Wikiquote talk:Category schemes

Request to add category
Need category for African-Americans added as a subcategory for Nationality. lwalt 23:08, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I see no one has replied to your question. I imagine your interest in this category is partly due to your creation of an article on James Brown. (Thanks for tackling that; I was surprised we hadn't already had one.)


 * After having brought up a similar issue (see "Nationalities" above), I eventually found myself uncomfortable with, where not actively against, categorization based on nationality and ethnicity, as I find it divisive, open to POV interpretation, and often impractical. However, I'm in a minority on this, I think.


 * If you want to implement a category, you can just start it yourself by adding the category tag to an article, then following the red link to the category page and adding a parent category to it, like Category:People by ethnicity (which you would also have to add to Category:People). Be prepared for plenty of controversy, as ethnicity arguments are among the most volatile in Wikidom.


 * As far as such a category being a subcat of a nationality, I'm really against that. It implies that African-American (or Japanese-American or Mexican-American or French-American) is a sub-nationality of "American" (whatever that means to different people). I think there's a distinction to be made between cultural inheritance (ethnicity) and geopolitical organization (nationality), a distinction that weighs heavily on many of the world conflicts throughout history, right up through today's headlines. I would instead suggest that someone who is identified as "African-American" is someone with "American" nationality and both "American" and "African" ethnicity, even though I acknowledge it's messy. (I think everything in this entire domain is messy.) Well, that's my 2 cents. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 13:07, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * By the way, I should note that we've already had one category like this established — Category:Native Americans. (I wasn't crazy about that, either.) One could make an argument that "Native Americans" (I quote the term because I am a natural-born American but am not of Amerind descent) are considered a sovereign nation (or nations) within the U.S. (and surrounding nations, perhaps?). But I see this as the kind of uncomfortable hair-splitting I'd prefer to avoid in an NPOV work. But again, that's just my opinion. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 00:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Category:British Jews
Originally posted to WQ:VP

This category seems to be unique; there is no other Jewish category (except rabbis). I assumegood faith, but it looks as if it was created as part of the "Let's stress how Jewish that crook Michael Levy is" movement, and indeed Michael Levy was the only person in it. I have now added a couple more, but wonder if it would be better to delete it. If it does stay, we also ought to have American Jews and probably other nationalities.--Cato 22:51, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * IIRC we have another type of ethnic-nationality combined category, Category:Finland-Swedes (Swedish-speaking minority in Finland), which also includes only one person (Anders Chydenius). I think category of people by language may make a sense (in particular when we are going to label the articles translated from foreign language by original language, see a past discussion on this page), but still I am not sure if we long for ethnic-nationality categories. --Aphaia 02:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

If youwant Finland-Swedes, I could start a page for Jean Sibelius.--Cato 22:13, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Either we want a category for them or not, I am sure we want definitely quotes from Finland-Swedes notabilities including a great composer :) --Aphaia 03:51, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Request to add category
Need category for African-Americans added as a subcategory for Nationality. lwalt 23:08, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I see no one has replied to your question. I imagine your interest in this category is partly due to your creation of an article on James Brown. (Thanks for tackling that; I was surprised we hadn't already had one.)


 * After having brought up a similar issue (see "Nationalities" above), I eventually found myself uncomfortable with, where not actively against, categorization based on nationality and ethnicity, as I find it divisive, open to POV interpretation, and often impractical. However, I'm in a minority on this, I think.


 * If you want to implement a category, you can just start it yourself by adding the category tag to an article, then following the red link to the category page and adding a parent category to it, like Category:People by ethnicity (which you would also have to add to Category:People). Be prepared for plenty of controversy, as ethnicity arguments are among the most volatile in Wikidom.


 * As far as such a category being a subcat of a nationality, I'm really against that. It implies that African-American (or Japanese-American or Mexican-American or French-American) is a sub-nationality of "American" (whatever that means to different people). I think there's a distinction to be made between cultural inheritance (ethnicity) and geopolitical organization (nationality), a distinction that weighs heavily on many of the world conflicts throughout history, right up through today's headlines. I would instead suggest that someone who is identified as "African-American" is someone with "American" nationality and both "American" and "African" ethnicity, even though I acknowledge it's messy. (I think everything in this entire domain is messy.) Well, that's my 2 cents. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 13:07, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * By the way, I should note that we've already had one category like this established — Category:Native Americans. (I wasn't crazy about that, either.) One could make an argument that "Native Americans" (I quote the term because I am a natural-born American but am not of Amerind descent) are considered a sovereign nation (or nations) within the U.S. (and surrounding nations, perhaps?). But I see this as the kind of uncomfortable hair-splitting I'd prefer to avoid in an NPOV work. But again, that's just my opinion. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 00:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Category:British Jews
Originally posted to WQ:VP

This category seems to be unique; there is no other Jewish category (except rabbis). I assumegood faith, but it looks as if it was created as part of the "Let's stress how Jewish that crook Michael Levy is" movement, and indeed Michael Levy was the only person in it. I have now added a couple more, but wonder if it would be better to delete it. If it does stay, we also ought to have American Jews and probably other nationalities.--Cato 22:51, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * IIRC we have another type of ethnic-nationality combined category, Category:Finland-Swedes (Swedish-speaking minority in Finland), which also includes only one person (Anders Chydenius). I think category of people by language may make a sense (in particular when we are going to label the articles translated from foreign language by original language, see a past discussion on this page), but still I am not sure if we long for ethnic-nationality categories. --Aphaia 02:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

If youwant Finland-Swedes, I could start a page for Jean Sibelius.--Cato 22:13, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Either we want a category for them or not, I am sure we want definitely quotes from Finland-Swedes notabilities including a great composer :) --Aphaia 03:51, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Categorization and subcategories

 * Kalki raised concerns about the subcategorization on my talk page and proposed further discussion. I tend to categorize articles only with the most specific category. But maybe we should elaborate more the policy about categorization as in Wikipedia with . The problem is that if we put every single category along with its subcategories in that its related article, these categories become difficult to navigate because as happen in other Wikis. They become too long, having articles in specific subcategories improve this. Rupert loup (talk) 14:53, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * At the moment there are not too many categories, I think, while Wikipedia has too many. I've edited mainly birth places and years. In my opinion the years of birth are more interesting than the years of death. "Where people are from?", that's impossible to find out at Wikipedia. "Authors", "Americans" and "English people", for example, are too vast and useless categories.--Risto hot sir (talk) 15:15, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The Commons policy COM:OVERCAT explains well this problem, see by example categories such as Category:Political leaders, Category:Philosophers, etc. They are becoming to saturated with several articles. As Wikiquote is growing every day, I think that is something that we should solve. Rupert loup (talk) 16:11, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * @Rupert loup: "I tend to categorize articles only with the most specific category." The problem is that overly-specific categories, with just one or two articles each, are not helpful at all. As you yourself admit, they "become difficult to navigate", etc., but you still went ahead and created hundreds of them anyway! I agree with Kalki's comment that "such obscuration of the categories [is] unhelpful rather than helpful". ~ DanielTom (talk) 20:28, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
 * DanielTom I get your point. I will have it in mind in my next edits and I will check the categories that I created to see if they can expanded. If not I will redirected to a broad category and move the articles there. Rupert loup (talk) 20:35, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
 * DanielTom Maybe we can have a kind of rule of guideline in which subcategories should be created when the main category is too bloated? Rupert loup (talk) 20:37, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Rupert loup: I'm not good at writing rules. You can wait for other editors to comment. Obviously, if one category holds too many articles, then creating subcategories may be useful. And creating a category for just one article may sometimes be acceptable and even desirable, if it has potential to "expand" (as you put it), that is, to grow and hold more articles in the future. The biggest problem I had with your changes was that you removed notable people from Category:Critics of Islam, and now that list has some serious gaps. Why shouldn't Voltaire (author of Mahomet) and Sam Harris (one of the most famous modern-day critics of Islam) be on that list? I think they should be on it. ~ DanielTom (talk) 20:50, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I've not actually added all that many categories outside of fiction on Wikiquote, but considering I was kicked off of Wikipedia for making needlessly specific categories in an unsuccessful attempt to emulate the ones used by TV Tropes, this is something I feel I should comment on, having had mostly success with it here, but more noticeably failure on Wikipedia. I recall the argument being made that Wikiquote didn't particularly need to have all the films "about" dwarves and mermaids categorized as such, which was more resistance than I received on Wikipedia categorizing films featuring flying cars, those are typically supporting characters and features of the environment, and wikipedia doesn't have other background elements as categories such as films "about" deserts, mountains, caves and jungles, even though man vs nature is one of the fundamental types of story. Feminist and libertarian films were categories on wikiquote that were deleted as being too subjective, perhaps you've written a paper claiming X book is secretly about Y philosophy for a writing class before, there are only a few cases where the authors specifically state the book is meant to be a reflection of real world politics in an interview about the book, and even fewer specifically about the politics of economics. For example, Robert Heinlein's libertarian philosophy is expressed in his works, however this is often at odds at taking the audience to a fantastic speculative fiction setting that's alien and unlike the one they are familiar with, and seen as somewhat of a mood killer in romances and comedies that take people out of the moment, or so I'm guessing. Personally I would consider the first Superman, Spiderman, Daredevil and Hulk movies to qualify as romances because of how much screen time is given to that element of the story, but romance is such a common subplot added to every genre of movie that it is marginalized as a category unless the film is specifically marketed as a romance. George Lucas has stated Stormtroopers are inspired by Nazis and Jedi samurais, but wikipedia doesn't consider that enough to add Star Wars to the category samurai in fiction, Nazism or Fascism in fiction, or even as dictatorships in fiction, because that's not terminology directly stated at any point in those movies, a dictatorship and discrimination towards aliens is just implied through subtext. Basic themes which are not the names of genres like romance or horror, such as death, poverty, parenting, racism, sexism, or the much broader xenophobia in fiction, are categories wikiquote and wikipedia will not ever have and best left to TV Tropes. Over categorization is more often a problem with classifying fiction and those who produce fiction, it would be difficult to categorize artists by which art movement they are said to belong to by critics, as the artists are often quoted as saying they reject those labels, unlike with musicians who we do categorize by a genre of music, playwrights and novelists aren't categorized by whether they wrote comedies or dramas, nor are film directors. As far as categories for non fiction are concerned, unless the category is extremely specific to the point of only having a half dozen entries, such as say a page for members of a particular family, authors published by a publisher, or people from a specific neighborhood in New York, ethnicity or royalty based around possessing a certain amount of blood quantum, height, eye or hair color, how much money someone has or people who have been quoted as saying they have a fetish, or what instrument or sport they played in high school (this information would be notable for college). Language fluency is another nebulous concept Wikipedia avoids categorizing people by, I believe that organized religious attendance isn't actually a requirement for Wikipedia to classify someone based off the religions they claim to adhere to. I think adding political affiliation would be a good idea for a category on Wikiquote, Wikipedia goes so far as to have it categorized by state, such as the category California Democrats that I assume can be added to the pages for the majority of directors, I'm pretty sure the majority of people we quote predate the modern political parties and attempting to classify them in modern political terms like conservative and liberal would be subjective and an anachronism, as left and right wing as terms originated only in the early modern era from the French parliament. That said, I thought slave owners was a pretty cut and dry category that would be useful to categorize people by, as I thought owning another human being is a major indicator of a person's values and their personality and as a good way to distinguish politicians who owned slaves like Thomas Jefferson from those who didn't like John Adams, but Wikipedia thinks otherwise, with the justification being it was too common an occurrence to be of use in distinguishing people, slave unlike slave owner however is a category in use of wikipedia, which seems odd given slave owners made their money from slaves, making it their job, not their hobby, and like we could do better. CensoredScribe (talk) 20:40, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
 * CensoredScribe, I think that you raised a good issue, labeling people as X it shouldn't be in categories, I create some of this labels but because this are the kind the categories that alredy existed, is something that Risto hot sir already stated. The category in the final example that you gave should be in the best case Slavery, be for slave owners, slave supporters or activists, or slaves, the same for political afiliations. For example I think that articles about people shouldn't be categorized as capitalists, communists or anti-communists, activist for X cause or againsts, etc. as in Wikipedia. It should be categorized as Capitalism, Communism, Activism, etc. as being related with this subjects but not as labels for the people in cuestion. So this kind of categories are problematic in my opinion. Rupert loup (talk) 21:04, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
 * DanielTom I didn't read you comment when I replied . You are right but they also criticised Christianity, so we create this category also and put them there? I think that an article only should be put in a subcategory if is related specifically on say category, because like in that case, it gives the impresion to the reader that the article is only related to that subcategory. Rupert loup (talk) 21:14, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know. If we don't create a category for "Critics of Christianity", maybe Sam Harris falls both under the category "Critics of religion" (which includes Christianity) and the subcategory "Critics of Islam". But I'm not sure. ~ DanielTom (talk) 21:44, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
 * By the reasoning discussed above, we should look the main category "Criticism of religion" if is too full to be easy navigated. If the answer is yes then we can create subcategories that alleviate this issue, as by example first the category "Criticism of religion by people" and if there is a majority of articles related with a specific religion we could specify with subcategories "Criticism of X religion". Labeling people is more for an encyclopedia. Maybe we should label articles according with the themes of the quotes in the article" so as long there are not quotes about certain subject that category shouldn't be there unless that it is necessary to help the reader. I think that this is more helpful for the project. Rupert loup (talk) 22:41, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Correction, there is a category for films about racism on Wikipedia with over a hundred entries and several subcategories, but not for xenophobia in fiction; even though it is one of the most common themes in speculative fiction, (and actual history), fear of otherness is too broad a term to be useful, and films about fictional populations provide sufficient coverage without having to further specify works in which they are specifically discriminated against, otherwise there would be debate over whether old 50's monster movies featuring aliens are about discrimination against bug eyed aliens, or whether the Universal monster movies are about discrimination against monsters, which is probably something you could write a thesis on as reflecting the cultural attitudes of precivil rights America towards otherness in general, but not something Wikipedia would accept as a category as it is too specific and most of the times that they occur "monsters" are discriminated against. The page for the Prime Directive mentions a popular theory as to real world inspirations for it being disapproval of American involvement in the the Vietnam war, but writing Star Trek doesn't appear to qualify Gene Roddenberry or his show as being anti-war or anti capitalist, it isn't even considered anti-religious despite Gene Roddenberry saying all the characters are atheists in an interview, signs of real religions are just absent as far as Wikipedia is concerned and not worth mentioning in the form of a category, Wikipedia did list Dumbledore in Harry Potter as gay even though that was mentioned in an interview and not in one of the books, showing a double standard in this regard. Wikipedia prefers to label works like His Dark Materials as religion in fiction rather than anti religious fiction, noticeably there is no category for atheism in fiction, and I suspect there never will be even if all of Rational Wiki set out to prove there is such a thing. Advocacy done through fiction doesn't seem to count for making one an advocate of something, even when fiction was the biggest impact that person had on society, like Harriet Beecher Stowe with Uncle Tom's Cabin. Sexism in film has less than a dozen entries however, which I find telling both of the film industry and Wikipedia's inability to agree on a definition of sexism, which is reflective of wider society struggling to define who is a sexist when they don't self identify with that label specifically. Is a movie with nothing but men or women sexism in film even if they don't talk about it? This definition would make movies about single sex environments like the military, boarding schools and the priesthood all count as sexism in film, however classifying all films with exclusively white casts where race is never mentioned as being "about" racism which is different from the casting itself being racist. Hitler is categorized as having anti X sentiments towards nationalities and as persecution of Y religion, in addition to being categorized as being a critic of Y religion, and is considered a supporter of Pan-Arabism, all of which seem like they'd be acceptable categorizations to use for people here as they are on Wikipedia. If Pan Arabism is an acceptable category I imagine internationalists and nationalists would both be acceptable categories as that's a label people often ascribe to themselves, as would royalists, expansionists, separatists and isolationists. CensoredScribe (talk) 23:37, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
 * CensoredScribe Wikipedia had the policy WP:LABEL but what happen in other wikis is irrelevant to Wikiquote, I think it was a mistake in my part to see Wikipedia as a model of for this subject and that the subcategories of Category:People need a clean up. What is the purpose of label someone as X if the article don't have quotes about that, if someone is widely recognized as of some profession it can be helpful having that category in an article. But about political ideologies or views about someone, that's very subjective and may fail WQ:NPOV. As if is needed it should be with categories as example "People related with X ideology" or something like that, more neutral and only put it in articles if it's justifiable as helpful for searching purpuse. As I say I would prefer categorising as example "People related with X ideology" or something like that, and only put in articles if it's justifiable as helpful for searching purpose. Of what purpose is to a reader that an article about a person is label as of X profession, X religion, X politics, if the article don't have qoutes about that. I guess that the majority of readers are looking for people of X profesion they expect to found quotes about that topic. Wikiquote is not a enciclopedia so labeling people is out of the scope of the project, we should focus in the content of the articles and make easy to the reader to access for what is searching for. Rupert loup (talk) 00:13, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
 * In Wikiquote talk:Category schemes/Archives/2005 and Wikiquote talk:Category schemes/Archives/2005 this issues were discussed by, , and . Rupert loup (talk) 00:32, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
 * "it should be with categories as example "People related with X ideology" or something like that" I think that "People on X" is better for people related articles. Rupert loup (talk) 02:24, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
 * So now Risto hot sir has filled the category people with circular subcategories, we need consensus in this. Rupert loup (talk) 23:13, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
 * We need for sure! I've had enough with the Japanese poets's case! Let me do the thinking.--Risto hot sir (talk) 23:16, 30 April 2018 (UTC)