Wikipedia talk:Categorizing articles about people/Archive 13

Categorisation of people as "controversies"
I have a question about how we should categorise individuals when they are controversial? We have categories for types of controversies but I am not clear whether it is acceptable to add individuals involved with those types of controversies to those categories or whether they are exclusively for articles about the controversies themselves. My concern is that doing so seems to be labelling the individuals as a controversies in themselves which seems wrong. In my view, a person can be controversial but is not themself a controversy.

In case that wasn't very clear, please let me explain the example that brought me here. Somebody added Lia Thomas to Category:LGBT-related controversies in sports and it seemed incorrect to categorise her as a controversy rather than as a person who has been dragged into an already existing controversy. I saw that a couple of other people were also in that category so I took them all out but then I saw that some of those were in some other categories for other "controversies", and that some of those have other individuals in too, so I thought I had better stop and check that I was on the right track before removing any more in what might become a massive cascade of removals.

What is the line here? Should all "controversies" categories include the people involved in the controversies as well as the articles about the controversies themselves? If so, how closely would an individual have to be involved to merit inclusion? How can we stop people being labelled inappropriately? If not, how much cleaning up do we need to do to remove them? How can we discourage people from adding individuals in the future? It is definitely something that people are going to do, in perfectly good faith, unless they know not to. DanielRigal (talk) 13:40, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
 * For my part, I agree with your "a person is not a controversy" concern, and wouldn't categorize people this way.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:14, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
 * While we might not say that a person is a controversy, events around a person, or that the person may or may not have been involved in may be controvertial. And statements by the person (or by others about the person) may be controvertial.
 * And finally, it could be controvertial on Wikipedia in how we decide to categorise (or not) a certain person by certain attributes. See also WP:BLPCAT, WP:SENSITIVE and WP:EGRS, for example.
 * So when an article that is eponymous to a person's name is categorised, it may be categorised in a certain way due to a particular event listed on that page.
 * Perhaps this page should be renamed "Categorisation of articles on people", or some such, if that would be clearer... - jc37 01:19, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Page overlap
Categorization of people had overlap with several other categorization guidelines. And when all of that was merged, all that was left was information on sorting/sortkey for surnames. So that information (and edit history) is now at Categorization/Sorting names.

Categorizing articles about people has the merged information from Categorization of people and Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality. The edit history of the latter resides here. - jc37 05:03, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

3 questionable sentences

 * 1.) Note: Concerns about the neutral point of view status of a particular category should be weighed against the fact that having such a category may also unacceptably advance a particular point of view.


 * 2.) Personal preferences or emotions should not enter into the matter: if a category meets the criteria defined on this page, then it is permitted, and if the category does not, then it is not permitted. This is how the myriad points of view on the matter can be realistically reconciled into a relatively neutral position.


 * 3.) And note, appropriateness of specific categories may change over time. Something that is not currently an appropriate category may become a valid one in the future (or vice versa), if circumstances change. For example, if a new field of social or cultural study emerges in the future and lends itself to an encyclopedic article, then related categories could become valid even if they may have previously been deleted. The criterion of whether an encyclopedic article is possible should be the gauge.

My thoughts on the three of them:
 * #1 - I think I understand what it is saying, but a.) should this be in the guideline, and b.) could it perhaps be better or more fully explained, and c.) this seems "sort of" contrary to the guidance in "last rung", so I'm wondering if this should be removed for those reasons as well?


 * #2 - should just be removed, this absolutism just isn't true, and CfD results can very much be a matter of subjective opinion.


 * #3 - While this is presumable true, this seems to dance around WP:CRYSTAL a bit. I'm not sure if this just needs re-wording, or should just be removed as unnecessary.

I look forward to others' thoughts. - jc37 10:48, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Objection to change to guideline
Amid many edits to this guideline that I recognize must have taken a lot of work and effort, User:Jc37 made the edit,

Also, while historical persons may be identified from sources by notable association with a single ethnicity or other notable characteristic, living people must have self-identified.

Later on, they modified it with, Also, while historical persons may be identified from sources by notable association with a particular ethnicity, gender, religion, sexuality, or disability, living people must have self-identified.

Regarding changes to policies and guidelines, according to WP:TALKFIRST, Changes may be made if there are no objections or if the discussion shows there is consensus for the change.

I object to the aforementioned changes. Reason being is that it introduces further restrictions than before, it uses "must" instead of "should", and it is overly restrictive after Jc37 removed the balance I was trying to make with an edit, quoting current policy.

Although I understand gender sensibilities overall, the practice of self-identifying as man, woman or gender in general publicly is circumscribed to specific sectors in specific countries. It is not a worldwide practice and not a practice used by most people in said countries, because most people take for granted as something self-evident their gender (I don't necessarily state I share such opinion). Therefore as a result, this could affect hundreds of categories and thousands of pages, like in the tree of the Category:Women.

Regards, Thinker78  (talk) 06:50, 7 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Ok, so first, the edit you note was due to merging the existing guideline from WP:OC to here: . That's where "must" came from.
 * This is the issue I was trying to convey to you on your talk page. When policy and guidelines are copied/split across pages, they are likely to have different phrasing, and be in different states of update. So we should try to be careful with that.
 * Second, again, as I mentioned on your talk page, I don't disagree that the section on #Sexual orientation could use updating. But trying to shoehorn 2 lengthy quotes under the Verifiability example is a bit much.
 * And finally, I don't have much of an opinion on the question of "must" vs "should", As I said, it pre-existed being merged to this page. I suggest checking to see the source of the BLPCAT edit you're trying to quote. There have been several RFCs recently around the topics of names and self-identification, and it might be worth seeing what the results there were. - jc37 07:54, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Without wading into all of this (yet?) I'll agree that must language is inappropriate in a guideline, and our guidelines generally avoid using it because they are not policies.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:36, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't disagree on that point. We tend to use "should" to allow for WP:IAR. - jc37 10:31, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Jc37, you merged WP:OC that you also modified extensively. I fail to find the "must" and "self-identify" (I know an iteration of this is in BLPCAT and GENDERBLP] language previous to your work. Therefore, I wonder whether you included as well such language there and whether it was a personal inspiration or whether it was derived from somewhere else. Regards, Thinker78  (talk) 19:57, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Which apparently came from a different guideline [].
 * And when I go back to that page's edit history I see it came out of a merging of the descent/heritage section with the rest of EGRS.
 * Which brings us back to the challenges of having these guidelines scattered across many pages (which was part of why unifying them is important).
 * Anyway, as I said above, I have no attachment to "must" in this, I was merely merging pre-existing text.
 * So if the consensus here is to use "should" in this case, I'm not in opposition to that - as I said above... - jc37 20:09, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, I'm still following the trail to see if I can find the original source for "must". lol. I found the attribution suggesting it's from another page. I think that's what, five pages, so far? And these earlier ones weren't by me. So give me a bit and I'll see if I can find where this came from.
 * Granted it's immaterial at this point. I'm now just curious. - jc37 20:32, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh, and I changed "must" to "should", per your request. - jc37 20:35, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for looking into this and working towards a consensus. Regards, Thinker78  (talk) 20:37, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

unclear/conflicting lifespans?
for a lot of medieval (& earlier) biographies, especially more obscure saints, the article & general scholarship is unclear about when the person lived. one example is Ia of Cornwall, but i've found quite a few in my editing of medieval saint articles. how should they be categorized? in the example of saint ia, she's in a bunch of categories for both 5th and 6th century biographies (christian martyrs, christian saints, irish women, irish people, english women, etc). what's the best approach here? Sawyer-mcdonell (talk) 20:06, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Jew tagging
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_Goldin  "Goldin was born in New York City in 1946 to a Jewish family...."

I don't know why the insertion other than to qualify her for Wikipedia's list of "Jewish-American economists" (bottom of the page). (In fact, why on earth is there such a list? Why all the other Jewish-American this-and-that lists? So Jews can kvell? So anti-Jews can have a convenient roster of whom to hate? Why is it important to categorize people? Is Goldin left-handed, perhaps? Red-haired? Should I care?) If something in her personal or professional life indicates that she has Jewish roots (membership in a Jewish organization, e.g.), fine. But here--as so often throughout Wikipedia--I don't see it.

Another: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Diamond   Certainly he isn't Jewish by religion; he's an atheist. (Thanks, Google.) Yet there he is in all those Jewish-this and Jewish-that categories at the bottom of the page. The fallback justification seems to be it's his ethnicity. But as I pointed out a couple of weeks ago (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2023_September_25): "An American is usually just an American, but an American of Jewish descent is always a Jewish American." and "I would say that any extraneous (which is to say, not pertinent) mention of a subject's religion or ethnicity--Jewish or otherwise--is, well, extraneous. If, like [Abbe] Lowell, the subject is an officer of a Jewish organization, fine; say so. If he isn't, why are we supposed to care what religious house his/her great-grandparents may or may not have attended? And why is the fact given so prominently, as if it's an important, basic part of the subject's identity, whether or not the subject considers it so?" 68.186.241.185 (talk) 19:19, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I've noticed this issue as well. We don't go around tagging Americans as being of Scottish descent or whatever. Being Jewish in one sense or another may be pertinent in some articles, e.g. where it's a religious matter and central to their notability. Or even when it's an ethnic-only connection but still central to their notability, perhaps because they've been very active in Jewish-related causes. But just randomly labeling someone like Diamond as "Jewish" seem unencyclopedic, and smacks of the "one-drop rule" racialism approach.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:36, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
 * It's not Jew-tagging, it is ethnicity-tagging. Regarding Scottish descent, you may be interested to note that there are more than 1,400 articles in Category:American people of Scottish descent. Jared Diamond has repeatedly been identified as being of Jewish descent in sources--User:Namiba 20:02, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
 * 1,400 is a tiny, tiny fraction. And just because some sources do something doesn't mean we have to follow suit.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:27, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Our category system distinguishes ethnically-Jewish categories ("...of Jewish descent") from religiously-Jewish categories ("Jewish ..."). This helps sidestep facile arguments where the religious or ethnic meaning is chosen to fit the discussion rather than in a unified and principled way. The religiously-Jewish ones can only be used on a BLP when we have a personal attestation of faith from the subject, by WP:BLPCAT. So Jared Diamond is miscategorized.
 * That said, we should only use ethnic categorization, like Category:American people of Irish descent or Category:American people of indigenous Siberian descent or whatever, when it is actually relevant to their notability, not merely because it can be documented. Whether this excessive tagging is happening out of pride or prejudice, it is inappropriate. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:59, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Hear, hear! 71.105.6.11 (talk) 21:50, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
 * So, following this, it would be best to strip, say, Dan Aykroyd of all his ethnic categories that aren’t Canadian and American? . Not to mention.
 * It certainly seems like an uphill battle. — HTGS (talk) 22:53, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Articles on “Death of X”
Am I right in thinking that articles on the death (murder, killing, homicide, etc) of an individual should not be categorized as people, per WP:SEPARATE? — HTGS (talk) 00:52, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Create a redirect from person X and categorise that, with a DEFAULTSORT. (Create redirects from all versions of their name, but only categorise the one version at their most common name.) Pam  D  06:56, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

African-American surgeons
This guideline includes the text "'LGBT writers' is a well-studied biographical category with secondary sources discussing the personal experiences of LGBT writers as a class ... For similar reasons Category:African-American musicians would be valid, but Category:African-American surgeons would not." Um. You know there are multiple books on African-American surgeons, right? (all about the collective topic, not individual African-American surgeons nor physicians more generally). I'm not suggesting that we rush out to create the category, but maybe we could pick a better example of an intersection that actually does not have secondary sources discussing it as a class. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:15, 18 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Also this sentence is totally misplaced under "Sexual orientation example" and we already have better examples under "Ethnicity example". Maybe we should just remove it? It was added in 2017 by User:Fayenatic london after a 2013 discussion removed the surgeon category without any of its participants noticing the significant literature on the category. But at the time of its creation, the examples section was not broken down by ethnicity, sexuality, etc., so it made more sense then and less now. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:13, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I would support removing this example. You're absolutely correct.--User:Namiba 20:20, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Since you can find multiple books on the collective topic we clearly should remove it as an example of a non-wrkable intersection.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:39, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Ok, I removed it. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:23, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Nth-century Fooian people categories
There's consensus from this 2010 CfD that nth-century Fooian people categories should be container categories. However, many editors have since created and populated such categories without being aware of the prior discussion, and it's now unclear where the community stands on the issue. Some editors have explicitly removed container category tags from such category pages.

Personally, I don't see why such categories shouldn't be container cats, since Fooian people categories have always been marked as container categories since before these by-century subcategories were created. If Fooian people categories are expected to be diffused by occupations or other aspects, why shouldn't 21st century Fooian people? --Paul_012 (talk) 09:06, 17 December 2023 (UTC)


 * My take is that a lot has happened since 2010, including better development of various EGRS policies. If we containerized N-century nationalities, what would be do with N-century Fooian women? Mason (talk) 15:09, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
 * well, Fooian women is clearly stated to be a container category. The understanding is that we only categorize women by occupation where the intersection of occupation and being a woman is notable. I think we should apply this to century categories as well. I think for ethnicity we need to as well. I think only nationslity categories should we allow people to be counted without regard to notably. With century categories, the majority of people live in multiple centuries. If we allow placement of a person who is African-American in 2 by century categories, we need them in a non-diffusing category for Americans fir both. Well, what if their occupation was computer programmer, that we do not diffuse by century. That means we have to place than directly in 20th and 21st century American people as well. As the 2 by century sub-cats, because for every African-American sub-cat they are in we need them in at least one cat that is not for African-Americans. By century sub-cats should only be by sub-cats such as occupation I on that are ERGS neutral, or by things that are not ERGS neutral, like Tuskegee Airmen or African-American military personnel in World War I, but are far more specific than century. Having people directly in 21st-century African-American women is a categorization nightmare. First off a very high percentage pf people in that category are also in 20th-cenyury African-Akerican women. If the person is a model, not diffused by century, that we could have then in both the African-American model category, and the non-African American model category. Then she would need to be in 21st-cenury African-American women, 21st-century African-American people, 21st century American women, and 21st-century American people. If she was born before 2000, someone could argue she belongs in all 4 of those categories for 20th-century as well. That is 8 categories to meet ERGS rules, before we categorize for anything else, just because we feel the intersection of century, ethnicity and gender is defining. Nationality categories are allowed to take in all people of that nationality. Ethnicity does as well, but not gender categories. I think ethnicity by century if we have it at all should be under the gender rules, that we only include people in justifiable sub-cats. I can successfully argue that Thomas Sowell's ethnicity is defining, even if we cannot find any occupation he was in where categorizing by the intersection of ethnicity and occupation is defining. I just do not think we need to subdivide such categories by century. At least with Afeican-Americams there are other not named after centuries was to group people by historical period, such as Civil rights era, World War II, Reconstruction, the American Civil War, etc. I think we also have to reconsider what things we split by century. I know right now we have excessive numbers of categories for many musicians.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:13, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
 * You didn't answer my question. What would we do with N-century Fooian women? Mason (talk) 22:17, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I think we should containerized those. So 20th-century American actresses, 20th-century American women in politics, 20th-century American women singers, 20th-century American businesswomen, 20th century American women scientists, etc. Can be plaved under 20th-century American women, but a woman who lived in the 20th-century who we cannot place in a category for the intersection of occupation, gender, nationality and century does not go there. If the women was only known as a librarian, we do not place her in American women, so we should not place her in American women by century. The same applies to an American man who was an engineer, a politician and much else. Any other solution will cause too many categories and overlooks the very reason why by century categories are container categories. We can link being in 20th-century American actresses to having performed either in multiple paid roles, or at least in 2 significant roles in notable productions on the off chance the some such roles were not paid. How exactly can we limit 20th-century American women other than life, and anyway having it negates the entire reason that American women is a Container Category in the first place.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:36, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
 * > If the women was only known as a librarian, we do not place her in American women, so we should not place her in American women by century.
 * That is not correct. We do place her in a subcategory of American women. The entire reason that the main category can be containerized is because American women by century exists. Mason (talk) 00:50, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * That was not the argument given when the decision was made to containerized the women categories. I think we should limit by century categories to only have by occupation sub-cats. So only those people in occupations that we split by century go in by century categories. We can sub-divide these occupation by century categories by nationality if needed. Everything that is not say 20th century American drummers, 19th-century French painters or 13th-century Swedish poets, or even if the demands of existing occupation categories justify it 20th-century African American singers, would only be put under a century Category if it has a non-century name, like Reconsteuction Era politicians (which is an occupation) and American people of the War of 1812. I am unconvinced we should have any categories that intersect 4 ways and involve ERGS. We can have19th century African-American musicians and 19th-century Women musicians, but I think 19th-century African-American women musicians is a bridge too ffar.I still think we should scrap all 20th-century categories. Besides what I said before, we tend towards specialization. Most 20th-century scientists are specifically botanists, minerologists, biochemists, etc. Some overlap, but they are not in general like 14th-century scientists, who were called natural philosophers and broadly dabbled in many things without it being defining. Most 20th-century medical doctors, especially those notable as medical doctors (as opposed to notable as politicians or other non-medical endebors), were specifically cardiologists,psychiatrists, urologists etc. We have cases like screen writers who only exist from roughly 1900 on. So there is no reason to have a screen writers by century Category. Writers by century is justifiable. However if we have 20th-century American writers this mainly functions as an add on cat to people much more defined by a few specific forms of writing. Pre-1800 it can be claimed writers by nationality is a definable group, after 1900 specialization makes that claim hard, 1800-1900 it is a little trickier. I would scrap 19th-century categories too, but others might see it the other way around. Categories are to aid navigation. 5 is the minimum reasonable size in almost all cases, but going larger is better.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:09, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Fooian people are expected to be dispersed. Fooian women are mandated to bs duspersed. We could have a French person who is notable, but their occupation is not and there is no other sub-groyping that we would place that person in. We place the article in the French people category. If the person is a woman for whom the occupation is not one splittable by gender, and we have no other posdible by gender cat, we placs her in French peiople, or in French librarians, French chefs, French bakers, etc., but not directly in women.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:01, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
 * >If the person is a woman for whom the occupation is not one splittable by gender, and we have no other posdible by gender cat, we placs her in French peiople, or in French librarians, French chefs, French bakers, etc., but not directly in women
 * Again, I really don't understand how you can come to this conclusion. So you're saying that because there wouldn't be a French women category, her womenness is just omitted entirely? That doesn't jibe with how I understand defining. Gender is by definition a defining category. Mason (talk) 00:47, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * The decision was made that gender is not defining on its own. The decision was made to exclude people from the categories of direct placement in categories based on the intersection of gender and nationality. The decision was further made that we would not place people directly in categories thst intersect ethnicity and gender alone. There are many reasons for doing so. One is allowing such creates excessive Category clutter.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:24, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I think it should be determined in a case by case basis. Some century fooian people may be suitable for having only subcategories whereas others don't. Regards, Thinker78  (talk) 02:41, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * ERGS rules have the sports and maybe entertainment carve out. In sports we do not need to place a men's basketball player or women's basketball player in a gender neutral category, because what thry do is men's basketball or women's basketball. Not some gender neutral basketball. This does not mean we have to split categories of sports by ethnicity by gender as well. In the case of some endeavors like singers, actors/actresses,models and maybe a few other similar cases since gender is so central to the career, we do not require placement in both a gender specific and gender neutral category. We also split by ethnicity along gender lines in most cases. This is most clear in music, where we most finely categorize as sopranos, tenors, etc. Where the gender is inherent in the role. While this works for singers, I do not think it works for musicians as a whole, so no -singer musicians if they are pianists need to be in both a women pianist cat and a pianist cat.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:15, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm tending to agree with Johnpacklambert on most of the above (and some of the below), but there seem to be very different takes on the issue here. This will probably require an RfC to settle, but a clearly formulated solution is needed first. --Paul_012 (talk) 08:24, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Cancer and other common causes of deaths
Cancer is either the leading cause of death or second leading cause of death. I do not think Cancer is such that the set of those who die by it is a definable group. I think we should delete Deaths from cancer, and only keep as categories deaths from throat cancer, deaths from lung cancer, deaths from breast cancer, deaths from colon cancer, etc. We can keep sub-categories of these specific categories that meet reasonable size and grouping criteria, but I do not think we need categories to group people by having died from cancer without regard to type of cancer.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:22, 17 December 2023 (UTC)


 * I havs been working on trying to see how substantial I can get the sub-cats of deaths from lung cancer to be. Right now many are super small,but the parent category has about 850 articles. There are also people in various cancer deaths by country or sub-nationsl entity categories who we know they died of lung cancer but this is not reflected in the category. Right now only lung, brain and pancreatic cancer deaths are subdivided by anything. A few other categories run over 700 articles, but I am not sure subdividing by coubtry is actually justified at thst point. Almost half the total contents of deaths by cancer do not list what cancer caused the death at all (some do not even have the word cancer, or another term meaning cancer in the text at all and so should not be in the category).John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:21, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * breast, prostate, colorectal and liver cancers also have over 700 articles. I am considering trying to make sub-cats by country for them.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:32, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I have started subdividing leukemia, breast cancer, stomach cancer, prostate cancer, colorwctal cancer and liver cancer deaths by place,to add to those of brain cancer, pancreatic cancer and lung cancer that has already been done. I do not think any other cancers can be subdivided adequately. A lot of cancer death categorized articles do not even say the subject died of cancer. In about half or more cases the cancer is not otherwise specified. This is a huge number of articles to review.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:57, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Disease related deaths categoroes
I think we should only categorize people by specific diseases that killed them. I do not believe we should have any Biographical articles directly in disease related deaths or infectious disease related deaths categories. So many peoples deaths fall under disease related that thr Categories for thos are approaching cases of categorization by place of death.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:49, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

If we do not categorize by place of death why do we categorize by place of death
The guidelines on trivial Category say place of death is not defining. We have many people in some deaths by country trees who are just being categorized by place of death. For some who died of cancer, they died in a place half-way across the world because they went there just for treatment. With sub-national categories such as by US state often people die in a place they were not residing. I shudder to think of the multiplying categories deaths by nationality might create, but it might be the better way to go.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:58, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Deaths from cancer report 1
There are 41 by country sub-categories of deaths from cancer that lack even 5 articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:10, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Adding categories without placing the information in the article
Categories need to be built on the text of an article. 2 editors have recently removed my removal of cause of death categories on the grounds that a source supported it. We also want catehories to flow from sources, but the information from the source needs to be placed in the article first. This esoecially applies to non-year death categories (alrhough if you put a person in a year of death category but did not place text in the article saying when they died that would be odd). The only part about death that is defining is year, not place and not cause. Some causes are defining, some causes are not defining. Place is not defining, but we accept some to split up cause of death categories. Editors should A-make sure the support of a category is in the atulicle before adding the article to the category. Which means the editors should not revert and argue "such and such a source supports this". Thry should and text in the article before adding back the category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:03, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Cause of death issue
Pete Sutherland died from euthanasia. I believe this should be his only listed cause of death. I do not believe we should list way ailments he had when he was killed. If he had terminal lung cancer, but was hit by a bus while walking down the street, or had cancer but was killed by a fire in his house, we would not list him (or at least should not, I have seen the house fire case mischaracterized) as dieing from cancer. Cause of dwath is about what killed you. Euthanasia is the only cause of dwath when you are euthanized. Anything beyond that is speculation about what might of been, or what caused the action. It is not the cause if dwath, not what someone died from, and we should not categorize people as dieing from that. We have deleted various cancer survivor categories, because with few exemptions having a disease is not enough to justify creating a category, only the fact thst the disease was the actual cause of death. Related to thins sometimes we have information that someone had a whole slew of health problems at death. I think we should at least demand a well documented statement indicating each cause of death is a major factor, and I think if more than 2 we should assume that the collection of factors all are not defining unless we can full document it. Categories are meant to cover the key factors of a person's life that make them part of a defined group. Things like nationslity,long standing occupation, political office. The year of birth and year of death we accept. We only accept some causes of death, and I think we need to revisit which ones we accept.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:49, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Cancer caused him to seek euthanasia. Cancer is the causal disease. Euthanasia was the means of death. Personally, I don't think we should categorize people by means or cause of death at all unless it contributes to their notability.--User:Namiba 16:21, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Euthanasia is the cause of death. Cancer did not kill. Euthanasia killed. I do not think there is any reasonable way to limit cause of death to "contributed to notability". However I think we should consider how much it defines someone's notability to have died in a given way. Assasination of politicians is probably defining enough to notability for any politician who is notable for it to be worth. More soon.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:07, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I think we need to ask is the group in some way connected. People killed in the same war are connected. People who died of an infectious disease in a given place are not. I am unconvinced that all people who died from pneumonia or tuberculosis are a coherent group, and I do not think subdividing by location changes that fact. With cancers I think death from a specific cancer is a group able thing, bit I do not think all deaths from cancer are groupable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:12, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * On the article on Elmer Bernstein it explicitly states his cause of dwath was not shared publicly when he died. I have removed it, and explained that I feel this fact indicates it was not defining. We will see if there is push back.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:24, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

"I was present and I have the death certificate"
This is the statement that was given by an editor for adding back two cause of death categories for Peter Freeman (musician). I removed them again and left an explanation as to why. To start with Wikipedia editors are not reliable sources for anything. Maybe this editor is a notable person and a closely connected person who would be used in published reports to provide this detail. If they were present at the person's death I wonder if they are really disconnected enough to be editing. Regardless, they are putting the cart before the horse. Wikipedia is built on verifiability and we verify from reliable secondary sources, not directly from primary sources. The primary doubles are a person present and the death certificate. This especially applies to death cause categories. These need to be at least mildly defining to the person's notability. At a minimum it has to be defining enough that at least one reliable secondary source has mentioned it. The is the lowest cut I can think of. To be defining enough yo categorize by cause of dwath at least one reliable secondary dource needs to include it. To misplace and cause of death we only need both those details supported independently, we do not need to have a source that mentions them together (lots of obituaries will, but separate works). I think we could source the place and year of death from a death certificate, although how we know for sure it is for the person in question needs to be asked, since year of death is acceptable as a standard simple Biographical fact, but we need a secondary source for cause. I would be very hesitant about categorizing cause of death from a family provided death notice thst had no editorial oversight, perfectly happy to categorize year of death from that. I still think thst would be a better source than a death certificate for cause of death.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:55, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Place of burial categories
I think in the case of place of burial, specific cemeteries of other very specific places of burial can be defining. I do not think the city, state or country of burial is defining. There are a few exceptions, like British monarchs buried abroad. However I think we should categorize Burials by centimeters, on a case by case basis where burial in that Cemetery is defining. I think any city, state or country categories if we have them at all should only be container categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:27, 21 December 2023 (UTC)


 * I don't think they are defining except in very rare circumstances, maybe only one-offs that fail SMALLCAT, like who is buried in Grant's Tomb. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:15, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I rhink the burials in Arlington National cemetery category is justified. Although even there a list might be caturing more what we are after. I think US presidents an article listing where all are buried is reasonable, and there are probably other groups where such an article can be dourced enough to justify. I am not sure how much more beyond that we need. There are probably other categories that are justified, but I suspect we have a lot that are not.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:59, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Per WP:CATSPECIFIC,
 * Regards, Thinker78  (talk) 06:20, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Regards, Thinker78  (talk) 06:20, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Multi-instrumrntalists
We have multi-instrumrntalists categories. This is per the article definition a musician that plays 2 or more instruments at a professional level of proficiency. The definition is misusing professional. To be professional means to be paid. Amateurs are by definition unpaid. Many are also not as good, but not all. Most people in 2 or more instrument cats are not also in the multi-instrumentalist cat. I think we should just scrap the cat. Most people who are notable gor multiple instruments are notable for each one on its own. If we are to keep multi-instrumentalists, I think we should A-exclude drummers, B-limitvit and maybe rename it for musicians who are well known for performing in the same concert or performance using multiple non-percussion instruments.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:16, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Melanoma v skin cancer
I split the mrlanoma deaths category out with US, UK, Australia and Canada sub-cats. I made California and New York (stste) sub-cats of the US one. All have over 5 articles. I at some pointvrealized that melanoma is a sub-set of skin cancer. I am beginning to think "skin cancer" is the common name, and that we should have these caregories for all the skin cancers together. This might allow Sweden, Itsly and Brazil to also have enough for categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:38, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

We should end 20th and 21st century people caregories
I used to think otherwise, but I no longer believe it makes sense to have either 20th or 21st century people cats. Allowing them leads to too much Category overlap. It also has lead to a huge number of such categories for places that have barely existed 100 years if that, and has caused people to create way too many by century categories. Century cut offs are inherently arbitrary. They are useful for dividing very large groups, but not always the best. Some places they come close to splitting the living from the dead. For 20th and 21st century cases they add to category clutter, including articles in over 100 categories. When the average lifespan is in excess of 70 years, and higher in general for most notable people, sub-dividing by century often creates huge amounts of duplicate categories. I have yet to see anyone argue that there is any inherent difference in American acting in 2023 from 1993. The difference is far greater if compatlred to 1953, 1923 or 1903. Pre-1900 actors categories are functionally all "stage actors", broadly defined, so pre-1900 it makes no sense to have stage actor cats. I see no reason why the American film actors cat, which is de facto American sound film actors, sepweate from American silent film actors, needs any sub-sivision by century when it has existed only 96 years. The overlap between film and TV actors is excessive, and in several cases involves people playing the sane role on TV and in film. It gets even more interesting when a film is only released on TV, and with streaming service only released films paired with streaming service released mini series the overlap is more confusing. Don Adams, Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, and Nichelle Nichols are 4 actors I can think of who played the same role in both TV and film, and there many others. With the fuzziness of what streaming services release is, I think one name to capture acting in camera captured performances, as opposed to the live performances done on stage might be better,but what that name would be is hard. However I do not think the line of 2000 is worth dividing any occupation along. I think we can accept a seperate Category for any century pre-19th, as long as we know that the country exists well into the 20th. However any case of a country existing less than 200 years I think we need to strongly ask why we would subdivide by century, and if we can not come up with a good reason not do it.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:56, 17 December 2023 (UTC)


 * There are other considerations that have to be balanced here, such as the extent to which the parent categories need size control strategies. I'll grant that I've never been entirely convinced that by-century categorization was useful or genuinely maintainable at all — there's an incredibly common error, for example, of century-catting people on a "years of life" basis instead of a "years of notable activity" basis, such that a person who was born in 1985 but published her first book in 2002 would get categorized as both a 20th-century and 21st-century writer. That's wrong — the question is whether she published writing in that century, not whether she was alive in that century, so she isn't a "20th-century writer" if her debut work didn't arrive until the 21st century — but it happens far, far too often to adequately control. But the extent to which parent categories need diffusion for size control purposes needs to be taken into account., for example, is supposed to be fully diffused, with no writers filed directly in it and all American writers diffused into one or more subcategories — as of right now it isn't, because nobody's doing the work, but it's supposed to be. But if there's even the remotest theoretical possibility that even one writer who's currently in it would have to stay in it due to the lack of any other possible subcategories to move them to, then by-century categories can't be erased without some other replacement that absolutely, comprehensively and without a single loophole, renders that theoretical possibility completely moot. Bearcat (talk) 15:02, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Agreed, let's delete them.--User:Namiba 16:22, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * In the case of American writers we also diffuse by state. Although dome are not well diffused that way. I have seen for example multiple categories in 20th-century African-American actresses and 21st-century African American women because the person only acted in the 20th-century. Many of these people died before 2010 and had little public presence after 2000. I have to admit I an not sure we need to fully diffuse American writers, and am not sure why we call gor that. We have novelists, journalists, short story writers, poets, dramatists and playwrights, historians, non-fiction writers, critics of various types, screenwriters, memoirists, diarists, bloggers, biographers, autobiographers, science writers, text book writers, librettists and probably more. Is there any person we could call a "writer" who would not fall under at least one of these. When someone can name an article that cannot be diffused to any sub-type of American writer, and can only be diffused by century or by state, I will listen. However the "non-fiction" does a lot of lifting, and "journalist" I believe is understood probably.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:10, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * we also have children's writers. Humorists, Western (genre) writers, fantasy, science fiction and probably more.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:13, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * we have 52 sub-cats of American non-fiction writers, one of which is journalists. We have newspaper writers and magazine writers categories. We have 20 sub-cats of American writers by genre, 12 sub-cats of American fiction writers. Having over 700 articles in the American writers parent is not from any lack of sub-cats.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:18, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * some of the non-diffusion problem though comes from cases like Penelope Johnson Allen. She was in lots of sub-cats by being a columnists, by bring a journalists from various states and others. For unknown reasons she was still in American writers directly. I am not sure why.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:25, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I know some messy direct placements occur when categories are upmerged and no one ensures that the merged articles are not already in other sub-cats of the tree.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:26, 21 December 2023 (UTC)


 * It looks to me like diffusing American writers by century has allowed for people to avoid more useful diffusion by subject. The most obvious is failure to diffuse into American non-fiction writers. I just diffused someone who wrote informational books related to films into that category. We may need yp take a look at having more types of non-fiction writer sub-cats.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:33, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Ashanti Alston
Ashanti Alston is said to be a writer. Just looking at the article he seems to be an Anarchist writer. I am thinking the best Category to put him in would be American anarchist writers. I am not sure where that would fall though. I am also not sure what we would have left in American anarchists after that. However since he is in a non-diffusing ethnicity cat, at least if the description of him as a writer makes sense we need to place him in a writer cat as well. Since some anarchists were just speakers, activists or other things and not writers I think this would work. I am not sure if this would go under an existing sub-cat of American writers, or need to go directly under American writers. It looks like of the first 8 articles in American anarchists, 5 could be moved to American anarchists writers, the other 3 would stay under American anarchists. Although do we want to diffuse American anarchist writers from American anarchists?John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:39, 21 December 2023 (UTC)


 * For now I moved him to American political writers.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:34, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Douglas A. Anderson
I moved Anderson to "American non-fiction writers". I am unsatisfied with this category, although it is ofmddly correct. Anderson is a Tolkien studies scholar, and more broadly a scholar of fantasy. He is in some Tolkien specific categories. I have added him to American academics of English literature. Mayne I should have instead added him to American literary critics. I have to admit I think of literary critics as those who write book reviews of new literature. Does it also include those who create annotated editions of works, annotated bibliographies, or who write broad histories of literary genres? Also, why do we not have American academics of American Literature? Is the English in "English literature" by language or by nationslity? Mostly English is by nationality.John Pack Lambert (talk) 05:12, 23 December 2023 (UTC)