Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 September 22

:: I'm in the process of adding the {{tl|cfd}} tag to all the subcategories. There are 567 368 of them, so this is taking a fair amount of time. I'll post another comment here when I'm done so the usual amount of time for comments (7 days?) can elapse before an admin makes a decision.—Chidom ^talk  17:34, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

:I have edited the list; several of the categories appeared more than once in the earlier listing; there are 368 categories and subcategories, not 567. Still not done; will update as soon as I am.—Chidom ^talk  04:48, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I have tagged all the subcategories. (I have also formatted the list into columns to make scrolling to the comments easier.)—Chidom ^talk  05:08, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

:; Changing my recommendation:

(moved information to top under withdrawal notice)

:Update I'm hopeful that the sheer number of the subcategories (567 368 total categories and subcategories) is evidence that this is extreme overcategorization and that some will reconsider their "Keep" response as a result.—Chidom ^talk  17:34, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

::Further update It makes no sense to me to categorize fauna (or flora or biota, for that matter) by artifical political lines rather than geographical or topographical boundaries. Categorizing "Desert fauna" with subcategories listing fauna specific to a particular desert makes sense. For example (and I'm making up species here, bear with me): Let's say fauna common to most deserts includes "Desert skunk", "Desert minotaur", etc. The Mojave Desert has specific fauna, i.e., "Mojave skunk" and "Mojave minotaur". The "Desert fauna" category would include the "Desert skunk/minotaur", but not the "Mojave Desert" fauna. The "Mojave fauna" category would include the "Mojave skunk/minotaur", but not the other "Desert fauna". It makes no sense to separate fauna into states or even countries unless that is their specific and unique location; if information regarding the fauna within a political boundary is desired, it should be an article. Certainly, "Fauna of Eastern Texas", "Fauna of Northern Texas", "Fauna of Southwestern Texas", and "Fauna of Western Texas" are overcategorization.

::As to the comment that there are only a "handful" of species that would fall into several different countries, I beg to differ: for example, here is a partial list of the articles that are in the category :Category:Fauna of Scotland. There are more than 200 articles listed in the category, the following are 150 of the ones that I believe are to be found in widespread regions all over the globe, let alone countries: (I'm not familiar with the remainder of the list, they may well be specific to Scotland; given it's proximity to mainland Europe, however, I would very much doubt it.)

Just to take one case, the European polecat article is included in the following additional categories:

• :Category:Mustelids
• :Category:Fauna of Belgium
• :Category:Mammals of Estonia

What is to prevent this list expanding to include every country? Wouldn't it be more practical and useful to include information in the European polecat article with regard to how widespread it is? And create articles along the lines of Fauna found throughout Europe, Fauna found in the English Isles, etc. that would list species found in widespread areas? The article would have a few categories and be listed in relevant articles regarding the more common species to be found in a region's fauna.

::: hmmm - i disgree. Although i agree that some of the categories you nominate are indeed pointless, i think it is very valuable to know what fauna can be found within certain countries even if they are not endemic and even if in the case of "Scottish" birds they can fly across borders. Agreed that if you want info on a particular bird it may not NECESSARILY be valuable to know if it appears in Scotland, BUT it could certainly be useful if rather than looking at a specific species, one is taking a broader look at the ecology of an area (country, island, continent, etc). It could be argued that researching say birds in scotland is not very scientific (maybe), but most people aren't scientific. I bet there are a number of people out there (in Scotland?) who want to look up what birds appear in Scotland. The fact that these birds don't respect human-created political boundaries, or even the English Channel makes the list no less interesting to them. And to have the same species also listed on say an Irish, English or French category is not problem for me either. It shows where the bird can be found and is a great navigational tool. --Merbabu 01:07, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

::::The point you make is quite valid, but the argument is not about whether lists of fauna by country/state/province should exist — they clearly should and they are useful — but whether categories rather than list articles are the best way of doing this in Wikipedia. Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes suggests that: "An article will often be in several categories. Restraint should be used, however — categories become less effective the more there are on a given article." Like you said, animal don't respect political boundaries and that's why I would be in favour of categorization by broad biogeographical region, but not by small countries and political/administrative divisions. Luigizanasi 03:06, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

:::::Firstly, i did not interpret this as a list vs. category debate - i can't see that in the proponent's reasoning. Rather, he saw the main category as worthy of deletion and hence ALL subcategories are therefore pointless without even looking at them individually. Sure, some are highly pointless, but that doesn't mean we should get rid of all the good ones too. Maybe I have missed something.

:::::Secondly, my point is that although animals do exist across borders, readers are interested in what (political) countries various species exist. Sure, maybe this is not that scientific, but it is a reader interest issue.

::::: Either way, this nomination whould have been better served had the proponent commented on each of the 500-odd categories he has listed for removal, rather than this blunt "they are all bad" one-size-fits-all approach. Yes, that is more work for him, but that is his responsobolity to justify it properly, right? I fear that good categories will go because people agree there are some bad ones. --Merbabu 03:39, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

As for "the proponent of the deletion has to do a whole lot more work", if :Category:Fauna by country is deleted as proposed, the subcategories will be "broken" and, in the case of the ones that are useful, will need to be recreated. The additional reason for tagging all the subcategories is to get input from anyone who is monitoring any of the categories/subcategories (I finally got it, Kbdank71).

: Who would then be redoing these categories - furthermore, who is going to record what info was in these sub-categories before they are deleted? This is the whole problem with this proposal. Rather than a blunt top-down down approach, should "the proponent" be going through and weeding out the poor ones???? The proposal is ridiculous. --Merbabu 07:23, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Lastly, please review Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes for an explanation of the differences between the three and the advantages and disadvantages of each.—Chidom ^talk  06:30, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - The category that you nominated was created per Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 August 20#Category:Animals by country. Do you mean that one or all the subcategories? --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 02:22, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

:Response - My nomination was intended to include all the subcategories of :Category:Fauna by country in the nomination for deletion; why keep subcategories of a category that's gone? I'm not sure what the purpose of the creation of these was; instructions for their use would have to be explained over and over and over to avoid someone putting scads of them at the end of an article; that explanation is unlikely to happen, thus creating more cleanup tasks.—Chidom ^talk  04:21, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

::Your response is the crux of the problem with your proposal. Just because 1 sub-category may be poor, (eg, :Category:Avifauna of South Dakota doesn't mean that other highly valuable and useful subcategories must therefore also be removed (eg, :Category:Fauna of Australia & :Category:Fauna of Indonesia. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. You say that 567 sub-categorie mean they all need to be deleted - what about the good subcategories?? I think you need to be a bit more discerning. Nominate specific sub-categories, not all of them. --Merbabu 12:46, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

• Delete, I would propose the Azerbaijani solution: make articles out of these instead of categories. Great topic for an article, but having categories on all of these would either get unbelievably unwieldy or require somewhat arbitrary inclusion criteria ("OK, this animal is in 180 countries, but lets just put it in Fauna of X because its important to X" or something to that effect). Recury 14:53, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Some of these are essential, eg Australia, Madagascar. Wimstead 18:18, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep, Is this a mass nomination? If so, you need to tag every single subcategory (many of the subcats are also further subcategorized). These categories are not for animals that can be found in every country (and I don't think anybody has used them that way). They are for species (subspecies in many cases) that are native to only one or two countries. I think the issue you mention is nonexistent. If somebody has added an animal that can be found across the world to loads of these categories, then the cats should just be removed from the article, but I don't see any reason to delete all these useful categories. --musicpvm 22:21, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

::Response I'm unaware that all the subcategories of a category nominated for deletion need to be nominated individually, the instructions for nominating a category seem to indicate otherwise, but aren't very clear on this point.—Chidom ^talk  04:21, 22 September 2006 (UTC) (Requirement has been made clear.)—Chidom ^talk  17:38, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

:::ResponseThe categories don't state that they are only to be used for "species (subspecies in many cases) that are native to only one or two countries" and obviously, somebody thinks they are "for animals that can be found in every country"; as somebody has actually "used them that way". See the references by Pavel Vozenilek below.—Chidom ^talk  17:38, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wild_cat&diff=prev&oldid=73983461] is just the worst. I deleted all items from "Czech Republic" as either completely nonsensical or not endemic. This is unmaintainable. Pavel Vozenilek 23:31, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. Grossly misused - look at [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wild_cat&diff=prev&oldid=73983461 this] example. If kept add text requiring that the animal must be endemic for this or that country into every subcategory. Also add information where to put animals that could be found over several countries. But even with this I expect poor to absurd results.

:Possibly working would be classification by large region like Sahara or North Asia or Madagascar, not by political entities. Pavel Vozenilek 23:31, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

• Keep - Deleting this category is innaproproiate without discussing the subcategories first. If you want to delete the subcategories, tag all of them and start over with a new nomination. Also, per musicpvm, if they are being misused, address that through culling, instead of deleting the category. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 02:26, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep A useful part of each country's menu. Brammen 09:25, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete or Rename to :Category:Endemic animals by country for the use of Madagascar, Australia, etc. Some animals are found in more than a hundred countries, we really shouldn't have 100+ categories for each of these animals. bogdan 13:54, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

: The rename could be also solution. Pavel Vozenilek 21:19, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

:: Or possibly :Category:Endemic animals by region. In some cases, the region is the same as the country, but not always.

::: That sounds as the best solution. Either this or delete. Pavel Vozenilek 17:10, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

:: House mouse would have to be in virtually *all* the country categories, because they can be found in almost all places inhabited by humans. (currently, that article is just in :Category:Mammals of Estonia...) bogdan 22:20, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

:::The description of each category should state that it only includes native animals. Categories are for navigation, and it would be useless adding introduced animals to a category. --liquidGhoul 14:14, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

• Keep for now, bring back the appropriate ones for renaming to "endemic" and then reconsider. Note that the Biota and Fauna categories need to be looked at in the same way. Golfcam 22:28, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
• Subcategories not tagged. I'm relisting this for another week. Someone might want to go through and tag the subcats. Original discussion [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_September_14#Category:Fauna_by_country here]. --Kbdank71 13:56, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep - these are very useful categories. Species distributions are almost always discussed by country. It's far better to have the categories at the end of the page, then it is to list all the countries in the article. As for the idea that "many" animals are found in "over 100 countries"...really? With a handful of exceptions, this is false, even if you count the naturalised range of a species in addition to its native range. Rather than delete all the categories, just don't use them on rats and houseflies, and the problem disappears. Guettarda 21:14, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
• In such cases (housefly, etc) it may be enough to name the countries, if any, where the animal does NOT occuur. Lycaon 07:18, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. I don't think anyone is intent on listing absolutely every animal that is found in any particular country (especially since not every animal even has a category). These categories are extremely useful to someone who is looking for information on a country, and by the coloring of the list of categoriues above, it would seem that there are very few of these categories that actually exist. I completely agree with Guettarda, above. I don't think they should be renamed, either, as the current titles are concise and to the point. Making the category titles even longer is absurd when the concise existing titles work just as well, if not better. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 07:31, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
• Rename from "by country" to "by geographic region" (or something like that). As stated above, it shouldn't be by political boundaries (too many cats, and waaay too much overlap), but it's valuable as a regional list (australia, sahara desert, etc). This means deleting all country-based sub-categories that aren't geographic regions (like australia). - jc37 07:59, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, overcat. >Radiant< 09:32, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
• (very) Strong Keep - i don't really understand the arguments for or against the "by country" categories, and to be honest I am not too concerned. BUT, i am strongly in favour of categories for each country. I often use :Category:Fauna of Indonesia - i see no reason why that should be removed. Furthermore, the argument that no-one is going to label all these is pointless - Indonesia is a clear example of it having being done - there are over 200 species listed. To remove all those cats would be a huge loss, how would we replace them all?. it is also an important subcategorie of :Category:Natural history of Indonesia. Removal is lunacy --Merbabu 11:06, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep natural part of Enviroment of country, quite useful.--Lokyz 16:43, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep I understand the problem but this is the wrong solution. Take a look at the articles in :Category:Birds in Britain - these clearly belong in that category, and we do not have the problem which (as I understand it) is the reason for this deletion proposal. Removal of articles which are not of the type " in " from categories entitled " in " is the answer. SP-KP 18:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I note that each example for keeping has been a island region which also is a country (Australia, Indonesia, Britain). I agree that these (and ones like them, such as the US regional ones - northeastern/southeastern/etc) should stay, but Rhode Island, or Macedonia? It's too much. Over-categorisation. If this "too large" nomination is "keep", I think it should likely be relisted, with that clarification. (I think it's too late to try to modify the existing nomination at this point.) - jc37 19:44, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
• Distribution at the level of country is commonly used in biogeography and macroecology, especially when there isn't data for sub-national units. The science that studies distributions uses country-level descriptions. Presumably you are speaking on the basis on professional qualifications in the field? Guettarda 03:33, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep for now per SPKP. Also why is Sabine's Sunbird talk 22:53, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
• I've already said I am a strong keep on this, but now I am questioning even the need for the "must be endemic" for inclusion. Why? The fauna of a particular country is not less important to it, nor is the distribution of particular species in a country any less significant just because it is not endemic. --Merbabu 02:44, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete and convert to lists (except island groups - Australia, New Zealand, Madagascar, Indonesia). It seems to me that this is one case where lists would serve much better. Once they are done, they're done. For example, Puma would have to be in every country in the Americas, and practically all of the US states and Canadian provinces. Similarly, the Grey wolf would be in every country in the northern hemisphere. Somewhat absurd. I would not be opposed to categorizing by some type of broad ecological region, but categorizing countries/states/provinces is silly. Luigizanasi 04:36, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

:Slightly before my time, but wheren't categories introduced to avoid long lists? Personally, while I agree with your sentiment the usage of many of these, deleting some of them is a bad idea, especially island groups like Madagascar, Australia, New Zealand etc. Incidentally, there is an underused category, Category:Cosmopolitan species, for wide ranging species. Sabine's Sunbird talk 06:20, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

:I agree that island groups could use their own categories. In my mind, each one is "a braod ecological zone". I note that those who find the categories useful only mentioned the island groups and Australia, although I believe Australia could be split in different regions/zones. Hence the4 change in my vote. The problem with using :Category:Cosmopolitan species is that it doesn't lend itself to creating lists of animals in each country, which seems to be the intent of most of this categorisation. While a list of animals in, say, Vermont is a good thing, it's not going to be very different from New York State, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachussets, Quebec (although Quebec will also have Arctic species), Ontario, New Brunswick or Nova Scotia. For North America, we could have, for example, categories for animals and birds of the Arctic, Subarctic boreal forest, Pacific Cordillera, Great Plains, Northeastern forests, Southwest and Northern Mexico, Southeast, Gulf of Mexico. Even then there would be considerable overlap. Luigizanasi 02:25, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• Keep and standardise the bird cats to use one format (Avifauna sounds horrible, so I'd move them all to Birds of X).--07:29, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep I use them, so they are useful. I would find the deletion incredibly annoying. For any future reference, I use :Category:Frogs of Australia, which is a great example of what these categories should be like. Don't use the bad examples as reasons to delete. Clean them up, it probably takes less effort. On a side note, I agree with the splitting up of Earth based on geographic, not political, boundaries. I brought up a discussion on it at WP:TOL recently, if anyone is interested. The problem with this, however, is how to split up the world. The US state categories are ridiculous. Australia has larger states, with more endemic species, and doesn't need to split up categories. I would support the merging of North America into geographic regions (may be a good experiment to see if that type of splitting up works!). Thanks --liquidGhoul 14:14, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Yes, there are problems, and inclusion criteria need to be specified, but this blanket proposal throws out the baby with the bathwater.--Curtis Clark 14:40, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep - The error is in the categorization process and not in the categories. --Berton 14:44, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete but if any categorization is comprehensive, convert to list. Most categories seem to be randomly added to various pages. Careful regional faunas are invariably entered as lists along with references and citations. Shyamal 15:04, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

:*Comment: Would an ---in article--- template better serve this as oppose to a Category? E.g. A template saying "This animal/plant can be found in the following countries:" or "Countries this animal/plant is found in" or "This animal/plant is native to the following countries" (and include a template similar to the one that lists all the "Members of the World Trade Organisation") As seen here -- CaribDigita 19:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

::*Comment: There is already a range map where this is (or can be) indicated pictorially. Shyamal 08:42, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• Delete This becomes increasingly useless when a species is found in many areas (I'd hope no one will add these categories to Tyto alba...) Ucucha 19:13, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
• Isn't that something of a "baby with the bathwater" issue? Sure, there are likely to be a handful of problematic species, but that doesn't mean that it's a bad system for vast majority of species. Guettarda 03:28, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep No good reason is given to delete these categories; just because there are (of necessity) many of them is no reason to delete them! Whether native or not, having plants, animals, etc identified with their country is certainly appropriate for an encyclopedia. Where else would a student or other reader go to find such information? Thanks Hmains 02:54, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
• Very Strong Keep No good reason has been given for the deletion of these categories. I mainly use Freshwater fish of Australia and find it particulalry useful to locate new articles in that category, amongst other things. Especially for this category which mainly consists of endemic species and which it is generally useful to consider as a group I would be very strongly opposed to its deletion. The "problems" posited as the reason for deletion of all these categories are trivial, whereas the problems created by deleting them will be very real and clumsy in the extreme to maintain. These categories are logicial, intuitive and work far more often than not. I am afraid that deleting the categories not only looks like a baby with the bath-water scenario, is rather looks like using a sledge hammer to crack a nut.Nick Thorne 08:36, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

:The link is :Category:Freshwater fish of Australia, for convenience. (This is a comment, as altering other editor's comments is a no-no.)—Chidom ^talk  17:38, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• Ultimate Keep There are more good categories than the bad ones, therefore deletion is not a good option. The best thing to do is to separate the categories that need attention and not delete the whole thing. This is like a mass deletion, which I believe we should avoid. Cheers -- Imoeng 11:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, but also applaud the nominator for going to such remarkable lengths in tagging the subcategories. I think it is reasonable to consider deleting or reformatting those categories which correspond to solely political boundaries, but these need to be dealt with case-by-case. The grey areas are not limited to islands; consider Korea, Italy, Florida...-- Visviva 13:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

::Response Thanks for the applause.

:: The category names are based on political boundaries, which is what is unworkable. As for your examples, Korea, Italy, and Florida are peninsulas, with outlying islands which would be geographic regions, not political ones.

:: The area comprising Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, etc. should have fauna classified by that geographic region, not the individual countries.

:: Other valid geographic regions would be ""Fauna of the Alps", "Fauna of the Shenandoah Valley", "Fauna of the Rocky Mountains", etc. These may more properly be sections in articles on the regions or articles of their own. Large regions could be broken down into subcategories/article sections or, separate articles, e.g., "Fauna of Northern Appalachia", "Fauna of Southern Appalachia", "Fauna of the Eastern Alps", "Fauna of the Western Alps", for example. :Category:Fauna of Indonesia, being a geographic region as well as a country, should definitely be a category or have an article of its own; it was created as a subcategory of the category that I'm nominating, which as now structured is completely useless.

::Other subcategories are valid as well, but they are the ones where geography defines the country name, not the political border: Australia certainly qualifies, and, as someone has commented, could have subcategories/article sections, or separate articles on specific geographic regions within the country/continent: "Australian Outback" comes to mind, but I'm not that familiar with Australian geography. (Similarly, I'm not sure New Zealand should be its own category/article, or be included in a "Australia and New Zealand" category/article; I'm unfamiliar with how specific species are to the two. I'm aware that there are unique species on Papua New Guinea; surely Malaysia would be a better choice rather than country, Papua, West Irian Jaya, which are all part of a different political boundaries.

::Rather than dividing what surely must be common fauna along a horizontal artificial line, "Fauna of Great Britain and Ireland" would encompass England, Scotland, Ireland, and the outlying islands in that area.

::Portugal, Spain, and Andora are located on the Iberian Peninsula; that is the appropriate category/or article, not categories based on the countries. Similarly, "Fauna of the Mediterranean" (or "Western Mediterranean" "Eastern Mediterranean") would be legitimate, as would "Fauna of the Black Sea", "Fauna of the Red Sea", etc.

::Articles on countries already include information such as, "Spain is part of the Iberian Peninsula" (see the article for Spain); the Iberian Peninsula article could contain a "Fauna" section or a link to a separate "Fauna of the Iberian Peninsula" article.

::If people feel that these categories should be renamed or merged, their Response should reflect that, not just Keep or Delete, and if one of those alternatives is the consensus, that would be the outcome of the discussion. (Rename and merge; Rename, merge, include in/create articles, etc.)—Chidom ^talk  17:38, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

:::Chidom, i think it makes things very difficult if you either try to change your recommendation part-way through the process (ie, as you request above) or people are asked to respond differently. I am not suggesting you have been careless, on the contrary, but possibly this proposal needed (even) more thought. Similar to what I have said before, although you make some valid points (yes, do we need Birds of Rhode Island or Sinola? - lol - these aren't countries anyway), your solution is inappropriate as it is too blunt an instrument. And yes, the fact that to delete a category one must delete ALL sub-categories is one of my arguments against the proposal. One doesn't kill the whole village to punish one (or several) criminals. --Merbabu 02:54, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. Rebecca 00:32, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. Well, what a useless nomination. It's a "mass murder". — Indon (reply) — 07:52, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep. There would be endless tags to common species. We should have a complex voluntary policy in this regard. Such as Keep Endemic Lists, Keep lists of zoogeographical regions (Oriental) or larger geographical groupings (say South Asia rather than India, Pakistan etc), keep lists where a WikiProject is working actively, (say... Arthropods of Watachamania). I strongly second the suggestion made in earlier discussion that these categories should preferably be made into articles, which would bring real info into Wikipedia. AshLin 14:10, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I am moving the following discussion from my User talk:Chidom page: