Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/User/Archive 4

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Unspeakable trash

Even a single visit to this page fills me with disgust. How have we amassed such a heap of unspeakable crap? Why is it considered acceptable that this cruft--and most of the categories listed here are cruft if not worst--should remain on Wikipedia unless there is consensus to delete it? The creators certainly didn't wait for consensus before inflicting their monstrous idiocies upon us. --Tony Sidaway 23:24, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I am under the impression that people don't browse these categories. The few who do don't care for deleting them. –Pomte 23:34, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Actually, several of us (myself included) have been going through and proposing a good number of deletions. As you have noted, though, few others bother; the UCfD discussion area has little traffic, and even fewer admins who bother to check in and close discussions once they are eligible for closing. (in fact, there is a codified policy that allows admins to close discussions in which they have participated, as a way of reducing the backlog that exists here.) I have been holding back on a large number of deletions for the languages cats, seeing if we can hammer out some sort of consensus on deleting bogus cats added by userboxen, but with only four commenters on the CfD for Category:User en-us-ca it is not likely that a consensus is going to be forged. Perhaps if a few more users actually participated in the discussions, we might make some progress in clearing the 60+ different categories of English that currently exist, as an example of what I am trying to do. Horologium t-c 00:25, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
This seems to indicate we have the need for a new speedy deletion policy. —ptk✰fgs 00:08, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Speedy deletion is problematic with populated categories because it can leave behind hundreds of redlinks, which makes recreation of categories likely. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 00:21, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
There are bots that take care of this. User:AMbot, for instance. --Tony Sidaway 00:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but doesn't the bot owner have to be aware of the deletion in order for this to occur? A category that is to be deleted per UCfD is listed at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/User so that the bots may empty them. As far as I know, the bots can't/don't do anything with categories that are speedily deleted. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 01:01, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Speedy deleted categories ought to be listed at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/User, if not manually emptied by the admin.
To propose speedy deletion criteria, please comment on the above proposal.
For arguments against the "doesn't facilitate collaboration" argument, see archive 3.
For a huge list of user categories to look for deletion candidates, see my user subpage or look above for a tree. –Pomte 07:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I didn't know that speedily deleted categories could be emptied via the same process as categories deleted via UCfD. I think that should prove useful. Thanks! The proposal at the top of this page seems to reproduce the speedy deletion criteria for categories (which I've always assumed applied to user cats as well) and adds a fourth criterion for "divisive" categories. A similar fourth criterion for "advocacy categories" is currently being discussed here. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 16:38, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, I don't know if it'd be kosher, but the emptying has to be done somehow. –Pomte 16:48, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I guess if it's a valid speedy deletion, there shouldn't be a problem. After all, the method of deletion shouldn't matter to the bot. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 17:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Unless they meet the criteria at WP:CSD, "Speedy" deletions of categories should be listed at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion#Speedy_renaming_and_speedy_merging or Wikipedia:User_categories_for_discussion#Speedy_nominations. After that, they are listed at the associated "working" page. - jc37 09:28, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Balck Falcon's point about a valid speedy deletion is crucial here. We have recently had a rash of user categories speedy deleted in situations where no speedy deletion criteria applied (I restored a few and listed them at WP:UCFD#User_categories_deleted_out_of_process). I hope that the recent rash of out-of-process deletions will not be followed a rash of out-of-process deletion-and-emptyings. A proposal to create a new CSD criterion for advocacy categories has not so far achieved consensus; please could admins respect the process, and not act as if that proposal was already policy? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:56, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Template request

At the Help Desk, an editor posted a request for a Template:UCfD result, similar to Template:Cfd result. See template question at help Desk. I have directed him/her here for a reply as this probably is a better place to address such a request. Please reply below. -- Jreferee (Talk) 15:49, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Template:Cfduserend, I think? - jc37 09:16, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Perfect, thankyou!—arf! 09:52, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:AN/I

Wikipedia:User categories for discussion#User categories deleted out of process - There is now an WP:AN/I discussion. - jc37 01:45, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Direct link to the discussion: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Pages_stuck_in_bureaucratic.2C_wheel-warring_purgatory. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:25, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Concern about the new rash of UCFD nominations

I have a concern about the new rash of UCFD nominations, in that it seems that instead of nominating for deletion user categories that have no potential for collaborative effort, it seems we are starting to eliminate user categories based on the fact that they have potential for social networking, or that we aren't sure of this category's use for encyclopedia-building. As absence of proof isn't the same as proof of absence, I think if we have several people who say they don't see a collaborative merit to the user cat and one who says they see one, the argument who sees merit should trump the others, if the editor can prove his or her point.--Ramdrake 11:04, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The whole collaboration argument is nonsense, as suggested in a previous discussion. User categories can't make this place MySpace; the people can (with their elaborate user pages unrelated to the encyclopedia). If there's a mentality that most if not all user categories should be deleted, then propose all of them at once, with a request for wider community input. –Pomte 06:27, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I think the new string of nominations hits the point of what I have been saying since day 1- It doesn't help to know who "likes", "supports", "watches", etc. - None of those help encyclopedia building. Perhaps now everything will have to be "Interested in", which is what I have been saying the naming conventions should be for a long time. VegaDark (talk) 21:06, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that all categories must strictly help in writing articles. Wikipedia is en encyclopedia written by a community of volunteers. The community aspect is at least as important as the encyclopedia aspect. What harm if the users socialise among themselves? We must remember that all contributors are doing this for purely unselfish reasons. I can't see any problem with becoming a little of MySpace in order to attract and retain more contributors. Loom91 12:41, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
VegaDark, I doubt the wording has much to do with it. –Pomte 22:53, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, wording isn't the question. paternalism is. A few people here do not like categories of this sort and think them useless. Hundreds of wikipedians think otherwise. This is heavy-handed top-down imposition of personal preferences. First, an attempt to delete them by speedy; then, an attempt to delete them by biased close of the discussions. Then , nominating a few dozen more while the deletion review on the earlier batch is still in process. DGG 23:22, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm afraid your argument makes little sense. Wikipedia is not a majority rule, or a democracy. We enforce on the basis of policy, not what "feels good." If you, somehow, feel that Wikipedia needs a few extraneous categories that should squeeze past policy just because they're funny or harmless, then Wikipedia is not the place for you.--WaltCip 04:16, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
My argument is simply that it has become clear that all user categories are under attack under the argument that Wikipedia isn't a social net, no matter whether or not they may have a collaborative value, and no matter whether or not there is a consensus to keep. My point is, if we're going to eventually do away with all user categories, let's just nominate them all at once, and do away with that aspect of Wikipedia. Currently, this piecemeal deletion is wasting everybody's time on the assumption that some of them may have redeemable value, whereas it's becoming clear that consensus about whether to keep these categories (consensus being what Wikipedia is supposed to be founded on) isn't even being respected.--Ramdrake 10:45, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
That is, quite simply, not true. Category:Wikipedians by language was recently kept at UCFD and DRV with strong consensus and I doubt anyone will challenge the validity of Category:Wikipedians by interest. I would argue that most subcategories of the following are also useful: Category:Wikipedians by profession, Category:Wikipedians by Wikipedia status, Category:Wikipedians by Wikipedia collaboration, Category:Wikipedians by location, and others. The categories that are being nominated are primarily those related to "Wikipedians by lifestyle". -- Black Falcon (Talk) 16:59, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Then, what about Category:Wikipedians by religion and Category:Wikipedians by political ideology? These two were closed as delete when there was no consensus to delete (and a strong consensus to keep) and the argument had been made by several editors that they were useful for collaboration; they are both currently undergoing DRVs.--Ramdrake 17:07, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Those two are obviously ones about which we disagree. You consider them useful for collaboration; I don't. That does not mean that all (or even most) user categories are "under attack". -- Black Falcon (Talk) 17:30, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Approval process?

I have this page on my watchlist for some days now and am honestly shocked how many constructive power is wasted on these crap categories. Maybe this has been tried before, but isn't there a possibility to turn the process around and demand approval for user categories before they are installed? It's just sad to see how a number of great Wikipedians have to waste lots of time sorting out completely ridiculous categories, while at the same time we have massive backlogs that could use their help. Malc82 22:12, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Right. Instead of copy and pasting the exact same rationale across dozens of sections, there should be a central discussion on the whole purpose of user categories to settle the matter. The approval process won't stop the nominations of hundreds of user categories that have existed for many months, and inclusion criteria need to be established as the result of discussion anyway for there to be a creepy approval process. –Pomte 22:58, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Possibly the community discussion would decide that none of these should be deleted. It will save considerable effort to freeze the process now. Pomte argues: Delete first, discuss whether we should have deleted afterwards. DGG 23:18, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
I think there should be central discussion, but I doubt that the creators of most of the cats discussed on this page really care. The reason to demand an approval would be that people who nominate a category would then be forced to actually provide a reason why they think a certain category is useful, which would most likely eliminate a large amount of the cats discussed here and thus save time. To DGG, do you honestly think that all (or even most) of these cats serve any purpose? Malc82 23:57, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Aside from any merits (or lack thereof) I think that what you are proposing is not technically feasible. --After Midnight 0001 03:45, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps the simplest solution is to have a "reason for creating category" panel to complete when creating a new category. (Something similar is already required when moving an article.) The new category + rationale could then be reviewed either by an admin or (better still) listed on a "Newly created user categories" page in much the same way that articles are reviewed. The presence of an automatic review would probably cut down the number of creations substantially and would make it easier to intervene before they became too populated. ROGER TALK 07:20, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Good idea, I'm not sure if my "proposal" is technically possible, I only wanted to express my concerns about how much work this project is causing. Imagine how helpful it could be if this was a three-nominations-a-day minor project and the Wikipedians concerned here could instead use their time to patrol changes or cleaning up backlogs. Roger's idea seems very reasonable to me, a handful of soon-experienced admins could then check if new usercats serve a purpose in a matter of minutes. From looking at the nominations here it seems obvious that most of them aren't created to disrupt but because people don't realize what usercats are for (and in which cases Wikiprojects would be better suited). Malc82 08:16, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Deletion Incomplete?

Category: Wikipedians by religion and its subcats were closed as a delete 2 days ago [1], however the subcategory Category:Pastafarian Wikipedians is still existent (and tagged with a link to said CfD). Am I missing something here? Malc82 22:05, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

All of the subcategories still exist and will, I presume, be emptied and deleted in the coming days. Of course, it might be prudent to wait for the result of the deletion review before taking any large-scale action. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 16:40, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I didn't realize there is a deletion review. Thanks for your reply. Malc82 20:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Archive?

I don't know the procedure for archiving xfD cats, so I'd like to ask someone who is qualified to please archive all of the discussions from June 16th and earlier, as they are all closed. There is one open cat on June 18th Category:Dadaist Wikipedians; once it is closed, every discussion from June 21st or earlier will be done. (Dadaist has 8 !votes, 6 for delete and 2 for keep; It might be ready for closure, since it's been listed for 10 days now, and is a contested speedy that should have gone to DRV.) Horologium t-c 02:39, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, June 16 is not ready for archiving yet. The "Wikipedians by political ideology" categories and the subcategories of Category:Wikipedians by religion have not yet been emptied and deleted. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 16:54, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
June 13 is also not ready (Category:Wikipedians who visit countries). I'll list them on the working page now. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 17:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Strike that ... those were nominated on June 22. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 17:12, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
June 15 is also not ready for archiving as it requires some merges to be completed (Category:Wikipedians who prefer HD DVD, Category:Albanian Wikipedians, and others). -- Black Falcon (Talk) 17:19, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

OK. As I stated, I'm not terribly familiar with the archiving procedure here. I (mistakenly) believed that once the discussion was closed the category was ready for archiving. Now I get it; there's a lot more administrative stuff that needs to be accomplished first. However, the big upsurge in nominations has turned this page into a slow-loading monster page. Perhaps we can get the nominators to limit themselves to a few categories per day... (grin) Horologium t-c 18:00, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Cutting back on the number of new nominations will slow the rate of growth of the page (which is currently about 440 KB long), but will not result in a noticeable reduction in size for several days. What we really need is a bot to help with the various closures requiring further attention. Manually editing the userboxes usually removes most entries from a category, but it's often not enough to completely empty it. By the way, the acutal archiving takes place by cutting and pasting text to the appropriate archive page. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 18:37, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I have archived through June 20th. Just because a merge is not done does not mean that it can not be archived. If you don't enact the UCFD closure yourself, you should add what needs to be done at [[2]]. We've had stuff in there still needing to be done for more than a month before, without any problems about archiving the discussions. VegaDark (talk) 04:24, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

  • AMbot and I have cleared the working page. There was a bit of work to clean some of them due to many transclusions that take place with these. There is no problem in archiving closed discussions before the mergers and/or deletions have taken place, as long as the work is logged on WP:CFD/WU for action. One additional thing to watch out for if any DRVs are pending. There are 2 really big UCFDs (politics and religion) which are currently closed as delete that should not be emptied until the DRVs are closed. Those can be placed on the working page, but only if a special note goes there to say not to empty them yet. --After Midnight 0001 20:13, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
I would recommend against placing these two on the page until the DRVs are closed, just to be on the safe side. I wouldn't want to be the one stuck with having to undelete them if they are overturned.--Ramdrake 20:18, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

A radical proposal

(This may not be the best place to hold this discussion, but it is probably the best place to start it, since it ties directly into this whole section of Wikipedia. I'm open to suggestions on other places it should be discussed, but I'd rather see if my idea has any support or any feasibility before bringing it up at, say, the village pump.)

Almost all of the categories that are being run through the UCfD gantlet are categories for which a userbox exists, and many of them appear to have been created with the userbox. My proposal is to remove/transclude categories from ALL userboxen, and then hold some formalized discussion on which categories should be allowed to be re-appended to them. My suggestions would be ISO-defined languages, Wikipedians by location (most likely national or continental in scope; the rest can be expressed through userboxen),and WikiProject affiliation. I'm sure that there are others that should be included, but those three are pretty key categories that are probably not going to be terribly contentious with which to start. Others can be discussed in the UCfD forum, or possibly a new section (User categories for addition).

By severing the ties between the userbox and the category, there are probably an enormous number of categories that will be totally depopulated, which would imply that nobody who does not use the userbox is in the category. Many of the objections to category deletion are "I don't like userboxen"; if a category is empty after the userbox is dissociated, then obviously there is little to no interest in the category outside the userbox itself. Empty categories are speedy deletion candidates under the current rules, which would allow for mass deletion of categories that probably are added to a user page once though a box and then forgotten. My proposal is basically a reversal of the current process, where categories are added through userbox creation and then there is a struggle to remove them; my proposal would move the justification to the editor who wants to add new cats via a userbox.

I'm not trying to be deliberately provocative, but I think the current process is dysfunctional and in need of revision. This is just one editor's suggestion, and I'm curious to see if I am alone in thinking this way.

Horologium t-c 20:48, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Not a bad idea; however, it may happen that a user has chosen to be in the category indepently from wanting the userbox on their page. To resolve that, once a usercat has been dissociated from the userbox, a bot should put a message on the affected users' talk pages telling them what happened, and that they can rejoin the category if they so wish (giving them a decent amount of time to do so - one to two weeks should be enough). Then we take a look at the user categories where the users haven't bothered to rejoin, and those can be speedied in all confidence. How does that sound?--Ramdrake 22:17, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
That is a very good idea. It will allow those who don't have an intense dislike for userboxen to affirm their support. (I fall into that group; I have exactly 11 userboxes on my page, of which only five add user cats—four, once the category deletion for the Political Compass deletion is approved. Of those four, one is for my language, one is for location (United States) and two are not coverered—Category:Wikipedians in Florida and Category:Wikipedian military people, both of which I consider expendable, although I'd like a group for my involvement in the Florida Wikiproject). Is that something that a bot can be directed to do? I don't know the full capabilities of the various bots editors have developed.Horologium t-c 22:34, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
I am undecided on the merits of Hologrium's proposal (although I'm wary of the extra bureaucracy it requires), but I don't think notification is necessary or desirable. User categories aren't that important as to require spamming the talk pages of tens of thousands of affected users. We don't even have a formal notification process to inform editors when an article they've authored has been proposed for deletion! I don't view the current system to be broken and expect this upsurge of nominations to expire soon as most user categories (by interest, by location, by Wikipedia status/collaboration, by profession) are generally considered valid. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 16:22, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
I disagree wholeheatedly with this proposal. If a user adds a userbox with an associated category to their user page they are adding the category. I think a more apt solution would be including discussion on deleting the userbox associated with the category and the category. That way, any of the users who want to be identified by a userbox might actually fight for it. As opposed to decoupling them so as to delete vast numbers of popular categories without the knowledge and/or support of those in the categories. I would sooner support a proposal which would actually notify Users in a given category of its impending deletion. Adam McCormick 01:40, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
I like the idea. I see a few minor problems, but nothing that can't be worked out. --Kbdank71 20:32, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Too much bureaucracy and centralized discussion, just to start. A new process for adding cats to userboxes? A central discussion that will probably magnify the debates? Bad ideas all around. This sounds like it has two of the same problems that the spoiler debate has - one, assuming that users don't really know what they're doing, and two, changing the debate from one which defaults to keep to a debate in which the default will be to delete. Our current discussions are working well enough, even though in my personal opinion it seems that far too many categories at once, as if we've suddenly just noticed that users categorize themselves. There is no rush. There is no emergency. I can't think of any "radical" change here that has ever ended well. --- RockMFR 05:34, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

This seems to be a good idea at first. The ravel of user categories often comes from templates but in general we abstractedly omit them. Sometimes the category is populated due to the userbox, not the cat itself. People add userboxes to their userpages without awareness of automatically categorizing themselves. I'm a bit in favor of the solution of notification-delivering bot but another trouble arouses as the category is excessively heavy-populated, which leads to spamming talkpages. The idea of deleting both userbox and category will cause more trouble, since we have to add double notification that "The discussion for userbox is on WP:MFD/Blah blah" and "The discussion for category is on WP:UCFD/Blah blah. Also, users will find it annoying and reluctantly take part in MFD since the problem lies on the cat, not the ubox. Maybe we should let it the way it is. Another idea: should we add restriction to userbox policy, like "only add category to userbox in case the category is considered to be relevant on Wikipedia..."? AW 17:04, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
No, I am not talking about deleting any userboxes; I wasn't around for the Kelly Martin userbox eradication event, but I have read all about it. I don't hate userboxes, as (for the most part, at least) they stay on userpages. (I even have some on my userpage, although not to the extent that some editors have done.) My objection is to the insane overcategorization that occurs when people add new categories to every userbox they create, or add multiple categories to a userbox, which clogs up the categorization system. I am all for restricting the userbox category: That is primarily what this proposal is about. Horologium t-c 17:14, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Since it's so very easy to slap on a category to a userbox, I don't know that a relatively unknown approval process will have a significant effect. Given the extra bureaucracy involved in creating and maintaining such a process (in addition to WP:UCFD, I think it's probably not worth it. I think a few edit summaries of "removing user categorisation per UCFD consensus" (when applicable, of course) should suffice to send a message to editors who create userbox categories. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 22:05, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Off-topic, but as I just came from editing Bicolor Cat, I keep thinking, "why on earth are we adding or removing felines from userboxes?!" Kuronue 19:40, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Speedy nominations

Is there a specific convention for how to handle speedy nominations on this page? If not, I propose that we treat them as CFD does: take care of and remove them from the UCFD page 48 hours after the nomination if no one objects. Comments? -- Black Falcon (Talk) 16:06, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

That works for me; I was wondering how it was going to be handled. On a related note, I discovered that there is no template for speedy deletion of user cats; there is only one for speedy renames. Consequently, I have not added a tag to my speedy deletion request for the empty cat, since there is no tag to use. Am I missing something? Horologium t-c 16:15, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
{{cfd-user}} is probably good enough, especially since there aren't that many speedy nominations of user categories. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 16:24, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
OK, I added that template. It's not quite the same thing, but the note I left in the talk page should make it clear that it is a speedy.Horologium t-c 16:57, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

If someone contests the speedy request, it should be moved in to the regular UCFD section. If not, it should be closed when an admin reviews it and should be closed as any other UCFD. It should then be moved down out of the speedy section when closed, either to the current day or the day it was originally nominated. VegaDark (talk) 18:07, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Categories that are subcategories of themselves

There are many user categories that also display as subcategories of themselves (see, for instance, Category:Wikipedians interested in Hinduism, which I just created to divert users from Category:Hindu Wikipedians to a more useful category). How is it possible to remove that self-subcategorisation while still transcluding the userbox (to allow for easier updating)? I know this may not be the best place to ask, but I'm hoping someone will know. Thanks, Black Falcon (Talk) 20:19, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Along the same lines, what needs to be done to eliminate bizarre crosses like this: Because of this userbox ({{tl:User:Feureau/UserBox/Proud Americans}}), on this page (Category:Wikipedians in the United States), Category:Wikipedians in the United States, a subcat of Category:Wikipedians by location is also in Category:American Wikipedians, a subcat of Category:Wikipedians by ethnicity and nationality. It's the ONLY category in the ethnicity cat that also loads the location cats, and I am almost positive it is because that userbox adds both Category:Wikipedians in the United States and Category:American Wikipedians. Short of altering the userbox, is there any way to separate the two? Horologium t-c 20:39, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Instead of transcluding it, I would subst: the userbox and remove the category. —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 20:47, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
If the userbox is substed, future changes to it will not be reflected in the version on the category page. Of course, that's a relatively minor problem (after all, these are just userboxes). One thing to be careful about when substing is whether the userbox contains a fair use image as such images may not be used in non-mainspace pages. Anyway, I'll subst it. Thanks, Black Falcon (Talk) 20:52, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
You could also alter the userbox to only add the category to pages in the userspace. VegaDark (talk) 23:17, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Really? How would one do that? Black Falcon (Talk) 23:57, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't remember the exact code, it is somewhat complicated, but I've seen it done before. Someone did it on Template:Taxobox, I believe, if you want to try and figure it out. VegaDark (talk) 00:19, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
I requested assistance at the help desk (see here for the discussion) and have received a promising response. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 01:50, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
OK, the issue is fixed. See [3]. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 02:19, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
If the userbox you are subst'ing has a fair use image, remove the FUI from the template per WP:FU and then subst away. No non-mainspace template should have a fair use image, and even then it is debatably wrong to have a FUI on a template. BigNate37(T) 01:32, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Oh, of course. I just meant someone should always check before substing so that the problem is not spread around. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 01:50, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
I recommend putting the <includeonly> tags outside the #ifeq, for one less check. For the categories themselves, feel free to use the convenient {{User category}}, which will also un-self-categorize from userboxes that use the nocat parameter to hide the category (can be updated to use #ifeq, of cocurse). –Pomte 18:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Thinking of a userbox

I'm thinking of whipping up a new userbox, one that automatically categorizes users into Category:Wikipedians interested in joining categories. What do you think? :P BigNate37(T) 08:08, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Would that be a subcategory of Category:Uncategorised Wikipedians or Category:Insufficiently categorised Wikipedians? ;) -- Black Falcon (Talk) 02:46, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Category:Wikipedians by interest, naturally. That appears to be the new catchall cruft category. :\ Horologium t-c 03:05, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Category:Uncategorised Wikipedians. Now that's funny. --Kbdank71 14:54, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Naming convention for Wikipedians by WikiProject categories

I recently encountered a user category that needs to be renamed and made a subcategory of Category:Wikipedians by WikiProject, but do not know what the new name should be. There are currently 486 subcategories of Category:Wikipedians by WikiProject, but there is no clear naming convention for them. There are two formats, neither of which is dominant:

  1. Category:WikiProject X members – 236 subcats (48.6%)
  2. Category:WikiProject X participants – 250 subcats (51.4%)

Before someone tags over 200 pages for renaming, I propose that we arrive at a standard naming convention for subcategories of the category. Which is better: "members" or "participants"? -- Black Falcon (Talk) 07:08, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

We've seen this debate before. I would suggest using "members" because "participants" implies a continuing activity level that may or may not exist. Members implies the one-time effort to join the group, with no further activity required. Judging by the activity level in some of the groups (or lack thereof), passivity is the rule and not the exception. Horologium t-c 11:51, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
No need for a convention. See /Archive 3#Category:Wikipedians by WikiProject, 2 sections below that, and the UCFD. –Pomte 18:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Hmm ... I think I'll follow your comment in that thread: "It's trivial and different projects may decide on different category names." I suppose there's no point spending time on this. As for the one mistitled user cat ... I'll nominate it for renaming if the WikiProject survives (it's purpose has been questioned and the project contains only 2 members). -- Black Falcon (Talk) 18:31, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Deletion today compatibility fix

Please extrapolate each day's listings into a one-day log file, the way the rest of the XfDs do. Otherwise, this XfD is not compatible with Wikipedia:Deletion today and can only be given as a link instead of a transclude. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:54, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

How many people use Wikipedia:Deletion today, and do they want arguably the least productive deletion process clogging up that already massive page? –Pomte 20:59, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I've been following xFD for ages now, and I just found out it existed by this topic. Although, I agree converting the format would be nice, as our current method of archiving is less than ideal, considering the increased traffic we've seen as of late. ^demon[omg plz] 22:17, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Pomte. There isn't enough traffic on UCfD and the pages involved aren't important enough to justify daily logs. Check the archives and you will find times where there wasn't a single new nomination for weeks (e.g., early June). The upsurge in nominations that we saw in the latter part of June is exhibiting a clear a downward trend, with a number of days in July seeing only one nomination. Black Falcon (Talk) 22:34, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
What harm can you possibly see it doing? If you really think this won't work, an alternative would be to have all of the nominations and their date headings in a transclude, without the page introductory and see-also material; or even noinclude those parts. Just some way to make this work with WP:DELT. Oh, as for WP:DELT being "clogged" with UCfD's, the point of DELT is to list all of the deletion debates (period). It would be Wikipedia:Some but not all deletions today otherwise. The "clog" factor won't matter; I'll be installing show/hide code shortly. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:06, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
I seem to be doing most of the closing and archiving on UCFD these days. I have no objection to going to a page per day format. It would reduce the time spent archiving and would also make it easier to link to the discussions in edit summaries and deletion logs, since the discussions would no longer move to the archive, just stay on the page. My only concern is that a) there are periods when this xFD will go silent for a time, but as noted, there is no harm in that and b) I don't really want to take the time to set this all up right now myself. I think there is more value in fixing MFD first, but this could probably be done also. --After Midnight 0001 15:59, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Babel category levels

Moved from UCFD concerning Category:Wikipedians by writing system. - jc37 10:06, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment - Neutral to the discussion. Just a note: the "5" level of babel has considered "controversial" by some. You may wish to consider proposing merging to level 4 instead.
Response Well, that is a separate issue from this, and should be handled separately. Right now, the verbiage in the heb and heb-N userbox is virtually identical to what is in the hebr-5 userbox. Merging hebr-5 to hebr-4 can be addressed at a later stage. In any case, there are already a lot of -5 cats on en.wikipedia, and while I know that they are deprecated on meta, they seem to be established here for better or for worse. (There are 19 -5 categories in Category:Wikipedians by writing system, for example. That does not include the -N cats, of which there are almost as many.) If we do merge hebr-5 to hebr-4, a handful of pages will have to be changed twice, but I'd rather go incrementally on this, since a few of the relatively innocuous and minor changes I proposed earlier have generated a great deal of discussion. I started with the discussions I thought would be least controversial, which leads me to believe that it's going to get interesting in here shortly. (wry grin) Horologium t-c 00:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
A couple thoughts. First is that the userbox could be edited, regardless of numeric level. But that aside, (Since you're already going through all the language cats), for the writing systems cats, I think all the alphabet cats should be merged down to a single cat (each) named Category:Wikipedians who understand x. I mean, seriously, either you do recognise the characters the greek alphabet or you don't (or the hebrew, or the arabic, or the russian, or whatever). Glyphs are a whole other matter (whether Chinese or Heiroglyphic) since they connote language differently than an "alphabet", and we may benefit by the babel system in that case. (While I realise that this is mostly outside the scope of this discussion, I just thought I'd share my thoughts, since we were "around" the topic : ) - jc37 09:42, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
You'll not get any argument from me on your proposal to merge all of the alphabetical cats into one for each writing system. However, it *is* a separate (and possibly more contentious) issue from my proposal to merge the two heb cats, which is a simple merge of redundant categories. I only discovered them because they were in the languages section, right beneath [User he], which is the preferred (ISO 639-1) cat for Hebrew.
Merging each writing system into single cats is something that I will end up proposing once I get done with all of the language cats. (I'm not done yet, just waiting for the dust cloud to settle before beginning the next round.) FWIW, I would also consider the IPA in the "glyphs" category, because of the baffling array of characters that don't conform to any alphabet; there are definite levels of understanding with that bad boy. There are also a couple of (potentially controversial) merges, and a fistful of categories that are empty save the userbox templates (another user who went bonkers creating userboxes with unnecessary categories). All in all, plenty to keep the admins who close UCfD nominations busy for a while longer. <ducking and running> Horologium t-c 19:15, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
While we're on the subject of the babel system, I'd like to note (again) that there are many userboxes which categorise Wikipedians into a parent cat as well as one of its subcats. I boldly adjust these whenever I find them. However, besides that, in the babel system, the "base level" category should be considered a "parent cat", and so should only be populated by subcats. Or in other words, if a babel language cat has numeric subcats, then the parent cat should contain only subcats. However, this would definitely require the use of a bot. - jc37 10:34, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Did someone say bot? There are a few quirks that I am working around right now, but once they get settled, I could give it a go. --After Midnight 0001 12:43, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
There are two problems with jc37's proposal, one of which is a structural problem that cannot be fixed by bot, and it affects almost every language userbox. The base (unnumbered) language userboxes have verbiage which states that the user is a native speaker of that language, which is why many of them double categorize users into the base cat and the -N cat. (This was what happened with the Old English -N cat [User ang-N] that was killed yesterday.) I myself use the base English userbox, because I am a native speaker of English, and the box categorizes me into both Category:User en and Category:User en-N. Requiring users to select a numbered category for their language would be insanely difficult (you'd have to remove user cats from tens of thousands of user pages) and would require the deletion or editing of about 300 userboxes (one for each base language in Category:Wikipedians by language, which still contains a few languages buried in subcats), and doing so would create a deafening uproar. While I think it is a good idea, implementation would be a nightmare, a headache for admins, and would probably cause some crazed fanatic to RFC the process, upset at what is a relatively trivial change to each userpage.
The other problem is that people disregard (or in some cases flaunt) convention by deliberately placing themselves in categories that are not meant to be populated by individual users. There are users categorized in the übercats Category:Wikipedians, Category:Wikipedians by language and Category:Wikipedians by religion; that last one is probably deliberate, as he is an experienced editor with a snarky note in the code of his userpage regarding his obstinate retention of deleted categories. There is nothing in place from preventing users from recategorizing themselves in the parent language cats all over again, which presents a bit of a headache for maintenance, although I suppose it would be possible to construct a bot whose only purpose is to go through and patrol the language cats, which seems (to me) to be a bit over-the-top. Horologium t-c 13:52, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, first, there actually is such a bot : )
Second, if you're saying the the "base" language cats are for "native" speakers, then perhaps all the -N cats should be merged, and all the number level cat members removed from the base cats? - jc37 16:34, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Category:User Wikitext

What would be the appropriate merge target for Category:User Wikitext? Is it Category:User html? Thanks, Black Falcon (Talk) 20:23, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Note: Wikitext. - jc37 16:34, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Hmm ... I didn't realise that it was distinct from HTML. Thanks for the link. Black Falcon (Talk) 16:39, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Empty language categories

I've encountered a number of language categories that are empty save for one or more userboxes. I don't mean that merely the category for one level (e.g. User en-3) is empty, but rather that the entire category structure contains no actual users. See, for instance, Category:User gil (Gilbertese language) and Category:User sg (Sango language). Is it worth nominating/deleting these (any deletion would, of course, be without prejudice to recreation)? They are technically valid categories except for the fact that they serve no real purpose and only create clutter in Category:Wikipedians by language. It seems to me that some of these may have been created preemptively ... something which I think should be discouraged. Any thoughts on the matter? One possibility that came to mind was to speedily delete these categories (per CSD G6) without altering the templates; that way, when someone uses the template, the category will show up on Special:Wantedcategories and will be recreated. – Black Falcon (Talk) 21:40, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

The only disadvantage to deleting properly categorized languages is the potential for creation of improperly categorized languages, using the (now available) letter combination. Other than that, I don't see why not. Horologium t-c 12:44, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see what harm they are causing. When someone does get around to using them, it is likely they'll mess up the category creation, and/or it will lay around in the wanted categories list for months. --- RockMFR 19:27, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Latn

Can someone please look at {{User iso15924}}? From a quick glance, I think that this is preventing the emptying of the Latn categories and I can't afford any more time right now to sort it out. --After Midnight 0001 11:30, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that the key is in editing Template:User iso15924/name to remove the row for "Latn". However, I'm not sure what that will do to the userboxes. – Black Falcon (Talk) 20:27, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
No, actually, I think that it is in {{User iso15924}} where is coded [[Category:User {{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]][[Category:User {{{1}}}-{{{2}}}|{{PAGENAME}}]] just before the bottom. If "Latn" is passed in as the parameter, it is going to categorize it as such. Whatever is in that parameter will result in a category. You should be able to test it by placing {{User iso15924|blahblah|2}} on a test page. --After Midnight 0001 23:31, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedians by interest

This category and its subcategories is growing into an incoherent mass of categories. Mostly apparently due to the UCFD discussions of the last month or so in which the preference appears to have been to delete/rename the verb in nominated user cats to "interested in".

But whatever the reason, this needs to become organised in some way.

I suggest that we follow an organisational scheme similar to that of Wikipedia:Categorical index.

(Incidentally, having an overview page such as that for the user categories would be awesome, and, I would presume, quite the boon for navigation.)

Any thoughts? - jc37 11:27, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

We already have an index of sorts; it's called Category:Wikipedians, and it provides a complete breakdown of all user cats, if one follows the tree all the way through.
As a side note, there are several people in that category who have added themselves in contravention of established policy. Could we have an admin remove them? I know that I can do it myself, but I'm just some guy, as opposed to an admin who carries something resembling community support behind him (or her). Horologium t-c 17:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, we don't. We have several general groupings, but anyway, as I mentioned above, I'm talking about Category:Wikipedians by interest and its subcats. - jc37 11:03, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
I think we need to get over the idea that Wikipedia is not a social network. It is a huge website with tens of thousands of regular editors. Those users are parts of subgroups outside of Wikipedia, and they do form networks within Wikipedia, to try and build some sense of shared community out of a sea of users. The question is whether or not this is a good thing.
If you think that focussing on building an encyclopedia requires excluding forms of social networking that are not directly related to that, then it is a bad thing. However, I do not believe these goals are mutually exclusive. I think it is just fine for users to join Wikipedia because people of similar mind are here, and one good way in which they can see that is because there is a category of Wikipedians related to their interests. I get a warm fuzzy feeling every time I look at Category:Furry Wikipedians. It encourages me to bring more editors to the site, to expand the presence of my group on Wikipedia; and it encourages other members of that subgroup who see it to sign up as users and join it.
Is there any guarantee that those people will participate actively in Wikipedia? No, but there's a significantly higher chance that they will than they would if they remained anonymous. Once they have a user page, they are part of the community, not faceless readers. This offers opportunities for interaction and involvement (e.g. by the welcoming committee). It is no coincidence that the first thing on a user page is often a userbox. We should be looking at these user categories as a means of attracting and keeping registered users, not as a useless drain on resources. GreenReaper 10:58, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
The Welcoming Committee? Don't tell me Wikipedia has acquired a self-styled Welcoming Committee. That's very depressing. --Tony Sidaway 11:11, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Welcoming committee. WP:WELCOME. Been around for a while. However, most only welcome new users, so people have to have a reason to make a user account first. GreenReaper 11:16, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Deleting votes/consensus opinion

There is absolutly no reason admins should be deleting anyone's "vote" unless it's really out of bounds such as racist, profane, etc. To do so is vandalism and defeats the purpose of the process. I find "Soandso Wikipedians" categories to be useless and of no value on Wikipedia and when I state such, I don't expect someone to just totally delete my damn vote! -- ALLSTAR ECHO 17:56, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Who deleted your vote? Can you paste the vote here so we can see if there was actually any reason to delete it? Thanks
Equazcion • argue/improves • 22:04, 10/24/2007
No, just nevermind it. I've been through it on the Admin noticeboard/incidents (which got deleted too) and the consensus was I'm a jackass, that all I was doing with my "votes" was trying to prove a point and that I was disrupting everything so I'm done with it and moved on. Can't win against a gang of admins. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 22:12, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
You apparently missed part of the point of the discussion; several of the involved admins are !voting the SAME WAY as you, but recognize that your sudden interest in the group was spurred by the deletion of a group of categories that were important to you, and your incivility (especially in the first group of edits you made) was unacceptably incivil. Note also that in the few discussions I am currently involved in I have !voted for deletion as well, but without the incivility and with individual rationales, not bot-like repetition. Horologium t-c 22:16, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
There was nothing incivil in my "votes", only valid assertion that WP is not a social network, the people in those "InsertTitleHere Wikipedians" user cats are not notable and no one cares who or what you are just how you edit.. that's not incivil, that's valid opinion and reasoning for deletion. WHile it does seem that my participation in UCFDs arose because a slew of user cats I wanted to keep were deleted, I have stated on my talk page that in fact I now agree with even the deletion of the user cats I previously didn't want deleted. I know it's hard to believe but it's in good faith, something the ganged-up admins refused to believe or even think possible, thereby violating good faith themselves. The fact is, it's done, it's over with, I'm moving on. And since an admin missed deleting this discussion here when he/she was deleting everything else related, hopefully one will come along and delete this section too, because it's over. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 22:28, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Here's the diff of the WP:AN/I discussion being deleted. And see this diff showing the user's talk page discussion as well. - jc37 22:20, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

and thank you Jc37 for once again violating good faith. Now, ONE MORE DAMN TIME - it's over, I've moved on, end of discussion, drop it! GEESH! -- ALLSTAR ECHO 22:28, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Yeah I have to say, I sure wish I'd been around for that ANI discussion, cause this is rather disappointing to hear from admins. What happened to assuming good faith? I mean, I agree that it appears Allstarecho has some issues he needs to deal with, but that's neither here nor there. You can't psychoanalyze a person and call his edits unhelpful as a result, unless there's something wrong with the edits themselves. Here's the deleted !vote:
"Strong Delete Has nothing to do with writing an encyclopedia, the people in the category are not notable, this is not a social networking site, and no one cares what you are or who you support just how you edit."
I honestly don't see anything wrong with that comment, and I don't see it as all that different from most of the comments we get here from deletionists. It might be a bit sarcastic in tone, maybe a bit transparently made by someone who really thinks the opposite and is pissed off, but the comment itself isn't especially disruptive; this isn't anything like listing a bunch of things for deletion just to make a point. This is just someone who, for all intents and purposes, disregarding our analysis of his psyche, thinks user categories should be deleted. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Equazcion • argue/improves • 22:39, 10/24/2007

And yes, administrators close discussions all the time. In this case, I think User:Steel359 was merely attempting to reduce further disruption. You may wish to check out allstarecho's talk page to see the original version of that comment, and more information in general. That said, allstarecho has said several times he wishes this discussion "over", so perhaps it would be a good idea to just "drop it" and allow him to "move on" as he agreed to do. - jc37 22:56, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I know they do, but that doesn't mean it's a practice supported by any policy. I will check out that page, but in the meantime I'd appreciate it if this discussion were not closed or deleted. Thanks.
Equazcion • argue/improves • 23:06, 10/24/2007
Again with the "disruption" accusations. And I didn't "agree" to anything. More like forced to with fear of being banned, which means nothing to vandals and anons but quite a bit to people like me who actually have an editing life on WP. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 23:09, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm confused, are you saying the !vote as I've quoted it is not the original comment? If so, can you show me a diff of the original? Thanks.
Equazcion • argue/improves • 23:10, 10/24/2007
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