User talk:Xdamr/Archive 10

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Name change for categories[edit]

Hi, I was told you streamline quite a few category names at a time, so perhaps you can include Category:Kalidas Samman Award recipients, Category:Sangeet Natak Akademi Award recipients, and Category:Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship recipients the next time? Thanks Hekerui (talk) 07:29, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My recent renames have mostly been focused on the area of recipients of military medals and other state decorations, not on recipients of awards and prizes more generally. I'll certainly take a look at this area in the near future, and I'm inclined to agree that the 'Recipients of ...' form is a generally better wording throughout this topic, but, in the meantime, feel free to nominate them yourself citing these recent renames as a precedent. --Xdamrtalk 09:52, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I will nominate a group of Indian categories, excluding the George cross recipients you already nominated. Hekerui (talk) 12:48, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I cited your suggestion as closing administrator regarding renaming the above-referenced category. Hope this is all right. I didn't think to contact you about it previously (sorry) as your opinion seemed pretty clear and unequivocal in favor. However if I have misinterpreted your opinion, please clarify the record(s). Yours, Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 13:28, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, that's great - any variation that includes 'New Territories' would be fine with me. The Basic Law seems only to privilege indigenous inhabitants of the NT, not Hong Kong more widely. Thanks for bringing it forward. --Xdamrtalk 13:49, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Upmerging tennis cats[edit]

I was just starting to help out with upmerging some of the tennis categories and I think some of your recats are incorrect. For instance I assume Category:1990 Peugeot Italian Open had Category:1990 ATP Tour, Category:1990 WTA Tour and Category:Rome Masters. The article 1990 Peugeot Italian Open - Men's Singles should only have been upmerged to Category:1990 ATP Tour and Category:Rome Masters as Category:1990 WTA Tour is for the women's tour. The article 1990 Peugeot Italian Open correctly goes in all cats as it's about both the men's and women's competition. Sorry if that's going to make the work even harder. I assume that even though the discussion closed with "Upmerge to all parents" that's just shorthand for "Upmerge to all appropriate parents". Tassedethe (talk) 11:06, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that clearly looks like a bit of a mistake there. Tennis isn't really my area, though even I know the difference between ATP and WTA. Thanks for the heads-up, I'll bear it in mind. --Xdamrtalk 19:14, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You recently closed the discussion for Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 August 31#Category:Victims of American political repression as delete, claiming that "it has not been convincingly argued that it is at all reconcilable with WP:NPOV". I had provided several examples of books and scholarly journals that cover the subject and name names. The nominators argument that the category is "Inherently, hopelessly POV and prejudicial" was based on his insistence that it is "highly unlikely that any reliable sources would have defined this group in this manner" in addition to being "highly offended" that a questionable entry was included. The problem is that four separate sources, three of them book-length, do define individuals in this manner, including the since-update book "Political repression in modern America from 1870 to 1976". Delete votes -- and the close -- appear to have simply relied on the claim of POV issues as a crutch to argue "is not" and ignore the sources. While I recognize that reliable and verifiable sources are systematically devalued at CfD, this is an example where there are multiple sources that directly address the subject, many of them listed in detail in the CfD, but never addressed by any editor or by you. Do you stand by your close? Alansohn (talk) 12:17, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You appear, from my understanding of your arguments, to be conflating WP:NPOV with WP:V. I do not doubt for a second that your sources describe some individuals as 'victims of repression' - all well and good, stick it in the article, slap on a <ref> tag along with some appropriate contextual remarks. Result? Everyone is happy, the reference satisfies WP:V and WP:NPOV is satisfied by setting the claim into its proper context, allowing us to weigh up the merits of the claim in our own minds. Categories, by their very nature, deny us the opportunity of setting this proper context. They are, on the face of it, a bald assertion of fact. This makes any 'victims of political oppression' categorisation deeply problematic given the wide divergences of opinion likely in any situation where there is a global readership. This subjectivity is at the root of the argument that the category is a violation of NPOV.
WP:V and WP:RS are great, but in order to satisfy WP:NPOV we also need the proper context in which to evaluate sources. What to one person is an example of political repression may seem to another something entirely uncontroversial, or even desirable in light of prevailing circumstances. It is not a question of facts, but rather one of opinion. In light of this, in the absence of compelling contra argument, and given the overall consensus of bona fide contributors was in favour of deletion (7-3), I must stand by the close.
Best wishes, Xdamrtalk 18:58, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Any concerns of "subjectivity" are addressed directly by using reliable and veriable sources, which are not just "great", but are bedrock principles of Wikipedia. While I'm assembling the DRV, can I ask just how WP:NPOV is being violated in this category structure? Are you stating that it would be impossible to create a category for any subject where there is any measure of controversy or supposed "subjectivity"? Why are you counting votes here that have been rebutted (including that of the nominator), when you have been rather ready to discard votes elsewhere when they don't fit your preconceptions of Wikipedia policy? Alansohn (talk) 02:50, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The entire subject matter is subjective and controversial - that is how NPOV is being violated. As I have said, who is or is not a 'victim of political oppression' is a question of personal opinion. The fact that someone has been described as such is noteworthy and should be documented - that does not make it settled, objective fact, one which can be applied to the article in the un-nuanced and unqualified form of categorisation.
In short, by and large, yes. It is not possible to develop schemes of categorisation where the inclusion criteria are wholly subjective. As a regular participant in Cfd you must surely have recognised this as an obvious argument, one made with great regularity by other participants, even setting aside the fact that you might not agree with it.
Xdamrtalk 10:45, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Categories discussions[edit]

If you are closing them, can you perform the operation? Simply south (talk) 20:05, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that I understand you - do you mean as well as closing them, I should be doing the deleting/renaming/merging myself? --Xdamrtalk 20:07, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry that what i said didn't come out quite right. Does the person whose closing the discussion do those or is it done by someone else (or bot)? Simply south (talk) 20:14, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ah right. Usually the renames/deletions/mergers are listed at WP:CFD/W where a bot will take care of them in reasonably short time. Of course sometimes the closing admin might deal with small or empty categories himself, but mostly this time-consuming task is left to the bots. Hope that helps. --Xdamrtalk 20:17, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Simply south (talk) 20:54, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what to make of this close. You moved all of them to alphabetical order, check. You made them all nouns, check. Both of those were pretty clearly supported. The issue is the dashes. I understand leaving it for the other discussion to decide; that seems like a good decision. But... you didn't. You had them all moved to spaced en dashes. I'm having a hard time understanding where that logic comes from. ÷seresin 21:47, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also a bit perplexed. Strictly speaking, if we were going to change them to en dashes, we should have them non-spaced, except for the ones that use 2+ words on one side of the dash to refer to an entity, as in "Czech Republic – Poland". Otherwise it's "Bangladesh–Poland". This is what WP:DASH says, at least. I know the issue is splitting hairs, but this is a great example of a solution that will probably satisfy no one. (Perhaps that's what's mandated by the discussion—I don't know.) Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:12, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Purely to match the cfd immediately above - Category:Czech Republic – Poland relations, and the fact that 3 categories, as nominated, were already in this form. Had choose one form or another to get the other uncontroversial rename elements up and running. Only issue is that, on reflection, it may potentially look like some kind of seal of approval for these many and varied non-keyboard characters - something which I definitely do not want it to be. I had no intent of picking a side in that particular area of the discussion; as far as I am concerned that is still entirely up in the air. Discussions over the esoteric piece of lunacy that is WP:DASH are enough to make me want to give up on cfd altogether...mutter, mutter. --Xdamrtalk 22:16, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It does come across as approving the dashes.
The problem now is that, regardless of the outcome of the discussion on dashes, most of the categories will have to be renamed again, because they should not all be spaced.
I am unfamiliar with the full process of renaming categories. Has the bot moved all the pages to the new category names? If not, when will it be done so that we have the greenlight to rename (to whatever is decided)? ÷seresin 22:31, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the move has gone through. This looks like a fairly rotten close from me; I announce loudly that I have no intention of taking sides, then I proceed to do just that, and wrongly as it turns out! Three courses of action here I think; do a second post-closure rename which removes spaces, do a rename which replaces dashes with hyphens, or leave the categories as is and have another cfd discussion with all options on the table - hopefully settling the issue (ha!). Personally I'm still loathe to take one side over another – my feeling is that a full cfd on the tightly focused ground of DASH would be best, although clearly judgement has gone a little haywire today...
Xdamrtalk 22:46, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If your intention was to not make a ruling on whether WP:DASH should be applied, moving appropriate titles to unspaced ones would do just that. (Note that I would approve of doing this; my opinions on this matter are clear.)
I think the best course of action is instead to have the discussion in place (referenced in the CfD) come to resolution. A discussion about wide pracitce rather than an individual CfD seems best, not only because such a discussion already exists. We just need to wait for that discussion to conclude. ÷seresin 23:44, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good to me. Best wishes, --Xdamrtalk 09:47, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you think this was your worst-ever performance at CfD, you can count yourself lucky. I could point you in the direction of some doozies, but out of respect to other editors (and myself) we won't go down that road. Good Ol’factory (talk) 10:03, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We all make the exact same mistake[edit]

It's okay! When I first got rollback I was so excited to use it, and for my very first rollback edit I accidentally reverted someone else's revert of vandalism, the end result being I had re-inserted a picture of genitalia to one of the In the news articles linked on the Main Page. XD So don't worry about it. A little insignificant talk to me! (please!) 00:45, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Typo[edit]

Hi! There seems to be a typo in your closing statement here ("Catgeory" instead of "Category"), making the category links broken. I've corrected it on the WP:CFD/W page (I assume this was why the bots were ignoring these pages). It might be a good idea to fix them in the closing statement as well. Regards, Jafeluv (talk) 16:54, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that. I wondered what the problem was - the spelling, though wrong, looked so nearly right that I didn't notice the mistake. Doh... --Xdamrtalk 18:17, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bilateral Relations[edit]

In your sagacious close of this cfd, you've spaced the en-dash incorrectly in some places. Per WP:ENDASH (spacing section) there is no space in Boo–Foo, but there is a space in Boo Coo – Foo (if either noun is compound). Occuli (talk) 10:16, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See above ;) In my wisdom I decided to go for a form that would please nobody, in order to act as an inducement to a timely resolution to the question of WP:DASH and category names. (That at least is the story I've come up with, and I'm sticking to it....) That close was certainly not down to any degree of error or confusion on my part at all. Hah!
Xdamrtalk 10:25, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your wisdom is indeed profound. Occuli (talk) 13:08, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As you will see from this rfc, in the corresponding article names there is no dispute about the en-dash but endless dispute about everything else. Occuli (talk) 14:22, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • After all of the times that I've defended you against accusations of casting "supervotes" I'm a bit stunned at your closure of these CFDs in disregard of the consensus against renaming with non-standard dashes. Can you explain how your close reflects the consensus in the discussion? Otto4711 (talk) 19:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! Let my clarify my position on the issue. The point is that while the redirect categories definitely should not exist in my opinion, there are valid redirects in those categories that should be in the corresponding content categories instead. Take, for example, Category:New York City Ballet dancer redirects: almost every redirect in that category points to a list entry for a dancer that currently has no article of their own. As such, they would be valid redirects in Category:New York City Ballet dancers, and should be merged there. The ideal solution to the CfD, then, would be that someone would go through each of the 60 categories and evaluate for each redirect whether it should be merged or not. This could be done by listing the categories for merging manually ("no bots"), and I guess it would be me who would have to go through the categories and find the merge targets, unless someone else volunteers to help. This would, however, take a lot of time. Another option, I assume, would be merging everything into the corresponding content categories, and then irrelevant entries could be removed by hand if needed. This would have the advantage of being performable by bots. Below is my opinion on how the categories correspond to content categories (under Category:Ballet).

Corresponding content category exists:

Extended content

No corresponding content category exists, but some of the content could possibly belong in subcategories of Category:New York City Ballet repertory by season:

No corresponding content category, could just be deleted:

I hope this helps. I'm willing to help with the work if it's decided that someone has to go through each of these, although I'm sure it'll take a lot of time. Just contact me if you need further clarification. Regards, Jafeluv (talk) 00:07, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah right, I understand - these are being used as quasi stubs. Ok then, I think that general consensus in the debate is amenable to this. I'll just take a little time to ponder the details of the closure (merge now and weed out vs selectively merge then delete) but this should be dealt with shortly. Thanks. --Xdamrtalk 19:54, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Lost fictional characters[edit]

Hey there! Just to remind you that you closed the discussion of Category:Lost fictional characters with "Delete" but you didn't delete it =P Greetings!! --LoЯd ۞pεth 22:23, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Category:The Davis Sisters songs[edit]

You closed this as "rename" but haven't gotten around to renaming yet. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many ottersOne batOne hammer) 20:35, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cfd bots are taking a little holiday - see the queue at WP:CFD/W. Once they get back to work all will hopefully be dealt with in pretty short order. --Xdamrtalk 20:52, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a reason you ignored my suggestion to merge the two categories which you wanted to put into this category, into the category Nondenominational Christian schools in Australia as per the note I left in the merge discussion? Once again I see editors working en masse with an obsession to tidy things up in a manner that fits Wikipedia editing rules but without really understanding the subject matter with which they are working. Personally I prefer quality work over quantity. Sorry, that's how i see it. -- Ishel99 (talk) 02:15, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I guess there wasn't a reason, then? Maybe you didn't even take time to read what I'd said? -- Ishel99 (talk) 03:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

CfD closure[edit]

Hi! I recently closed a CfD on Category:Films set in the Vatican (link) after a rather confusing discussion where the nominator changed their proposal a couple of times, among other things. As two editors have expressed concerns about the closure, would you mind reading the discussion, determining whether the closure was appropriate, and if needed re-closing the CfD? I'd appreciate it. Thanks, Jafeluv (talk) 12:56, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Replied on your talk page. --Xdamrtalk 14:49, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Missed one?[edit]

Am I right that you just missed the renaming of Category:Prawo i Sprawiedliwość politicians here? Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:08, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So I did, hmm. Don't know how that came to happen - I remember having both the party and the politician's categories in my mind when closing the discussion. Oh well, thanks for the certainly heads-up, that's it taken care of now. --Xdamrtalk 01:16, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your CfD close of Category:Wikipedian singer-songwriters[edit]

Thank you for your excellent explanation of the close of [1]. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:08, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot. Coming straight out of DRV, I can see that the closure might well be controversial - hopefully the reasoning provided will explain the decision, even (hopefully) to the satisfaction of those who might have wished retention.
Xdamrtalk 00:10, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Old King Williamites OKW Category Change[edit]

I am remarkably curious why this discussion was not mentioned on the KW article Talk page where some sense might have been obtained by consulting with editors who have some knowledge of the subject. The final category chosen is completely inaccurate. First, as was noted but ignored, the Isle of Man is not part of the United Kingdom any more than the Channel Islands are, it is a Crown dependent territory with no connectoion to the UK, just to the Crown. Secondly the use of the Americanism alumni is jarring to this English speaker at least. Is there anyway to re-open the discussion to find a more appropriate place, I agree OKW is also misleading though that is what the Old Boys (and now Girls) call themselves. Dabbler (talk) 10:09, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is no requirement for notification before a category can be discussed at Cfd. Though it can only be considered polite to drop a line to the creator or significant contributor, notification of wider groups of interested editors is generally regarded as being overly burdensome on the nominating editor (especially for topics of greater scope and/or controversy than this). The general expectation is that editors will watchlist articles/categories/templates which are relevant to them and their interests - if this is done then there should be no question of a lack of publicity as the proposal to rename/delete etc will be flagged up on their watchlist.
Anyway, that said, onto the question at hand. I do not make any edits in this area so I'm far from an expert, but my examination of the category hierarchy leads me to conclude that the 'Alumini of ...' construction is, broadly speaking, the wikipedia naming standard for this area, across the nations (eg Category:Alumni by university or college). Having said that Category:People by school in England, which seems more directly in point, seems to adopt Old XXXians (as does the Welsh category), however, just to confuse the issue even more, Category:People by school in Scotland seems to use XXX institution alumni and Category:People by school in Northern Ireland seems to largely favour Alumni of XXX.
What is the moral of this story? Basically that these categories are a mess. Nevertheless, in this case, the rename has at least brought a rather amusingly misnamed category (misnamed at least from an outsider's POV) into at least a vague form of conformity. If you can come up with an Old XXXians construction for former pupils of the school then I think that this, combined with the fact of English/Welsh use, might justify an fresh Cfd nomination for a rename. Other than that I can only suggest raising this at Deletion Review, which, in spite of the fact that I am the closing admin, I am bound to say will almost certainly fail - consensus was pretty clear in the debate. Feel free to raise this isuse on the Cfd talk page if you remain unsatisfied and would like wider input.
Best wishes, Xdamrtalk 19:49, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Its unfortunate that category specialists as opposed to subject specialists don't advertise their work as it leads to misunderstandings of this nature. As King William's is a "public school" i.e. a private secondary or high school rather than a university or college does this not actually make the category even more inappropriate? Dabbler (talk) 19:45, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: The point is not really to debate the rights and wrongs of what has happened but how to fix the nonsense that has been created. How should this be done? Dabbler (talk) 19:47, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Responding to the additional material above, the construction "Category:People by school in the Isle of Man" would be more appropriate than the current category but it would only have a few schools in it, would that be acceptable? I found a reference to "Old King Williamites" like "Old Etonians" but it was quite old so I would like to find a more recent reference to ensure that it was still current. I don't know why I am bothering myself so much about this as I have nothing to do with the school being more concerned with other aspects of the Isle of Man article and am very inexperienced with Category administration as I tend to let other people do that for articles I edit having very little interest in learning all the arcane details, but the inaccuracy concerns me. Dabbler (talk) 20:22, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have created Category:People by educational institution in the Isle of Man (following the example of Category:People by educational institution in Jersey). Occuli (talk) 11:43, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That all looks very good. The whole question of the category tree, whether it was appropriate to categorise IoM schools under UK categorisations etc, wasn't really an issue for me to decide upon so far as I was concerned. These are really matters which can be taken in hand by interested editors - my involvement was largely limited to the rename itself. What I would say is that this entire area looks like it needs to be severely taken in hand and to have some consistency knocked into it, but that's a fight for another day...
Xdamrtalk 18:11, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Irish Welsh and Chilean scholars & academics - Sept 19 Cfds[edit]

Since link Sept 19 this whole complicated issue has been re-opened again yesterday, would it not be better to hold this open until that has been decided? The two or three editors contributing here seemed unaware of the long history of previous debates here, & so far the consensus emerging at the new debate seems to go the other way. I'm sorry I did not see the debates in time - the Irish tree for one contains entire subcats, like Category:Irish antiquarians and its "folklorists" sub-cat, of people who were not academics at all. Johnbod (talk) 17:30, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for giving me the heads-up on that - I hadn't noticed this recent debate. Yes, I'm inclined to agree, the naming of these categories should logically follow on from that of their super-category. I'll put the renames/merges of the 19th on hold until this wider issue is decided.
Best wishes, Xdamrtalk 18:06, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Johnbod (talk) 18:24, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]