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.
Comment. I'm not sure that I understand the nominator's rationale. Isn't the nominated category a subcategory of Category:Pakistani television programmes by channel? Wouldn't deleting the nominated category disrupt this category branch? I'm not sure what utility there is merging all the articles about series into the general category about the channel. It seems to me to be a legitimate and highly desirable subcategorization. Good Ol’factory(talk)00:31, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Good Olfactory. Merger would remove the programmes from Category:Pakistani television programmes by channel, which would be disruptive. BTW, a rationale like the nominator's shoukd really lead to speedy closure of the discussion. "This category is unnecessary" is not a rationale, it's just an assertion of a point-of-view. A valid rationale would include a reason explaining why the nom considers it unnecessary. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 19:43, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
keep. Given that the thoughts of my initial comment have been essentially confirmed by other users, I'm putting in my formal vote for "keep", which is based on my earlier comment. Good Ol’factory(talk)23:26, 23 March 2014 (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.
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 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.
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.
and any others created during the CFD discussion (Spiders of Vatican City ?)
Note: These categories have not been tagged; it seems unnecessary in this case and makes it harder to keep up with this editor who creates categories at a rate of approx one a minute for hour after hour
Nominator's rationale: If we categorized every genus/species of spider by every European country it has ever been found in we would have a lot of categories on a lot of articles. In practice, many of the articles about spiders don't have a comprehensive list of which countries the species has been found in (e.g. just saying "present in most of Europe") so any attempt at country-level categorization based on the article content is likely to be very haphazard (e.g. Category:Spiders of Metropolitan France currently only contains 10 articles). In a case like this it's better to have reasonably complete continent-level categorization than to have very incomplete country-level categorization (there are about 50 countries in Europe).
For info: The creator of these categories has been asked several times to avoid overcategorization (e.g. [1]), but is still creating categories at a prodigious rate (e.g. [2]) and created 3 more "Spiders of <country>" categories shortly after this CFD nomination (I've added them to the nomination).
For info: a CFD in 2007 resulted in a merge of European fauna by-country categories into a by-continent category, but the by-country categories were then re-created by a vandal/sockpuppet making edits like [3]; perhaps it's time to clear it out again (and salt?). DexDor (talk) 05:23, 2 March 2014 (UTC) Updated DexDor (talk) 10:47, 2 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
!votes which make a bad faith accusation of 'wall of text' for what is in fact necessary detail and useful well structured background should be ignored on principle. That's my 2c.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 12:59, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Obi-Wan. Sometimes, a nomination benefits from a detailed rationale. Issues are not always super simple or super clear, so occasionally we will have a nominating statement that is longer than the average nominating statement. I don't see a problem with that, and there was certainly nothing gratuitously verbose about this particular nomination. Good Ol’factory(talk)20:46, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose most, except for the unnecessary division of France and its territories, which should just be merged to Category:Spiders of France. I think the 2007 CfD that eliminated fauna categories by country was a mistake because the common fear of overcategorization and a huge number of country categories is irrational. That's not how these categories are used. If a species is native only to a few countries, use those individual fauna-country categories. If it is more widely distributed, use a regional category, which don't appear to exist for fauna in Europe but something like Category:Fauna of Western Europe, and remove the country categories from the article. Wider distributions could ultimately use the continent-level categories. I do agree that these categories need some maintenance and I have personally asked the user creating these to do so more carefully (and have received no response or engagement from that editor), but the country categories are important in many taxonomic groups to clearly delimit species that have narrow distributions. A lack of information in the articles is not a reason to delete or upmerge as we're a work in progress and this information can be revised in the future. What's important is that we don't restrict ourselves from filling out these kinds of categories in the future by making a decision now that they're useless. Equally important is the recognition, in opposition to Peterkingiron's comment that "fauna distribution does not normally stop at national borders", that our best reliable sources do recognize or list species distributions by country because these borders are convenient, mostly stable, and often on a small enough scale to be meaningful in accounts of a region's fauna. For things on the flora side, we've been working with the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, which almost always uses national or state borders for its finest scale categories. I don't know if there is something similar for fauna, but it is foolish to suggest that because a species' distribution doesn't match government borders that we shouldn't use them when most reliable sources note them this way, categorize them this way, write books about them this way. It's how people talk about plants and animals. TL;DR version: these country-level categories are useful, especially for species with limited distribution or endemics and we should not restrict ourselves to forcing those with limited distributions into huge, continent-level categories. Rkitko(talk)15:12, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
(voted above). Categories are a navigation aid. There are over 30 countries in Europe. I think that the fox occurs in all or most, and countries beyond Europe. Is it really appropriate for the article on the fox to have 30-50 national categories? This is a classic case of category clutter. If a species only occurs in one country, it might be appropriate to have a category for that. Peterkingiron (talk) 18:27, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I know my comment was long and rambling, but I essentially suggested that taxonomic articles with large distributions follow the principle of using the geographic category that fits best, whether that be continental for widely distributed species that truly are found in nearly all parts of the continent, regional for smaller distributions (in the way that we have Category:Flora of the Southeastern United States), or country/state/province categories for the finest scale if the species is found in only a few and wouldn't quite fit in the parent regional category. In that way it would truly be a hierarchy that wouldn't need diffusion to the smallest category. So while the red fox should be placed in continent categories, for the most part, the kit fox would be in regional categories for the southwestern United States and northern and central Mexico, and the cape fox would be in no more than five country categories in southern Africa. Rkitko(talk)23:02, 9 March 2014 (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.
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.
Upmerge to target and Category:Chuvash people. The subject of the article clearly belongs in the later category. I am not convinced we want to subdivide dissident categories by ethnicity, but clearly not when we only have one. I am also not entirely sure that we have clear enough definitions of "dissident" for it to be a working term.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:37, 6 March 2014 (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.
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 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.
