Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/Today

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1. Know if the category you are looking at needs deleting (or to be created). If it is a "red link" and has no articles or subcategories, then it is already deleted (more likely, it was never really created in the first place), and does not need to be listed here.
2. Read and understand Wikipedia:Categorization before using this page. Nominate categories that violate policies here, or are misspelled, mis-capitalized, redundant/need to be merged, not NPOV, small without potential for growth, or are generally bad ideas. (See also Wikipedia:Naming conventions and Wikipedia:Manual of Style.)
3. Please read the Wikipedia:Categorization of people policy if nominating or voting on a people-related category.
4. Unless the category to be deleted is non-controversial – vandalism or a duplicate, for example – please do not depopulate the category (remove the tags from articles) before the community has made a decision.
5. Add {{cfd}} to the category page for deletion. (If you are recommending that the category be renamed, you may also add a note giving the suggested new name.) This will add a message to it, and also put the page you are nominating into Category:Categories for deletion. It's important to do this to help alert people who are watching or browsing the category.
   1. Alternately, use the rename template like this: {{cfr|newname}}
   2. If you are concerned with a stub category, make sure to inform the WikiProject Stub sorting
6. Add new deletion candidates under the appropriate day near the top of this page.
   1. Alternatively, if the category is a candidate for speedy renaming (see Wikipedia:Category renaming), add it to the speedy category at the bottom.
7. Make sure you add a colon (:) in the link to the category being listed, like [[:Category:Foo]]. This makes the category link a hard link which can be seen on the page (and avoids putting this page into the category you are nominating).
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9. Link both categories to delete and categories to merge into. Failure to do this will delay consideration of your suggestion.

Special notes

Some categories may be listed in Category:Categories for deletion but accidently not listed here.

Discussion for Today

This page is transcluded from Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2025_February_5

February 5

NEW NOMINATIONS

I believe we should rename the category Distance Education Accreditation Commission to Distance Education Accrediting Commission. This is the name of the accrediting body itself, and think the original category name, which seems to make sense, was done incorrectly. I raised this on the category talk page, and think raising it here may be better for community input and decisions. Sorry for the problem with the first wikilink, but I could not get it working correctly so linked this as an external link. FULBERT (talk) 11:42, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Category:Eponymous categories

Nominator's rationale: Due to consensus of Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2025_January_24#Category:Wikipedia_categories_named_after_mass_media_franchises, which raised concerns about this category system in general and offered no arguments that were really specific to the nominated one. 2389 categories in all! –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 06:38, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

@LaundryPizza03, please collapse the mass nominations so only the first couple are default displayed. I don't think that a consensus of two (three?) editors for a single category should automatically transfer to deleting 100+ categories—it would be nice to see you provide a more thorough rationale on this page. Aza24 (talk) 07:41, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

 Done –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 08:35, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

• Delete all, unless someone reasonably explains who and what kind of Wikipedia maintenance these categories are required for. --Altenmann >talk 07:40, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• Delete all, there was a very plausible explanation in the previous discussion, but it does not work out like that in daily practice. Marcocapelle (talk) 07:49, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose all These categories are often the only way to locate relevant subcategories. Several of the eponymous categories have no other parent categories and would be left uncategorized if these were deleted. Would LaundryPizza03 volunteer to add new parent categories to the parentless categories? Dimadick (talk) 08:24, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose all: There are hundreds (if not thousands) of these categories, and having no system to diffuse them at all leaves them nowhere in the category tree, unless you're actually proposing e.g. everything in Wikipedia categories named after pop musicians gets moved to pop musicians (though you certainly didn't say this). Unclear where anyone (in this or the previous AfD) is getting "maintenance" from; surely the purpose of these is self-evident, and that they have nothing to do with maintenance categories, so I don't even know how that's an argument. In fact, the only clear reasons I can see stated for deletion in either AfD are "What's the purpose of this?", LaundryPizza's concerns about loops (I'm not actually clear on why this is an issue, and WP:CAT doesn't seem to explain it), and that the previous AfD closed as delete despite a bare minimum-at-best consensus. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 08:48, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• Delete all per nom. sjh (talk) 08:42, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose all per Dimadick. Deleting thousands of categories that provide useful category sortation is absurd. This could also leave hundreds of eponymous categories without a parent category. If anything, these should be discussed on a case-by-case basis. RedBlueGreen93 08:58, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose all: For the very simple reason that there must be tens of thousands of Eponymous categories - and they should be organized in some fashion. I agree with User:RedBlueGreen93 that these noms should be handled on a case-by-case basis, or in smaller groupings. Anomalous+0 (talk) 10:15, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose all (here via watchlist spam). Very much a case of babies and the bathwater, per QuietHere. Serial (speculates here) 10:31, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• Comment: Deleting those listed categories would leave these 3,426 categories uncategorized. 89.166.118.216 (talk) 11:01, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

  If you look at the history of those categories, they were orphaned of visible categories by editors who, in good faith, thought that WP:EPON meant that there could be no navigational parent categories on an eponymous categry (example). RevelationDirect (talk) 12:00, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose all this isnt the first this category tree has come up for discussion see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_November_4#Eponymous_categories_and_similar_subcategories, Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2010_August_12#Category:Eponymous_categories, and Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2012_March_3#Category:Eponymous_categories where it was decided they should be hidden cats. The categories do have a policy/guide for creation at WP:EPONYMOUS. What I've seen reading all of those discussions is that people interpret Eponym differently based on their cultural understanding(where they learnt english). There are possibly some that should be deleted along with some that should be kept. The guidelines need to written so everyone is on the same page, only then individual categories should be reviewed not 2400 categories in this nomination which cant be reviewed properly and considered on merit. The previous CfD only had one delete suggestion(plus nom) the rest were comments and unanswered question about the category structure, thats no way to run a railroad definitely not a precident to do this one. Gnangarra 12:20, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

  Its was one category out of 2400 sampled at random where I found these I dare say there are many more discussion with question unanswered Gnangarra 12:25, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

  I actually supported marking all as hidden in that 2012 discussion, but WP:HIDDENCATs are still visible on categories. (Not sure if there was a technical change since then or if, gasp, my !vote was ill informed.) I do agree that WP:EPON is related here, but these "named after" tree really go beyond anything even hinted at in that editing guideline. RevelationDirect (talk) 12:35, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

  @RevelationDirect: I get that this is a mess, and many could be deleted. BUT(its a big one on purpose) sort out the purpose of Eponymous categories first fix then rewrite WP:EPON only then adjust the categories as necessary. The current nom is based on an incomplete discussion where there was just one expression for deletion thats not a precedent to delete 2400 categories, especially as this isnt a new discussion it been going on for 17 years. Gnangarra 13:30, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose all: per Serial. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 12:23, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Hatting Myself

Delete All The primary WP:CATEGORY goal is to aid navigation while hidden WP:PROJCATS is for maintenance activities. These "named after" cats turn that on the head by having navigational categories and this inversion is only even possible because WP:HIDDENCATs are still visible on categories. This approach is not endorsed by WP:EPON. Reading through the !votes above, I don't see any policy/guideline reason for doing the opposite of our normal categorization, nor any compelling WP:IAR for why this helps the encyclopedia. - RevelationDirect (talk) 12:26, 5 February 2025 (UTC) Thanks to Gnangarra for linking to the discussion where I advocated for making these hidden project cats in the first place, back in 2012. Clearly, I'm not playing the long con here, but favoring deletion based on change I favored still seems distastesful. I'm going to step back and rethink this. - RevelationDirect (talk) 13:08, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Category:Surnames from ornamental names

• Propose renaming Category:Surnames from ornamental names to Category:Ornamental surnames

Nominator's rationale: These surnames, i.e., such as Rosenkrantz or Goldfarb are ornamental surnames themselves, not "derived" from anything but their fancy meaning. --Altenmann >talk 01:10, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

• Delete in the spirit of WP:SHAREDNAME. Marcocapelle (talk) 07:13, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
• Support per nom. (SHAREDNAME is obviously about items, not the categories themselves? We can obviously categorize surnames) PARAKANYAA (talk) 11:27, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

• Indeed we can categorize surnames, e.g. by language, and we already do that. But this category is what the surnames are named after. Marcocapelle (talk) 11:47, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

  Yes, but that is encyclopedic when it comes to surnames themselves because they're discussed in categories that way in the literature. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:09, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

• Delete - This is another "things named after other things". We can't do 1:1 relationships in categories (unless we start doing a myriad of 2-member cats - which would presumably be overcat). - jc37 21:56, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Delete? I am not seeing objections to renaming if kept.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 04:10, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

• Comments: As I see the "del" votes are based on a major misunderstanding of the purpose of this category:
  • This is not "things named after other things", this is "things named is a specific way". This category is how the surnames were created. There are no categories "named after": e.g., no category named after rose flower for the surname Rosenblum, there is no category named after cobbler for Schumacher, etc.
  • This not SHAREDNAMES: no name is shared.
  • This is not an arbitrary category: it is based on an anthroponymic term Ornamental surname, which describes a category of surnames, hence it is a valid Wikipedia category reflecting "real life".
  • There is a very limited number of the commonly accepted categories of surnames, see Surname#Origins of particular surnames, and therefore there is no danger of proliferation of minuscule nanosubcategories. --Altenmann >talk 05:31, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

  Rename per nomination. As PARAKANYAA and Altenmann have explained, this is a category of names, not the people who have them, and thus SHAREDNAME does not apply. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 09:06, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Category:López family of Iloilo

• Propose renaming Category:López family of Iloilo to Category:López family (Iloilo)

Nominator's rationale: Mike Selinker (talk) 03:52, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

@Mike Selinker: Rationale is...? --Altenmann >talk 05:33, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

• Rename per precedent. We have been standardizing an awful lot of family categories to this format recently. Marcocapelle (talk) 07:51, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Category:Willy Wonka

• Propose merging Category:Willy Wonka to Category:Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Nominator's rationale: Seemingly a case of WP:OVERLAPCAT. (Oinkers42) (talk) 17:12, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

• Comment - Category:Willy Wonka characters should be renamed as well. - jc37 20:46, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
• Rename to Category:Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in popular culture. I think there's still a category left, even when removing members of Category:Works based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. - jc37 20:46, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Rename?
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 03:16, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

• Support merge and rename Category:Willy Wonka characters. Because the contents of the vcategory are not exclusively about Willi and hence considerable overlap of categorization. --Altenmann >talk 05:42, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• Merge per nom. Speedy rename Category:Willy Wonka characters to Category:Charlie and the Chocolate Factory characters per WP:C2D, List of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory characters. --woodensuperman 10:39, 5 February 2025 (UTC)