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: Delete. The articles about the shows are already in Category:Showtime (TV network) original programs; however, I did find a network-related article, ShowSports, which I did merge into the parent category. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 04:09, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose merging Category:Showtime Sports to Category:Showtime (TV network)

Nominator's rationale: Merge. WP:OVERCAT, particularly since there's no article on Showtime Sports. As an alternative - delete, since events in this category were (and will be) broadcast on other channels worldwide. Brandmeister^talk 18:00, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete with manual selective merge; only the shows but not the events should be placed in the parent category. – Fayenatic London 07:38, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

---

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: mrege. MER-C 12:10, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose deleting Category:English Catholic missionaries (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: Seems to be duplicate to Category:English Roman Catholic missionaries, which is part of the corresponding category tree. BDD (talk) 16:49, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Why not merge the two categories? Marcocapelle (talk) 16:21, 2 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Same end result, really. It's just a matter of switching over the two articles in this category. If we want to leave it as a category redirect, that's fine with me. --BDD (talk) 20:52, 2 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• It's more a matter of phrasing your nomination correctly. Your current phrasing means you propose removing the category from two articles while not recategorizing them to the other category. I'm glad you don't intend that really. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:01, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Support merge per nom. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:01, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge -- The inclusion of "Roman" is (unusually) desirable here, to ensure that it soes not include Anglo-Catholics. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:17, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

---

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: delete. MER-C 12:06, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose deleting Category:Human genome (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: Category serving solely to contain a single subcategory that is itself up for CFD as a singularized duplicate of another category that already existed — which will then be left empty when (not if, but when) that merger takes place. I'm taking the step of putting this up for discussion, instead of just leaving it to be speedied as an empty category, because I can see the possibility that this might be repurposable for other contents (though I suppose I might just be giving it more latitude than it deserves.) Looks like a delete to me, but are there any genetics experts here who can see a good reason why this might be worth keeping and repopulating with new content? Bearcat (talk) 04:22, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete -- without prejudice to re-creation if a measn of populating it can be bound. The eponymous article will probably make a main article (or extra main article for "Human genes". Peterkingiron (talk) 15:25, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Looks like duplicate of Category:Human genetics, as an alternative may be soft-redirected there. Brandmeister^talk 16:25, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that — I'd be comfortable with that alternative too. Bearcat (talk) 15:44, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

---

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: delete. – Fayenatic London 13:12, 22 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose deleting Category:Mutated gene in human disease (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  

Nominator's rationale: I'm not entirely sure what needs to happen here, and trust that somebody with more expertise on the subject will know what the right answer is. This is definitely named incorrectly in its current form, and would need to be pluralized at Category:Mutated genes in human disease instead of singular — but as a one-item category, I'm not wholly convinced that we actually need it at all, and I lack the expertise in genetics necessary to know whether there's already another similar category that this could be merged into instead. "Keep" is definitely not an option here — but is it a rename, a delete, or a merge into another category? Bearcat (talk) 04:15, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Easy really. Useless and ungrammatical as is. I doubt there is a viable category called anything like this, if only because most (all?) human genes would qualify. Also the single stub doesn't mention disease. Johnbod (talk) 16:32, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge to Category:Human genes, the probable target of an open discussion. A mutant (or abnormal) gene is still a human gene. I suspect that a lot of the genes on which we have articles are cases where abnormal variants are causing disease, do that I see no point in mentioning disease; at leastr not until it is so populated that we need to split it. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:22, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete The only article currently covered is a stub with no particular information on diseases. Dimadick (talk) 17:26, 17 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

---

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: Renaming according to Option B. While there were numerous discussions regarding a split of churches in to churches and congregations, there wasn't a full consensus to support that position at the moment. A separate discussion can be started about splitting churches and congregations (or be WP:BOLD). Ricky81682 (talk) 08:11, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Propose renaming according to one of the following options:

Option A: Churches → Church buildings - see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2015 May 1/list#Option A

Option B: Church buildings → Churches - see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2015 May 1/list#Option B

Rationalle: Since all these categories refer to the same thing, they should all be named in a similar manner. Preference to Option A, since the word church is ambiguous - it refers to Christian denominations (e.g Catholic Church), as well as, more generally, to a religion in general (Separation of church and state).

Note - I intentionally left out a few subtrees which I thought may cause a TRAINWRECK; once this passes, I intend to nominate those separately. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 03:09, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note - I did tag the base category, but there's no way I'm tagging all 2400+ categories myself; I left a request at WP:Bot requests to do so. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 03:24, 1 May 2015 (UTC) WikiProject Christianity was notified oof this discusision, as were the participents of a related CFD discussio in October 2008. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 03:58, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Standardize to "churches" Johnbod (talk) 03:45, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Church buildings is my preference since "churches" is ambiguous. Edit: After reading other comments, I'll change my preferences to Churches since I had not considered that articles would be categorized for both structures and the Christian communities themselves. Ltwin (talk) 04:11, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Most/all of these articles are about the buildings. Why would you think they are about the communities? How many of these articles have you looked at to draw that conclusion? Personally I have looked at maybe 5,000 to 10,000 and do not find your statement to be supported by the actual content. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:19, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Church buildings is my preference too. All articles are at least about church buildings. However, if incidentally also the history of the parish of the same name as the building has been expanded in the same article, I wouldn't object categorizing such articles also in a separate 'church communities' category. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:46, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Church buildings would be my preference, for the reasons of ambiguity mentioned above. A query though - would that also include buildings like cathedrals, chapels, monasteries, abbeys, Episcopal palaces, convents, priories, etc? Because that's another potential trainwreck waiting to happen. Grutness...wha? 10:49, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Churches The vast majority of the articles describe both the building (Gothic architecture) and the denomination (they're Baptists) so the broader name better describes the actual contents. RevelationDirect (talk) 13:14, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment If my opinion is in the minority though, I would still favor standardization to "church buildings" over the current mish mash though.RevelationDirect (talk) 13:13, 1 May 2015 (UTC) Maybe not. See below for discussions about whether some sub-categories are building specific and others aren't. RevelationDirect (talk)[reply]
• Churches. Articles should cover both the building and the occupant, and the use of "churches" is intentionally ambiguous because it covers both. If you force us to have separate trees for congregations and buildings, we'll end up with parallel trees: for example, Mechanicsburg Baptist Church would have to be placed both in "Baptist church buildings in Ohio" and "Baptist congregations in Ohio", and both in "Church buildings in Champaign County, Ohio" and "Congregations-or-whatever-name-you-pick in Champaign County, Ohio". We have one category in such cases, not two, because if we had two, most articles would end up in both categories. And no, not all of these are at least about church buildings: Immaculate Conception Catholic Church (Botkins, Ohio) and Sacred Heart Catholic Church (McCartyville, Ohio) barely mention the church buildings, because they're ordinary and unremarkable structures owned by historically important parishes and associated with other historically significant buildings owned by those parishes. Both are in one of the "Churches in the Roman Catholic (Arch)Diocese of Place" subcategories of Category:Roman Catholic churches in Ohio, for which this proposal would cause problems. Alternately, see Allen Temple AME Church (Cincinnati, Ohio), which likewise doesn't say much about the building. Splitting our categories over whether the article covers the building, the congregation, or both is a horrid idea. Nyttend (talk) 14:16, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: Nyttend, what you are saying seems totally reasonable. It would definitely be easier not to have that frequently redunant split between buildings and congregations. On the other hand, a quick glance at the lists above reveals some issues. Firstlly, some of the existing categories sound a little strange to me. Category:Churches completed in 1800 seems rather strange if we're not talking exclusively about a building. The same goes for Category:Destroyed churches and Category:Demolished churches (assuming the congregation just moved, rather than being destroyed as well. Category:Wooden churches also doesn't work both ways. Similarly Category:1st-century church buildings‎ is clear enough, but Category:1st-century churches might be confusing. A congregation that existed (solely?) in the 1st century, or buildings that were completed in the 1st century? Category:Former church buildings is also clear, whereas Category:Former churches is less so. I wish I had a good solution to offer, but I'm afraid all I can do is point out these issues. - TheMightyQuill (talk) 14:49, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Categories like Category:Grade I listed churches in Cambridgeshire, which form the great majority of those listed, are also not ambiguous at all. That sort of ambiguity is mainly an issue in the US, where frankly church architecture is much less interesting anyway, & church articles typically have more on the congregation, which is more likely to be (if Protestant) a "church" & not just a parish, and less on the building. I'm actually not a hard-line supporter of consistency here, & could support a different (buildings) solution for the US tree and for, say, head cats by country. And, eg Category:Types of church buildings should probably not go to Category:Types of churches, despite my overall comment above. Johnbod (talk) 16:38, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly so. However, a lot of people seem to dislike inconsistency. Therefore any divergence would have to spelled out in the top categories. Ephebi (talk) 20:46, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment If I remember my theology correctly there is only "one holy, catholic, and apostolic church" (catholic should be read here as meaning "universal") and it exists "wherever two or three are gathered together in thy name." Indeed, the church is "the body of Christ." (quotes from memory - I could be wrong). The point is that "church" really refers the entire world-wide community of believers, that is to people, not buildings. It is understandable that buildings, congregations, and even denominations are referred to as "churches" but we should be more precise. So I'd suggest Category:Church buildings is most precise in most contexts used here. To avoid the duplication mentioned by @Nyttend:, we could use "Category:Church congregations and buildings" where the two are combined in one article. Parsonages, episcopal palaces, former sanctuaries, etc. would all be under "Church buildings".

An additional complication - Quakers and some other denominations never use "church" to refer to a building, usually calling their meeting places "meeting houses" and those other places where priests and bishops hang out as "steeple houses". This is deep within reformation theology - part of the disintermediation of priests and hierarchies, though it has been forgotten by most Protestants. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:31, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As if this wasn't complicated enough! You want seperate parallel categories (splitting, say, Category:Grade I listed churches in Cambridgeshire) depending on whether or not there is some/much/any coverage of the congregation??!! Frankly this is unhelpful; I see it was rightly called a "horrid idea" by Nytend above, & we don't begin to have the editor numbers to do it once, never mind maintain it Johnbod (talk) 17:49, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If there is a specific sub-category, like Category:Quaker meeting houses, it makes sense to use an alternate name. When discussing churches/church buildings more generally, I think we have to use more general terms. I'm not opposed to "Church congregations and buildings" but "churches" is more succinct. RevelationDirect (talk) 17:51, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Quaker meeting houses is of course fine, though where it joins at the top levels, i'm not sure. I think they should just be lumped in with churches/church buildings by locality, rather than being with the mosques & synagogues etc, or having another level for "Christian places of worship" etc. No categorization system can be perfect. Johnbod (talk) 17:56, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Smallbones' suggestion to have 'buildings' and 'congregations and buildings' as parallel mutually exclusive categories seems to be a nice compromise. Marcocapelle (talk) 20:19, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can live with it.RevelationDirect (talk) 14:43, 2 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Use church buildings because "churches" is ambiguous, and can mean denominations or congregations, so is triply ambiguous. As these three things should be separately categorized, the name "churches" is no good. Congregations are not fixed to any single building, and many have moved to newer churches as time passes. And denominations frequently have multiple congregations and buildings. -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 01:18, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • All congregations currently categorized should be decategorized and placed into a congregation category, if the article is solely about a congregation. If it is about both, then add a category for the congregation. Buildings and congregations are not the same thing, and should not be treated as the same thing, so should have separate categorization. -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 01:22, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Separate Congregation and Church Building Categories Keeping in mind the existence of things like multiple-point parishes, multiple congregations using one building, previously religious buildings used for secular purposes, congregations without a building etc. I think we need seperate category trees for the buildings and the communities, with the understanding that some articles may be in both. It seems to me a bit like stadiums and teams, they don't match up perfectly, and they are very different things. Happy Squirrel(Please let me know how to improve!) 22:45, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Query to the 2 above Who is actually going to do the work of reading several thousand articles, and deciding (and based on which criteria?) whether or not they contain enough information on the congregation/building to deserve the second category? Are you volunteering? Johnbod (talk) 16:33, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I am not particularly busy right now, so yes I am volunteering. Not for the whole thing obviously, but for about 5 a day for the next few months, and possibly more. Happy Squirrel(Please let me know how to improve!) 16:38, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I will also help. I've already done it for the Ukraine and a lot of Eastern Catholic churches. Laurel Lodged (talk) 17:22, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Laurel Lodged, it was noted that you'd "done it for the Ukraine and a lot of Eastern Catholic churches" because it was noticed, was done without consulting with any other editors, protested against by editors, brought before a CfD after the fact and, ultimately, rejected here. In other words, you really didn't have the right to make executive decisions and leave other editors to undo the changes you'd made (and I doubt that they've all been undone as yet). The fact that you're focussing your energies on categories does not put you above community consensus. I hope you are taking note of that, also, Happysquirrel. Having your heart in the right place and wanting to be helpful to the Wikipedia project does not always mean that you are making the right executive choices or serving the community in a positive manner. Note, also, that I've struck through 'the' in 'the Ukraine' as it is an anachronism. This leaves me questioning why you'd decided to start testing your new category structuring in an area of Wikipedia you don't even appear to have any knowledge of. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 06:38, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Well, having read several thousand of these, I have long contented that most of them are about the buildings. The congregations get occasionally mentioned. The other related item mentioned is the affiliation of the building and congregation with some denomination or group. In the end, if everything was placed in building categories, there would likely be no errors. Then you could add congregation categories as reviewed.

• CommentChurches - So long as it isn't Church buildings. Bearing in mind the number of articles featuring heritage sites that are secular, and those that are still being used actively by congregations, 'Church buildings' does not allow for any leeway, treating them as architectural features only. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:11, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Iryna Harpy:, I'm not sure I understand your point here. Can you clarify? - TheMightyQuill (talk) 07:51, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I believe Iryna Harpy favours "churches" rather than "church buildings". – Fayenatic London 22:21, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Churches -- There are certainly churches (congregations) without a building and church buildings now used for other purposes or by several wholly distinct congregations. However, the majority are a building mainly used by one congregation. The two concepts are very difficult to separate, since both would potentially apply to most articles. We regularly delete articles on local churches because there is nothing notable about them. Accordingly many that are kept survive because of their architecture, but a building without a congregation is dead and will probably not survive (at least survive unvandalised). I think that is Iryna Harpy's point and I support it. I suspect that we have veared away from the solution of "Churches" in the past becasue of the multiple implications of the term, particularly denominations. I think the solution to this is a clear headnote with cross-references to the other meanings (or levels of meaning), or perhaps a disambiguation article. I note that the nom has excluded certain subcats at this stage. I hope that when we reach a consensus, he can can make follow-up noms. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:42, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• What is your view of TheMightyQuill's comments and of Smallbones' alternative proposal? Marcocapelle (talk) 11:01, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Thank you, Peterkingiron, for qualifying my comment for Themightyquill. That's precisely what I meant. Please note that the same was discussed in the recent RM for Churches in Ukraine. As regards the proposal by Themightyquill and Smallbones, I see it as being far more convoluted than simply starting with a simple "Churches" at the top of the hierarchy. If anyone is concerned about the size of such a category, please look at Category:Synagogues and Category:Mosques. I don't see that there is any difficulty in creating sub-cats within that structure (architectural styles, for example, wouldn't call for commenting on whether it still acts a congregational entity or not). --Iryna Harpy (talk) 01:00, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I see no objection to Quaker meeting houses being a subcategory of churches. I may not have fully considered Smallbones' comment, but I favour category names being kept short, hence "churches". The complications of what is covered can be dealt with in a headnote. The fact that a few denominations decline to call their building a church - Quakers as he mentions, but also Brethren Gospel halls and Johnovah's Witesses' Kingdom Halls - does not alter my view. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:28, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Churches per WP:COMMONNAME. These buildings are rarely called "church buildings". The ambiguity is difficult for people doing cataloging but this part of Wikipedia serves the readers not the librarians. "Churches (building)" is another option. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:37, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Option A It's clear and unambiguous. This is always the goal of categorisation. While ambiguity reduces the workload, it's essentially a subterfuge. An article will usually be predominantly one or the other; where no such predominance exists, let to have both as parents. Yes, this will make for a lot of work, but that's what bots are for. To do anything else is sloppy, short term and a pernicious fudge. Laurel Lodged (talk) 17:19, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Bots can't read articles. Johnbod (talk) 17:49, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Mine can. They just can't write to them! All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 10:20, 9 July 2015 (UTC).[reply]

• Churches. My immediate, gut reaction, is for Church buildings, because of the ambiguity mentioned, because church should really refer to the gathering of people ~ the ekklesia rather than the basilica, if i remember the spellings correctly ~ yet in common speech and writing, the language as we actually use it, the ambiguity exists, and there is not usually rampant confusion engendered through it. At Nyttend and others point out, an attempt to completely eradicate it would lead to multiple lines of categories, which would not really make it easier to navigate WP, and ease of navigation is surely a major purpose of categories. Cheers, Lindsay^Hello 10:39, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree with Lindsay: it's hopeless to dictate clarity where there is none.Jzsj(talk) 18:22, 16 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: there is already a hierarchy for congregations by date established, Category:Christian congregations by century of establishment, parallel to that for church buildings by date built, Category:Church buildings by century. – Fayenatic London 16:15, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Support option A. What is clear, even if the editors support either option, is that the current name is ambiguous. So that is what needs addressing. Since these categories tend to be in the buildings tree and since the articles either do not mention the congregation at all and make only mention the denomination in passing, clarifying that the category is for the building is logical. I believe we also have a tree for the type of church, the third meaning for church. Common usage is of limited value in the discussion since it results in an ambiguous choice which in the end says it is not an option. So go with the option that is clearly unambiguous and not wrong! For the few cases where the building article does cover a congregation to the level that requires an additional category, we can add that. I will not that many of the article likely affected by this may already have the extra category. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:16, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• If we go on like this, we will never reach consensus. Let's from now on focus the discussion on trying to establish if there is a need for (further) harmonization, i.e. if a compromise is desirable for people who are either in favor of A or in favor of B. To begin with, although I voted for A, I'm in for a compromise, in order to do things at least consistently instead of randomly. As mentioned before I like User:Smallbones' suggestion to split between a tree about "Church buildings" (where all categories that User:Themightyquill mentioned would definitely fit in) and a tree about "Church congregations and buildings". Marcocapelle (talk) 19:19, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Here's my two cents:
  • Cats about buildings should include the word "building", e.g., Category:Church buildings completed in 1800.
  • Cats about religious organizations should not, e.g., Category:Churches disbanded in 1800 (or "church congregation" or "Christian religious organization" or whatever).
  • Articles with significant content about both the buildings and the religious organization(s) using them should include both categories (cats not mutually exclusive). There will be no cat that includes both (no Category:Church congregations and buildings), because [a] no reader is realistically going to want to look for only articles about religious organizations meeting in important buildings, and [b] we'd still have to have the separate cats, because there will always be religious organizations without buildings and former church buildings that no longer have a religious function. This means that we will have partially parallel cat structures for buildings and organizations. This does not seem unreasonable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:55, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Agree with 2 cents summary. Laurel Lodged (talk) 10:12, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Churches (Option B) per Blue Rasberry. The main article is Church (building), so the current category name is a rather redundant precision. Brandmeister^talk 12:22, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• The two cents proposal of WhatamIdoing is a good compromise which I can very well live with. Marcocapelle (talk) 20:43, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I don't think it quite works, though, because of existing categories that straddle buildings and congregations such as Category:Protestant churches: this holds, among others, Category:Protestant congregations by century of establishment and Category:Protestant church buildings. Likewise, Category:Presbyterian churches holds, among others, Category:Presbyterian congregations by century of establishment and Category:Presbyterian church buildings by century. The Baptist and Methodist siblings likewise hold sub-cats for both buildings and congregations. – Fayenatic London 22:34, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Fayenatic , your information is a perfect argument in favor of my idea. We already have the partially parallel cat structures in place, with "congregations" and "church buildings" being separated and clearly labeled, and articles getting whichever separate tags are relevant to that particular article. So let's use that as the model: separate "congregations" and "church buildings", and give them whatever parent cats are relevant.
      "Option B" would change those cats to Category:Protestant churches by century of establishment (for the organization) and Category:Protestant churches (this one's secretly for the buildings—not to be confused with the more general Category:Protestant churches, which covers both buildings and organizations!). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:32, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Use churches. We do not force the distinction further than necessary between other types of organisations and their premises, e.g. theatres or hospitals, both of which may be established longer ago than their current buildings. We expect an article on such an entity to cover both its organisational history and its current premises, and to be categorised accordingly as e.g. "18nn establishments" and "buildings completed in 19nn". We have a Category:Hospital buildings for listed buildings & by year built, but the overall parent is Category:Hospitals, and that is the naming pattern used in the categories by location, by type etc. I acknowledge that "churches" is more ambiguous than hospitals because it can be used to refer to denominations, but IMHO we can separate those using standardised category explanations and "see also" links.

In terms of Options A and B, I support the latter part of option B (by location), but there is no need to rename the ones with "century" in the name - indeed it would create unnecessary ambiguity to do so. – Fayenatic London 23:03, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• 'Churches'

Keep option B: I object to changing from Category:Churches in Venice, for example, to Category:Church buildings in Venice.

I have contributed a few thousand entries regarding churches in Italy. My entries mainly have to do with the building, but if relevant, I comment on festivities or activities involved with the order or community affiliated now or in past with the church.

I prefer to use church building if referring to a building construction. A church built by the Knights of Malta in the 13th-century will often be affiliated with various orders over the ages. The "church building" thus was built in 13th-century. I am ok with referring to this as a church building.

If anything, the only question I have is whether we should have a category for "15th-century Roman Catholic church buildings"; the likelihood a non-Catholic church building was erected in that century, and still exists, is very low. I apologize for exceptions, perhaps, in Ethiopia.

Also: what is a 12th-century church building in England, if the church has officiated Anglican services for hundreds of years. Is this a "12th-century Roman Catholic church building" or a "12th-century Anglican church building"? At this moment, if such a church was built by the Benedictine order in England (eg Ely Cathedral, it is a category:12th-century church building, but if it was built in Italy by the same order, it is almost always (still) a category:12th-century Roman Catholic church building. Go figure.

Ultimately, this latter problem is quirky, but not a existential threat to me as an editor. Rococo1700 (talk) 02:55, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• NOTE church is a disambiguation page, so it cannot be used in the manner currently being used, since there isn't a base article to define "church" -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 04:44, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Your point being? There is no article on Historic Jewish communities, but there's a category:Historic Jewish communities. If there's a guideline stipulating that cats must match existing articles, I'm not aware of it. Categories don't have to correlate with existing articles... in fact, the majority don't. The point of categories is to assist readers in finding related content in a manner that articles can't. They're a far more complex methodology for cross-referencing for particular areas the reader may wish to follow (along with the "See also" subheader that carries related articles not wikilinked within the body of the article they've accessed. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 07:01, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Cat:Churches with subcat:Church buildings - the former includes the organization/congregation/people/community, the later (obviously) the buildings. The buildings are a subcat of the organization etc because the organization etc "own" (literally or metaphorically) the buildings. Use "cat:Churches (organization)" or similar if necessary to make that cat's contents clear. (Note that, per WP:SUBCAT, buildings would not appear directly in the parent cat.) Mitch Ames (talk) 11:49, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Another proposal to introduce further confusion, and masses of work that no-one is ready to carry out! For most if not all countries the primary category trees for these are (and should remain) geographical. Many churches (most in the UK and other European protestant countries) were built by one church and are now used by another, introducing yet more problems. See Rococo1700 above. Johnbod (talk) 12:44, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I don't think any resolution should be constrained by concerns about whether there are enough wikipedians to carry out the changes. This kind of update naturally casts a wide net, and even if categories are split into two hierarchies, there should be plenty of people available to get this done in a matter of a few weeks at most. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 13:23, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Churches is better I think as it can serve for both the congregation and the building. If it was changed to Church buildings then would a formerly Presbyterian building now used by a Pentecostal congregation be categorized as Presbyterian, because of the origin of the building, or Pentecostal, because of the current usage? I think maintaining that ambiguity is important, with added categories like, Former ... Church, supplementing. Making articles on churches primarily about the building, even though that is typically the principle feature that merits notability, unnecessarily diminishes the importance of the congregations. Having two separate categories would in almost every case be redundant. Djkeddie (talk) 23:03, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Church buildings are not churches, according to the historical meaning of the word and its etymology, from Χύριον meaning the Lord's people. Wikipedia may speak much more about buildings than about people of faith, but we can't change the fact that the people are what the word primarily refers to.jzsj 00:39, 13 May 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jzsj (talk • contribs)

Jzsj, you've overlooked the fact that Wikipedia is a rounded encyclopaedic resource (i.e., something for a lay reader to comprehend and search intuitively). Your observation appears to be based in the assumption that categories are somehow theological glossaries or lexicons. Such precision of distinction is relevant to pertinent articles surrounding such issues, but not for more generalised nomenclature for categories. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 05:46, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Churches: Useful for both the building and the congregation in it (or the congregation that used to use it, or the several congregations working in it, or whatever). As for groups of people as a whole, they may be better described in "Christianity in foo" articles Cambalachero (talk) 14:51, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There's a lot of text above. Can I try a summary of suggestions here?

• Option A: Merge everything to Category:Church buildings
  • Pros: Unambiguous. Avoids redundant parallel category trees. Requires very little work to be done - simply rename categories.
  • Cons: Greatly underplays/ignores any content of the articles about the associated congregation (sometimes a majority/entirety of the content).
• Option B: Merge everything to Category:Churches
  • Pros: Intentionally ambiguous so as to cover both the buildings and the congregations, thus avoiding redundant parallel category trees. Requires very little work to be done - simply rename categories. Churches is common name. Could include buildings with multiple congregations.
  • Cons: Ambiguous. Issues with categories that only apply to buildings or congregations (Churches built in XXXX. Some christian denominations may not use the term "church." Issues with former church buildings that are no longer used for religious purposes.
• Option C: Proposed compromise split between Category:Church buildings and Category:Congregations (or Category:Church communities or something similar).
  • Pros: No (or at least much less) ambiguity. According to religious definitions, "church" may technically refer to the broad community, not the building, so this would avoid using the word incorrectly.
  • Cons: Requires extensive sorting by users.
• Option D: Proposed compromise Category:Church congregations and buildings
  • Pros: Avoids ambiguity but includes all the categories.
  • Cons: Longer/wordier name

I hope that was helpful. I've probably missed something (sorry) so let me know and I can add it in. TheMightyQuill (talk) 16:27, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Move all to church buildings (exempt if it's part of the name). For example, the Church of Sweden is not a building, but rather a Christian denomination. J 1982 (talk) 19:53, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Favor Option D This faces the reality that most but not all "church" articles discuss buildings and congregations and seems to incorporate other editors' concerns about imprecision. Note that my original vote, above, was for Option B and I personally find the generic "churches" fine but am trying to incorporate other viewpoints. No objection to clear exceptions, as noted by J 1982, above. RevelationDirect (talk) 19:04, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Favor Option B I think on balance Option D adds confusion rather than precision for the average user if only due to wordiness. Not all ambiguity is a problem and I think using the term "Churches" presents the fewest problems. Djkeddie (talk) 22:38, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Favour Option B for all the reasons I've stated in the discussion above regarding option A. Options C and D are unnecessarily convoluted. There are such things as sub-categories, therefore no reason not to use these where they are applicable. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 01:03, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Initially I was in favor of option A, but during the discussion I've changed my mind to option C as first choice. I'm neutral towards D and still oppose B. Marcocapelle (talk) 21:23, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Question about option B (how) can we ensure in option B that people who are only interested in church buildings (e.g. architects, art historians) easily find the various building topics (e.g. 18th century churches, wooden churches, cathedrals). My initial solution would be to group all church buildings categories together into Category:Church buildings and to name the lower categories of this category Category:something with church buildings (C2C). But that's exactly what option B opposes, isn't it? Marcocapelle (talk) 05:32, 16 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: I applaud the nominator's work and thank him for it, but IMHO only a little change is needed; do not standardise. An article can be placed in categories for date of completing the building, and date of establishing the congregation. It will be fine for both of those categories to come together under Category:Churches, and location-based subcats accordingly named "churches". Just a little tidying up is required. From the Option A list, the first set should be renamed, namely everything beginning "Category:Churches completed in..." to "Category:Church buildings completed in...", for consistency in naming categories about the date of buildings. (There is currently inconsistency within Category:Church buildings by century and we might as well use "buildings" in that sub-hierarchy.) However, for other categories about the buildings where the "building" meaning of church is obvious from context, e.g. "Listed churches" and "ruined churches", there is no need to insert the word "building". Also, rename the few "Former churches" to "Former church buildings" which seems advantageous to avoid ambiguity, e.g. where a building was built by one denomination and is now used by another, or where the congregation is still meeting in other premises. Where the meaning is generic for congregations and buildings, use "churches", so keep the rest of the Option A list, and rename the fairly small number of "Church buildings in [location]" in the middle of the Option B list, and the very top Category:Church buildings to Category:Churches. – Fayenatic London 20:18, 16 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: this may be pretty much the same as the "two cents" proposal of user:WhatamIdoing, above. – Fayenatic London 20:23, 16 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Split Churches & Congregations. Sometimes a building itself is notable, sometimes a congregation that occupies a single (or several over the course of time) is notable, per established guidelines. Sometimes both are notable independent from each other. Therefore, it makes sense to wave two distinct categories.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:44, 16 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• As we need to find consensus I'm okay to support the latest alternative of Fayenatic london. Still one additional suggestion, which is in line with the question I had about option B before, the suggestion is to keep Category:Church buildings as a container category to host e.g. wooden churches, cathedrals and churches completed in the 18th century - and to parent this category both to Category:Churches and to the buildings and structures tree. Marcocapelle (talk) 16:17, 17 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Churches per common name. This is the common term for these buildings. Church building seems uncommon and unnecessary. Dimadick (talk) 17:29, 17 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep both Not all Churches are Church buildings and not all Church buildings are churches. They are distinct concepts. There are multiple Megachurches that are multi-campus institutions. In the case of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints usage is to refer to "The Church" as the institution as a whole. In Roman Catholic usage, Church is reserved for national sub-groupings, and would not be alone referred to a local church building. These are distinct concepts and should be kept as such.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:26, 19 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Then there are groups like the Bronx Household of Faith whose case has been appealed to the Supreme Court who are a Church in the low Protestant sense of the word that many of the editors here seem to want to impose as standard usage in Wikipedia, yet they lack a distinct building of their own, renting space from the New York Public Schools. This is a practice done by many congregations. Others rent space in movie theatres and other locations. The above point about parishes with multiple buildings is also worth considering.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:31, 19 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Churches. To most people in general usage the word primarily means the buildings, not the organisations. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:30, 19 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: Possibly A but if either chosed retain Cathedrals as a subcategory of Churches or Church buildings. Hugo999 (talk) 02:49, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• There are people aiming for either option A or B, period, which doesn't help us any further in reaching consensus. There are also people who provide input as to how to reach consensus and that's what the closer of the discussion should take into account. I think we're heading towards the solution that Category:Churches will be on top of the tree and Category:Church buildings will be an immediate child category of it in order to host all content that is clearly only related to buildings. Marcocapelle (talk) 20:57, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

At what level does the split occur? This looks like "No consensus" to me. Johnbod (talk) 21:31, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"No consensus" would be a very unsatisfactory outcome of the discussion after many fair observations have been made and after reasonable compromise solutions have been proposed. Marcocapelle (talk) 22:27, 21 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Support Whatamidoing's two cents proposal as a baseline. It won't kill us to distinguish between the church building and the church (congregation), and articles that cover both can be categorized in both hierarchies. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 08:35, 22 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Whatamidoing, Stevietheman, RightCowLeftCoast, and Marcocapelle: The main problem with this solution is that it requires a large amount of manual work. (Renaming 2000+ categories requires very little manual work once the list has been created.) And the parent category of this tree is Category:Places of worship by religious body, so the entire tree should be about the places - that is, the church buildings. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:26, 27 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm not concerned by the amount of work as it would get done eventually by a lot of nice little wikignomes. There's no requirement that the changes happen quickly. Also, I think cases where an article covers both the building and the congregation should be categorically accessible along both paths for reader clarity. I'm not opposed to having the places tree being about places, but we also have to take care of congregations. Thus, I am not going to pick one over the other. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 15:23, 27 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • There is no need to make the entire tree include the word "building". The Churches tree can be like the trees for other types of buildings, e.g. Category:Hospitals – it has a Category:Hospital buildings sub-cat for year built, listed buildings etc, but hospitals are also categorised by date established (as an organisation), and the cat within Category:Buildings and structures by city and type is simply Category:Hospitals by city (not Hospital buildings by city). There is no need to apply a stricter standard of consistency to the Churches hierarchy. They can all sit within Category:Places of worship, without all having to include "buildings" in the name. – Fayenatic London 16:27, 27 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        • I didn't say it needed to. I'm just saying that as a baseline for any church, if it makes sense, the one or more categories chosen should refer to the building/place, the congregation, or both. How that determines the category structure follows from that. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 18:25, 27 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
          • Fayenatic london is undoubtedly referring to his 16 May proposal which should lead to a very limited amount of manual work because there's only a few categories that need to be renamed in either direction. It's based on the general principle that we should only rename in either direction if it clearly avoids ambiguity. Let's go for that solution please. Marcocapelle (talk) 20:16, 27 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
            • OK, for the sake of getting a consensus, I'll go with Fayenatic london's May 16 proposal as a baseline set of fixes. Then, if there's any more issues, start a new CfD. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 15:45, 9 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Churches - ain't broke, don't fix it. Skyerise (talk) 16:14, 28 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • And Church buildings ain't broke, don't fix it. What's broke is the under use of the congregation categories. Vegaswikian (talk) 16:35, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Question I understand the will not to dissociate the local church (building) and the congregation that occupies it. However, in this system (using churches instead of church buildings), how would we categorize the larger organisations also called "churches"? How would we treat the ambiguity so that Armenian Apostolic Church is not put at the same level as Holy Cross Armenian Apostolic Church (New York City)? I just want to make sure that there is no systemic bias in this discussion towards a congregationalist/Protestant/American way of seeing things vs. a more episcopal way. Place Clichy (talk) 16:10, 8 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Proposal from the arguments above (and other discussions as old as this) I feel that the preference for churches or church buildings is very similar to the difference between those who put the focus of Christian organisation at the level of the local congregation (the congregationalist polity) or those who put it at the level of the larger organisation (i.e. the episcopal polity). The first would argue that treating a local church together with the congregation inside it makes sense while the opposite does not (therefore prefer churches) while the others maintain that churches categories are ambiguous and need to be split in unambiguous church buildings and church bodies. Therefore I suggest the following:
    • Category names in ...church buildings (and ...church bodies) for organisations following the episcopal polity (for instance, Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherians, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox)
    • Category names in ...churches for organisations following the congregationalist polity or the presbyterian polity (for instance, Congregationalists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Reformed, Evangelical Protestants)
  • What do you think? Place Clichy (talk) 10:40, 10 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ooh, no. Interesting concept, but no, I don't think that's sufficiently relevant down at this level. – Fayenatic London 23:01, 10 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Option B. Are there any actual examples of separate articles for a church congregation and its building? If there are, shouldn't these be merged? "Church" in the sense of a denomination is best avoided if less ambiguous terms are available; note that Category:Roman Catholic Church is a subcat of Category:Christian organizations established in the 1st century and Category:Catholic denominations, not "Christian churches..." or "Catholic churches...". Ham II (talk) 10:00, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Option B Per Ham II. Annoying and unnecessary. About as necessary as Western (genre) films. How often does somebody say "I'm going to the church building". ♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:01, 16 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have said that, as well as "I am going to the meetinghouse" and related terms. This is especially the case when I have gone for other than Sunday worship services.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:43, 21 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• I continue to favour Option B. The category (or each of them) will need a strong headnote making it clear that the category is for local church buildings and the congregations that worship in them. This will need some "see also" links for denominations and broader concepts such as The Church Universal. A category such as Quaker meeting houses could converniently sit as a subcategory: we should not impose "Quaker churches" on them. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:38, 26 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• I would prefer "churches" for general articles, and "church buildings" for purely architectural ones. Absent that, "Churches" let it be. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:43, 4 July 2015 (UTC).[reply]

  No reason not to dual classify. Many church buildings have been rebuilt, many have changed hands. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 10:36, 9 July 2015 (UTC).[reply]
  

@Rich Farmbrough: This is where the nuts-and-bolts of the problem comes into play. For example, changes were being made to articles on churches in the Ukraine representing the vernacular style of Greco-Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox variants. While there is information on which vernacular tradition they follow, it's impossible to follow up on which are still in use or are held by some form of national or regional trust. Further to that, in Australia alone, I'm aware of dozens of 'church buildings' which are architecturally one form of building, but have been bought or are being leased by another 'church' for their congregation (i.e., a C of E church building has been used by a Russian Orthodox congregation for half a century near where I live, but only those who attend there know: to all intents and purposes it looks like an active C of E church in the Melbourne blue-stone vernacular style). What do we do under those circumstances? Have a category called "Church building that may or may not be in use by a congregation which may or may not be connected to the architectural style". If we don't know, the WP:KISS principle makes the most sense. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:31, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the ping I have looked a little more closely, which is to say still not very closely, and clearly buildings can move to and from ecclesiastical use, as a well as being re-purposed within or between denominations or religions. For this reason all bets are off. My vote is "replace category system with something better" or else leave this more or less alone, apart from tidying up individual cases. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 10:32, 9 July 2015 (UTC).[reply]

• Dr. Blofeld's question is irrelevant: (How often does somebody say "I'm going to the church building"?) Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and its primary purpose is to educate, not pander to the unenlightened. People who have been educated on the difference between church buildings and church congregations will not appreciate having to wade through many articles irrelevant to their search for buildings or congregations respectively. Categories related to ecclesiastical edifices should be unambiguously labeled as such, even if the articles themselves may include extraneous information about the congregations that they house/have housed. If you don't think that "church" is ambiguous in that regard, then you are uninformed. On the other hand, there should be categories for church congregations as well, and these should be unambiguously not about buildings, even though the articles they link to may describe each of the ecclesiastical edifices the congregation has ever used in some detail. Any category labeled "churches" is ambiguous and should be merged into a disambiguation page. Dlw20070716 (talk) 18:00, 6 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Option B: churches; shorter and useful. Regards, Kertraon (talk) 23:15, 8 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Option B - Churches. Shorter and unlikely to be confused in this context. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:33, 11 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

---

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.