< April 11	April 13 >

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: Upmerge all (in case some will be overlooked), including the Irish descent one. Timrollpickering (talk) 20:07, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator's rationale: Delete. WP:EGRS directly states that these particular ethnicity/politician categories are WP:OCAT and should not exist in their current state. Furthermore, these categories do not include "X-Americans" but rathers "Americans of X descent" - making them even more arbitrary than the examples given below. In Wikipedia:EGRS#Special_subcategories:

Similarly, an "(ethnicity) politicians" category should only be created if politicians of that ethnic background constitute a distinct and identifiable group with a specific cultural and political context. There is no significant or notable difference in context between being a German-American politician and a Swedish-American politician.

...and...

The basis for creating such a category is not the number of individuals who could potentially be filed in the group, but whether there's a specific cultural context for the grouping beyond the mere fact that politicians of that ethnic background happen to exist.

Bulldog123 22:10, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

~~Strong keep all~~Strong keep Category:American politicians of Irish descent, Weak keep to keep the rest: There are differences, and it is significant. OCAT/EGRS is being misused in this case Purpleback pack 89≈≈≈≈ 07:50, 14 April 2011 (UTC)S[reply]
Could you perhaps explain how you feel it is being misused? WP:EGRS#Special subcategories specifically uses Category:German-American politicians as an example of what not to do. Tarc (talk) 16:21, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For starters, they shouldn't have been blanket-deleted like this. Though some of them may be deletable, there is enough coverage and intersection in certain ethnicities (for example, Category:American politicians of Irish descent, considering their roles in America's big-city machines) to justify them being kept. Also, I feel that OCAT/EGRS is being called too strictly in this case. A further thing to consider is the size of the parent category if the pages in these categories are upmerged; it would be too large and unnavigable IMO Purpleback pack 89≈≈≈≈ 16:29, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Strong delete all. Obviously not useful categories. Only exist to create WP:EGRS problems.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:04, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all but the Irish (neutral on that for now) - When WP:EGRS#Special subcategories explicitly uses these categories, just by a different naming scheme, as an example of what not to do, it is kinda hard to justify retention. Tarc (talk) 16:21, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Read my comment above Purpleback pack 89≈≈≈≈ 16:29, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't really cut it, IMO. We can't have an accepted editing guideline using examples of how not to categorize on the Wikipedia, and turn around and have those examples actually exist. Strike up a discussion at WT:EGRS if you must. As I am originally a Southie, I'm well-familiar with the influence of the Irish on American politics, but I'm not convinced we need to address them collectively with a category. James Curley has little connection or cause to be associated with some freshman representative in the present day whose great-great-grandfather came off the boat. Still, I'll change my !vote to neutral just for the irish cat, as it does at least have arguable merit. The rest are open and shut, IMO. As for "large and unnavigable", well, Category:Living persons is pretty honking large and people seem to get around there quite fine. Template:CategoryTOC should suffice. Tarc (talk) 16:48, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The category some of you are looking for is Category:Irish-American politicians not Category:American politicians of Irish descent. One is arbitrary and inclusive enough to carry just about every American politician ever. The other is more specific and refers to people like big-city machine bosses. Bulldog123 01:32, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that renaming all of these to "of Fooian descent" at least implicitly lowered the inclusion threshold. "Fooian-American" suggests that it's a significant part of one's identity; "of Fooian descent" just means they had at least one Fooian ancestor, possibly many generations back. I can't say if in practice these categories got flooded with more tenuously-connected entries because of that name change, however. postdlf (talk) 01:43, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all The criteria for categories is usefulness. That a politician is of a particular ethnic or national origin is , like it or not, of great importance in american politics. I may be in complete agreement with Tarc that this ought to be irrelevant in the RW, but that has nothing to do with what is relevant in the RW, the world which Wikipedia describes. It is reasonable that a user might want to see examples of this. No other justification is necessary--arguments based on the existence of prior Wikipedia rules are irrelevant if there is a need to do something--this is the basic idea of iar. If keeping these invalidates an example used elsewhere, the example must be changed. We may decide special cases as we think appropriate. It's not as if someone made the rules for us. DGG ( talk ) 03:39, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Upmerge all to appropriate 'Category:American people of Fooian descent (to maintain integrity of category tree). Impossible to maintain these cats for the distinction between which politicians of, for example, Irish descent have made a tangible difference to the Irish-American experience or Irish-American politics and which have not. Just determining if this has happened or not is impossible for almost all bios. For one, it is wrong to assume American politicians who are of full Irish descent or even who self-identify as 'Irish American' have contributed to the Irish American experience, as it is to say that those who are only of partial Irish descent have not. The name Category:Irish-American politicans can easily be seen to mean just what the present one does - a politician who happens to be of Irish descent. Moreover, very few bios make any mention of membership with Fooian-American political movements, and even fewer are well-sourced. (The whole by descent category tree should go, as sourcing for it are so sparse and not based on professional research (but hear-say), but we are stuck with it for now.) Mayumashu (talk) 03:06, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all, per WP:OCAT, WP:EGRS#Special subcategories. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:33, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]