Wikipedia talk:Categorization

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Archives (index): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19: 40 days

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Categorizing draft pages

Under WP:CATDRAFT, we list four ways and say only two of them {{Draft categories}} and prepending a colon) are recommended. Why do we even list the other two (HTML comment and nowiki) if they're not recommended? Can I just delete those two? RoySmith (talk) 11:05, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Categories per secondary school

join: Wikipedia_talk:Overcategorization#Categories_per_secondary_school --Altenmann >talk 23:17, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Strange sentence at CATDEF

Categories should not group subjects by trivial characteristics that have little relevance to the topics, unless it can be shown that such a characteristic or grouping is notable. This is a bit like "I distrust people with blue eyes unless their eyes are brown." Shouldn't everything after the comma be removed? If it's serving a valid purpose, it isn't clear to me what that is, so maybe it needs to be rewritten. Largoplazo (talk) 15:24, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Categorization by former subdivisions of former countries

I run across Category:Slutsky Uyezd. Do we categorize populated places in this way in Wikipedia? --Altenmann >talk 17:05, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If WP:CATDEF isn't met, then we shouldn't. In the context of that category, most of the articles in it mention nothing related to Slutsk in their bodies, so it seems unlikely to be defining for them, at least not as we look at them today. A few of those articles do mention "Slutsky district"—is that the same thing? One mentions the Principality of Slutsk. Even in those cases, it doesn't appear defining. Largoplazo (talk) 17:22, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect the whole tree of Category:Uezds of the Russian Empire has the same issue. --Altenmann >talk 17:11, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I also find Category:People from the Grand Duchy of Finland (by province) and Category:East German people by district a bit peculiar. Kaffet i halsen (talk) 17:25, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Categorizing people in this way is reasonable, because it is their verifiable birth place and it is fixed in time and space. Whereas categorizing the obscure village of Backwaterowice by various nation owners and various administrative restructuring of a country is pointless. --Altenmann >talk 17:59, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you about that. If articles about people born in Slutsky Uyezd say they were born in (town), Slutsky Uyezd, then it makes sense to categorize them as such rather than on the country's subdivisions as they stand a century or two later. Largoplazo (talk) 18:46, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We don't categorise people by the birth place but the more vague "from". We currently include more than 300 people who were born before 23 July 1952 (article source for creation of bezirks) in the Category:East German people by district categories. But if it would be birth place, is Benjamin Fuß's (maximum) 98 days in Bezirk Suhl defining? Fuß is already categorised in Category:People from Bad Salzungen which is geographically more exact. We have overlaps between Category:Athletes from Magdeburg and Category:Athletes from Bezirk Magdeburg but one cannot be made a subcategory of the other because not all athletes from Magdeburg are athletes from Bezirk Magdeburg and the other way around.

For the original question about Slutsky Uyezd, I would say it's not functional to categorise places by former subdivision (if that wasn't obvious from the side-discussion). Kaffet i halsen (talk) 13:30, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Request for assistance

Do any of the watchers of this talk page want to help us understand the meaning of 'defining' and 'non-defining' with respect to applying categories to an article describing a collection of multiple different events? If you do, please join the discussion at Talk:2025 British anti-immigration protests#Bad categories?. -- DeFacto (talk). 13:18, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Category creation assistance

Hi there! I am seeking help in starting a category for state freedom caucuses. There are currently three pages, but I plan on creating pages for the remaining nine. Jcgaylor (talk) 03:44, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]