Category talk:Lists of people by name

Untitled

As of 16:59, 27 January 2006 (UTC), the following is part of Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 January 18:

Category:List of people by name index-only pages to Category:Lists of people by name index-only pages

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_ _ I am unaware of any way in which this decision has any direct adverse effect -- other than as a distraction -- on my WP work. Like Radiant, i never understood what need there was to Cat index-only pages separately. (However, it's easy to imagine various real needs: the distinction is indeed significant; see below. And obviously someone saw a need, tho i don't recall who.) I've been (i think) faithfully installing the tag when i create such pages, and to my knowledge i am the only one who has ever created any.
_ _ I'm commenting here bcz i find it a gross miscarriage of the intent of our processes, that this process could have been avoided if it weren't was carried out without querying me, who created the pages and at least implicitly placed all of the recent tags, and without any sign of querying whoever it was who created the category. (That would be the person who, IIRC, explicitly and/or implicitly asked me to include the tags in future creations.)
_ _ If my input had been requested, the first things i'd have noted are that

1. The nom'r inferred a syntax for the nom'd Cat's title, and they and all other voters implicitly based their votes on accepting that inferred syntax as accurate. The title's syntax may be ambiguous. Even if what was inferred is consistent, it is clear that it contradicts the meaning intended by the Cat's creator. So all reasoning cited in the process is contrary to the facts.
2. The reason given for nomination, and essentially adopted by all voters, is essentially that there is no such thing on en: as a single List of people by name. The arguement has been made before, in a more appropriate forum, that that title is inaccurate, and answered, apparently to the satisfaction of the editor making it. My version of that answer would be:

   A list does not have to be embodied in a single WP page to constitute a WP list, and structuring its multiple pages into a tree whose root is the page with that title is the only practical possibility for many reasons, and the least confusing approach.

   Any merge or change of Cat title based on the belief that a main-namespace page is misnamed should proceed only after the misnaming has been corrected. In this case, that would imply the renaming of approximately 700 main-namespace pages, at least 27 of which have borne the same name for 71% of WP's history. (Prior to the current titles, those 27 had names implying a single "listing", and the two sets of titles together cover 94% of the period.) Obviously that requires announcement on Talk:List of people by name, and discussion on one of its subpages.
   

3. The category for lists of people could logically include the LoPbN inx-only pages, but IMO it is most likely to be used by users looking for pages that contain names but nothing else beyond navigational aids. Such users would be ill-served by dumping these permanently name-free pages in with the others.
4. Bcz LoPbN inx-only pages show up on the very-short-pages list, the abolished Cat may be a valueable backup to the padding of Inx-only pages with comments, which i do in compliance with a request from very-short-pages watchers.

--Jerzy•t 16:59 & 17:18, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

• I was asked to comment on this... I think that the problem is that, given the size of the Wiki, most editors are unaware where (or even "if") such things as this are codified, or how things have been for 71% of Wikipedia's existence. I think the shortpages problem isn't a big deal, we can pad pages either way. So the choice is that we can (1) recreate the "index-only" category to contain those 27 pages, and the cat may confuse some people; or (2) stick the 27 pages in the parent cat the way they're now, and the fact that they don't have content may confuse some people. I have a weak preference to (1) since the lack of content is pretty well explained on those pages, but I wouldn't really mind either way. Thanks for explaining this. Radiant_>|< 23:14, 27 January 2006 (UTC)