- Various categories, none of which have yet been deleted, see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 January 30#Years in Ireland for the scope.
I'm opening this nomination on behalf of User:BrownHairedGirl because she has expressed an interest in having the close reviewed here. You can see other discussion, if that's the word for it, at User talk:Angusmclellan#Year in Ireland CfD closure, User talk:Sarah777#Year in Ireland categories and User talk:PrimeHunter#Strong suggestions.
The CfD concerns a large number of categories of the form Category:697 in Ireland (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), most of which contain only the corresponding article, e.g. 697 in Ireland (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). My view is, and was, that these categories cannot be adequately populated. WP:CAT tells us that "[c]ategories are mainly used to browse through similar articles". These could not be as the "similar" articles are each in their very own little category. It was proposed that the categories be merged into the corresponding decade categories, i.e. Category:697 in Ireland (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) into Category:690s in Ireland (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). I believe that the basic concept of categorisation supports this and the arguments on this side were the stronger.
BHG will be able to do the reasons for retaining them, and the reasons the close was incorrect, much better than I can. Angus McLellan (Talk) 19:43, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Other than to repeat or cut'n'paste my earlier comments here, there isn't much to be added. My main point was that there are no deadlines in Wiki; that we asked for time to populate the articles rather than base a deletion on the guesses of the uninvolved editors re what those actually doing the work can achieve. I could expand further and say that this is a classic example of productive editors attempting to build the project been harassed and tired out and disillusioned by unproductive trainspotters. Not very WP:CIVIL but it explains why I am very fed-up of those who claim that in order to make the content more "user-friendly" they will drive away the content producers! And note; all the regular editors on this series oppose this move and all those supporting it are contributing zilch. I also (personal view) think there is an element of typical British anti-Irishness involved here; the nationality of most of those attacking the project is very clear. One or two have said that if a "decades" category is OK for the earlier "Years in Britain" then it surely must be good enough for the Paddy version. This observation is also no doubt breaching several Wiki "good faith" and "civility" principles but I believe it to be true nonetheless. And I'll have to disagree with the Wiki-establishment that the truth is utterly irrelevant on Wikipedia. Sarah777 (talk) 22:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Just spotted Category:Museums established in 1980, now that is one of thousands of such esoteric categories; this time in a year-series. There is such a huge field for the non-productive editors to explore; why not go away and come back and look at "Years in Ireland" in about a year? Sarah777 (talk) 22:19, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- overturn of course the point of setting up a systematic scheme of categories is to make provision for articles that will be written, rather than doing it piecemeal. Nobody is forced to help develop these schemes --most of us don't - - but I let the ones who do want & have the patience to do the work to do it without interference.DGG (talk) 03:54, 19 February 2008 (UTC).[reply]
- Endorse - "Keep the categories because someone someday might create content that would go in them" should cut no ice in a CFD. Sure, someone someday might write a slew of articles that might appropriately be categorized in one of the listed categories. Should that happen, the categories can be recreated with a few keystrokes. Dealing with the reality as it exists today, there is no need for the categories. Otto4711 (talk) 01:53, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse without prejedice to recreation if (and only if) needed on an individual basis. As demonstrated in the CfD, many of the categories will probably never have more than the corresponding "year" article in them. One Night In Hackney303 16:56, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - typical deletionist nonsense. This is an attack on the work of the productive editors by the bureaucrats. One wonders (not) what motivates this. And nothing was "demonstrated" in the CfD; assertions were made. Again, why the strong interest by non-involved editors? Could this be related to the involvement of some editors in "an article I couldn't give a sh*t about" (List of massacres) by some Anglo editors, one wonders? Sarah777 (talk) 00:51, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. Most of these year categories have a single article with a single line of actual content (for example mentioning a death in that year), and that article is already both in a decade and century category. When year and decade categories are counted together, the number of categories is often larger than the total number of lines of content in all contained articles. That is category systematization gone too far. There is not enough Ireland-by-year information to support this system more than 800 years ago. If we ever get the information then categories can be created. Until then, readers risk spending a lot of time going through hundreds of year categories in search of non-existing content. Decade and century categories give enough systematization for these old times (actually, many decade categories with a single article containing a single line seems like too much, but is not part of this discusion). PrimeHunter (talk) 16:21, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Isn't the fairest way forward and best compromise to draw a line in the sand on x date say the last day in may , giving the people who believe they can populate this categories 2 months to work , If after the proposed 2 months the majority are still under populated the categories can be speed renamed into decades Gnevin (talk) 10:40, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse per otto and ONIH. --Kbdank71 18:11, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Two months isn't nearly enough GN. And sadly, the way consensus works on Wiki you are being asked to either oppose or support this motion. Kd71; the Wiki rules say you are supposed to give some reasons if your contribution is to be taken into account. Or is this a vote? Seems pretty random what is and isn't a vote in these discussions. Doesn't it? Sarah777 (talk) 22:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Srh7, I did give a reason. "per otto and ONIH" If you'd like, I can just cut and paste what they said, but that seems to be a waste of time and resources if you ask me. --Kbdank71 16:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I have read the relevent Wiki guideline on this and it says these thinhs are not votes and things like "agree" or "agree with John" are to be discounted. Sarah777 (talk) 20:57, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Very well. Endorse because "Keep the categories because someone someday might create content that would go in them" should cut no ice in a CFD. Sure, someone someday might write a slew of articles that might appropriately be categorized in one of the listed categories. Should that happen, the categories can be recreated with a few keystrokes. Dealing with the reality as it exists today, there is no need for the categories. In addition, I'm okay with recreation if (and only if) needed on an individual basis. As demonstrated in the CfD, many of the categories will probably never have more than the corresponding "year" article in them. --Kbdank71 21:04, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Refering to your 'edit summary' comment KD - maybe. But as this entire deletion process is a complete waste of the time of the productive editors who are building the encyclopedia at least you can now appreciate the waste inherent in this process. Sarah777 (talk) 21:36, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Personally, I feel that creating a category to house one article is also a waste of time. I would think you could be a little more productive if you skipped all of the useless category creation. BTW, you've all had a lot of time, from creating the categories, through the CFD, and now through the DRV. Are there any new articles to populate these categories, or is it the same as when you started? Give me a reason to overturn and I will. "Give us more time" won't do it, as shown. --Kbdank71 21:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- "Give the productive editors more space and time" is what I am saying. Especially as this attack on the project is comprised 100% of uninvolved (and in some cases, pretty unproductive), editors. And categorising a page takes a second - so please don't fret on behalf of the workers. Sarah777 (talk) 22:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- You are making the same argument as BrownHairedGirl, which is both a) an ad hominem and b) false. Tim! (talk) 22:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- You've had space and time. Where are the results? Or is the "more space and time" argument empty? --Kbdank71 01:08, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, there's the not-very-good Synod of Birr was created since this started. Angus McLellan (Talk) 00:31, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't think those sneering comments are helpful. Tremendous work has been done on the 1,500 articles in the past few months. These comments are destructive, disruptive bull. I think a year would be a reasonable period of time, since you ask. Difficult to add material to the series while wasting Wiki-hours in forums such as this. Sarah777 (talk) 01:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- OK, so I'll write out 500 times "Do not sneer at other editors' contribs". Actually, though, I thought it was a simple statement of fact that the article is not very good and that it is the only one, what with Vita tripartita Sancti Patricii and Timelinefrog's stuff being not amenable to categorisation into a particular by-year category. If you know of more, I'd be interested to hear about them. Angus McLellan (Talk) 01:45, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Strong overturn. I should have commented earlier, since it was me who wanted the review, but was busy in the midst of a complex dose of research on the membership of Seanad Éireann (silly me, concentrating on creating content rather than on the wikipolitics). Now that so many contributors have said their say without hearing my reasons for seeking this review, I'm probably wasting my time commenting, but here goes, just in case it makes any difference.
- In summary, this was an bizarrely perverse and irrational closure: it was made against the balance of opinion, by treating a guideline as if it was a policy, and most critically it acknowledged a crucial technical impediment to which the closing admin acknowledged that there was (as yet) no solution.
- That is, by any standards, a flawed decision: to issue a judgment which creates an acknowledged problem, without any solution to the problem. The correct closure would have been to close as "no consenus", and to suggest a further CfD if and when the problem was resolved through discussion. Instead the closing admin did something I have never seen before in the (literally) thousands of CfD debates in which I have participated in the last two years: he created a sort of suspended sentence, a closure which would not be implemented until a solution was found.
- This had the effect of taking the categories out of the usual consensus decision-making process, and placing their fate in the hands of the closing admin, who had (through his closure) appointed himself as the one-man arbiter on the matter.
- I initially assumed good faith and took that this as a well-intentioned mistake, but after subsequent discussion I'm not so sure. The closing comment said that " I take BHG's last point about {{YearInIrelandNav}} as significant. This outcome presumes that I can in fact get the template to work in the necessary fashion" ... which was strangely cryptic because it did not specify what exactly was the "necessary fashion". (I presume this refers to my comment explaining the technical problems.)
- After the closure I left a long note on Angus's talk, setting out the problems and my concerns. Angus's response was to say, inter alia that There's no deadline to implement a solution - if it takes a month, that's what it takes - and I'm not going to do so until I have agreed the mechanics with you, Sarah, and anyone else that's interested" ... but within a few days that had changed to a threat to implement an "arbitrary" solution. After reading that, I'm no longer sure that my good faith was well-founded.
- I'm not going to repeat here all the details of my technical objections to the removal of these categories: they are set out at length in the CfD debate and in Angus's talk page. But the basic problems remains that in his closure, Angus acknowledged that those problems were real and that there was yet no solution ... yet he went ahead and decided the outcome regardless, and subsequently made clear that in fact any old kludge would do.
- This sets a very very bad precedent for CfD. I have seen countless CfDs where there is a strong feeling that a category or set of categs is problematic, but where a solution has not been agreed. In ever other such case that I have ever seen, the closure has upheld the status quo 'until a better solution is found. That should have been the way this CfD was closed too, and if this closure stands it sets a dangerous precedent for future XfDs to be closed with a comment that says "yes, there are serious unresolved problems with this proposal, and no consensus to proceed with this one, but I will take it upon myself to decide how to sort out the problems." That would be a bizarre way to make decisions, and if we go down that route there will be endless conflicts in future.
- I and a few other editors have spent a huge amount amount of our time and energy trying to organise the Irish categories into a coherent structure. None of us claims ownership of the work-in-progress, but I do have to wonder why we bother if the work can be ripped apart without consensus, despite acknowledgement of the damage that will cause, all because one admin has decided to treat a guideline as if it were a policy.
- This CfD remained opened for ten days, twice as long as usual, which is a pretty good indication that other admins regarded it as an unclear case. Even one of the "delete" !voters described the closure as a "brave decision", which is a pretty good indication that the lack of consensus was acknowledged. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:44, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- PS The debate also seems to have been the subject of strangely personal canvassing: this contribution by User:Thincat is a strange combination of vote-stacking and stalking: go find people who have disagreed with X, and invite them to pile in. I don't know if that was an isolated incident, and the editor canvassed appears not to have participate in the CFD debate, but I just thought I should mention it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:46, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- ONIH, it's a great pity that before talking of a "red herring" you apparently neither checked the facts nor even read my previous comments :(
Indeed, the template {{YearInIrelandNav}} does not link to the year categories; it doesn't need to, because it populates them, by categorising the YYYY-in-Ireland article in the YYYY-in-Ireland category.
However, that's not the only template involved; there are a series of other templates used for the categories, including {{IrelandInCentury}}, which taken together ensure that the categories and articles are consistently interlinked. My objection is to the dismantling of the system created by all of these categories and templates taken as a whole, which a) works, by providing consistent and easy navigation to the reader; and b) took mountains of work to create, and should not be dismantled lightly.
The whole premise of this CfD was that under-populated categories are an impediment to the reader, but as I have repeatedly pointed out, that sound general principle does not directly apply in this case because the categories and articles are heavily interlinked with navigation boxes.
Finally, your repeated invocation of the mantra that suggestion that the categs could be recreated if needed on an individual basis continues to ignore the problem that if the categorisation structure is not consistent, then the template-based navigation structure gets broken. One of the major advantages of it is that ensures consistency, and that gets lost if there are ad-hoc decisions on whether the categories exist. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:22, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
-
- Kludge is right: it indeed "another ugly piece of work", and not a well-thought out solution. How exactly do you propose to use such an #ifexist test: by having 100 individual #ifexists in each category, thereby making the template into a ginormous and impenetrable blob of code which imposes a huge server load each time it's called? There is in fact a limit on the number of #ifexists which may be called in each template, beyond which they are not processed; I can't recall the exact number offhand, but I'm pretty sure that it's less than the 100 #ifexists which would be needed here.
This, I'm afraid is another example of why I am so concerned about this closure, and by the way in which Angus has appointed himself as arbiter of a solution. A bad closure, without consensus, is creating a problem to which we don't have solution and a lot of extra work. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:48, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, 100 #ifexists are all that are needed, or am I missing something? There's an {{exists}} template on meta to get round the limit, but I thought better of copying it over. If you want another alternative, a parameter could be added to the template to set whether it does by-year or by-decade links. That would use #ifeq rather than #ifexists. I have to say that I don't see the need to spend a great deal of time on a solution to this until I know whether one is needed.
- I don't see the arbitrary cut-off date as being particularly undesirable. Some believe that somehow or other these categories, the number of which will only increase, can be populated. If not all, then at least enough of them to make the unpopulated remainder the usual unavoidable feature of every systematic effort at categorisation. I don't think that the numbers will ever be adequate and that a division between by-year and by-decade is a necessary and permanent feature, one that should be emulated by all similar by-region or by-country schemes. There's nothing unsystematic about a scheme that categorises things into unequal intervals. Examples of this include the geologic time scale or the various subdivisions of the Holocene and of Bronze Age Britain. Angus McLellan (Talk) 00:33, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Sorry, Angus, but that still doesn't do it. First, a solution is needed, because it is quite clear that nearly all the "delete" !voters at CfD and the "uphold" !voters in this DRV have done so explicitly on the basis that the categories can be recreated if needed. If there isn't a way of allowing for that, then deletion gets cast in a very different light ... and your own note at closure that the closure was dependent in finding a solution remains an unmet condition.
You may be right that framing out each #ifexists test to a sub-template could get around server-imposed restrictions, but I'm pretty sure that any such attempt to evade technical restraints (which have been imposed for performance reasons) would be stamped on quite firmly and rapidly. I'm surprised that you even suggested it.
Your alternative idea, of a #ifeq test couldn't do the job, if you think about it: all it could do is to turn on the nav links to all of the by-year categories in that century, even though most of them would not exist, and according to the create-only-if-x-number-of-articles logic, they should not exist.
Finally, the comparison with geologic and other time scales is bizarre and irrelevant: those timescales are a very different issue, because they are not based on a fixed set of numbers. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:47, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Arbitrary simply meant a quick fix, a kludge if you like. Something along the lines of {{#ifexpr: {{{1|}}} >= 1100|[[Category:{{{1|}}} in Ireland{{!}}{{PAGENAME}}]]}} would be simple to do. You didn't like the idea of using an #ifexist test. Angus McLellan (Talk) 15:56, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm afraid that nicely illustrates the inconsistency of the deletionist arguments :( I had considered the implications of a year<1000 test, but one of the problems it would create is that unless we reverted to the messy ad-hoccery which created such a mishmash of inconsistency before, it would then rule out single-year categories for that period ... which would undermine all the recreate-if-needed arguments above. That's what I find so frustrating about the deletionist case here: an insistence that a way must be found of achieving their onjective regardless of the consequences. A kludge such as the year<1000 would indeed be allow the deletionists to say "look, we could ignore half of WP:OCAT#SMALL and nuke the categories without creating any redlinks", but in doing so they ignore the effect that the recreate-if-needed approach advocated by many of the deletionists would have on the consistency and navigability. There is something unpleasantly single-minded about this delete-and-damn-the-consequrnces approach :( -BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:14, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure. Having hundreds of categories with only article in each defies common sense and to merge them to decades seems like a reasonable compromise. I consider that is now BrownHairedGirl's repsonsibility rather than Angus to fix the template to work — if necessary to remove the categories from it and add them manually to the articles. Therefore any such "technical objections" raised by her should not prevent the deletion of the categories. I also consider that Sarah777 has violated the restriction placed her on her by the arbitration committee in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Great Irish Famine#Sarah777 restricted (not to mention WP:KETTLE) with some her comments here, such as "I also (personal view) think there is an element of typical British anti-Irishness involved here; the nationality of most of those attacking the project is very clear." Tim! (talk) 10:29, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Sigh :( There aren't "hundreds of categories with only article in each", there are a few dozen, and since they are a work-in-progress, it's premature to say that they will remain underpopulated.
As I have repeatedly pointed out, adding the categories manually is the situation we had before, and it was a disaster for the reader (remember them, the people we are creating this encyclopedia for) because the result of it was an inconsistent and ad-hoc categorisation of articles and parenting of categories, which created a navigation nightmare in which the reader might have to burrow through several different category trees to find material. That a heck of a lot less useable than a few underpopulated categories which are consistently interlinked to each other,
Finally, Sarah777 would win few prizes for diplomacy, but she has a point here: AFAICS, every Irish editor participating in the CfD and the DRV opposes the deletion of the categories. The simple fact here is that the editors regularly involved in the huge task of maintaining, developing, populating and creating content for these categories opposes their deletion, and the clamour for their removal comes from the uninvolved who are insisting on the application of a simple guideline as if it were an immutable rule, whereas guidelines explicitly permit exceptions by applying common sense. It is a great pity that it in this case a few purists are defying commonsense by simple-mindedly pushing for the crude application a rule which will have the effect of undermining a carefully-crafted system which has ensured that this particular set of year-in-county articles and categories is consistently and clearly interlinked. Commonsense involves balancing different objectives and weighing the downsides of different approaches, rather than zealously and single-mindedly pursuing one single aim. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:42, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- PS May I also, once again draw editors attention to the relevant guideline, which does permit categorisation schemes such as this? WP:OCAT#SMALL says "Avoid categories that, by their very definition, will never have more than a few members, unless such categories are part of a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme" (emphasis added by me). The pint which I have been making throughout is that the year-in-Ireland categories are indeed part of "part of a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme". It's real pity that the deletionists seem to be ignoring the "unless". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:58, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- BrownHairedGirl claimed: There aren't "hundreds of categories with only article in each", there are a few dozen. The most recent year mentioned in the nomination was 1088. I just made a quick manual examination of years before 1100. Some year articles have a redlinked category for that year but it appears supporters of the category system want these categories and just haven't created them yet. There are hundreds of categories and there would be many more if the remaining red categories with a year article were created. According to my examination (I don't promise I spotted everything), four of these categories currently have more than one article: Category:660 in Ireland (2 articles), Category:697 in Ireland (3), Category:980 in Ireland (2), Category:1014 in Ireland (2). If decade and century categories are included in the count then the total number of existing and wanted categories before 1100 becomes much larger than the total number of articles (and most of these articles have one or two content lines). PrimeHunter (talk) 18:07, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Primehunter, if you want to start making assertions about nunbers, it's always a good idea to actually do some counting rather than relying on guesswork: there are currently 201 year-in-Ireland articles before the year 1100, and 140 categories. 140 is not "hundreds", it rounds to "one hundred" (one is not a plural quantity).
And yes, of course many of the categories are not populated yet: this a work-in-progress. The suggestion of recreating each of them manually if and when they reach some magical threshold is one which would only be made by someone who has not actually tried creating the content and is unaware of just how much extra work is imposed on editors by taking a piecemeal approach to a categorisation system such as this: that's one of the reasons why the guideline at WP:OCAT says explicitly "Avoid categories that, by their very definition, will never have more than a few members, unless such categories are part of a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme", because it adds a multiplies the effort involved in maintaining and populating the categories. That's important, because if the job is done messily or incoherently it's no use to readers, and if it becomes too much hassle editors simply don't do it.
It's very noticeable that despite the repeated zealous insistence on avoiding having undepopulated categories, even temporarily, the deletionists continue the CfD nominator's mistake of ignoring the guideline's exemption unless such categories are part of a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme". This is just such a scheme, and the sheer size of the exercise makes a piecemeal approach a recipe for a return to the chaos which existed before we standardised it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:07, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Ok, so there are not hundreds of year categories yet, but there would be if the system was completed the way the supporters want, and there are already more than a few dozen. And in all these categories I was able to find a total of 5 articles other than the year articles which can already be found in several ways without year categories, for example in a decade category, a century category, navigation boxes on nearby years, and List of years in Ireland. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:35, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, there are may be only five articles so far, but as has been repeatedly pointed out, this is a work-in-progress, and it is only in the early stages of being populated. It's a big job, and one of the many frustrating things about this discussion is that the deletionists seem utterly uninterested in the fact that this work is about creating and organising actual content. So far as I can see, it should be noted, none of the deletionists are in any way involved in the work of creating or categorising the content concerned, and have offered nothing but criticism of all the hard work which has already been done, yet are full of enthusiasm for imposing on the editors actually doing the work a restriction which will make the job much more labour-intensive, by insisting that a coherent structure be taken apart now and rebuilt on an ad-hoc basis. That doesn't just double the work involved in organising this material, it multiplies it several-fold:
- dismantle the existing structure, and revise all the templates to remove the by-year categories
- Figure out some way of allowing the categories to be recreated on an-hoc basis so that their existence actually shows up in the navigation system; this may be possible, but will involve some hideously complicated use of advanced template syntax
- (this is the big job) On an ongoing basis, monitor 100 ireland-by-decade categories to see which of them have reached a deletionist-acceptable threshold for the creation of by-year categories, and then recategorise articles ... and continue to monitor those 110 by-decade categories to check that articles are dispersed to any sub-categories which do exist and which have not been pounced on again by people who do not want to read the unless such categories are part of a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme in WP:OCAT
- So PrimeHunter, how much of this ongoing work are you going to be doing? Or is this just something that you think other editors should be devoting hours of their time to on an ingoing basis? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:35, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is getting off topic for a DRV, but I can cooperate on a new system if the category deletion is endorsed. Individually choosing and changing which years get their own category would require some work and could create inconsistent navigation so I would prefer a boundary. Roughly, there tends to be less information the farther back you go. There are some exceptions to this but a little variation in category sizes seems to matter less than having a good category system. Pick a boundary year divisible by 100, for example B=1100. Don't allow templates to add category links for years below B. It seems unlikely to me that any decade before 1100 will get so many articles that the decade category becomes hard to use. Some simple template changes:
- {{YearInIrelandNav}}: Don't add the page to a year category before B. The navigation box has no links to year categories so that requires no change.
- {{IrelandByYear}}: No change. It isn't used when the year doesn't have a category.
- {{IrelandInCentury}}: If the century is before B then add decade category links in a horizontal row instead of the large table with year categories in Category:6th century in Ireland - or don't add anything since the existing decade categories should be listed as subcategories.
- {{IrelandDecade}}: Doesn't make year links now, so no change.
A suggestion to make it easy to change B in the future: Make a new template, for example called {{IrelandInYear}}, with a year parameter. If another article than "y in Ireland" (which uses YearInIrelandNav for categorization) should be categorized in "Category:y in Ireland" if it exists, then the article can add {{IrelandInYear|y}} instead of [[Category:y in Ireland]]. IrelandInYear can then be coded to add a year category for years after B, and only a decade category before B. Currently this template would only have 5 uses before 1100. If it becomes much more then a bot could be programmed to make the conversion.
The above system makes it easy to change B, for example decreasing B by 100 when more articles have been added to the preceding century. If B is changed in templates then everything else should work automatically. After loking at 1100 to 1600 (a period which may have hundreds of one-article categories but I haven't counted), I think B=1600 would currently be much better than B=1100 (although more articles would need conversion to {{IrelandInYear}}). But no year after 1100 was listed in the CFD nomination so some editors might object to raising B. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:00, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- This may be well-intentioned, but I'm afraid that once again its an unworkable solution. The result of your proposal would be to create a weird situation where editotrs should treat all year-in-Ireland categories differently to any other category by not adding then directly to an article, but instead use a template. Most editors are not going to know that, so there would have to be continual monitoring of redlinked categories, and each article edited to replace the category with this new template. Are you offering to commit yourself to monitor 1000 redlinked categories in perpetuity, or are you expecting someone else to do that? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:56, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- PS PrimeHunter - I notice that like, Angus, you are now advocating permanently removing all year-in-Ireland categories before a certain date, without allowing for their recreation if needed, which was a specifically-stated condition of plenty of delete voters.
You are also only partly right that this is getting off topic for DRV. I quite agree that DRV is a very bad place for discussion of this sort of issue, but the reason we are having the discussion here is because the CfD was closed without consensus as delete, and because the closing admin explicitly tied his closure to finding a solution ... and we haven't got a solution. So the deletionists are busy drawing up back-of-the-envelope solutions to try extricate themselves from the mess created by the original closure. It's a lousy way to make decisions, and a lousy way to find solutions. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:33, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Redlinked categories is a potential problem on any article in Wikipedia, and lots of templates add categories. Except for "Year in Ireland" which is already handled by a template, there are few Irish history articles in this period. There are already many red categories and I don't recall seeing any other article than "Year in Ireland" in any of them. The relevant articles are probably mostly edited by Irish history regulars who would quickly learn the system. Most other people would probably not expect an old category like Category:987 in Ireland to exist (I certainly wouldn't have before seeing all these categories), so they wouldn't try adding it. And if they did and saw the red link then they would often remove it again, or replace it with Category:980s in Ireland which wouldn't be so bad. I'm not going to manually monitor 1000 categories but if bad redlinking becomes a significant problem (which would surprise me) then a bot could be programmed to find the cases periodically and automatically make the conversions. My suggestion isn't to permanently delete all categories before a certain date, but to make a consistent system with a boundary which can later be moved. My preference is: 1) Delete all categories before a given year which can later be moved back. 2) Delete all categories with insufficient content and recreate on individual basis. 3) Keep hundreds of one-article categories for articles which can easily be found in many other ways. I'm trying to respond to the complaints from the Irish history editors about inconsistency, and all I get is more complaints. The DRV looked a lot like endorse before I posted and I could just have said endorse too without spending time on a possible solution. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:55, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse the closure. Close was perfectly valid on procedural grounds, which is what DRV is supposed to review, not whether you "like it" or "find it helpful." Additionally, I would be in favor of removing the vast majority of "Year in Country" categories. A quick looking around finds them largely empty, but that is for another debate. ^demon[omg plz] 05:19, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment as BrownHairedGirl has now raised this point several times, she criticises Angus's closure as treating WP:OC as policy but then repeatedly, and in bold, brings up "unless such categories are part of a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme". That too is only a guideline and if makes wikipedia worse, should be ignored. It is also completely untrue that "the clamour" for the deletion of these categories comes from the "uninvolved", as I have contributed to the year in Ireland series as well as that for many other countries, mostly United Kingdom, but also England, Scotland, Great Britain, France and Japan and categorisation for countless year-based events, so I'm afraid that is just another straw-man. Tim! (talk) 11:10, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Before making accusations of straw man arguments, please check what the term means.
- Yes, both are part of a guideline, not policy; but the closer's rationale has been based on the approach set out in one half of a guideline which clearly envisages exceptions, and this case fits those exceptions. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:55, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- OK, your comments are more of an ad hominem than a straw man based on who you perceive do and do not contribute to the article and category series. The closer had weigh up the guideline and use common sense as well and came to reasonable compromise. Tim! (talk) 19:56, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Can't speak for BHG. But some facts; (1) The folk proposing the category deletion are 100% non-contributers to the series of articles. (2) They are overwhealmingly British. Now are you going to claim that a simple observation of fact can't be made in this debate? Must we pretend that perspective isn't related to where you are looking from? Sarah777 (talk) 00:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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