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Gondola lifts

Hello, BrownHairedGirl. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 April 7#Subcategories of Category:Gondola lifts by country.
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I obviously was mistaken

... when I made this proposal, which is fine. I note in the past that you have put in very hard and productive work to standardise categories such as this in bulk, albeit for a different tier of education. The reason for this message is to ask your opinion, not on the individual proposal I made, but on this class of categories and the format of the category name in general. Fiddle Faddle (talk)

Category:United Kingdom Parliamentary constituencies established in 1265 - huh?

I have just discovered:

I have seen some pretty eyebrow-raising things in my time here at Wikipedia, but giving the impression that the UK existed in the 13th century has got to win some kind of prize for stretching the envelope. The earliest correctly-named category is, of course, Category:United Kingdom Parliamentary constituencies established in 1801. Considering that the parent cat is Category:1265 establishments in England, I would have thought that a Speedy would have been sufficient, but since you are the creator and I know that you are not a big Speedy fan, I just wondered if you have altered your opinion since 2007?--Mais oui! (talk) 04:32, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Mais Oui
Thanks for taking the time to discuss this. You're right that I am not a huge fan of speedies -- in general I think it's better to have a discussion, or at least create an opportunity for discussion.
In this case, you are of course right that there is an anachronism. At the time I created these categories, I was thinking that a consistent naming formula was the best way to proceed, and that it was easiest to that by using the current title of the parliament ... but as you rightly note, that was in 2007.
Looking at again after 5 years, I think I can see another reason why I chose that format: it has the merit of being unambiguous. Even if we used the an adjective for the country in which those constituencies were created, then we would have "English Parliamentary constituencies" or "Irish Parliamentary constituencies" or "Scottish Parliamentary constituencies" ... which would obviously be ambiguous, and I hate ambiguous category titles.
It's important to remember that categories are a navigational device, and I think we should always remember that the main thing is to allow readers to navigate easily and rapidly between similar articles, as well as making it easy for editors to add categories.
However, five years on, I have become more concerned about avoiding anachronisms if it is possible without undue complexity. In this case, I think that it is easily done: simply replace the initial words with "Westminster", as in Category:Westminster Parliamentary constituencies established in YYYY or Category:Westminster constituencies established in YYYY. This would be unambiguous, it would avoid anachronisms, and it would work equally well for all periods.
What do you think of that idea? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:06, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I like it. In fact, the same thought occurred to me a few hours after I left the message on your Talk page. It is worthwhile noting that there is already a "Westminster"-named constituency cat: Category:Historic Westminster constituencies in Ireland (and 2 of its subcats).
Another thing that subsequently occurred to me is that none of the pre-Union constituencies are currently navigable from Category:Parliament of England, which must obviously be rectified, but ought not to be too difficult. --Mais oui! (talk) 09:47, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Great! Seems like we got a solution we can both agree on :)
Before I do a CfD nomination, do you have any thoughts on "Westminster Parliamentary constituencies" versus "Westminster constituencies"? My own inclination is to think that "Westminster Parliamentary constituencies" makes it a little less likely that these categories will be confused with the subset of them relating to the City of Westminster, but it's not a great difference. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:20, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, I posted at WT:UKPC to ask for input. See WP:UKPC#Categories_for_constituencies_by_year_of_creation. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:44, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think that Westminster constituencies is sufficient. Westminster is of course primarily known because of the parliament located there, not because of one tiny little constituency within that parliament. --Mais oui! (talk) 18:48, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Westminster (Parliamentary) constituencies" would not work equally well for all periods, as Parliament has not always met at Westminster (see List of Parliaments of England). How about just "Parliamentary constituencies established in [date]" for anything before 1707? Parliamentary representation was so limited at this time that the national identifier seems like unnecessary disambiguation. Opera hat (talk) 18:51, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There were indeed interludes when the Parliament of England met elsewhere, but they were brief; the Palace of Westminster has been the seat of Parliament since the thirteenth century. For the overwhelming majority of its existence, the Parliament of England has been based in Westminster, and Westminster Parliament redirects to the current incarnation, Parliament of the United Kingdom. There are 59,000 hits on Google Books for "Westminster Parliament", and 1870 hits of Google News, so it is a widely-used term.
Omitting any identifier causes lots of problems. A consistent naming format allows for much easier navigation and category addition, and without some identifier we get clashes with other parliaments in the other parts of the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:01, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think that a national (or at least geographical) ambiguator is essential, cf Category:Constituencies of the Parliament of Scotland (to 1707) (still grossly underpopulated). And what about other early parliaments, eg in the Netherlands and France? Did they not have constituencies? --Mais oui! (talk) 19:44, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I just came by here having seen the notice on the UK Constituencies project page. My suggestion is to leave the category titles unchanged, because the vast majority of the articles listed are named 'UK Parliament constituency'. At least on the 1265 category page, there is a hatnote that clarifies that the entities being listed were created in the English Parliament, which is sufficient disclaimer.

I don't agree that "the earliest correctly-named category is, of course, Category:United Kingdom Parliamentary constituencies established in 1801". Not because the Union of the Parliaments was in 1707 but because, until and even beyond 1832, there were Counties and Parliamentary Boroughs. To retroactively rechristen them with the modern term constituency is to mislead the casual visitor to one of our constituency pages. But that argument is for another place and so let us leave the categories with names that reflect the names of the categorized articles. Sussexonian (talk) 14:06, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

AGF and a persistent issue

WP:CFD You closed this discussion with a rationale that I've seen from you several times. I hope this doesn't come across as condescending--I don't intend it at all--but do you honestly not understand what I'm trying to say in my nomination here? Is my post really that inscrutable to you or are you using this explanation as some kind of admonishment to reword things? I'd prefer if you post to my talk to respond or at least use {{talkback}}. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)T☮C☺M☯ 22:29, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Justin
I have been closing the debates as I see them, and had hoped that you would pick up on the recurring problem.
If a debate has reached a clear consensus, I will close it and note that consensus, and in many cases there is little more to be said.
However, I have noticed several debates recent when there has been perhaps one commentator other than the nominator, and no clear outcome. Low participation does not necessarily mean no consensus, if there is a clearly set out proposal and a clear rationale, but where the rationale is unclear there's simply no way that the closer can read that as silence=assent.
What I have noticed in several of your nominations is that you provide so little information or explanation that some research is required to check what you mean. For example, if there you refer to a head article, then link to it: that way other editors can see what you mean without having to go ferreting. Without that sort of help, editors may just skip over the debate, and that's waht seems to have been happening with your terse and cryptic nominations.
The worst by far was Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012_May_17#Category:Jazzland_Records_albums. Your main proposal was to rename per Jazzland Records/Jazzland Records (1960s)/Jazzland Recordings ... but the first links to the last, and Jazzland Records (1960s) is a redlink, so per what exactly?
Your alternate proposal was to "Close this CfD to retarget Jazzland Records and put a hatnote there directing users to Jazzland Recordings". What does this mean? "retarget Jazzland Records" to what? Where exactly is the "there" that you want the hatnote to go? (It can't go on the redirect, so presumably it goes on the target, but what exactly is the target? Do you propose putting a hatnote on a redlink?).
I'm pretty sure that you know what you meant, but your nomination did not convey any clear meaning. That affected how I closed it, so that had to be set out. I presumed that having made the nom, you would watch the debate and see the closure, so felt no need to leave a separate note. Will leave a talkback re this reply.--BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:58, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Clarity I'll grant that that one got a little complicated (and note that the redlink and redirecting are new--the proposal made more sense a few days ago...)
Again, please don't take this as being aggressive or condescending, but did you seriously not understand what I was saying with the above nomination? The main article is Dexter (TV series) and the main category is Category:Dexter (TV series). I'm accustomed to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy (see how many edits I've made there) and a lot of short-hand is used. In point of fact, the CfD in question was originally at speedy and got moved. I can only assume that if you are confused by this others are as well, but it seems pretty clear to me as someone who's been at CfD for a few years. —Justin (koavf)T☮C☺M☯ 23:37, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I could have burrowed and might have found something, but if you knew what the head article is, why not take a few seconds to link to it? Otherwise everyone who wants to check has to burrow and guess, or at least waste time typing in the name to check whether it exists. To be honest, I find it rather dismissive of other editors if a nominator can't be bothered to even include some simple links.
If it's per the head article, then link to that head article. If it's per a parent category, then link to that parent category. Personally, I would have opposed that one even as a speedy, on the grounds of not enough info. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:20, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough I appreciate your perspective--if this is happening to an experienced user, it must be happening to less experienced ones. Since the nomination is to move it from "Category:Dexter characters" to "Category:Dexter (TV series) characters", I would think that others would infer that the main article is Dexter (TV series) and the main category is Category:Dexter (TV series), but clearly that's not the case. I'll renom it now. —Justin (koavf)T☮C☺M☯ 02:39, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
On an unrelated note Do you still want this displaying? —Justin (koavf)T☮C☺M☯ 02:41, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Justin, did you see what happened at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 May 28#Category:Dexter_characters?
Your nomination spelled out the rationale briefly, but clearly. Editors didn't have to guess or infer what you meant. Instead of having to search for what they guessed might be the main article and parent category, they had clickable links in front of them ... and if they used popups, they could learn a lot by just using a mouseover. Big time-saving.
The result: 4 different editors have !voted, and there is a good chance of a consensus being formed. Isn't that much better than the single comment at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2012_May_20#Category:Dexter_characters? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:37, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
...Right... That's why I did it. I took your advice--that was the point. Also, at the risk of beating a dead horse, you realize that your editnotice says you're on a break that ended half a year ago, right? —Justin (koavf)T☮C☺M☯ 04:48, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the nudge. A bit of poking in both directions, and we each got something fixed :) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:50, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

input requested

Since it's rather difficult to get topics about in the isles passed without agreement from you and RA, perhaps you'd be willing to work with me on developing an article on the academics of archipelagic/postnationalist studies as had been suggested? I've placed some quick notes here: User_talk:Karl.brown/postnationalism and would appreciate your thoughts; if we get somewhere, I may take a crack at creating an article in userspace that you and RA can comment upon, and once the 3 of us are in agreement then we could release into the wild with a bit more confidence it might survive. Thanks. --KarlB (talk) 20:17, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For the benefit of centralising discussion, BHG, I've replied here. --RA (talk) 22:16, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have commented at User_talk:Karl.brown#Postnationalism. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:44, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Police brutality discussion

Hi, I notice that you contributed to the Cfr dicussion concerning Category Police brutality in England. If I read you correctly your reasons for maintaining the status quo seem to be a) Keep it the same as the other existing categories, Police brutality by country etc and b) Keep it the same as the head article Police brutality.
My point in making the nomination was that labelling anything, whether by the police or anyone else, as "brutality" does not comply with Wikipedia's policy regarding NPOV. To put an article in that category the editor has to make the value judgement that the article is about an example of police brutality, whilst being neutral in our point of view suggests not labelling incidents in that way.
The point, therefore, is whether or not the label "brutality" is POV or not. If it is then we should change it and using the number of inappropriately labelled categories or articles as validation seems to be a circular argument. In light of this, would you be prepared to review the discussion and your contribution to it? If you choose to reply, please do so on the page where the Cfr discussion is taking place. Thank you. Cottonshirtτ 06:56, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My point was, and remains, procedural: that your nomination offered no reason for deleting Category:Police brutality in England while we have so many other similar categories in Category:Police brutality by country. If you have a case to make against categorising any article as police brutality, then that applies whether the article concerned relates to England or Ethiopia.
There is nothing circular about this argument, which is based on consistency. Unless you have identified some special reason why this topic needs to be addressed differently in England is different to other countries, then a discussion should not be focused on England (or on any other single country).
The same point was made by several other editors early in the discussion. The solution is to have a broader discussion about Category:Police brutality by country and all its subcats. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:39, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You say that the solution is to, "have a broader discussion about Category:Police brutality by country and all its subcats". There is in fact such a discussion, here where user Vegaswikian says, "...it would have be[en] wiser to wait for that other discussion to close before nominating more categories". So I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. Each discussion has someone who says the other discussion needs to close first. I will admit to being unclear as to whether we "should" do sub-cats first or start at the top, and I actually don't understand why it even matters. Irrespective of the order, the point is actually quite straightforward; do we want categories with the word "brutality" in them, yes or no? Wikipedia policy on this is quite explicit; we do not. I have yet to see any comment in either discussion that explains why we should contravene the policy on NPOV in category names. Cottonshirtτ 19:47, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Other ways

At Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2012_June_4#Category:Rich_Farmbrough_bugs you said there are other ways of organiɀing this material. I'd be interested to know what they are. All the best,

Rich Farmbrough, 19:34, 6 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Hi Rich,
I suggest that you just make a list on a user page. There are not many items in these categories, so it won't be difficult. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:40, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Christine, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 20:13, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Talkback

Hello, BrownHairedGirl. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 May 31#Category:GAR.
Message added 03:08, 7 June 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Cricket grounds

No problems with the CfR. I do however have a request to leave all the articles in Category:Football clubs in England. The reason being that I scan that category regularly to ensure that no articles on five-a-side teams have been created (as they are invariably tagged with this category). If they're sorted by county, it becomes a nightmare. Also I find it very useful in general to have all articles of a certain type in a main category. Thanks. Number 57 13:17, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Football clubs in England is tagged with {{diffuse}}, which says "Pages in this category should be moved to subcategories where applicable. This category may require frequent maintenance to avoid becoming too large. It should directly contain very few, if any, articles and should mainly contain subcategories."
The tag was added on 22 September 2011 to its predecessor Category:English football clubs, which was renamed in January 2012.
I have been tidying and diffusing up the subcats of Category:Sport in England by county, so any overcategorised articles have been diffused to the by-county categories. I have already diffused about half of those which were in Category:Football clubs in England when I started, and plenty were not in there to begin with. If 5-a-side teams are being added here, it will be much easier to spot them if the categ is diffused. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:33, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It won't be easier to spot them because it will involve looking in 40 or so county categories, rather than 10 or 11 pages of a single category (these articles tend to be copied from existing articles, so will end up in the county categories rather than the England one. I'd be quite happy to remove the diffuse tag if it will stop you! Number 57 13:57, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I will hold off diffusing it for now, but I do think that creating this sort of duplicate categorisation is a bad idea. It won't catch all the inappropriate articles, because editors of that sort of thing are often v lazy about categorisation, so you will still need to monitor the subcats anyway ... and it encourages editors down the path of adding article to parent and grandparent categories. That latter form of over-categorisation is rampant in this area, and it has created terrible clutter on articles. While I am making my way through all these articles, it seems a great pity not to finish the job. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:18, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I personally don't feel it's overcategorisation. When I go to a category like Football clubs in England, I expect to find all the clubs, rather than sifting through various sub-categories which may have a slightly different purpose (for example as sub cats of Sport by county or whatever). If it's ok by you, I'll add the removed ones back to the main cat. Cheers, Number 57 14:29, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but it's not OK by me :(
English football clubs are massively over-categorised, because of a lack of diffusion; for example most of them appear in the "Sport in Countyname" category as well as specific "Countyname footballs clubs". I have just spent over a dozen hours diffusing this mess, and instead of assisting in the long-overdue cleanup, I find someone wanting to undo part of what I have done.
What's the point in cleaning it up if the editors working in the area revert the cleanup? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:35, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I can understand removing the Sport in county category if there is a county category (originally there weren't any county football categories, hence the sport ones being ubiquitous. As I said, I think the main category is very useful. Perhaps it might be best to as WP:FOOTY before a mass removal of articles from it? Number 57 14:56, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, the "Countyname footballs clubs" categs are newer, and are likely to be underpopulated. But my point is that even when articles were added to those categs, they were nor removed from "Sport in Countyname". This duplication is so widespread that it is the norm in most counties; it would be easy to get the impression that footy editors were systematically trying to avoid diffusion. You have obviously been monitoring my edits (which is fine), so you will have seen what I have been doing; but apoparently that diffusion is not even worth commenting on.
I disagree with you about the main category; is a bit useless for navigation, because it offers no context and is way too big to monitor for completeness. Your use of it is for maintenance, which is usually a separate function, should be handled by appropriate tracking categories, retain by trying to retain the parent categ as a monster which contains everything from top-of-the-premier-league-clubs to a recently-created amateur side which barely qualifies for its local league. I can see a great case for a cat for all League clubs, or other such grouping of significant teams, but not for something this broad.
Anyway, it's quite clear that my big effort to implement normal categorisation practices is regarded as a nuisance, so I will stop wasting my time with it. Do what you like; I'm abandoning it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:35, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sincere Request

Hi. I'm dropping you this note as a request to help.

I just looked at 30 random CfD pages, and based upon that we seem the be the most common closers (those who determine consensus of discussions) at CfD. (If I have overlooked anyone, it is obviously purely an oversight.)

I think we've all been seeing the difficulties that some editors has been having lately concerning some self-asserted bold edits. And how they may be seen by others as disruptive.

I think that at least some of the trouble could be that while most of use are aware of common practice regarding category pages, we really do not have a unified MoS regarding what a category page should look like or include. And so when someone attempts to edit contrary to that understood common practice, it is seen as disruptive.

I'd like to prevent this from happening now or in the future.

So I'm asking you to join in and help edit Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Category pages to a point where it reflects consensus and common practice as we understand it. And perhaps finding any new consensus as necessary.

This is obviously not exclusive to only us to discuss (so any lurkers out there would be welcome), I merely thought inviting you all would be a good start : )

(This is not because I think we'll all agree. Honestly, I expect that on some things we'll likely disagree. And that - as I think we all expect - will just help make the results of the discussion better and more useful for everyone, and therefore, more reflective of the greater consensus at Wikipedia.)

I sincerely hope that you will be able to find the time to help out.

Regardless, thank you for your time, and your continued contributions at CfD - jc37 14:24, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dispute resolution

I am having an increasingly frustrating dispute with an editor over headings in election and referendum articles, specifically over whether "Result" or "Results" is preferable as the heading for the relevant section. As WikiProject Elections and Referendums has so few active members (at least judging by the responses on the talk page), I thought I'd just ask someone who is involved in election articles for their opinion before this descends any further. Thanks, Number 57 19:57, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi #57
Thanks for your msg. I seem to remember that this arose in some UK articles, but I can't recall where the discussions took place.
FWIW, my own take is that it depends on context. For example a general election nearly always has multiple results from individual constituencies, and even in the case of a country like Israel with a single constituency, there is a result for each list; so even there, there are results plural.
So while we might say that the result of the Foo General Election was a crashing defeat for the governing Bar Party, any list or table of the voting figures necessarily includes multiple results. For that reason, the plural form is nearly always better for headings.
I say nearly always, because there is one specific circumstance where I felt that a singular result heading was justified: an unopposed by-election, such as St Albans 1943. In that case, we do not have the usual collection of numbers, just a single factoid: elected unopposed.
However, this situation is very rare. It cannot apply to a general election, or to a referendum, becuase in either case there is more than one result. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:35, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No problem; despite our disagreements on some issues, I have a good deal of respect for your opinions.
Anyway, I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiments; this is exactly how I have worded articles I have created (e.g. this). The user in question has over the last couple of years been going through election articles and changing them to "Result" (as almost everyone else seems to use "Results", which seems far more natural to me). I found several articles recently and went through and changed them back. This was then reverted with a "no consensus for wholescale unilateral changes" rationale. I have since reverted again (also on the basis that I made the changes using AWB and fixed a few other things at the same time). I have left a message on the user's talk page, but am anticipating a hostile response. If you wouldn't mind commenting, perhaps things will calm down. Thanks, Number 57 20:30, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, my reply got truncated by a premature save, but I have now completed it. Thank for your kind words -- and I think disagreement is good, because it leads to discussion and better conclusions. Most of my favourite editors are those with whom I have had strong disagreements, but have been able to discuss them.
I will take a look at User talk:Lihaas#Blind_reverts_.28for_the_nth_time.29_and_WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:40, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No problem and thanks. Unfortunately I was rather annoyed at the time I wrote that... Number 57 21:20, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]