User talk:Johnpacklambert/Archives/2024/April


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Defining characteristics

If something does not make enough difference to someone's life that we bother having text about it in the article on the person, we should not have a category on it. If it is so minor that it is buried in a table and not mentioned in the normal text of the article, I do not believe we can say it is defining enough to matter enough to have a category, and we would be best off not categorizing by it. John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:13, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Category:Emigrants from British North America has been nominated for merging

Category:Emigrants from British North America has been nominated for merging. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 01:49, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Category:People from the Manipur Kingdom has been nominated for deletion

Category:People from the Manipur Kingdom has been nominated for deletion. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Marcocapelle (talk) 16:14, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

ERGS rules

The rule that any article in an ERGS category needs to be in a non-ERGS category for a similar thing, so for example of someone is in American women writers, she should also be in American librettists, seems often to be ignored. I think this is in large part because we have too many ERGS categories that are de facto last rung categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:07, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Nomination of Benson Y. Parkinson for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Benson Y. Parkinson is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Benson Y. Parkinson until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

Big Money Threepwood (talk) 03:07, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Soviet climatologists

A tag has been placed on Category:Soviet climatologists indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. ✗plicit 14:51, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Category:Czechoslovak numismatists has been nominated for merging

Category:Czechoslovak numismatists has been nominated for merging. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 12:18, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

April 2024

Can you explain this edit? Also, why did you change Category:Deaths from pneumonia in Russia to Category:Deaths from pneumonia where it says "Pages in this category should be moved to subcategories where applicable"? Mellk (talk) 13:17, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

    • We really should remove that notice on the parent category. It has lead to people creating multiple 1 member categories, which hinder instead of help navigation. Wikipedia should only be placing such notices on categories where we can reasonable subdivide all the contents into categoris with 5 or more entries. Due to having almost 200 countries just at present, and some having very small populations, it is not reasonable to place such a notice on a category with under probably 3000 total entries, and even that might be too low a number.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:26, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
  • I have decided to create a Deaths from pnemonia in the Russian Empire category. I have to admit part of me is unconvinced this is actually a defining cause of death.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:27, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
    Again, here you changed Category:Russian aerospace engineers to Category:Aerospace engineers. There is no such consensus to limit such categories to post-1991. Mellk (talk) 13:32, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
      • There clearly should be. The current attempt to make it fit for ethnic Russians, and people who were the subjects of at least 5 different and distinct states is really just a cobbling together pof people by common name. The person in question was born and lived a good portion of his life within the Grand Duchy of Finland. To call him just plain Russian seems a bit of a broad use of the term. I have reverted the edit and placed statements explaining why I do not think he should be called Russian on the talk page with the article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:37, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
        OK, thanks. But I do not think there is any dispute about nationality here, see for example.[1]. Mellk (talk) 13:54, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
          • He was a national of the Russian Empire. That is the nationality category he belongs in, period.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:55, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
            • The source above clearly says he was born in what is now Finland. Calling anyone born outside of the current boundaries of Russia unequivocably Russia, especially when they never lived in the current state of Russia is always going to be controversial.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:57, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
              Categories should be based on defining characteristics. If reliable sources refer to someone a certain way, this is how we should categorize them. Yes, this can be controversial in some cases, but do you know of any sources that refer to Mozhaysky as Finnish? Isaac Asimov was born in Russia, but we say he is American as this is how he is described in RS. Mellk (talk) 14:01, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
                    • This is not an issue of "reliable sources". This is an issue of not using a common name to mix unlike things into the same thing. People who lived in the 19th-century were nationals of the Russian Empire. This is a state that ceased to exist in 1917. Then there arose a very different state, the Soviet Union. That state ceased to exist in 1991. Descriptions in sources are not built on having to create coherent and unified categories as our categories are. So the rules that some sources use in how they describe people, and the rules we use to create categories are different. We need categories that group people by having a similar characteristic. Categories that group people by occupation plus nationality, need to only be grouping people of the same nationality. So we should not be treating as from the same country those who lived in 1850 and were nationals of the Russian Empire, and people living in 2024 who are nationals of the modern state of Russia. So they should not be in categories for this commonality. They might both be in some sources called Russian, but this is a case of shared name, and categories group people by shared trait, not be shared name. We also need to avoid putting people who merely share the same ethnicity in categories with people who are nationals of a given state. We have huge problems with categories doing this. A little problem with a few people who were ethnic Russian being placed in a Russian category, we have much bigger problems with Albanians, Greeks, Armenians, and several other ethnic groups.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:07, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
                      The demonym of Russian Empire is Russian. You are correct that we have different categories for the Soviet Union as the people were Soviet nationals instead. But this is as much of a stretch as saying all the German categories should be limited to a modern date because there is a break in continuity. Mellk (talk) 14:24, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
  • The Russian category is a category meant to categorize people who are nationals of citizens of Russia regardless of their ethnicity. As such, it needs to be clearly tied to a clear state. The breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 means that none of the successor states have a claim to the previous states status. As such, we should limit nationality categories for Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, etc. to the post 1990 states of those names, and categorize people from previous states, be they the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire, etc. based first on their being nationals of those states. We can have seperate ethnic trees, but those would best not be mixed or co-categorized with categories for people who are nationals of a specific nation-state.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:44, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Overly diffusing by nationality and occupation

There are probably at present over 1,000 maybe even more than 10,000 categories that are a mix of an occupation (often a very specific occupation) and nationality that have only 1 article. We really need to stop diffusing by highly specified occupations when we do not have enough articles to create reasonably sized categories for that occupation. With the end of the small cat rule, we really should be upmerging all these 1 article categories. There is a large scale refusal to accept that Smallcat no longer exists as a guideline and so there is no support for one article categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:21, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

  • We have a rule on diffusing that says we should not diffuse to miscellaneous categories. This means that in general we ought to leave articles in a higher level category instead of diffuse them to 1 or very small catgories. I really think there is almost never a good reason to have a category with under 5 articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:29, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Blacksmiths

I think we should upmerge all the blacksmiths articles into one category. We have less than 200, and only one of the sub-categories has over 20 articles. I think it would be just easier to upmerge all the articles into one blacksmiths category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:37, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Categorizing pre-1804 people from Austrian lands

In going over the Austrian diplomats category I realized there are lots of people in this category from the pre-1804 time frame. I am not sure this makes sense. In this case at least one was from French Comte, and another originally from the Austrian Netherlands. In most cases as diplomats they were agents of the Habsburg monarchy for which we do have a category. I am thinking that in this case a category named "Diplomats of the Habsburg monarchy". For some other categories I think Holy Roman Empire is better, split out in some cases to Bohemia and other significant areas in the Empire, but I think in the case of diplomats the Habsburg monarchy, not Bohemia or other such territories is the defining unit.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:57, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Category:French people in New Caledonia has been nominated for deletion

Category:French people in New Caledonia has been nominated for deletion. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. AusLondonder (talk) 13:11, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

  • New Caledonia is an oversees collective. It is not a department of France. It has been for most of the time of French control even less clearly under French control. We have a very inconsistent policy on this. We have a category for Spanish people in the Colonial Phillippines, even though those were legally integrally part of Spain from 1821-about 1900. We have a category for British people in colonial India. We do not have an article for Americans in Puerto Rico, even though it is legally an unicorporated territory, so for some legal purposes not part of the US. We also do not have a category for Americans in the Territory of Hawaii, which was also an unincorporated territory and not part of the US. Yet we have one for French in French Algeria, although legally that was more part of France than New Caledonia is today. So we have muddied precedents, or ones that seem to pay too little attention to the legal status of the time in question, and too much to modern status. A much bigger problem is that for Eastern Europe we have a huge number of people placed in fictitious expatriate categories, where someone who moved within the Austrian Empire is said to have been an expatriate somewhere where they in fact remained in one country.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:22, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
  • For what it is worth both of the people in the category seem to have been in New Caledonia before 1946 when New Caledonia became an overseas territory, when I think even its name officially called it a colony. Both where long dead when the current 1998 status was created. So even if we think the current status of New Caledonia is such to not call people explatriates, past status might be. I think we could at least justify the name for current status. I think this might apply though to the Territory of Hawaii in the US case and past status of Martinique and Guadeloup and French Guiana. Where their past stuatus was different enough from France that a category for being their would work, but not the current one. Reunion maybe as well. Although I think only in the case of People from the Territory of Hawaii, have we even seperated out people by being residents of that past entitity. Looking at things, we might want to start by creating a category People from the French West Indies, for those who lived in the French West Indies before it became departments of France in 1946.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:30, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
    Understand your points, I'm not sure the category is overly helpful navigation-wise though nor necessarily appropriate as both articles related to people who either lived in New Caledonia post-colonisation or were born there. While New Caledonia is an overseas collectivity and the least-integrated of the French overseas regions, all residents are French citizens since the early 1950s and vote in French and European elections. AusLondonder (talk) 14:42, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
  • Auguste Febvrier Despointes might go here in the New Caledonia category. However he was born in Martinique when it was a colony not a department, so I am not 100% sure he would count as French per se. It seems his family would have seen themselves as French people living in Martinique, not as Martiniquas people, but lots of people see themselves as part of the ethnicity of a country where ethnicity and nationality as seen as the same, without in any meaningful way being nationals of it, so I am not really sure.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:39, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Poor denomyms

I really think we should rename the category New Caledonia people to people from New Caledonia. John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:48, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Martinique

It seems very irregular that we are using a demonym for People from Martinique. This is for two reasons. 1-we very rarely use demonyms for people from a sub-national entity. Martinique is a department of France, so it would seem logical to use the from form we use for people from most departments. 2- Some articles call people Martinican, some Martiniquais. It seems that the right demonym is not universally agreed upon.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:38, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Excessive small categories

The category Category:Guadeloupean academics has 2 sub-cats. Between this category and the 2 sub-cats there is a total of 1 article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:42, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Money conversion

I was trying to find the template to convert monetary amounts from the past to present amounts. John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:16, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Category:Venereologists by nationality

veneralogists by nationality Co tains a total of 26 articles. No sub-cat has more than 6 articles. I think it all should be upmerged.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:30, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Marengo, Columbia County, Washington

Notice

The article Marengo, Columbia County, Washington has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Source #2 (Meany) says this place was never built, because it wasn't chosen as county seat. [2]

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. James.folsom (talk) 23:37, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Slovenian emigrants to Croatia

The only article in this category is on someone who was born in 1850 and died in 1920. So neither country then existed and the move was within a country.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:54, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

West Bengal starts in 1947

West Bengal was formed in 1947. There was no such place before that date. No one who died before 1947 was from West Bengal. We have a lot of people in West Bengal categories who died before that date. This is a major problem.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:56, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Excessive overlapping categories

I have seen way too many articles in Educationsl theorists, educationists and educators Categories. I think no one should be in more than 1 of those 3. It leads to too much Category overlap otherwise.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:05, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Misuse of burial categories

We have agreed that burial categories are for cemeteries and other very specific places. For navigation we group these by country, state, city etc., but only the most local unit is defining, and only if being buried at the cemetery, etc. is defining. Lots and lots of people are over categorized by the country they were buried in. I have removed a few of these, but there is a huge amount of work yet to do.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:00, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I am surprised that you removed Ulysses Grant from burials in New York state. Grant's Tomb is a notable landmark.
Also, the article about Grant mentions his ancestry in England and Ireland. I am not sure that it is appropriate for the article to go into such detail, especially since it has an "article is too long" tag, but as long as it does mention those things, I would think that the categories "American people of Irish descent" and "American people of English descent", which you removed, made sense. Bruce leverett (talk) 16:17, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
      • Those ancestry categories are not defining for Grant. We only categorize people by things that are defining. The test of definingness is not "is it mentioned in the article". Especially for ancestry because some articles essentially go way more into the ancestry of a person than is at all justified. The question is "is this one of the core defining things about the person". In the case of US Grant, the particular places in Europe his ancestors once lived are not defining. For British Isles ancestry at least, such is almost never defining beyond maybe an immigrant grandparent, and often not beyond an immigant parent. In the case of his burial, we have a clear guideline that the only level of burial that is defining for biographical articles is the cemetery or something at that level. Burials in New York state is meant to be an article to group sub-cats, not to have any direct content. In the case of Grant's Tomb, we have an article on that, that is categorized, so we do not need to categorize the article on Grant himself based on that at all.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:23, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
  • In Grant's case his English ancestry is from people leaving England 192 years before his birth. His Irish ancestry might not be that far back, but it also looks like it might ultimately be Scottish, and it is not like any of his grandparents were immigrants. Ancestry needs to be close and defining, it is neither in the case of Grant.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:25, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
  • The vast majority of articles are not categorized by burial at all. However it looks like most that are, are in categories that are not defining, that is by country, state, city, county, or in the case of England a few by region, instead of by cemetery or other location for burials.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:08, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

More burials

Right now we have Burials in Dover, Delaware, burials in Sussex County, Delaware and burials in Kent County, Delaware that only contain biographical articles. Burials in New Castle County Delaware has some cemetery or other specific location of burial categories as well. Most of the time we do not subdivide cemeteries by county, I see no reason to subdivide by county in a state with 3 counties. This whole burials tree is a total mess.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:27, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

  • Warren County, New York suffers the same issues. Other sub-categories under New York all at least contain actually cemeteries (broadly defined to include other specific locations where people are buried that are multi-functional). I am not sure the depth of sub-categories is needed though.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:38, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Burials in Angola

Category:Burials in Angola, has no direct articles, just a sub-category, with just 1 more sub-category. The only article in that subcategory, cemeteries in Angola, is Alto das Cruzes cemetery . So the whole tree of 3 categories exists to support just the article on the cemetery. I am not sure it even makes sense to have cemetery articles themselves as sub-categories of categories named burials in X, but I do not think it makes sense to have a whole tree for one article. This is also the only article in the category monuments and memorials in Angola. Which places it under the tree of Buildings and structures in Angola. I am wondering if instead of being under Buildings and Structures the article really should be under maybe Society of Angola, or Culture of Angola. Or is "structure" larger enough to include a cemetery, since the grave stones or markers themselves are a sort of structure? There are only 19 by country sub-cats of African cemeteries, there are 54 countries in Africa, so we do not have cemeteries categories for most of them. We have 2 articles on cemeteries directly in Cemeteries in Africa. Of the 20 or so articles directly in cemeteries, only 1 is on a specific cemetery. However then are probably 7 specific cemeteries at the contient level. There are lots of 1 article cemeteries by country categories, or at least a few others. I am less than convinced roganizing cemeteries by continent really makes sense, I think it might make sense to just sub-divide by county and put the rest in a universal category. I think we have more categories in the tree than our current contents justifies.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:29, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Burials in Tasmania

The category Burials in Tasmania is all biographical articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:40, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Burials in Haiti

Burials in Haiti has only as a sub-cat Burials in Port-au-Prince. That category in turn contains only 3 biographical articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:59, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Burials in Honduras

Burials in Honduras, Guinea, Antigua and Baruda, The Federated States of Micronesia, Iceland, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Sierra Leone and Yemen are all categories with only biogrpahical articles in them.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:02, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Innkeepers

I have been slowly, and I mean slowly, adding people to the Category innkeepers. I believe it now has 28 articles. I am not even sure if it is fully defining for all of those. There are 2 sub-cats, I counted both those in the main category and the sub-cats. I have to admit I am not personally convinced this is distinct enough from hoteliers to justify 2 Category trees. Are innkeepers really different than hoteliers, are is this a case of categorization by unshaved name, that is dplitting a like group because the name used for them changed.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:34, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Raja Ali Haji

When you removed Raja Ali Haji [3] from Indonesian categories, you didn't add him to 19th-century poets or male poets. If you believe the nationality category is incorrect, you should sti;; add the page to ALL the other parent categories. Mason (talk) 23:55, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

It looks like the category he really needs to be in is People from the Riau-Lingga Sultanate. It looks like this place was not incorporated into the Dutch East Indies until 1911. I am not sure we have any articles beyond the one on him and the one the sultanate itself. What we clearly should not do is anachronistically impose a nationality on his that did not exist until long after his death.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:16, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

People from the East Indies

I am starting to wonder if there is enough of a regional culture for us to make a Category People from the East Indies, and at least include people from areas in modern Raleast Timor, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia prior to the areas coming under colonial rule, as applies to a specific area. Possibly excluding those from New Guinea. I am not sure how large such a Category actually could become, and I am not sure any subdivisions by occupation would be doable. It does not make sense to act as if post-colonial states existed in pre-colonial times, so we need to avoid imposing names ahistotlrically. I think we also need to be more willing to let categories by occupation have undifferentiated base contents.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:38, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

I think we have too many male categories

I am unconvinced that for writers and poets we need male categories. I think in these situations it works to only have women categories but to make sure that they are not diffused out of the main categories. I also think that we do not need either male or women translator categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:26, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Austrian categories

I think we should limit categories that describe people as Austrian to people from Austria from 1918 on. Before 1918 Austrian is used in a very different sense. From 1867-1918 we can place people in the From Austria-Hungary tree. From 1804-1867 we have From the Austrian Empire. For those pre-1804 we have either From the Holy Roman Empire or From the Habsburg Monarchy. We have a similar situation with Turkey/Turkish. In 1905 people referred to Austria and Turkey, but they were so different than the modern states that it just causes confusion to create unified categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:34, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

By nationality not by ethnicity

the main way we categorize people is by the country they are nationals of, not by their ethnicity. It is also not by their residence. However I believe it is reasonable to place people who were definingly expatriates in Foo in a people from Foo Category, if we do not have enough articles to justify an Expatriates in Foo Category. There is much work to do on this front with 19th-century people from central, eastern and south-eastern Europe. I cannot tell you the number of articles I have found where the subject is in say Austrian expatriates in Hungary, but thry were really just a national of the Austrian Empire who moved to different parts of the empire during their life.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:39, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Is naturalization status defining

I really am thinking the answer is no. Our categories for fooian people, or people from foo when fooian is a non-existet, unclear, compound or ambiguous term, are for citizens, subjects and nationsls. While we make distinctions between emigrants and expatriates, we do not demand naturalization to place someone in an emigration category. The naturalization categories really do not add much, other than category clutter. We have lots of articles with over 50 caregories. This us an unreasonable number of categories for sny article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:47, 30 April 2024 (UTC)