
 * Category:Geography of South Dublin County to Category:Geography of South Dublin
 * Category:Politics of South Dublin County to Category:Politics of South Dublin
 * Category:Local councillors in South Dublin County to Category:Local councillors in South Dublin
 * Category:Religion in South Dublin County to Category:Religion in South Dublin
 * Category:Places of worship in South Dublin County to Category:Places of worship in South Dublin
 * Category:Sport in South Dublin County to Category:Sport in South Dublin
 * Category:Basketball in South Dublin County to Category:Basketball in South Dublin
 * Category:Sports venues in South Dublin County to Category:Sports venues in South Dublin
 * Nominator's rationale: Rename all. The head article is at South Dublin, which is also its WP:COMMONAME. This has been the article's uncontested name since this move in 2009. It was the head article's title from its creation in 2004 until an undiscussed pair of moves   in 2008.


 * Criteria clarification. What are the criteria for a category or an article to have the prefix, or as the need may arise, a suffix of "County"? Is it:
 * It's been that way in Wiki for a Very Long Time or
 * Common usage or
 * Legislation or
 * the fact that it was one of the "tradional" counties or
 * the fact that the county existed prior to the 1898 legislation or
 * some combination of the above? Laurel Lodged (talk) 21:33, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The criterion for the category to be Category:South Dublin County would be for the article to be stable at South Dublin County. I seem to have explained this to you before, in another cfd (Nontrinitarian). It's quite straightforward: propose a move for the article, and if this succeeds there will be no difficulty renaming the category. Category:South Dublin (county) would be a possible name for the category with the article at South Dublin as South Dublin sounds potentially ambiguous. Category names generally follow the article, sometimes with an extra disambiguator. Occuli (talk) 00:16, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * My question relates not so much to the current question but at a more existential level, how is it the Wiki decides that a county gets its name in the first place? First comes the county page, then the county category. On what basis, using what criteria is the name for the county given? Is it not inconsistent that some counties are called "County XXX" while others are just called "XXX", leaving it to the reader to guess that it might be a county? What policy or criteria says that this is a good and wholesome thing to do? Laurel Lodged (talk) 10:51, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * All this was discussed at huge length with Laurel Lodged at CFD 2010 December 8#Fingal, where she was told at least five times that category names follow the name of the head article. For Laurel to continue act as if zie is unaware of this is tendentious.
 * In response to Laurel's questions, no article on an Irish county has a suffix of "County". No category relating to an Irish county had such suffix until Laurel created them. At no point in any of the lengthy discussions on Dec 8 did Laurel offer any evidence that a suffix of "County" was any of: 1) stable usage on wikipedia; 2) common usage; 3) used in legislation; 4) used for any of the traditional 26 counties; 5) used for the counties which existed prior to 1898; or 6) any combination of 1-5.  So her questojs are pointless.
 * In a discussion at WT:IE, Laurel Lodged explicitly acknowledged here that the names of the counties created after 1994 do not include the word "County", and that adding it as a suffix was her own invention. That approach of inventing her own name has been rejected at WT:IE and in four previous CFDs; in all of those discussions, Laurel Lodged was the only editor pressing for this neologism. I hope we will not see a repeat of those attempts to flog a dead horse.
 * I am neutral on Occuli's suggestion of adding ""county)" as a disambiguator. I agree that there is some degree of ambiguity in the unqualified term "South Dublin", but I am not sure at this stage whether it is ambiguous enough to require the disambiguator. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:09, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks to user BHG for clarifying the criteria re the use of a suffix. I think that it would be helpful if the same analysis could be extended to the use of the prefix. Regarding user Occuli's suggested name (Dublin (county)), I think that it's probably a good idea. However is it limited to just South Dublin? Would it be inappropriate to extend the example to cover other modern administrative counties, for example, "Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown (county)" ? Laurel Lodged (talk) 10:42, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Disambiguators are typically parenthetical suffixes, not prefixes. To add "County" as a prefix is not a disambiguator, it suggests an alteration the name of the thing itself. Good Ol’factory (talk) 10:53, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Laurel, this discussion is not about the use of prefixes. Please can you try to stay on-topic? -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:52, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Now, now, no need for techiness. If I was to proffer a counter offer of re-name to "Category:Sport in County South Dublin", then it would be on topic. I have, however, made no such proposal, but reserve my right to do so at any time. Moreover, I have not made any Oppose here so I fail to see how my contributions on this thread could be vilified as being tendentious unless requests for clarification fall into that category. In the presence of what could only be desribed as a none too subtle attempt to railroad a proposal through by bullying, I can only admire my own restraint at not lodging a formal complaint. Lastly, I should point out that yuo are mistaken in assuming that I am female. Laurel Lodged (talk) 22:46, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Laurel, lodge a complaint if you want to. I have no desire to railroad anything, but there is no need for you to disrupt CFD by asking the same questions repeatedly, even tho they have been answered repeatedly. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:24, 24 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Support Rename per nominator's rationale and per recent renames of similar entites on Dec 8. Snappy (talk) 08:49, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Rename per nom and WP:COMMONNAME to match the head article South Dublin. If the article ever gets disambiguated, then so too should the categories. Good Ol’factory (talk) 10:53, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. It would be inadvisable to undertake the re-naming of the article unless it could have a reasonable hope of success. At a minimum, my question about Occuli's suggested name (Dublin (county)) would need a direct answer. That is, is the suggestion limited to the peculiar case of South Dublin or does it have a wider precedent setting power for other modern administrative counties? If not, the suggestion has limited utility. Preferably, I would like a full response to the "existential" question posed above as wel. We are where we are with the county names. But there no hope of advancement or consistency until we can get an unambiguous answer to the queston, "On what basis, using what criteria is the name for the county given?". Laurel Lodged (talk) 22:34, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * All of your questions immediately above relate to the naming of articles. Since this is categories for discussion, we generally don't get into proposals to rename articles or discussions about the viability of a rename for an article. I suggest if you want to pursue renames for articles, you use the article talk page and/or WP:RM. I have no idea what the answer to the first question is. The answer to the second is that category names generally match article names. So if you want a category name to be a certain way, the first step is to get consensus to rename the article. This has been explained to you a number of times, and I'm not sure why it needs to be repeated over and over. Good Ol’factory (talk) 03:45, 24 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Rename per nom and main article. Timrollpickering (talk) 19:39, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Support Rename per nominator's rationale and per recent renames of similar entites on Dec 8. An awful lot of time has been wasted on these discussions, IMHO. Hohenloh + 12:42, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Rename Per similar renames. I still have concerns about the Category:Local councillors in South Dublin County and similar renames as it disassociates the cat from the "County Council" but that was not a viewpoint that prevailed. RevelationDirect (talk) 15:37, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * As at the previous discussions, I have no objection to creating a Category:Members of South Dublin County Council if there are enough articles to populate it. However, renaming this broad category would preclude its use for earlier councils in what is now South Dublin, such as the Rural District and Urban District Councils abolished in the 1930s. From this list I think the only one in the current South Dublin was the Dublin South Rural District, but there may be others. - Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:15, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 *  Oppose rename:  Oppose rename in form originally proposed: I expect this opposing statement to be lost in the flood of support but it is worth making a case for the useful clarifying function performed by the existing inclusion of "County" in the category titles. Simply, it makes clear that the titles refer to the south of the county, and not the south of the city. "South Dublin" by itself is an ambiguous phrase strongly suggestive of the southside of the city—it is very close to the usage, the southside—and on that basis, I would prefer to see the "County" retained so as not to introduce unnecessary confusion. Bear in mind, Wikipedia is not only for residents of Dublin, or Ireland, many of whom may be expected to be alive to the differences. Much Irish Wikipedia article writing is already weakened by editors' assumptions that the material will be semi-familiar to the reader, while this is not true at all of most overseas readers. Clarity and immediacy of comprehension are strong virtues in writing.  — O'Dea  22:29, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Reply. I understand the concern, and as noted above I would not oppose the addition of the word county a disambiguator, as in "South Dublin (county)". In fact, I'm now inclined to think that there is enough ambiguity that I would prefer the addition of the disambiguator.
 * However, the current name of these categories is simply wrong. The county is called "South Dublin", not "South Dublin County". -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:30, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Reply to reply. At first glance, I am inclined to support South Dublin (county) as it resolves both concerns. "County" is not in the name of the region, yet its parenthetic inclusion amply distinguishes it from the southside. — O'Dea  22:35, 27 December 2010 (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:The Bill seasons

 * 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. Courcelles 05:35, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Propose renaming Category:The Bill seasons to Category:The Bill series
 * Nominator's rationale: Rename. The Bill is a British television programme, therefore it has series, not seasons. Neelix (talk) 15:29, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Support renaming -- although I am a Yank I know that British television programs have "series", whereas American televison programs have "seasons", which culminate in a series finale. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 18:44, 23 December 2010 (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:I Am... Yours list

 * 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: Speedy deleted per WP:IAR as tests/inappropriate use of categorization. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:46, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
 * i am... yours list
 * lawrencé's crush


 * Nominator's rationale - Delete both - Not sure what these are. All these categories contain are a copy of themselves and a user page. Possibly some sort of test pages or attempted userspace content, but I'm not sure. VegaDark (talk) 06:57, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete both - both are empty once we remove invalid user-page members. 2.99.138.3 (talk) 10:45, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Speedy delete Useless. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:52, 24 December 2010 (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:Hillman Prize winners

 * 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. Courcelles 05:39, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * hillman prize winners


 * Nominator's rationale: Delete WP:OC. Another award category.  There is a list in the article.  In fact the article should probably be renamed to say that it is a list. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:45, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete as we usually do for award categories. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:22, 22 December 2010 (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:Yakir Yerushalayim recipients

 * 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: Listify (already done) and delete. Dana boomer (talk) 20:20, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * yakir yerushalayim recipients


 * Nominator's rationale: Delete. This is an awards category for people. It's essentially an "honorary citizen of Jerusalem" award. It has been discussed previously but there was no consensus to delete, since most of the discussion focused on renaming it. It is fully listified at Yakir Yerushalayim, and I think the category should be deleted, as most awards categories are. Similar "honorary citizenship" categories that have been deleted are:
 * Honorary citizens of the United States
 * Honorary citizens of Canada
 * Honorary citizens of Ireland
 * the general "honorary citizens" container category
 * Honorary Citizens of Sonora
 * Honorary citizens of Vienna
 * Honorary citizens of Berlin
 * Why the Jerusalem one would be singled out for keeping among these is not clear to me. Good Ol’factory (talk) 04:34, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment. I don't think it's fair to call this an "honorary citizens" category, because it is issued to "a long-time resident of Jerusalem whose work on behalf of the city or life story is an inspiration to others". It sounds rather more like a "freedom of the city" award in England. I can't see any reason to keep the category, but just want to note that I think your comparison is mistaken. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:28, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It used to be called, so I figured that was a reasonably accurate reflection of what it amounts to. "Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem"; "an annual citizenship prize"—clearly in this case the person has to be a city resident, so it's not an exact analogue. But whatever it is, it's quite similar in type to those that have been deleted before. Good Ol’factory (talk) 08:48, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Listify and delete -- Honorary citizenship aka the grant of freedom of the city is essentially an award given by the city to a worthy non-citizen. This is waht we almost invariably do with award categories.  Peterkingiron (talk) 17:15, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Listify and delete per Peter Kingiron. And thanks to GO for clarifying the comparison. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:55, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Listify as per the above editors' reasoning. Honorary citizens of a particular country should be in the form of lists, not categories. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 18:48, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Whatever the coincidence of the name, this is typically only awarded to a few people per year, and to obscure local figures for whom it is probably very much defining. Both of these features distinguish it from typical honorary citizenships which are given out by the cartload, and to all sorts of visiting celebrities. A random sample of 5 people's articles in the category all mention it, which I doubt would be the case with honorary citizenships/freedoms. I note GOs argument in Berlin discussion linked above:"If these proliferated, certain bio articles would have many, many of these. They are almost akin to the "honorary doctorate" categories for universities" - I don't think that applies here.  Johnbod (talk) 09:57, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Johnbod, the number of recipients doesn't seem to me to be particularly relevant either way. However, I could be persuaded to a "keep" if the award is indeed defining for a significant proportion of its recipients, rather than merely being another honour collected by people who would be equally notable without the award. Can you give us some examples of people for whom you consider the award to have been defining, and those for whom it isn't? -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:33, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. I find it highly surprising that this category should be proposed for deletion only some six months after it was previously nominated (by Good Ol’factory) for deletion, albeit under its previous name. The result of the discussion was to rename the category to its present name. Davshul (talk) 16:37, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
 * There was "no consensus" on whether to delete or not, so I'm not sure why a re-nomination for deletion should surprise anyone. You may wish to provide a rationale for keeping other than being surprised. (Incidentally, I already linked to the previous discussion in my nomination, so it's not like I was trying to deceive about its existence.) Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:14, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. I originally named it "honorary citizen of Jerusalem" without being aware of the subtleties of such a title in different places throughout the world. Yakir Yerushalaim is an award given for worthy services. It would be the same as deleting the Nobel prize winners category, albeit on a different level. --Sreifa (talk) 10:58, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom as is standard for awards. Listify if anyone feels a strong need.  This discussion does nothing to show why this award is so exception.  Clearly deleting this category is not in the same league as deleting the Nobel prize winners category.  It would be more appropriate to say that deleting this is the same as every other city based honorary category. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:53, 5 January 2011 (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.

Victims of political repressions clean-up

 * 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 is an inherent problem with categories, in that categories do not come with notes, explanations, or even sources; they are just added to the bottom of an article as facts.  As such, we cannot use categories that are subjective or POV.  As was pointed out, you can deal with many points of view in an article, but not with categories.  These categories, have been argued here and elsewhere, are subjective and POV.  There are very few arguments that they are not.  As pointed out, whether or not someone is a victim of repression is based upon the source, which can be countered with one that says otherwise.  Again, without the explanations an article can benefit from, the category is doing nothing more than stating a "fact", which is misleading.  Categories must be objective and NPOV.  Kbdank71 04:18, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Category:Armenian victims of Soviet repressions
 * Category:Austrian victims of Nazi German repressions
 * Category:Azerbaijani victims of Soviet repressions
 * Category:Bulgarian victims of Soviet repressions
 * Category:Cossack victims of Soviet repressions
 * Category:Czech victims of Soviet repressions
 * Category:Dutch victims of Soviet repressions
 * Category:Estonian victims of Soviet repressions
 * Category:Finnish victims of Soviet repressions
 * Category:Georgian victims of Soviet repressions
 * Category:Islamic victims of Soviet repressions
 * Category:Italian victims of Soviet repressions
 * Category:Jewish victims of Soviet repressions
 * Category:Latvian victims of Soviet repressions
 * Category:Polish victims of Nazi German repressions
 * Category:Russian victims of Soviet repressions
 * Category:Slovenian victims of Nazi German repressions
 * Category:Slovenian victims of political repression in Fascist Italy
 * Category:Slovenian victims of political repressions
 * Category:Slovenian victims of political repressions in Communist Yugoslavia
 * Category:Spanish victims of Soviet repressions
 * Category:Swiss victims of Soviet repressions
 * Category:Uzbekistani victims of Soviet repressions
 * Category:Victims of Apartheid repressions in South Africa
 * Category:Victims of communist repressions in Poland
 * Category:Victims of communist repressions in Romania
 * Category:Victims of Nationalist repressions in China
 * Category:Victims of Nationalist repressions in Spain
 * Category:Victims of Nazi German repressions by nationality
 * Category:Victims of Nazi repression
 * Category:Victims of North Korean political repressions
 * Category:Victims of Pakistani political repression
 * Category:Victims of political repression
 * Category:Victims of political repression by country
 * Category:Victims of political repression in Brazil
 * Category:Victims of political repression in China
 * Category:Victims of political repression in communist Czechoslovakia
 * Category:Victims of political repression in communist states
 * Category:Victims of political repression in Fascist Italy
 * Category:Victims of political repression in Puerto Rico
 * Category:Victims of political repression in Spain
 * Category:Victims of political repression in Taiwan
 * Category:Victims of political repression in Uruguay
 * Category:Victims of psychiatric repression
 * Category:Victims of Russian political repressions
 * Category:Victims of South Korean political repressions
 * Category:Victims of Soviet repressions by nationality
 * Category:Victims of Soviet repressions by religion
 * Category:Victims of Stalinist repressions in Spain


 * Nominator's rationale: Delete. A couple of swaths of these have been recently deleted, and over the months it's been going bit by bit, but so far we have missed nominating some of these. These seem to be the remnants. Many of the parent/sub categories for these have already been deleted in the previous discussions, so the scheme is a bit of a mess right now. I suggest finishing these off, for the same reasons given by the nominator and participants in the previous discussions. Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:55, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete all: I absolutely agree as continuation of and . I had, in fact,  been collecting those categories which remained, almost identical to the compilation above, and was going to resubmit as "Repression redux" CFDs. Reasons the same: WP:POV, WP:WEASEL, et al. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 02:31, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete all per nominator. Per comment at one of the other recent CFDs, categories such as this are a diabolically subjective POV-fest, incapable of objective definition, and their existence sets up good-faith editors for battles over nuances of political values. Congrats to the nominator on collecting the remaining ones and bringing them here. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:27, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Lists are a much better tool for grouping this sort of subjective judgement, where each inclusion can be sourced, annotated and explained. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:53, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep all for now, handle deletion case-by-case basis. I see no reason for deletion for many or even most of these, valid and useful categories with entries that are solid and well-documented. -- Sander Säde 08:53, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but we've done case-by-case for the past few months, and the consensus has been that we need to deal with all of them the same; otherwise we're favouring or disfavouring certain nationalities and countries over others. If one is POV and problematic, then they all are under this phrasing. (Besides, how can we legitimately keep when the parent  has already been deleted by consensus? To delete the parent is almost an implied consensus to delete the subcategories.) Good Ol’factory (talk) 08:56, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm gonna take issue with the statement that was deleted by consensus. In that discussion I see just the three of you (Good Ol', BHG, and Rms) + 2 other users who provide no rationale for their vote (hence, per rules, their input should not be counted). So rather it seems like a good portion of the community - necessary for establishment of consensus - was simply not aware of it taking place (this is of course nobody's fault). I was certainly surprised when bot-removal of the category started popping up on my watchlist. So there really was no consensus in the first place and that particular discussion should be had again. Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:04, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The deletion of these has been going on for some time, and every time the discussion has been had since September 2009, consensus has been to delete them. Some discussions get more input than others, but the result has always been the same. For one with wider input, see here. I'm not sure how else the discussion you complain about could have been closed. Good Ol’factory (talk) 02:16, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe since September, but apparantly not since May . And in regard to the discussion you link to, what can I say? To me it looks like the closing admin made a mistake, particularly since the votes appear to be split evenly - looks like they went with their own personal opinion rather than that of the discussants. Hence, it should be relisted. Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:15, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It all comes down to sources. If the source clearly states a person was repressed by [insert suitable oppressor], then how can we argue against adding the person to a such category? If we have dozens of people, who have been repressed/murdered/deported by an country or political system, then why not should all of them to be easily located by a category? I've found a couple of these categories before to be excellent for navigating and finding articles I've been interested. "POV and problematic" are not reason for deletion in this case - otherwise, we might as well delete all of Wikipedia. How many of these categories have only entries that are not sourced? Delete these. Keep others. A simple and clear policy. -- Sander Säde 09:32, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Reliable don't help resolve subjective issues such as this, because it is equally possible for another equally scholarly source to make an opposite value judgement on the same set of facts. POVs can be dealt with quite adequately in the text of an article, but not with categories, which either applied or not, and appear both in the article and in the category listing with no explanation or qualification.
 * I would just add to what BHG said above by stating that if there was a source that clearly states that a person was "repressed by X", then that's a reasonably clear indication that the source itself may not be neutral; hence we wouldn't really want to use it anyway. And in any case, there are always going to be conflicting sources that characterize the "repression" as something entirely different, like "effective suppression of insurrection", etc. Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:20, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep all: I see no reason for deletion. I don't believe the term "political repression" is problematic in itself: if there's a problem in its application, this should be dealt on a case-by-case basis. Viator slovenicus (talk) 12:50, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually Viator slovenicus: I have a problem with someone creating It is extremely problematic that, due to lax category creating guidelines, no fewer than four dubious pages categories for one small country were created, to wit: Category:Slovenian victims of Nazi German repressions, Category:Slovenian victims of political repression in Fascist Italy, Category:Slovenian victims of political repressions and Category:Slovenian victims of political repressions in Communist Yugoslavia.
 * Of these four, one is a general parent category (Category:Slovenian victims of political repressions) and another relates to Communism. While it is particularly offensive that two categories related to the Holocaust period should be fashioned for one small, homogeneous country that suffered relatively little if at all during that heinous period, this example should demonstrate just how POV-ridden and ethnically driven these categories are. They are innately unreliable and capricious. To allow these last categories to remain when the remainder have been deleted would be irresponsible and unacceptable. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 16:27, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep and rename for the defunct Nazi Germany and Soviet Union based on the scheme I previously proposed (now below). - In the immediately prior CfD at Partial list of victimology categories, I suggested a comprehensive renaming scheme for those Wikipedia categories with "repression" and "victim" in their name. That suggestion received some comments set out in the below collapsed template:


 * Propose renaming Category:American victims of Soviet repressions to Category:American people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Armenian victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Armenian people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Atheist victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Atheist people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Austrian victims of Nazi German repressions to Category:Austrian people persecuted by political repression in Nazi Germany
 * Propose renaming Category:Azerbaijani victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Azerbaijani people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Belarusian victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Belarusian people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Bulgarian victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Bulgarian people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Canadian victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Canadian people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Catholic victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Catholic people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Christian victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Christian people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Cossack victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Cossack people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Crimean Tatar victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Crimean Tatar people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Czech victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Czech people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Dutch victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Dutch people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Eastern Catholic victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Eastern Catholic people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Eastern Orthodox victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Eastern Orthodox people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Estonian victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Estonian people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Finnish victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Finnish people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Georgian victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Georgian people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:German victims of Soviet repressions to Category:German people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Hungarian victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Hungarian people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Indian victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Indian people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Irish victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Irish people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Islamic victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Islamic people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Italian victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Italian people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Jewish victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Jewish people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Kazakhstani victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Kazakhstani people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Latvian victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Latvian people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Lithuanian victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Lithuanian people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Polish victims of Nazi German repressions to Category:Polish people persecuted by political repression in Nazi Germany
 * Propose renaming Category:Polish victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Polish people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Protestant victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Protestant people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Roman Catholic victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Roman Catholic people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Romanian victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Romanian people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Russian victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Russian people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Slovenian victims of Nazi German repressions to Category:Slovenian people persecuted by political repression in Nazi Germany
 * Propose renaming Category:Slovenian victims of political repression in Fascist Italy to Category:Slovenian people persecuted by political repression in Fascist Italy
 * Propose renaming Category:Slovenian victims of political repressions to Category:Slovenian people persecuted by political repression
 * Propose renaming Category:Slovenian victims of political repressions in Communist Yugoslavia to Category:Slovenian people persecuted by political repression in Communist Yugoslavia
 * Propose renaming Category:Spanish victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Spanish people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Swedish victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Swedish people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Swiss victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Swiss people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Tajikistani victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Tajikistani people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Ukrainian victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Ukrainian people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Uzbekistani victims of Soviet repressions to Category:Uzbekistani people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of Apartheid repressions in South Africa to Category:People persecuted by apartheid in South Africa
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of communist repressions in Poland to Category:People persecuted by political repression in Poland
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of communist repressions in Romania to Category:People persecuted by political repression in Romania
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of French political repressions to Category:People persecuted by political repression in France
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of Nationalist repressions in China to Category:People persecuted by Nationalist political repression in China
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of Nationalist repressions in Spain to Category:People persecuted by Nationalist political repression in Spain
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of Nazi German repressions by nationality to Category:People persecuted by political repression in Nazi Germany by nationality
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of Nazi repression to Category:People persecuted by political repression in Nazi Germany
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of North Korean political repressions to Category:People persecuted by political repression in North Korea
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of Pakistani political repression to Category:People persecuted by political repression in Pakistan
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of political repression to Category:People persecuted by political repression
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of political repression by country to Category:People persecuted by political repression by country
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of political repression in Brazil to Category:People persecuted by political repression in Brazil
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of political repression in China to Category:People persecuted by political repression in China
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of political repression in communist Czechoslovakia to Category:People persecuted by political repression in communist Czechoslovakia
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of political repression in communist states to Category:People persecuted by political repression by communist state
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of political repression in Fascist Italy to Category:People persecuted by political repression in Fascist Italy
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of political repression in Puerto Rico to Category:People persecuted by political repression in Puerto Rico
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of political repression in Spain to Category:People persecuted by political repression in Spain
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of political repression in Taiwan to Category:People persecuted by political repression in Taiwan
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of political repression in Uruguay to Category:People persecuted by political repression in Uruguay
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of psychiatric repression to Category:People persecuted by political abuses of psychiatry in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of Russian political repressions to Category:People persecuted by political repression in Russia
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of South Korean political repressions to Category:People persecuted by political repression in South Korea
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of Soviet repressions to Category:People persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of Soviet repressions by nationality to Category:People persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union by nationality
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of Soviet repressions by religion to Category:People persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union by religion
 * Propose renaming Category:Victims of Stalinist repressions in Spain to Category:People persecuted by Stalinist political repression in Spain
 * My proposed renaming essentially has two variables: political repression and persecuted. The meaning of political repression is set out in the article Political repression. Persecuted is a strong term, much stronger than victim, and requires persistent political repression rather than, say, a one time act of political repression. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 10:50, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think that Political repression is good enough a parent article to justify this category tree. I'd like to see a decent article on People subjected to political repression or People subjected to political persecution first.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:50, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that this proposal by Uzma Gamal is a well-intentioned effort to narrow the scope of the category. Unfortunately, it doesn't work, because "persecuted" is both POV and lacks clear boundaries. For example, was Dominic McGlinchey a) persecuted by the Govts of both Ireland and the United Kingdom, b) a freedom fighter in a war, or c) a violent criminal? There are plenty of reliable sources to back up any of those three points of view. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:44, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The proposal by Uzma Gamal appears to derive from a desire to rescue articles which almost everyone on this thread agrees should go. The proposal is an unnecessary 11th hour diversion which doesn't change the basic problems, which I don't think I need to repeat here, in categorizations including terms such as "repression" and "persecuted", which are subjective (i.e. subject to the political position of the editor or author). Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 16:27, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, Uzma Gamal's proposal includes categories not included in this CFD and ignores others listed by me here, which indicates that the renaming proposal would be unequally applied. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 16:59, 21 December 2010 (UTC)


 * As noted in the above collapsed template, Rms125a, BrownHairedGirl, and SmokeyJoe commented. Rms125a, the purpose of CfD is discussion, not deletion, and I don't appreciate the way you jumped down on me personally for my efforts in the prior CFD discussion. Even if you think that there is room for equal debate as to whether Nazi Germany use forcible subjugation as part of a persistent and systematic mistreatment of an individual or groups, the collective of reliable source material says otherwise and such Wikipedia categories can be populate based on reliable sources. The same is true for the Soviet Union. In General: Countries may engage in some act of forcible subjugation within their own geographic boarders some time in there existence, but unlike the defunct Nazi Germany and defunct Soviet Union, the collective of reliable sources do not support the idea that most countries engage in political repression to where it becomes a persistent and systematic mistreatment of an individual or groups. Using "persecuted" in the category name is "a well-intentioned effort to narrow the scope of the categories" related to political repression as BrownHairedGirl mentioned. Wikipedia property: We do have decent articles on political repression, persecution, Nazi Germany, and Soviet Union which can be used by editors in deciding whether a particular article should be added to a given "people persecuted by political repression in Nazi Germany" or "people persecuted by political repression in the Soviet Union" category. Perspective: Perspective always is applied to bad, good, human rights, and other ethical and political issues. That is human nature. But merely because a small group of individuals may be perceived to hold a certain belief doesn't make the topic subjective and, as far as Wikipedia is concerned, the answer lies in the collective of the reliable sources, not on any one reliable source. In other words, merely because a topic is subject to the political position of an editor or author doesn't make the topic subjective. Most topics on Wikipedia could be politically spun. When a written source presents the political position of an editor or author, then the reliability of the source should be question at Reliable sources/Noticeboard. The category should not be delete. Position: Because the collective of the reliable sources agree that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union engaged in persecution by political repression, the CfD related to these defunct period states as nominated by Good Ol’factory should be renamed based on the scheme:

"x people persecuted by political repression in y", where x is blank or from Category:People by nationality and y is one of "Nazi Germany" or "Soviet Union"
 * -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 12:52, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Uzma Gamal -- we use sources, references and links to back up and defend the articles we create and/or the text we insert inside those articles. They cannot be used in the same way regarding potentially unlimited, over-reaching, POV-ridden, subjective, and capricious categorizations. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 16:51, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * "political repressions" is not quite correct here - in quite a few cases the categories are about ethnic repressions, for example, Cossacks, Jews, apartheid etc. -- Sander Säde 15:55, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Sander - any category that purports to represent an entire people who have been allegedly repressed because of their religion, race, skin color, etc. is potentially or actually unlimited. It means anyone who fulfills even one criterion automatically derives the benefit of belonging to a certain category. It would be extremely difficult, rancorous and possibly impossible to police against potential abuses under these circumstances. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 16:51, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Uzma Gamal has made a misleading out-of-context quote of my comment "a well-intentioned effort to narrow the scope of the categories", because Uzma neglected to note that my next sentence in the same edit began "unfortunately it doesn't work". That omission inverts my meaning.
 * Uzma's suggestion of relying in reliable sources doesn't work either. The overall question of "was there political repression in Nazi Germany?" is answered by most RSs as "yes", but the same answer can be given for just about any country we select on the globe. The problem is that the terms remain subjective, and the addition of "persecution" is merely another subjective term. Words such as "imprisoned", "killed", "arrested" or "deported" are capable of objective assessments, but "persecuted" and "repressed" remain value judgements. RSs don't help with value judgements, because the value judgements depend on perspective rather than on a neutral assessment of the facts.
 * Per WP:NPOV, all this stuff can be addressed in the body of an article by starting the various perspectives. "The Nazis labelled Obadobdorf as a threat to National Socialism whom they would hunt down without mercy. Snodgrass (1973) described this as 'vicious persecution', but Jones and Smith (1998) concluded that despite the obvious anti-semitism, Obadobdorf's actions would have been treated harshly by the criminal justice system in most countries". That sort of multiperspective assessment cannot be conveyed through categories, which allow no qualification or counterview: either a category is applied or it's not. That's why all of these categories remain equally problematic, and why no amount of tweaking the wording can fix the fundamental problem of subjectivity. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:44, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Above I listed everything you posted in that previous debate about my list, so I don't see how anyone could have been mislead or viewed it as being out of context. Also, are you saying that because you believed my efforts didn't work, that it is misleading to and out of context to say you believed them to be "a well-intentioned effort to narrow the scope of the categories"? By your own standards, BrownHairedGirl, you made a misleading out-of-context quote of my comment "Nazi Germany use forcible subjugation as part of a persistent and systematic mistreatment of an individual or groups" by stating that the overall question is: "was there political repression in Nazi Germany?" The approach in trying to reframe my keep arguments shows strength in my arguments. Also, if Wikipedia consensus is that Persecution, political repression, or even Political repression in the Soviet Union inherently are NPOV, then Wikipedia would not have articles on them. These are strong points for keeping and renaming the categories. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 06:27, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Uzma, I didn't quote you or claim that I was quoting you when I posed that question; I was framing the issue underlying those categories.
 * I disagree with your prev suggestion because it doesn't work, but believed it was made in a good faith effort to address the problem, and out of civility I said so. It's quite possible to be well-intentioned but wrong, and that's what I think of your suggestion here, and I make no apology for assuming that you acted in good faith.
 * Finally, please try to read what I wrote about the difference between how we handle NPOV in articles, and the difficulties of doing so with categories. You should also read WP:NPOV, and WP:CAT, which says"Categorizations appear on pages without annotations or referencing to justify or explain their addition; editors should be conscious of the need to maintain a neutral point of view when creating categories or adding them to articles. Categorizations should generally be uncontroversial; if the category's topic is likely to spark controversy, then a list article (which can be annotated and referenced) is probably more appropriate."
 * -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:48, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Uzma: I believe BHG is accurate when she points out that your citation of her words was incomplete by not including the immediately following words ("unfortunately it doesn't work") which are essential to the argument she was making, which I share. To wit, while well-intentioned, your proposed system of renaming (see above) is little more than a tweak and no better than the current non-NPOV system we are trying to reform (i.e. subjective terms "persecuted" and "repression"). Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 17:10, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, some of this here conundrum has to do with user need, even among Wikipedians, to have everything presented in a nice package with a big bow around it like a holiday or birthday present, all ready for immediate consumption. I have observed in passing a lot of relatively newly-created categories, tailor-made for the interests/value judgments of the categories' creators or to maximize the number of categories which can accrue to a subject, often using silly but disastrously broad intersections. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 21:52, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete all per nom: 1) Inherently subjective, politically driven and POV-pushing, and embarrassing to Wikipedia. 2) The existence of the book Political Repression in Modern America from 1870 to 1976 by American Professor Robert Justin Goldstein (and published by University of Illinois Press in 2001) was presented as an argument in the CFD for Category:Victims of American political repression, but was dismissed by User:Xdamr, who closed as delete on the grounds that such a category wasn't NPOV. (Again -- reliable sources notwithstanding, our America-leaning consensus didn't like the existence of that one.) This introduces serious editorial bias. Does "Free Encyclopedia" = "Encyclopedia of American Exceptionalism"? And what is to be done about scholarly and WP:RS sources that are reliable in terms of facts but partisan in their description? 3) Wikipedia, I think, is meant to represent a non-partisan effort. This very debate and ones like it -- essentially, the very fact that these categories are seen as so seriously controversial and constantly objected to individually and collectively, with sources for claims of "repression" explicitly given, implied, or otherwise -- is a testament to the partisanship that's just embedded at the very core of our categorization problem itself. Wholly non-partisan categories like Category:Italian opera composers, Category:American businessmen, Category:Children of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, and Category:Soviet prisoners and detainees are 300% uncontroversial; this particular tree of "repression" categories, like now-deleted structures Category:Political prisoners, Category:Traitors, and Category:Terrorists (adhering to partisan or charged labels that, like "victims of repression" may also be found in some WP:RS work), is pretty much at the opposite pole of the WP:NPOV criterion. Logically, the way to move forward from where we are is to have these categories deleted likewise. Anything else places the discretion at some level of subjectivity, whether the sources' or the editors'. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 22:39, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment (while I think about it more) - looking at the two links provided by Rms125a@hotmail.com it seems like in the first discussion the delete vote was upheld with minimal participation - and essentially by the same three or four people who are arguing for deletion here - and should probably be restored/relisted to get wider community input, while the second link shows that there was no consensus to delete another batch of categories. I understand the concerns with these categories, but I don't see at the moment how these are sufficient for deletion or different from standard concerns about POV in articles. Yes, caution should be used when using these cats (and prolly the default should be "don't include" unless very strong sources are provided for support) but that's not the same as deleting. Ok, apparently I've thought about it as I was writing this so Keep all. Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:55, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Add. Looking at it some more it seems like some of the categories from the discussion closed as 'no consensus' (and there is some very strong keeps in that discussion) are being relisted here, for example Category:Victims of Apartheid repressions in South Africa. Hence this isn't a "continuation" of that vote, but rather a relisting. It also very strongly suggests that this deletion discussion should be had again - Relisted - since it appears a good portion of the community was not aware of it (I certainly wasn't and I would've liked to have said something) and might have a different view.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:00, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Volunteer Marek: "Comment (while I think about it more).... Ok, apparently I've thought about it as I was writing this" -- this is an immature and annoying style of writing. Responses should be kept simple and respectful, not stream of consciousness. And crediting me for providing links of which you happened to be unaware so that you can vote here now is gratuitous and not appreciated, especially when you apparently reference me as part of some imaginary conspiratorial troika underhandedly deleting categories willy-nilly. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 18:26, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry if you're annoyed but there was nothing immature in what I wrote. Neither was it disrespectful. However, if you continue to patronize me like this it will get that way really fast. Usually the problem is editors NOT explaining the basis for their vote, rather than vice versa. If you don't like the style, that's fine, but please keep it to yourself and discuss the issue rather than the editor.
 * As far as this troika business goes - well, now THAT's disrespectful. I never said or implied anything of the kind and I do not appreciate you putting words in my mouth. The point was merely that the previous discussion did not have a very lage number of editors participating. I also don't see what your problem with me "crediting" you for the link is. You posted it. I referenced it. So?Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:11, 26 December 2010 (UTC)


 * You made the following assertions:
 * a) "In that discussion I see just the three of you (Good Ol', BHG, and Rms) + 2 other users who provide no rationale for their vote (hence, per rules, their input should not be counted)." (Error alert/correction - per rules those votes without rationale are to be "accorded lesser weight")
 * "and essentially by the same three or four people who are arguing for deletion here"
 * So much for the "I never said or implied anything of the kind" (re "troika")
 * b) "So rather it seems like a good portion of the community - necessary for establishment of consensus - was simply not aware of it taking place (this is of course nobody's fault)."
 * You continue to ignore the fact that you are the only editor posting here using the argument that he or she was unaware of the CFD. For 9 days, no fewer than thirty categories were on combined display at CFD. If you missed it for whatever reason that's not a valid basis for relisting. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 00:54, 26 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment on creation process. The vast majority of these categories were created by one editor, and none of the articles I've looked at contain specific citations for the "repression" claims. Editors who work with certain other nationality articles then seemed to pick up on this and created ones for those nationalities. It looks to me like a situation where there was one bad idea from one editor, and then a bunch of me-too-ism from some others who worked in different areas. Editors with concerns regarding specific articles or groups of articles should realise that deleting these categories doesn't mean the articles in question can't be otherwise categorized in a more neutral way relating to the topics. Good Ol’factory (talk) 02:25, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Thirty (30) categories were on CFD from December 13 until December 21. If certain editors were oblivious to this then I suspect that these categories were not of paramount importance to them. There should be no relisting. The editors on the prior thread made our cogent arguments and the matter was decided. The final categories recommended for deletion herein should also be deleted in the best interest of Wikipedia as they are subjective, politically/ethnically inspired cruft, and to leave them while the rest were deleted would be absurdly illogical. Better categories (not Uzma Gamal's) can be created which are based on objective criteria and agreeable to all of good faith. Let's not forget WP:IAR, which no one should be loath to invoke to protect and preserve Wikipedia's integrity. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 22:42, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete -- We need to decide what this tree is really about. The victims of genocide are clearly in a category of their own.  Many people were imprisoned in Communist countries, not just USSR ("Soviet") for their beliefs, but not always their political beliefs; sometimes religious ones; and sometimes in USSR during 1930s, because an official had to fulfil a quota for shipping people to forced labour camps, involving imprisonment on very flimsy grounds. In the 1920s, the Soviet Communists imprisoned the entire membership of other political parties. These are all legitimate categories (and some probably exist). However, the words "victim" and "political repression" are inevitably POV.  If you were a communist in USSR or a Nazi in Germany, you would regard the action taken as legitmate and justified, however much I as a western liberal and democrat may deplore. There are potentially legitimate categories to be created, and I hope that this discussion will establish what they are. However, the present ones are POV and must be deleted. Peterkingiron (talk) 12:25, 24 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment if you were to rename the section Category:Victims of political repression in communist Czechoslovakia to Category: Political prisoners in communist Czechoslovakia you would get rid of the NPOV problems. However, in my familly alone, and we are not a big familly, 2 people died in political prison during the comunist era... And thinking about that, even that name would be contensions, because technically one of them was in a "work camp" and not a prison... I'm not asking for sympathy here, you can see from my American name that my grandparents escaped. I never knew these people. But maybe it sheds light on the impossibility of such a list. It would include thousands of names. Maybe you would make the list Category:Notable political prisoners in communist Czechoslovakia it would include people like our president Vaclav Havel. Looking up his name, he already belongs to the first group, but also Category:Prisoners and detainees of Czechoslovakia and Category:Czechoslovak prisoners and detainees. Though neither of those groups are appropriate, as their title does not specify that he was a political prisoner during comunist era Czechoslovakia... Tim.thelion (talk) 06:16, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Tim, I sympathize with your family losses, but your comment "However, in my familly alone, and we are not a big familly, 2 people died in political prison during the comunist era... And thinking about that, even that name would be contensions, because technically one of them was in a "work camp" and not a prison..." seems to indicate a degree of overriding personal familial sentiment which may be impacting on what should be all Wikipedians' default NPOV setting. Nobody is stating the Nazis and the Soviets, and for that matter many others throughout history didn't commit atrocities. The point is (how to) create and name categories both encyclopaedically and neutrally. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 17:10, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Rms, in order to understand all points of view, one has to consider all points of view. Understanding is essencial for NPOV editing.  Maybe I'm not the right person to make this desission alone.  But my comments, my POV, are essential to the discussion as a whole...  There is also a problem here.  There are typically 3 groups of people.  Those who know nothing.  Those who know something and have a POV bias on what they know. And those who know everything. And given that as humans, we can only belong to either the first or the seccond, and only ever strive for the third :D ...  Tim.thelion (talk) 05:37, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I am not in any way trying to defend the state, just to point out that that all these situations can be viewed from two perspectives, and there is no objective NPOV way of deciding whether to apply the "political" label. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:12, 25 December 2010 (UTC) As to whether "a whole bunch of people decided to elect criminals to our parliament" ... well a defender of the pre-1990 regime might say that's exactly what happened. I happen to disagree, just as you do, but since many of those ppl were convicted of crimes, our objection is POV. What you are asking for here is in effect a "category of good people imprisoned by a regime I dislike", which is thoroughly POV, and as such is unacceptable whatever the nature of the regime. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:29, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Interesting suggestion, Tim.thelion ... but unfortunately the concept of a political prisoner is equally POV. As such it is just as unsuitable as "political repression" as the basis for a category.
 * The article political prisoner is a shameful mess, but it does give some idea of the huge variety of perspectives on the use of the term. Talk:Political prisoner is full of disputes over the application of the term to individuals, and we have a red-hot current example in Julian Assange. Is Assange a political prisoner, or is he just a person being investigated in relation to alleged sexual offences? There is no shortage of refs available in very reliable sources to lend support to whichever view you prefer (see Talk:Political prisoner and Talk:Julian Assange). -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:15, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
 * There are some cases where it is clearcut and cases where it is not clear cut and also cases where it is hard to know. In the case that a person is imprisoned for offenses such as "Holding illegal unauthorised public gatherings." "Publishing materials defamitory to the state." or "Inciting revolution" there is little arguing that these people are not political prisoners. Even if you think these people are bad... Then there are cases where, for example, someone was arrested and the familly does not know what happened to them. Or they where arrested for their dealings in the black market during the comunist times(many people will argue this is political imprissonment especially given the rumors/reports that bribery and good connections could get one out of these charges). These examples are not clear cut. And in the case of Assange, if we where to get some leaked document with Hillary Clintons signature ordering the Swedish to arrest Assange under false charges it would be clear cut. Otherwise we simply don't know... (not sure about people who have attempted or comited political assasination, spies, terrorists... Arguably these people are political prisoners as well) How about the Category:Political activists and writers who were imprisoned under various charges during the comunist era in Czechoslovakia that seems pretty unambiguous... Tim.thelion (talk) 17:41, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, the examples you cite are not clearcut. For instance, "holding illegal unauthorised public gatherings" is phrase which would include those arrested in England under the sections 132 to 138 of SOCA, which allows the banning of demonstrations near Parliament Square. It's entirely a matter of POV whether people arrested in that way are political prisoners or people detained for breaches of public order, and similar issue arise with demos in other countries. Convictions for illegal forms of trading are not in themselves political unless you are a completely-purist free-trader, and that's a POV of itself; while the notion that bribery and/or corruption makes a conviction "political" is a poor one, because if we applied that test then every petty criminal convicted in a corrupt judicial system (of which there have been plenty) becomes a "political prisoner".
 * That's why I proposed getting rid of the political lable when attached to the crime, and instead attach it to the person. A petty criminal would not be included in a category of political activists imprisoned under various charges, and there is no disputing, for example, that Vaclav Havel was a political activist. There is also no disputing the fact that he was imprissoned. This category would include Assange, yet not imply that he was a prisoner for political reasons... Tim.thelion (talk) 19:32, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, if you attach the label to the individual then you are creating an irrelevant intersection between and, which are two unrelated attributes. It would resolve the difficulties over Assange, but the scope of the category would then be broad enough to include everyone from Nelson Mandela and Bobby Sands to a minor political activist imprisoned for murdering his own granny or a Scottish politician convicted of arson.-- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:54, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Or, worst of all, a George Galloway! Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 17:10, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It is just as POV to fail to document the wide extent of political and religious repression under Czechoslovak comunism as it is to document it.... For example, one would not notice that a very large procent of early multiparty parlament members(the NPOV term for members of the new democratically formulated parlament after 1992) in Czechoslovakia had been imprissoned during the comunist era. That's no coincidence. It's not like a whole bunch of people decided to elect criminals to our parliament. Tim.thelion (talk) 21:15, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Tim, there is no suggestion anywhere in this discussion that we fail to document anything. This discussion is about whether the use of a category as a navigational device between those documents accords with wikipedia's core policy of WP:NPOV. Regardless of the outcome here, there is nothing to stop you creating a list to cover the topic which interests you, where the inclusion of each entry can be referenced, explained, and if necessary qualified.
 * I want to correct myself on the date. The first postcomunist elections were in 1989 and not 1992... 1992 was the year the country got split in two... But one more comment/question. Isn't there something inbetween a category and a list?  Why are there even two different formats? It would make sense to have, for example, a note at the top of the Vaclav Havel article saying he is a member of the list of political activists imprissoned during the comunist era in Czechoslovakia... Furthermore, how does a list resolve the POV issue? I'm not saying it's not POV, but the article on Havel explicitly states: "His political activities resulted in multiple stays in prison, the longest being four years, and also subjected him to constant government surveillance and harassment." And you would be hard pressed to find a single living person who would dispute that ... Note, I have removed the words "and harassment" from the article as they were not NPOV... Tim.thelion (talk) 06:25, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Tim, the dates are not relevant to the issues of subjectivity being discussed here. If there is a list of political activists imprisoned in Czechoslovakia, then add it's accepted practice to add it to the "See also" section at the bottom of his article. Why do we have both lists and categories? Quick answer: because they work differently and they have different strengths and weaknesses (see WP:CLS). -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:58, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Most & Rename: The purpose of a cat is to logically group items and to aid navigation for readers. There are a few silly breakdowns in this cat (the Slovenian ones RMS125a pointed out) but most of these cats serve a valid purpose. The problem is that "victim" and "repression" are hard to define and the cats should be definable. (I don't see this a POV debate because substituting Peterkingiron's POV for moral relativism with the existing cats POV for moral certainty just exchanges one POV for another.) Category:People prosecuted under anti-homosexuality laws may serve as a good model to rename as it is definable. This won't cover people who "disappeared" in Argentina or other extra-judicial killings so it has it's limits. The problem with my solution is that it requires knowledge of each country so it's hard to apply this within the mass deletion nomination. But, I'll get it started where I have expertise: RevelationDirect (talk) 16:14, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * @RevelationDirect. The distinction between POV and definability doesn't get us anywhere, because the lack of a neutral definition leaves us with nothing but POV in deciding whether and how to populate these categories. If we had a stable, neutral and objectively-assessable definition, then there wouldn't be any particular POV problem here. Peterkingiron argued for definability, and it is quite mischievous to accuse him of pushing a POV of "moral relativism". -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:49, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I honestly considered this passage moral relativism: "the words 'victim' and 'political repression' are inevitably POV. If you were a communist in USSR or a Nazi in Germany, you would regard the action taken as legitmate and justified". Maybe I misread the larger argument though. We're not doing that great in the name-calling department if the best we can come up with is "mischievous" and "morally relative"! RevelationDirect (talk) 06:07, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The aim of the exercise here is not to promote one POV over another, regardless of what view we might hold ourselves. That's a core policy of wikipedia, and if you think that's a form of moral relativism which you dislike, then that's an issue to take up with the Wikimedia Foundation, rather than with the individuals editors who uphold it. Peterkingiron argued for Wikipedia policy, and it's not fair to make any inference from that what his own personal view is on these topics. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:29, 28 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete Whether someone is a "victim of repression" is a subjective opinion, not an objectively verifiable fact. The existence of such categories is incompatible with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:57, 4 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep Actually, the now-deleted parent is quite sufficient. And "political" is too narrow, many were victims/deported for other reasons (e.g., owned some property) than political views. There is nothing "subjective", either scholarly sources describe someone in that fashion, indicate they were killed by state authorities, deported by state authorities, etc., or not. BTW, in non-English, "repressed" (and translated to "repressed" in English) is also specifically used for anyone deported. Clearly there is nothing "subjective" about whether someone was deported or not. They were or they weren't. P ЄTЄRS J V ЄСRUМВА  ►TALK 02:26, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * And to BrownHairedGirl earlier, re: "because it is equally possible for another equally scholarly source to make an opposite value judgement" -- I regret I must point out that in the case of the Soviet Union and alternate versions of history, this includes victim blaming, e.g., that all the Estonians deported were Nazis (odd, considering the first mass deportations were while Stalin and Hitler were allied), criminals, and prostitutes. P ЄTЄRS J V ЄСRUМВА  ►TALK 02:49, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Vecrumba, I would have no objection to a category of people deported: that's a verifiable fact (or at least potentially verifiable), with no value judgement involved. Similarly, a category of people killed by state authorities is also potentially verifiable, and I see no objection to it principle.
 * You may regard the sources you dislike as victim-blaming, but that sort of charge is frequently levelled by both sides in a political or historical dispute; as an Irish citizen, I'm well used to it. It's quite proper to discuss opposing views in an article and let the reader decide which (if either) they prefer, and that's exactly what WP:NPOV recommends. But using one perspective of a historical dispute as a basis for applying value-laden terms is a game that could be played both ways; would I be right in guessing that you wouldn't welcome categorising those deported using terminology from the Soviet perspective, perhaps along the lines of ?  I'd deplore that sort of subjectivity too, but that's the sort of thing we open up if we start using POV categories. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:02, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Why is it that editors insist I "hate" or "dislike" sources or viewpoints? That's saying I care about what I personally think and not about what reputable sources state. There's nothing "POV" about "victim" and "repression" if it's based on sources and not on our personal conjectures quoting primary sources, dictionary definitions, and the like and pontificating (sorry, I've heard this sort of thing too much) on what words are "bad" on Wikipedia because they are "judgemental," etc. Doing that is what is "POV" here. One side's freedom fighter is another side's terrorist, but, quite frankly, we're not dealing with that here. P ЄTЄRS  J V ЄСRUМВА  ►TALK 20:50, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * And, "Individuals jailed, deported, or killed by the Soviet Union as Enemies of Socialism" would be just fine as a category. P ЄTЄRS J V ЄСRUМВА  ►TALK 20:35, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that "Individuals jailed, deported, or killed by the Soviet Union as Enemies of Socialism" would be fine as a category, because the question of whether someone was punished in that way on those charges is verifiable as a point of fact; those facts can be agreed both by those wholeheartedly back the USSR's actions, and by those who regard these measures as breaches of human rights . However, the question of whether such actions are "political repression" (the western liberal POV) or a state punishing criminals (the Soviet POV) is not a point of fact; it is a value judgement. Why are you so keen to use the category system to convey value judgements, rather than leaving the reader to make up their own mind on the facts and on the sourced commentary in the text of the articles? -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:40, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep all. This term is widely used in huge number of reliable secondary sources. Frankly speaking, there is such thing as victims of political repression, no matter if one likes it or not. It should also be applied in each specific case per sources, but this is not a matter of having certain categories, but a matter of using them. Biophys (talk) 16:46, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I remind Biophys of his topic ban here, which is in effect and which refers to all topics related to the Soviet Union. The text of your topic ban (applied 23 May 2009) runs as: "3) Biophys (talk · contribs) is banned from editing articles about the Soviet Union and former Soviet Republics, and all related articles, broadly construed, for a period of no less than 1 year. At the end of 1 year, Biophys may apply to have the ban reviewed by the Arbitration Committee. 4) Biophys is restricted to 1 revert per week per article in the topic area for 1 year. This restriction will run consecutively with the topic ban." This might be considered to be a "related article, broadly construed". (Thanks to Xxanthippe for the info. re ban) Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 19:46, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I am only prohibited from editing articles. My topic ban does not tell anything about discussion of categories.Biophys (talk) 22:38, 9 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually, you are banned from editing "all related articles, broadly construed", which would appear to include this CfD as many of the categories in question pertain to the former Soviet Union, as you well know. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 19:36, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * As I explained at your talk page, Category:Victims of political repression is not an article about Soviet Union, and I did not edit it. Biophys (talk) 20:40, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 19:46, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes there have been victims of political repression (not "victims of political repressions", which is grammatically inaccurate), throughout history. However, defining categories related to repression (which is a subjective term) must be done objectively and the categories created which should be deleted were created by those seekign to push a POV or ethnic agenda, which is contrary to what an encyclopedia is supposed to be. Better categories than those still existent or proposed by Uzma Gamal, which are merely tweaked and slightly reworded, can be created, but first we have to clean up this mess. If, as some suggest, we do CfDs category by category on a countrywide or religious basis, not only are we wasting time but we are giving approbation to certain ethnic "repression"-related categories and not to others. There has to be a better way! Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 20:42, 9 January 2011 (UTC)


 * This is reference work. We are doing everything per sources. If reliable sources tell that that "victims" exists (and there are many books specifically about this subject), here we are.Biophys (talk) 22:38, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a vast oversimplification of the process. If a source described someone as a "victim or political repression", it could probably be balanced with another source that described it in a less emotive way. We can't have a category scheme for every choice of words that some author chooses to describe someone by. We have to use some judgment in adopting categories that present a neutral point of view. Good Ol’factory (talk) 23:11, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I am sure there are many questionable cases, as would be with almost any category (for example, one could argue if something should be classified as a peptide or a protein). But there are also numerous cases when such assignment would be totally non-controversial and never disputed by any serious sources. A typical case from an area I am familiar with: a person X was officially recognized and rehabilitated by an official state committee as a victim of repression by the same state. In fact, maybe 90% of cases I am familiar with are totally non-controversial in this regard and undisputed. It's not one source, but all (or almost all) sources. Please note how many articles belong to these sub-cats.Biophys (talk) 23:55, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Just because a state says a person was repressed politically doesn't mean it is the ideal way to neutrally describe the incident. The state is adopting a point of view, and it may not be agreed to by all observers. To compare the problem to the problem of whether to to categorize something as a peptide or protein is not a parallel situation in the least. In this case, there are other ways to phrase what is being categorized that will avoid the loaded language—how about trying to actually make a category that describes objectively what happened to the person. (For instance, if they were imprisoned, put them in a prisoner category.) The number of articles in a particular subcategory is not particularly relevant to this discussion. "Keep because it's big" isn't a terribly convincing argument. Good Ol’factory (talk) 00:08, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * As I explained already, this is not a "loaded term", but wording from official documents, at least in the country I originally came from (hence also in books and other publications). As about keeping big categories, yes, that should be an important consideration. A lot of people contributed to this classification, as one can see from hundreds articles that belong here. Let's respect work by others.Biophys (talk) 02:49, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep telling yourself that and I'm sure it will come true. Good Ol’factory (talk) 03:11, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * You think that certain categories should be deleted because they are not "neutral". You think that "peptide" is neutral but "repression" (for example) is not. But this is all your perception and is not really relevant. It only matters if certain categories help to navigate wikipedia pages and justifiable per sources. Let me give another example. Recently, a Category:Russian terrorists was deleted. It included members of Narodnaya Volya. I am sorry, but these people proudly declared themselves "terrorists" and have been described as such in every source, Russian or Western. Same is frequently the case here. Biophys (talk) 16:56, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd appreciate it if you quit putting words in my mouth. I never said "peptide" was "neutral". This discussion is tiresome—I do find it telling, however, that you are defending these categories on the grounds that should exist but doesn't. That's an issue that was settled by consensus long ago, and it seems you have not reconciled to that yet. Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:00, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I intentionally gave you an example of a "highly controversial" category that was removed for political reasons (whatever they are), but must exist per sources. If we want to create encyclopedia, such categories must be kept. Consensus can change.Biophys (talk) 03:00, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * No category "must be kept"; indeed, the "terrorists" ones were not. It's black-and-white views like that that prevent one from seeing the nuances of the situation. Good Ol’factory (talk) 03:07, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "You think that peptide is neutral but repression (for example) is not" -- absolutely. To compare peptide and repression is frankly ridiculous. A peptide is a biological/chemical entity (don't know how else to put it as I'm not a scientist), while "repression" is a noun whose meaning and context are dependent on the opinion of the user of the term, many of whom have agendas to push. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 19:36, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Nothing ridiculous. It is entirely subjective if a molecule of 50 amino acid residues long should be classified as a peptide or a protein. Still, we have no problem with the both categories, and I did not see any serious disputes about this. Why do we have disputes here? This is really a puzzle since I do not see any difference between something like "repression", "victim" or "protein" as long as something has been defined as belonging to "repressions", "victims" or "proteins" in the literature. Once again, this is reference work. Biophys (talk) 20:40, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I vote for ridiculous. Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:02, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It is wholly ridiculous, Hodja. For instance, to Nazi and fascist supporters, who produce plenty of "reference works", Adolf Hitler and Germany were victims, and the Ustase got a bad rap. If you cite the writings of certain extremist apologists as a "reference" you're going to come up with considerably different results than if you use The Times of London or the Wall Street Journal as references. Do Haaretz and Al Jazeera ever agree on anything? What about Conor Cruise O'Brien and Tim Pat Coogan? Even impeccable references can be labeled by opposing viewpoints as subjective, but just because we have not managed to solve that problem yet vis a vis Wikipedia is no reason to throw every shred of objectivity and neutrality and scholarship and common sense out the window. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 22:09, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * By the way, Hodja, you still have not satisfactorily responded to the question of whether you are allowed to be participating in this CfD, given that many of the categories relate to the former Soviet Union. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 22:09, 10 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Every existing classification including biological taxonomy is approximate and can be challenged. But this is not a reason to live without classification. Same is here. And frankly, renaming Category:Austrian victims of Nazi German repressions to Category:Austrian people persecuted by political repression in Nazi Germany is indeed ridiculous.Biophys (talk) 22:40, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Reductio ad absurdum, anyone? Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:44, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that "Category:Austrian people persecuted by political repression in Nazi Germany is indeed ridiculous" -- that was Uzma Gamal's idea -- remember. Since Uzma has apparently abandoned this colloquy you should let Uzma know how you feel rather than preach to the converted on that point, which doesn't in any way, btw, strengthen your own stance, since Uzma's renaming scheme was just a minor tweak, like a band-aid for a gunshot wound. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 23:31, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Re. "Every existing classification including biological taxonomy is approximate and can be challenged." As already stated, so far as all of us know, nobody has ever applied that hunch to such categories as Category:Italian composers, Category:Children of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, and Category:Israeli military personnel, and I really can't see such categories being challenged the way that Category:Victims of political repression has now been repeatedly challenged at CfD. This present challenge is clearly analogous to the way that such categories as Category:Political prisoners and Category:Terrorists have been succesfully challenged to the point of deletion in previous CfD nominations.
 * It's not awfully hard to see why that might be. Methinks there is a reason why categories like "victims of repression" time and again stirs controversy on WP:NPOV-related grounds at CfDs -- because, unlike some other aforementioned categories, this categorization itself is controversial, and that's palpably clear to anyone familiar with the dictionary definition of "controversial" as "subject to controversy; given to controversy; disputatious." As BHG has already quoted the WP:CAT admonition that "'Categorizations appear on pages without annotations or referencing to justify or explain their addition; editors should be conscious of the need to maintain a neutral point of view when creating categories or adding them to articles. Categorizations should generally be uncontroversial; if the category's topic is likely to spark controversy, then a list article (which can be annotated and referenced) is probably more appropriate',"
 * I'll simply add that, in this case, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I certainly don't mind encyclopedias that do choose to subscribe to a particular point of view, but my understanding remains that Wikipedia's principles demand that while representing all notable POVs as part of lending perspective and balance to articles about controversial areas, the Wikipedia project is not itself meant or supposed to endorse any particular point of view. If we seriously accept some assertion to the effect that "anything is open to challenge and up for grabs" we might as well go all out and wax philosophical about it, denying the existence of neutrality, objectivity, or the apparent distinction between fact and value. But that denial itself would flatly contradict the project's explicit policy (WP:NPOV) that neutrality "cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus." Zloyvolsheb (talk) 15:00, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Still no satisfactory response by Biophys (Hodja) to the previous comment, to wit: "By the way, Hodja, you still have not satisfactorily responded to the question of whether you are allowed to be participating in this CfD, given that many of the categories relate to the former Soviet Union."
 * Additionally, Biophys (Hodja) has been informed by at least two editors not to leave personal diatribes on other editors' talkpages regarding this CfD. Anything germane to the conversation should be here. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 21:00, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Rename South African Cat Category:Victims of Apartheid repressions in South Africa to Category:People prosecuted under Apartheid laws in South Africa and place that under Category:Apartheid laws in South Africa. Any objection to moving this cat out of the larger nomination to deletion and into it's own rename discussion? RevelationDirect (talk) 16:16, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't speak for anyone else but your proposed renaming (Category:Victims of Apartheid repressions in South Africa to Category:People prosecuted under Apartheid laws in South Africa) looks good to me. With a genuinely NPOV structure now, it should be OK for moving out of the larger nomination. But more opinions from the gallery would be appreciated. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 17:10, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I object to your proposal to rename the existing victims categ to Category:People prosecuted under Apartheid laws in South Africa. I note the long-standing example of Category:People prosecuted under anti-homosexuality laws, but I;m not happy about that category either. It does indeed have the merit of being definable, but prosecution is not the same as conviction, and while the South African apartheid courts were not exactly renowned for the fairness to the defendant, it is wrong to categorise people by what they were prosecuted for: in some cases, the charges against an accused person may be rejected by the court or even thrown out by the judge as a pile of nonsense ... and the acquitted person should not have the label hanging around their neck. I am aware that in some cases the fact of prosecution may have a highly destructive effect on the individual, but tagging people with unsuccessful charges seems like a very bad route to follow. If applied (for example) to murder or rape charges, it would amount to a no-smoke-without-fire smear category, and that would be unacceptable. We already have categories for people convicted of various charges: see Category:People by criminal conviction. So why not have a Category:People convicted under Apartheid laws in South Africa?  That's neutral, definable, and excludes those who were acquitted ... but it has a much narrower in scope than the current category, because much of the repression under apartheid was carried out through administrative rather than judicial means. rather than renaming, it would be much better to create the new category and populate it as appropriate. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:49, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "So why not have a Category:People convicted under Apartheid laws in South Africa?" I stand corrected. I did kinda overlook the distinction between "prosecuted" and "convicted", given the general disregard in which the regime was held. Thanks, BHG. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 19:29, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Loose Consensus: There seems to be agreement that a legally definable category for South Africa would be okay. There is some disagreement over whether that should be based on "prosecution" or "conviction" though.  I would suggest that the place for such a fine-tuning discussion going into the specifics of South African law would be better suited for a Cfr discussion rather than a Cfd one. RevelationDirect (talk) 04:12, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The specifics of the South African legal system: In general I agree that conviction is a better categorization than prosecution because you don't want to impugn someone's character when they were subsequently found not guilty.  But there is no stigma for these crimes as evidenced by politicians bragging about them.  More importantly, "prosecution" is problematic in a South African context. Because you need a clean criminal record for many civil service jobs, the Ministry of Justice's Criminal Records Board has expunged the records of countless Apartheid-era convictions. When a conviction is expunged in South Africa it's not just ignored from that point forward but, legally, it never happened whereas the prosecution still did. This is a form of legal wordplay of course but, since I'm advocating moving this category to a legal subject matter tree, we should stick with the legal definitions. RevelationDirect (talk) 04:42, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * A legally definable category might work, but it would be very different to the current subjective category. From the currently dominant anti-apartheid POV, Category:Victims of Apartheid repressions in South Africa could legitimately include nearly all non-whites in apartheid South Africa, so it's a useless starting point.  Discussions on creating a new, verifiable NPOV category should begin at the relevant wikiproject, where editors with more knowledge of the subject can bring more their expertise to the scoping issues as well as the subjectivity. The expunging of records is one factor that should form apart of such a discussion.-- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:32, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If you look at how this cat is populated you'll realise that this is by no means a legal cat. Chris Hani's victim role was more literal; he was assassinated. People at the Sharpeville massacre were simply killed, no legal procedure involved. Others were denied medical treatment, denied promotion, forced to move to another town, etc. So no, this cat should not be renamed as suggested. --Pgallert (talk) 22:35, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If it is not "a legal cat", then it is subjective and renaming is pointless. Delete with the rest. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 01:48, 1 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Request to Hold Nomination for Category:Victims of psychiatric repression only. This subject tree does have issues but, other than the similarity in name, it is distinct from the political repression by country cats and should be discussed separately. I entered a nomination to move the lead article in the parent cat. If that succeeds, I'll enter a nomination to rename the cat in a week where, if appropriate, we can discuss deleting the cat at that point. RevelationDirect (talk) 05:35, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I oppose this hold request. The requested move of the article has a very poor rationale, and has no apparent relevance to the problems of this category, which are actually almost identical to the political ones: that the category is inherently subjective, because it is very much a matter of POV whether a particular application of psychiatry is repressive (or "punitive" in RevelationDirect's preferred terminology). For example, the anti-psychiatry movement characterises psychiatry as inherently repressive, so from that perspective it could include all people who have been subjected to psychiatry.  Huge debates rage about the repressive (or otherwise) nature of psychiatric approaches to women and LGBT people, and to racism in psychiatry. So it's the same subjectivity problem. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:19, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Since the lead article rename is unlikely to be successful, there is no longer a reason to delay considering this cat for deletion. I withdraw my request. RevelationDirect (talk) 01:41, 28 December 2010 (UTC)


 * From WP:NPOV:


 * Deleting categories justified by sources is a violation of NPOV.Biophys (talk) 00:04, 12 January 2011 (UTC)


 * As above, you still fail to distinguish between the categorisation of individual articles, and the existence of categories which convey a point of view rather than an assertion of fact. "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint". Where categories assert a point of view incapable of objective assessment, they are a) unstable (because inclusion depends entirely on which sources are selected) and b) give WP:UNDUE weight to one of those viewpoints, and are incapable of giving due weight to the others. That is the basis of the long-standing guideline at WP:OC. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:36, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * We just talked about this, and here is your argument. I gave you one quite obvious example of a person who does belong to the category according to nearly all sources. There is a huge number of other examples, for example in countries like Nazi Germany. You tell that there are also other examples that are disputable. Yes, of course. But so is the case with a lot of other categories, even such as Category:Proteins. Does it justify removal of a category? No. I am talking here about following WP:NPOV per sources; this has nothing to do with WP:IAR. Biophys (talk) 15:18, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * We are not talking about someone being "tall" or "famous", but about someone officially recognized (by multiple reliable sources and frequently by the same state) as unjustly persequted person. Hence, OC is irrelevant. Here the point of view is objectively assessed by sources. Biophys (talk) 17:20, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It remains a point of view, as exemplified by the fact that one regime took one view and a later regime took another. All this can be discussed in the text of the article, but you are trying to use the category system to promote one subjective POV over another. If you want to categorise points of fact (such as whether someone was imprisoned or killed or deported), then of course reliable sources can be weighed to determine whether to assert those facts ... you are trying to make a value judgement without the attribution or qualification which is require by WP:NPOV. This sort of category is no different in concept from a  or . -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:25, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * No, this is frequently not one POV against another. Quite the opposite. For example, what you are telling here is incorrect. The official "Soviet POV" is exactly the same as "Western POV" in a majority of cases, since the people have been officially rehabilitated by the Soviet state and declared not to be the criminals (sorry to respond as a "pro-Soviet" editor). I am sure that a lot of Nazi victims have been recognized as such in modern Germany.Biophys (talk) 23:33, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * But do you honestly believe that everyone agrees with the characterisation? Categories need to be non-controversial and pretty close to water-tight objective and indisputable. These will always fail that standard because they use subjective language such as "victims" and "repression". Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:17, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Biophys, the people officially recognized as victims of repression (that is, "rehabilitated") by the courts of the Soviet state are already objectively and neutrally categorized by Wikipedia in Category:Soviet rehabilitations, and there is nothing controversial about categorizing people officially recognized as repressed by the authorities of a state or rehabilitated by a state as "people recognized as repressed by X authorities" or "people rehabilitated by X." The wording can vary according to the type of legal recognition accorded to such victimized people, and like Category:Soviet rehabilitations, all such categories would be objective categories. Like Category:People who died in Nazi concentration camps, Category:Soviet rehabilitations is an objective category that does an excellent job of picking out people who can be described as victims of something according to a meaningful, specific, verifiable, and indisputable criterion. The current Category:Victims of political repression scheme does not do that, and is not what you are looking for. It is an unworkable scheme that simply encourages us to place people in Category:Victims of political repression according to ideology. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 03:53, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * My interest here is mostly practical. Political repression is one of general subjects I am interested in. But others and me may have a problem navigating these pages if the categories are deleted. And frankly, there is such thing as political repression, but there are no victims of political repression? Ridiculous. Biophys (talk) 03:56, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "And frankly, there is such thing as political repression, but there are no victims of political repression?" -- no one is saying that. You either are simply refusing to understand what others are saying or you have decided to traduce argument(s) you won't accept by using misleading and facile rhetoric. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 04:21, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * However, I guess there is a point where we must accept that further discussion is pointless, unless some new voices chime in. Otherwise, this is just kicking the same can down the road. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 04:21, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * So, you admit that there is such thing as "victims of political repression". Then, why can't we keep the corresponding category? You simply want to delete everything that can be a reason for dispute. It's not the way and against the policies. There is a lot of controversial subjects that will lead to disputes, no matter if you like it or not. And as I explained above, there is huge number of completely non-controversial cases (e.g. victims of Nazi) that can be classified to this category according to all sources.Biophys (talk) 18:04, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That's really a non-argument. For instance, most people accept Albert Einstein's high degree of intelligence, and you can type the words "Einstein" and "intelligent" into the Google Books search engine to quickly see the scholars confirming that, but we don't place him in Category:Intelligent people on account of that. The only salient difference with this case is that it's a political matter when we discuss the fuzzy category of victims of repression rather than the fuzzy category of intelligent folks.
 * Aside from that, I also think it's pretty silly at a point as late as this into the game. Category:Victims of Soviet repressions is already deleted along with over thirty such categories, including Category:Victims of British political repression and Category:Victims of French political repression, and this is just a clean-up of the remaining left-overs.
 * Category:Victims of American political repression, a category supported by such academic sources as
 * Robert Justein Goldstein. Political Repression in Modern America from 1870 to 1976 (University of Illinois Press)
 * Philip I. Blumerg. Repressive Jurisprudence in the Early American Republic: The First Amendment and the Legacy of English Law (Cambridge University Press)
 * Bud and Ruth Schultz. It Did Happen Here: Recollections of Political Repression in America (University of California Press)
 * Bud and Ruth Schultz. The Price of Dissent: Testimonies to Political Repression in America (University of California Press)
 * Frank Donner. Protectors of Privilege: Red Squads and Police Repression in Urban America (University of California Press)
 * Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall. Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement (South End Press)
 * Cornelis van Minnen and Sylvia L. Hilton. Political Repression in U.S. History (Vu University Press)
 * Athan Theoharis. Seeds of Repression: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of McCarthyism (Quuadrangle Company)
 * Alan Wolfe. The Seamy Side of Democracy: Repression in America (David McKay Publishing Company)
 * Jeff Shantz. Racism and Borders: Representation, Repression, Resistance (Algora Publishing)
 * Joy James. Imprisoned Intellectuals: America's Political Prisoners Write on Life, Liberation, and Rebellion (Rowman & Littlefield)
 * Caroline Ross. The Politics of Repression in the United States: 1939-1976 (American Friends Service Committee)
 * Michael R. Belknap. American Political Trials (Greenwood Publishing Group)
 * is gone, since various American editors claimed it was plain-old subjective and POV, motivating their argument on the grounds that "repression" is a fuzzy concept. Since you would like to have us keep the present categories on the grounds that inclusions can be sourced, are we to restore the American category as well, or are we going to play the old American exceptionalism card and leave the project unbalanced? Zloyvolsheb (talk) 20:41, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much! Now I am completely convinced that Category:Victims of American political repression must be restored, along with other similar categories. Look at Lynching in the United States, Indian genocide and other similar things.Biophys (talk) 00:01, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * First of all -- STOP accusing everyone else of wanting to delete "everything that can be a reason for dispute". That is false nonsense. Your opinions on the taxonomy of disparate words (peptide, repression) are not shared by anyone else on this CfD as no one has joined or asked to be associated with your comments. (Some others have voted to keep the categories but for other, in some cases dubious, reasons.)


 * You have the right to your opinions, but not to leave diatribes on other editors' talkpages or shrilly accuse everyone you disagree with of bad motives and intentions. So if that tired line of attack is your sole remaining argument then there is no longer any reason to keep this thread alive as there is no incoming input from new sources. 99.9% of Wikipedians apparently have no feelings on this matter. Thus, I move that the closing admin decide this matter so we can close out, and begin the nightmare of tackling the remaining categories in new CfDs. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 19:43, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * ??? Working to reduce the reasons for disputes is a good intention, although it may be inconsistent with NPOV. I only politely responded at your talk page to your question. Everything is cool.Biophys (talk) 21:43, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Everything is not cool. You refuse to heed or pay any serious attention to anything anyone else has to comment. You just keep repeating the same tired mantras. Editors such as Zloyvolsheb actually do research to answer your questions in the belief you are deliberating in good faith, which I don't think you are. You have made it clear you are not going to listen to anybody else, but you keep posting notices on this thread that are almost identical. Why? To keep this thread going on indefinitely? Any further efforts expended are a waste of everyone's time and energy. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 23:15, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, he made some research that suggests keeping such categories.Biophys (talk) 00:01, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * This discussion is degenerating to the point to which I think it may be time to deal with the manner in which "Biophys" is conducting himself here and to address this issue in a forum other than this thread. It needs to be considered whether his edits here were a violation of his editing restriction, and, if not, whether the restriction needs to be extended. Judging by the childish behaviour demonstrated, I can see why the editing restriction was necessary for this area in the first place. Good Ol’factory (talk) 00:54, 14 January 2011 (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:Infamous

 * 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. Courcelles 05:49, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Propose renaming Category:Infamous to Category:Infamous (series)
 * Nominator's rationale: Rename. Suggest disambiguating to match Infamous (series). This could be misunderstood and applied as an attack category on a bio article. Good Ol’factory (talk) 00:34, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Support per nom. RevelationDirect (talk) 15:42, 26 December 2010 (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:Wire songs

 * 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. Courcelles 05:48, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Propose renaming Category:Wire songs to Category:Wire (band) songs
 * Nominator's rationale: Rename. I suggest renaming to match Wire (band). Wire is ambiguous and "Wire songs" is a bit mysterious. There is an album of the same name, so the chance of confusion is not zero. Good Ol’factory (talk) 00:21, 22 December 2010 (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.