Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Categories

See also: WT:CAT and WT:CFD

Category:Maintenance categories

Would any contributors mind clarifying the purpose of this category with respect to Category:Wikipedia maintenance?

I understand that it contains categories of course, but is the intent for Category:Wikipedia maintenance to be emptied of categories? Or perhaps a catch-all category, while Category:Maintenance categories is for commonly useful maintenance categories (generally omitting technical ones like the 'Page displaying...' series)? Something else? Tule-hog (talk) 23:56, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

@Rich Farmbrough:, who created that category in 2011, is still around. Seems like a logical place to start. Polygnotus (talk) 20:18, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Diplomats by century

So far two things are fairly evident to Mr.

1. The majority of people in the diplomats tree are in sub-carmts but not yet well diffused.
2. Most people belong under Diplomats for foo, however we have enough people who were diplomats gor international and non-governmental agencies that a separate Fooian diplomats tree does work.
3. I think we do not need 2 trees for diplomats by nationality by century.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:06, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

• I think we should rename all the x century fooian diplomats cats to x century diplomats for foo. So make 18th-century diplomats for the United States, 19th-century diplomats for the United States, etc. I have doubts as to whether we should have 30th and 21st century cats at all.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:08, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Dispute - or is it vindictiveness

User:MrSchimpf is reverting my category edits. My edits are based on guidelines. User:MrSchimpf edits are based on something else that I cannot mention here for fear of retribution from the wikicommunty. Can someone who understands categories please check my edits. 43.249.196.179 (talk) 20:48, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Solution for non-resident Ambassador Category clutter

There are lots of people who at one time are resident Ambassador and then non-resident Ambassador elsewhere. One common case is resident Ambassador to Australia, then non-resident Ambassador to Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Palau and other small Pacific Island nations. This leads to many people being in a half dozen or more, sometimes even a dozen Ambassador categories. Since people have very heavily diffused to every possible Fooian Ambassador to Boo pairing this also leads to this sometimes being a half dozen or more 1 article categories. Upmerging say Ambassadors of Croatia to Australia; Ambassadors of Croatia to Tuvalu etc. Would leave us w8th less 1 article categories bit still have excessive overcatrgorization. I have a solution. These I think are reasonable rules. 1-any resident Ambassador position we have reliable sources showing it was help we will accept categorizing by as Ambassadors to Australia; Ambassadors to Brazil etc. As the case applies (remember smbassadors are not default notable, to have articles thry need to pass GNG, but that is a separate issue). In general we should only create sub-categories if A-there are at least 100 articles that would fall under Ambassadors to Australia, Ambassadors to France, Ambassadors to Nigeria etc. B-The sub-category being created has at least 5 existing articles that can be put in it. In the case of non-resident Ambassadors the people belong in Ambassadors of Foo (Ambassadors if Croatia, Ambassadors of El Salvador, Ambassadors of Samoa, etc.) Regardless, although that can be in another sub-cat. Some non-resident Ambassadors (although not many) reside in their home country. To categorize someone under the Ambassadors to Boo tree for non-resident Ambassadors (Ambassadors to Vanuatu, Ambassadors to Andorea, Ambassadors to Luxembourg, etc.) We must have at least 1 reliable source that says something substantial about the actions of this person while a non-resident Ambassador to that country that relates to government relations with that country. Do people think this is a reasonable idea?John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:06, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes agree. LibStar (talk) 16:31, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Category:Stairways

It says they they are a subset of Category:Stairs, specifically outdoor stairs only ("outdoor staircases, and structures for external pedestrian infrastructure, including as park and garden features." (The meaning of staircase is a whole nother matter, but my research indicates that it's mostly a synonym for stairway.)

I just... I just don't think that this distinction is understood much anymore. People use them interchangeably a lot. Sloppy maybe, but we go with common usage.

Looking at dictionaries, Merriam-Webster says the definition is "one or more flights of stairs, usually with landings to pass from one level to another". Nothing about inside/outside there. In the recent web examples, three are inside and one outside. The further examples are 19-10 in favor of inside.

dictionary.com has stairway as a synonym for staircase, the example has "...from one level to another, as of a building, to another..." so that is outside, but it is qualified with "as of".

Wiktionary.com has stairway as "A set of steps, with or without a case, that allow one to walk up or down.". Nothing about inside/outside there. (By "case" they mean "staircase"; I found that in a couple other places, that a staircase is a structure enclosing a stairway, but nobody talks like that.)

In our Wikipedia. Stairway just redirects to Staircase, so...

I've never heard of them differentiated -- people do use both terms, but usually use "stairs". And I've been around the track a few times. It looks like "stairway=staircase=stairs", all synonyms (as is "steps" also), de facto, and even in the dictionaries.

So, readers are not going to be helped but rather hindered by the situation. So, what I suggest is just merging Category:Stairways into Category:Stairs.

Right? It's a big job, so I want to make sure that I'm not missing something. Herostratus (talk) 00:56, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Additional input requested for Drag Race contestant categories

Would anyone like to weigh in at this discussion? It could use some more eyes. --woodensuperman 13:14, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

RfC: Does Killing of Trayvon Martin belong in Anti-Black racism in Florida (category)?

This questions involves (it seems) some important Wikipedia policies on categorization, so I would love to hear from some Wikipedians who have a good understanding of the policies and how they are best applied to specific cases.

→ RfC about including this article in Category: Anti-black racism in Florida - Should the article, Killing of Trayvon Martin, be included in the category, Anti-black racism in Florida? Thanks! -- Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 15:26, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Labelled map templates

Should Labelled map be a subcategory of Category:Dynamic map templates (or visa versa)?

I suppose 'dynamic' could mean either not-necessarily-labelled (where 'labelled' means explicitly marked - e.g. {{Yosemite ImageMap}}) or subject-to-change (e.g. {{Map/Airports in Tajikistan}}). Tule-hog (talk) 23:52, 23 April 2025 (UTC)