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: keep. – Fayenatic London 16:16, 8 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose deleting Category:Chinook Jargon place names (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: This is categorizing places (e.g. a mountain such as Lemah Mountain) by a characteristic of their name (or one of their names). For info: there is a List of Chinook Jargon place names (that may need to be upmerged). DexDor (talk) 21:11, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Strongly oppose, and not just because I'm the original author of that list page, and of this category. This is a notable characteristic both of regional toponymy and also of usages of the Chinook Jargon; I note the recent CfD of Category:Chinook Jargon and think that was peremptory and shallow as a nomination and a close, and speaks to an obsession with literalist interpretation of guidelines vs practical reality and real value; WHAT would you suggest the list of Chinook Jargon names be uploaded upmerged TO?? the main Chinook Jargon article category, where someone will delete it as being UNDUE? These names are part of the historical geography of the Pacific Northwest and beyond; and re mountains there are other categories (or were) for those name for war veterans, prime ministers etc. There is no reason to delete a category based on characteristics of names; as I recall these is a category for placenames of French origin in the US, maybe for royal eponyms in Canada also. What I see here in this nomination is something destructive, not constructive at all, and, again, a too-literalist reading of some guideline somewhere (whichever) flying in the face of the Fifth Pillar "there are no rules". I daresay the guideline you think you are invoking/applying doesn't even say what you think it does.Skookum1 (talk) 05:32, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Categorizing articles by characteristics of the topic (e.g. that it is a mountain or a river and which country it's in) and not by characteristics of its name (or one of its names) is the usual convention in wp categorization - otherwise if an article is renamed to a synonym then it's no longer in the correct category. There was a category for placenames of French origin in the US. If by "the recent CfD" you are referring to this then that was just tidying up grammar. The list should be upmerged to Category:Chinook Jargon. DexDor (talk) 06:18, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How a list can be upmerged to a category is totally unclear; and not called for, the placenames would be a significant and very large group in that category and warrant a subcat; I had seen a deletion (redlink) of the Chinook Jargon cat; apparently it's been re-instated. The "characteristics of the name" are historical/cultural features, not just etymology; this is a feature of a particular region of the continent; as for not categorizing things by their languages Category:Algonquian ethnonyms says otherwise. This nomination accomplishes nothing constructive, it is purely destructive and narrow-minded in nature. And it's not only mountains and lakes in question, it's malls, schools, and more.... Skookum1 (talk) 14:12, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Upmerge" (a fairly common term at CFD) means to recategorize some/all articles in a category that's being deleted to a parent of that category. Constructing a consistent categorization tree sometimes requires deletion of categories that are inconsistent. DexDor (talk) 22:00, 22 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

there is nothing in Wikipedia that is "required" per the Fifth Pillar; asserting that anything is "required" is a complete fallacy; and per consistency, that's something that has regularly been ignored in RMs and CfDs decided on item/guideline misquotes by closers; but per that "Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative", Oscar Wilde is on-point. Deletion or so-called "upmerging" of this category to Category:Chinook Jargon is counterproductive and unconstructive and is just more rule-mongering and instruction creepery and also displays a complete disregard for regional culture and identity issues, which others here have attested to also. Wikipedia "rule"-makers need to be reined it, starting here.Skookum1 (talk) 07:23, 23 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose per Skookum1. Volcanoguy 07:25, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. Although I have sympathy with the nominator's logic, the names of geographic features can be meaningful and significant in and of themselves, and therefore worth grouping and tracking in a category. If the current guidelines within wikipedia do not acknowledge that, then the guidelines should be changed. Chinook wa-wa names are an excellent example. Chinook wa-wa names carry historical and cultural significance in the Pacific Northwest. That more than justifies the maintenance of this category. --Lockley (talk) 17:09, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Lists do not replace categories, and I also agree with Lockley's reasoning. Montanabw^(talk) 16:33, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: I can see both sides of this argument. I think the Chinook Jargon origin of these place names is very important information that should be recorded on wikipedia, but I'm not sure a category is the right way to do it. Skookum, can you find a similar category with other languages? I can only find lists. Category:English place names in other countries exists but it's filled only with lists, not the articles for the places themselves. I don't really see why places with Chinook Jargon names are more significant than places with French names. Doing it for all places would be ridiculous, no? It has only been possible for Chinook Jargon, because it's such a small number of articles. I could well be mistaken, but it seems to me that most articles of most places are simply not categorized in any way that relates to their name, let alone the language of their name. I'd be happy to be shown where I'm wrong here, and then I'd oppose this proposed deletion, but for now, I'm unsure. - TheMightyQuill (talk) 21:15, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply There's a case to be made for things like French names in BC (e.g. Lac La Hache, Francois Lake), and already because of the anglicization/endonym "strife" in Wikipedia I was contemplating Category:Coast Salish place names and the like, though the intent of that would be "English adaptations of Coast Salish names" and so unwieldy, even moreso if Indian reserve names are included; same is true of Kwakwaka'wakw or Tsimshian or Nuu-chah-nulth etc. In the case of the CJ names, what's remarkable is that some are in Quebec and New England; and in terms of the history of the Pacific Northwest, where CJ is a "regional identifier", the role of French placenames is just not as pronounced. I know we have List of Aboriginal place names in Canada but no category for same; because there are simply too many (Toronto, Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nunavut, Yukon, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Nanaimo for starters); and while French has a role in the history of the Pacific Northwest - a big role - and many CJ names are indirectly of French origins (Lapush, Lemah etc) the names are not part of the local cultural legacy in the same way. Somewhere I think there may be a List of French place names in the United States, but no category. NB names of Spanish origin in BC/PacNW are in Category:Spanish history in the Pacific Northwest at this point. And somewhere, maybe it's been deleted, there had been some classification of peaks named for war heroes in Canada (maybe it was a list, I can't find it though). Skookum1 (talk) 01:38, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Reply: Thanks, Skookum. It seems to me that Category:Spanish history in the Pacific Northwest is your best comparison, but in my mind, that category is more similar to Category:Chinook Jargon than to the category under discussion. Maybe some alternative like Category:History of the Fur Trade in the Pacific Northwest or Category:History of Indigenous trade relations in the Pacific Northwest would be useful? (By the way, should Category:Juan de Fuca region be in that Spanish category? I don't know my history there...) TheMightyQuill (talk) 16:58, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Juan de Fuca was Greek and in the service of the Portugese, not of Spain; Spanish history in the region did not begin until the late 1700s. Also, with items like that, the strait (or as in many cases, the island) with a Spanish-conferred name is part of the history, but things named for the strait/island/whatever are not; and that category is for now a catch-all; there are so many such names on the BC Coast that a subcategory will eventually be called for; other articles in the Spanish history cat could be ships, locations that do not have Spanish names, biographies, Fort San Miguel and the Catalonian volunteers etc. Chinook Jargon is a much broader topic, and is not limited to the fur trade, nor to "indigenous trade relations" only; it was a lingua franca between non-indigenous peoples also, and was used socially among them as well as interacting in non-trade capacities with indigenous people(s). Category:Spanish placenames on the Pacific Northwest Coast, to me, is perfectly viable as a subcat of the Spanish history cat....unless you take as policy the speculative/prescriptionary essays written by the nom, that is, which are only interpretation of guidelines, and not actually policy...nor are they fixed and immutable nor are they Holy Writ. Deleting this category to me is deletionism pure and simple, and also rule-wielding and instruction creep, contrary to the principles of the guidelines and the Fifth Pillar which rule-mongers and rule-enforcers seem to have no clue about. There is indeed call for a fur trade category, but that would have within it subcategories for places, and for biographies, and more; omnibus categories are unwieldy; in this case it would contain several hundred names, as you can see from the list of CJ place names.Skookum1 (talk) 04:22, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just a comment that I hope is as thoughtful as yours. There are at least three other such categories that already exist. See Category:Place names by language. You ask if it would be ridiculous to classify all place names by language. Yes, probably. But I think you'd agree that the act of naming a place asserts a kind of sovereignty over it, and there are many places where alternative names in multiple languages are revealing and still hotly controversial. I'm thinking of the current Polish / Germany border as one example. Exploring and explaining these situations seems to me useful, worthy of attention, objective if done with balance, and encyclopedic. --Lockley (talk) 23:37, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Reply: Thanks Lockley, but which three are you talking about? Category:Latin place names has some, but is mostly full of lists. The Irish one doesn't have any, and the Slavic one is full of disambiguation pages, not places. Maybe I'm missing something? I can accept that naming origins are important, but I don't see why CJ names are *more* important than non-CJ names. I don't understand exactly why a list is insufficient, especially if it's included in the "See also" section of every one of these pages. - TheMightyQuill (talk) 16:58, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• • Reply Names are very political in the Pacific Northwest, particularly in BC where the native political/cultural revival has seen the restoration to, or modern re-adaptations of many names; and where the usual anglicizations are viewed as "corrupt" or "mistaken" or "appropriated" (even when they're really just re-spellings or older spellings of exactly the same names as now favoured by native peoples and in wide use now in BC English). CJ Names are not political, however, as it was a language shared by non-native peoples and used by them, especially in toponyms. It's not the same as e.g. Tlingit placenames in Alaska, or Inuktitut placenames in Nunavut, or French names in the Maritimes or the Prairies.
  • I agree that a broad practice of categorizing placenames by language would be unwieldy; but this is not just any language in terms of the Pacific Northwest, it is a unique feature of regional history/culture and no parallels really exist elsewhere; the notion that one thing is a necessary precedent for others strikes me as part of a process of over-homogenization and related deletionism that seems to be spreading in Wikipedia, vs recognizing distinctive and unique situations for what they are and representing that properly, instead of trying to play whack-a-mole with things that don't "belong" in someone's idea of "standards" and preconceptions about "making everything the same". And I'll repeat the Fifth Pillar, "there are no rules", which should be more observed than it has been in the course of the excessive instruction creep now dominating Wikipedia discussions of all kinds. That the nominator, who joined us in January 2011, has written prolific essays on categorization "rules", and apparently seeks to enforce/propagate his notions by the terms of this CfD, is another example of instruction creep being spread into areas and topics he doesn't even contribute on. People wading into topic areas they have no other association with on the basis of some "rule agenda" they are advancing means people are messing around in topic areas they have no other interest in than title/category fiddling. 'Nuff said.Skookum1 (talk) 01:38, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keep calm please, personal attacks will lead us nowhere. (There is a rule about that on Wikipedia too, but I'd rather appeal to your feel of common sense.) Marcocapelle (talk) 07:44, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • "Personal attacks"? No, pointing out someone's origin and their primary activity, so it seems, is not a personal attack, it's a relevant point about the motivation behind this nomination. Conflating that into NPA is hogwash....and you ignored my reference to the Fifth Pillar, which should be given as much weights as any other policy/guideline/essay.Skookum1 (talk) 07:23, 23 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• In doubt: "place names" is quite vague, wouldn't it be better to have categories like Category:Chinook Jargon mountains, Category:Chinook Jargon lakes etc.? Marcocapelle (talk) 22:25, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply No, because there's more than lakes and mountains, there's malls, schools, towns etc. and those cat names, even if they could survive challenges, would be "mountains with Chinook Jargon names" and so on;
    • Apparently I missed the point yesterday. This is meant to be a linguistic category instead of a geographic category, isn't it? I could live with that, provided that all geographic parent categories are being removed. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:27, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • No, it's meant as a geographic toponymical category, with cultural meanings/identity, and is not a "linguistic category". Ever heard of "thinking outside the box"? Boxing things in so they can be tossed in the garbage shoot is becoming too common a feature of Wikipedia name/category-fiddling.Skookum1 (talk) 07:23, 23 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep and rename to Category:Places with Chinook Jargon toponyms. The main contention of this proposal concerns the scope: the current title "Category:Chinook Jargon place names" is a category you would expect to find on articles relating to names, not the places themselves. This rename would refine this to show the place is subject, not the name. The linguistic origin of a placename is quite a defining characteristic as it always has profound historical meaning. I think this category rename could be applied to a few others in Category:Place names by language. SFB 10:20, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove I think it'd be silly to have a category for each of the Amerindian languages on the continent just because of their history. What about Category:Catholic place names and so on? But I think the real question is: who is going to navigate using this category? Just include a link to the list in the "see also" portion of each article instead. - Sweet Nightmares 15:29, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Educate yourself; Chinook was not just an "Amerindian language", it is a hybrid language it was widely used by non-aboriginals and, by and large, it was them who conferred these names, which are not indigenous in origin for the most part. The notion that this category is linguistic only in nature is a fallacy; these names reflect a regional culture and identity that spans six states, two provinces and a territory; they are a special case and anally defining them according to rule obsessions as advanced by rule-mongering is against the Five Pillars. Surely you know the fifth? "There are no rules".Skookum1 (talk) 07:23, 23 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep -- It is perfectly legitiamte to have a category for placenames by their linguistic origin. For one thing, their distribution will be the extent of the use of the language. However, I wonder who many are actually derived from the jargon (a creole) rather than Category:Chinook ethonyms to match "Algonquian ethnonyms" cited above. There is a significant difference between such indigenous names and names transplanted in by colonisers. When we had a Frnech-American placenames category it contained a place named after an American who happened to have a surname of French origin: a useless bit of info. Nevertheless, before a place is included, its article needs to state that the name is of Chinook origin and (preferably) translate it. If that is not done then inclusion in the category could be OR. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:51, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Peterkingiron, Where wp has articles about placenames (e.g. Albania (placename)) then it may be appropriate to categorize such articles by language. However, the pages in this category (apart from the list) are articles about places, not articles about names. Would you, for example, categorize London in "Places with Romano-British names" ? How would places with multiple names (e.g. Turin/Torino) or whose name has changed fit into such a category scheme ? And, by extension, would you put the Apple article in Category:English words ? DexDor (talk) 22:00, 22 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I do not think comparison with Britain is helpful. The study of English placenames is a large topic. Many of the Romano-British ones infact incorporate a Celtic root. Place-names in England with a Celtic root is a small enough category to potentially providie a useful category. Before a placename could be included in the category, I would expect the article to include a statement that the name was of Chinook origin, preferably withe meaning explained. It is clearly pointless to have a category for French placenames for places in France, becasue the article will already have a geographic category. Similarly transplanted placenames do not provide any useful basis for a category. However, places with Chinook names will be a subset of places in the area where thery occur, and will probably reflect the former extent of where the language was spoken. Peterkingiron (talk) 14:03, 26 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete We do not catagorize place names by the origin language that is being used for them.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:41, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Why not? I agree that in many places this is inappropriate, but not always. Peterkingiron (talk) 14:03, 26 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• • Reply. Who is "we"? As there's some of "us" who do, cf Category:Place names by language, as if the existence of that category weren't clear enough.Skookum1 (talk) 01:27, 17 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • A whole set of categories, such as Category:American place names of Spanish origin have been deleted. The fact that there are only 6 categories in the above mentioned super-category, shows that this is not how things are generally categorized. We categorize things by what they are, not the linguistic properties of what they are called.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:11, 22 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • • • Who cares if deletionists successfully wiped other categories, and by what arguments were they deleted, and what were the contexts of the deleted toponyms; given that a good chunk of the US was formerly New Spain/Mexico it's like the observation above by Peterkingiron about French names in France; it's not a special situation, and the "fact" that there are "only" 6 categories in the "supercategory" is entirely specious in nature. What's next - you nominate them for deletion too?? By referring to this one, if it gets deleted? Incremental deletionism is its own self-justification. There's a good case to be made for "placenames of Halkomelem origin" or "placenames of Coast Salish origin" in British Columbia, as many of those are town/district names in English (such a category might exlude IR names and "modern" Salishan placenames like Xa:ytem and Peckquaylis; but in areas where Kwakwaka'wakw names are dominant it's like the French names in France, or Russian names in Russia (or, for that matter, in Alaska). Chinook spanned a vast region; and yes, Chinook names as can be seen from the list reached right into Quebec and New Hampshire; this is an historical phenomenon that has nothing to do with any rule-cinching demanding that it be deleted because "we" do not categorize by "linguistic properties"....as if all this were only about "linguistic realities" and not historical and cultural reality and identity; "we" do categorize things by history and culture and identity. "We" are not amused by people using one issue to try and get deleted something that they (not "we") don't like for some specious reason or other, in this case an completely a**l reading of the rules, but THERE ARE NO RULES (fifth pillar, which "we" should respect instead of clobber to death with narrow-minded deletionist arguments).Skookum1 (talk) 14:16, 26 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • "We" = "a certain group of Wikipedians". Speak for yourself not for ALL of us. These are not just "linguistic properties" but part of a regional culture and identity and recognizable and documentable as such. Wikipedians making up rules for themselves to enforce, no matter what other Wikipedians say, is tiresome and not in line with the Five Pillars. Instruction creep is all this nomination is, and it deletionist in nature and destructive, not CONstructive.Skookum1 (talk) 07:23, 23 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the 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 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: merge to Category:The Hunger Games trilogy and Category:The Hunger Games (film series) respectively. – Fayenatic London 16:22, 8 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Proposed deletion Category:Works based on The Hunger Games trilogy and Category:Works based on The Hunger Games (film series)

Nominator's rationale: These two categories serve no meaningful purpose other than to make navigating The Hunger Games categories more complicated. Charles Essie (talk) 19:03, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Unneeded level of categories. When we have a category with one subcategory, we do niot need it.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:11, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Excessive intermediary categories serving little purpose. "The Hunger Games (film series)" can easily be a direct subcat of the main Hunger Games cat. SFB 10:30, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge both to Category:The Hunger Games trilogy. We only need one category for one franchise. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:54, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the 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 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: Rename. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:45, 27 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose renaming Category:Corridors to Category:Geopolitical corridors

Nominator's rationale: Simply using the phrase "corridors" is extremely ambiguous, and I suggest that the preface of "Geopolitical" would be a suitable disambiguator, although "Geographic" may be an appropriate alternative . Note there is no parent article and the corridor page is a DAB. Number 57 14:17, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Support highly ambiguous. This is not about corridor (a disambiguation page), nor hallways, nor biogeographic/ecological corridors. -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 09:25, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Support—current name makes it look like the category refers to hallways. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 08:36, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the 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 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. – Fayenatic London 16:26, 8 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: after closure, I found a contrary decision six months ago, but the discussion below is sufficient consensus now. – Fayenatic London 16:33, 8 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose deleting Category:Israeli engineer stubs (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: Delete. Catsan turned up no other stubs. Very small for a stub category. Propose to delete category and double-upmerge template to Category:Israeli scientist stubs and Category:Engineer stubs. Dawynn (talk) 12:08, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Support - subject, as with all stub categories, to recreation if there are ever 60 stubs with the tag (as I believe is likely in this case). עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:24, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the 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 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. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:51, 27 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose deleting Category:Remizidae stubs (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: Delete. While already tagging pretty much every article in the permanent category, this category is still well below the article count for a stub category. Propose deleting category and upmerging template to Category:Sylvioidea stubs. Dawynn (talk) 12:00, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the 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 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: do not rename. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 05:00, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose renaming Category:Fooian law to Category:Law of Foo or Category:Law in Foo

Nominator's rationale: Fooian law is unnatural and lends itself to ambiguity and other problems, as has been shown in previous discussions for the India, China, the UK and several other categories. The application of law follows the jurisdiction of a country or nation-state, not nationality, and indeed most by-country law articles are already named as such. I personally prefer Law of Foo, but some existing categories already use Law in Foo.

There doesn't appear to be any reason for the categories to be named as such, apart from prior existence. Some categories were, for consistency, renamed to the current format back in 2006, but even then there were concerns as to whether the renaming should have been backward. I have left the Chinese law category out of this CfD since previous discussions have noted that it serves a wider historical scope, and included the six Law in Foo categories. --Paul_012 (talk) 10:23, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: The categories here haven't been tagged. I have made a request at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:41, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm working on it at the moment. --Paul_012 (talk) 10:43, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose I occasionally deal with legal issues at work, and the law of different countries (and supranational bodies) is almost always referred to as "Fooian law" - the term itself is not unnatural at all. I would say that the problem here is that the articles (Law in Foo etc) are misnamed rather than the categories. Number 57 14:52, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Strongest possible support - The application of law follows the jurisdiction of a country or nation-state, not nationality.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 15:39, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Fooian" does not necessarily denote nationality - it's a general adjective for anything relating to the country. Trying to force common terms such as English law into the more awkward Law of England is not a good idea. Number 57 15:56, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per nom. "English law" (law concerning the language English), versus "English law" (common law derived from England's law traditions), versus "English law" (religious edict concerning contact with non-conversants outside the religious community) etc are ambiguous. As there are laws concerning ethnicities sharing names with these nationalities in jurisdictions not of the nation, this is rife for confusion. -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 09:28, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • You are confusing rules with laws. The rules of the language would not be described as laws - English language does not use the word "law" once. As far as I am aware, with the possible exception of the Vatican, there are no countries that are also religions, so I fail to understand your last point. Number 57 10:38, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm not confusing anything. I'm saying it's bad category naming because it can be confused. I'm also not talking about the rules of grammar either. Laws concerning the language English are actual laws (found in jurisprudence) of civil and criminal nature, concerning the use and practice of English in manners that are allowed and disallowed. And while the religious laws are not laws of jurisprudence, they are called "laws" thus indicating that the naming of the category is confusable. (laws of the English church, laws concerning people that are euphemistically called "English" (but who are not of England) who are not conversant some anabaptist churches/communities, etc). The last point is about the control of ethnicities through policing and the courts under the law, where privileges and rights are accorded according to ethnicity, so thus these terms can also be interpreted to be about minorities and control of them, instead of the laws of their nation of origin. -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 22:30, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: Please note that Category:English law, Category:Scots law and Category:Welsh law aren't included in this CfD. Neither are Category:Ancient Greek law and Category:Chinese law. Since they probably carry historical connotations, separate discussions for them might be warranted. --Paul_012 (talk) 14:30, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose The form "American law" is almost the universally used form. It passes every and all common name test. Same with "English law", "French law", "Spanish law", "Ethiopian law" and so forth. One has to try and imagine chances of disambiguity to find them. Maybe "Indian law" would be slightly ambiguous, but if that is the case, so is Category:Indian writers, since it could refer to Native American writers, but we do not deem that a sufficient possibility to change the name. There is no reason to do so here.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:15, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Certain ambiguous cases do exist in the form of English law and Chinese law, but these are the outliers rather than the rule (cf. Category:Georgia (country)). I don't think it makes sense to restructure to "Law of X" on the basis on ambiguity. I oppose on the basis that the current structure is not inherently ambiguous (I may reconsider if a different, more convincing argument is made). SFB 11:27, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak Support per 65.94.171.126's analysis. But per SFB's point, I'm not sure this is a major issue.. RevelationDirect (talk) 02:53, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - this is a rename of over 200 categories and, indeed, "Foo law" or "Fooian law" is the proper term of art for describing a body of law. Per Number 57 and others we say "American law" not "law of the United States", "English law," not "law of the United Kingdom." It takes way common sense use and replaces it with wordy, clunky awkwardness. Any ambiguity issue raised can be addressed by some solution other than taking a sledgehammer to over 200 categories and inserting an OR interpretation on widely known and used phrasing. Montanabw^(talk) 04:03, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, there is nothing wrong with "law of foo". You will find the expression "law of England" not only in many books, but actually in many Acts of Parliament. James500 (talk) 04:32, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: Do the oppose !voters suggest that the articles Law of Afghanistan, Law of Albania, Law of Anguilla, Law of Armenia, Law of Australia, Law of Austria, Law of Azerbaijan, Law of Bahrain, Law of Bangladesh, Law of Belgium, Law of Bermuda, Law of Bhutan, Law of Brazil, Law of Bulgaria, Law of Canada, Law of Chile, Law of Croatia, Law of Denmark, Law of East Timor, Law of Estonia, Law of Finland, Law of France, Law of Germany, Law of Gibraltar, Law of Hong Kong, Law of Iceland, Law of India, Law of Indonesia, Law of Iraq, Law of Italy, Law of Japan, Law of Kosovo, Law of Laos, Law of Latvia, Law of Libya, Law of Luxembourg, Law of Malaysia, Law of Malta, Law of Mexico, Law of Nauru, Law of New Zealand, Law of Nigeria, Law of North Korea, Law of Norway, Law of Pakistan, Law of Panama, Law of Papua New Guinea, Law of Poland, Law of Portugal, Law of Puerto Rico, Law of Romania, Law of Russia, Law of Serbia, Law of Singapore, Law of Slovakia, Law of South Africa, Law of South Korea, Law of Spain, Law of Sweden, Law of Switzerland, Law of Thailand, Law of the Bahamas, Law of the British Virgin Islands, Law of the Cayman Islands, Law of the Czech Republic, Law of the Dominican Republic, Law of the Netherlands, Law of the Soviet Union, Law of the United Kingdom, Law of the United States, Law of Tuvalu, Law of Ukraine, Law of Uruguay, Law of Vanuatu, Law of Vatican City, Law of Venezuela & Law of Vietnam be reverse-moved instead? --Paul_012 (talk) 08:02, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes. Number 57 10:30, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep -- Each jurisdiction has its own law, so that "law of" or "law in" might be appropriate. However, are they not clear in theri present form with the demonym? Law of UK should be a disambiguation page, since there are three separate jurisdictions (the Welsh generally have English law). Many but not all Commonwealth countries use law based on English law, from which they have diverged since independence. This nom is essentially about semantics. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:04, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose, as there is no need for a rename. In most cases the meaning is clear-cut, and in some, like "Roman law", "English law" or "Byzantine law" that are not confined to the respective states and have far broader application, this still does not mean that they do not also encompass the law in the respective states. Constantine ✍ 07:26, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per various similar above; "British law" is like "English law", used and found as a term far outside the United Kingdom in histories of the former colonies, in a particular context, and not associated with the "denomym" use of "English" but with its adjective form in association with that kingdom (England I mean). As for those were "Law of FOO" is necessary, or specific as in the Laws of Scotland such as are separate from those of England, etc., the preposition to use would definitely be "of", when for law as the title topic. Something like "environmental law cases in Canada" would be "in", rather than "of", however. I see no reason for this rename, just more moving deckchairs around on an already unwieldy and over-name-fiddled system.Skookum1 (talk) 15:03, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: despite the divergence of views, it is highly desirable that the close should come down one way or the other rather than "no consensus", because the sub-categories are inconsistent. Explore Category:Law by issue and country to see this. – Fayenatic London 18:54, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment": As User:Fayenatic london pointed out above, there is inconsistency not only among the category names, but between the categories and their main articles. We need to pick a naming convention and stick with it. Eastlaw ^talk ⁄ _contribs 05:40, 5 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. Per Constantine a few comments above. It's useful to address the inconsistencies, but the nomination needs to be reframed, since for example "Roman law" as a phrase doesn't have the same kind of meaning and usage as "Republic of Congo law". I suggest that the nominator look more closely at the examples in the "oppose" comments, and perhaps reconstruct the nomination in a way that doesn't seek a one-size-fits-all solution. Cynwolfe (talk) 03:10, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The inclusion of Category:Roman law and Category:Byzantine law was an error on my part. They were not meant to be part of this nomination, which already excluded Category:Ancient Greek law, Category:Chinese law, Category:English law, etc. Sorry for the confusion. --Paul_012 (talk) 13:45, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, in the version Law in. I haven't seen anyone refuting the OP's argument yet that jurisdiction, not nationality, determines what law applies. Roman law / Roman-Dutch law / Byzantine law and such articles are on a different level entirely as they still have meaning and influence beyond the ancient country whose legislation they describe---they should probably be split into their historical article ('Law of the Roman Republic') and today's notion ('Roman law'). As for Law in versus Law of: Countries with dual law systems like Namibia and South Africa would be more logically organised if the category was named 'Law in', as this would not necessarily mean that laws themselves populated this category---In a way, there is no "Law of South Africa" before I know whether customary law or ordinary law applies. --Pgallert (talk) 19:54, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In GBooks, "law of south africa" produces more than three and a half times as many results as "law in south africa". James500 (talk) 04:50, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• It should certainly be "law of x" and not "law in x". No one talks that way. In GBooks, "law of england" produces more than five times as many results as "law in england". And the sources that do use "law in england" are not talking about the whole law of the country. They are talking about peerage law in england and family law in england and so forth. To refer the law of country x as "law in x" is grammatically incorrect to the point of illiteracy. "Law in x" just doesn't mean that. James500 (talk) 04:07, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I do think "law of foo" may preferable to "fooian law". "English law" can refer to the law of England, but it can also refer to Anglo-American law. James500 (talk) 04:19, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the 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 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: rename to Category:Music by place, and upmerge Category:music by ethnicity and Category:World music by language to Category:Music. – Fayenatic London 13:26, 24 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose renaming Category:Music geography to Category:Music by geographical location Category:Music by location Category:Music by place

Note for Administrator If not rename, please close - I have opened a second proposal for July the 22th, with different idea and title. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CreativeName1 (talk • contribs) 18:54, 22 July 2014 - same editor as the nominator

Nominator's rationale: It becomes apparent when looking at the name of the subcategories. 068129201223129O9598127 (talk) 09:25, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Addition The two cats "music by ethnicity" and "music by language" have to leave Category:Music geography, they go to Category:Music. -- 068129201223129O9598127 (talk) 20:02, 16 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per nom. NB There is no field within musicology called "music geography", and "geography of music" would be covered by ethnomusicology, more or less. And would "Music by geographical location" be about where a composer is from, where a piece was written, or as with Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave or Vaughan-Williams' London Symphony or Antarctic Symphony or Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite, where a piece was written about? So even that category strikes me as vague, if not actually odd.Skookum1 (talk) 01:42, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment It would be about all these things. Think about it like this: "Music by geographical location" ist just a shorter version of "Geographical location based classification of the topic >music<". -- 068129201223129O9598127 (talk) 08:53, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply "It would be about all these things" demonstrates that this is a catch-all category and not really well-defined or conceived; and really irrelevant to music except as "music by location of subject", where there is a subject to the music that is geographical. Place of composition, place of publication, "national" associations of the composer (which given that in Bach's and Haydn's time and before, modern nation-states and "nationalities" hadn't even been come up with yet, would be anachronistic and somewhat OR).Skookum1 (talk) 01:21, 17 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I have changed the proposal of renaming to "Music by geographical location" to the simpler renaming to "Music by location". -- 068129201223129O9598127 (talk) 10:56, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • reply Still too vague/indeterminate; "music by location of subject", "music by location where composed", "music by location of birthplace/resident/country of composer" and more are all issues; what is the intent of "music by location"? The Symphonie Fantastique was composed in Nice, then part of the Kingdom of Savoy, should it be categorized by Nice? Or by Paris, where Berlioz lived, or by Savoy? Or what? I think there is very little use in this category, and it has too loose a framework and would wind up being chock-full of irrelevancies. The New World Symphony was by a Czech, written and first performed in New York, and about the North American continent; where would it be "by location"??Skookum1 (talk) 04:29, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • reply Your given symphonies cannot lie directly in this category, but maybe in subcategories, and even that doesn't have to happen immediately. Other items of music want to be categorized by place, e.g. musicians, genres. -- 068129201223129O9598127 (talk) 09:51, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • That doesn't answer my question at all. What do you mean "by location"? The city or place it was written in, where it's about...in what sense do you mean "by location"? The London Symphony, Antarctic Symphony, Fingal's Cave, Sorochinsky Fair, Night on Bald Mountain, those are explicitly named for places but you say they need to be in a subcat. What subcat?? Bach's music was variously composed on Salzburg, Wurzburg, and more, so if "by place of composition" it's not as smooth sailing as "national origin of composer"Skookum1 (talk) 01:17, 17 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • Dear Skookum1, I fear we have a massive commmunication problem, as i cannot believe you are asking questions which are already answered, by simply looking at the already existent subcategories. Let me quote you: "Is it about the city or place where a musical piece was written?" <br\> Let me start by saying that there is no need for us to classify compositions by place of creation, but if you would want to, I'd suggest a category by the name of Category:Compositions by place of creation. Personally I don't think such a category would be very useful and you gave the example of Bach's music, which would be difficult to categorize this way. But the important thing is that it is possible to categorize by place of creation, if you decide to to or not and when to do it is unimportant. <br\> "Is it about the place where it's about?". So about the setting? Yes, if you ask me. Everything will be clear if you look at this: Category:Films by setting, just replace the word "films" with "composition". What is possible for this example, is also possible to create in categories about compositions; operas already have it: Category:Operas by setting. Also see here: Category:Compositions set in Austria. The link to Category:Music by place would be Category:Compositions by setting. <br\> "The London Symphony, Antarctic Symphony, Fingal's Cave, Sorochinsky Fair, Night on Bald Mountain, those are explicitly named for places but you say they need to be in a subcat. What subcat??" Did you see Category:Songs about places? One would have to create Category:Compositions about places, then Category:Operas about places. Again: You can do this, you don't have to. <br\> Please do not understand the word "music" in the title of Category:Music by place only as "musical works", but as "music as topic". The topic of music is classified based on places, e.g. Category: Music history by region. Musicians are classified by place, see Category:Musicians by place, where you can search for them based on nationality, city and continent. The existence of Category:Music by place is justified, because it functions as starting category for subcategories like Category:Music by continent, Category:Music by nationality. These itself have subcategories like Category:American music, Category:German music.-- 068129201223129O9598127 (talk) 23:36, 17 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • "music by nationality" is not about place, that's apples and oranges. And you still haven't indicated what "music by place" would be used for; since you disqualify "music by setting" (Mendelssohn's piece, for example, was inspired by Fingal's Cave, it was not set there. I still see no rationale or clear meaning for this category, none at all.Skookum1 (talk) 02:57, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I know, nationality =! place, but this doesn't matter. Category:Music by place is the shorter version of Category:Place based categorization of the topic music. And the concept of nationality is part of the concept place, hence Category:Nationality based categorization of the topic music can be subcategory of Category:Place based categorization of the topic music. <br\> Also you are not right, when you say i disqualify music by setting, I said i disqualify Category:Music by place of creation - please read my texts more carefully. -- 068129201223129O9598127 (talk) 12:01, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose rename to Category:Music by place instead to match Category:Arts by place. Technically, a location is more of a physical thing whereas place is an idea within human culture (which is what culture categories are exploring). The two language and ethnicity categories should be forced up a level by this change. SFB 11:37, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Done -- 068129201223129O9598127 (talk) 09:51, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't think you're clear on the concept of nationality in English; it yes does mean what country your citizenship is, it also means what your ancestral inheritance is; not quite the same thing as ethnic origin. But nationality is not place-specific in the way you think it is, and the vagaries of its meanings do not make for a clear usage/concept re this discussion. How is music, which is not physical, associated with geography, which is utterly physical in concept? How is a piece of music geographical, unless it's topical, or unless directly and notably related to a place, such as the Symphonie Fantastique or the New World Symphony. We're not talking about musicians here, we're talking about music. How is a piece of music geographical, unless stated or intended as such by its composer. If there's Category:Music of Vienna, is that music composed in Vienna, by Viennese composers, or associated with Vienna, or perhaps the site of something's first performance? You seem to be wanting to make music "national" and don't seem quite clear on the difference between national origin and national descent; as above in the other CfD re ethnic origin you seem fascinated with delineating this subject, but without having a grasp of the nuances of the terms in question, or in this case the nature of music; I still have no clear definition as to what this category is for, instead I have rationalizations pointing at Category:Arts by place; and again I wonder what's in there; where a style is associated with what a painting depicts or where the subject of a statue was associated with, or in which museum or gallery or palace it's located.Skookum1 (talk) 14:57, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the 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 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: procedural close as the category pages were not tagged. – Fayenatic London 16:30, 8 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose renaming Category:Plant common name disambiguation pages to Category:Plant disambiguation pages
• Propose renaming Category:Animal common name disambiguation pages to Category:Animal disambiguation pages
• Propose renaming Category:Fish common name disambiguation pages to Category:Fish disambiguation pages

Nominator's rationale: Since scientific names are required to be unique within a kingdom, all plant disambiguation pages will always involve common names. Same for animals and fish. There's no reason for us to explicitly state "common name" in the category titles. It just makes them extra verbose and awkward. FYI, I created Category:Plant disambiguation pages by accident before I realized there was already a category for the same thing. Kaldari (talk) 06:33, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Rename per nom.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:16, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. I prefer having the phrase "common name" in the category to clarify the contents in contrast to set index articles we have on scientific names. Contrary to the nominator's rationale, scientific names are not unique. Especially in early binomial nomenclature, many authors named different organisms with the same name. See Category:Set indices on plants and Stylidium androsaceum for an example. We also have Category:Set indices on plant common names and Category:Plant common names. Also pinging @Plantdrew: as I know he has worked on these articles in the past and may have insights into the category structure. Rkitko ^(talk) 00:55, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the 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 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: merge. – Fayenatic London 08:38, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose merging Category:Fish of Liechtenstein to Category:Fish of Europe

Nominator's rationale: That, for example, the Stone loach can be found in Luxembourg is not a WP:DEFINING characteristic of the species. See similar previous CFDs e.g. Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2014_May_19#Category:Insects_of_Andorra. Note: If a species is endemic to a particular region (e.g. a country) then that is a defining characteristic. DexDor (talk) 06:00, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete/merge. Same as other recent country-nature category merges - attempting to force natural objects into man-made subdivisions has no encyclopedic value, list articles with sources would be much more informative. --Sander Säde 06:42, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge Fish especially will only on very rare occasions be present in only one nation.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:17, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge: Streams and rivers ignore political boundaries as a rule. And small nations in particular. Montanabw^(talk) 03:38, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose simply for the fact that I can't let one of these ridiculous proposals go on without registering my opposition. "Europe" is far too broad for this kind of category. Like it or not, and regardless of whether or not the fish respects political borders, this is how we write about, describe, and categorize animals -- by their presence in political entities. Books are written on the flora and fauna of countries, states, and provinces. It is sensible to categorize them by such here. Rkitko ^(talk) 06:28, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge -- The only justification for having such categories would be if a fish were endemic only to one country. With the presnet useage the category section of article will get clogged up with natioanl cateogories. The result will be as bad as would happen if we did not forbid award-winners and performance by performer categories. These are much too similar to the former. I hope this is to be the first of a series of noms covering a lot of fauna and flora. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:09, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge Unless fish live specifically in 1 country, this is not meaningful. RevelationDirect (talk) 02:51, 11 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete/merge. These are some of the silliest categories on Wikipedia. Probably better to merge all categories of this type, including Category:Fish of Europe, to Category:Fish of the World, and then delete that category. --Epipelagic (talk) 04:23, 11 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

...Just curious, User:Epipelagic, do you know of any fish from other worlds? Your rationale is clearly the reason why choosing "Europe" as the distribution level that the nominator supports as reasonable is a ridiculous assertion. As I've said before, this is a dispute over the preference of scale. I still think many of these categories are useful. Over at WP:PLANTS, we use the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions. See WP:PLANTS/WGSRPD for the work-in-progress. I've still never gotten an acceptable answer to my questions on why "Europe" is acceptable but regions within Europe are not. The biogeographical affinities of flora and fauna in Europe are well-known and lumping them all into "Fish of Europe" doesn't make sense: 1) Regions of northern Europe are better allied with regions of northern Asia and parts of the Mediterranean are more closely allied with parts of western Asia and 2) the borders of Europe are ill-defined itself and the same rationale that applies to country categories is sufficient to also reject "Europe" as a category -- that many taxa exist both in Europe and outside Europe. If correctly implemented and not abused, country categories nested inside regional categories nested inside continent categories can achieve the goal of reducing category clutter. It is wrong to assume that just because many fish are widespread that they would need to diffused to every subcategory. I would also note that some of these categories are viable even if restricted to endemic species: Fishbase 6 species endemic to Germany, 8 species endemic to Italy, 11 endemic to the United Kingdom, and 22 endemic to Greece. Those were the few I checked and FishBase would be excluding many in that search that would only be included in two or three categories because of their small distributions that span two to three countries. Rkitko ^(talk) 22:16, 11 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Rkitko: There may be a case for national categories regarding freshwater or landlocked fish, and in that context I think your arguments have validity. The same validity as for other terrestrial animals. But what we have here are categories for fish in general, that is both freshwater and marine fish. The problem is with the marine fish. Marine fish inhabit a single contiguous world ocean. They do not respect national boundaries, and many species occur world wide. There are over 150 coastal nations, and some species would have over 150 categories. --Epipelagic (talk) 23:50, 11 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Epipelagic: I certainly understand the problem, but I wouldn't agree that that "some species would have over 150 categories." Wouldn't it be reasonable to just use the highest category level in the hierarchy? So strictly, at most you'd have 7 continent categories, unless you had other categories just for Eurasia or Afro-Eurasia. In plants, we often run into this problem with species that have wide distributions, such as those that are circumboreal, but we don't see any need to always diffuse the upper level categories in the hierarchy. (I'd also pause here to note that WP:DIFFUSE uses Category:Rivers of Europe as an example, but note that Rhine is in several "Rivers of <country>" categories. Yes, I know... WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, I'm just pointing it out as an aside and not to support my argument.) If we didn't have specific categories for carnivorous plants by continent (there are too few carnivorous plants to make "of <country>" categories large enough in most cases), then Drosera rotundifolia with its circumboreal distribution would simply be placed in Category:Flora of North America, Category:Flora of Europe, and Category:Flora of Asia. But we have species with wide distributions and others with distributions best covered by regional categories, still others best served by a handful of small country/state/province categories, and endemics served by just one. So I see no reason why a marine fish with that large of a distribution would need over 150 individual categories when the geographic hierarchy is suited to the use of all levels. The geographic categories at the highest level are not containers for subcategories only. Also, as there is a difference between freshwater and marine fish, the marine fish with large distributions would usually only be placed in the highest geographic categories. Or perhaps another solution, such as categories for marine fish broken down by body of water, would be more appropriate. I'm certainly familiar with the problem as there are some marine plants that have made me pause when the time came to add the distribution categories. With Posidonia oceanica, I see that we left it in "Biota of <body of water>" instead of creating new "Flora of <body of water>" categories. Probably most sensible since there aren't that many. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 01:26, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Rkitko: Marine fish categories based on national borders makes little sense, but categories based on bodies of water could work quite well. Rather than using national categories, the European territory would be broadly covered by Category:Fish of the Baltic, Category:Fish of the North Sea, Category:Fish of the Mediterranean, Category:Fish of the Black Sea, Category:Fish of the Irish Sea, Category:Fish of the Norwegian Sea, Category:Fish of the Caspian Sea etc. Categories would work for inland seas and large lakes. But national categories, if used at all, should be confined to freshwater fish. --Epipelagic (talk) 03:20, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Epipelagic: Yes, that makes sense to me. The category tree needs a lot of attention, but this should work. Note that the 22 endemic fish species in Greece listed by Fishbase appear to all be freshwater species. Some island nations with unique reef systems may have enough marine species that a national category would be more reasonable without creating overwhelming "category clutter" on the article. Having dealt with your concerns about marine fish, I see you still support upmerging and deleting the national categories (if restricted to or renamed for freshwater fish). Is there any lingering concern about such a category system? If so, do you have the same reservations about "Rivers of <country>" in Europe? I'm just trying to get to the root of the issue; discussion in the past has always devolved into simple citations of WP:DEFINING, which I don't see as being a particularly strong argument, and my disagreement and explanation of what I see as the proper usage of the nation<region<continent geographic hierarchy. So far, I think you and I have had a decent discussion on the issue, so I'd appreciate any clarification you could offer on the national categories.

I'd agree that some of the small nations ought not to have categories (the nominator usually titles these discussions with a small country to emphasize its ridiculousness; I wonder if these discussions would be different if it were titled with the largest European nation category). For example, I have plans to upmerge Category:Flora of Andorra and Category:Flora of Gibraltar to Category:Flora of Spain per the aforementioned WGSRPD, which includes those two subunits under a biogeographical category named "Spain", because I can't find any examples where having the subordinate categories is useful; "Spain" would just be re-circumscribed to include the flora of these two entities. But such actions are done with care and research as opposed to these sweeping nominations, where, as I've shown, some categories included in this discussion would be viable even if restricted to endemic freshwater fish. Most others would be viable if not restricted to endemics but carefully trimmed to reduce category clutter with the use of regional category (e.g. "Southwestern Europe"). We may not have articles for all those fish, but as a work-in-progress, that shouldn't matter. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 04:10, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Rkitko - you asked above about "Rivers of <country>" categories, but there are many differences - e.g. (1) most rivers flow through less than 5 countries (whereas many fish are found in (the waters of) dozens of countries), (2) there are other ways of categorizing fish (e.g. by taxonomy), but there are few/no other ways to categorize a river than by where it goes or which sea etc it discharges into (actually, I'm slightly surprised to find that we don't have categories for the latter), (3) which countries a river passes through is fairly permanent (whereas the distribution of a species can vary by season and over a longer timescale and is generally messier), (4) it makes sense (in terms of categorization) to categorize rivers in a similar way to other geography (e.g. we have "Mountains of <country>" categories). DexDor (talk) 22:26, 16 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@DexDor: Point by point reply:

1. Many fish also have restricted distributions to 5 or fewer countries; that some have wide distributions does not mean these categories should not exist, just as how the Volga River is large and therefore in twelve "Rivers of <subdivision>" categories. I think you'll find that most organisms have restricted distributions; the most well-known (and consequently the ones we're most likely to have articles for already in this incomplete encyclopedia) have wider ranges. The national categories are most useful for those organisms with restricted distributions.
2. That there are other ways to categorize organisms does not imply that this hierarchy isn't also a valid and useful approach. I know little of rivers, but I'm sure hydrologists have some kind of classification for the kinds of rivers that would approximate the existing taxonomic categories we have for organisms.
3. I think you have mistaken ideas about the impermanence of species distributions. The vast majority are stable. Discoveries of new populations are rare enough to be noteworthy and published as extensions of known ranges. That a species migrates is immaterial; the categories for flora and fauna include organisms native to an area in their lifetime and excludes introductions by man (introduced or invasive organism distributions) or exceedingly rare events such as a North American migratory bird showing up in the UK after being blown off course -- this is not the native range of the species, so the UK would never be a correct category to place on that species article. Species distributions are not as messy as you seem to think.
4. I agree that categorizing rivers and mountains by geography (implemented by using national and subdivisions of national categories) makes sense! It also makes sense to categorize species this way. I see no material difference between the relatively stable course of a river and the relatively stable native distribution of plants and animals.

Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 17:00, 17 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

oppose - good idea to change the category, but fish doesnt live in Europe, Asia, and so on. Choice some regions which gives sense (for the fish). Christian75 (talk) 16:25, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What regions do you have in mind? For saltwater fish "Fish of <sea>" categories (as suggested above) might be workable, but for freshwater fish ... ? DexDor (talk) 22:26, 16 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the 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 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: rename. – Fayenatic London 10:47, 21 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose renaming Category:Images of Katie Melua to Category:Katie Melua album covers

Nominator's rationale: Rename. All of the images are album covers. I suggest renaming the category and recategorizing it as an album covers category. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:45, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.