Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 March 28

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March 28

Category:Jimmy Nail projects

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: delete. Kbdank71 14:20, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator's rationale: Delete. Overcategorization, as an eponymous category for a person. Stepheng3 (talk) 23:54, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – it's not eponymous. Occuli (talk) 00:45, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please clarify. Are you saying that Jimmy Nail is not a person, or that the category is not named after him? See eponym. --Stepheng3 (talk) 00:49, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The eponymous category would be Category:Jimmy Nail. There is also Category:Jimmy Nail songs. Occuli (talk) 00:57, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete anyway, per nom. Johnbod (talk) 03:10, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - not eponymous, rather, performer by performance overcategorization. Otto4711 (talk) 09:16, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Can't remember creating this category, but I see from the page history that I did. I'm happy to support its deletion anyway. TheRetroGuy (talk) 11:02, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - From the Eponym article and other sources, it's clear to me that this category is an example of eponymy, which indicates derivation but not necessarily identity. I considered the performers by performance argument, but decided this was the reverse: a performances by performer category. I'm just glad that there seems to be agreement on the action to be taken.--Stepheng3 (talk) 16:31, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Travis (band)

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: no consensus.--Aervanath (talk) 07:09, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator's rationale: Eponymous category, consisting only of the band's article, discography, and songs/albums/members category. Per precedent, these are not enough to be included in an eponymous category. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 21:55, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - As I observed in the last cfd brought by the nom, also with 3 subcats (when nominated) – "I don't know why 10lbhammer keeps nominating these substantial eponymous categories with multiple subcats (which have nearly all been no-consensus keeps for the last 6 months or so) when there are hundreds of much smaller ones in Category:Categories named after musicians with 0 or 1 subcats which would be deleted without opposition." There is no recent precedent whatever for such categories with 3 or more subcats to be deleted. Occuli (talk) 22:35, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops. Guess I didn't pay attention to that one and the others. Seriously, though, I still think that eponymous categories like this need more. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 23:25, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The facts are (whatever Otto might prefer) that the following (with 3 or more subcats) have been debated including this one in cfds since March 2008 and the results have been:

Not deleted:

Category:The Everly Brothers (3 subcats) cfd Jul 08;
Category:The Allman Brothers Band (3 subcats) cfd Jul 08;
Category:Meshuggah (4 subcats) cfd Aug 08;
Category:Dixie Chicks (4 subcats) cfd Aug 08;
Category:Shania Twain (6 subcats) cfd Apr 08;
Category:Stevie Ray Vaughan (3 subcats) cfd Jun 08;
Category:Rush (band) (5 subcats) cfd Mar 08;
Category:X Japan (4 subcats) cfd Apr 08;
Category:A*Teens (5 subcats) cfd Apr 08;
Category:Alice in Chains (4 subcats) cfd Apr 08;
Category:Aqua (3 subcats) cfd Apr 08;
Category:Atomic Kitten (4 subcats) cfd Apr 08;
Category:Travis (band) (3 subcats) cfd Sept 08;
Category:Olivia Newton-John (4 subcats) cfd Jan 09;
Category:Sly & the Family Stone (5 subcats) cfd Feb 09;
Category:A*Teens (3 subcats) cfd Mar 09

Deleted:

Corinne Bailey Rae (3 subcats, Nov 08).

There is no recent consensus to delete eponymous musician categories with 3 or more subcats (this one now has 4 subcats). Occuli (talk) 00:42, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I love how you keep flogging that Rush category, even though since it contains articles about aspects of Rush that are not easily categorizable elsewhere and thus (as I have argued repeatedly) meets the standard of WP:OC#EPONYMOUS. I also like how you keep throwing in categories with more than three subcategories, when the question here is about categories with three subcategories, not "three or more". Apple, meet orange. I have to wonder if, since this is the second time you've conflated "three or more" with "three" if you're truly not getting the distinction or if you're doing it deliberately to obfuscate. I would also note that most of the rest of your examples come from a single mass CFD from a year ago which closed no consensus as opposed to straight keep so pretending like that wasn't something of an aberrant result in comparison to the hundreds of similar categories that have been deleted over the last couple of years is intellectually...intriguing, shall we say. Such categories include:
17 beginning with W
15 beginning with A (plus 7 additional on the same page)
10 beginning with K (deletion endorsed (here)
And so on, through every letter of the alphabet, not to mention the single-item CFDs mixed in amongst various CFDs since the process of trying to form consensus on these began, which are much more cumbersome to link to as they number in the hundreds. What you're doing here is pretty much a combination of WP:IDONTLIKEIT and flipping the bird to all of the editors who worked diligently to forge this consensus.
From a practical standpoint, this idea that any band with one song, one album and one member article needs its own category will result in Category:Categories named after musicians to swell to the thousands, making it completely unwieldly and useless to anyone who wants to use it for browsing purposes. There are two goals to be satisfied here. One is to facilitate navigation between articles related to the same band. The other is to facilitate navigation between band categories for those who use the system that way. Simple-mindedly declaiming "it has three subcategroies, keep it, keep it" runs counter to both goals. It ignores the black-letter guideline which states that eponymous categories are to be avoided. Otto4711 (talk) 09:48, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - these eponymous band categories were thoroughly hashed through quite some time ago and the consensus/compromise that emerged was that the existence of member, album and song subcats did not warrant an eponymous category, largely because the main article for any band is going to have its members, albums and songs in it for navigational purposes. This completely arbitrary "three possible subcats equals cat" business means from a practical standpoint that a band with as few as four articles (band, one song, one album, one member) suddenly needs a category to hold those whopping four articles together? Nonsense. WP:OC#EPONYMOUS advises that the presumption is against eponymous categories for bands unless there is a collection of subarticles about the band such that simply using the band's article as a navigational hub is untenable. Clearly that is not the case here. Additionally, this is a small category with little or no likely growth potential. Finally, while navtemplates and categories are not mutually exclusive, any fears that someone seeking more information about this band will be stymied should be allayed by the comprehensive navtemplate. Otto4711 (talk) 23:37, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, you said it about 10 times better than I said. That is exactly what I think. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 00:14, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Occuli & more recent concensus - "Small category" my ass. This one has five solid sub-categories. Please exercise better, more selective judgement with these nominations. Cgingold (talk) 13:41, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It actually has four, one of which was added by Occuli after the nomination opened. Might wanna see about getting a lower horse. Otto4711 (talk) 15:29, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sub-sub-categories are also subcategories so there are 5, if one counts carefully. (Another example of a Transitive relation.) Occuli (talk) 17:15, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to Occuli for his highly erudite explication of the reasoning behind my enumeration. Btw, the reference was to my ass, not my horse (or even my horse's ass). Cgingold (talk) 01:48, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep This is a well-defined category that supports a structure that fits well into the overall category rubric. Category:Categories named after musicians is not intended to be a destination ctageory, and exists primarily as an artificial parent for the nearly 200 existing categories named after musicians. That it may grow larger or even become unwieldy places no obstacle to navigation. Alansohn (talk) 03:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom & ample precedent. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 16:41, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Precedent appears to go both ways on this one, adn would seem to have little relevance in requiring deeltion. Is there any policy issue that jsutifies deletion? Alansohn (talk) 17:57, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete' as ridiculous overcategorisation. The subcategories argument also makes no sense. Since when does a category with a total of 5 articles in it need this kind of substructure? Do we really have to discuss the subcategories first? If we do so, will someone create subsubcategories during the CfD? If we succeed in getting the empty or one-article subcategories deleted, will other new subcategories such as Category:Wikipedia users who met other Wikipedia users at Travis concerts be created to replace them? --Hans Adler (talk) 12:48, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Existing structural devices should be maintained. They do not hurt the encyclopedia. I do not see how deleting them would help it. DGG (talk) 19:25, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOHARM is hardly compelling. Otto4711 (talk) 19:47, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

~~Delete~~ Keep (I have no idea why I wrote delete before!) There are four subcats. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:07, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per OC and the 4 subcats (we don't consider sub-subcats and sub-sub-subcats and sub-sub-sub-subcats, etc, etc when determing what's in this category). --Kbdank71 14:45, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So Category:People just has 3 pages then, and Category:People by nationality just the one ... is this OCAT? Opposing such ludicrous non-arguments becomes tiresome. Occuli (talk) 17:48, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, because Category:People has 26 subcats, and Category:People by nationality has 253. If you read what I wrote, you'd see I said we don't consider sub-subcats. So no, those are not OC. (I thought it would be clear, but perhaps not. So... Parent category A has subcats B and C, and articles 1, 2, and 3. Regardless of how many articles and subcategories are in B and C, A only has 5 members. Transitive relation may work well in mathematics, not so much in categories.) --Kbdank71 13:33, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:U.S. Fire Arms Mfg. Co.

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: delete. Kbdank71 14:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator's rationale: Delete. Single entry category. Not convinced that there will be any significant expansion unless someone decides to add all of the guns to the category and I'm not sure that is the right thing. Open to a discussion and suggestions. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:50, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note:If kept, rename to Category:U.S. Fire Arms Manufacturing Company to match parent. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:55, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete unless there is a reasonable prospect offered of future expansion. Alansohn (talk) 03:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 16:42, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. There were articles on all the guns, but they were deleted as individually non-notable replicas of old Colt models. Given that deletion discussion, the articles should probably not be recreated, so this category is not needed. cmadler (talk) 03:31, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Boxers who declined to defend their title

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: delete. Per nom, we don't categorize someone by what they didn't (or declined to) do. Stripped of title, as mentioned, may be a better title, but that would require manual addition as not everyone in this category was stripped as such, and also as mentioned, does not require this CFD to create. . Kbdank71 14:41, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator's rationale: Delete. Non-defining and subjective. Categorizing people by what they have declined to do is overcategorization. Declining to do something is not a defining characteristic.--SaskatchewanSenator (talk) 06:37, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - This category was fully discussed, kept and renamed back in December 2008. Cgingold (talk) 01:45, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The result of the discussion was: no consensus to delete; rename for now to Category:Boxers who declined to defend their title, but this rename should not preclude a future re-nomination for deletion or renaming. See the archive.--SaskatchewanSenator (talk) 07:19, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The arguments on definingness made last time still stand. Alansohn (talk) 06:05, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Suggest renaming: The current title doesn't fit the category's description. Boxers are not usually stripped of a title for declining to defend it at all; rather for not defending against a specific challenger. I suggest renaming to something like Category:Boxers who declined to face a mandatory challenger or Category:Boxers who were stripped of their title. The latter could then cover all instances where a boxer has been stripped of his title. SteveO (talk) 15:37, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete three months after a no consensus close contemplating a renomination is sufficient time to get the category's defenders time to get it whipped into shape. Here, it remains subjective and therefore useless. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 16:44, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - per Carlos. The "stripped of title" category may be defining, but creating it does not depend on the outcome of this CFD. Otto4711 (talk) 17:59, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Businesses based in Fairfield County, Connecticut

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: rename. Kbdank71 14:24, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Propose renaming Category:Businesses based in Fairfield County, Connecticut to Category:Companies based in Fairfield County, Connecticut

Nominator's rationale: Rename. Rename to match common form for company categories and the form of the company related parent. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:14, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support for consistency with other categories in the same structure. Alansohn (talk) 06:05, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Rename per nom for consistency. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:43, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Unblocked Tor exit nodes

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: delete. Kbdank71 14:24, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator's rationale: With the activation of TorBlock last June, this category has become redundant. The only entity which categorized items into here is the shutdown KrimpBot. This is part of the cleanup of Category:Tor_exit_nodes by WP:OP to update the category members with current data, as categorization was done by the aforementioned bot which has not ran in >8 months. Q ^{T C} 10:31, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The remaining two items in the category will disappear once the template change has gone through the job queue. Q ^{T C} 10:32, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. Just noting agreement, this is not a useful category. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 14:04, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Electricity prices

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: delete. Kbdank71 14:26, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator's rationale: Upmerge to both parents or Delete. Single entry category that does not appear to be encyclopedic. If kept, probably needs renaming to something like Category:Electricity pricing or Category:Electricity pricing plans. Vegaswikian (talk) 08:16, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Obelisks

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: merge. Kbdank71 14:26, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Suggest merging Category:Obelisks in California to Category:Obelisks in the United States

Suggest merging Category:Obelisks in Illinois to Category:Obelisks in the United States

Suggest merging Category:Obelisks in New York to Category:Obelisks in the United States

Suggest merging Category:Obelisks in Massachusetts to Category:Obelisks in the United States

Suggest merging Category:Obelisks in Oregon to Category:Obelisks in the United States

Suggest merging Category:Obelisks in Vermont to Category:Obelisks in the United States

Nominator's rationale: Double merge - following up on Obelisks in DC, none of these categories has more than two articles. The parent obelisk category simply does not need to be subdivided by state. Each article should also be merged to the state-appropriate subcat of Category:Monuments and memorials in the United States. Otto4711 (talk) 03:57, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Merge all per nom, as small & unlikely to expand. Johnbod (talk) 15:02, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Merge all per nom. Occuli (talk) 16:11, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Merge all as overly small. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 03:22, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Merge into single category People are unlike to build a great many more of them. DGG (talk) 22:43, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:American Gladiators

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: merge as these are essentially two duplicate categories. Per alan, some articles for individuals have been removed, but per otto per OC, they shouldn't have been in this to begin with. They should be categorized elsewhere, which will allow navigation across related articles. Kbdank71 14:35, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Suggest merging Category:American Gladiators to Category:Gladiators events

Nominator's rationale: Merge - following the removal of improperly categorized articles for performers associated with the series, of the remaining articles all but three are for events. The three non-event articles, for the two series and a video game, can easily go in the parent Category:Gladiators (TV franchise). No need for this category for the small amount of material. Otto4711 (talk) 03:36, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Don't they already belong to Gladiator events? moving the remaining to parent, and uncategorizing the event articles should leave an empty category. This problem also exists at Category:Gladiators (British TV show) 76.66.193.69 (talk) 06:03, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly I didn't feel like checking off every single article to see if they existed in both categories. A merge assures they all end up there if any have been missed. Otto4711 (talk) 06:07, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose While there is overlap, the two categories serve distinct purposes. Articles for individuals notably associated with the program appear to have been improperly removed and should be restored to this category to benefit those using the category to navigate across related articles. Alansohn (talk) 06:18, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Articles for individuals notably associated with the program" are not properly categorized in a category for the program per WP:OC#Performers by performance. Otto4711 (talk) 09:50, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:WrestleCrap

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: delete. Kbdank71 14:29, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator's rationale: Delete - that someone running a website decided that you or your wrestling gimmick sucked isn't anywhere close to a defining characteristic. Could also be seen as an attack category, since WrestleCrap is devoted to cataloging what its editors decide is the worst of the worst. Otto4711 (talk) 03:16, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm tempted to say something ridiculous like, "What's wrong with giving every website its own category??" But I won't... So I guess I'll just say, Terminate per nom. Notified creator with {{subst:cfd-notify}} Cgingold (talk) 08:28, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - I thought this was already deleted. It is a useless category that I don't even know why was created.--WillC---Joe's gonna kill you!!!) 11:57, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Sentential logic

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: no consensus. Kbdank71 13:36, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Propose renaming Category:Sentential logic to Category:Propositional logic

Nominator's rationale: Renamed -- the two names are completely synonymous, however, "propositional" appears to be more popular and consistent with the article, and template heading.Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 03:05, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely correct move, and long overdue. I work in a part of mathematical logic that is relatively unrelated to propositional logic. I have never heard of "sentential logic" outside Wikipedia. Note that sentential logic already redirects to propositional logic, and compare: [1] [2]. --Hans Adler (talk) 09:12, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Notified category creator with {{subst:cfd-notify}} Cgingold (talk) 09:47, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: The term "sentential logic" and "sentential calculus" are widely used outside of Wikipedia. To a lesser extent "statement logic" and "statement calculus". The nature and existence of "propositions" is controversial. --Philogo (talk) 14:42, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have you looked at the two Google Scholar searches I linked above? Google Books gives weaker results, but with the same tendency: sentential logic finds 715 books, propositional logic 1620 books. But I must correct myself. I just discovered that Chang & Keisler use the term "sentential logic"; I simply forgot this.

I have no idea what you mean that is controversial. Is this about some philosophical distinction? --Hans Adler (talk) 15:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The controversial issues with "proposition" are not sufficient to negate the overwhelming use of propositional over sentential. It is a good observation however.Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 18:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The category was originally created by CBM. I asked him, and he explained to me that his idea was (in my words) that "sentential" is more inclusive than "propositional", even though most authors regard them as synonyms. It sounds convincing, but it doesn't seem to have worked in practice because people didn't understand the distinction. --Hans Adler (talk) 10:42, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"proposition" is not synonymous with "sentence" nor even with "meaningful declarative sentence" nor "statement" claims to the contrary notwithstanding. There is no agreed definition of "proposition" and the existence of such things has been widely disputed since at least the time of Quine. Some authors appear to use the term "proposition" as synonymous with ""meaningful declarative sentence" others with the "meanings" of meaningful declarative sentences. The use of term "sentential" as opposed to "propositional;" (I believe) was precisely to avoid reference to the controversial "proposition". I suggest we proceed with care rather than haste. --Philogo (talk) 14:16, 31 March 2009 (UTC) See e.g. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Formal_Logic/Merged_Versions/Sentential_Logic#issues:[reply]

Elsewhere in Wikibooks and Wikipedia, you will see the name 'Propositional Logic' (or rather 'Propositional Calculus', see below) and the treatment of propositions much more often than you will see the name 'Sentential Logic' and the treatment of sentences. Our choice here represents the contributor's view as to which position is more popular among current logicians and what you are most likely to see in standard textbooks on the subject. Considerations as to whether the popular view is actually correct are not taken up here.

--Philogo (talk) 15:08, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) I am really wondering what's going on here. I am fairly sure that your distinction is not relevant for mathematicians. The canonical book for model theory was once Chang & Keisler (1973), who had "sentential logic", now it is Hodges (1993), who has "propositional logic". Hodges has a theological as well as mathematical background, and I have always found him exceptionally consistent and reliable in his choice of terminology. I would have hoped that he takes such philosophical criteria into account, but perhaps he missed this one or just followed the general practice among mathematicians.

To get some clarity I searched for books that mention both "propositional logic" and "sentential logic" and were published since 2000. [3] One thing I found was Gabbay, "Logic with Added Reasoning": "It may be confusing that we speak of propositional logic but talk little of propositions. In fact we shall be doing our logic on sentences rather than propositions. Even then we shall only be dealing with sentences that make statements (as opposed to a sentence that asks a question). It would perhaps be less confusing to call it sentential logic instead of propositional logic but the latter name is more common." If I understand this correctly, a proposition is an equivalence class of sentence under a certain (dubious) equivalence relation.

There is also Kleene, "Mathematical Logic": "This part of logic is called propositional logic or the propositional calculus. We deal with propositions through declarative sentences which express them in some language (the object language); the propositions are the meanings of the sentences.²" The footnote says: "Hence some writers call this part of logic 'sentential logic' or the 'sentential calculus'."

The "The Oxford handbook of philosophy of mathematics and logic" is inconsistent in its usage, but uses "propositional logic" more often (10:3). The index of volume 1 of "Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science" has a 12:2 ratio.

Barnbrook (2002), "Defining language" is a linguistic book that quotes someone (Schnelle) who may be making a distinction similar to what Carl has in mind, but it's far from clear and Schnelle, too, seems to be a linguist. [4]

Overall I am getting the impression that almost nobody makes a distinction and that "propositional" is more popular even among philosophically oriented authors. The minority of authors using "sentential logic" is probably big enough to allow us to use the term, but I am not yet convinced that we should do that. --Hans Adler (talk) 15:23, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

again http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Formal_Logic/Merged_Versions/Sentential_Logic#issues puts it well:

What should logic take as its truth-bearers (objects that are true or false)? The two leading contenders today are sentences and propositions.

Sentences. These consist of a string of words and perhaps punctuation. The sentence 'The cat is on the mat' consists of six elements: 'the', 'cat', 'is', 'on', another 'the', and 'mat'.

Propositions. These are the meanings of sentences. They are what is expressed by a sentence or what someone says when he utters a sentence. The proposition that the cat is on the mat consists of three elements: a cat, a mat, and the on-ness relation.

--Philogo (talk) 15:52, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As a mathematician, I am not interested in "truth-bearers". I think I heard the word the first time a few weeks ago here, from you. The distinction between sentences and propositions, while I can see it, is of no interest to me. I can understand that it matters to you, I understand why you prefer sentences to propositions, and I understand why you want to call it sentential logic if you work with sentences rather than propositions. But I think it wouldn't be a big problem to call it propositional logic even if you really work with sentences. The only source I found that gave a rationale for using the term "sentential logic" used "propositional logic" anyway, saying it is more common.

In my opinion, unless we actually present both "propositional logic" and "sentential logic" as two slightly different beasts – and that's not really an option because the overwhelming majority of sources say they are synonyms – we should standardise on one of the two terms. The fact that the majority of sources prefer "propositional" (it's obvious from the statistics, and Gabbay says so explicitly) is a strong reason for me to prefer propositional.

If you want to make us standardise on the rarer term, or not standardise at all, based on a distinction that doesn't even make sense in my world, then you need to convince me that it's very important in your world, that my impression of the sources is false, or that most philosophically oriented sources that use "propositional logic" are obsolete, wrong or irrelevant, or at least that there is a strong push from "propositional" towards "sentential". In that case I will think of all the original logic terminology that has become mostly obsolete in mathematics and is still used in philosophy and be prepared to swallow the bitter pill of having to use an unfamiliar term in the interest of keeping the basic logic articles unified.

"Bitter pill" sounds a bit like hyperbole, even to myself, but it if we consistently use the "sentential" terminology, then for the mathematics aspect of our articles it means that Wikipedia will be pushing a minority terminology for reasons that most mathematicians won't understand or accept as valid. --Hans Adler (talk) 20:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I do not think that we can be sure of making an article better by making it more or less interesting to a particular editor "as a mathematician" or "as an X" for any X, nor just because an editor "prefers" it. I propose we agree any preferred terminology in the (as yet empty) section of [Wikipedia:WikiProject Logic/Standards for notation]. The crietera for a preferred terminology, I would suggest, is not to be determined by what editors find of interest" or "familiar". If there exist more than one term for the same thing, we can always put one terms in parentheses preceeded by "also called". On this partilcar issue http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Formal_Logic/Merged_Versions/Sentential_Logic#issues: claims (rightly or wrongly):

Our choice here [sentential] represents the contributor's view as to which position is more popular among current logicians and what you are most likely to see in standard textbooks on the subject.

As far as I can see most books take sentences (strings of words or symbols and perhaps punctuation) as being the subject matter but sometimes refer to them as propositions or statements, and sometimes, even when they do not, still call the logic propositional logic. We shold bear in mind that we are disssing here what the CATEGORY is. We might decide that "propositional logic" and "tautolgy" are in the category "sentential logic". No doubt if we had an aricle called "natural bhistory" we might put it in the category "biology" rather than "nature" or "history". --Philogo (talk) 13:33, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Philogo I agree with SO MUCH of what you are saying! I agree with Hans quite a bit also. I am usually the one advocating that we should do what is right in principle given the meaning of the terms rather than what the apparent pragmatics dictate. Furthermore, I think mathematicians absolutely should take their cues from analytic, ordinary language philosophers as to what terms they should adopt. However I almost never see "sentential" anywhere in the literature. I am certainly open to creating two articles and two categories and expanding on their distinctions. I hope the content should ever be so developed. In the meantime we should go with one or the other. I'm mostly thinking of the people trying to find it and look it up. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 14:05, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Philogo, I don't know why you are repeating the Wikibooks quotation all the time. We don't consider Wikipedia articles reliable, and Wikibooks is much less reliable because the project is much less active. Just look at the history of that page. (Or do you know the author? A Google Scholar search didn't turn up anything useful.) If you assert that it is your expert opinion that philosophers are moving towards "sentential" I am much more inclined to believe it than when you are just quoting a random web page with no authority. But if you want to make use of my trust in your expertise, please take into account that the only reliable source so far that speaks about this says the opposite, and that the search results and Gregbard's and my intuition also point in the opposite direction.

In any case I would agree with aborting this CfD and continuing the discussion elsewhere, with no deadline, and with the understanding that we are discussing the handling of "propositional" vs. "sentential" in general, not just in the name of this category. --Hans Adler (talk) 14:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I agree Hans, and the place for this discussion is surely Wikipedia:WikiProject Logic/Standards for notation#Terminology. If we all agreed there what terminology we should use then articles can be edited/written accordingly, wihout flare ups (e.g. over wffs). You will see I have "seeded" that section by cribbing a lot from the stuff on the talk page you wrote some time back. Go take a look --Philogo (talk) 23:09, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Numb3rs

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: rename. Kbdank71 14:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Propose renaming Category:Numb3rs to Category:Lists of Numb3rs episodes

Nominator's rationale: Rename - to reflect the actual contents. Note that this is a recreation of a deleted category and a category for the series itself is still not needed. Otto4711 (talk) 03:00, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rename – true. Occuli (talk) 17:34, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Rename per above. The only thing that needs to be categorized is the episodes. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 21:56, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Pitch

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: rename. Kbdank71 14:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Propose renaming Category:Pitch to Category:Pitch (music)

Nominator's rationale: Rename - Pitch is ambiguous. The rename matches the lead article. Otto4711 (talk) 02:16, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good grief. Pitch?? Not Pitch (card game) or Pitch (resin)? Oh, right - Pitch (music). Yes, by all means - Rename. Cgingold (talk) 08:11, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You mean this is not about cricket? Rename. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:14, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Rename per nom to resolve ambiguity. Maralia (talk) 20:35, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Rename to match parent article, as Pitch has a ton of meanings. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 00:18, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Rename I've bought into the nominator's pitch. --Stepheng3 (talk) 16:38, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Akademi Fantasia

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was: rename. Kbdank71 14:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Propose renaming Category:Akademi Fantasia to Category:Akademi Fantasia seasons

Nominator's rationale: Rename - to reflect the actual contents of the category. There does not appear to be such other material as to warrant a category named for the show itself. Otto4711 (talk) 02:09, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.