< May 3	May 5 >

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. Timrollpickering (talk) 10:04, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Propose renaming Category:1946 in the Central African Republic to Category:1946 in Ubangi-Shari

Propose renaming Category:1952 in the Central African Republic to Category:1952 in Ubangi-Shari

Propose renaming Category:1957 in the Central African Republic to Category:1957 in Ubangi-Shari

Propose renaming Category:1958 in the Central African Republic to Category:1958 in Ubangi-Shari

Propose renaming Category:1959 in the Central African Republic to Category:1959 in Ubangi-Shari

Nominator's rationale: Rename. The Central African Republic was known as Ubangi-Shari between 1903 and 1960. Tim! (talk) 20:17, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Rename seems perfectly logical.RafikiSykes (talk) 20:20, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Rename this will reflect the name of the place at the time.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:27, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Rename, but keep the old category names in place as ((categoryredirect))s to minimize any potential confusion and to capture any articles that might get incorrectly filed. Bearcat (talk) 00:31, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Mild oppose. I'm not completely convinced that this is a good idea, for the reason that if it were universally implemented, it would create a lot of confusing category relationships. Try putting Category:1970 in the Republic of the Congo and Category:1970 in the People's Republic of the Congo into the correct categories: which one would go in Category:Years of the 20th century in the Republic of Congo and which one would go in Category:Years of the 20th century in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? There are other similar issues beyond the Congo ones that would make this very complicated very fast if implemented widely. It may be better to just use current boundaries/states to divide events by year, as suggested by choster elsewhere. We do assign nationalities anacrhonistically, so this would not have to be much different than that. If we tweak categories enough to gain perfection, the category tree sometimes become less user-friendly and unworkable. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 05:08, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Rename - Assigning nationalities anachronistically maybe something we do, but it's something we shouldn't do, and doing more wrong just because we're already doing some wrong isn't what we should be doing. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 06:18, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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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 result of the discussion was: Keep & rename to Category:Performers of Byzantine music. Timrollpickering (talk) 10:05, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Category:Byzantine musicians
• Nominator's rationale This category is being used incorrectly. A basic reading of the category name would suggest it should include musicians of the Byzantine Empire. The article Byzantine music, suggests it might be more limited than that. Either way, the one article currently in it is on someone born in 1928. Thus it is clealry being used for the wrong thing.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:39, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Rename to Category:Performers of Byzantine music to avoid ambiguity (following the pattern of category:Performers of religious music). – Fayenatic London (talk) 19:11, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• 'keep and rename per Byzantine music, Category:Performers of Byzantine music or whatever fits well into the current category structure.--KarlB (talk) 21:32, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete and Upmerge to 'performers of religious music'. If there's only one, then there's no need for a separate category. Benkenobi18 (talk) 01:13, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • If there was only one, then it would have been appropriate to suggest double upmerge both to that category and to a parent from a different hierarchy, Category:Byzantine music. However, the latter held several more articles on performers, and the nominated category is now well-populated. – Fayenatic London (talk) 12:35, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Rename to Category:Performers of Byzantine music, though actually Category:Performers of Byzantine chant would be more accurate in terms of English usage, looking at the category contents. Johnbod (talk) 13:11, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Rename to Category:Performers of Byzantine music - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 06:18, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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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 result of the discussion was: Keep. The Bushranger _{One ping only} 06:19, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Category:White South African people
• Nominator's rationale We do not classify people by race. Any category that lumps together Afrikaaners, Jews and who ot based on ethnicity, it is pure and simple based on race, and we do not classify by race.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:15, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• keep As the White South African article makes clear, this is not a racial group, despite its name. It is more of an ethnic/cultural group with various (white) European origins. Hmains (talk) 04:00, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep – cf Category:African Americans. South Africa is a special case anyway. Oculi (talk) 10:17, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep – It does seem to be at least as defining, in its own way as, say, Category:African Americans or even Category:Black Canadian people. We have a parent article. Its significance within South Africa is painfully self-evident. Plus, it's been kept twice at CfD, most recently per "no consensus," though I would respectfully suggest that the closing admin should have closed it as "keep," as well: it had just a single oppose from Carlossuarez46, who tends to blanket-support deletion for all ethnic categories, from what I've seen.Shawn in Montreal (talk) 14:39, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• keep important trait in this context.RafikiSykes (talk) 16:50, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• keep per Rafiki. Benkenobi18 (talk) 01:15, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Clearly a defining characteristic, and the existence of a head article satisfies WP:CATGRS. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:15, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment no one has dealt with the fact that categorization by race is specifically banned. The analogous category would be Category:Black Americans which we do not have.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:29, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But then you have not supplied a link. Johnbod (talk) 13:14, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per the others. This used to be a legally defined status, with very important consequences obviously. Johnbod (talk) 13:14, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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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 result of the discussion was: rename. Six weeks in, no one seems willing to close this, and so I'm going to do so despite having voted below. The categories below are the seven outliers amid 122 "Churches in X" categories in Category:Church buildings by country. I'm going to rename these to conform to the rest, with no prejudice whatsoever against a mass rename of the entire tree or splitting the categories in twain or anything else. But whatever happens from here, it should apply to the entire tree, not just these seven sparsely populated categories.--Mike Selinker (talk) 21:34, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Propose renaming Category:Church buildings in Bangladesh to Category:Churches in Bangladesh

Propose renaming Category:Church buildings in Fiji to Category:Churches in Fiji

Propose renaming Category:Church buildings in Honduras to Category:Churches in Honduras

Propose renaming Category:Church buildings in Panama to Category:Churches in Panama

Propose renaming Category:Church buildings in Taiwan to Category:Churches in Taiwan

Propose renaming Category:Church buildings in Thailand to Category:Churches in Thailand

Propose renaming Category:Church buildings in Uganda to Category:Churches in Uganda

Nominator's rationale: The majority of these categories is "Churches in," not "Church buildings in." I almost want to call this a speedy case, but since "church buildings" is a more precise term for what's being described, I'll defer to here. Common usage is to use "church" for buildings rather than congregations, so I'd like to see these rogue categories brought into line. --BDD (talk) 02:07, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose a church can be an organization from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the Catholic Church, to a House Church. Churches buildings are a distinct, though at times overlapping subject. We should not pretend they are the same.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:19, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose From my looking it seems that the majority of the subcats within these categories ARE "church buildings" and not and larger organizations. If there any church-subcats that are not buildings/local organizations, then we just move the subcats to the likes of Category:Christianity in Bangladesh and Category:Christian denominations in Asia. tahc ^chat 02:55, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• If this proposal is rejected, should we rename the other members of the Category:Church buildings by country category to "Church buildings in..."? --BDD (talk) 04:24, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Probably. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:12, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. I believe it is clearly established that church is ambiguous as it is used to describe a building, a congregation or a religious group. So removing buildings from the category name creates a problem. The alternative target categories proposed by tahc make sense if any articles or categories would qualify. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:12, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - The principal "ambiguity" seems to be that some denominations use "church" as the principal noun in their names, examples being the various Church of God denominations, Catholic Church, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Notwithstanding their use of "Church" in their proper names, the common noun "denominations" a perfectly good descriptor for these entities. On the other hand, the common noun "church" conventionally refers to a local religious group that worships together and/or the building(s) it uses, and there is no good substitute noun for that kind of entity. At another CfD a few months back, after it was suggested that a separate category hierarchy should be created for these entities using some term other than "churches", I asked for recommendations of a substitute term that would be an improvement upon my best attempt (Category:Christian congregations, parishes, and similar bodies that conduct worship or other activities in a single location in Your Geographic Name Here), but no other suggestions were offered. "Churches" is a perfectly good English word that describes the scope of these categories and need not be ambiguous with "denominations". --Orlady (talk) 02:22, 14 May 2012 (UTC) PS - I forgot to point out that even my ridiculous "suggestion" turns out not work for multi-site megachurches, nor for the "churches" of denominations that are not necessarily Christian, such as Unitarian Universalist churches. --Orlady (talk) 02:25, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose – subcat of Category:Church buildings which I think was renamed at cfd. The difficulty has been renaming country subcats to include 'buildings' (did not the US one fail recently?). I note that the Scotland subcat contains Category:LGBT churches in Scotland. Tahc's idea looks like a good one but involves an immense amount of work (and editors seem to prefer the drudgery of intersecting random categories ad infinitum). Oculi (talk) 10:29, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment As noted, the renaming of Category:Churches to Category:Church buildings was indeed done after a Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2008_October_17#Category:Churches CfD in October 2008. The CfD had very limited participation and did not come close to exploring the issues that have been raised in subsequent discussions of the renaming of lower branches of the category tree. --Orlady (talk) 15:49, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Support, or defer for an RfC or similar broad discussion. There has been a project to rename "church" categories as "church buildings", and I have done some of it myself, but it stalled or failed at CFD 2012 Feb 3. The original decision at the top level in 2008 was explicitly not intended to be carried down all the way to the local level, and the February 2012 discussion showed clearly that there is not a current consensus to do so. Category:Synagogues sits just fine within both Category:Buildings and structures by type and Category:Organizations, and for that matter so do Category:Hospitals and Category:Schools, so I am not inclined to support the categorisation of Churches solely as Buildings rather than also as Organizations.

The options going forward include:

1. do nothing, but this would leave inconsistency within Category:Church buildings in the United States by state and within Category:Church buildings by country (as evidenced by today's nomination);
2. seek consensus to press on with the shift to "church buildings", including a consensus on whether to stop and leave the name "churches" below a certain geographical level;
3. seek consensus on naming for a new parallel category hierarchy for organizations alongside buildings; or
4. revert to "churches", categorise them within Christian organizations as well as buildings, and clarify the (overlapping) purpose of these categories. Create a category definition template stating that these categories are only for articles on Church buildings and Local churches, so articles on other subjects should be categorised elsewhere e.g. denominations or Christian organizations.

IMHO, (i) most articles on churches, with possibly a few exceptions, are both about the Church (building) and about the Local church; (ii) the parenthetical part of WP:SUBCAT allows the location-based sub-cats to be categorised within both buildings and organizations: When making one category a subcategory of another, ensure that the members of the first really can be expected (with possibly a few exceptions) to belong to the second also. I therefore advocate (4) above, i.e. revert most "church building" categories to "churches". – Fayenatic London (talk) 15:40, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any "inconsistency" in option 1.

Category:Church buildings in the United States by state, etc. looks like a good categories to me. This is not an issue for Category:Synagogues because "synagogue" is not a word that is also used for a group or organization of many local synagogues (such as Reformed Judaism) Ditto with Category:Hospitals, Category:Schools, etc. tahc ^chat 17:20, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The inconsistency is between the sub-categories under each of those categories mentioned in option 1: some sub-cats are called "churches" and others are called "church buildings".

I'm not sure what point you are making about synagogues, hospitals and schools; do you think they should all be removed from the relevant hierarchies for organisations? I think that would be opposed. – Fayenatic London (talk) 17:29, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My point is that we don't need categories called "synagogue buildings" because there no such thing as the non-local Reformed Synagogue, so any point of yours about synagogues is moot. tahc ^chat 19:12, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be saying that it's OK to categorise synagogues as both organisations and buildings, because the word is not ambiguous; and the same with schools and hospitals. You seem to be implying that because the word "church" is ambiguous, we should not have any categories named just as "churches". This has led to categorising articles as "church buildings", even if they are mainly about a congregation, which in some cases has moved through a succession of buildings. My point is that it is misleading to call a category "buildings" as all the good articles are also about the life and history of congregations. The problem of ambiguity in the word "church" can be resolved by stating the intended purpose of the category on its page. – Fayenatic London (talk) 07:24, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think you are wrong about the articles being most about the buildings and the organizations. This would be true in the UK where there is at least one editor makes sure this is the case. There are a good number of stubs, both in the US and other places that mention the building and nothing else. Further, as I learned the hard way, once you get earlier then say the 15th century, it can be really hard to have much on the congregation. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:36, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes they are about the buildings, or about buildings and its local organizations. They are mostly not about larger churches, such as the non-local Church of South India. tahc ^chat 19:12, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We all agree with that. That's why I stated that a standard explanation (which could be transcluded onto every "churches" category page using a category definition template) should state that such articles are excluded from the purpose of these categories. – Fayenatic London (talk) 20:45, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's the nature of stubs. Would you remove Category:Hospital stubs from its head category Category:Medical organization stubs just because the pages do not say much about the organizations? A good article about a church will cover the history of both the building and the congregation. I believe we should build categories around the assumption that pages will be/become good or be deleted rather than remain bad. – Fayenatic London (talk) 19:02, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. The habit of categorizing church organizations with church buildings has been common on WP, but it really should come to an end and be sorted out. There's no good reason to keep them together and some very good reasons to make them separate. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 03:03, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In case I was not clear before, I agree with everybody that we should not categorise denominations and such wider organizations alongside local churches. However, my point is that a good article on a local church, about both the congregation and the building, should not be categorised only within "buildings & structures". Are you suggesting that where articles contain any significant information on the congregation, they should be put into a parallel category tree for congregations (as a subset of Christian organizations)? If so, please would you elaborate on the reasons, or provide a link to where they have been set out before? – Fayenatic London (talk) 20:45, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, if an article is really about a congregation and a building, then it would be logical to me to include the article in a category about buildings and a separate category about congregations or denominations. I'm not sure what you are asking when you say "provide a link to where they have been set out before?". I'm not claiming any sort of precedent to back up my opinion. I have acknowledged that the categorization system has often failed to differentiate between the two. But I am saying that this should come to an end and we should start to differentiate between the two in the category system. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 00:51, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • As you stated above that there are "some very good reasons to make them separate" (i.e. category trees for buildings and congregations), then if these have not been set out before, please do set them out now. – Fayenatic London (talk) 08:38, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • I thought the reasons were self-evident. Buildings are not congregations. Congregations are not buildings. Sometimes a WP article is about a congregation and a building, but other times it is only about a building, and still other times it is only about a congregation. So separate categories would make obvious sense to ensure proper categorization in the latter two situations. In the first situation, the article could be categorized in both types of categories. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 01:14, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• I hinted at this before, but as the nominator, I'll flat out state that my secondary preference would be to rename all the "Churches in" categories to "Church buildings in." While it seems a majority of articles in these categories refer to church buildings, there are some that are simply "churches" in the literal sense, such as Cowboy church. The ideal solution may be parallel categories—"Church buildings in" and "Churches in" each country—although changing them all to "Churches in" might be the most efficient step toward that end, where we could then move church (not building) pages out into new categories. I still think it's reasonable to call church buildings churches, but my primary goal is consistency, one way or another. --BDD (talk) 16:05, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • BDD, would you be satisfied with consistency across a number of levels, but allowing inconsistency between levels? To be specific, I think "church buildings" at the country level and "churches" at the US state level could gain consensus. – Fayenatic London (talk) 20:45, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, although I'd prefer that be an interim solution. --BDD (talk) 23:08, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Churches and church buildings are conceptually different things. I agree with Good O. that they nedd to be distinguished (one of the reasons we tend to have articles on the buildings is because there is often difficulty in showig notability within our rules for anythign else, but to some extent that';s artifical. If an article is in fact about both, it belongs in both categories). DGG ( talk ) 18:36, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think you make a key point in that the categories are not one or the other. They are additive. If it is about the building, it goes in the building category. If it is about the congregation (no matter what it is called for each religion), if goes in the appropriate category. In the all too common case where the building stays and it is occupied by multiple religions over time it will be in several categories. And don't forget that we have buildings that are used by many faiths where the many congregations will not be notable. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:53, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • It probably is true that articles about church buildings are more numerous than broader-scope articles about local churches, but that is due in large part to the existence of a large number of nearly content-free stubs about church buildings (example: Highland Chapel Union Church -- one of many stubs that don't even hint at the church's denominational affiliation) that someone found on an historic register or similar list. Often when I've been able to dig up more solid content about these churches, I've found that the main historic significance of the church building is not related to its architecture, but some other aspect of the church -- such as being the first African American church established in a particular city. This tells me that many of those articles that are currently about a building have the potential to be expanded into an article about multiple aspects of a church. --Orlady (talk) 02:44, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support The perennial dream of some American editors here of categorizing church buildings and congregations seperately is fundamentally misguided, and would lead to massive duplication and disruption for no benefit. It is especially so for the rest of the world outside North America. That the proposed name is mildly ambiguous as regards denominations is true; various suggestions that would resolve this have been made in the past, but ignored in the rush to create two different trees. This structure should absolutely not be adopted outside North America. Johnbod (talk) 01:43, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually the concept goes up the tree in a different second direction. For the first category above, Category:Church buildings in Bangladesh has as a parent Category:Places of worship in Bangladesh and that has buildings or structures for multiple religions. Places of worship are clearly different then congregations and religions. So even if this rename was to happen, we would still have to deal with a new category here. A rename would not fix that. But a split probably would. The better solution probably is, as proposed below, to agree on some naming to differentiate the various uses without ambiguity. I don't think that anyone is saying that church buildings is ambiguous. So if that is not the direction to go, there are a lot of issues to be addressed. Using church for the congregation should be avoided since it is ambiguous. The same applies to using church for the building. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:46, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • But the vast majority of articles have some material on the building and (maybe) some on the congregation, and it is simply crazy to have two trees. In these cases, the vast majority, there is no ambiguity in a local category. Articles that are all or mostly about the congregation are virtually exclusive to North America. Johnbod (talk) 20:14, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support There are at least three meanings of "church" in play here, and oddly, arguments for separating two of them (church as a body as opposed to church as a local congregation) are being advanced for the separation of a different two (church as a local congregation as opposed to church as the main worship building of that congregation). First of all, in vernacular English, I do not believe the church-as-body meaning is particularly common. The Oxford, Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, and the Cambridge Learner's Dictionaries all assign the building for Christian worship as the primary meaning for "church." The overwhelming majority of articles with "church" in their name cover buildings, local congregations, or both. The few "church" categories for doctrinal bodies or denominational organizations were concentrated within the religion trees within a handful of faith traditions. A better solution would have been to reserve "church" for the local groups, which I propose below.

Second, even if "church" were really too ambiguous, "church buildings" was a terrible replacement. The original discussion seems to have glossed over the fact that the largest number of church articles discuss the building alone because a huge proportion of them are stubs created from mass imports of historical registers and similar property listings. Perhaps systemic bias is in play; some editors may take all local religious groups to be interchangeable and non-notable, discernible only in the architecture of their properties. Nevertheless, the building and the congregation that built it and/or occupies it are intertwined. Being the first Methodist church building in a county gets it on the register, but had there not been a first Methodist church congregation behind it, it would not have been built in the first place. In U.S. history, church congregations were and remain community hubs for various immigrant groups and have impacted the history of cities. The buildings factor little into most articles in Category:Megachurches. It is extremely rare that the worshippers and their building will ever develop separate articles.

So the argument is then advanced to have separate trees, one for the building and one for the organization. I've agreed with this position in the past, but given the growth in number of articles but a fairly constant scope, the trees would be largely redundant. Second Baptist Church Houston, a short article about 50% about its history and 50% about the facilities, is currently in Category:Churches in Houston, Texas and Category:Baptist churches in Texas. What do we gain from splitting these up so it goes into Category:Church buildings in Houston, Texas, Category:Christian congregations in Houston, Texas, Category:Baptist church buildings in Texas, and Category:Baptist congregations in Texas?

Incidentally, I don't think it is clear what alternative terminology would be suitable for the local organizational units. I used congregation, but that is ambiguous and fraught with theological baggage. Local church sounds (and the article looks) rather ORish, and tempts confusion with local churches (affiliation). Parish church, Stake (Latter Day Saints), and the like may be useful within denominations, but by the same token too restrictive to use across denominations. We'd have to fall back on the standard English word for a locally organized group of Christian worshippers. Church.

So let's make a fresh start. "Church" henceforth would become the default term for a local group of worshippers and/or for the facility they worship in, just as we use "school" for both an educational institution and its facilities (thus Lawrenceville School can be in both Category:Peabody and Stearns buildings and Category:Educational institutions established in 1810, and we do not obsess over Chicago school finding its way into Category:Schools in Chicago, Illinois or whatever) or "library" for both a book depository and the organization depositing the books (thus Mark O. Hatfield Library is both in Category:1844 establishments and Category:Buildings and structures completed in 1986 and no one blinks). For the broad organizations, I would suggest "church bodies" (e.g. Category:Anglican Communion church bodies) or "denominations" as appropriate. Choster (talk) 21:11, 10 May 2012‎

• support per Choster argument above. There is no reason for two separate categories - esp given most articles cover the congregation and the building. --KarlB (talk) 21:55, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Having actually read several thousand of these articles, I would like to know how you came to the position that most articles cover both? It's been a while since I looked at these articles, but I would guess that the range is 10-25% with my gut saying it is closer to 10% actually say anything about the religion or the congregation. So if you think it is higher, I'd like to know why. One other point. I'd also estimate that over 10% of the articles don't mention the congregation or religion in either the body or the article name. Leaving even that basic fact undefined. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:23, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Choster's excellent contribution covered the reason for that last point: mass imports from property listings. That makes sense of a lot of the shortcomings of the US church articles. – Fayenatic London (talk) 12:30, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment there is nothing that prevents dual categorization when an article is about a congregation and also about a building. However in a large number of cases articles are just about the building, to the point where the identity of the religious organization that meets there is not even given in the article. I also have a sense that people are ignoring the fact that for people in some religions, notably members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to say "I belong to the same Church as person x" is not to say we go to the same building for meetings, but that we are both members of The Church, that is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At times I feel that some people are bound and determined to ignore that many people use "Church" in this sense where it never has any direct connection to a specific building.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:23, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't think anyone is ignoring the fact that the word Church is ambiguous. Nevertheless there are good arguments above in favour of using it for local bodies of Christians and their meeting places. As for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, this is a worldwide body, so presumably there is no danger of categorising it in "Churches in Foo"; the same goes for the Church of England. – Fayenatic London (talk) 08:24, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I would suggest that anyone who thinks that Church buildings have any clear congregation connected with them goes and reads the article on the Provo Tabernacle. They will then realize that this building never was used for regular Church services, it may not have been a functioning Church building for the last year and a half, but it has not been a Church building with even a loose connection to any organized religious sub-division of its owner (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) for decades, yet it has been the location of many religious meetings over the last few decades. It is also under Category:Church buildings in Utah. Other Tabernacles will tend to have more clear connections to specific Church units, but the congregations are not the buildings, and even if they was a full connection there would still be at issue the fact that the buildings are not the Church. Even in cases where people might at times speak of the building as the Church, Churches will often move from building to building, and some buildings will be used by different religions over time. The Church of England is not a building.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:30, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I read the article and found nothing to indicate that it was never used for regular church services; I had to follow the link to Tabernacle (LDS Church) to see what you meant. Even so, I don't see any problem in LDS tabernacles being categorised within "churches" at the national and state level. IMHO this is a creative way to use the word churches, using some of its breadth of meaning, without the ambiguity becoming misleading. – Fayenatic London (talk) 08:24, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • You miss the point. It is not a question of whether it was used for regular church services, it is that to Mormons Church means "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" it is not a stand in for the local organization. Beyond this, Tabernacles are not the organiztion. The organization is the wards and branches, and the wards and branches are distinct from the buildings in which they meet.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:31, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't doubt your sincerity, Johnpacklambert, but your comments reminds me that Mormons of my acquaintance habitually refer to the local LDS organization as their "church" (as in, "John Doe is a friend of mine; he goes to my church"). Ergo, I don't think your objections are valid. --Orlady (talk) 02:53, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • In my experience, Mormons speak quite loosely about these matters and it's not unlikely that your friends did not mean what you may have interpreted them as saying, since Mormons also have a lingo and church language that differs in slight but (to them) significant ways from that used by the rest of the Christian world. It becomes so ingrained in their way of speaking with each other that I find that only rarely do they even realise that they need to step up to explain to non-Mormons what they actually mean by the terminology they use. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:46, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - The scope of these categories is broader than "buildings". While some of the articles (typically stubs) are strictly about a building), many are about multiple aspects of a local church (for example, history and pastoral leadership in addition to the church's building -- see Miracle Centre Cathedral for one example) and some articles, such as Watoto Church, do not even mention a building. We need to have categories for the churches (broadly defined) in a particular geographic place. That should not preclude the separate development of categories focuses on the ecclesiastical architecture of a place, but that is a subtopic, not the main topic needing categorization. --Orlady (talk) 01:56, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Having been chastised for starting the other discussion while this one was ongoing (I was not aware of this discussion), I should point out the existence of a related discussion at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2012 May 12#Category:Church buildings in the United States by state. --Orlady (talk) 02:04, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Create both schemes per my comment at the other discussion. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 23:36, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - But only with the proviso that this is merely a step towards splitting out the articles which are indeed only merely buildings and not organisations of people. - jc37 12:01, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Please clarify: when you say "splitting", can that be to a sub-category rather than a parallel hierarchy? – Fayenatic London (talk) 12:34, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Case by case basis I guess. When I said that I was talking in general terms. Clearly the destroyed churches should be church buildings. But whether those should be subcats as well as a separate heirarchy, that's best left to editorial discretion, I would think. I just would like things to move forward on some specifics. It seems (and I've been guilty of it as well) that too often in this we've been talking in generalities rather than the specifics. I'm looking forward to the RfC that others have mentioned. - jc37 12:42, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I would support a dual set of "Church buildings" and "Churches". So many "nondenominational" Churches at present are multi-campus set ups, that the linking of "church" to a specific location is losing meaning in the setting where it was once thought to be most clearly linked.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:23, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. The category contains articles about buildings. The word "church" in modern English has come to mean something similar to denomination, and to only refer to a specific building in a very local context. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:15, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Split. Articles about religions/denominations/faith/cults should be separate from articles strictly about single buildings. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:44, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• That is common ground between us all. The question is whether to categorise articles about local groups of Christians separately from the buildings they meet in. – Fayenatic London (talk) 19:47, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Articles about local groups of Christians should be categorised separately from the buildings they meet in, yes. One is about religion. The other is about architecture/construction. I'm assuming that the buildings are independently notable. In cases where the contruction of the building is part of the religion, categorise in both. Per Choster (I think), I am fine with "Church" defaulting to mean the building, with less-common categorisations not based on the building being named more explicitly. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:41, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment FWIW, categories such as Category:Christianity in Rhode Island, Category:Episcopal Church in Indiana, Category:Latter Day Saint movement in Arizona, Category:Pentecostalism in California, Category:Roman Catholic Church in Connecticut, Category:Lutheranism in Minnesota, etc., can be used (and are being used) to contain subject matter related to denomination-by-geographic-area. Local churches (a term which comprises people, buildings, and organizational structures) are components of these denominational group as well as of their geographic area, and it has been both inaccurate and a disservice to users to restrict them to category titles like Category:Church buildings in Rhode Island that deny the possibility of content about topics other than buildings. --Orlady (talk) 16:07, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Support - In line with the primary definition/COMMONNAME of church and we don't have Category:School buildings, Category:Hospital buildings or Category:Castle buildings. And per Choster's excellent argument. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 05:46, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support to match all other categories in the parent category plus the recent close of Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2012_May_12#Category:Church_buildings_in_the_United_States_by_state.--Mike Selinker (talk) 00:16, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually that close basically says that both can exist. So if something is changed it should be a split. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:54, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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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 result of the discussion was: no consensus. I am sure that the nominator(s) acted in good faith, but the chopping and changing of this discussion made it hard to follow, which may be a factor in the low levels of participation in the discussion. If editors want to bring some or all of these proposals back to CFD, please can they try to follow the conventional layout for CFD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:37, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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:Propose merging Category:Books about Christianity (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) into Category:Christian texts (or vise-versa).

Propose merging Category:History books about Christianity (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) into Category:History of Christianity texts (or vise-versa).

Nominator's rationale: All the items are Christian texts. tahc ^chat 01:37, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal withdrawn. tahc ^chat 18:59, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose there are items in this category that are secondary sources and do not fit the definition of texts.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:16, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• comment confusion/error. The first proposal is to merge a category into itself or vise-versa. This is possibly an error. Hmains (talk) 04:05, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The nominator's edit summary and rationale shows that Category:Christian texts was intended, so I have fixed the nomination above, and tagged that category as well. – Fayenatic London (talk) 15:47, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. Category:Christian texts states that This category is for primary sources. Texts consisting of commentary and analysis of these should be placed in Category:Christian studies books. For individual manuscripts of these texts, use Category:Christian manuscripts or a category therein. "Texts" are ancient source documents, whereas "History books about Christianity" are later commentaries on them. – Fayenatic London (talk) 15:51, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes; so I am considering withdrawing this proposal, and maybe creating another...

I still see no purpose in the Category:Books about Christianity, and the best option now seems to be merging it into Category:Christian literature and keeping "...texts" and "...studies books" within "...literature". tahc ^chat 16:51, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Books about Christianity" would include books by people who do not identify themselves as Christians (atheists, people of other religions), some of which are books critical of Christianity; these are not Christian literature. Nor is some academic writing. However, there is already a better-established category for such books at Category:Christian studies books. Moreover, I agree that all the current contents (only 4 pages) are Christian literature, so let's keep this discussion useful by making an alternative proposal here (and I'll add one more):

Alternative nomination

Propose merging Category:Books about Christianity to Category:Christian literature, leaving a redirect to Category:Christian studies books

Propose merging Category:Indian Christian books to Category:History books about Christianity and Category:Indian non-fiction books.

The latter only contains one page. – Fayenatic London (talk) 18:14, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge per above. tahc ^chat 18:59, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Christian studies is a neologism not in common use, & not suitable for a category. DGG ( talk ) 18:37, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • How about reverse merge then, from Category:Christian studies books to Category:Books about Christianity? Would that become a head category over Category:Christian literature? – Fayenatic London (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose "books about y" tends more towards historical and other scholarly works, literture tends more towards fiction and other literary works. The line may not be clear, but there are things that clearly fit in one but do not belong in the other.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:32, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please re-read the stuff above... Category:Books about Christianity currently contains only 4 books, all of which are Christian literature. I think they should be moved there, and Category:Christian studies books should be renamed as "Books about...". – Fayenatic London (talk) 06:51, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Third option

Propose merging Category:Christian studies books to Category:Books about Christianity

Propose merging Category:Indian Christian books to Category:History books about Christianity and Category:Indian non-fiction books.

• These deal with the objections above. I will re-categorise the four current members of Books about Christianity individually. – Fayenatic London (talk) 08:45, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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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 result of the discussion was: Keep - But shouldn't stand in the way of other possible triple intersection noms, or of a future discussion of "from Denmark" vs "Danish". - jc37 09:11, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Propose merging Category:LGBT writers from Denmark to Category:LGBT writers and Category:LGBT people from Denmark

Nominator's rationale: I'm not sure about this one, as there are a lot, so consider this a test nomination. This seems like a triple intersection, and I'm not sure if this should be continued. If this one passes, we should nominate the rest of the Category:LGBT_people_by_occupation_and_nationality tree.KarlB (talk) 00:12, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Upmerge we have a lot more relevant ways to subdivide writers, such on based on the specific type of material they wrote.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:17, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep – although I'm not sure why the LGBT tree uses 'from Foo' rather than the standard 'Fooish'. This is a standard nationality subcat of a double intersection (Category:LGBT writers) which is large enough to split by nationality. Oculi (talk) 10:12, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep though no objection to renaming to Danish per most cats.RafikiSykes (talk) 18:48, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• comment we have Category:American_actors which we don't split, with over 2000 records. In almost every case, we have incredibly detailed classification categories for these jobs, and even sometimes by country; so adding another triple intersection, when Category:Danish_hymnwriters + Category:LGBT people from Denmark neatly captures the intersection without having to create hundreds of more triple (or quadruple) intersecting categories. Just look at the richness of the categories already available here: Category:Danish_writers.--KarlB (talk) 21:42, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment at present the whole LGBT writers by nationality uses the "LGBT from foo" form. I think we should keep this. It just gets two confusing when we start modifying occupation with both sexuality and nationality. For one thing, should it be Danish LGBT or LGBT danish? It also becomes unclear what is modifying what.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:35, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm not at all averse to discussing whether these categories are named in the most appropriate way — and I'm fully aware that there exists the possibility of it being somewhat overdone (especially considering how much time I've had to devote to pruning back unwanted expansions.) Traditionally, however, Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT has considered writers to be one of the select group of occupational categories for which further subcategorization by nationality is desirable, because the classification is as distinctively encyclopedic an aspect of the national literature categories as it is of the LGBT ones. Category:LGBT writers from Canada, for example, exists as much because they constitute a unique class of thing within Category:Canadian writers as it does because of the Category:LGBT writers side of the equation. That is, it has a relevant encyclopedic context on both sides of the family tree — you could, for example, write properly encyclopedic articles about many individual countries' LGBT literatures as distinct topics in their own right. It's also seen as desirable in the case of Category:LGBT politicians, because each country's political system is very different, and the roles of LGBT figures in political life are unique and distinctive because of that — and, in fact, each individual country's LGBT political figures are, by definition, among the most prominent catalysts of whatever degree of change that country has or hasn't seen on LGBT issues over the last 40 or so years. On the other hand, the LGBT project itself has spearheaded the deletion of by-nationality subcategorization of LGBT actors, journalists, comedians and broadcasters, to name just four examples of categories which have previously been created, but were not seen as genuinely desirable or useful. Accordingly, Category:LGBT writers by nationality and Category:LGBT politicians by nationality should be kept, but I'd be quite open to further discussion of whether some of the other by-nationality siblings should be canned instead. Bearcat (talk) 00:24, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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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.