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Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2026 August 5

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August 5

Category:Novels set during the Conquest of the Americas

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: rename (non-admin closure). GoldRomean (talk) 17:23, 13 August 2026 (UTC)
Nominator's rationale: rename, describes more accurately what is in this category. Also per Category:Spanish conquests in the Americas. Marcocapelle (talk) 22:11, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Support for the United States annexation of Canada

Nominator's rationale: I only recently created this category, however I think "advocacy" is a better and more formal phrasing than "support". JJARichardson (talk) 21:46, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Rename to avoid this becoming a mere opinion category. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:03, 6 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Rename and remove biographies. I do not think they belong here.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:03, 6 August 2026 (UTC)
    Creating a subcategory is an option. JJARichardson (talk) 15:48, 6 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Rename to Category:Proposed United States annexation of Canada. I don't think we have enough coverage of the opposition, but the category should include all sides per WP:NPOV policy, with possible subcategories for each side. For comparison, Category:Abortion debate includes advocacy both for and against abortion. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 22:40, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Canadian municipal elections by year

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: rename. A fresh nomination to merge can be created, if desired. (non-admin closure) GoldRomean (talk) 17:38, 13 August 2026 (UTC)
Nominator's rationale: Switching from "Canadian" to "in Canada" will more accurately reflect that these elections are independently organized events by individual provincial electoral agencies, which are occurring in the same year by coincidence. "2026 Canadian elections" may give off the impression that they are organized at a national scale when they are not. RedBlueGreen93 21:15, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Works republished in the Library of America

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: delete (non-admin closure). GoldRomean (talk) 17:38, 13 August 2026 (UTC)
Nominator's rationale: I am seeking community input on whether this is a relevant and appropriate category concept. The category groups works based on their later republication by the Library of America. I would like to ascertain whether inclusion in the Library of America is a sufficiently meaningful characteristic of a work to justify a category, and whether the Library of America has a particular cultural significance that distinguishes it from other publishing series. I have not found analogous categories for comparable series such as Penguin Classics, Oxford World's Classics, Everyman's Library, or Modern Library. I would also like to discuss whether categorizing works by republication in a single publisher's series risks giving undue prominence to that publisher or could be perceived as promotional rather than serving a clear encyclopedic purpose. Does the Library of America's status as a nonprofit cultural organization have relevance to this categorization question? I appreciate the fact that I created the category myself, expanding upon the work of User:Hullaballoo Wolfowitz, who created the Category:Novels republished in the Library of America subcategory. However, I'm unsure as to whether this is a relevant category, for which I would like some clarification. TheDrearyDruid (talk) 20:53, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Delete including subcategories, not a defining characteristic. @TheDrearyDruid: please tag and list the subcategories too. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:09, 6 August 2026 (UTC)
  • delete republisher of a work is not defining.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:22, 6 August 2026 (UTC)
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Majority-minority cities and towns

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: delete (non-admin closure). GoldRomean (talk) 17:35, 13 August 2026 (UTC)
Nominator's rationale: Recently created 1-article category. Overcat, narrow. Gjs238 (talk) 18:35, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
Delete Mixes all countries and all ethnic groups that are a minority in a given country. Best served by List of majority-Black counties in the United States and similar lists. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 18:45, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Delete, not a defining characteristic. Without LaundryPizza03's explanation I would not even have known what this is about, as the term does not occur in the articles. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:14, 6 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Delete To start with, caegories once earned always apply. Secondly, even with its very small content it is being incorrectly applied. Dearborn, Michigan per the 2020 census is 85% non-Hispanic white. How is that a "minority majority" city? We are defining it this way by ignoring the US census actual figures. Now I know some will say "well, the majority of the population is Arbs, so they are different than the US majority of "white"". But the census counts Arabas as white. This is already even with this few entries becoming a beacon for what amounts to original research. Are we going to put in cities that in 1920 had majority Slavic and Italian populations, when the majority of the US population was Non-Hispanic whites of Northern European descent? Do not even get me started on all the complexity to include this beyond the US. Do cities that are 45% non-Hispanic white but not any other group count? Also this is not a good thing to build categories on because places change over time. Eastpointe Michigan is 52% African-American, it was given that name in the 1990s by an overwhelmingly white electorate that for some wanted to distance themselves from the blackness of Detroit. The motivations were complex, and that was not the only factor. The city was 4.7% black in 2000, and lower in 1990. Ethnic compositions of cities change over time, sometimes quickly and drastically as in the case of Eastpointe. In just 20years it went from being 92.1% non-Hispanic white (or maybe that number counts Hispanic whites) to 39.4%. I suspect the number of people who reported black as at least one of their races went up even more. The city went from 1.6% of the population reporting more than one race to 5.5%. The place first became a city in 1929. So for 70 plus years it was well over 90% white in population, and even in 2020 it was only 30% black. Do we really want to categorize cities by their current ethic composition? To make things even more fun before 1970 Hispanics are largely counted as part of the white population in the US, so comparisons over time at times miss things. If the plan to count Middle Easterners separate form whites is implemented in the 2030 census this will make things even more complex in comparisons over time. I do not think any of this is a good way to categorize cities.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:21, 6 August 2026 (UTC)
    • There might be a use of a list, in which we could give more information, source the claim, and state what years the category applied. Even just in the US there is a difference between Hispanic majority, African-American majority, Native American majority, Asian majority, and Pacific Islander majority places, versus places where no one group is in the majority. In theory there may also be places where a majority of the population reported being of more than one race. Also in theory there could be a place where the majority of the population reports some other race. A list, maybe, if it was well sourced, could work. I do not think a category will. Even Detroit Michigan that at one point was in 2010 was by far the most African-American city with a majority African-American population, was an overwhelmingly white city from 1796-1920 and still very white for some time after that. Pre-1796 the percentage of Native Americans is hard to parse. Detroit was an overwhemingly white city for over 120 years, and has only been majority black for just over 50 years. I do not think on principal this is a good way to categorize cities, even in the US.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:29, 6 August 2026 (UTC)
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Ambassadors of Ivory Coast

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: merge (non-admin closure). GoldRomean (talk) 17:32, 13 August 2026 (UTC)
Nominator's rationale: WP:NARROWCAT: All subcategories except US and UN have fewer than 4 entries. I haven't checked which positions are resident in a specified country, and sometimes this is unclear. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 18:09, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Arabic clothing

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: rename (non-admin closure). GoldRomean (talk) 17:30, 13 August 2026 (UTC)
Nominator's rationale: I think this should be renamed to "Arab clothing", since "Arabic" only refers to the language. Use of it to refer to the people or anything other than the language is incorrect. Other categories follow this, like Category:Arab culture HerrHeulsuse (talk) 13:00, 19 July 2026 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, GoldRomean (talk) 17:07, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:University of the Philippines College

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: delete (non-admin closure). GoldRomean (talk) 17:29, 13 August 2026 (UTC)
Nominator's rationale: TBH, I do not know what the scope of this article should be. The articles categorized here may be better placed in other categories. Howard the Duck (talk) 13:41, 15 July 2026 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, GoldRomean (talk) 17:05, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Deaths in the Titan submersible implosion

Nominator's rationale: Per WP:OCNARROW. Information is already easily accessible at Titan_submersible_implosion#Fatalities. User:Namiba 16:39, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
Keep That four victims of the same incident have their own articles is remarkable. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 17:01, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
Creator comment - Keep, as per logic of @LaundryPizza03 and the fact that this is a fair categorisation for the notable victims of an internationally notable event. OGBC1992 (talk) 08:15, 6 August 2026 (UTC)
Per WP:OCNARROW, "Categories which intersect two (or more) topics or characteristics can result in very narrow categories with few members. Such categories should only be created when both parent categories are large enough for diffusion to be an option, and when similar intersections can be made for related categories."--User:Namiba 17:46, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
I believe this category meets the criteria that "People who died at sea" is large enough for diffusion to be an option and that similar intersections can be made for related categories - indeed, there are several other subcategories, which tend to refer to notable shipwrecks/incidents, which the Titan implosion inarguably was. OGBC1992 (talk) 13:29, 11 August 2026 (UTC)
Most of those have a dozen entries though and there are very few of them: Deaths on the RMS Empress of Ireland, Deaths on the RMS Lusitania, Deaths on the RMS Titanic, and Deaths on the White Ship. --Super Goku V (talk) 04:52, 12 August 2026 (UTC)
Even so, the parent category is not sufficiently small that to diffuse is unusual, and I think given the notability of the event - and pretty much the entire crew - it is justified as a standalone category. OGBC1992 (talk) 18:45, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Category:Fictional criminals by crime

Nominator's rationale: These acts may or may not be illegal in works of fiction. This is incorrectly prejudging that all of these are crimes in whatever fictional universe the work takes place in. It's likely that many of these would be considered crimes, but certainly not guaranteed or a catch-all.

(I'm wondering if the real-world category suffers from the same problem. Being charged with a crime is different than something "objectively" making you a criminal. But this one is definitely worse.) ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 16:48, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

  • Keep the only two of these that are maybe at all edge cases are fictional arms dealers, since selling weapons is not per se illegal, and fictional spies. Some of the characters here are like Maxwell Smart from Get Smart, they are counter intelligence agents who as such are actually not breaking any laws. Everything else from pirates to white-collar criminals are by definition criminal activities.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:43, 10 July 2026 (UTC)
    Here are some examples. Luffy from One Piece is a pirate, but while he is technically a criminal from the World Government (One Piece)'s standpoint, he is not defined as being a "criminal" but a hero fighting a corrupt regime. He's still obviously a fictional pirate, that is defining, but does he belong in "fictional criminals"? Ehh... but if you remove "fictional pirates" from "fictional criminals by crime", there may as well not be a category at all because we have to omit basic categories.
    Another example is Doctor Eggman being placed under "fictional kidnappers" and therefore "fictional criminals". Eggman is a supervillain, but in Sonic Colors he basically got forgiven of all his crimes and allowed to build a massive amusement park, Doctor Eggman's Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park. (For nefarious reasons, but still). Eggman is undoubtedly a villain, but it's tough to call him a criminal because he operates so far outside the bounds of actual societal laws at all that he may as well be an alien. He's such a genius that he can easily build his own space station or country-sized airship. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 17:57, 10 July 2026 (UTC)
    As an addendum, we don't really know what the laws are in the Sonic world anyway. The government organization G.U.N. is allowed to rampage over cities with no consequence. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 18:01, 10 July 2026 (UTC)
        • I still think it is reasonable to base categories on our world. In our world piracy is a crime. Kidnapping is a crime. I think it is reasonable for us to classify these as crimes and those who do them as criminals.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:06, 10 July 2026 (UTC)
  • At minimum the category should be merged somewhere rather than deleted, in order to keep the content in the fictional characters tree. But I am not sure to which target(s) it should be merged, so that leads to a weak keep. Marcocapelle (talk) 20:36, 10 July 2026 (UTC)
    I genuinely think there is nowhere that it can be merged while remaining objective.
    Individual characters should still be added to Category:Fictional criminals by medium or some other subcategory if they are in fact defined as being a criminal. It is the sorting "by crime" part that should go, as this particular container category is illogical and was created by a blocked user when it does not equate to the real-life version of the category at all. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 21:23, 10 July 2026 (UTC)
  • Keep Reasonable diffusion of Category:Fictional criminals by crime. Anything in this category is often portrayed in a manner characteristic of criminals. We have no way of knowing if criminal acts are actually crimes in a fictional world, so one could argue that this is based on vibes rather than in-universe information. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 21:01, 10 July 2026 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗plicit 14:26, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

TwinBee

LaserMoai did a copy-paste move of Category:TwinBee to Category:TwinBee (series) and Category:TwinBee games to Category:TwinBee (series) video games, then updated every page contained in these categories to be in the new categories instead. The original categories are now empty, and have been marked for speedy deletion.

If these new category names are to be used, the copy-paste moves need to be reverted so that proper pagemoves can take place instead in order to preserve the page history. However, I don't think it makes sense to insert dabtags into category names like that when there is no other "TwinBee" category. --SnorlaxMonster 13:52, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

  • Merge back and rename according to proper procedure. The new name seems to be correct though, per TwinBee (series). Marcocapelle (talk) 05:21, 6 August 2026 (UTC)
  • For what it's worth, I merged the page histories a few days ago, unaware that these categories were being discussed here until just now. The original categories were emptied out of process, tagged as empty without any regard to the out-of-process emptying, and not properly tagged for discussion here at CFD. The amount of incompetence all around is astounding. ✗plicit 14:44, 11 August 2026 (UTC)
    Personally, SnorlaxMonster barely edits here, so I would say that they should get some leniency here on this. --Super Goku V (talk) 04:13, 12 August 2026 (UTC)
    Thanks for handling the history cleanup. I had some difficultly figuring out what the proper process was for raising this issue, and the best I could find was that I needed to start a thread here, but it seems like I missed that there were tags that needed to be added to the pages when starting a "categories for discussion" thread.
    It looks to me like the history is now all in the correct place, so Category:TwinBee and Category:TwinBee games can be deleted (as they just have the delete nominations in their history now). SnorlaxMonster 12:39, 12 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Comment: I have added {{Category for merging}} to the two categories, but will note that there is less than 12 hours until a full week has passed on this nomination. --Super Goku V (talk) 07:04, 12 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Merge back and rename per TwinBee (series) and Marcocapelle. Aemulandus (talk) 07:13, 12 August 2026 (UTC)
  • More than a full week has passed since this nomination was opened, can it be closed now? Thank you. Liz Read! Talk! 17:24, 20 August 2026 (UTC)
  • @Liz: feel free to close the discussion. The amount of articles is such that you can even close it manually. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:00, 21 August 2026 (UTC)
  • I tried to close this discussion, filled out the closure statement and got a big error message. Thanks for giving me the green light to go ahead but XFD rejected my assessment. Anyone else want to take a stab at this? Liz Read! Talk! 01:45, 24 August 2026 (UTC)

Ballets by topic

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: merge (non-admin closure). GoldRomean (talk) 17:24, 13 August 2026 (UTC)
Nominator's rationale: merge for now, these are one-article categories, this is not helpful for navigation. A second merge target is not needed, the articles are already in a Ballets set in century category. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:25, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Merge these are too narrow of categories to be useful to navigation.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:33, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Television series debuts and endings by year

More information hundreds of other similar proposals for other years and countries ...
Close
Nominator's rationale: A very long WP:OCYEAR nomination including all the television-series-by-year categories. 14 countries have debuts-by-year categories, but no endings-by-year categories. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 05:53, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
Oppose, no real reason is given for this nom. I checked one group, Category:2011 Belgian television series debuts, Category:2012 Belgian television series debuts, Category:2013 Belgian television series debuts, and Category:2014 Belgian television series debuts, with 5, 6, 3 and 4 entries already respectively. Merging these all together is not helpful. Chances are small that I just happen to pick the ones that need keeping, so oppose all of them (with no objection to a renom of really sparsely populated decades per country of course). Fram (talk) 08:12, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
Most are small or isolated. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 08:26, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
@Fram: Most of them are smaller than the ones you picked. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 08:39, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
Perhaps, but the one I picked to check this, Category:1999 Norwegian television series debuts, also had 5 entries. Fram (talk) 08:48, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
Oppose. Can't think of any good reason; just keep them. Khairul hazim (talk) 08:28, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
Oppose per above. sjh (talk) 08:30, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Merge Textbook case of WP:OCYEAR creating numerous narrow categories. Intersection of year, country, and media is unnecessary. Great effort was made to track down the offending categories, and the opposes besides Fram are just WP:VOTEs with no substance. While Fram may have a point, the fact is that we have to throw the baby out with the bathwater and then start over with the very few categories that may actually merit intersections, not something like this. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 08:42, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
    "we have to throw the baby out with the bathwater "??? Since when is that the way we work here? Fram (talk) 09:14, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
    Apologies, that was overly brash, and I certainly didn't mean that valuable content ought to be deleted. I just figured that moving them into categories by decade rather than year by year was a relatively minor thing that is unlikely to hinder navigation too much. So the "bathwater" is just going into a bigger bathtub so to speak, not thrown out entirely. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 11:28, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Oppose. It's easier to add a single intersection category than three (parent) categories. This pattern of upmerging makes it certain, in practice, that categorisation will become increasingly incomplete in future. – Fayenatic London 09:11, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Note, the om claims " A very long WP:OCYEAR nomination including all the television-series-by-year categories. " but this is not a nom for all these categories, just a selection. It's not even all for these countries. Fram (talk) 09:18, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Close nomination in current form, but support merging those with fewer than five entries in a new proposal - I note, just going through a couple of countries, that some of these have five or more articles, which is surely enough for a stand alone category (for example, Category:1976 New Zealand television series debuts, Category:1977 New Zealand television series debuts. We often use five articles as a cut-off point, and given that all of these categories will plausibly grow deleting anything already at that level seems unnecessary - especially given that the original nomination is flawed - this is not "all the television-series-by-year categories" - there are a lot of other such categories not nominated, such as all the New Zealand debut categories since 1989, irrespective of the size of those categories. Using an incorrect comment such as this in the nomination could easily sway !votes. These are not even all the countries with such categories (no Australian ones are listed, for instance, nor British nor American). Also, no reason is given for the proposed deletions. "A very long WP:OCYEAR nomination" is not a criterion for deletion when there is a well-established by year tree, which there is in this case. This is not "creating a category tree of individual by year categories" (as listed in OCYEAR) but is adding categories to an existing tree. This needs closing and reproposing with proper reasons for deletion, a valid statement of what is being proposed, and a winnowing to remove nomination of viable categories. Grutness...wha? 12:57, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
    Correct, I focused on the small ones. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 15:12, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Oppose Too many categories (not a good sign when loading this nom's text box is making even an iPad crawl), and I have no idea why the 'establishment/disestablishment' categories (which mainly apply to non-television companies and networks, not programming, which get rolled into here without a proper reason) are included within this nomination; sharing Fram's sentiments here that we have properly filed categories and usually if a year category is blank, it's simply not created. Nathannah • 📮 15:11, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Agree with Grutness. It is probably also wise to start with a smaller set of categories. Marcocapelle (talk) 16:43, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
    I agree it is probably best to start smaller, but only because of the nature of CfD. The proposal here is no different from other CfDs like Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2026_May_13#Literary consistency, right?. The argument is the same: merge narrow cats and also merge the relatively narrow (4,5,6,7... members). Because the consensus here has been to upmerge such cats to maintain consistency with adjacent periods (years, decades). Meaning, for example, if only two year categories within a decade contain ~5 articles and the rest contain 1,2,3, they don't improve navigation because the 1,2,3 cateogies are too narrow and will be upmerged, have already been upmerged, or don't even exist in the first place.
    I've always wondered when someone would finally tackle the insane degree of narrow categorization that has existed for a long time in the TV tree. The job is not easy. As I said in Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2026_June_4#Emirati films by year, these narrow date categories all suffer the same problem, so there really isn't a reason against grouping them. And they are constantly being created, which is obviously due to the ease with which navigational template header templates enables users to do so.
    So what is the exact appropriate course LaundryPizza03 should take? Nominate all the 1-member categories first? Then nominate all the 2-member categories? Then all the 3-member categories? Then all the others for consistency with those upmerged cats? Οἶδα (talk) 17:37, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
    as I said in my comment, the usual rule of thumb is that five articles is enough. Nominating those with fewer than that is probably the best move, and in smaller batches of countries. Grutness...wha? 06:40, 6 August 2026 (UTC)
    And even then it makes no sense, when you have e.g. 6-7-3-7-2-8-4-9-5-6 articles per year decade, to upmerge the 2-3-4 article categories. Just leave such a series of categories alone. These smaller cats don't hinder navigation in any conceivable way, and are part of both the "this country, divided by year" but also the "this year, divided by country" trees, where just dumping all smaller countries together in one heap makes navigation harder, not easier. Please only nominate ones where they really cause problems, instead of out of some ideological strictness which serves no actual purpose for our readers. Fram (talk) 09:07, 6 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Comment I participate more in the cleanup after CFD closures than in the CFD discussions since I work a lot with Empty Categories but I can't help but notice that this seems to be "The Summer of Merging Annual Categories to Decade Categories" on quite a lot of mass nominations that have been made this year. I'd even call it a Trend over the past three months.
I think this nomination caught attention because it is so enormous and because almost every country has TV series debut/ending categories. I'm undecided on whether or not they are "helpful" but I do appreciate editors raising questions about whether all of this upmerging is actually necessary. I don't know if there any statistics on this but we have deleted hundreds if not thousands of these categories over the summer. Whether their absence makes searching for articles easier or more difficult for readers is an unknown answer, I think. Liz Read! Talk! 20:32, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
Many of these upmergings (from year/country combos) serve no purpose at all. A lot could have been prevented by first trying to ppulate the cats anyway, and many of the others are only done out of some misplaced rule-application with no actual benefit. Let's look at the above nom, something like Category:2011 Afghan television series debuts may have only one article now, but is part of the 73 countries in Category:2011 television series debuts. Removing all cats with 5 or less articles (the numbers people support vary, I see above suggestions to merge 7 or more as well) would result in 34 countries disappearing as subcats from that category, and instead getting a list of 77 additional "loose" articles added. Why this would be better for any category, article or reader is never adequately explained. Fram (talk) 09:14, 6 August 2026 (UTC)
This viewpoint you're positing fundamentally rejects WP:NARROWCAT and supposes diffusion ought to happen for the sake of having a category fully diffused by one intesection. In this case, divided by every country of every article therein. Why should every article belonging in a category such as Category:2011 television series debuts be diffused by country? The categorization begins at Afghan television series and 2011 television series debuts. That is the nature of categorization. That is where readers should be starting. Diffusion from both those points should occur based on the amount of articles available to diffuse. Readers should not be clicking from Category:2011 American television series debuts to the parent Category:2011 television series debuts and expecting a diffusion by every country of every article.
And if bringing them to CfD spurs editors to attempt to populate them, that's a good thing. But until they're populated "enough", we can only judge a category by what it contains. The sheer scale of articles missing from categories they technically belong in.... should go without saying for anyone involved in categorizing articles. Οἶδα (talk) 20:47, 6 August 2026 (UTC)
In this instance, Wikipedia:OCYEAR seems a more appropriate measure than Wikipedia:NARROWCAT, and that relates more closely to creating a tree than dealing with one that already exists. It's worth noting also that there is some undercategorisation of articles by year of debut or ending, which, with some work, might bring several of these categories up to a sustainable level. I agree that a tree composed entirely of one- or two-article categories makes no sense, but in the cases where there is the beginnings of a well-populated tree, common sense should prevail. Grutness...wha? 04:59, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

In this instance, Wikipedia:OCYEAR seems a more appropriate measure than Wikipedia:NARROWCAT, and that relates more closely to creating a tree than dealing with one that already exists.

You're gonna have to be less vague here. How are 1, 2, 3-member categories "common sense"? Sounds more like categorizing for the sake of categorizing, instead of categorizing based on the amount of existing articles and to improve navigation of said existing articles. OCYEAR does not support diffusing for the sake of having a category fully diffused by one intesection just because years, decades, centuries are part of that intersecton. Οἶδα (talk) 17:41, 7 August 2026 (UTC)
"How are 1, 2, 3-member categories "common sense"?" They aren't, as I said - it looks like you misread my comment. What's common sense is leaving a by-year division in place across a decade if the categories mostly have more than that ("the beginnings of a well-populated tree"). Grutness...wha? 04:12, 8 August 2026 (UTC)
The mistake of NARROWCAT is that it requires both parents to be very large, when following it to the letter (well, the rather vague letter, it doesn't indicate what is too small or not) creates (like I showed) a large, unhelpful dump of articles in one parent cat. When both parents are small cats, then narrowcat is a god rule of thumb. But when one of the parents is very large (here, but even more so with e.g. the "films by director y country" or many of the other arts by country cats), then following narrowcat like that is detrimental. There's a reason it's a guideline and not a policy, and even as a guidelie it could do with some changes (just like EGRS rather urgently needs the "G" removed, as that leads to incorrect CfD noms over and over again). Fram (talk) 08:36, 7 August 2026 (UTC)
I favor adding a numerical threshold to WP:NARROWCAT to make it less vague. Of course, what is too large is also not defined. RevelationDirect (talk) 12:47, 7 August 2026 (UTC)
Nothing in your reply answers "Why this would be better for any category, article or reader is never adequately explained. ". That it is good that a Cfd leads to categories getting populated is rather backwards and again points to the need of a Wp:BEFORE for CfD noms, where nomming categories for being underpopulated when they can be populated from existing articles should be considered a negative thing (CfD is not cleanup, first reflex should be "can it be populated", not, "I'll nom it so either someone else does this or it gets deleted").
"Readers should not be clicking from to the parent and expecting a diffusion by every country of every article." Why not? Why is that such a terrible prospect that even when it is already done we should undo it? Again, what is the benefot for a reader to remove this (and no, NARROWCAT is not the answer)? Why should a reader expect that 40 or so countries can be divided like this, but the other 30 can't because they have a smaller number of entries and so will be dumped together? Why is "which series debuted in the Netherlands in 2011" a question we want to answer through categorization bevcause we have 6 such articles, but "which series debuted in Belgium in 2011" a question we want to make harder because we only have 5 such articles at the moment? What an utterly arbitrary burocracy for the sake of burocracy. Fram (talk) 13:29, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

That it is good that a Cfd leads to categories getting populated is rather backwards

It's "a good thing" because of the result. And I said that because you seem to have an deepseated issue with every nom you deem as having failed to do that, assuming bad faith seemingly every time and projecting a series of grievances onto editors. We already went over this at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2026_June_4#Emirati films by year. As I stated there, I don't disagree that users should be checking to see if narrow categories can be expanded, and doing just that before nominating them at CfD. I personally adhere to the spirit of WP:BEFORE in my own practice of handling categories. But I'm not going to assume they haven't. But just as users should "actually try to populate them", those who create the categories should equally attempt to populate them. I would think you would agree with that. Because the amount of rapid category creations I see by users who pay no mind to actually filling them is enormous. And they are often just diffusing every member of a parent cat for the sake of completely doing so. But I don't assume anything malicious on either side of that spectrum. And in my experience, categories created by users who fail to adequately populate them themselves typically remain underpopulated, be it days months or years after creation.

Why not? Why is that such a terrible prospect that even when it is already done we should undo it?

Whether someone created the categories already or not is irrelevant.

Again, what is the benefot for a reader to remove this (and no, NARROWCAT is not the answer)? Why should a reader expect that 40 or so countries can be divided like this, but the other 30 can't because they have a smaller number of entries and so will be dumped together?

Because, again, that supposes diffusion ought to happen for the sake of having a category fully diffused by one intesection. Rather than by the amount of articles that actually exist for us to group on Wikipedia. The entire purpose of categorization is to group articles that share characteristics in order to make navigation between said articles easier. It is not helpful for navigation to have categories that contain 1, 2, 3 articles. They're too narrow for navigation to even happen, i.e. too little for readers to navigate among. When there aren't "enough" articles that actually exist that share that same specific characteristic, to categorize by that is to do so for the sake of categorization. Meaning that making or retaining the category is more of a maintenance or organizational construct than a useful index of related content. Readers are better served by placing those articles in a well-populated category where they can actually discover a meaningful grouping of related topics. 2005 Afghan television series debuts is very much not that, and will never be. Recognizing at CfD that only a small number of articles exist for readers to navigate within a given intersection is not bureaucracy.
And you seem to be hung up on the fact that this categorization has more subcategories than most, as if that should dictate that every article is deserving to be diffused to such a subcategory. By that logic, even Wikipedia articles such as List of Kyrgyzstani films should thus be broken down into year articles due to the simple fact that other country lists have enough to list by year. List of American films of 2012, List of British films of 2012, List of French films of 2012, List of Italian films of 2012 are all found at Lists of 2012 films by country. But to find a list of Kyrgyzstani films of 2012 you have to go up not to Lists of 2012 films by country, not even to Lists of 2010s films, but all the way up to Lists of films by country of production and view the general List of Kyrgyzstani films article. How inconvenient. I guess that means List of Kyrgyzstani films of 2012 is in store despite only 1 article existing on Wikipedia. But it isn't. And neither would the corresponding category.
If the whole issue is uneven diffusion by country then you'd be better off making cats like 2011 Dutch television series debuts, 2011 American television series debuts etc non-diffusing subcats of 2011 television series debuts to ensure all series are at least somewhere for the sake of convenience. As is the case for 2011 American films and 2011 films. Not by being shirking WP:NARROWCAT and adopting excessive narrow categorization throughout the system. Also, "by country" is technically only one type of diffusion here. Others are technically possible. It is not any kind of objective, singular next step in the hierarchy. Οἶδα (talk) 19:27, 7 August 2026 (UTC)
"If the whole issue is uneven diffusion by country then you'd be better off making cats like Category:2011 Dutch television series debuts, Category:2011 American television series debuts etc non-diffusing subcats of Category:2011 television series debuts..." They should all be that already. Certainly the two you mention are. Grutness...wha? 03:51, 9 August 2026 (UTC)
Uhhh.... that is not true. Non-diffusing means the articles it contains also appear in the parent cat, or in diffusing subcategories of the parent. That means an article like The Godfather appears in 1972 American films, 1972 English-language films and 1972 Italian-language films, while also still being in 1972 films. Whereas The Sopranos is only in 1999 American television series debuts, not in 1999 television series debuts. That has been the case since they were diffused back in 2010. Οἶδα (talk) 22:14, 22 August 2026 (UTC)

Oppose per Fayenatic London and others. Some of the categories proposed to be merged do fall foul of WP:NARROWCAT but many do not and should not have been included. If it is a priority then the CfD should be closed keep and proposed again with only the categories with one member included. Taghdtaighde (talk) 23:45, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

Category:Third Punic War films

Nominator's rationale: merge for now, only one article in the category, this is not helpful for navigation. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:22, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
Merge per nom. LincolnMagnus (talk) 19:19, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

Category:Third Servile War films

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: merge (non-admin closure). GoldRomean (talk) 17:24, 13 August 2026 (UTC)
Nominator's rationale: merge, per actual content, the two films in the category are about Spartacus. This is follow-up on this earlier discussion which is still open. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:13, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Merge This is a case where category names should not surprise.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:19, 7 August 2026 (UTC)
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Independence Day (Israel) torchbearers

Relisted, see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2026 August 13#Category:Independence Day (Israel) torchbearers

Category:Films shot in Mayotte

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: merge (non-admin closure). GoldRomean (talk) 17:23, 13 August 2026 (UTC)
Nominator's rationale: I created most of the 100 subcategories at Films shot in France by department back in 2022-2024 when I was less familiar with the standards around category size on Wikipedia. I began replicating the categories at fr:Catégorie:Film tourné en France par département after discovering they all had enough corresponding articles on English Wikipedia. I believe what happened was I misread the then-existing, now-deprecated WP:SMALLCAT, which stated that categories that will "never have more than a few members" should be avoided, and I thought because these were guaranteed to have enough members they were worth creating. So I set up all the categories and made sure to add at least 1 member to each. Over time some categories grew as I added films here and there. But I wrongly expected that most would grow sooner or later as other users contributed. To right that wrong, over the last week I have been working hard to fill the categories and to supply the requisite information and sources into articles to verify the categorization, making sure each category now has at the very least 4-5 articles. I did the same for the categories I created at Films shot in France by city. However, after some research it is clear that this one category, Films shot in Mayotte, does not have any potential for growth at this current time. Upmerge for now. Οἶδα (talk) 04:56, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
Speedy merge per C2E. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 08:27, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Merge, this is not helpful for navigation. Marcocapelle (talk) 16:50, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Hindu Colleges of Sri Lanka

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: merge (non-admin closure). GoldRomean (talk) 17:23, 13 August 2026 (UTC)
Nominator's rationale: In this context "college" does not appear to be meaningfully different from "school". ForsythiaJo (talk) 02:09, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Deaths from FOO cancer in Vietnam

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: merge (non-admin closure). GoldRomean (talk) 17:45, 13 August 2026 (UTC)
Nominator's rationale: underpopulated categories, upmerge for now. SMasonGarrison 01:28, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
Creator comment - as the creator of Category:Deaths from brain cancer in Vietnam, I'm happy with the Merge proposal. OGBC1992 (talk) 08:13, 6 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Comment Category:Deaths from brain cancer is a category redirect. Did you mean Category:Deaths from brain tumor? Liz Read! Talk! 02:07, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Merge including Liz' alternative, this is not helpful for navigation. Marcocapelle (talk) 04:00, 5 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Merge to various forms of dearh from cancer since these categories are too narrow. Death from cancer is too common to categorize by that alone. That should be a container category. Keep in mind we do not categorize people by plave of death. We only categorize them by cause of death and then divide that by plave when the cause of death becomes too large. So for deaths from these specific cancers we do not need to diffuse by all countries.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:22, 7 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Merge Too granular to aid navigation, and would favor similar future nominations. - RevelationDirect (talk) 20:25, 8 August 2026 (UTC)
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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