Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2017 August 6



Category:Barony of Carlow

 * 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: merge (non-admin closure) . Marcocapelle (talk) 06:08, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Propose merging Category:Barony of Carlow to Category:Baronies of County Carlow
 * Nominator's rationale Per naming convention for all other baronies by county in Ireland and the parent Category:Baronies of Ireland. Laurel Lodged (talk) 11:24, 6 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Merge -- My first reaction was that this would not do, but it turns out that two of the articles are mis-categorised and should be in the target. This will leave the subject with only a main article and no hope of expansion.  Peterkingiron (talk) 11:51, 6 August 2017 (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.

Emirate of Aleppo

 * 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: keep. Perhaps the parent Category:Emirate of Aleppo might instead be nominated for merging to all its parents. – Fayenatic  L ondon 10:55, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Propose merging Category:Hamdanid emirs of Mosul to Category:Hamdanid dynasty
 * Propose merging Category:Hamdanid emirate of Mosul to Category:10th century in the Abbasid Caliphate
 * Propose merging Category:Hamdanid emirs of Mosul to Category:Hamdanid dynasty and Category:Emirs of Aleppo
 * Propose merging Category:Hamdanid emirate of Aleppo to Category:Emirate of Aleppo
 * Propose renaming Category:People of the Hamdanid emirate of Aleppo to Category:People of the Emirate of Aleppo
 * Propose renaming Category:Battles involving the Hamdanid emirate of Aleppo to Category:Battles involving the Emirate of Aleppo
 * Propose merging Category:Mirdasid emirs of Aleppo to Category:Mirdasid dynasty and Category:Emirs of Aleppo
 * Propose dispersing Category:Mirdasid emirate of Aleppo among Category:Emirate of Aleppo, Category:Battles involving the Emirate of Aleppo and Category:People of the Emirate of Aleppo
 * Nominator's rationale: merge per WP:SMALLCAT, the tree of Category:Emirate of Aleppo is small and unnecessarily fragmented. Marcocapelle (talk) 10:57, 6 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Strong Oppose. One should not propose merging of categories simply based on metrics, without taking into account and knowing something about the topic they represent. First, WP:SMALLCAT does not apply, because there is still potential for growth. For instance, there are at least half a dozen battles of the Hamdanids of Aleppo that articles could be written about. Equally there are a lot of people from and related to the Mirdasid dynasty that could have articles. The fact that the WP community hasn't come around to exhausting the topics' potential is irrelevant. More importantly, there is a false assumption in the nomination that Hamdanid emirate of Aleppo is the same as the Mirdasid emirate, or that the Hamdanid emirate of Mosul does not deserve its own category. This is incorrect: these were dynastic states as well as territorial ones, and each dynasty ruled in a manner that differed from others. They represent distinct topics, and therefore should not be lumped together. Constantine  ✍  11:31, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Note that the nomination does not imply that all of it should be lumped together. In fact with this nomination a separate Category:Hamdanid dynasty, a separate Category:Mirdasid dynasty and a separate Category:Battles involving the Emirate of Aleppo are kept, among others. So it's perfectly fine when half a dozen of battle articles can be created, they will nicely fill up the battles category, but that is not a reason not to merge. Marcocapelle (talk) 12:22, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * As I write below, there was no "Emirate of Aleppo"; the name is a modern historiographic convention for the dynastic regimes based in the city. Please do not be confused by the apparent similarity. People who served the Mirdasid dynasty served them, not the "emirate of Aleppo", and the Hamdanid-era emirate was a totally different animal to the Mirdasid-era one. So yes, the effect of the nomination would be a lumping together of articles that should best be kept in different categories. Constantine  ✍  13:02, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * In every medieval country people will probably have served the ruler rather than the country. And in every country with a dynasty change there will be other people serving one dynasty versus the other. The same applies with the House of Normandy and the House of Plantagenet in England. Nevertheless we have a Category:Battles involving England, not a Category:Battles involving the House of Normandy, i.e. it is not useful to create endless intersections. Marcocapelle (talk) 14:21, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, for the "Kingdom of England" or the "Duchy of Normandy" were recognized political entities that transcended individual dynasties. The Middle Eastern situation is different, because there the state equalled the dynasty (the very term dawla, which means "state" in Arabic today, originally meant "dynasty"). There was no "Aleppan" identity, no recognized title of "Emir of Aleppo", or the concept of a "succession of dynasty" within the "Emirate of Aleppo". The "emirate of Aleppo" is just a convenient shorthand, for the "territories ruled from Aleppo" by each dynasty that had its base there, and the title of "emir" is simply the Arabic for "ruler, prince". Constantine  ✍  15:15, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I fail to see the problem. This is about a consecutive series of local rulers, sometimes there was dynastic succession, sometimes not. And national identities didn't exist anyway in the Middle Ages. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:08, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I likewise fail to see what problem the merge proposal actually addresses, other than confusing and conflating things that are already dealt with well enough. Simplicity of category structure is not an end in itself; there is a difference in semantics between "Hamdanid emirate of Aleppo", and "Emirate of Aleppo (which was at one time ruled by the Hamdanids)", and as someone who actually writes on the subjects related to these topics, I find the distinction important. Constantine  ✍  12:04, 7 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Support -- I failed to find an appropriate main article for any of this until I came to List of rulers of Aleppo. That list is a bit odd in that it has Hittite rulers up to 1220 BC, and then jumps 2000 years to 890 AD.  Merging these would create a category covering the period 890 to 1080, barely 200 years, with some gaps when there were rulers not of the dynasty.  I do not think we need a new set of categories for every change of dynasty, where the polity remains much the same.  I can be useful to have some breaks so that medieval and modern people are kept separate, but creating successive categories for short periods does not aid navigation: it is inclined to hind it, as I found in looking for a main  article.  A terminal point for the target category might be 1183, when Saladin expelled the last Zengid emir, heralding a period of direct rule from elsewhere.  Peterkingiron (talk) 12:17, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * "I do not think we need a new set of categories for every change of dynasty, where the polity remains much the same" that is precisely the point: change in dynasty also means change in polity. The Hamdanid emirate is not the same as the Mirdasid one, even though both were based in Aleppo. There was no "Emirate of Aleppo"; the name is a modern historiographic convention for the dynastic regimes based in the city. Constantine  ✍  12:56, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose: I think it is telling that we don't have a page for the Emirate of Aleppo (it's just a redirect to Aleppo). Also, I don't really see how Category:10th century in the Abbasid Caliphate improves on Category:Hamdanid emirate of Mosul (granted that the latter category is underpopulated at the moment, it nevertheless links its contents into the Mosul category tree). Furius (talk) 18:13, 13 August 2017 (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:Wool industry

 * 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: split to Category:Wool trade.  I hope you and any other interested participants will be able to reach consensus on whether any further splits are needed. – Fayenatic  L ondon 12:53, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Propose renaming Category:Wool industry to Category:Wool trade
 * Nominator's rationale: rename per actual content of the category, these articles are about trade rather than about agriculture. The agricultural articles are actually in Category:Sheep wool. In an earlier merge discussion we were already close to renaming; I'm pinging the participants to that discussion . Marcocapelle (talk) 06:20, 6 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Rename -- Most of us in the end supported my target (as now nom). I am thus disappointed with the way this was merged.  The subject category is about trade in wool, not about rearing and sheering sheep to produce wool.  Peterkingiron (talk) 12:20, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose renaming but I do think there should be a more intelligent split between the industry and trade in its product. Trade is surely buying and selling things. Not sure I catch the correct intent of Peterkingiron in the paragraph just above. Eddaido (talk) 03:11, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Don't you agree that everything about the industry is already in Category:Sheep wool? Marcocapelle (talk) 05:12, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * No. I don't see what you mean, can you explain further? Eddaido (talk) 05:47, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Articles like Blade shearing, Knitting, Sheep shearer etc., isn't that's all about what you label as 'industry'? Marcocapelle (talk) 06:03, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry about this. Shearing and shearer are to my mind miscategorised - they are part of the wool industry. Is knitting not making textiles from wool? (and therefore not part of the wool industry) You may have noticed the whole wide subject suffers from presuming editors with enthusiasm and maybe not enough knowledge together with sweeping generalities - such a sharp contrast from other areas of WP. Woolly thinking. Should we debate this somewhere else? Eddaido (talk) 09:46, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The fact that shearing and shearer are part of the whool industry is exactly my point: Category:Sheep wool is about what you call industry. Marcocapelle (talk) 19:31, 7 August 2017 (UTC)


 * comment of course, we also have Category:Woollen industry for what it has. Hmains (talk) 02:45, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * That was the main issue of the previous discussion, I agree with the outcome not to merge, as Category:Woollen industry is about making things of wool. We should also have a category about creating wool, as an agricultural activity. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:14, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I've spent many hours preparing for this discussion, you can see some of the results on Category talk:Sheep wool. I now also add some of the thoughts I had planned to add here in case its a help. Wool is a unique natural fibre. The fibre is no industry. There are industries gathered around — 1. its creation and 2. its trading and 3. its turning into textiles for useful articles — clothes blankets socks etc. and maybe 4. specialist wholesalers / retailers. Perhaps the industries are less specialised after each step. Please look at the sheep wool talk page because I would like to make those changes. Thanks, Eddaido (talk) 06:14, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Just to be perfectly clear about this, do you agree that Category:Sheep wool is about the wool industry so that we don't need a second Category:Wool industry? Marcocapelle (talk) 19:13, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * No, I do not. Wool is a product of the wool industry. Have I misunderstood  "I agree with the outcome not to merge, as Category:Woollen industry is about making things of wool. We should also have a category about creating wool, as an agricultural activity" ? it is always possible I may have. I do think you might consider a name change from Wool industry to Wool growing industry to forestall further puzzlement. Would you support that?
 * Why would you want to have articles like Wool bale and Medieval English wool trade in a wool growing industry category instead of a wool trade category? They have nothing to do with wool growing, neither do the other articles in this category. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:33, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Wool bales are used by a woolgrower to send his product off for sale. The Medieval English wool trade was under woollens where it should not have been. Now we are talking of wool trade, that is where it should be. Eddaido (talk) 04:45, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
 * What do you think of my intentions as set out on Category talk:Sheep wool? Eddaido (talk) 22:35, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm puzzled by the fact that you start "All the items which feed into this category are related to the Wool Industry or Woolgrowing industry" and yet reply "No I do not" to the question above. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:33, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Is it a language problem? Eddaido (talk) 04:45, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Is this not Wool trade? Commons:category:Cloth halls Regards, Eddaido (talk) 04:24, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
 * They're images, not articles about trade, so they are not relevant for this discussion. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:33, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
 * True, nevertheless a subject which needs to be categorised in WP. I thought it might remind you of the one-time importance of this business - wool trade - in your part of the world. Eddaido (talk) 04:45, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

This is how I see an appropriate tree (as set out above). "Wool is a unique natural fibre. The fibre is no industry. There are industries gathered around — 1. its creation (Woolgrowing or Wool industry) and 2. its trading (Wool trade) and 3. its turning into textiles for useful articles — clothes blankets socks etc. (Woollen industry) and maybe 4. specialist wholesalers / retailers. Perhaps the industries are less specialised after each step. Please look at the sheep wool talk page because I would like to make those changes" Regards, Eddaido (talk) 04:45, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I couldn't agree more! For (1) we have Category:Sheep wool, for (2) we have Category:Wool industry to be renamed to Category:Wool trade and for (3) we have Category:Woollen industry. Marcocapelle (talk) 07:29, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I cannot make head nor tail of your comment.
 * Please consider my elucidations now added above. Those categories to my mind are all subsidiary to (Sheep wool), the fibre the subject of their various endeavours. I recognise I am clearly making a bad job of communicating my concepts.
 * Perhaps you might tell me your concerns about the system of categorisation and what you wish to achieve. I admit that being unfamiliar with this part of WP I created the new category expecting to cause some discussion but I did not expect such total incomprehension. Can you tell me how it happens for you?
 * "Please look at the sheep wool talk page because I would like to make those changes" Regards, Eddaido (talk) 11:17, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
 * We solved the problem, so I no longer have any concerns. We agree that there should be three categories: one about agriculture, one about trade and one about the woolling industry. As we already have the three categories, the only thing lacking is renaming the middle category correctly, and possibly moving a few articles to an adjacent category. Also, at some other occasion, I would perhaps propose to rename Category:Sheep wool to Category:Sheep shearing so that it will be more intuitive that the category is about agriculture, avoiding a lot of detailed explanation as you now elaborated at the talk page, and also in order to base the category on an existing article, Sheep shearing in this case. Marcocapelle (talk) 19:15, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
 * No. Not agreed. Why do you write that? Shall we go back and begin again? Eddaido (talk) 05:41, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

In view of the lack of participation should I go ahead and make these changes?:
 * New category Category:Woolgrowing industry which takes the great bulk of the sub-categories now in Category:Wool industry,
 * accept the name change proposed above but now its sub-categories all relate to buying and selling (i.e. trading) wool.
 * Category:Woollen industry I suggest there need be no change except in its use in some cases
 * All three categories would be sub-categories of Category:Wool or maybe Category:Sheep wool — I need advice on which of these to choose.
 * I must explain, wool comes from sheep. If a textile came from a llama then it is not (just) wool it is llama wool or llama fibre (but none of this is the type of speciousness favoured by WP). For more see IWTO


 * Would you be content with these suggestions? Eddaido (talk) 00:20, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
 * So it would be a split of Category:Wool industry into Category:Woolgrowing industry and Category:Wool trade. That would be an improvement indeed, as I'm presuming you want to keep the marketing boards etc. apart in an organizations category. It may then be better to name the category just like that: Category:Wool organizations, as a subcategory of Category:Textile organizations. The remainder may then become Category:Wool trade as nominated. Marcocapelle (talk) 17:58, 16 August 2017 (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:Armenian politicians of Iranian descent

 * 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 (non-admin closure) . Marcocapelle (talk) 05:22, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Propose deleting armenian politicians of iranian descent


 * Nominator's rationale: This category is empty. Hovhannes Karapetyan 01:38, 6 August 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hovhannesk (talk • contribs)


 * Comment The category was empty because the editor who started this CFD removed its only entry. I restored the article. Otherwise I have no opinion on this CFD....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 10:28, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Neutral: upmerge, rather than delete. There are ethnic Armenians in many countries of the Middle East.  They are not a diaspora in the normal sense, in that the present Armenia is actually what came under Russian rule in the 19th century.  The one person was born in Iran, but his name (as it ends in -ian) clearly indicates that he is an ethnic Armenian, not a Farsi, presumably being part of the ARmenian ethnic minority there.  The category is thus a legitimate one; the question is whether it is useful.  Peterkingiron (talk) 12:27, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete. It's not useful. The idea that politicians inherently need to be comprehensively subcategorized for every possible intersection of "country where they're a politician" and "individual other country where their ancestors came from" has been proliferating for far too long — and it's not just for politicians, either, as we've also seen these for writers, journalists and musicians and other occupations that aren't coming to mind at the moment, and even for non-occupational groupings like "LGBT people". Many of these have been deleted in the past, but they keep coming back again anyway. But every possible intersection of "job/LGBT + where they live + where their ancestors lived" is not a WP:DEFINING characteristic in its own right — for a comparable example, while an American politician's career may certainly be defined by being African American in the broad sense, it is not defined by the narrower question of whether his or her African ancestors were specifically from Ghana or Tanzania or Kenya or Uganda or Lesotho or Zaire or Nigeria. And at any rate, with about 180 countries in the world, if every possible combination of "job/LGBT + where they live + where their ancestors lived" were permitted to exist that would result in approximately 32,000 new subcategories per tree for this. It's not helpful, and it's not defining — it's category bloat, and it needs to stop. Bearcat (talk) 15:10, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Just for clarification, do you mean delete or upmerge? Deleting implies removing the articles from the descent category, i.e. it would imply that you propose to get rid of the descent categories altogether (not just get rid of the intersections). Merging on the other hand leads to better populated parent categories, but it doesn't lead to less category clutter in the articles. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:43, 7 August 2017 (UTC) and second signature for pinging Marcocapelle (talk) 19:15, 9 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete per Bearcat - and that applies to all such descent categories. It might make sense to categorize politicians etc by their ethnicity iff that can be done by one characteristic, but the descent categories don't do that. An upmerge is unlikely to be necessary as politicians are usually also categorized by party, century etc. DexDor(talk) 18:38, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
 * What about an upmerge to Category:Armenian people of Iranian descent? Ah, coincidentally that category doesn't exist. Marcocapelle (talk) 20:46, 13 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete The problem here is mainly that most people in Armenia, especially politicians, view themselves as ethnically Armenian. The fact that they or their ancestors have in the past lived in areas under the countrol of Iran is not very defining, especially since up until the early 19th century all the area of present day Armenia was under the control of Iran.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:28, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete. Unnecessary category. The single person in it is already in Category:Iranian emigrants to Armenia. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:45, 17 August 2017 (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.