There has already been one inconclusive DRV on this debate. This DRV is made at the suggestion of the closing admin, with whom there has been extensive furher discussion. The CfD was not just for this category, but for over 100 categories, all of which were deleted and their contents upmerged. This request for review is focussed on the single category of Scottish surnames, without prejudice to any decision about the other categories concerned. The grounds for review are, first, that considering over 100 categories in a single discussion tended to prejudge the question of whether they should all be treated alike, and led to a discussion on excessively general terms, without adequate consideration of individual cases. Whereas many statements were made to the need for sourcing when allocating article to categoriees, no actual sources at all were cited in the original deletion discussion. Scottish surnames were not separately discussed. No mention, therefore, was made of relevant sources such as (amongst many others)
George Mackay (1998). Scottish Surnames. Lomond Books.
David Dorward (1995). Scottish Surnames. Collins.
Donald Whyte (1996). Scottish Surnames & Families. Birlinn.
all of which support the contention that there should be a category of Scottish surnames, and that "Scottish surnames" is a suitable name for it. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 18:54, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn I'll freely admit I didn't like the deletion as a whole the first time around. But I agree even more so with the points made by SamuelTheGhost. A) Mass noms do tend to cause people to assume all should be judged the same and B) This category looks darn well sourced, well defined, and probably useful. Hobit (talk) 21:10, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and Restore The closing administrator's zeal for deletion tends to get in the way of the facts which show this to be a defining characteristic in Scotland and in nations around the world. The mass nomination technique of "throw 'em all at the wall and see what gets deleted" works unfortunately all too well, allowing votes that argue for deletion based on a questionable entry in a category or two, without addressing the structure as a whole. The disruptive deletion of the entire structure at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 June 6#Category:Surnames by country which rather WP:POINTily dumped 14,000 articles into the catchall parent Category:Surnames needs to be overturned as well. Alansohn (talk) 21:51, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse - despite the bad-faith accusations of zealotry on the part of the closing admin and the usual canard of "disruption", there is no indication that the close of this mass CFD was outside the bounds of the closer's discretion. That there are sources that identify one surname or another as "Scottish" ignores the fact, presented in the CFD, that names are not and cannot be bounded by nationality, ethnicity or culture. My understanding of the various discussions relating to these surname categories was that, rather than piecemeal attempts to re-create the previous structure, the goal should be to find a better way of sub-dividing the parent. The criticism of the mass nomination is ludicrous. Had the structure been nominated in smaller chunks, the same editor (based on past history) would complain that that was an underhanded attempt to manufacture consensus. Otto4711 (talk) 23:45, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not only can colored circles overlap, but the category system is robust enough to have multiple categories for the same family nameCan you point to the guideline or policy that categories can only be formed for names "bounded by nationality, ethnicity or culture" and that any category that is not adequately "bounded" must be deleted? As I've shown with a Venn diagram(pictured), there is absolutely no issue with the fact that certain names may cross cultures. The rather simple solution of having multiple categories is far too obvious to deal with the manufactured "problem" the mass deletion is purported to solve. How many more reliable, book-length sources demonstrating that this is a defining characteristic can be ignored? Alansohn (talk) 01:37, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The "rather simple solution of having multiple categories", otherwise known as category clutter, is exactly the issue addressed by these discussions. A surname becomes a "Fooian surname" as soon as a Fooian person adopts it. When Angus McTavish of Scotland becomes a Chinese citizen, McTavish becomes a Chinese surname. What encyclopedic knowledge is imparted by categorizing McTavish as a Chinese surname? Otto4711 (talk) 10:47, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"A surname becomes a 'Fooian surname' as soon as a Fooian person adopts it." No surname source takes that view. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 14:17, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In reply to Otto4711 above:
"That there are sources that identify one surname or another as 'Scottish' ignores the fact ...". I must resist the temptation to explain the real facts about the origins of surnames, because that's beside the point. If Otto4711 will actually read the sources, this will become clear to him. The point is that in wikipedia we do not elevate alleged "fact"s above sources; sources win. The only counter to a source is a better source, so if he can produce one we'd all like to see it.
"the goal should be to find a better way of sub-dividing the parent" is a demand for WP:OR, which wikipedians are neither qualified nor permitted to carry out. If a "grand scheme" is necessary at all, it should be sought in the published classification schemes used by librarians, as has hitherto been advocated by nobody at all. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 10:25, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The notion that sub-dividing surnames on some other basis than country in which they appear is not OR and suggesting that it is indicates a fundamental failure to grasp what WP:OR means. Otto4711 (talk) 10:47, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to be attributing to me a view which I do not hold. Please have a look at this from the Library of Congress, to introduce some reality into your thinking. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 11:06, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A modicum of respect for reliable and verifiable sources would solve the problem. Not even Otto can actually believe that the Category:Scottish surnames is intended to track every surname of every person who has ever lived in Scotland, or that Category:Chinese Surnames would include "McTavish" solely because one person in a billion has that name. The three books listed above, which Otto studiously ignores, do not use this methodology nor does any self-respecting researcher. Suggesting the argument that "When Angus McTavish of Scotland becomes a Chinese citizen, McTavish becomes a Chinese surname. What encyclopedic knowledge is imparted by categorizing McTavish as a Chinese surname?" is so completely and utterly ludicrous that (to paraphrase Otto above) it indicates a fundamental failure to grasp what WP:CAT means. As I'm sure that there must be one McTavish who has ever lived in China, I hope Otto can provide a reliable source listing Chinese surnames that includes "McTavish" in that classification. Alansohn (talk) 01:52, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I Endorse my own close, but acknowledge that re-creation of this one would be consistent with the comments made in the close if consensus here is in favour of having the category. In other words, I don't oppose the re-creation per se, and I neither support nor oppose the proposed category creation. I don't particularly appreciate the accusations of bad faith, and wish editors could keep personal grudges away from community discussion points. Good Ol’factory(talk) 01:49, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I personally think there wasn't a consensus in that debate, although I can see how come GO read it as "delete".
As I understand the situation, once a category has been deleted, it's not actually possible—in a technical sense—to undo the deletion. In other words, once the category has been deleted, the only way to bring it back is to re-create it by hand or by bot. Is that correct? And if so, does a suitable bot exist?
If the answers to those two questions are "yes" and "no" respectively, then I would think that we have a significant problem with overturning CfD's, so I just want to know what real options we have on the table.—S MarshallTalk/Cont 08:53, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
One of the juster criticisms of the old system was that hardly any of the allocations of articles to categories were supported by references, and any automatic reversal would still leave that issue to be dealt with. My intention, if common sense prevails in this case, is manually (and probably fairly slowly) to populate the category, providing proper referencing as I go. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 10:25, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Categories cannot be referenced. Otto4711 (talk) 10:47, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thank you so much, we are all aware of that. That's why I wrote "supported by references", which they certainly can be. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 11:06, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thank you so much for explaining how items included in categories can be supported by sources within the category...oh wait, they can't be. Otto4711 (talk) 11:38, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. Especially when the alternative is the very bad idea of mass and automatic repopulation. I'm neutral on the idea of doing it manually, as SamuelTheGhost suggests, adding references prior to categorization. --Kbdank71 13:14, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In that case, allow recreation of the category manually.
This raises a different consideration. The standards at AfD are applied because an AfD deletion is easy to reverse when the circumstances demand. A CfD deletion is, apparently, a great deal more challenging to reverse, which tells me there needs to be more thought about the CfD process. Until such thought has happened, I feel the bar for deletion of a category needs to be set higher and there should be a presumption against deletion unless the matter is absolutely unequivocal.—S MarshallTalk/Cont 13:28, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's not that difficult to reverse a single category deletion manually. It's not as automatic as clicking a button, but deletion is also not the creation of a black hole that some make it out to be. Good Ol’factory(talk) 00:53, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Very strong Overturn An incorrect closing, against consensus and with no basis in policy for rejecting the consensus. The breakdown at the CfD was 6 deletes, including the nom, 18 keeps, and 12 people wanting to do other things. What other things to do had a variety of mutually incompatible suggestions. It is impossible to regard this as a consensus to delete. It can be regarded either as a consensus to keep while discussing how to handle the problem, or as no-consensus. Essentially, the closer was trying to solve the problem on his own, which is not the role of an admin. It was suggested that some keep votes were "useful", but a category is an organizing device,not an article, and useful is an applicable criteria--we want to categorize in ways that will be helpful for finding material, not in ways that will not be. The result, of destroying dozens of difficulty-to-reconstruct categories without any clear plan of what to do as an alternative, was about the worst possible way to handle it. The right way is to discuss how best to handle it until we reach a consensus. Myself, I do not know what the best way is,and would want to hear suggestions in an extended community-wide discussion. Breakdown of any topic by nationality or language is a recurrent problem, and we do not have a consistent solution. DGG ( talk ) 16:02, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn, both based on the procedural argument (per DGG) and based on the content-based argument that independent academic research seems to have been done on the subject, so I'd !vote keep on the original discussion if I had known about it. —Ynhockey(Talk) 13:38, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
Category:Fads – This is a truly difficult close, reflecting the zero-sum game of overturning or not overturning a deletion when there is fundamentally no consensus over multiple discussions. When the arguments to overturn (an overbroad application of the administrator's own judgment into what the "strong arguments" are) directly contradict the decision-making process of the DRV-closer (who seeks which arguments in the DRV seem fundamentally "stronger"), a seeming paradox results. Merely saying that consensus is not a vote is not helpful if it is not laid out clearly HOW consensus was found by fundamental and transparent differences in policy weight and quality of argument. After reading and re-reading the arguments in both the CfD and the DRV, the fact remains that the reference-based arguments are not unreasonable (as they ultimately stem from policies of WP:V and WP:RS). The arguments in the DRV that these arguments should not have been disregarded are much stronger in my opinion. The subjectivity concerns in the CfD were also quite reasonable, however, and were certainly based in established guidelines as some mention here. I don't feel there is sufficient consensus (even with somewhate stronger arguments) for me overturn the CfD on the strengh of the DRV arguments alone. I will, however, allow selective re-population of the category under the expectation that all category inclusions are referenced at the highest standard. Relisting of the category is at editorial discretion if editors feel that further discussion would be of assistance. – IronGargoyle (talk) 05:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the article above. Please do not modify it.
No consensus to delete; "at least a few of those recommending keep put forward reasonable arguments that were not fully refuted." --The lorax (talk) 04:38, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn. Clearly no consensus to delete. Quite possibly a consensus to keep, but at the very least this was no consensus. Absolutely should not have been deleted. As above, keep arguments were not refuted and advanced a valid, policy based case. Numerically, the keeps also had it. Cool3 (talk) 04:39, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse; closer has been consulted and there's no indication that he has misinterpreted anything. Consensus-finding is not a "vote count". The relevant policy states: "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale." I interpreted the closer's comments as indicating that he was not persuaded by the "keep" comments that core principles were not being violated. See also, related CfD. I have a feeling this will be the type of nomination that will essentially be turned into CfD Round 2, which of course is not the point here. Good Ol’factory(talk) 05:46, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, reasonable consensus. Stifle (talk) 07:56, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse as closing admin. Cfd is not a vote, but a determining of consensus based upon arguments made and informed by relevant policy. Arguments were made on both sides, with those for deletion raising significant questions at to the categories' viability in light of core policy. 'Keep' arguments consistently failed to satisfactorily address this issue and as such any advantage they gained in numbers was diminished by their shaky rationale. --Xdamrtalk 10:49, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn. While the closing admin is granted some leeway in evaluating the strength of arguments, I believe the closer discounted the "keep" arguments too easily in this case. Essentially, the closer imposed his or her judgment that the category was too subjective, rather than reading the arguments and trying to determine if the discussion participants believed the category was too subjective. From reading the discussion, it seems clear to me that there is no consensus that the category necessarily violates our guidelines; the "keep" arguments were not an attempt to "override community consensus on a wider scale", as Good Ol'factory claims, but rather an attempt to argue for a particular application of that consensus. More concisely, the question at hand was whether this category violated the consensus on what kinds of categories are appropriate; it was not a question of what kinds of categories are appropriate. Attempting to change the latter in that forum would be inappropriate as Good Ol'factory said; the former, however, is an area of legitimate community discussion. To that end, the closing admin must take into account whether the discussion participants were persuaded one way or the other; in this case, I maintain that there was no clear consensus either way. -- PowersT 13:11, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I will further add that while "consensus is not a vote count," if the numbers are clearly leaning one way or another, that should increase the threshold for discounting the majority side's arguments. Just because consensus isn't a vote count doesn't mean that numbers don't matter. To exaggerate, if a discussion has fifteen people recommending "delete" and one recommending "keep", and the closer believes the "keep" reason is more solid, closing it as "keep" would require extraordinary justification. Something like all of the delete recommendations relying on completely irrelevant or inapplicable criteria. Obviously, this CfD discussion did not have such an imbalance in opinions, but neither were the "keep" recommendations as flimsy as in my example. PowersT 15:13, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse – whether something is or is not a fad is subjective. If there were some globally acknowledged 'Fad of the year' award, then 'Fad of the year award winners' would be an objective category. We don't have a 'brilliant actor' category for actors described by someone somewhere as brilliant: we do have various Academy Award categories. Occuli (talk) 13:26, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is not supposed to be a rehashing of the CfD discussion. Other users disagreed either that fads were necessarily subjective or that all subjective categories must be deleted. Why should their opinions be discounted? PowersT 15:00, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Their arguments were not discounted out of hand, out of some personal prejudice. In all Xfd discussions, one of the key responsibilities of closing admins is to follow policy. The arguments for deletion were set against the arguments fore retention . The deletion arguments had a significant grounding in policy (WP:CAT and WP:OCAT). In judging the debate none of the 'keep' arguments convincingly reconciled these categories with these policies, hence the deletion.
Yes, I know you discounted them because you weren't convinced. I'm asking Occuli why he or she is discounting them now, because it appeared Occuli was giving reasons for deletion, rather than reasons to accept the closure. PowersT 17:09, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn frankly no delete arguments were advanced that weren't shot down (IMO) by the keep !votes. Further, by numbers is a pretty clear keep. So given that strength of argument goes the same direction as numbers, I don't see how this could be a delete. As far as citing WP:OC#SUBJECTIVE, I just don't see "fad" being any more subjective than being a beginner or being a "Biologically based therapy" (both categories). This is different than being fat or thin, popular or not... Hobit (talk) 18:29, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. Consensus isn't a vote count. --Kbdank71 19:03, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Apples aren't oranges either. But I don't see how either fact applies here. Could you explain? Hobit (talk) 21:06, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Immediately above you said, "Further, by numbers is a pretty clear keep." The response to this is that "consensus isn't a vote count." Good Ol’factory(talk) 04:36, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
True, but if that is a response to my comment, it was only an aside. The main body of the argument was that the deletion arguments were all successfully rebuffed (IMO). I was guessing Kbdank71 probably had an opinion on that part too and was hoping he'd share it. Hobit (talk) 14:11, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse - arguments against the category: subjective inclusion criterion; categorized articles have nothing in common beyond having been described at some point as a "fad" with no regard to the actual longevity of the product or action. Arguments for the category: there are reliable sources that describe things as fads; the categories aren't hurting anything; "A historical/societal human construct". Closing admin correctly weighed the relative strengths of these arguments and concluded that the arguments in favor of deletion were stronger. No indication that the close is outside the discretion of the closing admin, no indication of gross error on the part of the closing admin, no new information presented here compelling the overturning of the admin's decision. Otto4711 (talk) 21:30, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You forgot the argument 'for' that the categorization is by a "defining" property. PowersT 22:45, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Supported by the noting of reliable sources, which the arguer well knows is the criterion for notability, not definingness. Otto4711 (talk) 23:32, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Remember, there is absolutely no criteria for "definingness". When categories are concerned, reliable sources can safely be ignored. Alansohn (talk) 01:39, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is no widely-agreed-to positive definition for "definingness" that can be applied in every circumstance. This is not the same as saying there is "absolutely no criteria". There are a raft of criteria for which there's broad consensus and agreement that they constitute part of the negative definition of "definingness". Some of these criteria are found at WP:OCAT. There are even many criteria for which there is broad agreement and consensus that they constitute part of a positive definition of "definingness"—like a person's nationality, for instance. Good Ol’factory(talk) 04:33, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. Delete arguments more compelling. Quantpole (talk) 08:59, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What we have is a case where the closer believes the weight of the argument is sufficient to overcome the numerical !vote. These pop up from time to time at DRV and they represent a difficult area, because whether to overturn or endorse depends on the DRV participant's reading of the debate, and it's hard to characterise such !votes as objective. A common outcome is to overturn, simply because DRV usually prefers a relist to a deletion that's open to legitimate doubt. I want to add that in cases where the closer acts in accordance with the !vote count, it is a great deal easier to endorse them.
I'm satisfied that the closer had a good-faith opinion that "delete" had won the day, and I think the question before us is whether other closers would have read the debate the same way. My personal opinion is "no"—there are other closers who would have read the debate differently—but before actually !voting, I would be grateful for an answer to the question I posed in the other DRV for this day.—S MarshallTalk/Cont 09:06, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The said answer having arrived, I'm going to go with allow recreation.—S MarshallTalk/Cont 13:29, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I would have closed it the same, hence the endorse. The "said answer" referred to the other category, not this one. --Kbdank71 13:35, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn The views at the cfd were 3 delete including the nom, 3 keep, and a variety of comments. How this can possibly be read as consensus to delete escapes me. The closer gave no clear reason for throwing out !votes, just for why he liked his own opinion. the opinion of an admin about the merits of a category is worth no more than anyone else's. The admin can rightly have an opinion about what people 's views were totally unsupported by policy and should be discarded, but he's not the president of the senate, and does not get the casting vote. The only correct close here would have been no-consensus. As this and the above CfD appeal make clear, the system for deciding what do do with categories is broken since we seem to have no clear standards. DGG ( talk ) 16:07, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. The central argument to delete these categories is that whether something is or is not a fad is a subjective judgment. The closing admin points out WP:OC#SUBJECTIVE as well as WP:CAT, which back up that this is an important issue for categories. The arguments on the keep side do attempt to address this issue, but are ultimately unconvincing and clearly insufficient. The main effort against this deletion argument is to note that reliable sources can be used to determine what is and isn't a fad. First of all, this has no bearing on whether the description "fad" is or isn't subjective. This is an attempt to put a relatively objective test in place for inclusion in the category, but it does not change the fact that "fad" is still an objective judgment. Obviously categories must have clear inclusion criteria but that is not the same thing as avoiding subjective defining terms for categories. Looking at this keep argument another way: one can tell it must not be a good argument because any subjective term could be given the same treatment. WP:OC specifically mentions adjectives like "fat," "beautiful," "tall," "famous," et cetera, as examples of subjective terms to be avoided... but this argument for discounting the subjective nature of "fad" would work just as well for discounting the subjective nature of "fat" or "beautiful," yet those are exactly the types of adjectives that lead to categories being deleted all the time. I want to further note that this counterpoint to the keep argument was certainly brought up during the debate. On top of that, consider this: particularly for the term "fad" people often call something a fad when they are really predicting that in the future it will be regarded as a fad, others use the term fad in order to criticize the popularity of something, and still others use it in the truly proper sense, when critically and neutrally analyzing popular culture from a distance. This is my own argument, not in the debate, but it shows why ambiguous, subjective descriptions are best avoided for categories. Mangojuicetalk 17:10, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
