• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 February 25#Category:Rulers ran from 4 February 2023 to 2 July 2023. It became much, much larger than I had anticipated, but we also made much, much more progress than I could have imagined over the course of 6 months. It has been procedurally closed as no consensus for now, but closer suggest[ed] a copypasta of the changing parts into a new project/userspace page, so that's what I'm here to do. This solution is fine by me, actually. It's true it turned into a "project" of sorts, not really to be hosted at CfD anymore. But it's mostly a temporary process that will conclude eventually, and that only I regularly update and document the progress of. So this is not a project I want to trouble other WikiProjects with.

I won't copypaste everything, only the two sections that I still updated regularly, namely "Rulers update 3 emerging conventions" and "Rulers update 4 current nominations". Feel free to leave comments under "Comments", and treat that as you would treat a talk page. I'd like to heartily thank all those who have participated so far, supporters and critics alike, who often overlapped in specific instances. I've learnt a lot along the way, and am grateful for that. Let's get the job done. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:58, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Update/overview: As a result of the feedback I have received in this CfD (thank you all!), especially the fact that Category:Rulers was previously deleted in 2007, as well as a further exploration of the category tree and reading the previous discussions at Category talk:Child rulers and Category talk:Socialist rulers, my understanding of the situation has improved. Right now, I think it's better to merge Category:Rulers with Category:Political office-holders by role. Deleting it orphans its subcategories (which I now understand to be a valid objection by Marcocapelle), and risks that it will be recreated once again (as it was 2013 after being deleted in 2007), and the problematic nature of the terminology and categorisation resurfacing again in the future. Making it a redirect prevents this. I don't know if I can change proposal halfway through a nomination, or if I need to retract it first and start anew? (Maybe @Marcocapelle: can explain this?)

Either way, as it has just been relisted, I'd like to give an overview of the possible solutions that have so far been discussed (and sometimes already agreed) for newcomers here (this is also intended to address the future of the subcategories:

1. Merge Category:Rulers with Category:Political office-holders by role ("Category:Rulers" becomes a redirect).
2. Merge Category:Rulers by continent with Category:Political office-holders by continent.
3. Merge Category:Rulers by religion with Category:Monarchs by religion‎ (seems to cover all people in it, except perhaps a Buddhist warlord who wasn't necessarily a "monarch") OR split into Category:Heads of state by religion‎ and Category:Heads of government by religion‎ (the latter will most likely be empty for a while). Note that per Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 126#RfC: Religion in biographical infoboxes, we should not categorise living heads of state/govt by religion at all, unless it's relevant and sourced: Categories regarding religious beliefs (or lack of such) or sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question, and the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to their public life or notability, according to reliable published sources. Deleted
4. Rename Category:Child rulers to Category:Child monarchs. Renamed
5. Rename Category:Legendary rulers to Category:Legendary monarchs. (Unless someone has ever heard of a "legendary (elected) president" or something, but all people in this category are described as monarchs, usually "kings"). Renamed
6. Merge Category:Lists of rulers with Category:Lists of political office-holders. Both are already in Category:Lists of office-holders.
7. Rename Category:Women rulers to Category:Female political office-holders. There is already a Category:Lists of female office-holders (which includes non-political positions), and it follows the logic of the established parent categories, applies the adjective "female" rather than the noun "women", and is broad enough to encompass non-hereditary positions (even though List of female hereditary rulers is presented as the "main article". I suppose List of elected and appointed female heads of state and government could aspire to the same status for this category). Result: Keep. Category:Female political office-holders created as separate category for elected or appointed political offices (i.e. women who were not queens regnant or regents).
8. Rename Category:Göktürk rulers to Category:Göktürk khans (or Category:Göktürk khagans), compare Category:Khans and Category:Mongol khans). Same goes for Category:Xueyantuo rulers, rename to Category:Xueyantuo khans. Renamed
9. Rename Category:Rulers of Azcapotzalco to Category:Tlatoque of Azcapotzalco. It is already in Category:Tlatoque, alongside Category:Tlatoque of Ecatepec, Category:Tenochca tlatoque, Category:Tlatoque of Texcoco, and Category:Tlatoque of Tlatelolco. Renamed
10. Merge Category:Sixteen Kingdoms rulers with its parent Category:Sixteen Kingdoms royalty; there is not enough distinction. Before discussing the subcategories, I think it's worth noting that English (and other Western) literature tends to be inconsistent in translating Chinese noble titles. For the Sixteen Kingdoms, a lot of "rulers" carried or claimed the title 王 ("wang", see en:wikt:王#Definitions), which is variously primarily translated as [1] "king, monarch", or [2] "duke, prince". This is inconsistency is reflected in the subcats of Category:Sixteen Kingdoms rulers: "Former Liang rulers‎, Northern Liang princes‎, Sixteen Kingdoms emperors‎, Sixteen Kingdoms regents, Southern Liang (Sixteen Kingdoms) princes‎, Western Liang (Sixteen Kingdoms) dukes‎, Western Qin princes‎, Western Yan rulers". I haven't checked, but apart from "emperors" and "regents", I suspect that each of these catnames was based on the Mandarin Chinese term 王 "wang". Renaming all of them to "royalty", just like the grandparent category, seems like a good pragmatic solution to avoid having to choose an exact translation of 王 "wang" and checking each item in each (sub)category if it applies in each specific case. Renamed Category:Sixteen Kingdoms monarchs.
    :Rename Category:Former Liang rulers to Category:Former Liang royalty Result: Renamed to Category:Monarchs of Former Liang
    :Merge Category:Western Yan rulers with its subcat Category:Western Yan emperors, rename it Category:Western Yan monarchs.
    Result: Renamed & upmerged.
11. Rename Category:Jurchen rulers to Category:Jurchen monarchs.Upmerge to Category:Rulers per the example of its recently upmerged parent Category:Tungus rulers, see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 March 6#Category:Jurchen rulers. "Jurchen" refers to the Jurchen people, and the three examples in this category are Wuyashu (a Jurchen chieftain), Nurhaci (a Jurchen khan) and Category:Jin dynasty (1115–1234) emperors (a Jurchen imperial dynasty), so it's rather arbitrarily lumping people together. Renamed Category:Jurchen chieftains
    Same goes for parent Category:Tungus rulers. Merged
12. Rename Category:Mahan confederacy rulers to Category:Mahan confederacy monarchs per List of Mahan confederacy monarchs. Renamed
13. Rename Category:Maya rulers to Category:Maya monarchs. Alternative titles: "ajaws" or "ahaus", the endonymic title for most Maya monarchs, Renamed Category:Maya monarchs. though in Iximche they apparently had a Ahpo Xahil or Ahpo Sotzʼil Renamed Category:Kings of Iximche. The article Maya rulers uses "ruler" and "kings" interchangeably, but usually without sources (most articles about Maya royalty appear to be poorly sourced). Renamed Maya monarchs. Same applies to Category:Rulers of Yaxchilan. Renamed Category:Kings of Yaxchilan. One problem, however, is that certain unnamed monarchs have been numbered by scholars as Ruler #[number], e.g. 23rd Ruler, in Category:Rulers of Tikal and others. Alt renamed Category:Monarchs of Tikal. I don't know how strongly embedded this convention is in scholarship, but we might use this as an exception to the general rule (no pun intended) that the term "ruler" should be avoided. In that case, this category and its subcats do not need to be renamed. Nevertheless, they would fit in the Category:Heads of state of former countries, alongside e.g. Category:German monarchs, and do not need Category:Rulers as a parent. Renamed Category:Maya monarchs.
14. Rename Category:Rulers of Ladakh to Category:Monarchs of Ladakh OR Category:Ladakhi monarchs. All people in it reigned over either Maryul/Kingdom of Ladakh (described as a "kingdom" or "monarchy" with "kings" or "rulers") or the Namgyal dynasty of Ladakh (opening sentence: The Namgyal dynasty was a dynasty whose rulers were the monarchs of the former kingdom of Ladakh that lasted from 1460 to 1842 and were titled the Gyalpo of Ladakh." Well that's 5 different terms we could play with, but let's just go for "monarchs", shall we?) Renamed
15. Merge Category:Rulers of Lampang into parent Category:Lanna royalty; it has only 1 item. Kept
16. Rename Category:Rulers of the Kingdom of Marwar to Category:Kings of Marwar. What other "rulers" would a kingdom have but kings? Renamed
17. Merge Category:Rulers of Yemen with Category:Political office-holders in Yemen. Almost completely overlap. Result: Bold manual merge with Category:Monarchs of Yemen (also on Commons).
18. Split Category:Fascist rulers into Category:Fascist heads of state (e.g. Victor Emmanuel III of Italy) and Category:Fascist heads of government (e.g. Benito Mussolini). Result: Deleted.
19. Split Category:Socialist rulers into Category:Socialist heads of state (e.g. Wilhelm Pieck) and Category:Socialist heads of government (e.g. Otto Grotewohl). Result: Deleted.
20. Split Category:Communist rulers into Category:Communist heads of state (e.g. Hu Jintao) and Category:Communist heads of government (e.g. Wen Jiabao). Result: Deleted.
21. Rename Category:Belarusian rulers to Category:Belarusian princes (because all entries are princes of Polotsk, Minsk, Turov and the Grand Duke of Lithuania) and place it in Category:Princes by country. (I propose to discuss the future of List of rulers of Belarus separately because it is complicated). Result: Deleted (for being anachronistic).
22. Rename Category:Rulers of Florence and to Category:Heads of state of Florence. Renamed Category:Heads of state of Florence. Create a separate Category:Gonfalonieri of Justice. Not done (so far). This covers the de facto de' Medici dynasty 1434–1569 period (known as "Lord of Florence" 1434–1494 and 1498–1532, and as "Duke of Florence" 1532–1569). As its highest-ranking member, the Gonfaloniere of Justice may be considered the head of the Florentine government, the Signoria of Florence. During the absence of the de Medici' in 1494–1498, they functioned as both head of state and govt, so Girolamo Savonarola and Piero Soderini may be categorised as both, but all other Gonfalonieri of Justice only as heads of government of Florence. To keep it short and simple, I would suggest creating a Category:Gonfalonieri of Justice. Let's have a separate discussion on what to do with List of rulers of Tuscany (I think it's too complicated to be handled here, but I'm leaning towards a split, because there is a disconnect between the Margravate of Tuscany and the Republic of Florence of several centuries, and they are essentially two different states). Renamed Category:Heads of state of Florence.
23. Let's have a separate discussion on what to do with List of rulers of the Netherlands (I think its contents should be split out and merged into other existing articles such as List of monarchs of the Netherlands, Count of Holland etc.). Result: Renamed Lists of rulers in the Low Countries (for now), removed WP:REDUNDANTFORKs, connected it to nl:Lijsten van heersers in de Lage Landen and made it a list of lists just like it.
24. Rename ALL categories and lists with "state leaders" in them to say "heads of state and government" instead, per Talk:List of current heads of state and government/Archive 1#Rename. The parent article List of state leaders was renamed on 28 June 2007‎ to List of current heads of state and government. This applies inter alia to all lists mentioned in Lists of state leaders by century and Category:Lists of state leaders by year. This is such a huge operation that I propose that a bot will be tasked to carry it out.
25. Rename Category:Rulers by century (Category:Rulers by millennium Result: Deleted) and their subcategories in the same way by replacing "rulers" with "heads of state and government"; I also recommend that a bot do this. I do not think it's worth manually checking which ones of these were heads of state, heads of govt or both simultaneously, just to make a point about "ruler" being too vague a term. "heads of state and government" has been an acceptable alternative for the equally vague "state leaders" since 2007, I think this is worth following in this case.
26. Create Category:National leaders as a redirect to Category:Political office-holders by role. Done.

Split Category:Families of national leaders into Category:Families of heads of state and Category:Families of heads of government. Split Alternately, we could keep them in joint categories named "heads of state and government" as in previous examples. Or we could put them more directly under the parent category as Category:Families of political office-holders.

The same goes for its subcategories such as Category:Children of national leaders and Category:Parents of world leaders, as well as Category:Official social partners of national leaders. Split Alternately, we could keep them in joint categories named "heads of state and government" as in previous examples.

(Commentary) As both Fayenatic london and Rathfelder pointed out at Category talk:Socialist rulers#Opposed renaming proposal, "Leaders" is far too vague, or may not be clear, and Kbdank71 implied the same about "national leaders". I demonstrated with the example of Belarus what a mess that creates, and that it is just as vague and WP:NONDEFINING as "ruler", in practice awkwardly lumping "head of state" and "head of government" into another redundant category. (The only difference seems to be that "ruler" is more commonly applied to heads of state/govt in monarchies, and "national leaders" is more commonly applied to heads of state/govt in republics, but in practice, all these four terms are highly interchangeable. The fact that Category:National leaders doesn't didn't even exist yet should have been a reason to question the existence of Category:Families of national leaders and its subcategories).

I'll update this overview when there are more developments. I still don't think we need to figure out everything to do with the subcategories here yet, but at least these examples can give a clear indication in which direction we could be heading for a clearer and more accurate, logical and useful organisation of categories, articles and lists. I'd appreciate any further suggestions, additions or perhaps objections to potential issues. I'm confident we can figure this out together. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 15:49, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: WP:SOVEREIGN "rulers" below the rank of king are still "monarchs": #5 European monarchs whose rank is below that of king (e.g., grand dukes, electors, dukes, princes), should be at the location "{Monarch's first name and ordinal}, {Title} of {Country}". Examples: Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria, Jean, Grand Duke of Luxembourg. In several past and ongoing Rulers CfRs, the argument is made that e.g. "dukes" should not be categorised as "monarchs" because they are not "kings", but this guideline shows that they are "monarchs" nonetheless. I've also frequently invoked the fact that the List of German monarchs in 1918 identifies Emperors, Kings, Grand Dukes and Dukes as "monarchs", even though Grand Dukes and Dukes are below the royal level. This is not a valid argument to keep "rulers" in catnames. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 10:45, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Note on "queens regnant" versus "queens consort": A long-established understanding on English Wikipedia is that the word "queen" is ambiguous, because it can mean a queen regnant (= a female monarch, the female equivalent of king (regnant)), or a queen consort (the wife of a king (regnant), the female equivalent of a king consort or prince consort). As part of the "Rulers" process, an effort has been undertaken to further split existing "queens" categories into the existing trees of Category:Queens regnant (created 13 March 2005) and Category:Queens consort (created 2 July 2007). (See Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_April_8#Category:Queens_of_Majapahit, for example). The same goes for empresses into Category:Empresses regnant (created 15 March 2009‎) and Category:Empresses consort (created 11 April 2020). To aid in this process, I've created further categories for Category:Duchesses regnant and Category:Countesses regnant. Here it should be noted that unless otherwise stated, "duchesses" and "countesses" were consorts, not regnant, and thus not "rulers". The relevant case here is that of Category:Duchesses of Milan, all of whom have turned out to be consorts, and thus don't need to be identified as "Duchesses consort of Milan". Especially in the Category:Counts tree, countesses regnant are included in Counts of Foo categories, in these cases disregarding MOS:GNL, but always explicitly saying so in the adjoining Countesses of Foo categories. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 10:26, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Marcocapelle raised a question on whether to categorise "consort" as an "occupation", and thus whether e.g. subcats of Category:Queens consort should be placed in the Category:Women by occupation tree. [1]. Although there is no fixed set of tasks dynastic consorts across the world have been tasked to do, they generally do include (presuming a female consort for the sake of argument):

  • Aiding her husband in his reign of the realm (in a manner not unlike a First Lady would as wife of a president, but sometimes as regent in his absence or incapacitation, which is unheard of in presidential systems);
  • Having sex with him and producing legitimate offspring i.e. potential dynastic successors;
  • Raising those children to adulthood and preparing them for the succession;
  • Succeeding her husband, either
    • as queen/empress/princess/etc. regnant; or (more commonly)
    • as regent until the heir apparent/presumptive comes of age (if not already).

  When splitting these categories, I found it extremely common in countries/cultures around the world for a queen etc. consort to turn into a women regent or sometimes a queen regnant upon her husband's death, or temporary regent in his absence or incapacitation (illness, injury, missing in action, captured in combat etc.). From that perspective, a consort is not just "the wife of"; she fulfills an important and perhaps even powerful role at the court, depending on circumstances. Therefore, I think we should categorise it as an "occupation", exactly because of the central role they play in producing dynastic successors, and can become regents whenever there is no de facto reigning monarch. Consorts are like "regents on stand-by". Aciram correctly pointed out that consorts and regents are not the same, but consorts are commonly presumed to become regents whenever the need arises.

  We might compare it to how being a crown prince itself may not necessarily be an "occupation", but it's like a "monarch on stand-by". Category:Crown princes is in the Category:Men by occupation tree:

  • Category:Men by occupation
    • Category:Princes
      • Category:Heirs to the throne
        • Category:Heirs apparent
          • Category:Crown princes

  So I would do the same for consorts. NLeeuw (talk) 13:38, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  PS: I might add that there are times and places where the consort has been constitutionally automatically designated as the regent or even the next monarch upon their spouse's death. E.g the Kingdom of Holland's 1806 Constitution stipulated in Article 25 that Bij den dood des Konings zal het toevoorzigt over de Persoon van den minderjarigen Koning steeds toebetrouwd zijn aan de Koninginne Moeder ("On the death of the King, the custody of the Person of the minor King shall always be entrusted to the Queen Mother") and Article 23 that Ingeval van minderjarigheid, behoort het Regentschap van regtswege aan de Koningin. ("In case of minority, the Regency belongs to the Queen by right."). Even though Article 19 stated that only male descendants of His Majesty Louis Napoleon were to succeed the Crown of Holland by primogeniture, and women were explicitly permanently excluded, the queen consort was the default royal custodian of, and regent for, the next king for the duration of his minority. Article 48 even foresees the "widow's money" (lijfstogtgoed) of the widowed queen consort, the minor king and the regent in case of a regency. (Compare [2]). Thus, being a queen consort constitutionally meant being the royal custodian and regent on stand-by. NLeeuw (talk) 06:55, 26 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Note on "women rulers" versus "queens regnant" and "women monarchs": A convention has emerged to rename categories from Women rulers of/in Foo to Queens regnant of/in Foo if it only includes queens regnant. Relevant precedents include:

• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_April_8#Category:Queens_of_Majapahit
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_April_8#Category:Women_rulers_in_Indonesia
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_April_8#Category:Category:Women rulers in Oceania

This sometimes involves additional manual mergers. Similarly, Women rulers of/in Foo can be renamed to Woman monarchs of/in Foo if it only includes woman monarchs, but not all of them necessarily had the title of "queen regnant". The relevant precedents are:

• "Category:Women rulers in Asia" > Category:Women monarchs in Asia.
• "Category:Women rulers in Africa" > Category:Women monarchs in Africa. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 10:26, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Note on "monarchs" versus "kings/queens regnant": A convention has emerged to rename categories from Rulers of Foo or Fooian rulers to Monarchs of Foo or Fooian monarchs if it includes kings and queens regnant of Foo per MOS:GNL. This is especially done if splitting them in gender-specific categories such as Kings of Foo and Queens regnant of Foo would result in either or both becoming a WP:SMALLCAT (fewer than 3 items/subcategories combined). The relevant precedents are:

• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_April_8#Category:Queens_of_Majapahit (also involving an extra merger)
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_April_21#Category:Rulers_of_Copán
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_April_29#Category:Maya_rulers

In some cases, a small number of female monarchs is accepted as members of Kings of Foo categories. Sometimes there are specific reasons for that, such as Jadwiga of Poland in the Category:Kings of Poland, because Jadwiga was officially crowned as "King of Poland" — Hedvig Rex Poloniæ, not Hedvig Regina Poloniæ. Polish law had no provision for a female ruler (queen regnant), but did not specify that the monarch had to be male. Anna Jagiellon was similarly officially titled Anna Dei Gratia Rex Poloniae. Sometimes the presence of a single woman in a category of "kings" is (apparently, so far) seen as an acceptable exception to the rule of MOS:GNL, such as queen Erato of Armenia in Category:Roman client kings of Armenia. This last case plays a role in the current "Category:Roman client rulers" CfR (filed by me) on whether it can and should be renamed to "Category:Roman client kings", regardless of whether it includes women, but open to Alt renames such as "Roman client kings and queens", or "Roman client monarchs", in a balanced assessment of MOS:GNL versus WP:COMMONNAME in view of English-language literature on the topic. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 10:26, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Note on "princesses": Just like word "queen", the word "princess" (and "prince") is ambiguous, because it can mean a princess consort (non-reigning wife of a monarch), or the daughter of a monarch (see Category:Daughters of monarchs). It can get especially confusing if the daughter of monarch Alice has married monarch Bob, and is thus a "princess" in two different senses of that word. Such categories of princesses are thus preferably Template:Diffused to subcategories for the more specific meanings of "princess". For example, I've been diffusing Category:Kievan Rus' princesses to Category:Daughters of Grand Princes of Kiev, Category:Grand Princesses consort of Kiev, and Category:Princesses consort of Kiev (before 1019). This has also led to my proposal to rename "Fooian princesses" to "Princesses from Foo". The implications of this are yet to be seen.

It should be noted that neither of these kinds of "princesses" as such were regnant, and thus not "rulers". There is no Category:Princesses regnant yet, but perhaps there should be. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 10:48, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Note on consorts They aren't "rulers". Otherwise they'd have been called "regnant". Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 20:07, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Note on regents They aren't "rulers", because they are not sovereign or hereditary. Merriam-Webster states: regent: a person who governs a kingdom in the minority, absence, or disability of the sovereign. Regents only govern the state on behalf of an underage monarch (or otherwise incapacitated monarch), who remains legally sovereign. A regent may be considered a "head of government" rather than head of state (which the child monarch is), although I haven't seen them commonly described or categorised as such. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 20:11, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Note on Suggestion B / Monarchs of Foo principle: Suggestion B was co-developed by Marcocapelle and me. It proposes to rename/rescope all "fooian monarchs" to "monarchs of foo", AND take Category:Political office-holders by country out of Category:Political people by nationality.

Rationale: It is unclear whether "nationality" is even relevant to monarchs:

1. because foreign nationals are permitted to hold certain political offices (perhaps including monarchs, certainly including deputy mayors in the Netherlands) in another country, so that "nationality" is WP:NONDEFINING for Category:Political office-holders;
2. because "nationality" is a modern concept ("nationality" cannot define monarchs if "nationality" itself doesn't exist yet), and there are many pre-modern situations in which monarchs appeared to define the state rather than the other way around; and
3. because "fooian monarchs" has the risk of being/becoming an WP:ARBITRARYCAT/WP:SUBJECTIVECAT due to the risk of anachronistic/nationalistic claiming of certain former states "belonging" to certain modern countries (see also the "Belarusian rulers" CfD).

Relevant precedents:

• "Category:Monarchs of Bohemia" resulted in Keep with an implicit endorsement of Suggestion B to rename/rescope all "fooian monarchs" to "monarchs of foo", AND take Category:Political office-holders by country out of Category:Political people by nationality. I've already implemented the latter. Whether this precedent is strong enough to establish monarchs of foo as the new naming convention is yet to be seen. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 02:01, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• The Cypriot monarchs > Monarchs of Cyprus CfR has set the precedent as the first unambiguous confirmation of the Suggestion B principle. This precedent favours monarchs of Foo as the new naming convention. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 10:09, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• The Rulers of Lithuania CfM/R also closed with an endorsement of the Suggestion B / Monarchs of Foo principle: Category:Lithuanian monarchs was Renamed to Category:Monarchs of Lithuania. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 13:59, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• RM on rulers of Saxony To whom it may be of interest: at Talk:List of rulers of Saxony#Requested move 14 May 2023, I'm applying the guidelines and conventions we have established to a case of dukes, electors, and kings, whom I would like to call "monarchs" per WP:COGNOMEN 5#, and the article itself already seemed to do. I thought it was uncontroversial enough for an undiscussed move, but one user thought it may not be appropriate to label "rulers" below the level of king as "monarchs", and requested an WP:RM. Although several of our category CfRs and CfMs have concluded otherwise, I may be right or wrong. Either way, this RM could set a precedent for the rest of the process, which at various stages also touches upon this point. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 08:48, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• RM on rulers of Saxony closed as no consensus. Not what I hoped for, but I think the no consensus result in itself once again confirms that there is disagreement about what "ruler(s)" means. It might be worth listing various definitions/statements of users who emphatically argue that they do know what "ruler(s)" means, and then comparing them. If they can't even agree amongst themselves what "ruler(s)" means, while maintaining it is "clear" or "sufficiently vague" what it means, their arguments may ultimately refute each other. This would confirm the growing consensus to move to clearer and more specific terms, as the ever-growing list of precedents has shown. I do think we need to continue to take all fellow Wikipedians, who maintain the validity of "rulers", seriously. Because the alternatives we come up with sometimes – apparently or actually – do not work better than the status quo. Improvement should always be our goal, and we should always remain open to learning from relevant objections. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 13:18, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

One thing the RM discussion at List of rulers of Saxony did show pretty clearly, however, was that presidents, prime ministers, ministers etc. are not "rulers". I've taken this to rename several List of rulers of Fooland articles which included presidents, prime ministers, ministers etc. to Lists of political office-holders in Fooland per established category trees, opening sentences, "See also" sections etc. It's progress of a kind. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 10:43, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Note on "Princes in Europe" and "Rulers in Europe by century" At Talk:Principality of Capua#Monarchy, Srnec and I agreed that princes (in the sense of rulers of a principality, not sons of kings/queens etc.) should be taken out of "Rulers in Europe by century" categories, and their parents placed in Category:Princes in Europe. Consequently, I've put Category:Princes of Capua, Category:Princes of Benevento and Category:Princes of Salerno in the Category:Princes in Europe. This is better than trying to categorise such princes as either "rulers" (too vague) or "monarchs" (too arguable). Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 11:56, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• I've added Monarchs of Foo principle as an alternative name for "Suggestion B" to make it more recognisable in CfDs. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 09:15, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Process as of 2 July 2023 Of the original 26 proposals, 21 have now been fully completed. These 5 proposals remain:
• #1 Merge Category:Rulers with Category:Political office-holders by role ("Category:Rulers" becomes a redirect).
• #2 Merge Category:Rulers by continent with Category:Political office-holders by continent.
• #6 Merge Category:Lists of rulers with Category:Lists of political office-holders. Both are already in Category:Lists of office-holders.
• #24 Rename ALL categories and lists with "state leaders" in them to say "heads of state and government" instead, per Talk:List of current heads of state and government/Archive 1#Rename. The parent article List of state leaders was renamed on 28 June 2007‎ to List of current heads of state and government. This applies inter alia to all lists mentioned in Lists of state leaders by century and Category:Lists of state leaders by year. This is such a huge operation that I propose that a bot will be tasked to carry it out.
• #25 Rename Category:Rulers by century (Category:Rulers by millennium Result: Deleted) and their subcategories in the same way by replacing "rulers" with "heads of state and government"; I also recommend that a bot do this. I do not think it's worth manually checking which ones of these were heads of state, heads of govt or both simultaneously, just to make a point about "ruler" being too vague a term. "heads of state and government" has been an acceptable alternative for the equally vague "state leaders" since 2007, I think this is worth following in this case.

They are waiting in line for their turns, trees are being sorted bottom up.

• Completed: CfM "30th-century BC women rulers" Upmerged (resulted in a great simplification due to upmerging many SMALLCATs, but it's only the tip of the iceberg), "Category:Ancient Greek women rulers" Renamed to Category:Ancient Greek queens regnant, "Category:17th-century monarchs in North America" et al. Deleted, #26 "Category:Families of national leaders" Split. All "rulers" subcategories of #2 Category:Rulers by continent. Renamed/Merged. CfM "Biblical rulers by century" Merged/Deleted. CfM 1st-century rulers in Europe (test case) Downmerged. CfR 6th-century rulers of Brittany (test case) Renamed. Establish a Category:Presidents in Europe tree to facilitate diffusion of modern "rulers" in Europe.  Done. CfM "1st- to 6th-century rulers in Europe" Upmerged. Rulers in medieval Macedonia Merged.

By continent

• The tree of #2 Category:Rulers by continent is currently stuck at various places, especially concerning sub-king "rulers" in children of Category:Rulers in Europe.

• Running:
  • CfM 21st-century presidents in Europe (test case; may lead to Upmerging all 20th- and 21st-century rulers categories per the 2010 "20th and 21st-century rulers" CfD precedent). Upmerged.
  • Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 April 26#Category:Rulers of Crete, closely related to List of rulers of Crete. Renamed to Category:Monarchs of Crete
  • Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_April_26#Category:Rulers_of_Provence, see also Talk:List_of_rulers_of_Provence#Scope. No consensus.
  • Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_April_21#Category:Rulers_of_Hesse Renamed to Category:Nobility of Hesse
  • Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_April_9#Category:Rulers_of_Thuringia (compromise being worked out; main article RM ongoing). Renamed to Category:Monarchs of Thuringia.
  • Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 June 5#Category:Alemannic rulers Renamed to Category:Alemannic monarchs
  • Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 June 3#Category:Rulers of Milan. No consensus.
    • Related RM: Talk:List of Milanese consorts#Requested move 13 July 2023. No consensus.
    • Related RM: Talk:List of banesses and queens of Bosnia#Requested move 13 July 2023, following the Bosnian queens CfR. Moved to List of medieval Bosnian consorts.
      • Related: Bosnian dukes lists merger proposal; 6 WP:OVERLAPping lists including List of rulers of medieval Bosnia
    • Related RM: Talk:List of rulers of Thuringia#Requested move 14 July 2023. Not moved.
  • Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 June 5#Category:Rulers of Monaco No consensus
  • Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_April_17#Category:Rulers_of_Lithuania (a Suggestion B case). Alt (downmerge and rename), i.e. to Category:Monarchs of Lithuania.
  • Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 May 9#Category:Roman client rulers Renamed to Category:Roman client monarchs
  • "Rulers of Bamburgh" (Early "rulers" were "monarchs"/"kings"? Later "rulers" were "earls"?). No consensus.

By century

• The #25 Category:Rulers by century tree will probably take the most preparation, as it involves case-by-case diffusion on what the word "ruler" means in each and every case.

• Running:
  • CfR 21st-century viceregal rulers (test case) Renamed
  • CfR/CfM 32nd-century BC rulers (test case) Renamed
  • 31st-century BC rulers CfR Rename and reparent
  • CfM "1st- to 19th-century rulers in Africa" Alt merged.
  • CfM "7th-century rulers in Europe" (was the Doge of Venice a "monarch" or not? Yes, an elective monarch.) Upmerged
  • 25th- to 7th-century BC rulers CfM. Upmerged.
  • 5th-century rulers in Asia CfM. Upmerged.
  • 11th-century rulers in North America CfM. Upmerged.
  • 19th-century rulers in North America CfR. Rename and reparented.
  • 8th-century rulers in Europe CfM. Upmerged.
  • "Ancient women rulers":
    • 9th-century BC women rulers CfR Rename and reparent
    • 4th-century BC women rulers CfS Split
    • 3rd-century BC women rulers CfS Split
    • 2nd-century BC women rulers CfS. Split
    • All women rulers categories until the 12th century: Split.
  • "21st-century rulers"
    • Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 July 2#Category:21st-century women prime ministers in Europe including Category:21st-century rulers in Europe. Delete Category:21st-century rulers in Europe as uncontested. Merge Category:21st-century women prime ministers in Europe and Category:21st-century prime ministers in Europe, since these two were specicially analyzed to be not part of a scheme. Keep the rest.

Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 12:43, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Old comments

• Delete convincing nomination rationale. The correct rationale should be a reason to clean up other "rulers" categories (many of which have been since deleted). (t · c) buidhe 06:15, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks. We're still working on it, but the end seems to be in sight. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 12:13, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• @Nederlandse Leeuw: I would suggest a "procedural withdraw", simply because the amount of text of this discussion is too large for anyone to close, or at best it will result in a non consensus closure. Better start a fresh discussion later in the year. Marcocapelle (talk) 04:32, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  This discussion serves as an overview of the process we are in. I'm still posting updates every now and then (that reminds me, I've got some stuff to update). Once we are done with all the subcategories, I agree that your suggestion is a good idea. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 05:42, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Feel free to leave your comments here like on a talk page. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:58, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  @Slakr: I think it was okay for you to procedurally close Category:Rulers as no consensus for now. It was too big for CfD to host anymore. I did as you suggested. I copypasted the relevant two sections that I still updated regularly here to my userspace to complete this process. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:03, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Christian Raffensperger has just published a book, Rulers and Rulership in the Arc of Medieval Europe, 1000–1200, that I think buttresses my argument that 'ruler' is just a perfectly fine word and often preferable to 'monarch'. From the publisher: "the prevalent idea of monarchy and kingship is overturned in favor of a broad definition of rulership." There is no reason to move away from the general word 'ruler'. Srnec (talk) 21:07, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Raffensperger is a respectable author, I may have even quoted him already on occasion. But the fact that this book will not be published until 2024, and he is arguing for the overturning of the prevalent idea, lead me to the exact opposite conclusion, which can be summarised quite concisely by rephrasing it: the idea of monarchy and kingship [is] prevalent. In other words, wherever we can, we should use the terms "monarch" and "king" instead of "ruler" until Raffensperger convinces the rest of the scholarly community to overturn the consensus that these are the terms we should be using. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:54, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]