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Would any contributors mind clarifying the purpose of this category with respect to Category:Wikipedia maintenance?

I understand that it contains categories of course, but is the intent for Category:Wikipedia maintenance to be emptied of categories? Or perhaps a catch-all category, while Category:Maintenance categories is for commonly useful maintenance categories (generally omitting technical ones like the 'Page displaying...' series)? Something else? Tule-hog (talk) 23:56, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rich Farmbrough:, who created that category in 2011, is still around. Seems like a logical place to start. Polygnotus (talk) 20:18, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed we have a lot of over categorization in Diplomats categories, partly because many people in Fooian diplomats are also in multiple fooian Ambassadors to Boo, often for multiple boos. I posted something about 1 such case in which the 2 Fooian Ambassadors to Boo categories each only had 1 article, the person is in Fooian diplomats, so we could move from 2 1 article not helping navigation categories and 1 large Category in that case Ambassadors of Greece, Ambassadors to Brazil and Ambassadors to another country that I forget. I posted it on User Smasongarrison's talk page, so you can go there to see the exact details of what I think would nee to happen, it would require a CfD nomination, but I do not think we really need a person in 2 1 article categories. This got me thinking more broadly about how the ambassador and diplomat categories are organized. I discussed the matter with S. Mason Garrison and she thought it would be good to post about it somewhere that more would notice. I am about to posy that idea below.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:25, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• The problem I noticed is that "Fooian diplomats" are including at least 3 things. 1-diplomats for foo. 2-diplomats who were nationals of foo who either gave up that nationality, or while still holding that nationality worked as diplomats for another country. 3-diplomats who are nationals of foo who work as diplomats for international organizations or non-national entities that employ diplomats, such as the United Nations, the European Union, etc. I believe we should create a "diplomats for foo" tree, in which we have Diplomats for the United States, Diplomats for Nigeria, Diplomats for Uganda, Diplomats for Nepal, Diplomats for France, Diplomats for Bulgaria, etc. I think "for" is better because "of" we usually use in a title, like "King of England", etc. Most of categories of that type are specific offices. We have some categories that use "in", however most diplomats do much of their work outside the home country (there are staff in the home country, although not often for their wole career), so in would be confusing and misleading. At the same time I think we should leave "French diplomats", "Ugandan diplomats" etc. to hold nationals of that country who were diplomats for international organizations. One example of the Later is Filip Grzegorzewski who was head of an EU cooperative office is a Polish national who worked as a diplomat, but is not a diplomat for Poland. I think these are 2 separate things. I also think the high rate of the Diplomats for x also being x nationals who are diplomats means we really should apply overlap cat rules and not place Diplomats for x in the x nationals who are diplomats Category for the same country. With the diplomats by city I would leave these under the diplomats by country. I would leave people in both say Diplomats for France and Diplomats from Paris. This is partly because in reviewing Diplomats from Krakow I realized a few were diplomats for Israel and 1 a diplomat for the Soviet Union, so there are several cases where people are defined by a city they were raised in which is not In the country they served as diplomats for. I am not sure if the intersection of city domeone is "from" and being a diplomat is defining, but that is a question others can take up independently. I think we would then make "Ambassafors of x" a diffusing sib-cat of "Diplomats for x" so that anyone is "Ambassadors of Brazil" would not also be in "Diplomats for Brazil".John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:40, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Alternately if we really think the 4 entries in Brazilian Ambassadors to Uruguay are enough to keep the category, we could either just have him stay in Brazilian Ambassadors to Uruguay and Ambassadors to Venezuela. I really do not think we should have so many 1 article Fooian ambassadors to Boo categories. We have hundreds if not thousands 1 article categories of that form (some of which the 1 article is a list of fooian Ambassadors to boo). The last few upmerge proposals for such categories have succeeded,but there are so many 1 article categories of that type no one seems to want to do it. Is there any way we could at least stop the creation of new 1 article fooian Ambassadors to Boo categories, or at least make it so the creation of new such categories would require discussion to show that there is support to create such a narrow intersection category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:56, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Finding articles where we could do the merging to Ambassafors of x, Ambassadors to y, Ambassadors to z, and keep the sane number of categories is like shooting fish in a barrel. Leonel Martiniano de Alencar, 1st Baron of Alencar is currently in Brazilian diplomats, 1 Brazilinan ambassadors cat with only him, and 1 Brazilian ambassadors cat with 4 articles. When you have under 5 articles in a category its aid to navigation is minimal. So if we upmerged him while diffusing we could get to Ambassadors of Brazil, and then Ambassadors to for the 2 countries he was assigned to.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:50, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• I just realized we have a whole United Nations officials by nationality tree. This would make sense to make a sub-cat of Diplomats by nationality, but are a very different thing than would be coveted by Diplomats by country of origin. That is patterned after Ambassadors by country of origin. I think "sending country" or "country served" would be a much better name. "Country of origin" might be misread as country of birth, but some percentage of both Ambassadors and Diplomats serve as agents to a country they become nationals of long after birth (a few may not even be actual nationals of the country they serve). This US probably most pronounced with Pakstani and Israeli diplomats and Ambassadors, but I am sure happens with other countries as well.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:27, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Do we really need both these categories? I think the intersection of being a diplomat and being a woman is defining. Having the women ambassadors cat makes last rung issues more likely. It also leads to overcatehorization and small categories. The Brazilian woman diplomats cat has 6 articles, the Brazilian women ambassadors category 4. 2 articles are in both, so we have 2 categories for a tree that has 10 entries. This seems excessive. I think women diplomats is enough and we do not need the additional woman ambassadors categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:45, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think the only way to justify having the women ambassadors tree is of we had other sub-cats of women diplomats. Another might be women consuls. I have doubts that we could create a reliable sourced article on that is more than a list. Considering how small the consuls Category is I have doubts we could really create divide women consuls by many nationalities. I really think women diplomats is the only set of categories we need. At present out diplomats tree may well have more total categories than total articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:34, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is one of the most widespread cases of narrow Category rules being ignored. Just in Ambassadors of Brazil 26 of the 62 sub-cats have 1 article, several more only have 2. Lots of people were Ambassadors to multiple countries so I am not sure that upmerging those 26 1 article categories would even add 26 more people to the parent category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:04, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

On further review Sérgio Arruda is in 4 1 article ambassador categories (and 1 2 article one) so a full upmerge of the 26 1 article Ambassadors of Brazil categories would at most at 23 articles to the parent category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:07, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Jorge D'Escragnolle Taunay is in 7 ambassador categories. Some of these involve multiple postings at once. I an not sure his non-resident postings are even defining. 6 of them he is the only entry in the category. So I think this reduces to 18 the number of articles we would add to Ambassadors of Brazil by upmerging.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:10, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  With Sérgio de Queiroz Duarte bring in 2 catehories with 1 article, that takes us down to 17.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:13, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Maria Edileuza Fontenele Reis is in a further 2 1 article categories, so this move only covers 16 biographies.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:14, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In the lead on the Biography of a living person Haron Amin we have a citation needed category for 3 of his ambassadorial assignments. Since this is a BLP we should remove uncired information. At least 2 of those categories he is the only person in. I do not want to unilaterally empty these categories, but it looks like it does need to be done. Having these narrow intersection categories makes normal editing difficult.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:51, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We have categories for Pashtun diplomats and even Pashtun ambassadors. We have no Diplomats by erhnicity category. I beliebe we previously deleted a similarly named category. We either need to create diplomats by ethnicity as a parent for this cstegory, or we should delete this category since it seems to be a type of category we previously decided was not justified.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:16, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Brito Sozinho is an example of why categorizing Ambassadors by every country assigned is not a good idea. He has per his article been ambassador of Angola to 15 countries. He is currently in only 6 categories for being an ambassador, plus the Angolan diplomats Category. 5 of those categories He is the only article in, the 6th has 1 other article. I hope to at least convince people not to make any more categories. I think all 6 categories should be upmerged to Ambassadors of Angola. I think we should ask for sourcing that shows his serving in that country is really significant before we put him in any Ambassadors to categories. He is at present ambassador to 4 or 5 countries, so it is not clear that all are defining.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:29, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If I counted right thus Category has a total of 43 Biographical articles spread across 57 categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:35, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

On reviewing Diplomats categories I came across Patrick Bitature, a Ugandan businessman, in Category:Australian diplomats. This placement shows the diplomats categories as they currently exist are a hodge podge mix of by nationality and by country categorization. This one though I think is a step too far. Bitature is not an Australian National. He is also not an employee of the government of Australia. He holds the title "honorary consul". This is basically an award given by one country to nationals of another country, who may have helped with expanding trade, or they may want to help, or they just want to honor. It does not involve actually working as a diplomat in a concrete way. So it is not like normal consuls. I think it ends up being a non-defining award that does not conform to the over cat by award guidelines. It is not really a sign that someone was a diplomat, and so I do not think we should place people directly in diplomat categories. Even in the likely event we create Category:Diplomats for Australia, or a similar scope Category with a different name, I do not think we should place honorary consuls in that category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:20, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We have a whole tree of honorary consuls. I guess I will shunt further article I find there. I do not think they should be placed in the diplomats by country tree. The regular consuls tree is not very developed. I will seek to add people to it as applicable as I go through the diplomats tree.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:29, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This category tree has 25 sub-cats with only 11 articles between them. There is no reason to have subdivided at all 11 articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:42, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should make a Colonial officials tree. Our current set up does not have anything quite like this. We either have categoriesimited to governors, etc. Or we have categories for either all residents of a Colony or all non-indigrnous residents. Someone who was a farmer in Kenya, a back woods trapper in Virginia or a sheep herder in New South Wales would bot count. However I think there is a need for this category. Especially since some colonial officials end up in the diplomats tree. The line is a little blurry at times, but I think we can distinguish the British Consul in Anywhere outside the British Empire from agents of British authority in Colonies. I am also not quite sure what to call these. Colonial officials of the British Empire or Colonial official for foo might he good choices. I think thus we would get Colonial officials of Japan or maybe Colonial officials for Japan. We do not care what nationality these people are, just that they act as government officials for the colonial government.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:26, 28 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Chen Jie (ambassador) is in both Ambassadors of China to Germany and Ambassadors of the Republic of China to Germany categories, for the exact same 1938-1941 assignment when he represented the Republic of China in Germany. China is the article on the People's Republic of China, but it covers all pre-1949 history as well. I think we should limit Category:Ambassadors of the Republic of China to post-1949 appointments. Ambassadors of China will then cover Ambassadors of the Republic of China through 1949, and Ambassadors of Imperial China.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:08, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We categorize by shared role not shared name. So the ambassador cats should not care if the person was called ambassador, Envoy or diplomatic Minister. Especially since a lot were not called in English at all. However it should be limited to people who hold the full office. A charge d'affairs is not an ambassador. A consul is not an ambassador. Also if someone is granted the title ambassador by a government in a diplomatic role, thry belong, even if they are an ambassador at home. Obviously brand Ambassadors and other uses of the title outside of a diplomatic role do not belong.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:29, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We have Category Consuls and various sub-cats. I am wondering if they should be renamed to consuls (diplomatic) to avoid confusion with Roman consuls, and also the use of the title during the French revolution? What do others thing?John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:30, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, in a case like Category:Consuls for the United States or Category:Consuls for France, should we limit this to people who held the title consul or consul-general? Should we also include vice consuls?John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:32, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I just realized that Category:Ambassadors of Equatorial Guinea to Ethiopia was only crated on Dec. 22, 2024. So this huge problem with overly small ambassador categories is still an expanding mess. I assume that Category used to have contents. I am not sure yet. It would be nice of you could easily see past contents of a category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:19, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This category has 108 sub-cats, 5 with 1 article, and 159 direct articles. I suspect that the 5 direct articles should be upmerged. That said I think we should merge many sub-cats her and to various Women diplomats for x categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:33, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

An easy to process example of ehy this is odd is Category:Bahamian women ambassadors. It has 5 articles. Its parent Category:Women diplomats for the Bahamas has 1 other article. The one woman who has been a foreign minister for the Bahamas. Since foreign ministers are not otherwise diffused, moving her to Women foreign ministers of the Bahamas would violate the last rung rule, and might also cause some to think that was her title. It does not make sense to have just 1 sub-cat, so I think we can upmerge there. With American women ambassadors (a sub-cat of Ambassadors of the United Ststes) we probably could create Women consuls for the United States and maybe some Category to group all women who have served as secretary of State (3 to date), assistant secretary of state or undersecretary of state. That has 3 other sub-cats but I do not know what yo call it. The consuls have the issue of being largely non-diffusing, so I think to abide by last rung rules we should have Category:Women diplomats for the United States, and then sub-divide into Category:Women secretaries of stste/undersecretaries of State/ assistantvsecretaries if State for the United States (at least if someone can come up with a concise enough name) and Category:American women ambassadors (which should be renamed to Women ambassadors of the United Ststes or Women ambassadors for the United States, more below.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:01, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• I think we should rename all women ambassadors categories. Right now they are French women ambassadors, Greek Wan ambassadors, Brazilian women ambassadors, Ugandan women ambassadors, etc. The issue is that the names neither match the parent and are both open to unlikely confusion and likely confusion. The unlikely confusion is that "French ambassador" vmcan mean either Ambassador to France or Ambassador of France. That I think is unlikely to confuse here. However we have cases like Sidney Poitier. He was raised in the US, worked in the US, held US citizenship but when he went as ambassador to Japan it was for the Bahamas. I could see someone putting him in an "American ambassadors" cat since he was by nationality an American and by occupation an ambassador. That is not what we want here.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:07, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  For example Yuri Kim (ambassador) belongs under the American tree. She was born in South Korea. We do not want her under the South Korean Ambassadors tree at all (she was US Ambassador to Albania). So I think both to avoid confusion and to conform with its parents we should rename to Women ambassadors of the United States, Women ambassadors of France, Women ambassadors of Uganda, Women ambassadors of Brazil etc.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:14, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So far two things are fairly evident to Mr.

1. The majority of people in the diplomats tree are in sub-carmts but not yet well diffused.
2. Most people belong under Diplomats for foo, however we have enough people who were diplomats gor international and non-governmental agencies that a separate Fooian diplomats tree does work.
3. I think we do not need 2 trees for diplomats by nationality by century.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:06, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• I think we should rename all the x century fooian diplomats cats to x century diplomats for foo. So make 18th-century diplomats for the United States, 19th-century diplomats for the United States, etc. I have doubts as to whether we should have 30th and 21st century cats at all.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:08, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

User:MrSchimpf is reverting my category edits. My edits are based on guidelines. User:MrSchimpf edits are based on something else that I cannot mention here for fear of retribution from the wikicommunty. Can someone who understands categories please check my edits. 43.249.196.179 (talk) 20:48, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There are lots of people who at one time are resident Ambassador and then non-resident Ambassador elsewhere. One common case is resident Ambassador to Australia, then non-resident Ambassador to Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Palau and other small Pacific Island nations. This leads to many people being in a half dozen or more, sometimes even a dozen Ambassador categories. Since people have very heavily diffused to every possible Fooian Ambassador to Boo pairing this also leads to this sometimes being a half dozen or more 1 article categories. Upmerging say Ambassadors of Croatia to Australia; Ambassadors of Croatia to Tuvalu etc. Would leave us w8th less 1 article categories bit still have excessive overcatrgorization. I have a solution. These I think are reasonable rules. 1-any resident Ambassador position we have reliable sources showing it was help we will accept categorizing by as Ambassadors to Australia; Ambassadors to Brazil etc. As the case applies (remember smbassadors are not default notable, to have articles thry need to pass GNG, but that is a separate issue). In general we should only create sub-categories if A-there are at least 100 articles that would fall under Ambassadors to Australia, Ambassadors to France, Ambassadors to Nigeria etc. B-The sub-category being created has at least 5 existing articles that can be put in it. In the case of non-resident Ambassadors the people belong in Ambassadors of Foo (Ambassadors if Croatia, Ambassadors of El Salvador, Ambassadors of Samoa, etc.) Regardless, although that can be in another sub-cat. Some non-resident Ambassadors (although not many) reside in their home country. To categorize someone under the Ambassadors to Boo tree for non-resident Ambassadors (Ambassadors to Vanuatu, Ambassadors to Andorea, Ambassadors to Luxembourg, etc.) We must have at least 1 reliable source that says something substantial about the actions of this person while a non-resident Ambassador to that country that relates to government relations with that country. Do people think this is a reasonable idea?John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:06, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes agree. LibStar (talk) 16:31, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It says they they are a subset of Category:Stairs, specifically outdoor stairs only ("outdoor staircases, and structures for external pedestrian infrastructure, including as park and garden features." (The meaning of staircase is a whole nother matter, but my research indicates that it's mostly a synonym for stairway.)

I just... I just don't think that this distinction is understood much anymore. People use them interchangeably a lot. Sloppy maybe, but we go with common usage.

Looking at dictionaries, Merriam-Webster says the definition is "one or more flights of stairs, usually with landings to pass from one level to another". Nothing about inside/outside there. In the recent web examples, three are inside and one outside. The further examples are 19-10 in favor of inside.

dictionary.com has stairway as a synonym for staircase, the example has "...from one level to another, as of a building, to another..." so that is outside, but it is qualified with "as of".

Wiktionary.com has stairway as "A set of steps, with or without a case, that allow one to walk up or down.". Nothing about inside/outside there. (By "case" they mean "staircase"; I found that in a couple other places, that a staircase is a structure enclosing a stairway, but nobody talks like that.)

In our Wikipedia. Stairway just redirects to Staircase, so...

I've never heard of them differentiated -- people do use both terms, but usually use "stairs". And I've been around the track a few times. It looks like "stairway=staircase=stairs", all synonyms (as is "steps" also), de facto, and even in the dictionaries.

So, readers are not going to be helped but rather hindered by the situation. So, what I suggest is just merging Category:Stairways into Category:Stairs.

Right? It's a big job, so I want to make sure that I'm not missing something. Herostratus (talk) 00:56, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Would anyone like to weigh in at this discussion? It could use some more eyes. --woodensuperman 13:14, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This questions involves (it seems) some important Wikipedia policies on categorization, so I would love to hear from some Wikipedians who have a good understanding of the policies and how they are best applied to specific cases.

→ RfC about including this article in Category: Anti-black racism in Florida - Should the article, Killing of Trayvon Martin, be included in the category, Anti-black racism in Florida? Thanks! -- Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 15:26, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]