Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2020 January 10



Category:Wikipedians confined to the peanut gallery

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


 * The result of the discussion was: no consensus. MER-C 10:48, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Propose deleting wikipedians confined to the peanut gallery


 * Nominator's rationale: Fails WP:USERCAT at WP:USERCATNO#Categories that are jokes/nonsense. Gonnym (talk) 19:43, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment, I've seen lots of joke user categories, both blue- and red-linked. If wants it to be a blue-linked user category, we should allow him. In fact, I'm going to add my userpage to this category, and am pinging  and  as two potentially interested users in adding their own userpages to this category. Accordingly, I !vote:
 * Keep per Ignore All Rules and Not a Bureaucracy and any other reason. I see no good deletion rationale here. --Doug Mehus T · C  20:09, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Disagreeing is great, but claiming a guideline isn't a good deletion rationale is just silly. --Gonnym (talk) 20:13, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , I didn't mean to imply that. I apologize if it was conveyed that way. --Doug Mehus T · C  22:02, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep, does no harm, has been quietly existing for years without bothering anybody. Let sleeping dogs lie and all that. DuncanHill (talk) 21:48, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete The decision to ban joke/nonsense user categories was made long ago. This is not the place to annul it. * Pppery * it has begun... 22:03, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , We're not, and my understanding is that consensus changes can occur anywhere—at XfD, in the talk pages, or at the Village Pump. As well, there's a joke red-linked category in which users add themselves to it and there it was agreed that user categories can be both red- and blue-linked. In this case, is preferring to have a blue-linked category. Advantages to blue-linked categories is that help to clear the wanted categories page., since you edit a lot of categories annually, either is fine, correct, and which do you prefer? Doug Mehus  T · C  22:09, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Consensus can indeed change, but not in a local discussion in CfD with a limited amount of editors. The guideline talk page has this Wikipedia talk:User categories which is relevant here. --Gonnym (talk) 23:21, 10 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep, explained below. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:54, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * And Wikipedia talk:User categories was no-consensus. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:55, 11 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Sigh. Just make sure that this stays out of Special:WantedCategories. This argument has been going on for years, and it's a great pity to see more time being wasted on it.
 * The problem is simple. CFD repeatedly deletes this sort of category per WP:USERCATNO, but the community fails to enforce the removal of this sort of category from userpages. That makes them permanent entries in the cleanup list at Special:WantedCategories.  That is a list of errors, a cleanup list which should be capable of being cleared.  The existence of permanent entries is an impediment to ongoing maintenance.
 * I support the principle of deleting this sort of pointless category. There are plenty of ways in which editors can use their userpages to demonstrate their sense of humour and/or express their views, and this is the only one which has any impact on pages outside their userspace.  The whole point of a category entry is to connect pages, and using the category system for jokes is disruptive.
 * However, I don't support the practice of doing so at the expense of impeding those who do the encyclopedic maintenance task of fixing categorisation errors by dumping perma-crud in their worklist. Per WP:REDNOT, a red-linked category is an error which should be fixed. The tedious work of fixing mistyped category entries and creating needed categories is an ongoing slog, as new redlinks are created at a rate which varies between ~40 and 100 per day. Cleaning them up is a largely unseen and thankless task of gnoming, but it's an important part of having a functional category system.
 * The underlying guideline is WP:USERPAGE, which is stable and clear: "While considerable leeway is allowed in personalizing and managing your user pages, they are community project pages, not a personal website, blog, or social networking medium." The principle is that ultimate ownership of a userpage belongs with the community, and that the community may enforce community standards.  These "joke" categories violate community standards, the community has a right to remove them.  The overwhelming majority of editors actively try not to be disruptive, and support the removal of red-linked categories from the userpages once they become aware of the negative effect.
 * So my preferred solution to all of this would be to enforce the removal from userpages of red-linked categories. Sadly, a small minority of vocal editors choose to ignore WP:USERCAT and to disregard the disruption caused, and to assert ownership of their userpages, contrary to WP:OWN and the WP:UOWN which says "pages in user space belong to the wider community. They are not a personal homepage, and do not belong to the user".  Sadly, when this vocal minority of selfish users has kicked up a storm, the community has not enforced policy and guideline, so we are left with disruptive clutter in Special:WantedCategories.
 * Unless and until the community actually enforces guidelines, then the last disruptive option is to leave this sort of category in place unless and until the editors who have categorised their userpages in this way decide to respect long-standing community guidelines. Meanwhile, those editors should be regarded as having categorised themselves as people who reject community standards ... and Unconventional user category should be amended to explicitly note that the anti-collaborative conduct. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 08:23, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * If you want to call users selfish and anti-collaborative at least have the decency to make your personal attacks on our talk pages where we can give your views all the respect they deserve, and blank your comments. If WantedCategories isn't working as it should then fix it, don't take it out on others. DuncanHill (talk) 01:03, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * And further, when the user who re-created the category apparently only did so to give themself an opportunity to attack other editors, I question whether you should even be allowed to comment here. DuncanHill (talk) 01:05, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , to be clear, does support these categories and appears to oppose its deletion on the basis that it creates problems for Special:WantedCategories. Her support is just somewhat soft, in that she'd prefer that editors not categorize themselves so narrowly, but that's not enough to give rise to support outright deletion of this category. In short, she is on our side. Also, some people construe her language as being personal attacks, but I can tell she's a good-hearted person who just expresses her opinions strongly, so I've never taken them in that way. Doug Mehus  T · C  01:34, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Special:WantedCategories is working just fine. It is a tool to track errors, and it does track those errors accurately.  The problem arises solely from some editors who abuse the category system by deliberately creating errors.  If some of those who deliberately create errors object to their conduct being described bluntly, then they should review their conduct; and before invoking WP:NPA they should read WP:NPA.
 * I know you mean well, but no, I am not on your side. As above, my preferred option is deletion of this category, and the only reason I don't support outright deletion is that deletion will cause other problems because some disruptive editors ignore WP:UOWN. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 03:49, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * A tool which characterises things as errors when they are not errors is not working fine. An editor who falsely accuses people of "deliberately creating errors" is engaging in personal attacks, and an editor who creates categories to make a point is editing disruptively. DuncanHill (talk) 03:56, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * That is a blatant falsehood, @DuncanHill. Just read WP:REDNOT: "A page in any Wikipedia namespace should never be left in a red-linked category. Either the category should be created, or else the non-existent category link should be removed or changed to one that exists.".
 * So, deliberately creating redlinked categs is deliberately creating errors. Special:WantedCategories tracks those errors just fine. And your accusation that I am WP:POINT is editing disruptively is an inversion of the truth.
 * Why do you persist in spouting such nonsense? -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 04:15, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Rednot is a guideline, not a policy, and "it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply" as it says at the top of the page. Editors applying common sense and creating the occasional exception cannot, in my opinion, be accused of "deliberately creating errors" in any normal usage of the English language. DuncanHill (talk) 04:31, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * @DuncanHill: Wikipedia is not social media. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.
 * So please explain exactly what is the "common sense" in cluttering up an enyclopedic cleanup list with a lame joke which could easily be conveyed by non-disruptive means such as a userbox? Take your time. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 08:27, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I suppose it's impossible to confine your encyclopaedic maintenance list to encyclopaedia articles and ignore userspace? DuncanHill (talk) 12:46, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The problem is that categories aren't in userspace. * Pppery * it has begun... 01:59, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * (and ), Perhaps we need a User category namespace then (with the short name being Uc), to allow for categorization of userspace pages. From what I've seen, the Book: namespace is even less used than the Portal: namespace, and I see potential for spammy links and other unnoticed vandalism to occur in that space. I think we should put a proposal together to demise (i.e., eliminate) that namespace and, in its place, we could/should institute a User category namespace, to allow for these user categories. Doug Mehus T · C  00:19, 18 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete as of zero use for any encyclopedia-collaboration purpose.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:58, 14 January 2020 (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:Wikipedians who don't like it when you edit their userpage

 * 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. MER-C 10:46, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Propose deleting wikipedians who don't like it when you edit their userpage


 * Nominator's rationale: Fails WP:USERCAT at WP:USERCATNO#Categories which group users by dislikes of any type. Gonnym (talk) 19:40, 10 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I think we have agreed that it is a mistake to delete pages like this. It just creates other problems with the wanted categories list. Rathfelder (talk) 19:42, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Then either the guideline should be updated to reflect that consensous (if it indeed exists) or just remove the category from the userspace. Not everything a user places in their user page is sacred. --Gonnym (talk) 19:49, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , Where's the guideline? I'll make the change boldly. We have emerging consensus here to make that change nonetheless. --Doug Mehus T · C  21:55, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep, seems like a reasonable sort of category and could be quite helpful in deterrring the sort of people who go around editing other people's userpages. DuncanHill (talk) 21:51, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep per above, per WP:IAR, per WP:NOTBURO, and above. --Doug Mehus  T · C  21:54, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete The decision to ban categories grouping users by dislikes was made long ago. This is not the place to annul it. * Pppery * it has begun... 22:03, 10 January 2020
 * , We're not, and my understanding is that consensus changes can occur anywhere—at XfD, in the talk pages, or at the Village Pump. As well, there's a joke red-linked category in which users add themselves to it and there it was agreed that user categories can be both red- and blue-linked. In this case, is preferring to have a blue-linked category. Advantages to blue-linked categories is that help to clear the wanted categories page., since you edit a lot of categories annually, either is fine, correct, and which do you prefer? --Doug Mehus  T · C  22:10, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I will be very blunt. I would prefer that editors who categorise themselves in this sort of fashion would start acting as if they were trying to present themselves as adults engaged in collaboration to build an encyclopedia.
 * WP:USERCATNO is clear guidance which has been stable for years, and cannot be changed or overridden by attempts to establish a WP:LOCALCON at one CFD. If you don't like the guideline, WP:RFC is thataway. Your claim that We have emerging consensus here to make that change nonetheless is contrary to the core policy WP:CONSENSUS.
 * In the case of this particular category, the sheer uselessness of it should be self-evident. If you don't want others to edit your userpage, place a notice at the top of the page or use an editnotice.  A category displayed at the bottom is unlikely to be seen, so the category doesn't even serve a purpose.  And before you place any such notice, do read WP:UOWN, and consider whether you really want to flout that guidance.
 * If we cannot persuade the editors involved to stop abusing the category namespace, and if the community is not willing to enforce the guideline, then the least-worst option is to keep the category page rather than trigger WP:REDNOT problems. But per my long comment below, I'd like the category to be tagged with a huge, prominent warning on the category page which explicitly notes that category page exists only because of the anti-social and childish conduct of a few editors. And preferably tag the userpage with a picture of child throwing a tantrum. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 08:45, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep, explained below. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:57, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Sigh. Just make sure that this stays out of Special:WantedCategories. This argument has been going on for years, and it's a great pity to see more time being wasted on it.
 * The problem is simple. CFD repeatedly deletes this sort of category per WP:USERCATNO, but the community fails to enforce the removal of this sort of category from userpages. That makes them permanent entries in the cleanup list at Special:WantedCategories.  That is a list of errors, a cleanup list which should be capable of being cleared.  The existence of permanent entries is an impediment to ongoing maintenance.
 * I support the principle of deleting this sort of pointless category. There are plenty of ways in which editors can use their userpages to demonstrate their sense of humour and/or express their views, and this is the only one which has any impact on pages outside their userspace.  The whole point of a category entry is to connect pages, and using the category system for jokes is disruptive.
 * However, I don't support the practice of doing so at the expense of impeding those who do the encyclopedic maintenance task of fixing categorisation errors by dumping perma-crud in their worklist. Per WP:REDNOT, a red-linked category is an error which should be fixed. The tedious work of fixing mistyped category entries and creating needed categories is an ongoing slog, as new redlinks are created at a rate which varies between ~40 and 100 per day. Cleaning them up is a largely unseen and thankless task of gnoming, but it's an important part of having a functional category system.
 * The underlying guideline is WP:USERPAGE, which is stable and clear: "While considerable leeway is allowed in personalizing and managing your user pages, they are community project pages, not a personal website, blog, or social networking medium." The principle is that ultimate ownership of a userpage belongs with the community, and that the community may enforce community standards.  These "joke" categories violate community standards, the community has a right to remove them.  The overwhelming majority of editors actively try not to be disruptive, and support the removal of red-linked categories from the userpages once they become aware of the negative effect.
 * So my preferred solution to all of this would be to enforce the removal from userpages of red-linked categories. Sadly, a small minority of vocal editors choose to ignore WP:USERCAT and to disregard the disruption caused, and to assert ownership of their userpages, contrary to WP:OWN and the WP:UOWN which says "pages in user space belong to the wider community. They are not a personal homepage, and do not belong to the user".  Sadly, when this vocal minority of selfish users has kicked up a storm, the community has not enforced policy and guideline, so we are left with disruptive clutter in Special:WantedCategories.
 * Unless and until the community actually enforces guidelines, then the last disruptive option is to leave this sort of category in place unless and until the editors who have categorised their userpages in this way decide to respect long-standing community guidelines. Meanwhile, those editors should be regarded as having categorised themselves as people who reject community standards ... and Unconventional user category should be amended to explicitly note that the anti-collaborative conduct. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 08:22, 11 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep as relevant for collaboration and editor-relations purposes. While I doubt this gets much practical use, now that I know it exists, I would be inclined to avoid gnoming/cleanup edits at any such users' userpage, unless there was a compelling reason to do it (e.g. removal of a deleted or incorrect category, or fixing a code error that resulted in invalid markup).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:01, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * the practical use of this category is that these users feel entitled to revert literally every edit on their user page, including reverting the removal of a deleted category. The latter causes the maintenance problem that User:BrownHairedGirl brought up. This is just for info. Marcocapelle (talk) 08:14, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I understand, but am trying to strike a principled balance in these three related CfDs. If the category has no potential collaboration-related use, axe it; but if it does have one, leave it be. If someone does something tendentious or otherwise disruptive (i.e. anti-collaborative) with that potential, that's a user disciplinary matter for ANI or something, not really a CfD problem. Maybe this is "too" philosophical a position, but I try to avoid being an "I'm not hearing you" partisan or a "one size fits all" over-simplifier on such matters. I've created user categories myself that are low in numbers of users and kind of "wikipolitical", but which I feel strongly about as inter-editor relations matters, and I would not want to see them nuked. So I kind of have to be permissive of those of others, and conscious of future fall-out if I "go after" some category because it's not one I would use or because some individual is misusing it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:23, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep per SMcCandlish. * Pppery * it has begun... 01:35, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep. Note I am not intending revisit the previous consensus, but this category is helpful in collaboration.  (Nor am I monitoring these pages.  I was invited, from another discussion board, to consider another CfD on this page.)  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 18:32, 17 January 2020 (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:Wikipedians also known as Le Poisson de Trypto

 * 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. MER-C 10:47, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Propose deleting wikipedians also known as le poisson de trypto


 * Nominator's rationale: This user category fails WP:USERCATYES. This category belongs to the type of Inappropriate types of user categories#Categories that are jokes/nonsense and #Categories that are overly narrow in scope. Gonnym (talk) 19:39, 10 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep, does no harm to anybody at all. Wikipedians are (surprisingly to some) humans, and sometimes even act like it. DuncanHill (talk) 21:53, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep per, WP:IAR, WP:NOTBURO, and emerging consensus on this log page to update the given policy nom referenced. --Doug Mehus T · C  21:56, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete The decision to ban this type of category was made long ago. This is not the place to annul it. * Pppery * it has begun... 22:03, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , We're not, and my understanding is that consensus changes can occur anywhere—at XfD, in the talk pages, or at the Village Pump. As well, there's a joke red-linked category in which users add themselves to it and there it was agreed that user categories can be both red- and blue-linked. In this case, is preferring to have a blue-linked category. Advantages to blue-linked categories is that help to clear the wanted categories page., since you edit a lot of categories annually, either is fine, correct, and which do you prefer? --Doug Mehus  T · C  22:11, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Friendly ping to as the linked user/editor in this category. --Doug Mehus  T · C  22:11, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * That ping was spurious given the nominator's post to User talk:Tryptofish. * Pppery * it has begun... 22:19, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , sorry, I didn't check to see whether nom had notified Tryptofish. Fair enough. Apologies for the duplicate ping. --Doug Mehus T · C  22:30, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep, and I am very angry to discover this nomination at a time when I am trying to be away from Wikipedia. The editors who believe that there is an existing consensus against such categories have a perception of community consensus that is a couple of years out of date. (I don't know if there are other similar nominations, but if so, the same thing applies to those.) This category has a parent category of Category:Wikipedians with unconventional user categories. That category has already been discussed and deemed keepable at Categories for discussion/Log/2017 June 27. More broadly, there was extensive discussion about oddball user categories that were red-linked at Wikipedia talk:User categories/Archive 1, where the consensus included: A consensus developed throughout the discussion that these categories, in general, do very little harm, so long as they are not disruptive in a way that goes beyond the simple fact of their existence – and at Wikipedia talk:User categories/Archive 2. Very currently (as in the past 24 hours) humorous user categories that were red-linked have been made blue:, , rather than being deleted (in order that there not be a backlog of red categories that have been suggested for creation). The simple fact is that there is no such thing as a present-day consensus deprecating such categories. And the whole, infuriating, reason that this discussion even came up is that a few days ago I blanked my user page, unintentionally emptying this particular category, so I re-added it back to my talk page to remove the reason for speedy deletion. It appears now that some users with nothing better to do saw that, and decided to make this nomination here. This is a big part of why I am disgusted with Wikipedia: this kind of "category police" busywork does nothing at all to improve the usefulness of Wikipedia for our readers who come here for information. It's just busy-body-ness for the sake of being rigid about (nonexistent) rules. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:43, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * @Tryptofish: the thing that disgusts me with Wikipedia is the presence of editors who insist on abusing a navigational tool (the category system) to make puerile jokes, and get OUTRAGED that the community ask them to devote the energies here to actually building an encyclopedia rather than playing social media games. The claims that cleaning up this junk is some sort of officious persecution belong in a teenage tantrum. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 08:53, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Yep. This sort of stuff isn't why we're here, and all kind of userpage silliness can be freely engaged in (including fake categories, with some clever markup) without actually abusing the category system.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:12, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Yep: that's me: not-here and abusive. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:45, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I didn't imply a general WP:NOTHERE problem on your part, nor a pattern of abusiveness. If you feel that I did, I apologize. To be clearer, I mean the category system (including the user-cat tree of it) is a tool we've built for a particular set of encyclopedia-building and encyclopedist-interrelating purposes, and shouldn't be misused trivially, since it has maintenance costs and doing that isn't appropriate for the purpose (vague analogy: it's probably contraindicated to use the local park as a place to practice making monster-and-victims-shaped topiaries that you think are hilarious). I'm even suggesting that being jokey or weird is fine (I am, all over my userpage), just through means that aren't a hassle for others nor adding "noise" into an already complicated system that's hard to keep running smoothly. I liken this to the moving of the jokey, collaboration-irrelevant userboxes out of Template namespace and into User namespace; and MfD often userspacing or even deleting essays and other claptrap pages that are against consensus or simply not relevant to Wikipedia'ing; and TfD deleting templates that only serve one or a few editors' convenience; &c. The first of those is closely parallel, since there's a rather direct analogy between moving user-page décor templates to userspace, and moving user-page décor labels out of Category namespace and into similar looking HTML+CSS stuff that just lives in your userpage.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:41, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I'd strongly oppose putting such a category on a mainspace article. But a category that is seen only in userspace, and is in a parent category that isolates it from other categories (and creates no redlink problems), intrudes into mainspace only in imagination. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:08, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Sigh. Just make sure that this stays out of Special:WantedCategories. This argument has been going on for years, and it's a great pity to see more time being wasted on it.
 * The problem is simple. CFD repeatedly deletes this sort of category per WP:USERCATNO, but the community fails to enforce the removal of this sort of category from userpages. That makes them permanent entries in the cleanup list at Special:WantedCategories.  That is a list of errors, a cleanup list which should be capable of being cleared.  The existence of permanent entries is an impediment to ongoing maintenance.
 * I support the principle of deleting this sort of pointless category. There are plenty of ways in which editors can use their userpages to demonstrate their sense of humour and/or express their views, and this is the only one which has any impact on pages outside their userspace.  The whole point of a category entry is to connect pages, and using the category system for jokes is disruptive.
 * However, I don't support the practice of doing so at the expense of impeding those who do the encyclopedic maintenance task of fixing categorisation errors by dumping perma-crud in their worklist. Per WP:REDNOT, a red-linked category is an error which should be fixed. The tedious work of fixing mistyped category entries and creating needed categories is an ongoing slog, as new redlinks are created at a rate which varies between ~40 and 100 per day. Cleaning them up is a largely unseen and thankless task of gnoming, but it's an important part of having a functional category system.
 * The underlying guideline is WP:USERPAGE, which is stable and clear: "While considerable leeway is allowed in personalizing and managing your user pages, they are community project pages, not a personal website, blog, or social networking medium." The principle is that ultimate ownership of a userpage belongs with the community, and that the community may enforce community standards.  These "joke" categories violate community standards, the community has a right to remove them.  The overwhelming majority of editors actively try not to be disruptive, and support the removal of red-linked categories from the userpages once they become aware of the negative effect.
 * So my preferred solution to all of this would be to enforce the removal from userpages of red-linked categories. Sadly, a small minority of vocal editors choose to ignore WP:USERCAT and to disregard the disruption caused, and to assert ownership of their userpages, contrary to WP:OWN and the WP:UOWN which says "pages in user space belong to the wider community. They are not a personal homepage, and do not belong to the user".  Sadly, when this vocal minority of selfish users has kicked up a storm, the community has not enforced policy and guideline, so we are left with disruptive clutter in Special:WantedCategories.
 * Unless and until the community actually enforces guidelines, then the last disruptive option is to leave this sort of category in place unless and until the editors who have categorised their userpages in this way decide to respect long-standing community guidelines. Meanwhile, those editors should be regarded as having categorised themselves as people who reject community standards ... and Unconventional user category should be amended to explicitly note that the anti-collaborative conduct. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 08:23, 11 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:NOTBURO policy. Obviously there's some history of disagreements in this subject that don't make for an easy consensus delete argument, but for me, it just boils down to not being a WP:REDLINK, so it's not causing disruption elsewhere from the looks of it. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:37, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:WASTEOFTIME. More seriously: agree completely with Kingofaces43. Suggest the nom withdraw and somebody close this already, because clearly it is going nowhere. --Randykitty (talk) 10:49, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * This request cannot be withdrawn because I !voted delete. * Pppery * it has begun... 12:43, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete as of zero use for any encyclopedia-collaboration purpose. PS: I dispute the supposed "emerging consensus" to support b.s. categories. It's a WP:FALSECONSENSUS of a handful of CfD nerds, and various other CfD nerds aren't in agreement, so it's a false×2 consensus. If you RfCed this at WP:VPPOL there would likely be WP:SNOW opposition to permitting pointless joke/nonsense categories. And no such sweeping change to the CfD rules should be made without such a broadly-visible proposal in the first place, per WP:PROPOSAL.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:12, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep. For goodness sake, just install a category space for user pages only. Then there is no interference at all to article space. will be relieved of the sisyphean slog she says she experiences, and  can recover from the trauma of witnessing the abuse he sees of the article category system. Everyone gets what they want. (Unless there are users dedicated to fanning absolutely avoidable drama - but no, that couldn't be, not on Wikipedia) – Epipelagic (talk) 00:21, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * That feature request (while it may be a good idea) will inevitably take an enternity to get implemented. So, the question is, what should happen to this category in the mean time, a question to which you have not provided any argument. * Pppery * it has begun... 01:14, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * You don't know it will take an eternity, you just made that up. Maybe the community could act rationally. If not, then we are wasting our time discussing this matter at all, since whatever we do will just lead to more nonsense. In the meantime of course the category should be retained, pending its transfer. It's harmless, and I assume your interest is not in pointlessly creating drama. – Epipelagic (talk) 01:49, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * More "nonsense" and "drama" and "slog" and "trauma" like mischaracterizing others' comments in hyperbolic, distorted terms for patently fallacious argument to emotion reasons, as you're doing above? I have no idea why you're being so angrily dismissive and otherwise emotional about this. It's a simple WP:ENC, WP:NOT, WP:NOT matter.  We  have a category tree for user-specific categories, and the ones at issue here are already in it.  The existence of it doesn't magically mean "create whatever silly and pointless categories strike your fancy". These things have a maintenance cost, and goofing off isn't their purpose.  Categories are tools we have for encyclopedia-building reasons (either user-facing navigation or internal maintenance and collaboration), not for self-entertainment.  By way of analogy, if you go to your construction job and start misusing the table saw as a dancing platform and banging on the spare sawblades with hammers and wrenches as a makeshift musical instrument on your lunch break, you might amuse a co-worker or two momentarily, but generally it's not a good idea and everyone knows it.  If it hampers proper use of the equipment or requires someone else to do maintenance work after your antics, you'll make them unhappy and you're apt to get in trouble with your employer; at very least you'll be asked to stop. This is all pretty pointless as a "debate" since CfD has a long history of deleting user categories with near-zero entries and which don't serve a legit collaboration-related purpose, especially since there are simple ways to fake the same effect at your userpage without actually grotting up the real category structure with noise.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:25, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Well there you go – Epipelagic (talk) 17:24, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep - unless there's not another byte left on the server, and it looks more like a can of sardines. Besides, J'aime le poisson. Atsme Talk 📧 19:43, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * And your point is? Having no hard limit on the amount of stuff that can be stored does not mean it's a good idea to keep everything (or else XfDs wouldn't exist). * Pppery * it has begun... 20:50, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep, this is what Category:Wikipedians with unconventional user categories and a few similar categories were made for. It keeps it out of Special:WantedCategories. This was the compromise that was made when people demanded there be no more redlinked joke categories.  It is wrong to now back out of that compromise.  Leave people alone. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:53, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete, salt, and apply WP:TROUT to the creator. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 23:58, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep, per, who hit the nail on the head perfectly on this. No need to rehash something that has long since had consensus. OhKayeSierra (talk) 03:10, 18 January 2020 (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.

MPs for UK constituencies by party
Relisted, see Categories for discussion/Log/2020 January 23%23MPs for UK constituencies by party

Category:Jewish engravers by nationality

 * 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. MER-C 10:39, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Propose deleting jewish engravers by nationality


 * jewish dutch engravers‎


 * jewish german engravers‎


 * jewish italian engravers‎


 * Nominator's rationale: Yet another intersection category with two daughters, both referring to the same single article. Le Deluge (talk) 15:19, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * No, not anymore. Drmies (talk) 16:57, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Merge the first subcat to Category:Dutch Jews and Category:Dutch engravers. Similar for the Italian subcat. This is a trivial intersection by ethnicity, overcategorization per WP:EGRS. Marcocapelle (talk) 17:06, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Merge - this is a ridiculous tree for a few articles (it was 1 and is now about 10) in (to which everything should be merged in addition to merges suggested above). Oculi (talk) 17:45, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Wait, and . Category:Jewish Dutch writers has a dozen articles. Category:Jewish Dutch scientists has eight. Are they ridiculous and trivial? Drmies (talk) 20:25, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Would there ever be an article about the topic of Jewish engravers? That is a rhetorical question. Marcocapelle (talk) 03:39, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Marcocapelle, indeed rhetorical, and answered positively, of course. (Seriously?) This is an immediate hit. Drmies (talk) 15:24, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep Category:Jewish Dutch engravers. This is adequately populated.  The Jews were an endogamous community, so that Dutch Jewish is essentially an ethnic group.  Category:Dutch engravers has a large enough population to merit having a subcat. Merge the rest to their parents.  Peterkingiron (talk) 14:25, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Peterkingiron, I just don't understand this very well. The Italian category only has one article in it now--but you may have noted that in two days I populated the Dutch and the German ones with 15 articles--there is no doubt (if you know anything about European history and the history of the Jews) that the Italian category can easily be populated, at least by someone who reads Italian. Drmies (talk) 23:45, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Trivial intersection per WP:OCEGRS. Note that the creator has in the meanwhile created Category:Jewish German engravers, which should follow the same fate (tag added). Place Clichy (talk) 19:51, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Hell yes, Place Clichy: there is nothing trivial about this intersection. Maybe you can read some of these articles, and maybe you can consider writing up the articles to populate the category more. Seriously, what is the magic number? How many before a category becomes meaningful in your eyes? That Julius Bien, a Jew, fled Germany after the 1848 revolution, isn't that meaningful enough? Drmies (talk) 03:23, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
 * (answered after relisting) The previous comment clearly shows that the creation of these categories was motivated by the mere existence of the intersection of unrelated features, and in no way by the value of this intersection. Julius Bien may have been at the same time a lithographer, Jewish and German (actually an American "from Germany"), this is trivia which relates to him, and does not say anything about the specifics of Jewish German engraving . You will notice that WP:OCEGRS makes no mention of a magic number. Place Clichy (talk) 11:44, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, MER-C 03:24, 28 December 2019 (UTC) <div class="xfd_relist" style="border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 25px;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete per Non-notable intersections by ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. It doesn't matter how many articles get shoe-horned into these categories if the categories themselves are trivial and non-defining. Do Jewish Italian engravers engrave markedly differently than Swedish Christian engravers, Indian Hindu engravers, or Muslim-American engravers? Much like Jewish mathematicians, the intersection of religion/ethnicity and occupation does not appear to be a defining trait of people, even if they are sorted by such in niche sources, Jewish encyclopedias, etc. --Animalparty! (talk) 02:30, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, some do - for example Salom Italia, who seems to have worked more or less exclusively on Jewish religious texts and formats (in both Dutch and Italian categories). But it doesn't seem most here were like that. Johnbod (talk) 19:22, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I have taken the liberty to revert the "keep" (WP:NAC) closure of this discussion. It is a bad move to close it that way after it has been relisted and only a further delete argument has been added after relisting. Marcocapelle (talk) 18:46, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Being that you had previously partaken in the discussion, you should have asked somebody else to do that. Debresser (talk) 12:11, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: two of the sub-cats were not tagged until today, and one was not listed until today. – Fayenatic  L ondon 12:39, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, MER-C 03:05, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Relisting per Fayenatic. MER-C 03:05, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The right thing to do. Only because of that I saw this nomination, which is in a field I closely follow, and definitely want to comment upon. Debresser (talk) 12:11, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete per nominators. However, just to make clear, that there are many notable intersections of Jewish and certain professions, but this doesn't seem one of them. On a sidenote, I'd like to add that I am Dutch. Debresser (talk) 12:11, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete (1st choice) as these "by nationality" categories get unnecessarily small in many cases. WP:TRIVIALCAT, WP:SMALLCAT, and WP:NARROWCAT often apply, together or individually, on case-by-case bases. Second choice would be an upmerge. Doug Mehus T · C  22:17, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. This isn't a sensible intersection. What next? "Category:Hispanic oncologists"?  "Category:First Day Adventist drummers"?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:04, 14 January 2020 (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:Lazarus taxa
<div class="boilerplate cfd vfd xfd-closed" style="background:#bff9fc; margin:0 auto; padding:0 10px 0 10px; border:1px solid #AAAAAA;">
 * 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) DannyS712 (talk) 03:07, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Propose deleting lazarus taxa


 * Nominator's rationale: The Lazarus taxon article explains that the term can mean (at least) two things; this category's name is thus ambiguous (I think it's referring to conservation rather than to fossils). That a taxa was thought (by westerners?) to be extinct for a long period may be worth mentioning in the article's text, but is not a good characteristic to categorize by (e.g. because it's subjective and because there is no corresponding category for non-Lazarus taxa). For info: There are lists in the main article. See also WP:DNWAUC.  Note: We don't (afaics) categorize taxa articles for being an Elvis taxon.  Example of similar CFD. DexDor(talk) 12:46, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

<div class="xfd_relist" style="border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 25px;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * keep - I don’t see how WP:DNWAUC applies. As for, WP:OTHER.  Claims of ethnocentrism should be made in the individual articles, if the term is to be avoided.  I think the term is used often enough in RS for various taxa that the term shouldn’t be banned.  The category is of enough interest, a useful navigation tool, and is populated enough to remain.  I think making a list would make the article too long. --Nessie (talk) 13:54, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * So what do you think the inclusion criteria on this category should be? Note: Whatever the inclusion criteria there are likely to be some articles that shouldn't be in the category (e.g. Guadalcanal rat and Damar flycatcher) and others that may not belong (e.g. La Palma giant lizard - "may possibly ... although ...").
 * The reference to DNWAUC is re articles such as Mahogany glider where being a lazarus taxon isn't something mentioned prominently (e.g. in the lede).
 * Deleting a category isn't banning a term (e.g. it wouldn't affect any use of the term in the article text).
 * The article already contains a long list and that could be split off to a separate list article. DexDor(talk) 18:40, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete multiple definitions of the term mean no clear inclusion criteria. Plantdrew (talk) 03:51, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, MER-C 03:03, 10 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete due to resident flora expert editor, without prejudice to recreation in future on, by consensus, determining appropriate inclusion criteria and drafting a scope note. --Doug Mehus T · C  22:14, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete due to ambiguity. If there are enough entries, this should actually be two categories, with descriptive names. The two concepts aren't actually related other than being about lifeforms.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:06, 14 January 2020 (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.