User talk:Immortal Horrors or Everlasting Splendors

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Hello.

I would urge you to read Wikipedia:Categorization, especially the part about set categories as opposed to topic categories. Set categories are "designed" in such a way that "if an article is something that fits the name of a category, then it belongs in it". If you're a gold medalist in basketball, then you belong in the gold medalist category. If you're not, you don't. It's really as simple as that.

As people cannot be scandals – only events can – people obviously don't belong in scandal categories. So, when you found that Category:State and local political sex scandals in the United States contained more people than those that I found and corrected, you drew the wrong conclusion. The correct conclusion is that all other people articles there are also miscategorized.

These are the few articles that are correctly placed in the category:

• Kilpatrick and Beatty text-messaging scandal
• Kilpatrick-Beatty criminal trial
• Mark Sanford disappearance and extramarital affair
• Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal

Of each and every one of these, you can say that "yes, it is a state and local political sex scandal in the United States". You obviously can't say that about people.

See also the notice at the top of this category: Category:Political scandals in the United States.

If you're still in doubt, please tell me what type of political scandal Todd Courser is – state or local? Or both?

I guess the reason why people articles sometimes slip into the wrong type of categories is that you don't edit the categories to place articles there. Thus it doesn't help to have the categories on your watchlist. The only thing that helps is to revisit the categories every now and then – and that's a Sisyfos task.

I trust you will self-revert after having given it some thought.

Cheers.

HandsomeFella (talk) 23:32, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

I see your point, but I disagree with your ultimate conclusion. The articles you have listed as correctly categorized only fit your narrowly construed view because the scandal itself was large enough and notable enough to warrant its own article. Whereas with the articles in question, a large part of their notability IS the scandal itself. There is a large portion of both of these articles dedicated to coverage of their respective scandals (about half the length of the Todd Courser article). And while I admit that an ideal world would place only the scandal related sections of their articles in the category, that is not how categories work on Wikipedia. We cannot simply preclude these very obviously scandal-centric articles from being categorized as such because you disagree that a person can be a scandal. Even a cursory google search reveals that the VAST majority of RS out there is coverage of their scandal (and while quantitative analysis is definitely SYNTH and wouldn't be used in the article itself, it can be a good sanity check and baseline for what the majority of coverage is focusing on), so to not categorize them as such is disingenuous at best.

Your assertion that the disclaimer at the top of the category page should merit their removal is false at face value. That notice indicates that discussion of removal of people from this category should be occuring on the talk page, which never occurred. You simply removed them without consensus or discussion at all.

Finally, there's no need to categorize it as either state OR local, as the category covers both.

So I am sorry, but I will not be self-reverting. If you want these categories removed, take that discussion to the talk page as the notice you so adeptly cited states you should have from the start.

Thanks! Immortal Horrors or Everlasting Splendors 11:34, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Hello again.

I have (again) read various guidelines, and I still can't find anything to support your views. On the contrary, Wikipedia:Categorization of people#General considerations, bullet point "Keep people categories separate", states the following: "categories with a title indicating that the contents are people should normally only contain biographical articles and lists of people". –"And vice versa", would be an appropriate addition (which I have suggested on the talkpage). I take this as implicit support for my views: that non-people categories are NOT intended for people. And scandals categories are definitely non-people categories.

Also, the "General considerations" section in WP:CAT implicitly supports my views when it points out the difference between the categories "Opera" (a topic category) and "Operas" (a set category): "... while Operas is a set category (containing articles about specific operas)". Similarly, "State and local political sex scandals in the United States" should contain articles about specific scandals.

So, until you can show me a guideline that supports your views, I am tempted to classify your claims as SYNTH. Citation needed, I guess you could say.

Regarding your response to my question about Todd Courser, I guess I veiled the irony too well. The question was "what type of political scandal IS (my emphasis) Todd Courser?". The obvious answer is that he's no type of scandal at all, as scandals rarely walk around on two legs.

Please take part in the discussion I linked to above.

HandsomeFella (talk) 12:33, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Hello.

Since there was support for my view in the discussion, and also in a guideline I wasn't aware of previously, I have removed those categories again. However, I have created a redirect for your benefit, Todd Courser extramarital affairTodd Courser extramarital affair, with some of those categories, but not all. Compared to for instance the VW emission scandal, I think this is too small and local to make it into the "2015 scandals" category.

I plan to go ahead with other people articles in the scandals categories soon. If you'd like to help out in creating and categorizing similar redirects where appropriate, it would be much appreciated.

HandsomeFella (talk) 08:15, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Hey, I'm just dropping you a note because you previously participated in this RfC on the Campus Sexual assault Talk page. The dispute was never really resolved, in part because of a lack of participation. I've posted a new RfC that deals with the issue, and, if you have time comments would be appreciated! Nblund (talk) 18:50, 12 January 2016 (UTC)