Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Categorization of persons

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should we categorize people according to genetic and cultural heritage, faith, or sexual orientation? If so, what are our criteria for deciding an identity? I invite editors to share their views, in an unstructured discussion of these questions. Please be respectful of all others. I'd appreciate it if the community on all sides of this issue would discipline editors who engage in ad hominem "argument", or who are disrespectful.

The 15:11, 23 August 2012 (UTC) version of an ANI thread related to this topic can be found here. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 15:11, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

See also: Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality

John Carter opinion

• Yes, but with significant qualifications. As a starting point, I would suggest the following:

religion

• 1) I think clearly that people who are notable to a degree for being professional religious should be categorized as such. So, for instance, many if not most Popes of the Catholic Church should be included in the most directly relevant category or categories to their basis for notability.
• 2) I think, pretty much, any individual who is described at reasonable non-trivial length in an encyclopedia or reference work on a religious topic in a way directly related to their religion should be included in such a category.
• 3) If people were in independent reliable sources described in such a way as to indicate they had been affiliated with one religious group, and that affiliation seemed to play a significant role in their lives, only to later change their affiliation according to the more reliable of available reliable sources, they could be included in a relevant "convert" category.
• 4) BLPs are another matter. I still think the above three would apply as well in cases where the matters have received significant coverage in reliable sources, but I would hesitate to include anyone who has at some point not either been clearly described in independent RS and/or who has not in their most recent individual "statement" on the subject indicated their status.

"ethnicity"

This will be significantly more limited than the above, particularly given the recent significant intermarriage of people of different ethnic groups, which makes determining such matters more questionable.

• 1) People who are in some way notably personally associated with activities or organizations specifically relevent to a given ethnic group. So, for instance, a leader of the "White People Should Rule the World" political party who has described himself as white should be so included. Black or Asian leaders of such groups probably should be categorized as strange. (That's a joke, son.)
• 2) People who have clearly identified themselves or been identified in independent reliable sources as members of ethnic groups could be included, except in such cases where the individuals have in some way publicly indicated that they do not themselves necessarily agree with that source.
• 3) Historical people from eras without widespread ethnic biological interchange who have been identified in independent reliable sources as members of an ethnic group, and whose ethnicity was in some direct way related to their notability to some degree, except perhaps in cases where that identification has been reasonably disputed either by the individual themselves or in other reliable sources. (Thus, for instance, I am not an ethnic Martian. I may act like someone from another planet fairly often, but that is a separate matter.)

Sexuality

This is probably the most qualified of the three, as there can be questions regarding personal orientations independent of activity and or voluntary/involuntary/"forced" to some extent activity.

• 1) There is no point in categorization of heterosexuals as such that I can see. That seems to be, in a sense, socially, more or less regarded as the "default" status to some extent.
• 2) Non-BLP People who have publicly self-identified as such, and whose sexual status/activity played a significant role in their notability independent of strictly "LGBT" or bestiality or other literature, could reasonably be included in some such category.
• 3) People who have engaged in only one single known act of potentially categorizable sexual activity should probably not be. I am thinking particularly of people who may have been impaired at the time. A drunk having sex with an appealing transvestite who dresses as their gender of interest is a drunk acting like a drunk. Period.
• 4) BLPs who have clearly identified as having a given orientation, and where that subject plays a significant role in their notability, could be included in some relevant category.
• 5) Individuals who have been suggested after the fact might have been of a given orientation, like Jesus (with John the Evangelist), John Bosco and Abraham Lincoln, should not be.
• 6) Any historical individual whose notability is not clearly related to their sexuality in a significant degree should not be. Even if the King of Whatthefuck was gay, if it isn't clearly related in a direct way to their basis for notability, shouldn't be, because it isn't really relevant to their notability.

ethno-religious

This is, basically, about Jews, whom some editors regularly and rather repetitively insist are a special case, although it might apply to others as well in some cases, like Category:Yazidi, another ethno-religious group which, from what I've read, doesn't take converts, so it probably stays more or less genetic homogenous.

• 1) The rules of sexuality above would apply in most if not all cases.
• 2) Ethnic Jews and religious Jews should be categorized differently, although a single category specifically for ethno-religious Jews who are both could and probably should be created and used.

Just a starting point, anyway. John Carter (talk) 15:26, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

View by NULL

The French Wikipedia's lack of several 'people' categories has a certain charm, but I doubt it would take off here. Instead, categorisation should depend entirely on one of two criteria:

• If a person explicitly self-identifies with a given religion, ethnicity or sexuality, Wikipedia should categorise that person under their most recent self-identification in each category. If the person has never self-identified, or has self-identified in the past but subsequently denied that identification without explicitly identifying with an alternative, Wikipedia must not categorise that person in any related category, unless:
• If a person is a member of a group that, by its definitive nature, requires its members to be of a particular identification (eg. a priest in the Catholic church), they may be categorised in that category whether they have self-identified or not, unless they have explicitly denied that identification, or have self-identified with a mutually exclusive identification.

This method can apply evenly both to living and dead people. It would result in the following examples:

• John, a celebrity, identified himself as homosexual in a magazine interview in 2000 and has not explicitly contradicted this identification since. John may be categorised as homosexual.
• Jane, a celebrity, identified herself as homosexual in a magazine interview in 2000, but in 2005 changed her mind and identified herself as heterosexual. Jane may be categorised as heterosexual (if it were to exist) but must not be categorised as homosexual.
• Chris, a celebrity, identified himself as homosexual in a magazine interview in 2000, but in 2005 denied that he was homosexual without explicitly stating his current identification. Chris must not be categorised in any sexual identification category.
• Robert, an author, identified himself as agnostic in the past, but subsequently stated he had taken up Buddhism. Robert may be categorised as a Buddhist but must not be categorised as agnostic.
• Sarah, an author, writes books that can be seen to advance a pro-Christian viewpoint, but she has never explicitly identified with a particular faith. Sarah must not be categorised in any religious identification category.
• Charles, a priest of the Catholic church, has never explicitly identified with a particular faith. As his position in the Catholic church is restricted to Catholic followers by its definition, Charles may be identified as Catholic.
• Eric, a priest of the Catholic church, has stated that he actually adheres to Buddhism despite his position in the Catholic church. (For the sake of example, Buddhism and Catholicism are mutually exclusive). Eric may be categorised as Buddhist, but must not be categorised as Catholic, despite his group affiliation.
• Dmitri was born and raised in Russia. His parents are self-identified ethnic Russians but Dmitri has never confirmed or denied that he identifies with any particular ethnicity. Dmitri must not be categorised in any ethnic identification category.

Particularly in the last case, this may seem counter-intuitive when the observer can plainly see that both the person's parents are of a particular ethnic background, which would seem to make it obvious that he is also of that ethnic background. However, categorising people only by their own explicit self-identifications removes the 'original research' or 'assumed identity' components and creates a bright line test for whether a given category should be applied or not. In some cases this means 'obvious' categories will not be present on a particular person's article. I consider this to be an acceptable outcome. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 06:57, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I see some very good points above, but would like a bit of clarification if possible. And my apologies if this belongs in another section, feel free to move it if it does. The first question that comes to mind is about "convert" categories or such. So, for an example, if I publicly self-identified a few years ago as "homosexual", and today publicly self-identified as "heterosexual", would there be any basis for categorizing me as "bisexual", given the history, even if that term or the equivalent hasn't been clearly used? This same matter might apply to religious categorization, regarding "convert" categories, and I suppose "ethnic" categories, if, for instance, I as a person of German descent, after having moved to the Solomon Islands a few years ago, now self-identified myself as an ethnic Solomon Islander or Polynesian. John Carter (talk) 17:29, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

The principle is that an individual can never be placed in a category they have not explicitly self-identified to. A person who identified as homosexual but now identifies as heterosexual could be categorised as heterosexual, but not bisexual unless they explicitly state such. The mindset behind it is that there's no harm done in not categorising someone, whereas there can be considerable harm done by mis-categorising someone. The only acceptable authority on a person's sexual, ethnic or religious identification should be the person themselves, and their most recent self-identification should be taken as the most up-to-date state of affairs. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 00:13, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Makes sense, and thanks for responding. I might only point out that the principle might not apply as strongly to those who are long deceased. Although I don't know of one such, if there were an "Encyclopedia of Homosexuals" which listed some ancient Greek as a homosexual, with a fairly long overview of the subject in a basically NPOV way, like maybe Sappho?, it might be useful to have some indication in the article of the sexuality issue, because there might be good content available from that article or its bibliography which might not be available elsewhere. I do know that there are a lot of encyclopedias of various religions, and it might be that, in some cases, the articles therein might be some of the most accessible sources available in the English language on those deceased subjects. Maybe. John Carter (talk) 01:20, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I suppose I should clarify, the rules I listed above can cover 'statements of fact' as given by Wikipedia's authoritative voice (eg. 'Bob is a homosexual'). What you described is probably best phrased as an attributed statement of opinion (eg. 'Source XYZ suggests Bob was homosexual'). Categories and direct statements (eg. 'Bob is a homosexual') should only be used if they conform to the rules I mentioned. In both cases though, if it can't be done in an appropriate way, it shouldn't be done. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 05:31, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Just adding, content can be a bit more flexible than categorisation. In the third bullet example in my original post, it's probably reasonable to say in the prose 'Chris stated in a magazine interview in 2000 that he was homosexual, but later denied this', since it's attributed and makes no claims of fact, but he shouldn't be categorised in any sexual identification category because categories are effectively an unattributed statement of fact, spoken in Wikipedia's authoritative voice. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 05:39, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

User:IZAK notes

Before getting into any major discussion here, all parties must be aware that WP already has clear guidelines about this subject at Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality with long-standing debates and discussion going back to 2005 (at least) see Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality for present talk and past archived talk. In addition, see Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Non-notable intersections by ethnicity, religion, or sexual preference. If this discussion is meant to overturn those past accepted WP policies, or re-open talks about them it would be spinning wheels all over again. Gaining community consensus to rescind established and fixed policies is a near-impossibility at this stage of WP's evolution.IZAK (talk) 22:26, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Those are guidelines. And we can talk about anything related to the project at any time. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 23:57, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Nevertheless Anthony, both Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality and Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Non-notable intersections by ethnicity, religion, or sexual preference are long-time officially established WP guidelines, see Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines (while Wikipedia:List of guidelines#Editing specifically notes both "Categorization: Link articles upwards to create categories" and "Overcategorization: Overcategorization makes categories more crowded and less useful.") and essentially both are broad policies and guidelines for creating as well as limiting such categories that cannot be ignored, which you seem to have done when opening this RfC. IZAK (talk) 02:31, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

• The following related WP policy and guideline talk pages have now been informed of this RfC: WP:EGRS; WP:OC; WP:NOT; WP:L; WP:BIO; WP:LBL; WP:BLP; WP:FIVE; WP:LOP. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 02:57, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

View by Carrite

• More guideline creep... Everything should be on a case-by-case basis using reason, rather than a formulaic list of proscriptions, permissions, and exceptions. Carrite (talk) 05:22, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

  The problem is that the current position is creep, and reason does not factor into any of it all. In the section above IZAK links to two guidelines that are in direct conflict with each other. The first link points to say that it is alright having a category "Jewish musicians" whilst the second link says that there shouldn't be a category "Jewish mathematicians" cue endless debate. Total nonsense, which leads to editors picking and choosing which guideline to follow or argue for in order to place X into cats AxM, BxM, CxM, and DxM regardless as to whether X is a notable person within categories A, B, C, D, or even M. John lilburne (talk) 09:27, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

  • Thanks for catching that. Yeah, it is clear that the existing guidelines are incompatible with themselves. If we are going to have guidelines, they should at the least be reasonably internally consistent. John Carter (talk) 14:19, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

    • It's not guideline creep, but an attempt at a guideline where continuing debates show that the present practice is contradictory showing the current guideline does not have real consensus. DGG ( talk ) 01:33, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

View by DCI

I don't think we should go this way. Though I like NULL's list, I'd think this could cause increased amounts of vandalims on celebrity pages - someone, for example, might falsely categorize a certain politician as "homosexual". Though unlikely, as much vandalism comes from IPs and IPs probably will not be categorizing much, it could be a slight irritant to revert as an editor planning to rollback or undo a malicious categorization might wonder if it is indeed accurate and would have to check. In addition, I do not relish the prospect of similar categories which could pop up later on, under names such as "People claimed to be ___". And, who knows what other types of categorizations (not just the ones you mentioned above) might be created in the future, either? Some could indeed be quite offensive. dci | TALK 22:51, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

View by DGG

This is something that the world in general thinks important about people, so it should be included if there is reliable information. If there is a dispute, we give the positions & the evidence. To help people find the information, we need lists and categories, as for everything else. As lists, and especially categories, unlike articles, have no subtlety, it would be necessary to exclude fringe positions, as I think we would otherwise, though perhaps we should have a category for major historical figures "suggested to be". As a librarian, I know that it is a very common school assignment to write a paper about some person to be selected by the student in a particular subject field with a particular ethnic (etc.) identification. Since the purpose of WP is educational, we should facilitate such work. This applies everywhere except in BLP, because except for that, the policy is NOT CENSORED--and NOT CENSORED is the solution for conflicts where emotion is involved. Thus the guideline for non BLPs should be even broader than the proposed. The rule for BLPs should be if it can be supported in the article considering DO NO HARM and NOT GOSSIP, & is not a fringe position, it should be in lists & categories. This is broader than the proposed guideline, but I think it has the same basic considerations--for example, it covers identically the useful test case of the drunk. DGG ( talk ) 01:47, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

This makes sense, but I might include a few more specific qualifiers. So, for instance, if I as an individual say I am a Catholic, but have not noticably taken part in any religious services in over a year (it is a sin by the way to miss Mass over Easter and Christmas) or done anything else of a specifically "Catholic" nature in a significant period of time, without just cause (being an astronaut going to Mars, with no priests around, for instance), I don't think that there would be any basis for categorizing me as a Catholic, because the basic category would be considered by some "inappropriate" and lead to the creation of Category:Nonpracticing Catholics or similar, which would have the same problem of potentially doing harm in a different way. So, I might say particularly for BLPs not only based on self-designation, but significant content in the article which directly relates to that self-designation. John Carter (talk) 01:30, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Actually DGG only makes sense if inclusion in the category is strictly limited. In the situation given one would want a well known person in the subject field, with a particular ethnic background. As it stands the category gets filled up with c-list and d-list examples. What is a kid to do, choose the biggest article, the one with the most refs? Well that might only be biggest because one editor was interested in that one person, or because there is a lot of controversy about the person, it might have nothing to do with why they are important in terms of the category itself. John lilburne (talk) 12:27, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

At the level where a child would be able to use an adult encyclopedia like this, they would also have some idea of what constitutes "famous". But the desire to browse or read about people of a particular ethnicity (etc) in a particular field is widespread among adults too, usually but not always adults of that ethnicity (etc). Take a look at the biography section of any library or bookstore (they're usually shelved near the front). That people are normally proud of their group identity, not ashamed of it, and might therefore want to learn about notable people of various sorts from the group they identify with, seems a concept difficult for WPedians to understand. DGG ( talk ) 05:37, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Fine for printed books they tend to be self selecting on the relative importance of the subject, at least they are thought to be important enough for the publisher to expend resources on, and the library to give shelf space. The primary issue here is that there is no real bar to anyone appearing. Take British Roman Catholics you can flick through loads of those and not even find Catholicism mention in the article text. Or better yet try English Roman Catholics which is woefully incomplete and pretty much useless already. Where you have Thomas Bates fighting for air time with John Bilsborrow, Robert Asch, Stoker Edwards, Anthony Errington, Richard Finn, and others. Matthew Paris is hidden in English Benedictines, as is Thomas Walsingham. But of course its not complete Geoffrey Chaucer and 10000s of other are not catted at all. Add those in and you have page after page of totally useless WHO? John lilburne (talk)

And there is more. Whilst looking through the Catholic Cats. I came across Robert Asch who is also Jewish and catted as Category:English Jews, which currently has 868 entries + another 650 or so in Category:British Jews, English Roman Catholics 661 + another 550 priests and bishops. The point I'm getting at here is that inclusion does not have anything to do with the encyclopaedia but on the proclivities of the editors. If there was an encyclopaedic reason for the catting Country of origin x Religion then Catholics would vastly outnumber Jews, a) because there is more of them to reference, and b) because unless we are to posit that Jews are many times more likely to edit WP than Catholics, there will be more Catholics editing on WP than Jews. The reality is more likely that there is a small dedicated team of taggers for one of the groups, and the categories reflect that rather than anything else. John lilburne (talk) 13:36, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Actually, John, you make good points, and it may well be that the "taggers," of which in some senses I have been one, are more dedicated than others. But, I would also probably agree, given the prominence and relative size of the Catholic population in the West historically, we probably would have more articles tagged, by categories and banners, by the Catholicism project than by many others. Even now, it is roughly one out of every eight people, and about as many as all other forms of Christianity combined. Whether they should be included is another matter. At this point, I do tend to think that, probably, these "religious" categories, and possibly/probably ethnic and sexuality related categories, are possibly best populated only by those articles which can, reasonably, be expected to have substantive information in either relevant reference books, of which there are several, or, perhaps, significantly covered in relevant periodicals or other books. Doing something like that would not only lend maybe a bit more focus to the groups of editors working on a given "topic," often, generally, a WikiProject, but also probably reduce the banner accumulation issue on at least some articles. Occupation categories might be different, because someone might be a hugely notable amateur in one field, while only very weakly notable, if at all notable, in their actual profession. John Carter (talk) 17:46, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't necessarily disagree with you either. These categories have been pretty much from the beginning targets of problems. And, probably, despite our best efforts, they will remain so. But, for some cases, like Category:Yazidi, or other similar smallish groups, the categories would be very useful to someone trying to write something for school. And I think that particular group also qualifies as an "ethno-religious" group like the Jews, and on that basis might, if appropriate, have specific subcats for "ethnic" and "religious" Yazidi. John Carter (talk) 17:05, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Many articles are targets of problems--for example , everything on current politics. John, you cited one questionable entry, and use it to justify destroying the entire structure. On that basis I could delete half of WP with a new Speedy Delete criterion: articles containing errors. DGG ( talk ) 18:34, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Did you forget the famous Irish boxing champion Muhammad Ali? Any structure is already destroyed, destroyed by the taggers to the extent that the categories have become so meaningless that it is no longer worth getting worked up about them. They are now a useless and pathetic waste of time, and not worth bothering with, let the taggers tag away. John lilburne (talk) 22:52, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

View by Jc37

Q: Should we categorize people according to genetic and cultural heritage, faith, or sexual orientation? - And I would personally add "occupation" to that list.

A: No we shouldn't. There can be myriad varying degrees to these things (and at least faith and/or occupation can change over a person's lifetime), something which cannot be individually indicated/explained when blankly grouping persons in categories. These are things which require individual explanation - which cannot be done in categories. - jc37 02:13, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Despite my view above, I personally believe this is the most appropriate position for Wikipedia to take. However, as I mentioned above, I feel this is also the least likely to be accepted. I'd like to leave strong ethical support for this view, but if it doesn't attract general support, my attempt at a reasonable compromise above is my second preference. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 05:47, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

This would make sense to me too, if it were possible. I don't know how practicable it is though. I could see how, for instance, Alfred Bester wouldn't want to be in a comic book writer category, as he achieved his fame in science fiction, even though he wrote the Green Lantern oath when writing that strip, because of the possible perceived stigma of that categorization. Neil Gaiman and Brad Meltzer might be other examples, I don't know. On the other hand, Billy Graham probably would merit some sort of "Christian" category, but Madonna probably wouldn't. Personally, maybe, if possible, some sort of pending changes option for categories, or which articles appear in categories, might be the best possible option, to ensure that they don't become trivialized, but I don't know if that would be possible, or be any easier to implement. John Carter (talk) 17:13, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

It's easy to pick those kinds of examples, but there are just as many that are not quite as clear. Because these things have varying degrees, they should be lists, or at least in some way conveyed in article-space - where such things can be clearly explained and referenced, etc.. Putting things together in a category which are not equal in definition (even roughly equal) introduces bias, which we really shouldn't be doing.

Let's use Madonna just for a quick example. Should she be placed in a catholic or at least a Christian cat due to her saying she was raised in such a household environment? But later she says she isn't a practicing catholic, then later she's vague about it, then later... Or perhaps in Jewish kabbalah? But wait, some may say, her kuabballah is different than the "mainstream" kabballah (whatever that may be). But others argue she opened a school, so she "deserves" to be in the cat. etc.

These things can change over time, and often are open to interpretation, and vary in definition (sometimes greatly). Yet categories in these cases are essentially binary: does the person meet the criteria of the category (the criteria often merely being the name of the cat), yes or no?

I get that it will be an uphill climb to pass this past the IWANTIT crowd, but that doesn't make this any less the right way to go.

I've actually tried to propose various compromise proposals in the past, and typically, the response is that we're leaving out some group, which must mean we are biased or prejudiced against that group, etc. (I don't know if I could assemble a list of all the various groups of individuals by demographic info I've been accused of being prejudiced or biased against.) So anyway, no such compromise proposal is likely going to pass. It's either remove all of such cats, or we keep all these inaccurate, vague, biased, POV pushing, unreferenced, BLP violating, category schemes which miscategorise people in many ways.

At some point someone should have an RfC to do away with them, and move forward. Oh wait, here we are : ) - jc37 18:49, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

One possible option, I don't think has been mentioned anywhere yet: catgorization of non-BLPs and others based on substantial articles related to them in reference works which qualify as reliable sources and indicate that they "qualify" for inclusion, categorization of BLPs based limited to major categories, like maybe Category:Living musicians (if they've been involved in more than one genre), or Category:Living actors, or similar? John Carter (talk) 22:54, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Just to be sure I understand, when you say "non-blp", you're still meaning persons, just not living ones?

I guess I don't know why we should have a lesser standard for non-living persons. We should be accurate and clear in categorisation always. And categorisation should of course be based upon accurate information from verifiable reliable sources. If the info isn't presented in articlespace in some way (even if through a template like an infobox), then categorisation based upon said information is disallowed per existing policy at WP:CAT.

And this still doesn't deal with the problems of how while categories are binary in usage (cat members are to reflect the inclusion criteria. If not, they should not be members of the cat), the definitions of these topics are NOT so clear cut or binary. There are many shades of meaning/interpretation/definition. And these things simply cannot be dealt with in categorisation. It's the very definition of when we should use lists and not categories for such things, per WP:CLS.

But if you want a "first step", try tackling WP:EGRS first. We currently have a categories which fall afoul of that (constant examples at CFD), and that already has previous consensus. And it seems to work fairly well for gender/sexuality-related cats.

Ethnicity has long been problematic in categorisation. The various ways the word "jew" may be interpreted, for example (which, per the link at the top, was one of the impetuses for this RfC, I think). The discussion here should be enough to suggest that we should not be catgeorising by ethnicity.

(And that doesn't get into issues of multiple ethnicities, and ancestry trees - how far back do we look to decide? This starts getting into discussions of things like mischling or octaroon/mulatto/mestizo/etc. Things which, though somewhat may be more about race than ethnicity, are places I strongly hope that we're not intending to go, for what I would hope are obvious reasons.)

But regardless of whether consensus can be gained concerning ethnicity, persons should not be categorised by faith/religion or occupation, per my comments above. Out of it all, these are very problematic due to lack of clarity in meaning/interpretation/definition. And because they are so potentially changeable over a person's lifetime. - jc37 19:46, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, non-blp meant people who are not living, or who, while dead, are still "relevant", so, for instance, calling a dead man "homosexual" in the article might still qualify as BLP if his wife or children were still alive, that sort of thing.

Basically, the thinking is something along the lines of if you are still living, maybe like Barry Manilow or Linda Ronstadt, you might well involve yourself now and in the future in various forms of your fields. The sort of potential overcategorization resulting from such genre shifts could get excessive in a few cases. So, for such people, if they venture into more than one field, remove the sub-categories, in these cases, those of musical genres and maybe radio/TV/stage/movie/video performers, leaving only the most relevant "parent categories," like musician or performer or whatever. Categorization for religion in living people would only clearly involve (I would hope) professional religious of some sort or those who clearly notably work or have worked for religious institutions, and in the latter case hopefully be limited to some sort of Category:People who have worked for the Anglican Church, including volunteers, for instance.

Once a person is both dead, and thus probably unlikely to engage in new fields, postmortem releases notwithstanding, of course, and, with any luck, discussed at some length in some relevant reliable sources for their particular fields of endeavor, then it might make more sense to have such categories, because article development and maintenance would probably involve the active participation of the relevant groups to some degree, and the categories clearly help them find the relevant articles. WikiProject banner placement might still take place on the article talk pages, but, the current Tom Cruise dispute notwithstanding, they tend to be seen less often and be less, well, "damning," than the categories are generally seen as being. John Carter (talk) 20:34, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

So the idea being: Once they're dead, they can't change their mind? : )

(In most cases) it's editors who add this info to the pages, and not necessarily based upon what the individual may or may not have had in mind (I won't speak for others, but I don't currently have the ability of "telepathy" or "speak with dead" : ) - and of course we still have the indeterminate-ness/variation-ness in meaning/interpretation/definition for these things.

So I don't think it will help, and, we'll likely see enthusiastic editors using it as an excuse to POV push on content of non-living persons. "But they aren't alive, so I can..."

And this doesn't yet deal with the potential French/Euro issues.

(I'll see if I can find the link to the last discussion we had concerning occupation.) - here, with my proposal here. - jc37 21:48, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm re-reading this page, and I think we have enough info here now to at least start two separate RfCs: ethnicity/descent; and faith/religion; (and easy enough to start one on occupation as well, though it isn't covered under WP:EGRS, obviously). I don't think the gender/sexuality one has a chance unless/until these are dealt with first, and even then, I'm not sure it would result in a consensus. - jc37 21:34, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I think you are probably right myself. I wouldn't mind seeing them made. And, FWIW, I was really only thinking of the living/dead difference based on the fact that, in a sense, I think the living individuals in a field at a given level of public awareness will probably, in many if not most cases, get more attention on a regular basis than the dead, so the articles on living people will probably not perhaps need or give as much reason to use reference sources of some sort. And, honestly, the fractioning of the music and entertainment markets in recent years has allowed for a hell of a lot more categories in those fields than existed earlier. In time, if some music genre becomes inactive or becomes recognized as a minor subgenre of some other, which might not yet exist, that might involve recategorization of the subgenre and articles if the category is used. I don't know how likely that is, but I do think that history often changes the views and categorization of some popular culture expressions, and it might be best to wait until they are more or less "written in stone" to some degree before going overboard in categorizing. John Carter (talk) 01:03, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

View by Gigs

Categories are supposed to be used as a navigation aid, not for labeling people. As a navigation aid, I have the gut feeling they do a very poor job and are not used very much by the average reader. I know that I have pretty much never used category browsing to discover similar articles when browsing. I'm much more likely to use "See Also" or a navbox (in some cases).

• Category:Gay_politicians has been viewed 9421 times in the last 90 days. These are hits, not visits, and I believe includes bot visits. If this were my blog, I'd take it down from lack of traffic.
• Category:Jewish_politicians has been viewed 1619 times in the last 90 days.
• Category:Jewish_actors has been viewed 20323 times in the last 90 days.

And these are the larger categories that people probably hit the most. Once you get into the more specific intersections, it gets pretty bad.

• Category:Black_British_sportspeople has been viewed 1590 times in the last 90 days. (Most of the traffic was due to two spikes, maybe bot maintenance?)

Ultimately we are spending inordinate amounts of time debating something that doesn't even do the job it's supposed to do, aid readers in navigation. I think a policy of "If in doubt, throw it out" to get rid of as many of these categories as possible is the only reasonable one. Gigs (talk) 13:41, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I gather you think that disappointing a thousand users a month on any one particular topic is trivial. (Multiplied by the thousands of such categories). We should do what we inevitably do in any volunteer project, make the ones people want to make. That I do not think a category useful is as irrelevant as that I do not think a profession important. We serve the needs of the readers. We serve our needs also, and the basic step to cooperating in that is to learn not to interfere with the work of others. DGG ( talk ) 05:49, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

It is trivial. We disappoint many millions of people who come to Wikipedia for coverage of non-notable topics, how-to content, or anything else that Wikipedia is not. We don't exist to cater to those who make ethnicity or sexuality of famous people some kind of badge of honor, or a battleground. I'm OK with disappointing those people. Gigs (talk) 21:09, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

View by Nyttend

• Religion: definitely yes, as long as we have solid sourcing for person X being affiliated with a faith. Except for people who are unaffiliated (and we can categorise people who are unaffiliated), everyone is associated with some religious organisation, and religion or lack thereof is a significant enough factor that it definitely should be the basis of categorisation.
• All others: no opinion.

Nyttend (talk) 21:19, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

View by Noleander

Yes, WP should have those categories. I agree with user IZAK above: many, many detailed discussions have already been held on this topic, see Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality, WP:BLPCAT, etc. If the community wants to adjust those guidelines, it is best done on the talk pages of those guidelines, and treated as an evolution of the existing guidelines. --Noleander (talk) 15:44, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Even when, as John lilburne pointed out in #View by Carrite above, the existing guidelines clearly and apparently directly disagree with each other? Some form of standardization seems to clearly be required, and I personally think that a centralized discussion, rather than multiple discussions on multiple pages, is probably the best idea. John Carter (talk) 16:42, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

That issue mentioned in #View by Carrite is a very narrow, focused issue ("should intersecting categories be permitted in relation to ethnicity or religion"). Wouldn't an RfC be more effective if it just focused on that one issue? I have no problem with using a centralized discussion to amend those guidelines; my point was that the scope of this RfC seems a bit broad and, hence, may be fruitless. --Noleander (talk) 17:45, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

View by shooterwalker

This isn't an area I wade into too often. But I'll offer some guidance that I think is helpful.

The more immutable/permanent the category, the better:

• Immutable characteristics (gender, ethnicity, birthplace) provide a high level of consistency and clarity to make for good categories.
• Characteristics that have enough cultural issues around that they've been immutable for a lot of people (religion, ideology, sexuality) are probably as good, so long as they're clear cases that are highly verifiable.
• Highly mutable and transient characteristics (hairstyle, virginity, people with pneumonia, people who have been called "X") should be avoided as much as possible.
• Everything in between has to be a case-by-case basis, giving preference to more permanent and enduring qualities.

A good category is neither too large nor too small:

• A category with a few dozen members provides a lot of information and is useful for navigation.
• A category with two or three members provides very little information and isn't really used for navigation.
• A category with hundreds of members is never informative or useful. (e.g.: Male athletes)

Categories are not created equally or consistently:

• Nationality and ethnicity usually matter.
• Religion doesn't always matter. Protestant vs Catholic might matter in politics. It might matter for a 14th century artist. But less for 21st century artists.
• "Jewish" can sometimes mean race, religion, or both. For people grouped by ethnicity, don't think "Jewish" opens the gateway to categorizing them by religion. (Or vice versa.)

Cross categorization remains a poorly documented and controversial problem:

• Notability isn't enough. For almost any combination of categories, you can find lots of sources. (Try "Republicans who have been compared to Ronald Reagan".)
• In addition to a category being (1) notable, (2) of a useful size, and (3) of sufficient permanence, cross-categorizations should also add (4) obviousness. Cross-categorizations should be unoriginal, and follow cross-categorizations that are widely used elsewhere on Wikipedia.
• Of course, categories don't always make good lists. That's especially true for cross-categorizations.

Just what I've experienced based on best practices, and which categories are more controversial and prone to error than others. Shooterwalker (talk) 03:41, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

View by Blueboar

There are two issues here... 1) controversial categorization and 2) Over-categorization. The key to dealing with controversial categorization is simple: "Self-identification"... If there is any debate as to whether a person belongs in a given category - don't place him in it ... unless the person has self-identified as belonging to that category. Over-categorization is more difficult... categories are a very useful navigational tool. We want readers to be able to easily find articles on related topics, and categories are one of the better ways to do that. Unfortunately, having too many categories on an given page can defeat the purpose... the categories become a "wall of text" and navigation becomes too difficult. Ultimately it comes down to a judgement call. If you think an article has too many categories... go to the talk page and ask whether there are any that can be cut or reorganized in some way.Blueboar (talk) 13:38, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

View by Debresser

Yes, I think these are valuable and relevant criteria for categorization. And I do not think we should be overly strict with these criteria, see below:

If somebody is ... (category of your choice), then a reliable source should be enough. I do not see the need for sourced self-identification as a ... (said category). I even don't think we should be overly scrupulous about the relevance to a persons notable activities of said category. I think that ... (said category) is in itself notable. Debresser (talk) 20:58, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

View by AJHingston

Clearly, such categorisation can sometimes be both helpful to the user and relevant to the subject's notability. But there has to be a good reason for using it and I view routine categorisation with great caution. In particular, we should follow the subject's self-identification even if editors think it is wrong, and not categorise without clear evidence of self-categorisation unless it is inherent in the notability itself or there are no grounds for believing that the subject would dispute/would have disputed the categorisation. That convoluted form of words recognises that however hard we try to set out clear rules cases differ.

1. There may be issues of privacy or confidentiality which by their very nature mean that the facts are different, or more complex, than third parties know. It is not necessarily that the subject is refusing to admit a self-evident 'truth', simply that others are wrong. There is rarely any obligation on anyone to disclose their birth parentage, for example. If a person is adopted, they can legitimately identify with their adoptive parents or keep private that their background differs. There are many other examples and the subject should not be required to justify a self-identification or the absence of one.

2. The category may be inherent in the notability. Many will recognise the saying is the pope a Catholic? as a by-word for a self-evident truth. We do not need to scratch around for a direct quote from the pope himself. But of course that is not quite the same as everyone knows that.....

3. Categories may not be exclusive. For example we are familiar with the situation where a person seems comfortable with being labelled gay and a woman discloses that she had a sexual affair with them (or whatever) and it is not denied. Unless the subject chooses to go into their past and present sexuality and wants to revise their self-categorisation we should stick with what they say. The truth is often complicated, whether it is ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation or anything else.

4. People change. Malcolm Muggeridge was famously, and prominently, an agnostic (or atheist) until he became a Catholic convert. And so on.

5. Categories are often subjective or ambiguous even if the categoriser does not think so. An example of the difficulties is that of nationality. For most Americans nationality=citizenship and is a simple matter of fact, though they may be very willing to admit ethnicity as another essential component of identity. For many Europeans and others national self-identity and citizenship are not the same thing and national identity may not be objectively established. Nor is citizenship necessarily singular. They may be uncomfortable with the idea of ethnicity, acknowledging the complexities of their origin and the dangers of categorizing people in that way. In the UK nationality and ethnic origin are officially whatever people say they are, if they are willing to give an answer at all.

6. There are objections to labelling people. Since the Paralympics are on, let me take the example of disability. Some people object strongly to being described by their disability/impairment, whatever term is favoured, even though they do not deny it. Others are proud to celebrate their disability, seeing it as an important part of their identity and resent any suggestion that it is something to conceal or be ashamed of, and they want to be associated with others who share their condition. No amount of posturing and disputation between Wikipedians will resolve this, which reflects personal and cultural experience and much else. The subject's position is valid even if not shared.

7. If it is contentious, best not to categorise. The dispute as to whether John Adams should be categorised as a Unitarian or a Congregationalist is not edifying. It will generally be best to cover the issues in the text if they are appropriate to the article where the nuances can be explained (and one or more of the above will probably apply). Categorisation denies such complexity or denies that others differ in their interpretation or understanding.

It would be better if we did not have categories for things such as this. But given their occasional usefulness, let us use them sparingly and not where they are problematic. --AJHingston (talk) 23:15, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

View by Tom Morris

The chief question asked is "Should we categorize people according to genetic and cultural heritage, faith, or sexual orientation?"

This has a very simple answer: yes.

The process of doing so is complicated, and there will be tough cases that will require head scratching and probably result in drama. The idea that we should make no mention of these matters seems to stem from some kind of assumption that these things are incidental, an idealistic vision of the world where, as Martin Luther King said, people are judged by the content of their character rather than by the colour of their skin, or some other similar characteristic. But what this fails to account for is that these things are significant to a person's sense of self-identity, self-understanding and self-narrative. The best Wikipedia articles will try to capture as much of that as a person shares.

Much as reasonable people everywhere like to think such characteristics ought not to matter, they do matter (when people respond to public figures coming out of the closet as gay with "it doesn't matter", one almost wishes to grab them by the shoulders, shake them and say "yeah, doesn't matter to you, pal, you haven't had to hide your sexual orientation for years and years"). And it's because they actually do matter to people that they are a useful navigational aid. They serve our audience in specific minority communities to be able to look up examples of people like them and see that they are three-dimensional people with flaws and complexities rather than just stereotypes.

With that said, I shall now exit stage left and dodge the hard question of how we categorise people. That the question of how to do it is hard to resolve shouldn't be a reason not to do it though. —Tom Morris (talk) 21:39, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

View by Tony1

Classifying by sexuality is done far too often on WP. Sexuality is complex, often not displayed by the subject, and so often utterly irrelevant to a topic. Classifying someone as "gay" makes me ask why heterosexuals are not labelled thus; it is the most basic discrimination, and practised often as not by those who are gay. Tony (talk) 13:37, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

The most noble purpose of WP is to provide information to oppressed people anywhere in the world - information that could help in their struggles. Of course, WP must provide that information in an objective, neutral manner. One of the ways WP can fulfill that mission is to provide an overview of accomplishments of historically discriminated-against groups. For example, whenever I encounter anti-gay bigots, I like to name one of my heros, Alan Turing, who is listed in Category:LGBT_scientists. You suggest that such categories are discriminatory because they perpetuate historical separateness; but that needs to be weighed against the potential usefulness of these categories as a source of data for minorities looking for role-models. When you say that such categorization is "practised often as not by those who are gay" you are implying that the LGBT community does not endorse such categorization, but the LGBT WikiProject does endorse them, and that project includes 1,157 categories and 235 lists (14 of which are featured lists). --Noleander (talk) 15:41, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Alan Turing's homosexuality was a key part of his story. It's when sexual orientation is plastered into an article text or by categorisation as a matter of course—in some kind of bid to maximise the numbers—that we find people labelled whose homosexuality should have nothing to do with a summary article on them. Again, why aren't heterosexuals labelled into a category? Tony (talk) 05:32, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Because society discriminates harshly against heterosexuals. In fact, I bet you there are some countries that don't let heterosexuals get married and many heterosexuals suffer daily heterophobic abuse and even violence for being straight. Truly terrible.

Seriously, though, there's a reason why we have Category:African-American people and subcategories and not 'American white dudes' as a category. Being in a minority is something people find interesting and worthy of note in a way that they don't for majorities.

The user need for it isn't there either. There aren't any closeted straight kids sitting in their bedrooms thinking "oh, I'd like to be a sports star, but there aren't any inspiring examples of heterosexual sportsmen". The whole point of any form of coverage in a media source, whether that's Wikipedia or a newspaper, is it calls attention to things that are outside of what's widely considered normal or standard. And it doesn't take much of a brain to realise that heterosexuality is widely considered both normal and standard and non-heterosexuality isn't.

This isn't to say there aren't people who take it too far and categorise people who are borderline candidates or who use shaky evidence to conclude that someone is LGBT... but please don't use the "ah, but what about the heteros?" argument. —Tom Morris (talk) 07:34, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

At the risk of sounding callous, homosexual persecution is irrelevant. It's not our job to right great wrongs. Giving special treatment to a particular group is still essentially prejudice, even if done for noble reasons. Wikipedia should be approaching the problem neutrally and uniformly, regardless of where on the spectrum a person falls on any given issue. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 00:35, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

@NULL: I agree that WP's purpose does not include righting great wrongs. My statement above was very carefully worded: : I said that WP should provide neutral, objective data that can be used by those who are oppressed. WP should not engage in any struggle itself, and I don't believe that categories based on ethnicity or orientation are polemic. Rather, such categories are encyclopedic because readers may want to utilize such lists for research purposes. --Noleander (talk) 18:05, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

With all due respect, I'm not sure how significant the careful wording is. You had stated that this material can be "used by those who are oppressed." Honestly, our purpose is to be useful, period. By the oppressed, by the oppressors, by those who are neither. On that basis, I would tend to think that, in all honesty, we should, as much as possible, try to take into account a truly neutral POV on this matter. Religious categorization could, for instance, be very useful to a government oppressing that religion, like China and Falun Gong. The question should be would this categorization be useful to someone who is looking to study the topic of the category. If that is the case, and I think it is, then our primary goal should be to ensure that the articles included in categories really say something significant about the individual in relation to that category. So, someone who is now a Lutheran, for instance, but has never been discussed in independent reliable sources in regard to that topic, probably should not be categorized as such, because the article itself does not add any particular detail relevant to that topic. Lists are probably more useful in that regard. Categories should, in general, only be used when the article itself directly relates to the topic of the category in a significant way. John Carter (talk) 01:39, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

There is the difficulty that whilst I may want to associate myself with other people, they may not want to associate with me. As I argue above in my point on labelling, it is perfectly valid for a subject to say 'yes, it is perfectly true that I am [enter category] but I want people to think of me in another way' and whilst we may think they are wrong, in denial, failing in their duty to others in that category etc it is still a legitimate POV. --AJHingston (talk) 08:46, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

It's not about fighting persecution, it's about knowledge. Wikipedia's existence is an implicit endorsement of a statement of the sort "knowledge is good and worth sharing as much as possible". And not just propositional knowledge: I have read Wikipedia when trying to understand a technical problem while building software, someone else might read it to learn where Queen Victoria was born, and someone else might read it and conclude that contrary to popular perception, gay athletes exist, say. All of these seem sort of in the same category to me: that the latter one is also politically desirable for advocates of LGBT equality is a nice side effect... but it's still just knowledge, knowledge of the sort Wikipedia exists to share.

More broadly, there are political movements that are anti-knowledge, anti-science, anti-rational inquiry. Anti-Semites might rather have a problem with the fact that Wikipedia depicts Jews as human beings doing a large variety of different and interesting things with their lives, rather than as cunning manipulative monsters undermining humanity (or whatever anti-semitic-trope-of-the-week is). Does that mean we're not being neutral and pushing an anti-anti-semitic POV? Well, yeah, sorta. But sometimes other people's points of view don't include the spreading of knowledge. That's their problem, not Wikipedia's.

As for the argument that having LGBT categories but not heterosexual categories is discrimination? Loads of categories exist for which a similar and slightly silly argument can be made. There are categories for Christians, but not for non-Christians (that is to say, there aren't categories you are placed in by dint of not being a Christian, obviously you may be in a different religious category for being, say, a Muslim or a Hindu or an atheist. We don't have categories for non-deaf people or non-cricketers precisely because those aren't particularly interesting or useful ways of navigating articles. No great harm is being done to either the readers or the subjects of the articles by us not putting them in a category for, say, 'Heterosexual musicians from the United States'. —Tom Morris (talk) 11:11, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

"knowledge is good and worth sharing as much as possible" Codswallop. If that were true then we'd be welcoming Big Brother. The contents of your weekly shop would be posted online, as would your bank transactions, and your neighbours would have a live feed into your bedroom. Whereas we use lack of privacy as part of punishment in prisons, and we prosecute threats to make private details public. John lilburne (talk) 20:57, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

• I grit my teeth when I see WP's gay lobby put their stamp on articles such as Patrick White, the Nobel laureate, who would be turning in his grave to know that he'd been pigeonholed in this way. A mention in passing in the text is fine, but to categorise? Tony (talk) 00:38, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

you are indulging in the common pastime of finding one error, and using it to remove an entire group of categories. DGG ( talk ) 18:37, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

• I tend to agree. FWIW, my own approach would be to where possible, and I think it is possible in articles relating to religion, nationality, sexual orientation, and profession, find the extant reference sources which discuss that topic, or which discuss clearly related, similar articles because of their relevance to that topic. Having found one encyclopedia of Franciscan missionary to California in a single hundred year period, trust me, there are enough out there that the only articles which would probably really be left out would be those about, for instance, guys left out of categories for carpenters who were part-time carpenters for only a few years in college while studying whatever it was that made them notable. Categories can often be, well, about subjects trivial to the article itself, and such categories can and often do include issues of religion, nationality, sexual orientation, and profession. John Carter (talk) 01:39, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

View by Roscelese

• Living people must have self-identified with the religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation in question. If they have so identified, no other source can override their self-identification. (eg. it doesn't matter if you're excommunicated, you're a Catholic if you say you are; it doesn't matter if you're reported to be sexually involved with someone of the same sex, you're not LGBT unless you say you are).
• Deceased people may be categorized based on self-identification during their lives (if applicable) and/or the prevailing views of reliable sources.
• We will treat all of these categories in the same way. That is to say, we will not freely categorize people as belonging to particular religions while censoring mention of others' sexual orientations because of quibbles about how relevant to their notability is it really.
• On that last point, I'm sensitive to the argument that people whose religion/ethnicity/sexual orientation is very relevant get buried among people for whom it is trivial. I'm not averse to deciding that relevance matters, but we'd have to be careful about application. (I would also say that "notable for X" is not a very good standard. Alan Turing is "notable for" his computer work, but it would be impossible to argue that his sexual orientation is unimportant. James I is "notable for" being a king, but there are several entire books on his sexuality.) –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:17, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

View by Mangoe

We have had (as User:Blueboar can attest) a hell of a time beating Religious affiliations of Presidents of the United States into shape, and we still after several years of this are unsatisfied with the result. There seems to be hardly any possible categorization of persons that isn't fraught with fringe cases, and often enough the person whose affiliation or characteristic is the most ambiguous is the one people are most curious about (see the long articles on the religious beliefs of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln).

Clerics and other people with a professional connection to a religion can plainly be categorized, as can politicians and officials. After that, we get into problems; even nationality gets vague in areas such as middle Europe where the borders have moved over and over in the previous two centuries. I realize the last is used simply to get the scope of big categories under control, but it needs to be considered that even this is a bit of a problem.

We have made explicit decisions to eliminate some categories even if potentially verifiable; for example we have a standing policy (small p) of deleting categorization by caste or equivalent. I would also tend to agree with John Carter that there are certain groups which tend to come across here as "special" and whose categorization somehow gets to be more important than other potential categorizations at the same level.

It seems to me that there are two issues at play here. One is that there is no real immutability in the end: even so supposedly fixed a datum as date and place of birth is subject to change due to better information or to shifting political boundaries and names. But the more vexing problem is that a lot of the drive for this categorization is to claim various people for one's own group on the one hand, or to lay someone objectionable on the shoulder's of one's opponents on the other. These ownership issues are one of the most persistent sources of conflict in the English Wikipedia. It would make life a lot easier if we were to declare that nobody could be so owned. Mangoe (talk) 14:26, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

are you proposing to eliminate on the grounds of difficulty things that people are interested in specifically because they are interesting & controversial? Even almanacs had such tables--they dealt with ambiguity by footnotes. DGG ( talk ) 18:40, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, one of the metaprinciples we have used to decide this kind of issue is that categorization, being all-or-nothing, needs to stay away from ambiguous situations. If we were to modify the categorization system to allow footnoting or otherwise flag disputed, ambiguous, or qualified membership, that would solve these problems, and indeed I think there's something to be said for going down that road. Mangoe (talk) 19:02, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

View by czarkoff

No, we shouldn't. We should stick to the defining characteristics, which are those making particular person notable. No feeding nationalist trolls. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 21:54, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

View by David Eppstein

I believe that WP:BLPCAT is the right approach: this sort of categorization "should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified" with the ethnicity/gender/whatever in question, "and the subject's [categorization is] relevant to their public life or notability". I don't see a compelling reason to change this policy, and please note that it is a policy, so a guideline or opinion poll that does not change the policy should not take priority over it. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:41, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

View by JASpencer

There are a number of questions here:

1. Are such categorisations legitimate? Together with the consensus on the page I think that they are, although I would also say that the categorisations of religion and nationality are actually really important to almost everyone apart from the the social set that editors of Wikipedia are drawn from. To ignore them, somewhat ironically, would show a raving cultural bias.

2. For dead people - do the reliable evidence rules need to be modified for categorisation? I would be averse to making special cases. Clearly we need to look to make sure that there is no undue weight, although I suspect that this is going to be less of the case.

3. For living people - are self identifications the only legitimate method of categorisation? Essentially no. We should be more careful due to the fact that belonging to a group could constitute negative information it should be treated more carefully and self identification should have the weight that it already has. However if someone is for example a practicing Catholic priest then even if he has not said that he's Catholic then to refuse a categorisation on the self identification rule would be fatuous. Similarly if someone self identifies as Catholic but has been excommunicated, then the excommunication should not be ignored - or mentioned in a totally different part of the text. In those cases special categories such as "Excommunicated Catholics" and "Catholics out of Communion with Rome" would be legitimate.

JASpencer (talk) 19:40, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

View by Bus stop

"Should we categorize people according to genetic and cultural heritage, faith, or sexual orientation? If so, what are our criteria for deciding an identity? "

I think our default position should be the inclusion of information, and I think that extends to Categorization, by whatever attributes are reliably sourced. As to our criteria, I think that our criteria should approximate the criteria found to be useful by reliable sources. I don't think Wikipedia should strike out on its own path in a departure from practice as documentable in reliable sources. On the other hand if on a case-by-case-basis editors decide based on consensus to bypass precedent as indicated by reliable sources and omit Categorization by attributes, that decision should be respected and consequently upheld. When disagreements occur they should be aired-out by means of mechanisms such as Request for Comment and Third Opinion. Bus stop (talk) 03:00, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Another point I'd like to add, five months after my post above: what does religion have to do with sexuality? Why are we considering dissimilar attributes at the same time? Shouldn't these be considered separately? Bus stop (talk) 15:30, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

@Bus stop - Both religion and sexuality are potentially ambiguous. Sometimes it's not real clear whether someone is Catholic or Protestant or Jewish or Mormom or what have you. And there is no "final", accepted authority that we or RSs can turn to make the determination as to the appropriateness of the category.

Similarly, sometimes it's not real clear is some is gay or straight or bi- or a- sexual. And again, there's no final, accepted means by which to determine which category is appropriate.

In that sense religion and sexuality are the same, and ought to be dealt with under one policy. NickCT (talk) 20:48, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Would there be an advantage to arriving at the same conclusion regarding categorizing by religion and sexuality? Bus stop (talk) 21:24, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Are you asking if there is an advantage to acknowledging that religion and sexuality are the same in that they are potentially ambiguous? I think so. If you accept they are the same, then you might be able to accept that we can have a similar approach/policy when dealing with them. NickCT (talk) 15:16, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

View by Kww

In general, each and every one of these things is unimportant. As an example, architects are architects, and the difference between a transgender Croatian Anabaptist architect and a lesbian British Muslim architect matters not one whit. Their achievements, and the things that make them worth talking about and describing, will have to do with their designs and buildings, not their personal characteristics. The only time that any of these things should be categorized or mentioned is when it is relevant to their notability and career.—Kww(talk) 13:15, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

View by Hobit

Fairly quickly:

• Having additional verifiable information is almost always a good thing, especially if it doesn't take up space in the article.
• In this particular case, one can easily imagine someone looking for "African-American Scientists" or "Gay mathematicians from the 19th century". Perhaps they are a young black child exploring their options. Perhaps they are a college student writing about Turing and wish to learn about how others had been treated. Don't know, but it seems reasonable to have the information available.
• Because one can check multiple categories at once, highly populated categories can be useful. I'd prefer we did have a "white" and "male" category just for this purpose. In addition to being really useful to find cross-sections of society, it might be useful to look at our own coverage and explore if there would seem to be any obvious gaps to fill.

All in all, I see these as being really useful with nearly no downside other than the inevitable debate about if a person is X. And there are legit arguments to have on almost everything. I don't have answers for how to make those decisions and I realize that can leave us spinning our wheels on category issues rather than making actual improvements. But I think that cost is worth it.

Your view reminds me of a problem with having categories like Category:Women mathematicians but not having the corresponding Category:Men mathematicians: our category system, in general, encourages articles to be categorized in categories that are as specific as possible, and not also categorized into parent categories. So the net effect is that the woman mathematicians get sent off into their own little category ghetto where nobody sees them unless they're looking for them, and meanwhile anyone looking for a mathematician only sees the male ones. (This particular example is not a great one because Category:Mathematicians is mostly unpopulated, but I think you can see the principle anyway.) —David Eppstein (talk) 01:50, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. I'd prefer we have an easy way to get the intersection of categories. So if someone is labeled as both "female" and "mathematician" we could find a list of female mathematicians. I thought there _was_ a reasonable way to do that?Hobit (talk) 00:51, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

View by NaBUru38

I believe that categories of people should be restricted for very specific purposes. They should highlight the essential characteristics of a person. The main one is the reason why they are relevant to have a Wikipedia article. That can be a profession (artist, businessman, politician), an official title (president of a country or organization), or activity. Since nationality is so relevant to us, we need to categorize by country, province and city.

Apart from that, some cultural traits may be relevant enough for a category. Jews, blacks, Asians and Latin Americans are an example in the United States, but that varies by region. But I'd hate to see "White / Caucasian football players" or "Christian politicians", because that's too generic.

About personal beliefs, ideologies and religion, they are relevant for categories only if the person is notable for that. Politicians and activists are, but not everybody is. --NaBUru38 (talk) 16:57, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

View by My very best wishes

I do not think we want to classify every person based on such criteria. For example, we should not classify someone as a "Jew" only because his farther was ethnically a Jew, or classify someone as a gay only because he was a gay. If he was a notable Jewish activist, he should be classified as a Jewish activist. In general, we can and should categorize people in any way that is important for describing the person. If the cultural heritage, faith, or sexual orientation was important/notable for life or career of the person, he/she can be classified accordingly. But it does not really matter how they self-identified. It only matters how they are described in RS. My very best wishes (talk) 14:58, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Just as a technicality, the only criteria for being a Jew is to have a Jewish mother - by birth, but by upbringing is for practical purposes more important. Apteva (talk) 21:33, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

View by BrownHairedGirl

I don't think that any one-size-fits-all solution is possible here.

An attribute such as religion or ethnicity may be a defining characteristic of one person, but not of another who shares that attribute. For example, there are plenty of people who go to a particular church out of habit without being particularly religious, while others have religion as a central part of their lives.

Similarly, what defines someone as being of (e.g.) Scottish descent? It's fairly clear that a Scottish parent justifies the label, but what of someone in Argentina who had one Scottish great-great-grandparent, but no other Scottish ancestry? There's no clearcut line.

A further problem arises with intersection categories. For example, if two politicians may share the same religion (say Roman Catholicism), one may take a thoroughly secular approach to politics while the other may determinedly pursue their religious values in politics. The two may clash repeatedly over faith-related issues, but categorising them both as Roman Catholic politicians would be thoroughly misleading.

Wikipedia's basic approach to set categories has been that if a person verifiably has the characteristic being categorised, the then the article belong sin the category. That works fine for in many cases, where the issues are clearcut (such as the geographical location of a town), but religion and ethnicity are not so clearcut.

It's tempting to say that we should adopt a weighted approach, and categorise people in these ways only when the attribute is verifiably a defining characteristic of the individual concerned. However, that's so subjective that it will lead to POV disputes amongst editors, and unstable categories.

So I have no answer. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:31, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

View by Elektrik Shoos

Categorizing people by ethnic heritage, sexual orientation or religion is perfectly acceptable in my view, but only if the person has clearly and currently self-identified as being in one of these groups (and it can be sourced as such). My main concern here is an adherence to existing site policy; in other words, we shouldn't be arbitrarily categorizing someone because of unsourced or poorly sourced gossip, as that could be at best true but at worst libel. By requiring a source, we would remove potential libel concerns and would improve the project. In addition, categorizing people in this manner is useful for research purposes - for instance, in helping to find prominent LGBT people. elektrikSHOOS (talk) 16:01, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

While we can determine years later that someone was gay/lesbian even though they never identified themself as gay/lesbian, I suspect that they would turn over in their grave if they discovered that Wikipedia had outed them. No one is going to get sued for calling Jesus a homosexual, but proving or disproving it with reliable sources is impossible.[1] Note the link in that article "Can liberal Christians shut up about gayness?" Apteva (talk) 21:22, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

View by Alphateam7911

If they've self-identified or been reliably confirmed to fit into a category, then yes, even if they aren't particularly notable for being in said category. But if the decision is controversial, then wait until the controversy dies down and side with the most reliable argument. If we ensure verifiability and avoid potential conflicts, then I don't see a problem. Of course, with very broad groups, such as race or sexuality, we should categorize specifically, such as "Black actors" or "Bisexual musicians", not some impossibly large category (imagine a single category including all Wikipedia articles about white people). Alphateam7911 (talk) 03:16, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

What is your rationale for categorizing black actors but not categorizing white actors? It seems on its face to be a kind of othering, to me. (As an off-topic tangent, I think it's a bit unfortunate that our own "othering" article is technical philosophy and doesn't really provide a readable approach to the more colloquial meaning of the word.) —David Eppstein (talk) 04:17, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

View by Apteva

• genetic and cultural heritage, faith, or sexual orientation

No one is normally given a genetic/heritage/faith/sexual orientation category unless they are not WASP/heterosexual. Barack Obama, who is half WASP, is categorized as African American. Tiger Woods, who is one quarter African American, is categorized as African American. The majority of the world is not WASP/heterosexual. Yet most of the "notable" people are WASP/heterosexual. Gender is appropriate in heads of state only because it is so unusual. It is not appropriate in the case of occupations even ones that used to be male dominated (or female prohibited) but are now open to women, such as actor or postman and fireman. As a top level category, only actor should be used, and actress is not a subcategory of actor, but an inappropriate category. Any subcategories that are created inadvertently or deliberately, such as actresses of Kuwait should appropriately be included under the actor category. However, I see that the category:Women by occupation is well populated. Concubine and nun, for example, and 63 other occupations, including female pornographic film actors, but not female actors. Gender is not something that someone is stuck with today, but something that you are sort of born with, but can be changed at will, though not easily. Gender is clearly something that is used to discriminate against, with women getting paid 80 cents on the dollar in many places, if they are even able to get hired. Only 10% of Wikipedia editors are women, and even fewer are womyn, or wimmin.

Religion is a valid category only if it is a clear element, such as someone who is actually a minister/member of that religion. Anyone can call themself a Baptist just by showing up at church one Sunday. To be a Jew, you can only become one by being born by a Jewish mother. There are people who are proud of their religious affiliation and would like to be categorized as that faith, and doing so despite it not being accurate is appropriate (someone who "converts" to Judaism, someone who although not a member of a religion, was either brought up in that religion or otherwise considers themself a practising member, though not an actual member). Being lesbian/gay/bi, etc., and not wishing to be outed as being one is another issue.

It is an interesting but esoteric category to give cultural heritage as a category. Is someone born in Argentina an Argentinian? Not necessarily. Apteva (talk) 20:35, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

The nationality point is a good one. National identity should really be part of this whole discussion. NickCT (talk) 13:51, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

View by Coren

I came here to see if I could close this discussion, but realized that I needed to say something about it instead.

I think that no such categorization should exist, and it's easy to demonstrate why with a parallel with this project: what would happen to the editor who decided to slap Category:User Gay Arbitrator on my user page or Category:User Jewish Arbitrator on Newyorkbrad's when, as far as I can tell, we both self-identify as such? I should expect that the edit would be reverted in minutes, and the brief inevitable AN/I thread would quickly end in that editor being blocked given how inflammatory and irrelevant (and, clearly, disruptive to make a point) that categorization was.

Why would we even consider doing this to the subjects (I hesitated about using victim in this context) of our biographies? — Coren ^(talk) 21:01, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Go ahead and use "victim," if you see fit. I myself agree that regarding BLPs it is definitely potentially very problematic to use any such categories at all. Inclusion in lists is probably a better way to go, if we ensure that any and all such lists meet BLP requirements. Some related categories, like Category:Catholic popes might be a lot less controversial, considering, honestly, those individuals tend to be primarily known on the basis of that particular aspect of their lives, but I definitely agree that just adding a category regarding sexual orientation, ethno-religious heritage, or whatever, as opposed to a category like the one I mention above, which is much more specific and in some cases clearly relevant, is a very bad idea. I would also maybe say that Category:Admins who were really bad at football in high school (me included - I tackled my side's running back once) would be no better, and I wonder whether the similarly detailed categorization by team and sport, and similar categories for variant aspects of the entertainment industry, are any better. John Carter (talk) 21:21, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Not sure I see what the difference is between a list and a category. Frankly, I think being included in Category:User Gay Arbitrator would be about as bad as List of Gay Arbitrators. NickCT (talk) 13:53, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

View by NickCT

Having taken part in a lot of race/ethnicity/religion debates, I really feel we need a policy that basically says "When trying to decide whether it's appropriate to categorize by race/religion/ethnicity err on the side of caution". In other words, don't categorize by race/religion/ethnicity unless certain conditions are met. Those conditions might include -

1. Racial, ethnic or religious category is obvious, non-controversial, and doesn't cause significant debate among editors (i.e. The pope is catholic)
2. Racial, ethnic or religious category is directly and obviously related to the notability of the subject in question (i.e. Martin Luther King was African American)
3. Racial, ethnic or religious category was self identified by the subject in question. (i.e. Matt Stone is Jewish, because he's quoted as saying "I consider myself ethnically Jewish")

I've taken a stab at writing the policy described above. I'd love input, help or any comments anyone might have to offer.

These race/ethnicity/religion are a source of sooooooooooooooooo much consternation. We really need to make some effort to put clear guidelines on this subject. NickCT (talk) 13:46, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Looks good to me. So, just make it policy now, please. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 00:52, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.