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Of course it's not directly categorized as such; the tree here is Actresses from Dayton, Ohio β Actors from Dayton, Ohio β People from Dayton, Ohio, by occupation β People from Dayton, Ohio β Dayton, Ohio β Jonathan Dayton β Members of the New Jersey Legislative Council β Members of the New Jersey Legislature β State legislators of the United States Star Garnet (talk) 22:27, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That last page also contains this masterpiece of an infobox β , presumably constructed by the Wikipedia Cabal of Wikipedia Redundancy Cabal. FeRDNYC (talk) 03:44, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Excessive ancestry categories for royals
Royals, especially Medieval royals, will almost always have a mother from elsewhere, sometimes a different place each generation. This leads to lots of categories. On top of this sometimes the statement of their nationality is questionable. We have many pre-1479 royals from the Crown of Castile in 4 or more Spanish people of y descent categories. Calling anyone Spanish that early is open to question, and that many categories bring defining is questionable. Especially when their ancestry is really part of a tran-western Europe royals order, not clearly belonging to any specific "ethnic" group. This seems like a set of categories that is imposing a later understand on people in a way that dies not make sense. These categories might make sense for some post-1700 or so royals, but I think we should exclude all royals from about that year and back from descent categories. They make progressively less sense as we go further back. I think descent categories are in some cases justified, but we have placed them on way too many articles where the information is not defining. In a number of articles it is not based on any text in the article itself.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:07, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I stated my position on the SCOTUS case categories in the linked thread. Although I disagree with Clovermoss about how the SCOTUS case category ought to be handled, I do agree with Clovermoss's observation that the categorization documentation does not adequately explain criteria for when categories should be non-diffusing. Frankly, I'm not sure I could make the argument that Women scientists should be non-diffusing based on it, despite it being the lead example. That said, I caution us to remember that categorization is socially fraught and a bad place for hard-and-fast rules, so attempting to divine an explicit set of criteria for it may not be a perfect path either. One issue that this has raised is just the fact that it is difficult (and perhaps impossible) for either Clovermoss or myself to refer to why past Wikipedians decided to make this category non-diffusing. Indeed, the talk page only shows a primitive non-consensus from 2005 on the same question. What if it's just inappropriate to label a category non-diffusing without an explanation/discussion on the talk page? lethargilistic (talk) 22:39, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that discussion about whether or not a category should be non-diffusing is a good first step because I do not like the cumulative impact of inconsistencies that happen otherwise. As for women scientists, that's the only example where I feel like I can understand why it's actually non-diffusing. Subcategories defined by gender, ethnicity, religion, and sexuality should almost always be non-diffusing subcategories gives an explanation, while the content about Category:Rivers of Europe simply gives an example of what would otherwise be an overcrowded category and not why it's an inherently diffusable one. Clovermossπ(talk)22:51, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think in most cases we should avoid diffusing a tree at all if it has less than 200 members, and maybe go bigger. Some examples. Since there are 197 current countries and more possible ones diffusing an occupation with less than 200 total articles by nationality will mainly lead to small categories and will invite lots of unneeded 1 article ones. With 50 states diffusing an American occupation Category at below 200 is also problematic and likely to lead to small categories. The same is true if diffusing by county in Texas with 254 counties. I wish we had better ways to avoid the 1 and 2 article categories that hinder instead of help navigation.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:49, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Johnpacklambert: I suppose there's a difference in scale between a category that has 100 or 200 articles in it, compared to one with thousands (like the one above). I'm cautious of assigning any sort of strict numerical cutoff because that seems like it could cause issues with gaming. A good start may just be a few more examples (are you aware of any? You seem to be much more interested in categories than I am) where people have argued a lot about whether should be diffusing or non-diffusing and how people formed a consensus about what was "right". Clovermossπ(talk)23:37, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It depends. It is not necessarily the case that diffusion must lead to a plethora of small categories. To take your example of diffusion by US state, the defining characteristic you are categorising may not be equally spread among the 50 states. There are not many citrus farmers in Alaska. Mhockey (talk) 11:51, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hmains marked that cat as non-diffusing almost 15 years ago. I'm sure he had a good reason for it at the time, and that reason might still be applicable, or it could be that there are now a lot more articles in that cat than there used to be (or that some other circumstance changed β perhaps a ==See also== to the cat has since been replaced with a link to Lists of United States Supreme Court cases?) and it shouldn't be tagged that way. Just because something was tagged once upon a time doesn't mean that consensus can't change.
For myself, I would usually recommend against diffusing if there are fewer than 200 articles in the category, and in favor if there are more than 2,000, but it needs to be driven by the content. Some large groups can be divided neatly. Other large groups can't. Some smaller groups might even want to be divided because that's typical for the subject area (e.g., subdivide "Music videos in Ruritania" by year because that's what we do with the matching cats for larger countries). I don't think that we need (and I don't want) a single, simple rule for all cats. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:22, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Preventing othering with non-diffusing categories
User:Clovermoss added [2] on January 17 the following clause (in blue text) to the non-diffusing categories section: Subcategories defined by gender, ethnicity, religion, and sexuality should almost always be non-diffusing subcategories to prevent othering. with the edit summary: being bold and giving a reason for why this rule exists. I reverted it today, and PamD reverted my reversion. Note that the green text was already there; Clovermoss just added their reason.
I don't think this should be here. A single user can't come up with a reason for a preexisting rule, and this reason is not exactly strong. We don't design content structures on Wikipedia to "prevent othering"; we do it to organize content in a way that is meaningful and navigable. κ§Zanaharyκ§19:36, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'll note that the ruling at WP:GHETTO explains that a person should not be categorized only by ethnicity, gender, religion, sexuality, or disability, without also being placed in other more general categories. In almost all cases, such categories should be non-diffusing. This wording is much better and doesn't point at any lofty ambitions (like avoiding otherizing people). κ§Zanaharyκ§19:50, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the goal were merely "to organize content in a way that is meaningful and navigable" then this rule would not be necessary. In fact the reason for making these sorts of categories non-diffusing is pretty much as Clovermoss stated, to prevent othering. Perhaps you might try pondering why the abbreviation for your link is "WP:GHETTO". βDavid Eppstein (talk) 20:53, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't come up with anything new here, there's a long history and some ANI threads that took place about this very issue. I could try to try to find links if you don't want to just take my word for it. But that's genuinely the reason why this is one of the few circumstances where categories are universally non-diffusing. This is even a matter that received outside media attention in places like Invisible Women. Clovermossπ(talk)21:37, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Zanahary: I think the phrasing I used is already in line with the spirit of that and is less offensive than saying the name of the section you linked. It's possible this is a cultural difference but using the word "ghetto" to describe a concept tends to be very offensive where I live. I think linking to othering gets the point across much better and is also concise.
Based upon the above, I think the whole "final rung" section from WP:CAAP probably should be merged to WP:CAT#NON-DIFFUSE in some way, possibly as a subsection. It seems to me that it could apply to more topics than merely articles about people. But to do that, I think we may need to look closer at that section and think about the underlying reasons about what we are trying to do and to not do there. And if that means a complete re-write, so be it. But I sincerely would like to see what others think about this. - jc3718:25, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Section name
I'll admit that I haven't been comfortable that our guideline on this uses the phrasing of wikt:ghetto.
We also have final rung, which isn't the best either, as categories are more trees than ladders.
The edit being discussed above was actually about WP:DUPCAT. The link to the diff is broken so I'll place it here [3]. Those fews words are what Zanahary tried to remove before being reverted by another editor. That said, I already expressed my misgivings about the name of that other section above. I'm trying to go on a wikibreak of undetermined length, so if this is something you feel strongly about, I'm probably not going to be of much help. Clovermossπ(talk)16:56, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Additional input requested for Drag Race contestant categories