Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 January 14 Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2018_January_14

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

The result of the discussion was: delete (non-admin closure). Marcocapelle (talk) 19:38, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose deleting Category:Universalizing Religions (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: Newly-created category to go along with the neologism article Universalizing religion, which itself is up for deletion. —C.Fred (talk) 23:02, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The opposite of "Universalizing Religion" ie "Ethnic Religion" has wiki page. So, "Universalizing Religion" is also a valid , noteworthy and useful page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Realphi (talk • contribs) 23:25, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• delete, pointless category. Use Category:Religious conversion. --dab (𒁳) 06:59, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Don't think each article should have a category of it's name. Excelse (talk) 05:25, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• delete The fact that the only members are the main articles of the principal modern faiths is Not A Good Sign. Mangoe (talk) 20:00, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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

The result of the discussion was: Merge to Category:Disestablishments in the Minoan civilization. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:24, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose deleting Category:2nd-millennium BC disestablishments in the Minoan civilization (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: delete as an indiscriminate category, nearly everything in the Minoan civilization was disestablished in the 2nd millennium BC because the civilization itself came to an end around 1100 BC. The one article is sufficiently categorized in Category:Minoan sites in Greece and Category:17th-century BC disestablishments. Marcocapelle (talk) 17:13, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete -- I see little purpose in ANY millennium categories. Even in Egypt we only have about 4500, possibly 5000 years, of history: 45-50 centuries, which is not too much for a single parent category. Archaeology may add a bit more, but with no exact dates. I would thus encourage a general cull of all millennium categories (or most). Peterkingiron (talk) 20:57, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge to category:disestablishments in the Minoan civilization.GreyShark (dibra) 11:15, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per factual errors mentioned by nom. Also find Peterkingiron's argument correct, that we need to check other "millennium" categories. Ping me when you nominate any of them. Excelse (talk) 05:16, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
•  Comment: Deleting this category without upmerging would empty Category:Disestablishments in the Minoan civilization. Is that an intended outcome? -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 05:53, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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

The result of the discussion was: Rename. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:25, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose renaming Category:Fictional Canadian superheroes to Category:Canadian superheroes

Nominator's rationale: In accordance with other categories of superheroes by nationality. See WP:C2C. Goustien (talk) 17:09, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Rename per nom Uneccessary disambiguation "fictional". Dimadick (talk) 18:20, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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

The result of the discussion was: delete. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 18:23, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose deleting Category:Sphinx Senior Society (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: Per WP:NONDEF. A de facto membership category for Sphinx Senior Society, contrary to the 10-year-old consensus at CFD against categorising people by group membership. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:05, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per nom. Only the eponymous article belongs here. No need to merge, this article is already categorized appropriately. Marcocapelle (talk) 19:43, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete violates consensus against membership categories for such societies.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:16, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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

The result of the discussion was: delete. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 18:24, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose deleting Category:Friars Senior Society of the University of Pennsylvania (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: Per WP:NONDEF. A de facto membership category for Friars Senior Society of the University of Pennsylvania, contrary to the 10-year-old consensus at CFD against categorising people by group membership. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:58, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per nom. Only the eponymous article belongs here. No need to merge, this article is already categorized appropriately. Marcocapelle (talk) 19:44, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete If properly applied would be a one article category for the like named organization, which is a pointless way to categorize.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:16, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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

The result of the discussion was:

• Propose deleting Category:Rho Chi (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: Per WP:SMALLCAT. Contains only Rho Chi, List of Rho Chi chapters and the one-item Category:Rho Chi founders, which nominated for merger below (see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 January 14#College fraternity/sorority_founders). BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:54, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per nom. Marcocapelle (talk) 19:45, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete too small a category to be useful.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:17, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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

The result of the discussion was: delete. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 05:56, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose deleting Category:Phi Lambda Upsilon (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: A facto membership category for Phi Lambda Upsilon, contrary to the 10-year-old consensus at CFD against categorising people by group membership. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:49, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Support: Defacto membership category.Naraht (talk) 17:22, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete – per nom. Oculi (talk) 00:24, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per nom. Marcocapelle (talk) 19:46, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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

The result of the discussion was: delete. – Fayenatic London 12:40, 14 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose deleting Category:Xi Sigma Pi (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: Per WP:SMALLCAT. Only 2 items: Xi Sigma Pi and List of Xi Sigma Pi chapters. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:43, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep: General setup for fraternities and sororities meets "large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme," — Preceding unsigned comment added by Naraht (talk • contribs) 17:23, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Utter nonsense: there is no such "accepted sub-categorization scheme". There are over 170 honor socs listed at Category:Honor societies. Only about 8 have an eponymous category, and most of those categories are WP:SMALLCATs created by @Naraht. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:50, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm following the same rules for the GLOs in the Honor Society categories and for those in the Fraternity/Sorority category.Naraht (talk) 18:21, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Naraht: I have no idea what GLOs are, or what special categorization rules you think apply to them. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:46, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        • @BrownHairedGirl: GLOs = Greek Letter Organizations. I'm saying that I'm applying the same categorization rules to Social Fraternities/Social Sororities, Professional Fraternities and Sororities and Honor Societies. Xi Sigma Pi is a Honorary, but I'm using the same categorization rules that would apply to Alpha Phi Alpha which is a Social Fraternity. And as I indicated in our direct conversation, caused by splitting off Members or Chapters.Naraht (talk) 21:08, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
          • @Naraht: Thanks for the clarification. But there are no special categorization rules for Greek Letter Organizations. They don't get an exemption to WP:SMALLCAT. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:21, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
            • @BrownHairedGirl: Please indicate what groups of articles do have special categorization rules, and the process of creation of them.Naraht (talk) 22:51, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
              • I am not aware of any special categorization rules for groups of articles, and would oppose them if proposed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:03, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete – serves no purpose whatever. Its 2 articles are already properly categorised. Oculi (talk) 00:13, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per nom and Oculi. Marcocapelle (talk) 19:48, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete there is no general scheme to create an exception to small cat rules.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:18, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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

The result of the discussion was: delete. – Fayenatic London 12:41, 14 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose deleting Category:Kappa Pi (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: Per WP:SMALLCAT. Only 2 items: head article Kappa Pi and List of Kappa Pi chapters. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:42, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep: General setup for fraternities and sororities meets "large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme,"Naraht (talk) 17:22, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Utter nonsense: there is no such "accepted sub-categorization scheme". There are over 170 honor socs listed at Category:Honor societies. Only about 8 have an eponymous category, and most of those categories are WP:SMALLCATs created by @Naraht. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:42, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete – serves no purpose whatever. Its 2 articles are already properly categorised. Oculi (talk) 00:11, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per nom and Oculi. Marcocapelle (talk) 19:48, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete there is no general scheme to create an exception to small cat rules.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:18, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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

The result of the discussion was: delete. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 18:28, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose deleting Category:National Technical Honor Society (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: Per WP:SMALLCAT. Only 2 pages: National Technical Honor Society, and Gordon Cooper Technology Center which doesn't belong here because it having this honor soc on campus is a WP:NONDEFining attribute. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:40, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: without GCTC, not a categoryNaraht (talk) 17:22, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per nom. Marcocapelle (talk) 19:49, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete there is no general scheme to create an exception to small cat rules.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:19, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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

The result of the discussion was: delete. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:55, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose deleting Category:Tanzania Social Support Foundation (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: delete per WP:SMALLCAT, only a list article next to the main article and frankly I think the list article should be merged into the main article. Marcocapelle (talk) 16:27, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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

The result of the discussion was: merge the 1-member categories; no consensus on the remainder. Three of the single-member categories also have a category for the society, so in those cases I will also merge to that parent. – Fayenatic London 13:38, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Propose merging:

20 pages

• Category:Alpha Kappa Alpha founders‎ to Category:College sorority founders

10 pages

• Category:Kappa Alpha Psi founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders

8 pages

• Category:Delta Sigma Theta founders‎ to Category:College sorority founders
• Category:Beta Theta Pi founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders

7 pages

• Category:FarmHouse founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders

6 pages

• Category:Phi Sigma Kappa founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders
• Category:Pi Kappa Alpha founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders

5 pages

• Category:Sigma Kappa founders‎ to Category:College sorority founders

4 pages

• Category:Alpha Delta Phi founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders
• Category:Alpha Phi Alpha founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders
• Category:Kappa Kappa Psi founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders
• Category:Phi Kappa Tau founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders
• Category:Alpha Phi Omega founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders

3 pages

• Category:Kappa Sigma founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders
• Category:Phi Sigma Alpha founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders
• Category:Sigma Chi founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders
• Category:Sigma Nu founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders

2 pages

• Category:Delta Gamma founders‎ to Category:College sorority founders
• Category:Sigma Alpha Epsilon founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders
• Category:Chi Psi founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders
• Category:Omega Psi Phi founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders
• Category:Phi Beta Kappa founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders
• Category:Phi Kappa Psi founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders
• Category:Theta Chi founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders
• Category:Theta Delta Chi founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders

1 page

• Category:Phi Kappa Phi founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders
• Category:Sigma Phi founders‎ to Category:College fraternity founders
• Category:Alpha Omicron Pi founders‎ to Category:College sorority founders
• Category:Alpha Phi founders‎ to Category:College sorority founders
• Category:Rho Chi founders‎ to Category:College sorority founders

Nominator's rationale: All those I have checked are linked from the head article on the fraternity, so an individual cat for each fraternity is not needed for navigation.

However, per WP:SMALLCAT, editors may prefer to keep some of the larger cats, so I have grouped them by size. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:21, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: General setup for fraternities and sororities meets "large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme," and combining the founders of Alpha Kappa Alpha and the founders of Rho Chi (which is an honor society, not a sorority hasn't ever been restricted to a specific gender as far as I can tell) IMO makes as much sense as combining the founding fathers of the United States and the first Sultan of Brunei into a single category: Founding fathers of countries.Naraht (talk) 17:22, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

More nuanced, would not object to the current one page cats being upmerged.Naraht (talk) 17:26, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Naraht: all the subcats of Category:College sorority founders & Category:College fraternity founders are nominated here. The purpose of this discussion is to test whether there is actually a consensus for this to be seen as an "overall accepted sub-categorization scheme". My guess is that there is likely to be consensus for keeping only a few of the larger cats. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

• Comment -- Personally, I care little whether we have these or not, but we normally allow categories with 5 or more articles to be kept. However, I wonder whether all the founders are notable enough to deserve articles, but that needs to be addressed through AFD not here. Peterkingiron (talk) 21:07, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: I believe the general setup for fraternities/sororities and their subcategories is acceptable. I believe that getting picky and deleting some subcategories for specific fraternities/sororities introduces inconsistency, and lumping/merging some subcategories doesn't make sense as Naraht explained. Jmnbqb (talk) 01:50, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Most certainly merge the 1-article categories, preferably merge the 2- and 3-article categories, without objection to merge 4- and 5-article categories as well, all per WP:SMALLCAT. Small categories are a hindrance to navigate easily to related articles. Marcocapelle (talk) 19:54, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge the resultant category will not be large enough to justify splitting at all.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:19, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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

The result of the discussion was: delete. – Fayenatic London 12:42, 14 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose deleting Category:Phi Kappa Phi (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: Per WP:SMALLCAT. Only 2 items which actually belong here: Phi Kappa Phi and Category:Phi Kappa Phi founders. Little chance of expansion because of the long-standing consensus at CFD against categorising people by group membership.

The category is currently being used a membership cat, so it has 63 biogs in it. They don't belong here. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:53, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep: General setup for fraternities and sororities meets "large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme,", but nuke those that are non-founding membersNaraht (talk) 17:22, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Utter nonsense: there is no such "accepted sub-categorization scheme". There are over 170 honor socs listed at Category:Honor societies. Only about 8 have an eponymous category, and most of those categories are WP:SMALLCATs created by @Naraht. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:43, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per nom. Only the eponymous article and the subcat belong here. No need to merge, this article and subcat are already categorized appropriately. Marcocapelle (talk) 19:58, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete there is no general scheme to create an exception to small cat rules.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:19, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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

The result of the discussion was: delete. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 18:29, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose deleting Category:Phi Eta Sigma (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: Per WP:SMALLCAT. Only one article, and little chance of expansion because of the long-standing consensus at CFD against categorising people by group membership. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:45, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete: General setup for fraternities and sororities meets "large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme,"Naraht (talk) 17:22, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Utter nonsense: there is no such "accepted sub-categorization scheme". There are over 170 honor socs listed at Category:Honor societies. Only about 8 have an eponymous category, and most of those categories are WP:SMALLCATs created by @Naraht. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:46, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per nom. Marcocapelle (talk) 19:58, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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

The result of the discussion was: delete. – Fayenatic London 12:44, 14 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose deleting Category:Phi Beta Kappa (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: Category:Phi Beta Kappa members was deleted at WP:CfD 2007 February 7. It was recreated on 23 November 2016 by @Postcard Cathy, and deleted again at WP:CfD 2017 December 13.

Since then, @Postcard Cathy has been populating this cat as a membership category, in a blatant WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT end-run around the consensus nor only of those 2 CfDs but of many other CFDs of people by group membership. (@Postcard Cathy added a TOC to Category:Phi Beta Kappa on 12 Jan, only 3 days after Category:Phi Beta Kappa members was deleted per CfD).

Continued tendentious editing like this will put @Postcard Cathy on the fast track to a block ... but regardless of her fate, this cat is not needed. Only 3 items of the category's current contents actually belong here: Phi Beta Kappa Society, List of Phi Beta Kappa members by year of admission and Category:Phi Beta Kappa founders. Per WP:SMALLCAT, that's not enough. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:38, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy Delete. I guess I didn’t make my point well in the members discussion. I agree with BrownHa about the category (but there were 7 pages when I started). There is absolutely no need for a founders subcategory if you are not going to allow a members category. And without either, why have this category at all? No need to block me. I made my point. To continue would be overkill. So delete the whole category ASAP. I will be happier, as I think these two editors will be as well. Postcard Cathy (talk) 16:32, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Agree that individual members need to be removed, but believe that category belongs anyway. I believe that the general setup for fraternities and sororities meets "large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme,"— Preceding unsigned comment added by Naraht (talk • contribs) 17:23, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Utter nonsense: there is no such "accepted sub-categorization scheme". There are over 170 honor socs listed at Category:Honor societies. Only about 8 have an eponymous category, and most of those categories are WP:SMALLCATs created by @Naraht. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:51, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy delete as a recreation of an earlier deleted members category. Very few articles aren't about members but not enough to keep the category. Marcocapelle (talk) 10:00, 19 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• It isn't, as it also includes the society's article, and List of Phi Beta Kappa members by year of admission. I don't think it can just be deleted; it will probably have to be merged somewhere or List of Phi Beta Kappa members by year of admission will be uncategorised. Peter James (talk) 21:32, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge to Category:Honor societies, agreeing that we shouldn't orphan List of Phi Beta Kappa members by year of admission. Marcocapelle (talk) 20:03, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• @Marcocapelle and Peter James: this categ contains 450 biogs, plus Phi Beta Kappa Society & List of Phi Beta Kappa members by year of admission. Surely we don't want the bots to dump 450 biogs into Category:Honor societies? These biogs are people, not themselves societies.
  List of Phi Beta Kappa members by year of admission is already adequately categorised in Category:Lists of members of United States student societies, while Phi Beta Kappa Society is already in Category:Honor societies. So no need to merge, and good reason not to do so. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:54, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Definitely not, I was counting on purging the biographies anyway. By the way I had added List of Phi Beta Kappa members by year of admission to Category:Lists of members of United States student societies after I wrote the above comment, so a merge is meanwhile redundant indeed. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:41, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete there is no general scheme to create an exception to small cat rules.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:20, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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

The result of the discussion was: merge. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:23, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose merging Category:Cristozoa to Category:Chordates

Nominator's rationale: Unnecessary level of categorization (it contains 1 subcat and a few articles) using a term that (unlike, for example, "chordates" and "vertebrates") is rather specialist. DexDor ^(talk) 08:22, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Upmerge – another unnecessary category level courtesy of Caftaric, who (like NotWith earlier) never enters into dialogue or leaves edit summaries or does anything useful. Category:Craniates is similarly useless. Oculi (talk) 09:37, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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

The result of the discussion was: no consensus. I make no judgment on whether it might be worth re-nominating the C21 categories alone, since being a C20 woman in politics was somewhat more defining than C21. – Fayenatic London 14:11, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Propose to delete and salt:

• Category:20th-century women politicians
• Category:21st-century women politicians
• Category:20th-century Indian women politicians
• Category:21st-century Indian women politicians

Nominator's rationale: These huge categories are 1) WP:NONDEFining; 2) useless for navigation; 3) worse than useless, because they cause category clutter; 4) unsuitable for containerisation.

We already categorise women politicians in many better ways, which are much more useful to readers. See e.g. Category:Women political office-holders and Category:Women in politics by nationality. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:40, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I have also alerted Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red to this discussion, as we are currently having a large-scale discussion of categorization there. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 03:47, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete and salt. These categories are pointless: they're so huge they're not useful for navigation, and being in the 20th century is not sufficiently defining to be very useful. It's much like having "male politician" categories: when the subcategory includes most of the articles in the category being broken down, it serves no purpose. The Drover's Wife (talk) 04:55, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• The situation at Category:21st-century women politicians (having subcats for e.g. MEPs of countries that joined the EU in the 21c) is (from a consistency of categorization perspective) horrible.  Another reason why those subcats shouldn't be there is that, for example, the logic Latvian MEP means 21c politician won't necessarily always be correct (if Latvia is in the EU in 22c). IMO the subcats in this particular case should be removed on that basis.  That sort of categorization could also mean articles get miscategorized if the category for an organization includes articles about aspects of (e.g. members of) predecessor organizations.  Most significantly IMO categorization like that makes it harder to work out what categories an article should be in (see, for example, User_talk:Couiros22#Freshwater_fish_of_Australia). DexDor ^(talk) 17:07, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Have you considered creating a list of the characteristics (party, century, gender, ...) that politicians are categorized by and what combinations of those we use? That may help to inform this discussion (an example of the sort of thing I mean is WP:CATMV). DexDor ^(talk) 17:07, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @DexDor: Did you see the collapsed section above "extended rationale", esp item 2? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:57, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Question: BrownHairedGirl - when you say, "we already categorise women politicians in many better ways, which are much more useful to readers" can you provide some links to examples? Hmlarson (talk) 23:39, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Hmlarson: I already did. See the collapsed section above "extended rationale", esp item 2. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:54, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • @BrownHairedGirl: Yes, I saw that. Can you post here at least one example here to confirm? I'm not seeing clearly from the description what the proposed solution is. I second DexDor's proposal to create a list of the characteristics (party, century, gender, ...) that politicians are categorized by? I do see some relevance to these categories but am open to considering potential changes if it is an improvement. Hmlarson (talk) 00:00, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Hmlarson: have you followed the link to Category:Indian women in politics, and explored its subcats? Or looked at other subcats of Category:Women in politics by nationality, such as Category:Irish women in politics or Category:Canadian women in politics or Category:Finnish women in politics or Category:Mexican women in politics? Have you looked at Category:Women in politics and its subcats, esp Category:Women political office-holders and its subcats?
        I am feeling a bit puzzled here, because I spent several hours writing the longest CfD nom I have seen in ages, yet I have 2 editors asking questions which it seems to me can be easily answered by following a few links. I don't see why some editors seem to want me to type out a replica of a category tree.
        You say you are not seeing clearly from the description what the proposed solution is. I thought the solution was very clear: simply delete these useless spammy categories, to remove cat clutter from articles which are already categorised in much more useful ways. I don't see how I can express that more clearly. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:20, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        • Thanks for your efforts BrownHairedGirl. I would consider editing it and addressing the questions so it's clearer to other editors who have not thought about this for hours. I think you're receiving questions because it's not clear despite your best efforts. Hmlarson (talk) 16:13, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
          • These huge categories are 1) WP:NONDEFining; 2) useless for navigation; 3) worse than useless, because they cause category clutter; 4) unsuitable for containerisation. We already categorise women politicians in many better ways looks pretty clear to me, but I'd welcome suggestions for better wording. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:57, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nom, these are indiscriminate categories, nearly all women politicians are from the 20th/21st century. By the way, it wouldn't surprise me if there are many more 20th/21st century categories around that may be deleted for the same reason. Marcocapelle (talk) 07:45, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - I see relevance for these categories. For example, if we remove 20th-century women politicians from Category:Benazir Bhutto, we are left with two categories with very little specificity: 1) Prime Ministers of Pakistan and 2) Pakistani women in politics. For a Wikipedia user attempting to find articles about women politicians in the 20th century, where would they go? Is there an existing list? Article? Hmlarson (talk) 16:13, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Hmlarson: Readers looking for articles about women politicians in the 20th century go to Category:Women in politics. The whole point of this nomination is that we don't need specific 20th-cent/21st-cent cats for women in politics, because 95.2% are of women our biogs of women politicians are women who are still alive or who died after 1900. (It's the same with sportspeople, e.g. ski jumpers: Category:20th-century ski jumpers was deleted in 2010 because, like all the other 20th-century sportspeople categories it was pointless).
    Pakistan is an excellent illustration of that, being only 70 years old (even the concept of Pakistan was only formed in ~1940). Are you really serious that Category:Prime Ministers of Pakistan has very little specificity? 23 articles in a complete set only 70 years old is about as specific as it gets.
    Are you saying that you couldn't find Bhutto in that set of 23 articles, and would find it easier to locate her a category of 5,000+ articles? V odd. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:52, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • @BrownHairedGirl: The opposite. If I go to Category:Benazir Bhutto right now and click on 20th-century women politicians, I have the opportunity to learn about 5,000+ other women politicians from the same timeframe. This will become even more relevant in the 22nd century, 23rd century, and so on to see the progression of women's activity in politics over centuries. The assumption/argument that Category:Prime Ministers of Pakistan will remain an "easily-navigable" small number of entries and "is specific enough" seems short-sighted. Hmlarson (talk) 18:23, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Hmlarson: en.Wikpedia categories are constantly evolving. They are split and merged as our collection of articles develops.
        So in 210 years time, when Category:Prime Ministers of Pakistan expands to 132 articles, our great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren may decide to split it, whether by century or in some other way. If so, the task will take them about 5 or 10 minutes, even with the tools available today. So we do not need to pre-empt those decisions by making a navigation system which is useless to readers now.
        Meanwhile, if you want to learn about the thousands of other women politicians from the same timeframe, you can still do so through about 1000 other subcats of women in politics ... where instead of one huge unannotated list, you can choose between e.g. Category:Women mayors of places in Guinea-Bissau and Category:Female MEPs for Sweden. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:47, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep While it may be that terms of office, issues, and movements cross centuries, dividing them into eras is common for historical study. For example, suffrage began in the 19th century and continued—mainly into the mid-20th—but that does not alter the fact that voting equality is typically associated with the 19th century, whereas citizenship rights is associated with the 20th. Same basic principal, but it began with a narrow focus and expanded as people learned about the ramifications and more clearly defined what would be gained or lost. The same holds true for women politicians and multiple other fields. Besides which, there is study on the topic: [9], [10], [11], [12], which after all is the point of categories, to facilitate academics and our readers in locating information. It is a logical breaking point, despite the fact that careers, movements, and issues are cross-generational, simply because the issues of any given era change over time. (The same does not hold true for sport, because the game itself has little change, merely the players and possibly the equipment.) SusunW (talk) 18:12, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @SusunW: I am surprised by your assertion that voting equality is typically associated with the 19th century.My own historical studies lead me to see it as an issue which was marginal in the 19th-cent, and gained traction only in the 20th century; the timeline of women's suffrage confirms that. In any case, these are not history-of-suffrage categories; they are categories of women who entered politics, which followed on from suffrage.
    Some questions:
    1)Per the stats above, over 90% of en.wp's articles on women in politics are of women born in the 20th century. How does it help to clutter their category lists with an attribute shared by 90% of them?
    2) Please can you point me to the academic research which shows that the year 2000 marks a global change of era for women in politics? Your googled links above are mostly just lists.
    3) Please explain how the 8,800-item unannotated list at Category:21st-century women politicians helps anyone identify anything? Per WP:CAT, The central goal of the category system is to provide navigational links to Wikipedia pages in a hierarchy of categories. How exactly does this vast (and only ~50%-complete) wall of names help readers navigate? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:03, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• The characteristics relevant here (century, gender, country, occupation) are all (I think) defining characteristics (an encyclopedia article could easily begin "Jane Doe was a politician in xxth century <country>.") (i.e. I disagree with point 1 of the nomination and I have read the extended rationale).  Categorizing politicians (and actors, explorers etc) by the century (in some cases 2 centuries) in which they were active seems reasonable to me. The combination of these 4 characteristics isn't (afaics) obviously wrong as a category. Thus this CFD is different fron many/most CFDs (where the category is non-defining, smallcat or just silly).  Centuries are arbitrary, but they are how things are categorized in the real world. DexDor ^(talk) 20:01, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• A simple explanation of why this combination is not a good category would make this CFD a step towards writing a guideline which would make it less likely that similar categories would be created in the future (e.g. for other countries) and easier to delete them if they are created. DexDor ^(talk) 20:01, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @DexDor: here is as simple an explanation as I can manage: "women politicians" have basically existed for only 100 years, since Alexandra Kollontai and Constance Markievicz. The few earlier women who held political roles barely fit our contemporary use of "politician", and are v v few in number.
    The concept of "woman politician" is therefore inherently timestamped as being "in the last 100 years", so we need apply explicit timestamps only to the rare exceptions. No need to clutter the rest with a pointless tag. --22:54, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
• Keep. A couple of things come to mind as I mull this over:

• For one thing, I don't like the notion of directing people to PetScan for something like this. Don't get me wrong - PetScan has its uses. But I think it's a better tool for more nuanced category parsing. For something as broad as this, I really think it would be wiser to provide categories within the article, rather than directing people elsewhere. I don't think it helps ease of navigability to make readers take an extra step. I might feel differently if we were discussing a more narrowly-defined category.

Put it another way: for something as broad as women politicians by century, why direct people to a second step when a first step - located within the article itself - can do the job just as easily? The whole point of categorization ought to be to make navigation easier, rather than more difficult.

Also, I take the point that "women politicians", as a category, have only really existed since the beginning of the twentieth century. Even so, breaking them out by century can provide useful, fairly immediate points of comparison, both now and in the distant future, when more such categories are added. (Not that I intend to be around for that, mind.) Again...yes, this is something that can be achieved by PetScan, but for ease of research I think it's better to establish it within the category structure of the articles themselves.

It's not a perfect system - both @Hmlarson: and @Ipigott:, here and elsewhere, have raised that point, and I'm receptive to it. I'd be interested in considering any ways they might think of to refine the category structure for ease of access. But I'd rather refine than delete. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 03:06, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• @Ser Amantio di Nicolao: I provided PetScan links solely as statistical evidence to assist this discussion. I did not in any way did not suggest that they should be used for navigation, and would not recommend that use, so I am surprised that my nomination should be mischaracterised in that way.

I am glad that we agree that, as you put it, "women politicians", as a category, have only really existed since the beginning of the twentieth century. That is the central point of my nomination, and it is the reason why I provided the statistical evidence.

However, given our agreement on that central point, it seems to me to be a non-sequitur that you then say even so, breaking them out by century can provide useful, fairly immediate points of comparison. Why? How is there any utility in breaking down a 100-year-old set into units of 100 years?

You say you would be interested in considering any ways they might think of to refine the category structure for ease of access. I agree wholeheartedly, and have very good news for you: this hundred-year-old set is already broken down for ease of access. Excluding royalty and by-century cats here are ~ 1000 existing subcats of Category:Women in politics and the refinement is ongoing:

• Category:Women in politics by nationality breaks down the 100-year-old set into 238 by-nationality categories.
• Category:Women political office-holders breaks down the 100-year-old set into ten different types of office-holders: city councillors‎, government officials‎, government ministers‎, governors & heads of sub-national entities, Female heads of government‎, legislators‎, mayors‎, opposition leaders‎, presidents‎, vice presidents‎.
  • Many of those types of office-holders of officeholders are further broken down into sub-types, e.g. Category:Women legislators‎ is subcatted into:Category:Women legislative speakers‎, Category:Women subnational legislators‎, Category:Women supernational legislators‎, Category:Women members of upper houses‎
    • Many of these types and sub-types are also broken by country, e.g. 48 subcats of Category:Women legislators by country‎, 78 subcats of Category:Women mayors‎, 203 subcats of Category:Women government ministers by nationality.

Please remember too that many of these sets cover periods much shorter than the outlying cases of Markievicz & Kollontai 100 years ago:

• Category:Women government ministers of Canada dates back only 61 years, to Ellen Fairclough in 1957[13];
• Category:Women members of the Swiss Federal Council spans only 34 years since Elisabeth Kopp in 1984[14];
• Category:Women federal government ministers of Germany is only 57 years old, from Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt in 1961;
• Category:Women Secretaries of State of Mexico is only 37 years old, since Rosa Luz Alegría in 1981.

So I don't see where a century division fits into this set. Do you propose to divide the 56-yo Category:Women federal government ministers of Germany into 2 by-century categories? Or to clutter the categ list on Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt by placing into some sprawling, unannotated list of the more than 300 20th-century German women in politics on whom we already have en.wp articles, a set which I hope will expand to match the German-language Wikipedia's 3,849 articles on German women politicians born between 1900 and 1969?

It's nice to vaguely say you'd rather refine than delete. But neither you nor any of the other keep-!voters have offered any plausible suggestion for how to "refine" the fundamentally-flawed concept of dividing a 100-yo set into 100-year sets with huge overlap.

Categories are not content; they are navigational signposts. And CfD regularly deletes flawed types of category rather than waste the energies of readers and editors by building on misguided foundations.

I wait to see whether SADiN or @Hmlarson: and @Ipigott: have any actual specifics proposals on how to make 20th/21st-century women politician categories into something other than category clutter. But I don't believe there is any way to make this work; all I have seen so far is glorified WP:ILIKEIT. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:55, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: Thank you, BHG, for inviting me to comment here. In fact, I had not intended to do so for two reasons: first, I am never happy about taking sides when major conflicts arise between highly competent editors who have worked so hard to improve Wikipedia; and second, because I know Wikipedian editors with particular experience in a given field are generally discouraged from expressing their views. In my case, I gained early insight into the importance of categorization in connection with my coordination of the development of operational machine translation systems for the western European languages from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s. As a result, I have always taken an interest in categorization on Wikipedia, not just in English but in several other language versions. My general view (and it my be considered too personal) is that rich categorization is extremely helpful, both for readers (particularly students and academics) and for those of us who write or improve articles. The main argument for having these two categories deleted seems to be that they are considered to "clutter". While clutter is certainly an important issue in connection with running text, I have difficulty in understanding why it is considered to be so important for categories. After all, as the categories appear in a space reserved for them at the foot of the articles, they are unlikely to upset the reader. By contrast, those looking for specific categories or sub-categories will generally be interested in finding those which apply to their interests, whether of not they duplicate or overlap with others. In the case of women's biographies, this is important as researchers are often concerned with general concepts such as occupation, time period and gender. As an illustration of how far this approach can extend, the German version of Wikipedia has a category "Frau" which is appended to all biographies of women. Indeed, there are 103,987 articles in this category (almost the same number as given for German by Wikidata in WHGI). (For "Mann" there are as many as 569,456.) When I base English-language articles on those in the German wiki for WiR, I find this extremely helpful. I do not regard it as clutter. But to return to the specific categories under consideration here, while I think they are useful in their own right, as I stated on the WiR talk page, "I think that sooner or later it would be useful to break them down into shorter time periods depending on national historical developments. If this is the intention, these very general categories by century may represent a good start." (I say this despite the fact that there are currently only 3,149 articles, even in the large 20th-century women politicians category.) I have in mind categories for the European countries covering, for example, 20th-century women politicians in office before, during, or after the Second World War (which for many was something of a turning point). For some countries, especially the younger ones, it might be useful to list women politicians in office by decade. There are certainly other more specific time-period categories which could be developed in connection with the histories of individual countries, regions and ethnic backgrounds. Nor do I see why it is felt there is a huge problem between Category:Women in politics and its subcategories on the one hand and the categories and sub-categoies depending on century-based time periods on the other. I also think it is important to have politicians as one of the sub-categories under Category:20th-century women by occupation and Category:21st-century women by occupation. (I could add her, it might even be useful for the English wiki to adopt simple gender categories such as Men and Women too. This is hardly the place to embark on a discussion, but I do not think clutter would be a major concern.) I hope these considerations will help to resolve the strong views felt by those involved in this discussion, so that they can both continue their vital work in a spirit of collaboration. I would prefer not to comment further here.--Ipigott (talk) 10:35, 19 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, @Ipigott, for a thoughtful response.

As I'm sure you are aware, it amounts to an proposal for several radical restructurings of en.wp's categorisation system. The German Wikipedia does indeed have a 103,000-article de:Kategorie:Frau. But it has no subcategories of Frau, because de.wp organises categories on a wholly different basis: without intersections.

OTOH, en.wp uses a directional lattice, where a) each attribute is broken down into more specific sets e.g. People/by-nationality, people/by occupation/actors/by-medium/film actors, people/men-or-women b) the categories are intersected to produce e.g. Category:Spanish male film actors.

The de.wp model produces a small number of large categories, so e.g. de:William Butler Yeats is one of 53,858 pages in de:Kategorie:Autor, whereas en:Category:Writers is fully diffused by various attributes and en:W. B. Yeats is a series of more specific categories: Category:19th-century Irish poets, Category:20th-century Irish poets, Category:19th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights, etc.

The German system is simpler, mathematically purer, and produces fewer categories on each article. The en.wp system produces a larger number of more smaller, more specific sets.

There are of course good arguments in favour of both models:

• the German system is better for analysis, producing much cleaner results when used with tools like Petscan. It is simple to maintain and to understand.
• the en.wp model is more useful for navigation. Yeats is in en:Category:19th-century Irish poets, a usefully small set of 50 articles where I can find related topics. By contrast, the 50,000 pages in de:Kategorie:Autor is no use for navigation: it's an indiscriminate bare list of names containing everything from a 9th-century Norwegian poet to a 20th-cent Trinidadian marxist historian.

This choice is explicit. Per WP:CAT, "The central goal of the category system is to provide navigational links to Wikipedia pages in a hierarchy of categories which readers, knowing essential—defining—characteristics of a topic, can browse and quickly find sets of pages on topics that are defined by those characteristics." The language has evolved over the years, but the principle has been consistent since the early days of en.wp categories over 12 years ago.

Given this dense hierarchy of categories, it would be possible for a page to be in many valid categories. We could put Thomas Moore in Category:Writers, Category:19th-century people, Category:19th-century Irish people, Category:Poets, Category:Irish people, Category:19th-century poets, Category:19th-century writers, etc; but all of those are parent cats of Category:19th-century Irish poets, so we just use the most specific.

Why? Because for navigation, less is more. The more signposts, the less prominent each one is. Cluttered signposts are hard to use: it's much easier to choose between a small set of options than a huge set. That's why WP:SUBCAT guides us to put articles only in the most specific cat.

You evidently disagree with this principle. But it's not an issue specific to any one category. If you want to change the principle or create a class of exceptions, that proposal should be made via a broad WP:RFC, not in relation to any one category. There are several million categories on en.wp; we can't reach a broad, stable consensus on how to use them by debating the basic principles ab initio for each one.

Similarly with your like of de:Kategorie:Frau. If en.wp adopted the German model, we would delete Category:Women in politics and all its subcats, including Category:20th-century women politicians, Category:Women government ministers ... and do the same for sportswomen, women writers, actors, women scientists, etc.

I don't see how you find it "extremely helpful" to have one huge category Frau rather than more specific categories. How does it help? If you want to start a discussion proposing that we do that, you could explain your reasons. Maybe you think we should have both a fully-populated Category:Men/Category:Women and all the subcats? Again, discussion needed.

Similarly with your idea of categorising politicians by smaller epochs. I can see many possible cases for it, but I can see also see lots of problems, e.g.: a) different epochs in difft countries; b) lots of overlap, creating clutter; c) whether to intersect with role-based categories (making many small groups) or do epochs in parallel, causing clutter; d) whether to define different epochs for women politicians than for men. It involves tens of thousands of articles, and hundreds of categories, so lot of discussion needed. Big changes need broad consensus, or they cause instability which saps editors' energy and morale. So why not start a discussion somewhere central, and advertise it widely?

Which brings me back to these categories. They have been populated by an editor who, like you, disagrees with the long-standing consensus against category clutter, and who also prefers huge categories to the WP:SUBCAT principle. (Ser_Amantio di Nicolao rejects the principle of WP:SUBCAT, and repeatedly uses privileged tools to undermine it by stealthily mass-populating huge categories instead of seeking consensus to change the guideline). They don't fit with the long-standing consensus against 20th-and 21st-century categories for sets which have no pre-20C significant history and are already being logically divided in other ways which define the era. These categories are the product of SADIn's preference for using tools to create a WP:FAITACCOMPLI rather than building WP:CONSENSUS.

Maybe there could be consensus for some epoch-based categorisation. But even if there was, nobody has defined any way in which these huge categories help in building them: far too big and far too incomplete. If we were to construct such a system, it would be easier without needing to depopulate these categories as part of the job.

I do see your point that it is important to have politicians as one of the sub-categories under Category:20th-century women by occupation and Category:21st-century women by occupation, although that principle has been rejected for many other occupations, such as sportspeople-by-sport. However, we can achieve it without splatting a categ label on tens of thousands of articles, simply by adding a headnote to the by-century categs along the lines of "occupations which relate solely or overwhelmingly to the 20th/21st centuries have not been categorised by those centuries: see [link]".

Finally, I am a big fan of WP:Women in Red's work in countering en.wp's systemic bias against women by filling huge gaps in coverage. But there is an unfortunate tendency there to form a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS without much regard for broader wp-wide consensus, and (as I saw in my recent attempts at discussion there) some explicit dismissal of wider consensus and a preference for personally supporting one editor who stealthily creates WP:FAITACCOMPLIs. That serves nobody well, and the gap needs to be bridged. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:43, 19 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete and salt. The underlying principle is clearly laid out in the discussion by Ipigott and BHG's response. If we want to change the categorisation principle, there's a much wider discussion needed than just this particular case. Schwede66 00:11, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep There is clearly a difference between Patty Hawkins, the first currently married woman to become a US senator in 1981, and Mia Love, the first African-American Mormon woman elected to the US congress in 2016. They were both born in the 20th-century, but the fact that one was elected in the 20th-century (when the other was 5), and the other in the 21st-century, makes things worth distinguishing. And Both are clearly different than Martha Hughes Cannon, the first women elected as a state senator in the United States, in 1895. Time of birth or death are not defining, but time of entry into politics, and time of leaving politics. If we trace those, we will find a lot less overlap between the 20th and 21st century. Mrs. Love did not even make her most basic entry into politics as a city council member until 2003. Political careers are sometime very short, and well under the length of a person's life in most cases, so the overlap between centuries is much lower than has been suggested. With the exceptions of a few places like Utah and New Zealand, women could not even hold elected politicial office many places at the start of the 20th-century, however women often were appointed to government comissions before they could be elected to office, especially ones dealing with health issues. It is only about the start of the 21st-century that the idea that women should have a similar percentage of political offices to men starts to gain traction. We probably can trace this notion back to 1990 or a bit earlier, but century breaks are workable here. These categories would be even a little better if we more realistically used the term politician to cover anyone who had a strong influence on public policy, even if they did not run for office as we often think of politicians doing.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:32, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry for misremebering names, the name I was thinking of was Paula Hawkins. Although Hawkins died in 2009, she only fits in 20th-century American politicians, not in the 21st-century category. One reason we have such a high percentage of living people is because in articles on state legislators, they are overwhelmingly on current people, or at least those who have served since Wikipedia started. There are several women who served in state legislatures at earlier points in the 20th-century who we should have an article on but do not at present. Categorization is based on potential scope, not present scope, and potential scope is that we could have many more articles on people who were 20th-century politicians and not 21st-century politicians. I just added both Emmeline B. Wells and Rominia B. Pratt Penrose to women politicians by century, since as delegates to conventions I think they fit most definitions of politicians, plus especially Wells published lots of public arguments and was the moving force behind the 1882 Utah Legislative bill that would have allowed women to serve in public office, which was vetoed by the colonialist territorial governor. I would argue we have serveral other articles on women of this era who should be in the politician categories who are not, so the current survey is flawed. Category formulation is based on the likely scope of articles based on our guidelines, not the current state of articles, and based on that, this is a useful way of seperating articles. Lots of women politicians we even currently have articles on are not categorized as such. In the US, categorizing by state+century+woman politician might well make sense. We have states like Utah that have had women politicians serve in 3 centuries.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:36, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Johnpacklambert: lots of words there, but I see no attempt to address the fundamental issue: how exactly is by-century split a helpful way of dividing a set which is basically only a century old? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:28, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Just because someone is currently alive does not mean they fit in 21st-century women politcians. A key example of such is Nancy Kassenbaum who is still alive, but left public office in 1997, so clearly only fits under 20th-century women politicians not 21st-century.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:29, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Contrary to the nominators claim this is not basically a century old. Emmeline B. Wells was the moving force behind an 1870 legislative bill and in other ways acting as a politician nearly 150 years ago. The Seneca Falls convention was in 1848 and it would be hard to argue that its participants were not politicians. Politician is a broad enough topic to cover anyone involved in a formal convention meeting. I could actually see an argument for by decade splits, but the tendency towards category clutter would be too high to make such a scheme useful.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:13, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Johnpacklambert: the nomination is v clear that Women entered politics in significant numbers only in the 20th century, and especially towards the end of that century. The data section of this nomination provides evidence to support this.

  You have made great play of showing that there were some women involved in 19th-century American politics, as if it was some huge revelation ... but that has never been in dispute.

  Those 19th-century American women in politics will remain in Category:19th-century women politicians. Nobody is seeking its deletion, and the nomination is explicit: By all means categorise those rare pre-20th-century women politicians by century; but stop at 1900.

  The fact remains that 90.1% of our aticles on women politicians are of people born in the 20th-century, and we know why that is so: because it was only in the 2th century that women were allowed to vote or to stand for public office.

  As @The Drover's Wife noted in the first substantive contribution to this discussion, being in the 20th century is not sufficiently defining to be very useful. The 19th-century-and-earlier categories rightly group the exceptions, but more than 90% of the women politicians were active in the 20 and/or 21st centuries, i.e. in the last 12 years. So I ask again: how is is a by-century-split a helpful way of dividing a 120-year-old set? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:34, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  You continue to confuse the limited data of the categories with the much larger data of actual articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:02, 12 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  @Johnpacklambert: 3 names is not data. It's anecdotes. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:19, 12 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.