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There is absolutly no reason admins should be deleting '''anyone's''' "vote" unless it's '''really''' out of bounds such as racist, profane, etc. To do so is vandalism and defeats the purpose of the process. I find "Soandso Wikipedians" categories to be useless and of no value on Wikipedia and when I state such, I don't expect someone to just totally delete my damn vote! -- [[User:Allstarecho|<span style="color:#FFFF00;background:black;border-style: double">ALLSTAR</span>]] [[User talk:Allstarecho|<span style="color:#00FF00;background:black;border-style: double">ECHO</span>]] 17:56, 24 October 2007 (UTC) |
There is absolutly no reason admins should be deleting '''anyone's''' "vote" unless it's '''really''' out of bounds such as racist, profane, etc. To do so is vandalism and defeats the purpose of the process. I find "Soandso Wikipedians" categories to be useless and of no value on Wikipedia and when I state such, I don't expect someone to just totally delete my damn vote! -- [[User:Allstarecho|<span style="color:#FFFF00;background:black;border-style: double">ALLSTAR</span>]] [[User talk:Allstarecho|<span style="color:#00FF00;background:black;border-style: double">ECHO</span>]] 17:56, 24 October 2007 (UTC) |
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::I'm confused, are you saying the !vote as I've quoted it is not the original comment? If so, can you show me a diff of the original? Thanks. <div style="font:bold 10px Arial;display:inline;border:#009 1px dashed;padding:1px 6px 2px 7px;white-space:nowrap;">[[User:Equazcion|Equazcion]] • ''[[User talk:equazcion|argue]]/[[Special:Contributions/Equazcion|improves]]'' • ''23:10, 10/24/2007''</div> |
::I'm confused, are you saying the !vote as I've quoted it is not the original comment? If so, can you show me a diff of the original? Thanks. <div style="font:bold 10px Arial;display:inline;border:#009 1px dashed;padding:1px 6px 2px 7px;white-space:nowrap;">[[User:Equazcion|Equazcion]] • ''[[User talk:equazcion|argue]]/[[Special:Contributions/Equazcion|improves]]'' • ''23:10, 10/24/2007''</div> |
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Revision as of 23:29, 24 October 2007
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Criteria for speedy deletion of user categories
As user categories are used slightly differently than general categories, user cats should have their own criteria for speedy deletion. However, we should not attempt to overload the CSD criteria with things similar to what can be found at Wikipedia:Overcategorization.
The following is the proposed text for addition to CSD:
User categories
For any user categories that are not speedy deletion candidates, use Wikipedia:User categories for discussion.
- Empty categories (no Wikipedian user pages or sub-categories for at least four days) whose only content has consisted of links to parent categories or related articles. This does not apply to categories being discussed on WP:UCFD, WP:CFD, or WP:SFD, or disambiguation categories. If the category isn't relatively new, it possibly contained articles earlier, and deeper investigation is needed. (This criteria should match C1.)
- Speedy renaming. Categories that have qualified for speedy renaming. (This criteria - 1 through 5 - should match C2.)
- Typo fixes (e.g., Wikipeians -> Wikipedians), but not changes between British and American spelling.
- Capitalization fixes (e.g., Wikipedians Who like star Wars -> Wikipedians who like Star Wars).
- Conversions from singular to plural, or back (e.g., Wikipedian -> Wikipedians).
- Renaming to conform with the "by country" categorization conventions.
- Abbreviation expanding for country names, e.g. changing "U.S." to "United States."
- Any category intended for Wikipedians that has no indication it is a Wikipedian category can be speedy renamed. "Indications" include, but are not limited to: "Wikipedians", "WikiProject", or a name of a Wikipedia-specific organization or grouping.
- User categories using "users" may be speedily renamed to replace "users" with "Wikipedians", except in the case of Babel-specific user categories.
- Template categories. If a category is solely populated from a template (e.g. Category:Wikipedia cleanup from {{cleanup}}) and the template is deleted per deletion policy, the category can also be deleted without further discussion. (This criteria should match C3.)
User categories that are divisive or inflammatory. (This criteria should match T1.)
Comments
- Please note UC2.4 (which matches C2.4) - This may be a potential solution to the in/of/from discussion. See also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories)#Categories by nationality and specifically, Category:People by nationality which is apparently the standard for people. We can just substitute Wikipedian for people in usage.
- Also, 2.6 and 2.7 are new, per previous consensus. - jc37 12:14, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
Looks pretty good. I might add that user categories populated solely by userbox templates should be treated as empty, and be speedyable (regardless of if the template was deleted) after 4 days, and possibly add in a speedy rename criteria such as "Uncontroversial renames to conform with currently established naming conventions" - That would allow alma mater cats and other such obvious renames to be speedied. Also might want to change #4 to say divisive or inflammatory. I can just see someone arguing that the category they made was only 1 of the two, so it wouldn't be speedyable. VegaDark 09:10, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- Taking them in order:
- "...categories populated solely by userbox templates should be treated as empty..." - This could be rather controversial.
- "Uncontroversial renames to conform with currently established naming conventions" - I like this, especially if we define it similar to WP:RM#Uncontroversial proposals.
- "...or..." - changed.
- Any other thoughts? - jc37 09:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- Not that I can think of. I know the first could be controversial but I don't really see the point of categories where the only member is a userbox template, seems like doing that is just a loophole so your cat doesn't get speedied after 4 days when nobody joins. If someone can't be arsed to join a Wikipedian category they created, they shouldn't have made it in the first place IMO. VegaDark 09:40, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- Oh, I see what you're saying. How about any category that has only the creator (and possibly the creator's transcluded subpages), and associated userbox(es), may be speedily deleted? - jc37 09:51, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- I was thinking about that, but I can forsee people complaining about 4 days not being long enough for people to notice the category. It also might encourage sockpuppetry just so their category won't be deleted. I can somewhat have sympathy for user cat creators if they actually add themselves to the category, but when they create a user cat and don't even add themselves I don't buy the "not enough time" excuse. I'd say allow it even if only the creator is in the cat (but can certainly be brought to UCFD if this is the case), it's just when they don't add themselves that irks me. VegaDark 10:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- Oh, I see. Creating a category just because you created a "cool" userbox that "somebody" may use, but you're not interested in? Makes sense : ) - jc37 10:10, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- I was thinking about that, but I can forsee people complaining about 4 days not being long enough for people to notice the category. It also might encourage sockpuppetry just so their category won't be deleted. I can somewhat have sympathy for user cat creators if they actually add themselves to the category, but when they create a user cat and don't even add themselves I don't buy the "not enough time" excuse. I'd say allow it even if only the creator is in the cat (but can certainly be brought to UCFD if this is the case), it's just when they don't add themselves that irks me. VegaDark 10:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- Oh, I see what you're saying. How about any category that has only the creator (and possibly the creator's transcluded subpages), and associated userbox(es), may be speedily deleted? - jc37 09:51, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- Not that I can think of. I know the first could be controversial but I don't really see the point of categories where the only member is a userbox template, seems like doing that is just a loophole so your cat doesn't get speedied after 4 days when nobody joins. If someone can't be arsed to join a Wikipedian category they created, they shouldn't have made it in the first place IMO. VegaDark 09:40, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I just noticed: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Category:Wikipedians_born_between_1995_and_1999. Perhaps I should add something about this in the speedy criteria? - jc37 10:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- I think there are still many who disagree with deletion of categories like that, and deleting them is more of a de facto standard rather than something official, as I doubt adding in that to speedy criteria would get a consensus, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to try. VegaDark 20:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
UC4
- I'm fine with all of the listed criteria, though #4 seems like its execution will be problematic. Nonetheless, it's a nice stick to have.--Mike Selinker 04:18, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- I'm not sure I understood/understand "...though #4 seems like its execution will be problematic." Are you meaning T1, and by corrolary UC4? (In other words, problematic to generally apply.) or that UC4 is problematic on its own? - jc37 07:20, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- A concern might be speedy nominations of support/anti- categories as editors' own judgment of what is divisive or inflammatory. User categories seen as "divisive" by some, a word used often, can lead to no consensus through discussion (e.g. global warming). This has no clear analogy with T1 that I know of, because there is more leeway with user cats. POV templates are taken to TfD, while inflammatory templates are pretty clear as to their intent; there isn't really an "in between" area. Truly inflammatory stuff can be deleted with G10 anyway, right? –Pomte 17:59, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
- I am not aware of the history of how T1 is working, bit UC4 looks very problematic to me; I welcome the intent, but it's much too loosely worded, and far too wide in its possible scope.
- "Wikipedians who support xxx sports team"? Divisive, I support yyy team, and the rivalry with xxx leads to fights at all matches.
- "fooish religion Wikipedians"? Divisive, my area in Belfast/Beirut/Bradford/Baghdad (or wherever) is divided on religious lines, and people from that religion should people of my religions.
- "Wikipedians interested in communism"? My country was destroyed by the commies, and this category must be a fancy label for communist supporters (and I hate them).
- "Wikipedians interested in democracy"? Imperialist swine: the armies which invade my country all say they are promoting "democracy". I hate those people.
- "Wikipedians who use the Firefox browser"? Smug swine, sneering at us all because they think they are clever not using the browser which came with their PC.
- ... and so on. In fact, just about any category can be legitimately labelled as "divisive or inflammatory", and this is much more troublesome with categories than with templates. A template can be undeleted, but once a category is depopulated, it can be a nightmare to restore it.
- I agree with the intention behind UC4, but cannot support anything like this unless it is tightly defined to restrict its use. A wide-open CSD criterion like this one is a recipe for many future conflicts. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:28, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
- I'm not sure I understood/understand "...though #4 seems like its execution will be problematic." Are you meaning T1, and by corrolary UC4? (In other words, problematic to generally apply.) or that UC4 is problematic on its own? - jc37 07:20, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- I'm fine with all of the listed criteria, though #4 seems like its execution will be problematic. Nonetheless, it's a nice stick to have.--Mike Selinker 04:18, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Starting over (sort of)
After reading the discussion above (again), I think we should fall back a bit and re-group. Though we have a speedy section on the UCFD page, it really doesn't get used much, because (though we've discussed it several times in the past), no one is really sure what should be listed there.
I've struck out U4, since it's the one that seems to evoke the most concerns. It can always be part of some future discussion.
The following 2 are obvious:
- Any category intended for Wikipedians that has no indication it is a Wikipedian category can be speedy renamed. "Indications" include, but are not limited to: "Wikipedians", "WikiProject", or a name of a Wikipedia-specific organization or grouping.
- User categories using "users" may be speedily renamed to replace "users" with "Wikipedians", except in the case of Babel-specific user categories.
In addition to these, there have been a few discussions that have had consistant results: Sporting group fans; alma mater cats; languages to default to their iso code; -N (native) used on any cats except spoken languages should be deleted; all zero level cats except english should be deleted.
I'll see about writing up "something" of a speedy listing criteria. - jc37 06:32, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Ok, after spending some time at CSD, The only real "additions/differences" are:
- Empty user category - One which has no Wikipedian user pages or sub-categories for at least four days, whose only content has consisted of a potentially populating template, or links to parent categories or related articles.
- A Wikipedian category which has no indication it is a Wikipedian category can be speedy renamed. "Indications" include, but are not limited to: "Wikipedians", "WikiProject", or a name of a Wikipedia-specific organization or grouping.
- Wikipedian categories may be speedily renamed to replace some form of "users" with some form of "Wikipedians", except in the case of categories which are to follow Babel naming conventions.
- Any "zero-level" (0-level) category (see Wikipedia:Babel), except english (as this is the english-language Wikipedia), may be speedily deleted.
Thinking about making this a subpage of this page, and adding the category CSD as well, and then providing a link from the main page. - jc37 07:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Naming conventions (categories)
Perhaps the way to go about this is simply to develop a naming convention (and by corrollary, an inclusion convention) for user categories.
I'm going to spend some time going through every user category (ugh @ me for volunteering), and take some notes along the way. There are subcats of subcats of subcats.
Comments are welcome : ) - jc37 09:46, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- Before you do the tedious job of clicking through categories, why not get a bot to dump them all into an easy-to-read indented-by-hierarchy list somewhere? –Pomte 14:33, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Code for a dynamic tree listing of categories
–Pomte 08:05, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Parent categories
One thing that I would like discussed in the meantime is the creation of a template for "parent categories" which should not have Wikipedian userpages as members, but are only organisational catgegories, designed to hold only sub-categories (and possibly historical lists). It should not be garish, or huge, but should be clearly evident by the casual reader.
Once we decide on that, then we'll decide which categories should have it.
And after that, in one action, we'll depopulate those categories. (In one action, so that we don't rack up a zillion page changes to user pages, so to, hopefully, minimise confusion, and possible disruption.) - jc37 09:46, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- For the template, I've made a draft at User:Pomte/Template:ucfdepop, copying the look of {{Category redirect}}. –Pomte 14:33, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- Nice work on the template. It should probably be comparable to {{catdiffuse}}. - jc37 19:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- I edited the text to make it a bit more generic for usage, and moved it to template space - Template:Parent category. - jc37 00:20, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- I just found {{Metacategory}}. Merge? –Pomte 00:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- At first, I was thinking yes, but there's a possibility that there is a subtle of semantic difference in usage that we're unaware of. But if not, then yes, some sort of merger could be appropriate, unless we want to less generalise the parent category notice back into being user category-only. - jc37 01:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- Whatlinkshere doesn't suggest any difference. –Pomte 02:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- At first, I was thinking yes, but there's a possibility that there is a subtle of semantic difference in usage that we're unaware of. But if not, then yes, some sort of merger could be appropriate, unless we want to less generalise the parent category notice back into being user category-only. - jc37 01:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- I just found {{Metacategory}}. Merge? –Pomte 00:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- I edited the text to make it a bit more generic for usage, and moved it to template space - Template:Parent category. - jc37 00:20, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- Nice work on the template. It should probably be comparable to {{catdiffuse}}. - jc37 19:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- Are they widely called "super-categories"? What about ditching the a.k.a's and just describe the function like {{Metacategory}}? –Pomte 00:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- They're called all three terms on WP:CFD. The least useful descriptive name is probably meta-category. They've also been called "overcats" as well. But parent cat and super cat seem to be the most common usage. (I didn't call the template supercat simply because it doesn't need a cape : ) - jc37 01:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- Rename to Template:Parent category for brevity, and it does more than notify: it tracks! If you agree, I'll redirect {{Metacategory}} to this new name and post a notice at WT:CAT. –Pomte 02:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- Done, and done (as I note that you spotted the change before I could post here, and followed through on the above : ) - jc37 11:02, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- Rename to Template:Parent category for brevity, and it does more than notify: it tracks! If you agree, I'll redirect {{Metacategory}} to this new name and post a notice at WT:CAT. –Pomte 02:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- They're called all three terms on WP:CFD. The least useful descriptive name is probably meta-category. They've also been called "overcats" as well. But parent cat and super cat seem to be the most common usage. (I didn't call the template supercat simply because it doesn't need a cape : ) - jc37 01:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- Are they widely called "super-categories"? What about ditching the a.k.a's and just describe the function like {{Metacategory}}? –Pomte 00:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- In Category:Parent categories, do we really want every single parent category inside it? Alternatively, it can be subcategorized by type to distinguish between article categories and user categories. For bot and maintenance purposes though, one single huge category should work. –Pomte 00:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- I thought about that, and had removed the cat entirely, but then I remembered this page and thought that it might be useful. We could split the category by namespace, I suppose (since there are Wikipedia:space cats as well). But just keeping in mind that the main (if possibly only) reason for the category's existance is for maintenance, typically bot maintenance. - jc37 01:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- In Category:Parent categories, do we really want every single parent category inside it? Alternatively, it can be subcategorized by type to distinguish between article categories and user categories. For bot and maintenance purposes though, one single huge category should work. –Pomte 00:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Userbox links in category introductions
Another thing is that I think we're going to have to require is that there must be a link in a category introduction to every userbox which transcludes the category. This is rather necessary especially in light of the large amount of userboxes being subst: and/or userfied due to recent "migration" actions. It's making it more and more difficult to find populating templates, and such. - jc37 09:46, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- The userbox linking is going to be hard to enforce. From now on at UCFDiscussions once I find the userbox, I'll link and transclude it in the category. –Pomte 14:33, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- Note that if you transclude a userbox to a category, it typically adds the category to itself : ) - jc37 19:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- I think we can risk having the category include itself, and if not,
use <includeonly>. I've made a template at User:Pomte/Template:usercat that does this in one line. –Pomte 00:03, 19 April 2007 (UTC)- Personally, I hate it when a category is a subcategory of itself (usually due to the userbox being on the page), and would support removing any such occurances. VegaDark 01:18, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
- A way to uncategorize any non-user pages that transclude the userbox is {{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|User|[[Category:Wikipedians ...]]}} –Pomte 02:32, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
- We went through this process at Wikipedia:Userboxes/Education/United_States. We now have a "nocat" switch which allows each userbox to be displayed without cat'ing the page. It is incorporated into {{educat}} so that none of the userboxes create parent-child problems in the categories. It also allows the userbox to be displayed on sandbox and other pages without cat'ing them. --NThurston 13:25, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
- A way to uncategorize any non-user pages that transclude the userbox is {{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|User|[[Category:Wikipedians ...]]}} –Pomte 02:32, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
- Personally, I hate it when a category is a subcategory of itself (usually due to the userbox being on the page), and would support removing any such occurances. VegaDark 01:18, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
- I think we can risk having the category include itself, and if not,
- Note that if you transclude a userbox to a category, it typically adds the category to itself : ) - jc37 19:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Category inclusion syntax
After having had to correct quite a few userpages due to others' unintentional code breaking, and seeing so many userboxes (including subst ones) with incorrectly coded category inclusion, I've added some syntax information at Wikipedia:Userboxes#Syntax for including categories.
I think that Wikipedia:Userboxes#Designing a userbox and it's subsections (of which the above link is one) should be required reading for anyone working on userboxes with category inclusion. Hoping this helps. - jc37 08:53, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
...interested in...
Per the recent discussions, I've updated Wikipedia:Userboxes to reflect what did at least have consensus. Essentially preference verbs, such as "like, love, enjoy" should be changed to a more specific verb, or at least, "interested in". - jc37 23:19, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Proposed move
I'd like to suggest that this page be moved.
I think the reasons are obvious? : ) - jc37 17:05, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
- Fine by me. Might want to take this higher than just a few of us agreeing on this talk page first, though I'm not sure where. VegaDark (talk) 17:07, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
- Ambiguous. All categories are Wikipedian categories, i.e. categories within Wikipedia. User categories corresponds with userboxes and userpages. –Pomte 17:38, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
- Actually no. All categories may be Wikipedia categories, (or rather categories of Wikipedia - let's hear it for the genitive case : ) - But only the subcats of Category:Wikipedians are Wikipedian categories. - jc37 18:31, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
- The overwhelming genetive case means that a Wikipedian is also known as a Wikipedia user, which means "Wikipedia:User categories for discussion", when neglecting the conventional colon, reads as "Wikipedia User categories for discussion", which is a lot more intuitive to a newcomer than prefixing "Wikipedian" with "Wikipedia:" as in the case of your proposal. When choosing between two alternatives with nearly identical meaning, the user-friendly case ought to prevail. –Pomte 02:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
- "Wikipedia:" should be ignored, except as a namespace convention, the same way we ignore "Template" or "Category:" in naming discussions. Incidentally, on other wikis, what we call the Wikipedia namespace, is called the "Project:" namespace. - jc37 12:20, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
- The overwhelming genetive case means that a Wikipedian is also known as a Wikipedia user, which means "Wikipedia:User categories for discussion", when neglecting the conventional colon, reads as "Wikipedia User categories for discussion", which is a lot more intuitive to a newcomer than prefixing "Wikipedian" with "Wikipedia:" as in the case of your proposal. When choosing between two alternatives with nearly identical meaning, the user-friendly case ought to prevail. –Pomte 02:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
- Actually no. All categories may be Wikipedia categories, (or rather categories of Wikipedia - let's hear it for the genitive case : ) - But only the subcats of Category:Wikipedians are Wikipedian categories. - jc37 18:31, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
- Are you going to propose renaming Wikipedia:User categorisation as well? –Pomte 02:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
- I hadn't thought about it, but in looking it over, it should probably be renamed to Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians by location or something similar, since it seems to be only about the location cats. - jc37 12:20, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
- Are you going to propose renaming Wikipedia:User categorisation as well? –Pomte 02:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
- I agree that this page should be moved, and as for Wikipedia:User categorisation, that is so ancient it should just be deleted.--Mike Selinker 18:30, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
- {{User category}} would have to be renamed as well, if not deleted. –Pomte 23:34, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Instruments categories
- Wikipedia:Instruments - The categories were named after the userboxes. I've adjusted the main templates' coding changing the naming convention from:
- User <instrument abbreviation>-#
to:
- Wikipedian <instrument+ist>-#
per several UCFD discussions.
Which leaves us with more than several redlinks. If anyone knows a bot owner who might like to help with this, drop me a note here or on my talk page. - jc37 14:59, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
It's only Wikipedia:Instruments that needs to be updated, right? I've edited the template to default to linking "Category:Wikipedian X players" and the other suffixes can be set manually. –Pomte 20:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)Userboxes like {{User mvx-2}} need to be fixed. –Pomte 21:13, 15 May 2007 (UTC)- I'm pretty sure what is going on now. See the subcats of Category:Wikipedian saxophonists for an example of the switch-over. Delete all the user sax-#, right? The users still in those will have to be switched over, and that can be done with a bot or AWB. I think the actual category renaming will require a little more than bot work considering some templates/cats I've seen are coded improperly, and the
ists
parameter has to be figured out by a human. –Pomte 23:02, 15 May 2007 (UTC)- I don't mind starting hunting the templates down, I just want to do it with little pause between it and the bot depopulation, in order to reduce confusion as much as possible. And all the "new" categories need to have Category:Wikipedians by musical instrument added (which will likely create the cat page). - jc37 07:03, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- I've created all the red Cat:Wikipedian ist-# categories I could find, so now they coexist with Cat:User code-#, which can be depopulated all at once. Also rewrote Wikipedia:Instruments/Adding to prevent new additions from messing it up. I don't like how user pages are in both Cat:Wikipedian ist and Cat:Wikipedian ist-#, but I can't think of a better solution. –Pomte 08:23, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- I don't mind starting hunting the templates down, I just want to do it with little pause between it and the bot depopulation, in order to reduce confusion as much as possible. And all the "new" categories need to have Category:Wikipedians by musical instrument added (which will likely create the cat page). - jc37 07:03, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Category:Wikipedians by number of edits
Aren't Category:Wikipedians by number of edits and all subcategories speedy deletable per this CFD? It has been almost a year, however, and consensus can change. Would UCFD'ing this be be better? VegaDark (talk) 04:12, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Renominating seems like a better idea. In this August 06 CfD, the category got renamed without scrutiny. Category:Wikipedian edit archive appears useful in grouping those historic lists, unless you'd prefer a template for navigation between them. –Pomte 03:51, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Unspeakable trash
Even a single visit to this page fills me with disgust. How have we amassed such a heap of unspeakable crap? Why is it considered acceptable that this cruft--and most of the categories listed here are cruft if not worst--should remain on Wikipedia unless there is consensus to delete it? The creators certainly didn't wait for consensus before inflicting their monstrous idiocies upon us. --Tony Sidaway 23:24, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
- I am under the impression that people don't browse these categories. The few who do don't care for deleting them. –Pomte 23:34, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
- Actually, several of us (myself included) have been going through and proposing a good number of deletions. As you have noted, though, few others bother; the UCfD discussion area has little traffic, and even fewer admins who bother to check in and close discussions once they are eligible for closing. (in fact, there is a codified policy that allows admins to close discussions in which they have participated, as a way of reducing the backlog that exists here.) I have been holding back on a large number of deletions for the languages cats, seeing if we can hammer out some sort of consensus on deleting bogus cats added by userboxen, but with only four commenters on the CfD for Category:User en-us-ca it is not likely that a consensus is going to be forged. Perhaps if a few more users actually participated in the discussions, we might make some progress in clearing the 60+ different categories of English that currently exist, as an example of what I am trying to do. Horologium t-c 00:25, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
- This seems to indicate we have the need for a new speedy deletion policy. —ptk✰fgs 00:08, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
- Speedy deletion is problematic with populated categories because it can leave behind hundreds of redlinks, which makes recreation of categories likely. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 00:21, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
- There are bots that take care of this. User:AMbot, for instance. --Tony Sidaway 00:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, but doesn't the bot owner have to be aware of the deletion in order for this to occur? A category that is to be deleted per UCfD is listed at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/User so that the bots may empty them. As far as I know, the bots can't/don't do anything with categories that are speedily deleted. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 01:01, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
- Speedy deleted categories ought to be listed at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/User, if not manually emptied by the admin.
- To propose speedy deletion criteria, please comment on the above proposal.
- For arguments against the "doesn't facilitate collaboration" argument, see archive 3.
- For a huge list of user categories to look for deletion candidates, see my user subpage or look above for a tree. –Pomte 07:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
- I didn't know that speedily deleted categories could be emptied via the same process as categories deleted via UCfD. I think that should prove useful. Thanks! The proposal at the top of this page seems to reproduce the speedy deletion criteria for categories (which I've always assumed applied to user cats as well) and adds a fourth criterion for "divisive" categories. A similar fourth criterion for "advocacy categories" is currently being discussed here. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 16:38, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
- Well, I don't know if it'd be kosher, but the emptying has to be done somehow. –Pomte 16:48, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
- I guess if it's a valid speedy deletion, there shouldn't be a problem. After all, the method of deletion shouldn't matter to the bot. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 17:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
- Unless they meet the criteria at WP:CSD, "Speedy" deletions of categories should be listed at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion#Speedy_renaming_and_speedy_merging or Wikipedia:User_categories_for_discussion#Speedy_nominations. After that, they are listed at the associated "working" page. - jc37 09:28, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
- I guess if it's a valid speedy deletion, there shouldn't be a problem. After all, the method of deletion shouldn't matter to the bot. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 17:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
- Well, I don't know if it'd be kosher, but the emptying has to be done somehow. –Pomte 16:48, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
- I didn't know that speedily deleted categories could be emptied via the same process as categories deleted via UCfD. I think that should prove useful. Thanks! The proposal at the top of this page seems to reproduce the speedy deletion criteria for categories (which I've always assumed applied to user cats as well) and adds a fourth criterion for "divisive" categories. A similar fourth criterion for "advocacy categories" is currently being discussed here. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 16:38, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, but doesn't the bot owner have to be aware of the deletion in order for this to occur? A category that is to be deleted per UCfD is listed at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/User so that the bots may empty them. As far as I know, the bots can't/don't do anything with categories that are speedily deleted. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 01:01, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
- There are bots that take care of this. User:AMbot, for instance. --Tony Sidaway 00:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
- Speedy deletion is problematic with populated categories because it can leave behind hundreds of redlinks, which makes recreation of categories likely. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 00:21, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Balck Falcon's point about a valid speedy deletion is crucial here. We have recently had a rash of user categories speedy deleted in situations where no speedy deletion criteria applied (I restored a few and listed them at WP:UCFD#User_categories_deleted_out_of_process). I hope that the recent rash of out-of-process deletions will not be followed a rash of out-of-process deletion-and-emptyings. A proposal to create a new CSD criterion for advocacy categories has not so far achieved consensus; please could admins respect the process, and not act as if that proposal was already policy? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:56, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Template request
At the Help Desk, an editor posted a request for a Template:UCfD result, similar to Template:Cfd result. See template question at help Desk. I have directed him/her here for a reply as this probably is a better place to address such a request. Please reply below. -- Jreferee (Talk) 15:49, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
- Template:Cfduserend, I think? - jc37 09:16, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
- Perfect, thankyou!—arf! 09:52, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
WP:AN/I
Wikipedia:User categories for discussion#User categories deleted out of process - There is now an WP:AN/I discussion. - jc37 01:45, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
- Direct link to the discussion: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Pages_stuck_in_bureaucratic.2C_wheel-warring_purgatory. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:25, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Concern about the new rash of UCFD nominations
I have a concern about the new rash of UCFD nominations, in that it seems that instead of nominating for deletion user categories that have no potential for collaborative effort, it seems we are starting to eliminate user categories based on the fact that they have potential for social networking, or that we aren't sure of this category's use for encyclopedia-building. As absence of proof isn't the same as proof of absence, I think if we have several people who say they don't see a collaborative merit to the user cat and one who says they see one, the argument who sees merit should trump the others, if the editor can prove his or her point.--Ramdrake 11:04, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
- The whole collaboration argument is nonsense, as suggested in a previous discussion. User categories can't make this place MySpace; the people can (with their elaborate user pages unrelated to the encyclopedia). If there's a mentality that most if not all user categories should be deleted, then propose all of them at once, with a request for wider community input. –Pomte 06:27, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
- I think the new string of nominations hits the point of what I have been saying since day 1- It doesn't help to know who "likes", "supports", "watches", etc. - None of those help encyclopedia building. Perhaps now everything will have to be "Interested in", which is what I have been saying the naming conventions should be for a long time. VegaDark (talk) 21:06, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
- I'm not convinced that all categories must strictly help in writing articles. Wikipedia is en encyclopedia written by a community of volunteers. The community aspect is at least as important as the encyclopedia aspect. What harm if the users socialise among themselves? We must remember that all contributors are doing this for purely unselfish reasons. I can't see any problem with becoming a little of MySpace in order to attract and retain more contributors. Loom91 12:41, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
- VegaDark, I doubt the wording has much to do with it. –Pomte 22:53, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
- I think the new string of nominations hits the point of what I have been saying since day 1- It doesn't help to know who "likes", "supports", "watches", etc. - None of those help encyclopedia building. Perhaps now everything will have to be "Interested in", which is what I have been saying the naming conventions should be for a long time. VegaDark (talk) 21:06, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, wording isn't the question. paternalism is. A few people here do not like categories of this sort and think them useless. Hundreds of wikipedians think otherwise. This is heavy-handed top-down imposition of personal preferences. First, an attempt to delete them by speedy; then, an attempt to delete them by biased close of the discussions. Then , nominating a few dozen more while the deletion review on the earlier batch is still in process. DGG 23:22, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
- I'm afraid your argument makes little sense. Wikipedia is not a majority rule, or a democracy. We enforce on the basis of policy, not what "feels good." If you, somehow, feel that Wikipedia needs a few extraneous categories that should squeeze past policy just because they're funny or harmless, then Wikipedia is not the place for you.--WaltCip 04:16, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
- My argument is simply that it has become clear that all user categories are under attack under the argument that Wikipedia isn't a social net, no matter whether or not they may have a collaborative value, and no matter whether or not there is a consensus to keep. My point is, if we're going to eventually do away with all user categories, let's just nominate them all at once, and do away with that aspect of Wikipedia. Currently, this piecemeal deletion is wasting everybody's time on the assumption that some of them may have redeemable value, whereas it's becoming clear that consensus about whether to keep these categories (consensus being what Wikipedia is supposed to be founded on) isn't even being respected.--Ramdrake 10:45, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
- That is, quite simply, not true. Category:Wikipedians by language was recently kept at UCFD and DRV with strong consensus and I doubt anyone will challenge the validity of Category:Wikipedians by interest. I would argue that most subcategories of the following are also useful: Category:Wikipedians by profession, Category:Wikipedians by Wikipedia status, Category:Wikipedians by Wikipedia collaboration, Category:Wikipedians by location, and others. The categories that are being nominated are primarily those related to "Wikipedians by lifestyle". -- Black Falcon (Talk) 16:59, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
- Then, what about Category:Wikipedians by religion and Category:Wikipedians by political ideology? These two were closed as delete when there was no consensus to delete (and a strong consensus to keep) and the argument had been made by several editors that they were useful for collaboration; they are both currently undergoing DRVs.--Ramdrake 17:07, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
- Those two are obviously ones about which we disagree. You consider them useful for collaboration; I don't. That does not mean that all (or even most) user categories are "under attack". -- Black Falcon (Talk) 17:30, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
- No (voluntarily offered) information concerning users could have any deleterious effect on the quality of information offered in Wikipedia's articles. On the other hand, any (voluntarily offered) information concerning users has a potential of usefulness for the exchange of information while editing, exactly as user language templates have (if some people can't possibly imagine how, this only proves that they're unimaginative). This discussion isn't really about improving Wikipedia, it's about shaping the style of working here to the liking of one or another group of people. Dan Pelleg 09:18, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
- Would you, then, not agree that Category:Wikipedians who support the extermination of (insert ethnic/national/religious group) should be deleted? Such information, even if voluntarily offered, surely undermines the spirit of collaboration.
- Some user categories can be actively harmful, but presence or lack of harm should not be the primary criterion for judging the retention of a page. It's more important to ask: is it useful? What potential of usefulness is intrinsic to a category that groups users who own a pink iPod (yes, that was a real category)?
- You express concern over the deletion of voluntarily offered information, but UCFD discussions don't remove that information ... it is still available on userpages via userboxes or typed notices. The issue is not "shaping the style of working" but rather getting rid of categorisation for its own sake, when it has absolutely nothing to do with the encyclopedia.
- Before suggesting that anyone is "unimaginative" and painting editors with broad strokes, you should have a look at the type of category that is frequently brought here. If you think that a certain category is potentially useful and that this potential usefulness has been overlooked by various discussants, feel free to contribute your insight. But please don't assume that everyone else is acting on knee-jerk reactions and has failed to try to determine whether a category has any potential value. And please don't assume that just because they happen to disagree with you. – Black Falcon (Talk) 16:55, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
- Dear Black Falcon, I apologize for having offended anyone – it wasn't my intention. You obviously don't lack imagination and you're right, ethnic extermination categories of that sort would not be nice to have around. In fact, they would constitute incitement, and hence be illegal. However (having agreed that categories that are harmful should not be permitted): true, removing a category doesn't remove the information offered by userboxes that were associated with it, but it makes it harder to access that information. My point is that even the silliest bit of information about users might get people connected and contribute by producing constructive collaboration, on the other hand, any category concerning only users – and no encyclopedic content – doesn't do Wikipedia any harm, since it has no bearing on its encyclopedic quality, just like any silly or useless information on user pages. Dan Pelleg 00:25, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
- Thank you, and I apologise if my comment came across too strongly. In response to your argument, I think that there is certain harm involved in that approach. First, an overproliferation of user categories reduces navigability, thus interfering with the utilisation of the more useful user categories (such as the language and interest categories). Second, a laissez-faire approach undermines the principle that Wikipedia is not a personal webhost, social networking site, or MySpace. Silly or useless information on userpages is fine, as long as the sole purpose of the entire userpage is not silliness or uselessness for its own sake; similarly, there is no point in having a category for its own sake. Not all user categories obviously fail this crtierion but many (such as the 'pink iPod' one) clearly do. Third, user categories divide editors into distinct groups. Sometimes there is a purpose to this division (e.g. as with the language/translation categories) and sometimes no purpose is apparent. It is the latter type of categorisation – that chips away at the main identification of 'editor'/'reader'/'Wikipedian' without giving anything useful in return – that I oppose. – Black Falcon (Talk) 17:25, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
- Dear Black Falcon, I apologize for having offended anyone – it wasn't my intention. You obviously don't lack imagination and you're right, ethnic extermination categories of that sort would not be nice to have around. In fact, they would constitute incitement, and hence be illegal. However (having agreed that categories that are harmful should not be permitted): true, removing a category doesn't remove the information offered by userboxes that were associated with it, but it makes it harder to access that information. My point is that even the silliest bit of information about users might get people connected and contribute by producing constructive collaboration, on the other hand, any category concerning only users – and no encyclopedic content – doesn't do Wikipedia any harm, since it has no bearing on its encyclopedic quality, just like any silly or useless information on user pages. Dan Pelleg 00:25, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
- No (voluntarily offered) information concerning users could have any deleterious effect on the quality of information offered in Wikipedia's articles. On the other hand, any (voluntarily offered) information concerning users has a potential of usefulness for the exchange of information while editing, exactly as user language templates have (if some people can't possibly imagine how, this only proves that they're unimaginative). This discussion isn't really about improving Wikipedia, it's about shaping the style of working here to the liking of one or another group of people. Dan Pelleg 09:18, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
- Those two are obviously ones about which we disagree. You consider them useful for collaboration; I don't. That does not mean that all (or even most) user categories are "under attack". -- Black Falcon (Talk) 17:30, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
- Then, what about Category:Wikipedians by religion and Category:Wikipedians by political ideology? These two were closed as delete when there was no consensus to delete (and a strong consensus to keep) and the argument had been made by several editors that they were useful for collaboration; they are both currently undergoing DRVs.--Ramdrake 17:07, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
- That is, quite simply, not true. Category:Wikipedians by language was recently kept at UCFD and DRV with strong consensus and I doubt anyone will challenge the validity of Category:Wikipedians by interest. I would argue that most subcategories of the following are also useful: Category:Wikipedians by profession, Category:Wikipedians by Wikipedia status, Category:Wikipedians by Wikipedia collaboration, Category:Wikipedians by location, and others. The categories that are being nominated are primarily those related to "Wikipedians by lifestyle". -- Black Falcon (Talk) 16:59, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
- My argument is simply that it has become clear that all user categories are under attack under the argument that Wikipedia isn't a social net, no matter whether or not they may have a collaborative value, and no matter whether or not there is a consensus to keep. My point is, if we're going to eventually do away with all user categories, let's just nominate them all at once, and do away with that aspect of Wikipedia. Currently, this piecemeal deletion is wasting everybody's time on the assumption that some of them may have redeemable value, whereas it's becoming clear that consensus about whether to keep these categories (consensus being what Wikipedia is supposed to be founded on) isn't even being respected.--Ramdrake 10:45, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
- I'm afraid your argument makes little sense. Wikipedia is not a majority rule, or a democracy. We enforce on the basis of policy, not what "feels good." If you, somehow, feel that Wikipedia needs a few extraneous categories that should squeeze past policy just because they're funny or harmless, then Wikipedia is not the place for you.--WaltCip 04:16, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Approval process?
I have this page on my watchlist for some days now and am honestly shocked how many constructive power is wasted on these crap categories. Maybe this has been tried before, but isn't there a possibility to turn the process around and demand approval for user categories before they are installed? It's just sad to see how a number of great Wikipedians have to waste lots of time sorting out completely ridiculous categories, while at the same time we have massive backlogs that could use their help. Malc82 22:12, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
- Right. Instead of copy and pasting the exact same rationale across dozens of sections, there should be a central discussion on the whole purpose of user categories to settle the matter. The approval process won't stop the nominations of hundreds of user categories that have existed for many months, and inclusion criteria need to be established as the result of discussion anyway for there to be a creepy approval process. –Pomte 22:58, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
- Possibly the community discussion would decide that none of these should be deleted. It will save considerable effort to freeze the process now. Pomte argues: Delete first, discuss whether we should have deleted afterwards. DGG 23:18, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
- I think there should be central discussion, but I doubt that the creators of most of the cats discussed on this page really care. The reason to demand an approval would be that people who nominate a category would then be forced to actually provide a reason why they think a certain category is useful, which would most likely eliminate a large amount of the cats discussed here and thus save time. To DGG, do you honestly think that all (or even most) of these cats serve any purpose? Malc82 23:57, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
- Aside from any merits (or lack thereof) I think that what you are proposing is not technically feasible. --After Midnight 0001 03:45, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
- I think there should be central discussion, but I doubt that the creators of most of the cats discussed on this page really care. The reason to demand an approval would be that people who nominate a category would then be forced to actually provide a reason why they think a certain category is useful, which would most likely eliminate a large amount of the cats discussed here and thus save time. To DGG, do you honestly think that all (or even most) of these cats serve any purpose? Malc82 23:57, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
- Perhaps the simplest solution is to have a "reason for creating category" panel to complete when creating a new category. (Something similar is already required when moving an article.) The new category + rationale could then be reviewed either by an admin or (better still) listed on a "Newly created user categories" page in much the same way that articles are reviewed. The presence of an automatic review would probably cut down the number of creations substantially and would make it easier to intervene before they became too populated. ROGER TALK 07:20, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
- Good idea, I'm not sure if my "proposal" is technically possible, I only wanted to express my concerns about how much work this project is causing. Imagine how helpful it could be if this was a three-nominations-a-day minor project and the Wikipedians concerned here could instead use their time to patrol changes or cleaning up backlogs. Roger's idea seems very reasonable to me, a handful of soon-experienced admins could then check if new usercats serve a purpose in a matter of minutes. From looking at the nominations here it seems obvious that most of them aren't created to disrupt but because people don't realize what usercats are for (and in which cases Wikiprojects would be better suited). Malc82 08:16, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Deletion Incomplete?
Category: Wikipedians by religion and its subcats were closed as a delete 2 days ago [1], however the subcategory Category:Pastafarian Wikipedians is still existent (and tagged with a link to said CfD). Am I missing something here? Malc82 22:05, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
- All of the subcategories still exist and will, I presume, be emptied and deleted in the coming days. Of course, it might be prudent to wait for the result of the deletion review before taking any large-scale action. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 16:40, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
- I didn't realize there is a deletion review. Thanks for your reply. Malc82 20:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Archive?
I don't know the procedure for archiving xfD cats, so I'd like to ask someone who is qualified to please archive all of the discussions from June 16th and earlier, as they are all closed. There is one open cat on June 18th Category:Dadaist Wikipedians; once it is closed, every discussion from June 21st or earlier will be done. (Dadaist has 8 !votes, 6 for delete and 2 for keep; It might be ready for closure, since it's been listed for 10 days now, and is a contested speedy that should have gone to DRV.) Horologium t-c 02:39, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
- Actually, June 16 is not ready for archiving yet. The "Wikipedians by political ideology" categories and the subcategories of Category:Wikipedians by religion have not yet been emptied and deleted. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 16:54, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
June 13 is also not ready (Category:Wikipedians who visit countries). I'll list them on the working page now. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 17:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)- Strike that ... those were nominated on June 22. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 17:12, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
- June 15 is also not ready for archiving as it requires some merges to be completed (Category:Wikipedians who prefer HD DVD, Category:Albanian Wikipedians, and others). -- Black Falcon (Talk) 17:19, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
OK. As I stated, I'm not terribly familiar with the archiving procedure here. I (mistakenly) believed that once the discussion was closed the category was ready for archiving. Now I get it; there's a lot more administrative stuff that needs to be accomplished first. However, the big upsurge in nominations has turned this page into a slow-loading monster page. Perhaps we can get the nominators to limit themselves to a few categories per day... (grin) Horologium t-c 18:00, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
- Cutting back on the number of new nominations will slow the rate of growth of the page (which is currently about 440 KB long), but will not result in a noticeable reduction in size for several days. What we really need is a bot to help with the various closures requiring further attention. Manually editing the userboxes usually removes most entries from a category, but it's often not enough to completely empty it. By the way, the acutal archiving takes place by cutting and pasting text to the appropriate archive page. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 18:37, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
I have archived through June 20th. Just because a merge is not done does not mean that it can not be archived. If you don't enact the UCFD closure yourself, you should add what needs to be done at [[2]]. We've had stuff in there still needing to be done for more than a month before, without any problems about archiving the discussions. VegaDark (talk) 04:24, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
- AMbot and I have cleared the working page. There was a bit of work to clean some of them due to many transclusions that take place with these. There is no problem in archiving closed discussions before the mergers and/or deletions have taken place, as long as the work is logged on WP:CFD/WU for action. One additional thing to watch out for if any DRVs are pending. There are 2 really big UCFDs (politics and religion) which are currently closed as delete that should not be emptied until the DRVs are closed. Those can be placed on the working page, but only if a special note goes there to say not to empty them yet. --After Midnight 0001 20:13, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
- I would recommend against placing these two on the page until the DRVs are closed, just to be on the safe side. I wouldn't want to be the one stuck with having to undelete them if they are overturned.--Ramdrake 20:18, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
A radical proposal
(This may not be the best place to hold this discussion, but it is probably the best place to start it, since it ties directly into this whole section of Wikipedia. I'm open to suggestions on other places it should be discussed, but I'd rather see if my idea has any support or any feasibility before bringing it up at, say, the village pump.)
Almost all of the categories that are being run through the UCfD gantlet are categories for which a userbox exists, and many of them appear to have been created with the userbox. My proposal is to remove/transclude categories from ALL userboxen, and then hold some formalized discussion on which categories should be allowed to be re-appended to them. My suggestions would be ISO-defined languages, Wikipedians by location (most likely national or continental in scope; the rest can be expressed through userboxen),and WikiProject affiliation. I'm sure that there are others that should be included, but those three are pretty key categories that are probably not going to be terribly contentious with which to start. Others can be discussed in the UCfD forum, or possibly a new section (User categories for addition).
By severing the ties between the userbox and the category, there are probably an enormous number of categories that will be totally depopulated, which would imply that nobody who does not use the userbox is in the category. Many of the objections to category deletion are "I don't like userboxen"; if a category is empty after the userbox is dissociated, then obviously there is little to no interest in the category outside the userbox itself. Empty categories are speedy deletion candidates under the current rules, which would allow for mass deletion of categories that probably are added to a user page once though a box and then forgotten. My proposal is basically a reversal of the current process, where categories are added through userbox creation and then there is a struggle to remove them; my proposal would move the justification to the editor who wants to add new cats via a userbox.
I'm not trying to be deliberately provocative, but I think the current process is dysfunctional and in need of revision. This is just one editor's suggestion, and I'm curious to see if I am alone in thinking this way.
Horologium t-c 20:48, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
- Not a bad idea; however, it may happen that a user has chosen to be in the category indepently from wanting the userbox on their page. To resolve that, once a usercat has been dissociated from the userbox, a bot should put a message on the affected users' talk pages telling them what happened, and that they can rejoin the category if they so wish (giving them a decent amount of time to do so - one to two weeks should be enough). Then we take a look at the user categories where the users haven't bothered to rejoin, and those can be speedied in all confidence. How does that sound?--Ramdrake 22:17, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
- That is a very good idea. It will allow those who don't have an intense dislike for userboxen to affirm their support. (I fall into that group; I have exactly 11 userboxes on my page, of which only five add user cats—four, once the category deletion for the Political Compass deletion is approved. Of those four, one is for my language, one is for location (United States) and two are not coverered—Category:Wikipedians in Florida and Category:Wikipedian military people, both of which I consider expendable, although I'd like a group for my involvement in the Florida Wikiproject). Is that something that a bot can be directed to do? I don't know the full capabilities of the various bots editors have developed.Horologium t-c 22:34, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
- I am undecided on the merits of Hologrium's proposal (although I'm wary of the extra bureaucracy it requires), but I don't think notification is necessary or desirable. User categories aren't that important as to require spamming the talk pages of tens of thousands of affected users. We don't even have a formal notification process to inform editors when an article they've authored has been proposed for deletion! I don't view the current system to be broken and expect this upsurge of nominations to expire soon as most user categories (by interest, by location, by Wikipedia status/collaboration, by profession) are generally considered valid. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 16:22, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
- I disagree wholeheatedly with this proposal. If a user adds a userbox with an associated category to their user page they are adding the category. I think a more apt solution would be including discussion on deleting the userbox associated with the category and the category. That way, any of the users who want to be identified by a userbox might actually fight for it. As opposed to decoupling them so as to delete vast numbers of popular categories without the knowledge and/or support of those in the categories. I would sooner support a proposal which would actually notify Users in a given category of its impending deletion. Adam McCormick 01:40, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
- I like the idea. I see a few minor problems, but nothing that can't be worked out. --Kbdank71 20:32, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Too much bureaucracy and centralized discussion, just to start. A new process for adding cats to userboxes? A central discussion that will probably magnify the debates? Bad ideas all around. This sounds like it has two of the same problems that the spoiler debate has - one, assuming that users don't really know what they're doing, and two, changing the debate from one which defaults to keep to a debate in which the default will be to delete. Our current discussions are working well enough, even though in my personal opinion it seems that far too many categories at once, as if we've suddenly just noticed that users categorize themselves. There is no rush. There is no emergency. I can't think of any "radical" change here that has ever ended well. --- RockMFR 05:34, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
- This seems to be a good idea at first. The ravel of user categories often comes from templates but in general we abstractedly omit them. Sometimes the category is populated due to the userbox, not the cat itself. People add userboxes to their userpages without awareness of automatically categorizing themselves. I'm a bit in favor of the solution of notification-delivering bot but another trouble arouses as the category is excessively heavy-populated, which leads to spamming talkpages. The idea of deleting both userbox and category will cause more trouble, since we have to add double notification that "The discussion for userbox is on WP:MFD/Blah blah" and "The discussion for category is on WP:UCFD/Blah blah. Also, users will find it annoying and reluctantly take part in MFD since the problem lies on the cat, not the ubox. Maybe we should let it the way it is. Another idea: should we add restriction to userbox policy, like "only add category to userbox in case the category is considered to be relevant on Wikipedia..."? AW 17:04, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
- No, I am not talking about deleting any userboxes; I wasn't around for the Kelly Martin userbox eradication event, but I have read all about it. I don't hate userboxes, as (for the most part, at least) they stay on userpages. (I even have some on my userpage, although not to the extent that some editors have done.) My objection is to the insane overcategorization that occurs when people add new categories to every userbox they create, or add multiple categories to a userbox, which clogs up the categorization system. I am all for restricting the userbox category: That is primarily what this proposal is about. Horologium t-c 17:14, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
- Since it's so very easy to slap on a category to a userbox, I don't know that a relatively unknown approval process will have a significant effect. Given the extra bureaucracy involved in creating and maintaining such a process (in addition to WP:UCFD, I think it's probably not worth it. I think a few edit summaries of "removing user categorisation per UCFD consensus" (when applicable, of course) should suffice to send a message to editors who create userbox categories. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 22:05, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Off-topic, but as I just came from editing Bicolor Cat, I keep thinking, "why on earth are we adding or removing felines from userboxes?!" Kuronue 19:40, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Speedy nominations
Is there a specific convention for how to handle speedy nominations on this page? If not, I propose that we treat them as CFD does: take care of and remove them from the UCFD page 48 hours after the nomination if no one objects. Comments? -- Black Falcon (Talk) 16:06, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
- That works for me; I was wondering how it was going to be handled. On a related note, I discovered that there is no template for speedy deletion of user cats; there is only one for speedy renames. Consequently, I have not added a tag to my speedy deletion request for the empty cat, since there is no tag to use. Am I missing something? Horologium t-c 16:15, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
- {{cfd-user}} is probably good enough, especially since there aren't that many speedy nominations of user categories. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 16:24, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
- OK, I added that template. It's not quite the same thing, but the note I left in the talk page should make it clear that it is a speedy.Horologium t-c 16:57, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
- {{cfd-user}} is probably good enough, especially since there aren't that many speedy nominations of user categories. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 16:24, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
If someone contests the speedy request, it should be moved in to the regular UCFD section. If not, it should be closed when an admin reviews it and should be closed as any other UCFD. It should then be moved down out of the speedy section when closed, either to the current day or the day it was originally nominated. VegaDark (talk) 18:07, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Categories that are subcategories of themselves
There are many user categories that also display as subcategories of themselves (see, for instance, Category:Wikipedians interested in Hinduism, which I just created to divert users from Category:Hindu Wikipedians to a more useful category). How is it possible to remove that self-subcategorisation while still transcluding the userbox (to allow for easier updating)? I know this may not be the best place to ask, but I'm hoping someone will know. Thanks, Black Falcon (Talk) 20:19, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
- Along the same lines, what needs to be done to eliminate bizarre crosses like this: Because of this userbox ({{tl:User:Feureau/UserBox/Proud Americans}}), on this page (Category:Wikipedians in the United States), Category:Wikipedians in the United States, a subcat of Category:Wikipedians by location is also in Category:American Wikipedians, a subcat of Category:Wikipedians by ethnicity and nationality. It's the ONLY category in the ethnicity cat that also loads the location cats, and I am almost positive it is because that userbox adds both Category:Wikipedians in the United States and Category:American Wikipedians. Short of altering the userbox, is there any way to separate the two? Horologium t-c 20:39, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
- If the userbox is substed, future changes to it will not be reflected in the version on the category page. Of course, that's a relatively minor problem (after all, these are just userboxes). One thing to be careful about when substing is whether the userbox contains a fair use image as such images may not be used in non-mainspace pages. Anyway, I'll subst it. Thanks, Black Falcon (Talk) 20:52, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
- You could also alter the userbox to only add the category to pages in the userspace. VegaDark (talk) 23:17, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
- Really? How would one do that? Black Falcon (Talk) 23:57, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
- I don't remember the exact code, it is somewhat complicated, but I've seen it done before. Someone did it on Template:Taxobox, I believe, if you want to try and figure it out. VegaDark (talk) 00:19, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
- I requested assistance at the help desk (see here for the discussion) and have received a promising response. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 01:50, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
- OK, the issue is fixed. See [3]. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 02:19, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
- I requested assistance at the help desk (see here for the discussion) and have received a promising response. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 01:50, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
- I don't remember the exact code, it is somewhat complicated, but I've seen it done before. Someone did it on Template:Taxobox, I believe, if you want to try and figure it out. VegaDark (talk) 00:19, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
- Really? How would one do that? Black Falcon (Talk) 23:57, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
- If the userbox you are subst'ing has a fair use image, remove the FUI from the template per WP:FU and then subst away. No non-mainspace template should have a fair use image, and even then it is debatably wrong to have a FUI on a template. BigNate37(T) 01:32, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
- Oh, of course. I just meant someone should always check before substing so that the problem is not spread around. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 01:50, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
- You could also alter the userbox to only add the category to pages in the userspace. VegaDark (talk) 23:17, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
- If the userbox is substed, future changes to it will not be reflected in the version on the category page. Of course, that's a relatively minor problem (after all, these are just userboxes). One thing to be careful about when substing is whether the userbox contains a fair use image as such images may not be used in non-mainspace pages. Anyway, I'll subst it. Thanks, Black Falcon (Talk) 20:52, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
- I recommend putting the <includeonly> tags outside the #ifeq, for one less check. For the categories themselves, feel free to use the convenient {{User category}}, which will also un-self-categorize from userboxes that use the nocat parameter to hide the category (can be updated to use #ifeq, of cocurse). –Pomte 18:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Thinking of a userbox
I'm thinking of whipping up a new userbox, one that automatically categorizes users into Category:Wikipedians interested in joining categories. What do you think? :P BigNate37(T) 08:08, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
- Would that be a subcategory of Category:Uncategorised Wikipedians or Category:Insufficiently categorised Wikipedians? ;) -- Black Falcon (Talk) 02:46, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
- Category:Wikipedians by interest, naturally. That appears to be the new catchall cruft category. :\ Horologium t-c 03:05, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
- Category:Uncategorised Wikipedians. Now that's funny. --Kbdank71 14:54, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Naming convention for Wikipedians by WikiProject categories
I recently encountered a user category that needs to be renamed and made a subcategory of Category:Wikipedians by WikiProject, but do not know what the new name should be. There are currently 486 subcategories of Category:Wikipedians by WikiProject, but there is no clear naming convention for them. There are two formats, neither of which is dominant:
- Category:WikiProject X members – 236 subcats (48.6%)
- Category:WikiProject X participants – 250 subcats (51.4%)
Before someone tags over 200 pages for renaming, I propose that we arrive at a standard naming convention for subcategories of the category. Which is better: "members" or "participants"? -- Black Falcon (Talk) 07:08, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
- We've seen this debate before. I would suggest using "members" because "participants" implies a continuing activity level that may or may not exist. Members implies the one-time effort to join the group, with no further activity required. Judging by the activity level in some of the groups (or lack thereof), passivity is the rule and not the exception. Horologium t-c 11:51, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
- No need for a convention. See /Archive 3#Category:Wikipedians by WikiProject, 2 sections below that, and the UCFD. –Pomte 18:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
- Hmm ... I think I'll follow your comment in that thread: "It's trivial and different projects may decide on different category names." I suppose there's no point spending time on this. As for the one mistitled user cat ... I'll nominate it for renaming if the WikiProject survives (it's purpose has been questioned and the project contains only 2 members). -- Black Falcon (Talk) 18:31, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Deletion today compatibility fix
Please extrapolate each day's listings into a one-day log file, the way the rest of the XfDs do. Otherwise, this XfD is not compatible with Wikipedia:Deletion today and can only be given as a link instead of a transclude. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:54, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
- How many people use Wikipedia:Deletion today, and do they want arguably the least productive deletion process clogging up that already massive page? –Pomte 20:59, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
- I've been following xFD for ages now, and I just found out it existed by this topic. Although, I agree converting the format would be nice, as our current method of archiving is less than ideal, considering the increased traffic we've seen as of late. ^demon[omg plz] 22:17, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
- I agree with Pomte. There isn't enough traffic on UCfD and the pages involved aren't important enough to justify daily logs. Check the archives and you will find times where there wasn't a single new nomination for weeks (e.g., early June). The upsurge in nominations that we saw in the latter part of June is exhibiting a clear a downward trend, with a number of days in July seeing only one nomination. Black Falcon (Talk) 22:34, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
- What harm can you possibly see it doing? If you really think this won't work, an alternative would be to have all of the nominations and their date headings in a transclude, without the page introductory and see-also material; or even noinclude those parts. Just some way to make this work with WP:DELT. Oh, as for WP:DELT being "clogged" with UCfD's, the point of DELT is to list all of the deletion debates (period). It would be Wikipedia:Some but not all deletions today otherwise. The "clog" factor won't matter; I'll be installing show/hide code shortly. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:06, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
- I seem to be doing most of the closing and archiving on UCFD these days. I have no objection to going to a page per day format. It would reduce the time spent archiving and would also make it easier to link to the discussions in edit summaries and deletion logs, since the discussions would no longer move to the archive, just stay on the page. My only concern is that a) there are periods when this xFD will go silent for a time, but as noted, there is no harm in that and b) I don't really want to take the time to set this all up right now myself. I think there is more value in fixing MFD first, but this could probably be done also. --After Midnight 0001 15:59, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedians by interest
This category and its subcategories is growing into an incoherent mass of categories. Mostly apparently due to the UCFD discussions of the last month or so in which the preference appears to have been to delete/rename the verb in nominated user cats to "interested in".
But whatever the reason, this needs to become organised in some way.
I suggest that we follow an organisational scheme similar to that of Wikipedia:Categorical index.
(Incidentally, having an overview page such as that for the user categories would be awesome, and, I would presume, quite the boon for navigation.)
Any thoughts? - jc37 11:27, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
- We already have an index of sorts; it's called Category:Wikipedians, and it provides a complete breakdown of all user cats, if one follows the tree all the way through.
- As a side note, there are several people in that category who have added themselves in contravention of established policy. Could we have an admin remove them? I know that I can do it myself, but I'm just some guy, as opposed to an admin who carries something resembling community support behind him (or her). Horologium t-c 17:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
- Actually, we don't. We have several general groupings, but anyway, as I mentioned above, I'm talking about Category:Wikipedians by interest and its subcats. - jc37 11:03, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
- I think we need to get over the idea that Wikipedia is not a social network. It is a huge website with tens of thousands of regular editors. Those users are parts of subgroups outside of Wikipedia, and they do form networks within Wikipedia, to try and build some sense of shared community out of a sea of users. The question is whether or not this is a good thing.
- If you think that focussing on building an encyclopedia requires excluding forms of social networking that are not directly related to that, then it is a bad thing. However, I do not believe these goals are mutually exclusive. I think it is just fine for users to join Wikipedia because people of similar mind are here, and one good way in which they can see that is because there is a category of Wikipedians related to their interests. I get a warm fuzzy feeling every time I look at Category:Furry Wikipedians. It encourages me to bring more editors to the site, to expand the presence of my group on Wikipedia; and it encourages other members of that subgroup who see it to sign up as users and join it.
- Is there any guarantee that those people will participate actively in Wikipedia? No, but there's a significantly higher chance that they will than they would if they remained anonymous. Once they have a user page, they are part of the community, not faceless readers. This offers opportunities for interaction and involvement (e.g. by the welcoming committee). It is no coincidence that the first thing on a user page is often a userbox. We should be looking at these user categories as a means of attracting and keeping registered users, not as a useless drain on resources. GreenReaper 10:58, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
- The Welcoming Committee? Don't tell me Wikipedia has acquired a self-styled Welcoming Committee. That's very depressing. --Tony Sidaway 11:11, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Welcoming committee. WP:WELCOME. Been around for a while. However, most only welcome new users, so people have to have a reason to make a user account first. GreenReaper 11:16, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Babel category levels
Moved from UCFD concerning Category:Wikipedians by writing system. - jc37 10:06, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
- Comment - Neutral to the discussion. Just a note: the "5" level of babel has considered "controversial" by some. You may wish to consider proposing merging to level 4 instead.
- Response Well, that is a separate issue from this, and should be handled separately. Right now, the verbiage in the heb and heb-N userbox is virtually identical to what is in the hebr-5 userbox. Merging hebr-5 to hebr-4 can be addressed at a later stage. In any case, there are already a lot of -5 cats on en.wikipedia, and while I know that they are deprecated on meta, they seem to be established here for better or for worse. (There are 19 -5 categories in Category:Wikipedians by writing system, for example. That does not include the -N cats, of which there are almost as many.) If we do merge hebr-5 to hebr-4, a handful of pages will have to be changed twice, but I'd rather go incrementally on this, since a few of the relatively innocuous and minor changes I proposed earlier have generated a great deal of discussion. I started with the discussions I thought would be least controversial, which leads me to believe that it's going to get interesting in here shortly. (wry grin) Horologium t-c 00:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
- A couple thoughts. First is that the userbox could be edited, regardless of numeric level. But that aside, (Since you're already going through all the language cats), for the writing systems cats, I think all the alphabet cats should be merged down to a single cat (each) named Category:Wikipedians who understand x. I mean, seriously, either you do recognise the characters the greek alphabet or you don't (or the hebrew, or the arabic, or the russian, or whatever). Glyphs are a whole other matter (whether Chinese or Heiroglyphic) since they connote language differently than an "alphabet", and we may benefit by the babel system in that case. (While I realise that this is mostly outside the scope of this discussion, I just thought I'd share my thoughts, since we were "around" the topic : ) - jc37 09:42, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
- You'll not get any argument from me on your proposal to merge all of the alphabetical cats into one for each writing system. However, it *is* a separate (and possibly more contentious) issue from my proposal to merge the two heb cats, which is a simple merge of redundant categories. I only discovered them because they were in the languages section, right beneath [User he], which is the preferred (ISO 639-1) cat for Hebrew.
- A couple thoughts. First is that the userbox could be edited, regardless of numeric level. But that aside, (Since you're already going through all the language cats), for the writing systems cats, I think all the alphabet cats should be merged down to a single cat (each) named Category:Wikipedians who understand x. I mean, seriously, either you do recognise the characters the greek alphabet or you don't (or the hebrew, or the arabic, or the russian, or whatever). Glyphs are a whole other matter (whether Chinese or Heiroglyphic) since they connote language differently than an "alphabet", and we may benefit by the babel system in that case. (While I realise that this is mostly outside the scope of this discussion, I just thought I'd share my thoughts, since we were "around" the topic : ) - jc37 09:42, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
- Response Well, that is a separate issue from this, and should be handled separately. Right now, the verbiage in the heb and heb-N userbox is virtually identical to what is in the hebr-5 userbox. Merging hebr-5 to hebr-4 can be addressed at a later stage. In any case, there are already a lot of -5 cats on en.wikipedia, and while I know that they are deprecated on meta, they seem to be established here for better or for worse. (There are 19 -5 categories in Category:Wikipedians by writing system, for example. That does not include the -N cats, of which there are almost as many.) If we do merge hebr-5 to hebr-4, a handful of pages will have to be changed twice, but I'd rather go incrementally on this, since a few of the relatively innocuous and minor changes I proposed earlier have generated a great deal of discussion. I started with the discussions I thought would be least controversial, which leads me to believe that it's going to get interesting in here shortly. (wry grin) Horologium t-c 00:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
- Merging each writing system into single cats is something that I will end up proposing once I get done with all of the language cats. (I'm not done yet, just waiting for the dust cloud to settle before beginning the next round.) FWIW, I would also consider the IPA in the "glyphs" category, because of the baffling array of characters that don't conform to any alphabet; there are definite levels of understanding with that bad boy. There are also a couple of (potentially controversial) merges, and a fistful of categories that are empty save the userbox templates (another user who went bonkers creating userboxes with unnecessary categories). All in all, plenty to keep the admins who close UCfD nominations busy for a while longer. <ducking and running> Horologium t-c 19:15, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
- While we're on the subject of the babel system, I'd like to note (again) that there are many userboxes which categorise Wikipedians into a parent cat as well as one of its subcats. I boldly adjust these whenever I find them. However, besides that, in the babel system, the "base level" category should be considered a "parent cat", and so should only be populated by subcats. Or in other words, if a babel language cat has numeric subcats, then the parent cat should contain only subcats. However, this would definitely require the use of a bot. - jc37 10:34, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
- Did someone say bot? There are a few quirks that I am working around right now, but once they get settled, I could give it a go. --After Midnight 0001 12:43, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
- There are two problems with jc37's proposal, one of which is a structural problem that cannot be fixed by bot, and it affects almost every language userbox. The base (unnumbered) language userboxes have verbiage which states that the user is a native speaker of that language, which is why many of them double categorize users into the base cat and the -N cat. (This was what happened with the Old English -N cat [User ang-N] that was killed yesterday.) I myself use the base English userbox, because I am a native speaker of English, and the box categorizes me into both Category:User en and Category:User en-N. Requiring users to select a numbered category for their language would be insanely difficult (you'd have to remove user cats from tens of thousands of user pages) and would require the deletion or editing of about 300 userboxes (one for each base language in Category:Wikipedians by language, which still contains a few languages buried in subcats), and doing so would create a deafening uproar. While I think it is a good idea, implementation would be a nightmare, a headache for admins, and would probably cause some crazed fanatic to RFC the process, upset at what is a relatively trivial change to each userpage.
- The other problem is that people disregard (or in some cases flaunt) convention by deliberately placing themselves in categories that are not meant to be populated by individual users. There are users categorized in the übercats Category:Wikipedians, Category:Wikipedians by language and Category:Wikipedians by religion; that last one is probably deliberate, as he is an experienced editor with a snarky note in the code of his userpage regarding his obstinate retention of deleted categories. There is nothing in place from preventing users from recategorizing themselves in the parent language cats all over again, which presents a bit of a headache for maintenance, although I suppose it would be possible to construct a bot whose only purpose is to go through and patrol the language cats, which seems (to me) to be a bit over-the-top. Horologium t-c 13:52, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
- Well, first, there actually is such a bot : )
- Second, if you're saying the the "base" language cats are for "native" speakers, then perhaps all the -N cats should be merged, and all the number level cat members removed from the base cats? - jc37 16:34, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Category:User Wikitext
What would be the appropriate merge target for Category:User Wikitext? Is it Category:User html? Thanks, Black Falcon (Talk) 20:23, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
- Note: Wikitext. - jc37 16:34, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
- Hmm ... I didn't realise that it was distinct from HTML. Thanks for the link. Black Falcon (Talk) 16:39, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Empty language categories
I've encountered a number of language categories that are empty save for one or more userboxes. I don't mean that merely the category for one level (e.g. User en-3) is empty, but rather that the entire category structure contains no actual users. See, for instance, Category:User gil (Gilbertese language) and Category:User sg (Sango language). Is it worth nominating/deleting these (any deletion would, of course, be without prejudice to recreation)? They are technically valid categories except for the fact that they serve no real purpose and only create clutter in Category:Wikipedians by language. It seems to me that some of these may have been created preemptively ... something which I think should be discouraged. Any thoughts on the matter? One possibility that came to mind was to speedily delete these categories (per CSD G6) without altering the templates; that way, when someone uses the template, the category will show up on Special:Wantedcategories and will be recreated. – Black Falcon (Talk) 21:40, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
- The only disadvantage to deleting properly categorized languages is the potential for creation of improperly categorized languages, using the (now available) letter combination. Other than that, I don't see why not. Horologium t-c 12:44, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't see what harm they are causing. When someone does get around to using them, it is likely they'll mess up the category creation, and/or it will lay around in the wanted categories list for months. --- RockMFR 19:27, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Latn
Can someone please look at {{User iso15924}}? From a quick glance, I think that this is preventing the emptying of the Latn categories and I can't afford any more time right now to sort it out. --After Midnight 0001 11:30, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
- I think that the key is in editing Template:User iso15924/name to remove the row for "Latn". However, I'm not sure what that will do to the userboxes. – Black Falcon (Talk) 20:27, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
- No, actually, I think that it is in {{User iso15924}} where is coded [[Category:User {{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]][[Category:User {{{1}}}-{{{2}}}|{{PAGENAME}}]] just before the bottom. If "Latn" is passed in as the parameter, it is going to categorize it as such. Whatever is in that parameter will result in a category. You should be able to test it by placing {{User iso15924|blahblah|2}} on a test page. --After Midnight 0001 23:31, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Category:User_als_and_subcats
Alemannic or Albanian?
- I have moved the following here from my talk page, in the interest of trying to generate discussion among additional persons who may be able to help with this issue. --After Midnight 0001 01:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
As a result of Wikipedia:User_categories_for_discussion/Archive/August_2007#Category:User_als_and_subcats and [4], many users of {{user als}} are now lost without any category, neither Category:User als-N, Category:User als, Category:User swg nor Category:User gsw.-- Matthead discuß! O 01:04, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
- Hello. I think that the problem may be that the users of {{user als}} is being used for Alemannic German, which has 4 ISO 639-3 codes, which are 1. gct — Alemán Coloniero, 2. gsw — Swiss German, 3. swg — Swabian German and 4. wae — Walser German. So the question is which of these is proper for each user. It is possible that a gsw speaker may not want to be classified as wae or other similar issues. Maybe the box should have 4 options to let each user choose the one they want. Do you have any suggestions? --After Midnight 0001 02:14, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
- Well, there is "D’alemannisch Wikipedia" at "http://als.wikipedia.org/", and "http://sq.wikipedia.org/" is for Albanians, I presume. Does the CfD affect them, too, does anyone want to change the subdomains? I think "als" is really needed for many users, the deletion is wrong IMHO. gct and wae will hardly be picked by anyone, while the remaining swg only suits people in Württemberg, and gsw only those in Switzerland. This leaves millions living along the Rhine, Liechtensteiners, Austrians in Vorarlberg, the many Germans in Baden and the speakers of Alsatian language in France without an appropriate code. Why not "ISO 639-2: alb (B) sqi (T)" for Albanian, there is Category:User sq already, and the interwiki of course. For subdivisions, "variously: sqi — Albanian (generic) aln — Gheg aae — Arbëreshë aat — Arvanitika" are free if needed. I think ISO got it wrong here, with wasting "als — Tosk" for a subdialect instead for the general Alemannic and the current interwiki. I'm confident that the less than 3 million Tosk speakers are outnumbered - surely in terms of Wikipedia users. de-Wiki has 647.711 Artikel, als-Wiki has 3.132 Artikel, that is only 0.5%, yet still roughly the size of the whole sq-Wiki which has 17.446 artikuj, covering also an independent country. One would expect a Tosk Albanian interwiki with 80 artikuj or so then. Has anyone ever asked Albanian editors if they are interest in it at all? -- Matthead discuß! O 03:55, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, you have quickly exceeded my ability to be able to help here, I think. I closed the discussion based on the arguments; I have no personal knowledge of these languages. May I suggest that we move this conversation to WT:UCFD? If we put it there, I think that we are much more likely to get people who understand this better than I do to help you work out a solution. If you would like me to, I would be more than happy to move this entire conversation there on your behalf. --After Midnight 0001 04:04, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
- As I noted in the nom, the current policy at Wikimedia is for all new WikiProjects to follow ISO 639. I have a question to User:Pathoschild concerning more info. In the end, we're the en: Wikipedia. Do we follow the current standard here and at Wikimedia in naming this user cat, or do we cite WP:IAR in this case, since the WikiProject apparently predated the "offical" listing of 639-3?
- (Incidentally (though I am just guessing), I wonder if the gsw abbreviation came from the fact that it could refer to 3 of the 4 examples you listed above - swg, swg, and wg.)
- Anyway, the easiest answer may be one of reducing confusion. The WikiProject people are obviously well-aware of the problem. The person I feel for is the albanian who adds the als cat to their userpage in good faith after reading the article, which lists als as an albanian abbreviation. - jc37 02:58, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Category:User als
Moved from WP:UCFD, since it doesn't directly involve rename/merge/deletion/etc. This also removes the "impending" time limit, so that consensus may be more clearly determined. (I don't think anyone would rather see this discussion closed as merely "no consensus".) So please feel free to continue the discussion, and hopefully work towards resolution. - jc37 19:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
- Re-repurpose (but do not delete) Category:User als and subcategories to speakers of Alemannic German in order to match the Alemannic wikipedia domain als.wikipedia.org. That category has been repurposed to speakers of Tosk Albanian without considering that waitals is being used for the Alemannic wikipedia domain (see Wikipedia:User categories for discussion/Archive/August 2007#Category:User als and subcats). The argument for that repurposing was that als is not the ISO 639-3 Code for Alemannic, but for Tosk Albanian. While that is true, there is no obligation for user language categories to match ISO 639-3. The Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) do not specify the kind of code to be used, but Wikipedia:Babel says: "For the most part, the two and three letter codes are taken from ISO 639, but see this list for a comprehensive guide." So I understand that the codes should match the wikipedia domains in the first place, and they only match ISO 639 to the extent that the wikipedia domains match them. -- j. 'mach' wust ☛ ☏ 10:32, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
- Re-repurpose – as nominator. -- j. 'mach' wust ☛ ☏ 10:32, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
- Oppose. Although there is no absolute requirement to follow ISO 639, there is a strong consensus that language category names should match ISO 639 codes, supported by several dozen CFD discussions and the fact that all or nearly all language categories follow the ISO convention. To avoid confusion with als.wikipedia, we can place a {{for}} or {{otheruses}} notice on the category page. – Black Falcon (Talk) 18:28, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
- Is there any precedence where a language category code does not match the corresponding wikipedia domain? -- j. 'mach' wust ☛ ☏ 21:01, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
- I think that perhaps this should be thought about in reverse. The whole point of using Iso codes is that they are an international standard. And I presume that what the ISO codes are have been argued out by others more "in the know" then us. Perhaps the better way to handle this would be for the language Wikipedias to follow this standard as well. - jc37 21:08, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
- Well this is interesting: Meta:Language proposal policy. According to this, all new language Wikipedias names should follow ISO 639. (I'm continuing research to find out more information.) - jc37 21:29, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
- The thing is that when the Alemannic Wikipedia was started in 2003 I believe, the language had no ISO code (and in my opinion it still doesn't because the code gsw defies linguistic convention by using "Swiss German" as a cover term for Alemannic, when it usually is the other way around; Alemannic is the cover term while Swiss German refers to a socio-geographic variant of Alemannic). Moving the domain now while the code is still not established would be more trouble than it is worth; and in my opinion the bable template should follow the domain. --Chlämens 23:37, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
- A user language category on en.wikipedia needn't necessarily conform to the (apparently ambiguous) domain name of another language Wikipedia. – Black Falcon (Talk) 00:00, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
- But the existance of a wikipedia in that language is a compelling reason to have the category conform to the domain since pretty much anyone active at als.wikipedia will expect to find their language template under als. --Chlämens 01:29, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
- Let me get this straight: "We know we're using a non-standard abbreviation" and "We feel that the en-Wikipedia should default to out non-standard abbreviation instead of the ISO standard". Well, I feel that anyone using a non-standard anything should be prepared to have to deal with the standard, not the other way round. Sorry, but that arguement doesn't work. - jc37 01:34, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
- I think it comes down to the question, what is more important on wikipedia, interwiki or ISO 639-3? There are no compelling reasons either way. To my knowledge, there is no precedence. The als.wikipedia.org was there before ISO 639-3. -- j. 'mach' wust ☛ ☏ 08:05, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
- Let me get this straight: "We know we're using a non-standard abbreviation" and "We feel that the en-Wikipedia should default to out non-standard abbreviation instead of the ISO standard". Well, I feel that anyone using a non-standard anything should be prepared to have to deal with the standard, not the other way round. Sorry, but that arguement doesn't work. - jc37 01:34, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
- But the existance of a wikipedia in that language is a compelling reason to have the category conform to the domain since pretty much anyone active at als.wikipedia will expect to find their language template under als. --Chlämens 01:29, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
- A user language category on en.wikipedia needn't necessarily conform to the (apparently ambiguous) domain name of another language Wikipedia. – Black Falcon (Talk) 00:00, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
- The thing is that when the Alemannic Wikipedia was started in 2003 I believe, the language had no ISO code (and in my opinion it still doesn't because the code gsw defies linguistic convention by using "Swiss German" as a cover term for Alemannic, when it usually is the other way around; Alemannic is the cover term while Swiss German refers to a socio-geographic variant of Alemannic). Moving the domain now while the code is still not established would be more trouble than it is worth; and in my opinion the bable template should follow the domain. --Chlämens 23:37, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
- Well this is interesting: Meta:Language proposal policy. According to this, all new language Wikipedias names should follow ISO 639. (I'm continuing research to find out more information.) - jc37 21:29, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
- I think that perhaps this should be thought about in reverse. The whole point of using Iso codes is that they are an international standard. And I presume that what the ISO codes are have been argued out by others more "in the know" then us. Perhaps the better way to handle this would be for the language Wikipedias to follow this standard as well. - jc37 21:08, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
- Is there any precedence where a language category code does not match the corresponding wikipedia domain? -- j. 'mach' wust ☛ ☏ 21:01, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
- Oppose - This category isn't about members of the sister-project. It's Wikipedians who speak a certain language. I don't see a reason to dispense with convention in this case. - jc37 11:14, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
- It's not that easy. There are two conventions that contradict in this case: The convention to use ISO 639-3 and the convention to use wikipedia domain (see Wikipedia:Babel). They normally overlap. They do not in this particular case. -- j. 'mach' wust ☛ ☏ 18:13, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
- Oppose as per jc37 and Black Falcon. I was the one who originally proposed the switch to Albanian, since "als" is Tosk Albanian. I was not aware of the Alemannic Wikipedia when I made the nomination, but that does not change the fact that it is improperly named (as per the current meta requirements for new wikipedia projects. What happens if someone wants to start a Tosk Wikipedia? In any case, the error at als.wikipedia does not need to spill over to en.wikipedia as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Horologium (talk • contribs) 23:53, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
- There already is a Tosk Wikipedia, the Standard Albanian one, Standard Albanian is a Tosk dialect. The current meta requirement did not exist when the Alemannic Wikipedia was started over 5 years ago, and for the time being there is no alternative to als; even though we at the Alemannic Wikipedia are working on a request to Ethnologue for a correct (see my first post) code. When Alemannic is given a correct code we will happily move our domain, but until then we still need a category across the different wikipedias. The error of Ethnologue and ISO 639-3 need not to spill over to Wikipedia in general. So Strong Support. PS:I happen to speak both Alemannic and Tosk Albanian --Chlämens 01:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- Strong Support as per nom, and myself elsewhere, I've lost track. As conceded above, some were ignorant of the existence of als-Wikipedia when the decision, that involved only 5 editors or so, was made. This was as premature and uncoordinated as it can get. Albanian (sqip) users have sq to identify with (sq-Wiki and user-sq), and there is no excuse for sacrificing the well-established use of als for Alemannic purposes only to introduce an Albanian subcategory for Tosk which nobody called for yet, and which should be named tsk or similiar anyway. "als" relates to "Alemannische Sprache", and "Alsace", too.-- Matthead discuß! O 01:26, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- To get this straight: we at the Alemannic Wikipedia aren't great fans of the als code either, but when it was started in 2003 there was no ISO 639-3 so the people at meta came up with als. Not our fault, not ideal, but that's the way it is until we get a real ISO 639-3 code (should be with the next edition of Ethnologue). --Chlämens 01:58, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- As for me, the codes "ala", "ald", "ale", "alg", "all", "alm" and "als" would be good choices for Alemannic, but these are already given to others for whatever reason. Maybe we came too late into World history, only 2000 years ago Roman historians learned about Germanic peoples and then the Alamanni, and the couple of million speakers of Alemannic do barely outnumber e.g. the 18,000 Unangax which own "ale" (surely they are all happy about that). There are some ISO 639-2 codes like "gem Germanic (Other)" or "gsw" for "Alemannic Swiss German", but this is not good, we have at least three more countries to cover. How about "dea", seems free, fits nicely under Alpha-2 "de" for German? Same for "deb", for Baden.-- Matthead discuß! O 05:22, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- The abbreviation gsw stands for German Switzerland, that is, for Swiss German. However, only the Alemannic speakers of Switzerland identify themselves as speakers of Swiss German (and maybe the ones from Liechtenstein too). So it's unlikely that German, Austrian and French speakers of Alemannic would use a Swiss German userbox to identify their own speech. Now these are probably the majority of Alemannic speakers, even if we don't consider Swabian. The only reason why the ethnologue gives a larger number for speakers in Switzerland is that it fails to count speakers from Germany but counts only those from France and Austria.[5] (On the other hand, I think more likely that speakers of Walser dialects would identify themselves as Swiss German speakers.) Now you could ask, how come an ISO standard has so many flaws? The reason is, I think, that it's directly based on the ethnologue, and the ethnologue itself admits with respect to varieties of German: "Our present treatment in this edition is incomplete."[6]
- By the way, there are numerous precedents of Wikipedia:Userboxes/Non-ISO Languages. -- j. 'mach' wust ☛ ☏ 08:13, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- So you're saying that you want it to be called Category:User gsw-als? (Since most of those on that page are hyphenated.) - jc37 15:22, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- Still, there is no appropriate code reserved for the several millions non-Swiss, non Swabian speakers of Alemannic, namely Low Alemannic German. I thus propose Category:User Alemannic as a replacement for Category:User als until Ethnologue and ISO get their acts together, reserving acceptable definitions and codes both for Alemannic in general, and all relevant subdivisions. Currently, there are too few available, only Category:User swg for Swabian language and Category:User gsw for Swiss German or High Alemannic German.-- Matthead discuß! O 19:21, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- So you're saying that you want it to be called Category:User gsw-als? (Since most of those on that page are hyphenated.) - jc37 15:22, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- As for me, the codes "ala", "ald", "ale", "alg", "all", "alm" and "als" would be good choices for Alemannic, but these are already given to others for whatever reason. Maybe we came too late into World history, only 2000 years ago Roman historians learned about Germanic peoples and then the Alamanni, and the couple of million speakers of Alemannic do barely outnumber e.g. the 18,000 Unangax which own "ale" (surely they are all happy about that). There are some ISO 639-2 codes like "gem Germanic (Other)" or "gsw" for "Alemannic Swiss German", but this is not good, we have at least three more countries to cover. How about "dea", seems free, fits nicely under Alpha-2 "de" for German? Same for "deb", for Baden.-- Matthead discuß! O 05:22, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
And? Is anything going to get resolved now? In light of the fact that:
- There is a wikimedia project under the code als.
- No one arguing for repurposing has proposed any alternative for the Alemannic category.
- There was no awareness that an Alemannic Wikipedia existed when this proposal was made.
- The Alemannic Wikipedia existed before the ISO 639-3 standard did.
- ISO 639-3 is not complete for this language family as noted by its own creators.
- All users wanting to add a bable template for Alemannic will search for als.
- That there is no other case as far as I know of a wikimedia project under a non-standard code, and thus no precedent would be set.
And most of all:
- That Tosk Albanian is already covered by the Standard Albanian Wikipedia and template (Standard Albanian = Standard Tosk, as opposed to Gheg Albanian, whose standard language was abandoned in the late 70's).
I argue that the existence of the Alemannic Wikipedia is more important than the code for Tosk Albanian which is already covered by sq, and that this justifies an exception to the rule. --Chlämens 16:53, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
- I concur, so its currently tied an 3 each. Let's override the depopulate for repurposing discussion from August, return Category:User als to the about 80 User pages that link to Template:User als, and add a remark that ISO currently attributes als to Tosk. Things might change in the future - in this case, Ethnologue and ISO have to catch up to Wiki projects, not vice versa.-- Matthead discuß! O 21:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
- Admin comment: just in case someone is waiting for me.... I want to let users know that I will not be closing this discussion. I feel that the decision requires not just an assessment of consensus but also a stronger language background or knowledge than I possess. As such, I will leave the close of this discussion to any other admin who feels qualified (by their standards, not mine) to do so. --After Midnight 0001 19:40, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
- I understand. I was thinking about dropping a request on the talk pages of admins who post at least semi-regularly to this page. But before I do that, if you wouldn't mind, would you just pick one randomly and ask them to close (or suggest that if they know someone more appropriate to perhaps ask them)? - jc37 02:13, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
it was unfortunate to choose "als" for "Alsatian". Sure, there was no ISO code, but seeing that, something should have been chosen that doesn't collide with ISO 639 (the Alemannic Wikipedia is a strange animal anyway. I tried to contribute, but I gave up, because the babel of different dialects makes the normal editing process almost impossible). Since we find ourselves in this mess, the question is, will it be possible to move als-wiki? The best move target would probably be gsw:, since SIL gives "Alternate names: Alemannisch" for this code. If the Swabians refuse to edit under "gsw", the only half ISO compatible solution would be something along the lines of "gem-ala" or "gem-als" (but seeing that gsw and swg speakers today edit under a made-up code for Alsatian, I see nothing that would speak against a move to gsw). Discussion of this would really belong on meta. Concerning the user categories, I wouldn't touch them until the subdomain question is resolved, because doing so might mean that you'll just have to move them around twice. --dab (𒁳) 08:19, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
- I fully concur. I understand that "wouldn't touch" in this case seems to mean 'return to status quo ante', since the user categories already have been touched. I don't think that gsw would enjoy equal acceptance as als. The reason why als was easily accepted for all Alemannic varieties, not only Alsatian, is that it could easily be reinterpreted as alemannische Sprache, whereas gsw clearly connotes 'Switzerland'. -- j. 'mach' wust ☛ ☏ 09:41, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
- als is completely made up. It may be taken to mean "Alsatian" (by intention) or "Alemannische Sprache" (after the fact) if people so desire, but officially, it means "Tosk Albanian". gsw officially means "German, Swiss", and swg officially means "Swabian German". This is completely arbitrary, and could just as well be the other way round ("Swiss German", "German, Swabian"). gsw is preferable because it is linguistically wider, including Low, High and Highest Alemannic dialects alike, while swg is only for Low Alemannic. If als-wiki decides it wants to continue mixing Low and High Alemannic, a move to gsw would be best. If they decide to restrict their scope to Low Alemannic (Alsatian, Swabian, Basel German), swg would be best. I really think that meta should put it to the als-wiki community to make up their minds whether they want to be gsw or swg, and then move the project. --dab (𒁳) 13:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
- on second thoughts, I do not think we should keep Category:User als around in the meaning "Alemannic". This will only serve to perpetuate the misnomer. It should rather be split into Category:User gsw and Category:User swg, and users will be free to pick if they want to be "gsw" or "swg". Case in point, there is als:Kategorie:User gsw, but no als:Kategorie:User als (and no als:Kategorie:User swg). --dab (𒁳) 13:55, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
- judging from precedents like roa-tara:, bat-smg:, zh-min-nan:, zh-classical:, The Alemannic wiki could also be at "de-als", "de-ale" or similar, but at least the first part of the subdomain should be standard (simple: also violates this, and should properly be "en-simple", but that probably wasn't quite simple enough...) --dab (𒁳) 14:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
- als is completely made up. It may be taken to mean "Alsatian" (by intention) or "Alemannische Sprache" (after the fact) if people so desire, but officially, it means "Tosk Albanian". gsw officially means "German, Swiss", and swg officially means "Swabian German". This is completely arbitrary, and could just as well be the other way round ("Swiss German", "German, Swabian"). gsw is preferable because it is linguistically wider, including Low, High and Highest Alemannic dialects alike, while swg is only for Low Alemannic. If als-wiki decides it wants to continue mixing Low and High Alemannic, a move to gsw would be best. If they decide to restrict their scope to Low Alemannic (Alsatian, Swabian, Basel German), swg would be best. I really think that meta should put it to the als-wiki community to make up their minds whether they want to be gsw or swg, and then move the project. --dab (𒁳) 13:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
- I think a split is not a good solution. There is a wikipedia community that identifies themselves as Alemannic. Should they be forced to abandon their self-identification on the basis of an arbitrary standard that is based on the admittetly incomplete treatment of the ethnologue?[7] And why should for instance someone from the Alsace or Baden or Freiburg i.B. etc. who is not Swiss and does not speak Swabian have to choose between Swiss and Swabian? I agree that some kind of dash-name would be best, though I'd rather go for a full name like "de-alemannisch" or "gem-alemannisch" in accordance to the recommendation of Meta:Language proposal policy that natural names should be used if there is no code. -- j. 'mach' wust ☛ ☏ 14:59, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
- nobody prevents you from identifying as "Alemannic", and creating, for example, a Category:Alemannic Wikipedians. But I put it to you that this is a matter of ethnic identity, and not necessarily a case for "User language" templates. It is true that Alemannic is a valid linguistic classification, and just so happens to lack an ISO code. But I would consider it a problematic precedent to create an User language category based on ethnic sentiment (you don't want to know what is in the woodworks in this respect...) If we absolutely need a "this user speaks Alemannic" category, let it be called Category:User de-ale or similar. In my understanding, "gsw" was originally intended as the "Swiss German" code, but was subsequently extended as the umbrella code for "Alemannic" (hence the 'alternate names: Alemannic"). If people can accept that gsw can now be used for "Alemannic in general", even though it was intended for "Swiss German" at some point, the solution is using Category:User gsw for "Alemannic Wikipedians". "Swiss German" is not a linguistic classification and simply refers to Alemannic speakers from Switzerland. We do not express nationality in User language categories, and Swiss Wikipedians can still use Category:User gsw and Category:Swiss Wikipedians in conjunction. They can also plaster their user page with flags and what have you, not getting your own language category does not amount to censorship of expression of ethnic identity. --dab (𒁳) 15:17, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
- I think a split is not a good solution. There is a wikipedia community that identifies themselves as Alemannic. Should they be forced to abandon their self-identification on the basis of an arbitrary standard that is based on the admittetly incomplete treatment of the ethnologue?[7] And why should for instance someone from the Alsace or Baden or Freiburg i.B. etc. who is not Swiss and does not speak Swabian have to choose between Swiss and Swabian? I agree that some kind of dash-name would be best, though I'd rather go for a full name like "de-alemannisch" or "gem-alemannisch" in accordance to the recommendation of Meta:Language proposal policy that natural names should be used if there is no code. -- j. 'mach' wust ☛ ☏ 14:59, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
In the light of BCP 47 specifications, I propose that "gsw" should be considered the code for "Alemannic German", and "gsw-CH" should be considered the code for "Swiss German" in particular (while de-CH is for Swiss Standard German). --dab (𒁳) 15:38, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
- The category for Alemannic is not an ethnic category, what on earth are you talking about? The Alemannic Wikipedia identifies as "Alemannic-speaking", not as ethnically Alemannic, whatever that is. Many people in Southern Baden might identify as ethnic Alemannic, some Alsatians and Swiss do, but Alemannic is primarily a linguistic cover term, despite what Alemannic speakers from Baden like me try to tell ourselves. I don't see the logic in make hasty decisions based on the Ethnologue, which is known to be unreliable, and even admits to being incomplete on this particular subject. Alemannic is probably one of the best researched idioms in that area, and I have never seen a linguistic study, dialect atlas etc that uses "Swiss German" as a cover term the way the Ethnologue does. To use WP terminology: Ethnologue is doing original research on Alemannic. The gsw code has only been around for about a year, the Alemannic Wikipedia has existed for 5 years, Alemannic has been studied for the past century, so the best path of action is to sit back, file a request with Ethnologue, and wait for their next edition. Until then, it would be pretty premature to start moving stuff around, be it domains or categories. You'll just be right back where you started from next year and have to move everything again when the people at Ethnologue actually consult the relevant sources. --Chlämens 23:52, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
- Exactly. People like Cem Özdemir are surely not "ethnic Alemannic", yet they are native speakers of Alemannic anyway. It's Ethnologue and ISO who have homework to do - the only thing Wikipedia has to do is return the als-Category to the dozens of Alemannic speakers which have started it, adding an info link for those who may look for Tosk (which is, apart from us few, probably nobody anyway). -- Matthead discuß! O 05:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
- look, my main point is that "gsw" should be considered the code for "Alemannic", while "swg" should be considered the code for "Swabian Alemannic" as "wae" should be considered the code for "Walser Alemannic". There is no code for Alsatian, Bernese or Zurich Alemannic, ISO doesn't have a code for every dialect. There are possibilities for code expansions for that, including the "-x-" "private agreement" marker. "swg-CH" is "Swiss German", and "gsw-x-als" can be "Alsatian" by private agreement. These codes aren't SIL's, they are ISO's, and endorsed worldwide by W3C etc. Wikipedia should go along with them. The sensible thing would be to change Category:User gsw from "Schweizerdeutsch" to "Alemannic". If you really really cannot live with "gsw" meaning "Alemannic", we could at best create idiosyncratic Category:User de-x-als as a homegrown code for "Alemannic German". We should not keep around User lang categories that violate ISO. The gsw code has in fact been around since 1998 (but it is true that the "als" code had been unassigned until 2007). I agree it is somewhat unfortunate. So what? It's hardly the only flaw in international standards. There is nothing for it but look for the best workaround until the standards organisations improve on it. The alternative is a babel of idiosyncracy. --dab (𒁳) 08:40, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
- Exactly. People like Cem Özdemir are surely not "ethnic Alemannic", yet they are native speakers of Alemannic anyway. It's Ethnologue and ISO who have homework to do - the only thing Wikipedia has to do is return the als-Category to the dozens of Alemannic speakers which have started it, adding an info link for those who may look for Tosk (which is, apart from us few, probably nobody anyway). -- Matthead discuß! O 05:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
- He he he, so we'd have gsw-DE 'German Swiss German' and gsw-CH Swiss Swiss German (or is it 'double-Swiss German'?)! :-) Right, the x, so I'd go for "gem-x-alemannisch". Or is there a length constraint? I'm not sure I read the specifications correctly. -- j. 'mach' wust ☛ ☏ 10:56, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
- But what happened to the point about keeping "als" till the issue is settled on meta so we don't have to move again? -- j. 'mach' wust ☛ ☏ 11:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
did you miss, or do you choose to ignore, my point that "gsw" should be taken to mean "Alemannic", not just "Swiss German"? Instead of "gem-x-alemannisch", go for "de-x-alemannisch": it is undisputed that Alemannic German is a subset of German. I would prefer to settle the issue now, so this discussion doesn't have to be repeated needlessly. Let us not reinvent the wheel. SIL takes gsw to apply to both "Swiss German" and "Alemannic". Alternatively, this interpretation suggests usage of "wae"= Highest, "gsw"=High, and "swg"=Low (incl. Swabian) Alemannic. This is a sensible solution, but proposes "gem-CH" for "Swiss German" (because "gsw-CH" would be restricted to High Alemannic Swiss dialects). I would prefer doing without "-x-" if at all possible. There are two perfectly reasonable scenarios:
- interpret wae, gsw, swg as Highest, High and Low Alemannic. This is linguistically the sensible approach.
- interpret gsw as "Alemannic", with wae and swg as specially marked subsets.
Both solutions allow you to identify as Alemannic speaker, and neither necessitates the invention of "private agreements". als: is a strange combination swg and gsw (and even some wae). This isn't really workable, it's like trying to write a Wikipedia in English and Frisian simultaneously. Because of the eccentric scope of the project, the subdomain may also be eccentric, I suppose, perhaps "gem-swg-gsw-wae"? dab (𒁳) 11:28, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
- in contrast to what I say above, SIL is in fact the official authority for ISO 639[8]. This means that "Alemannic" as a valid reading of "gsw" should be taken at face value. In the light of this, I clearly prefer "gsw" to be used as the code for "Alemannic" on Wikipedia, with "gsw-CH" meaning "Swiss German" in particular ("gsw" alone can also mean Swiss German, a fortiori, just like it can also be used to mean "Bernese German" or whatever). dab (𒁳) 11:40, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
- I do not ignore that gsw does not only mean 'Swiss German' but also 'Alemannic', but 'Swiss German' is whence the code comes, and it does not mean 'Alemannic' in the sense that comprises all of gsw, swg, wae, gct, which is a different concept of 'Alemannic' used by the very same ethnologue that made up the incomplete treatment of those varieties the ISO is based on.[9]
- You blame the Alemannic community for not agreeing with the arbitrary ISO standard. I blame the other way round: I blame the arbitrary ISO standard for not agreeing with the Alemannic community, linguistics etc. because it's only based on the incomplete treatment of the ethnologue. It's not reality that should mirror standards, but standards that should mirror reality.
- Neither the solution to reinterpret wae, gsw, swg as Highest Alemannic, High Alemannic, Low Alemannic is workable nor the solution to consider wae, swg subsets of gsw, because neither conform with ISO.
- I fully concur with the message you've cited that Swiss German in the usual sense of 'German dialects spoken in Switzerland' can only be represented by "gem-CH", because of the eccentric ethnologue decision to exclude wae (but not Walliser German nor other Highest Alemannic varieties!) from gsw, and because "de-CH" means Swiss standard German.
- Just as ISO does not provide a special code for Swiss German in the common sense, there is also no code for Alemannic. We might use "de-x-alemannisch" or "gem-x-alemannisch" or just as well agree on using "qal", that is, a 'local use' code.
- Whatever decision we take, it is not unlikely to be overridden by future decisions on meta or by future ISO editions. We can't "settle the issue now", no matter how hard we try. This is no appropiate place. That's why I suggested in the first place to keep the interwiki consistency between als.wikipedia.org and "category:User als" until the issue has been settled in the appropiate place. -- j. 'mach' wust ☛ ☏ 12:28, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
- SIL is not doing dialectology, they classify the world's languages. It is unavoidable that some ambiguities will arise; in my understanding, wae is intended for "Highest Alemannic", swg is intended for "Swabian", and gsw is intended for either "High+Low Alemannic (including Alsatian)", or for "Alemannic" generically, let's take our pick. It is pointless to "blame SIL". You can file a change request, but for the time being, we have to work with the standard as defined. I maintain that it is unacceptable to keep "als", because that means "Tosk Albanian". To my mind, "de-x-als", "de-x-alemannisch", "swg-gsw-wae" and "gsw" are all acceptable alternatives, and there is room for disagreement and debate as to which is preferable ("qal" is not a good idea, since Indeterminately reserved code elements are really not part of ISO 639 at all, but are reserved to avoid collisions with systems that are meant to be upward-compatible extensions of ISO 639. They are not supposed to be used except in those particular systems). The Alemannic community should discuss this, and post their favourite solution to meta. dab (𒁳) 13:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
- Just in case I haven't pointed this out often enough yet: that als is the ISO code for Tosk Albanian does not make moving the Alemannic domain a pressing issue, the reason being that the Albanian Wikipedia is already being written in (Standard) Tosk. Imagine if there was an accepted Standard Alemannic language, and someone opened another one for the dialects, that's what opening one for Tosk Albanian would be like (and I speak Tosk for your information). Thus, since the als domain will probably never be needed, it is much more feasible to file a request with Ethnologue (which we're planning to do anyway) and wait for them to sort it out rather than moving the domain around several times. --Chlämens 17:12, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
- SIL is not doing dialectology, they classify the world's languages. It is unavoidable that some ambiguities will arise; in my understanding, wae is intended for "Highest Alemannic", swg is intended for "Swabian", and gsw is intended for either "High+Low Alemannic (including Alsatian)", or for "Alemannic" generically, let's take our pick. It is pointless to "blame SIL". You can file a change request, but for the time being, we have to work with the standard as defined. I maintain that it is unacceptable to keep "als", because that means "Tosk Albanian". To my mind, "de-x-als", "de-x-alemannisch", "swg-gsw-wae" and "gsw" are all acceptable alternatives, and there is room for disagreement and debate as to which is preferable ("qal" is not a good idea, since Indeterminately reserved code elements are really not part of ISO 639 at all, but are reserved to avoid collisions with systems that are meant to be upward-compatible extensions of ISO 639. They are not supposed to be used except in those particular systems). The Alemannic community should discuss this, and post their favourite solution to meta. dab (𒁳) 13:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
See here: meta:Meta_talk:Language_proposal_policy#Alemannic. dab (𒁳) 13:06, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
- Thank you for taking that to meta! I'm always too reluctant to step into new wikimedia branches... I don't see anything that hints to wae standing for Highest Alemannic (besides Walliser-Walser dialects, they comprise at least also Bernese Oberland and Sense dialects, but there is no unanimity about what features define Highest Alemannic). I wasn't informed good enough on qal. I repeat I don't like gsw because that excludes Walser dialects and Swabian, but the other proposals are fine to me. Ceterum censeo: I still think we should not touch als while there has been no decision on meta, that is, revert the touching that already has been done. -- j. 'mach' wust ☛ ☏ 20:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
- Please see m:User talk:Pathoschild#ISO 639 - jc37 20:52, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Filing a change request with Ethnologue/ISO
As Chlämens pointed out above, a change request should be filed to straighten this out. A simple first step could change the Albanian language ISO 3 codes, to ones beginning with "sq", the ISO 639 alpha-2 code for Shqip. This would free not only "als", but also "aln", leaving some space for future Alemannic codes.
code | now | better |
---|---|---|
alb | Albanian ISO 639-2 | Albanian |
aln | Gheg | Low Alemannic German (Niederalemannische Sprache) |
als | Tosk | Alemannic German (Alemannische Sprache) or Alsatian |
sqg | - | Gheg |
sqi | Shqip Albanian | Shqip Albanian |
sqr | - | Soqotri |
sqt | Soqotri | Tosk |
Does this make any sense? -- Matthead discuß! O 05:31, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Hmm. Why didn't you use soq (Kanasi) to be the new Soqotri code? (Kanasi doesn't have a page on Wikipedia. See Trans-New Guinea languages.) - jc37 05:44, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
- Well, KISS, "sqr" was nearby and free, so I did not look any further, its as good or bad as "sqt" for Soqotri. Don't want to cause more commotion than necessary. Is there any system behind the allocation of codes, other than "random & arbitrarily"?-- Matthead discuß! O 06:03, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Step two would then be the assignment of meaningful codes to the Alemannic dialects. While some interesting codes are already taken, like those suitable for Schwäbisch and Schwyzterdütsch,
- sue Suena
- swa Swahili (generic)
- swb Comorian
- swe Swedish
- swg Swabian
- swh Swahili (specific)
- swi Sui
- swy Sarua
some others are still unused, namely all rh* (except rhp), which could be used for languages associated with the Rhine
- els Elsässerisch
- rha
- rhb Bodenseealemannisch, or Badisch
- rhh hochalemannisch
- rhi High Alemannic
- rho Oberrheinalemannisch: vor allem Elsass, Baden und in Basel
- rhn (or aln) Niederalemannisch:
- rhy als:Rhy
-- Matthead discuß! O 09:59, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Note: From what I've been reading at Wikimedia, several of the Alemannic sister projects are up for closure. - jc37 10:46, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Deleting votes/consensus opinion
There is absolutly no reason admins should be deleting anyone's "vote" unless it's really out of bounds such as racist, profane, etc. To do so is vandalism and defeats the purpose of the process. I find "Soandso Wikipedians" categories to be useless and of no value on Wikipedia and when I state such, I don't expect someone to just totally delete my damn vote! -- ALLSTAR ECHO 17:56, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
- Who deleted your vote? Can you paste the vote here so we can see if there was actually any reason to delete it? Thanks
- No, just nevermind it. I've been through it on the Admin noticeboard/incidents (which got deleted too) and the consensus was I'm a jackass, that all I was doing with my "votes" was trying to prove a point and that I was disrupting everything so I'm done with it and moved on. Can't win against a gang of admins. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 22:12, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
- You apparently missed part of the point of the discussion; several of the involved admins are !voting the SAME WAY as you, but recognize that your sudden interest in the group was spurred by the deletion of a group of categories that were important to you, and your incivility (especially in the first group of edits you made) was unacceptably incivil. Note also that in the few discussions I am currently involved in I have !voted for deletion as well, but without the incivility and with individual rationales, not bot-like repetition. Horologium t-c 22:16, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
- There was nothing incivil in my "votes", only valid assertion that WP is not a social network, the people in those "InsertTitleHere Wikipedians" user cats are not notable and no one cares who or what you are just how you edit.. that's not incivil, that's valid opinion and reasoning for deletion. WHile it does seem that my participation in UCFDs arose because a slew of user cats I wanted to keep were deleted, I have stated on my talk page that in fact I now agree with even the deletion of the user cats I previously didn't want deleted. I know it's hard to believe but it's in good faith, something the ganged-up admins refused to believe or even think possible, thereby violating good faith themselves. The fact is, it's done, it's over with, I'm moving on. And since an admin missed deleting this discussion here when he/she was deleting everything else related, hopefully one will come along and delete this section too, because it's over. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 22:28, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Here's the diff of the WP:AN/I discussion being deleted. And see this diff showing the user's talk page discussion as well. - jc37 22:20, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
- and thank you Jc37 for once again violating good faith. Now, ONE MORE DAMN TIME - it's over, I've moved on, end of discussion, drop it! GEESH! -- ALLSTAR ECHO 22:28, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
- Yeah I have to say, I sure wish I'd been around for that ANI discussion, cause this is rather disappointing to hear from admins. What happened to assuming good faith? I mean, I agree that it appears Allstarecho has some issues he needs to deal with, but that's neither here nor there. You can't psychoanalyze a person and call his edits unhelpful as a result, unless there's something wrong with the edits themselves. Here's the deleted !vote:
- "Strong Delete Has nothing to do with writing an encyclopedia, the people in the category are not notable, this is not a social networking site, and no one cares what you are or who you support just how you edit."
- I honestly don't see anything wrong with that comment, and I don't see it as all that different from most of the comments we get here from deletionists. It might be a bit sarcastic in tone, maybe a bit transparently made by someone who really thinks the opposite and is pissed off, but the comment itself isn't especially disruptive; this isn't anything like listing a bunch of things for deletion just to make a point. This is just someone who, for all intents and purposes, disregarding our analysis of his psyche, thinks user categories should be deleted. And there's nothing wrong with that.
And yes, administrators close discussions all the time. In this case, I think User:Steel359 was merely attempting to reduce further disruption. You may wish to check out allstarecho's talk page to see the original version of that comment, and more information in general. That said, allstarecho has said several times he wishes this discussion "over", so perhaps it would be a good idea to just "drop it" and allow him to "move on" as he agreed to do. - jc37 22:56, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
- I know they do, but that doesn't mean it's a practice supported by any policy. I will check out that page, but in the meantime I'd appreciate it if this discussion were not closed or deleted. Thanks.
- I'm confused, are you saying the !vote as I've quoted it is not the original comment? If so, can you show me a diff of the original? Thanks.