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August 25

Presidents of X University

Propose renaming Category:Carnegie Mellon University Presidents to Category:Presidents of Carnegie Mellon University
Propose renaming Category:University of New Hampshire presidents to Category:Presidents of the University of New Hampshire
Propose renaming Category:University of Pittsburgh chancellors to Category:Chancellors of the University of Pittsburgh
Nominator's rationale: Keeping in line with naming conventions: Presidents of X University. See others at Category:American university and college presidents. Dylan 23:40, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
minor points: its University of Virginia, not University Virginia.
and it is James Madison University, not the James Madison University DGG (talk) 03:55, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
amended above. Thanks ×Meegs 10:31, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply Good point. I don't care which way it goes, but it ought to be made uniform, both within this category and in the greater categorization scheme. Is there a precedent on this? Dylan 04:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Secondary Road

Category:Secondary Road - Template:Lc1
Nominator's rationale: This category is a sub-category of Category:Roads in Ireland and also of Category:Roads in the Republic of Ireland, but only contains a subset of entries whch are also in both of the higher categories. CS46 20:53, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly object: Surely the solution is to remove the categorisation of the articles in the parent categories rather than delete a perfectly good sub-category? I strongly object to this proposal. (Sarah777 21:33, 25 August 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Category:2006 by day and 2007 by day

Suggest merging
Nominator's rationale: Merge, These two categories duplicate exisiting categories. Tim! 18:02, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Fictional fraternities

Category:Fictional fraternities - Template:Lc1
Nominator's rationale: Delete - the couple of stub articles on fictional fraternities formerly in the category have been merged and redirected to the films they're from and the category isn't needed for the list article. Otto4711 14:52, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Jewish atheists

Category:Jewish atheists - Template:Lc1
Nominator's rationale: Delete: The category is an OR and antisemitism magnet. Its ostensible purpose is to categorize "Jews who self-identify as atheists," but few of the people in the category satisfy this criterion.
Only in the rarest instance is the person's putative atheism actually mentioned in the article -- which means, first, that espousing atheism isn't a significant-enough aspect of what the subject is known for to justify adding them to the category. Second, because there is usually no reference to the person's atheism in the article, the claim is unsourced and unverifiable -- especially troublesome when the person is living, due to WP:BLP concerns.
The category is also commonly -- more commonly than it's used for any other purpose -- used by antisemitic vandals with the intention of defaming the subject of the article -- often paired with adding the subject to the category Jewish communists.
More abused than used, and not very useful to begin with, this category ought to be deleted. --Rrburke(talk) 14:40, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agreed, it should be deleted. While there is such a thing as "Jewish atheist", it is a personal thing that is extremely hard to identify and categorize. There is no such movement "Jews for no god" that would unite such people. And categorizing random Jewish politicians/entertainers/etc. to this category is in no way relevant. Renata 17:41, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep - I could not disagree more with this nomination. Seriously, I challenge anybody to examine the contents of this category and explain with a straight face how it fails to qualify as a valid, nay essential, category. Where is the evidence for any of the nom's assertions? I've seen lots of CFDs where it's been said that WP:ILIKEIT isn't sufficient reason to keep a category. Well, I'm sorry, but this looks to me like a case of it's lesser-known converse/counterpart, WP:ITBOTHERSME. Cgingold 13:10, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I forgot to mention that there are many (probably in the dozens) other eminent people who need to be added into this category. Cgingold 14:35, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You must have skipped right over the rationale section, because none of it had anything whatever to do with "I don't like it" or "It bothers me." What it did have to do with was concrete ways in which the category is misused and abused, and the fact that the rate of these misuses and abuses dwarfs the rate at which the category is employed for its ostensible purpose. With your permission, I'll try again:
The category ostensibly lists "Jews who self-identify as atheists," but is only rarely used for this purpose. If the (few) current members of the category do satisfy this criterion, that would only be because yesterday I yet again removed those who don't. I left only those who meet two criteria set out in Wikipedia:Categorization of people:
  • The subject publicly self-identifies with the belief... in question;
  • The subject's beliefs... are relevant to the subject's notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources.
Bringing the category into line with these criteria necessitated virtually emptying it. (No need to fret, though: in a day or so it will be completely repopulated with specious additions by User:Pionier's latest sockpuppet.)
You asked for evidence of the abuse. For starters, check the contribs of User:Pionier and his endless supply of socks, helpfully listed here.
As for adding people to the category, unless in the body of the article there's explicit mention of the subject's self-avowed atheism, together with a reliable citation, there's no basis for such additions, which should be reverted on sight because:
  • There is no proof "[t]he subject publicly self-identifies with the belief... in question"
  • Not being important enough to include in the body of the article demonstrates that the "subject's beliefs," in this case atheism, are not sufficiently "relevant to the subject's notable activities or public life" to warrant the subject's inclusion in the category.
  • They fail WP:V, WP:RS and, if the person is living, violate WP:BLP.
A excerpt from Wikipedia:Categorization of people summarizes the point nicely:
  • "The case for the category must be made clear by the article text. The article must state the facts that result in the use of the category tag and these facts must be sourced."
If additions to the category were limited strictly to people who satisfy these criteria, it would then be virtually empty, and so a good candidate for deletion on those grounds alone. But the fact is that if it is allowed to remain, almost nobody will respect the criteria, and the category will go on having to be emptied daily like a wastepaper basket. --Rrburke(talk) 19:05, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - but it might be useful to add a headnote to the category concerning its scope. Being Jewish is as much being part of an ethnic group as belonging to a religion. I have not considered the articles etc at all. Peterkingiron 16:52, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is a headnote: it reads "Jews who self-identify as atheists" [italics mine]. It is customarily ignored. --Rrburke(talk) 19:05, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I see a strong consensus for deletion, so maybe we should also consider the rest of the sub-categories at Category:Atheists by nationality for deletion? --Michalis Famelis (talk) 21:56, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Nationality is not ethnicity. There is no problem with categorizing by nationality. Xtifr tälk 23:56, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I hope this won't lead to "Jewish is really a nationality." Bulldog123 07:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Xtifr is correct. "Jewish athiests" isn't a subcategory of Category:Atheists by nationality, since Jewish in this context refers to ethnicity and not nationality. So this cfd has no effect on that. Dugwiki 16:25, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of whether or not Jewish is a nationality, I'm all up for deleting "Atheists by nationality", or any other ethnic-national or religious-national categories... Just saying. Mad Jack 17:46, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Carlossuarez46 Bulldog123 07:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep First of all, I don't care about vandalism and anti-semitism in this project, we have a veritable army to stop that crap. If those were reasons to delete articles, I can list about 1000 articles that should be deleted. Why I think the category should stay is that there is significant debate on what makes a Jew. Is it a religion? Well, I contend that someone of Japanese ancestry could be converted to Judaism. Is it an ethnic group? Well, yes it is too. Because it is unclear, I don't mind knowing if someone is both a Jew (as an ethnic group) and an Atheist (as a religious designation). I'm quite fascinated by the categorization when I'm reading an article. I'm actually offended by some of the editors above who only what to categorize Jews as an ethnic group. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 16:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The Who Is a Jew? issue, which has been raised to argue both for and against retention of this category, strikes me as an utter red herring. This is Wikipedia, not a beth din. There is no need to over-finesse or over-stress this point: everybody understands that "Jewish" means different things in a way that often doesn't apply to other faith groups or ethnicities, that it has both a filiative and affiliative component. But nobody, at least for the purposes of writing an encyclopedia article, disputes the appropriateness of referring to a non-observant Jew as Jewish. Since that's the case, there is no need for any hand-wringing over whether a person born to ethnically Jewish parents but who doesn't believe in God is a Jewish atheist. Of course he, or she, is.
My objections [1] [2] to the category don't have anything to do with its accuracy. I know plenty of Jewish atheists and agnostics. Rather, the objections have to do with my sense that the unintentional misuse and, more importantly, deliberate abuse of the category far outweigh its usefulness, and that its usefulness was not great to begin with. User:Wryspy's citation of Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Non-notable intersections by ethnicity, religion, or sexual preference seems to me particularly apposite and sums up the problem nicely. --Rrburke(talk) 18:45, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Can't I have an opinion? Thanks, my opinion is not up for an argument. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 19:24, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Reply: sorry -- that wasn't meant to be aggressive, and it wasn't directed at you in particular: it was more just a general response to the raising of the Who Is A Jew? issue in this context. It just strikes me as beside the point, since no one disputes that a Jew who doesn't believe in God is still, in at least one important sense, a Jew. Saying "this is Wikipedia, not a beth din" was supposed to impart humour, but instead it came off rather leaden. Of course you can have an opinion. You can have two if you want.  :) --Rrburke(talk) 19:50, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep per Orangemarlin. The history of Jews as ethnic, religious and cultural groups are intertwined in ways that few other groups are. This has led to a unique situation where people can even identify as religious and yet be atheists. The category is not at all a trivial intersection and reflects a very encyclopedic topic. JoshuaZ 17:26, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That statement isn't valid because, if someone refers to themselves as a "Jewish athiest", they are clearly using the word "Jewish" to refer to their familial ancestry and not their religious beliefs (ie they are an ethnic Jew, but not an observant Jew). A person who has faith in the religious tenants of Judaism, on the other hand, obviously isn't an athiest and therefore wouldn't refer to themselves as such. It would only make sense to say the person was a formerly observant Jew who converted to atheism. Dugwiki 15:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep I realise the situation might be different among the bulk of the population of, say, the US or Pakistan, but among educated computer users (a category that, hopefully, includes most wikipedians), association with atheism is not a stimulus to hate a particular ethnic group, hence the reason of this nomination is fallacious at best, and tendentious at worst. I see the point in "Jewish" not being a well defined category, and I might vote neutrally should the page be again nominated for deletion on this ground. However, as things stand now, deleting this page would pose an extremely dangerous precedent; I also think the accusation of OR is unsubstantiated, and that the article is just one of the many that fail to quote sources, a fact that is generally (albeit unofficially) tolerated on wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Complainer (talk • contribs) 20:41, August 28, 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep - Hello, everybody. I honestly don't remember stubbing this cat, but I do remember adding Category:Jewish Christians to the Madeline Albright article, because, well... she's Jewish (ethnically speaking) and a Christian (religiously speaking - (in as much as Episcopalians (IIRC) can be called Christians... :\ )). Hence she belongs to a particular category - ie. one who is of Jew-ish heritage but not Jew-ish religion.
Its not my fault that one of foundational cultures of Western civilization is self-defined by confusingly paradoxical terminology - I was simply being categorical in a way which is (apparently) incongruous with certain particular ethnic concepts. The same obviously applies for people like [a huge number of people] who have a lukewarm religious observance, or who dabble in something else, etc. I remember one oldbie wikipedian explaining that Judiasm is quite "theologically inclusive".. in apparent contrast to ethnically inclusive universalist religions with dogmatic theology).
This subject is no doubt touchy for some people because it really deals with the concept of apostasy - that atheists are, in a sense, apostates from a religion if not converts to a religion. Ill note that I've seen Muslims and Christians likewise make complaints about articles which focus on apostates from their particular religion, althewhile supporting the concept of converts to their religion. Long live all the biased religious marketing....
Anyway, there is no need to be political about it. Jews are not a single monolithic culture, but a rich and diverse one, with people of varying levels of belief and different chosen cultures - in addition to the one inherited through genetic caste. Variations, while no doubt frustrating to those who desperately hold on to notions of cultural unity, are still nevertheless interesting and real aspects of human life and culture. Because these variations (deviations if you want to be prejudiced) are real, and not fabricated, they are nevertheless encyclopedic and categorical, and by coincidence they also happen to be interesting.
I will admit that categories like this in a certain way are political in the sense that they challenge exclusive views that tend to think of A as always being incompatible with B. Someone I know, who was raised Catholic, but is a practicing Buddhist, explained to me that there is no contradiction: The beliefs of Buddhism, while apparently constituting a religion of one kind or another, do not exclude a belief in Jesus or in the Abrahamic God. We may call them both "religions," but they are religions in different senses of the word. Certainly this leads to a need to explain how one thing, which many might think is incompatible with another, is not in fact so. Likewise it requires dealing with the meta-topic of how people differ as to the basic concept of compatibility. Ive got no problem with adding explanations and caveats to suit any distinction.
With that out of the way, I want to talk about this inflammatory notion that this topic is an "anti-Semitie magnet," no doubt implying that the people who support its use are, of course, by definition, "anti-Semites." As someone who's had some experience being smeared as an "anti-Semite" I have little comment, except to say that such person s (the anonymous online personae anyway) who made that accusation are now widely regarded as infamous examples of bad behavior. I have to regard anyone who uses terms like "anti-Semitism magnet" in kind, very much in accordance with the principle behind Godwin's law (ie. 'don't be inflammatory'). Nuf said. -Stevertigo 21:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment from nominator The assertion that this category attracts Antisemites is not inflammatory, but a simple and accurate observation about how the category is actually used. Should you doubt it, feel free to consult the contributions of any of these users. Moreover, I assume people who support retaining this category do so because they believe it to be a useful category deserving retention -- no more. I strongly resent your unfounded and offensive assertion that I have implied that editors who favour retaining the category are Antisemites. You should retract it. --Rrburke(talk) 23:28, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I am glad you are offended, because it tells me that it was not your intention to assert that this was an "anti-Semitic magnet" topic, even if that interpretation follows from a rather natural reading of your stated reasons for listing. Either way, your rationale rests on either a straw-man association with bigots or else an accusation of bigotry itself. Perhaps you can rephrase your reasons for listing, or else retract your listing altogether? -Stevertigo 00:21, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply It was entirely my intention to say that the category is an Antisemitism magnet. I said that plainly. It is. You appear to have misinterpreted that to mean that it attracts only Antisemites, and that misinterpretation led you to make a baseless and insulting assertion -- one you've yet to retract. --Rrburke(talk) 01:17, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I've written a lengthy comment dealing with other aspects of this which I will post below shortly. But I would like to deal with this issue separately, since it's already been raised.
First, I want to say that, although we've locked horns over this nomination, I didn't take personal offense at Rrburke's claim that the category is an "antisemitism magnet". I was merely appalled (did I really just say, "merely appalled"??) that a valid and valuable category was nominated for deletion. I'm afraid that I didn't take his explanation as seriously as I would have if he had provided the evidence for his concerns re abuse along with his initial remarks. But, having seen the particulars regarding User:Pionier/etc., I can well understand why Rrburke reacted so strongly. I've dealt with my share of racist/antisemitic crap on Wikipedia, and it ain't no fun.
All the same, I would like to gently suggest that nominating this category for deletion was, nonetheless, an over-reaction to the provocation. To begin with, the category was all of 3 weeks old when it was nominated for deletion -- and as far as I know, there was only that one individual who was causing any sort of problem. So to say that "The category is also commonly -- more commonly than it's used for any other purpose -- used by antisemitic vandals with the intention of defaming the subject of the article" strikes me as a rather misleading exaggeration. Three weeks and one string of questionable edits certainly doesn't constitute a track record of abuse, much less a compelling reason for deleting a category.
I also disagree strongly with the implicit contention that the mere fact of being placed in this category is in itself defamatory and somehow equates to "antisemitic vandalism". I understand why Rrburke was concerned about the string of edits by User:Pionier, which did, in their totality, smack of some sort of antisemitic agenda on his part, in my estimation. But it was the repeated pairing of this category with Category:Jewish communists that revealed his underlying agenda. What's strange is that this category was chosen for deletion, rather than the other, more sensitive category -- which I might add was created even more recently, and by none other than a now-banned sock puppet of User:Pionier.
In the last several days I have personally added about 20 articles to the category, a fascinating assemblage of very notable individuals which collectively demonstrates the fallaciousness of the assertion that this category is primarily used as a vehicle for "antisemitic vandalism". Quite the opposite.
And lastly... Rrburke, I gaped in disbelief when I read your edit summary for removing Leon Trotsky from this category: "putative atheism not mentioned in body of the article, therefore not significant enough to warrant category inclusion; also unsourced, unverifiable". As hard as it may be to imagine that Leon Trotsky (of all people) was (gasp) an atheist, surely common sense should have won out over that sort of reflexive reverting of edits by a suspect editor. And yet -- in the end, I'm actually rather happy about the whole thing, because I wound up adding a very nice section to the article about "Trotsky's Testament", which I heartily recommend to everybody, even those who may feel nothing but disdain for the man. Cgingold 12:32, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You were absolutely right about Category:Jewish communists. As this category had been deleted in the recent past and later recreated by a sockpuppet of banned User:Pionier, who was also the only one ever to apply this categorization, I redeleted it (until the next time Pionier recreates it).--woggly 13:07, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Reply to Cgingold. I must not be explaining myself clearly, because I can't seem to a way to adequately express my simple point. Let's use Trotsky as an object lesson: I don't find it at all hard to imagine that Trotsky was an atheist, chiefly because I know Trotsky was an atheist. As a matter of fact, I know a lot of things I can't include in Wikipedia articles, because they're not attributable to a reliable, published source that I can cite. It's just that Wikipedia isn't a place to publish things just because I (or anybody or "everybody") happen to know them: there's the further requirement that the "material [that] has already been published by a reliable source" and that this source be cited. Including Trotsky, as the article stood, failed this requirement.
So, I didn't remove Trotsky (and I didn't do it "reflexively") because I had trouble imagining Trotsky was an atheist, but because the inclusion of Trotsky in the category Category:Jewish atheists as the article stood failed specific Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Here they are:
  • No source was cited, so it failed:
  • There was no mention of his atheism in the article, so adding him to the category failed the guidelines on the categorization of people:
  • "The case for the category must be made clear by the article text. The article must state the facts that result in the use of the category tag and these facts must be sourced":
  • No mention of subject's atheism in the article text: failed
  • The article states no facts that would justify the inclusion: failed
  • Facts absent from the article text obviously can't be "sourced", so: failed
  • "The subject publicly self-identifies with the belief... in question" (the requirement of self-identification is also explicitly mentioned in the category's headnote):
  • No quotation from Trotsky which would establish that he "self-identifies with the belief": failed
  • "The subject's beliefs... are relevant to the subject's notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources":
  • "relevant to the subject's notable activities or public life": probably -- actually, certainly -- true, but not "made clear by the article text", so: failed
  • "according to reliable published sources": no source is cited: failed
Including Trotsky in the category was, for these reasons, a misuse (as distinguished from abuse) of this category, and it's precisely because virtually all of the people added to the category fail these criteria, that the category ought to be deleted. I note that you've added several people to the category that do satisfy the criteria, and that you've edited the Trotsky article so it also now does; that's commendable. First, just let me pause to observe how proposing deletion invariably improves quality. But I also notice you added, for example, Jacques Derrida, who fails for the same reasons Trotsky failed (and who, moreover, would have been unlikely to offer a straightforward statement of (dis)belief that would qualify as self-identification anyway. That was kind of not his thing).
Finally, there was no "implicit contention that the mere fact of being placed in this category is in itself defamatory and somehow equates to 'antisemitic vandalism'." Let me say again that the category has been used extensively in precisely this way. I absolutely never said it was used exclusively for this purpose, which for reasons not clear to me others seem to have assumed I was saying. --Rrburke(talk) 16:54, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per OM and Joshua. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149; 22:36, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Weak keep. I believe it was Salvador Dalì who said that the first thing you want to know about any given athiest is precisely what god he does not believe in. Yes, there probably is something distinct about a Jewish atheist. I'd rather see things like this handled by lists (where it is possible to do citations for the particular matter at hand), but it seems like the consensus has increasingly favored categories over lists. - Jmabel | Talk 05:54, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I just want to put in a word of support for Rrburke, who seems to be under attack here, whether because people honestly did not understand the rationale behind his nomination, or because they have CHOSEN not to understand it. Not only has this category been abused recently, but there is something inherent in the category that makes it a target for abuse. This is a case where, in my opinion, a list or article is better structured to present the complexities of the somewhat oxymoronic but valid definition "Jewish Atheist". A category is simply a label, and leaves no room for an editor to explain why a certain individual has been added to the category, or to qualify the definition. There are SO MANY non-practicing Jews in the world who could in theory be added to the category, but not all of them are actively, philosophically atheists. The few who ARE such, deserve discussion in a more detailed article. I'm not claiming - and neither did Rrburke - that all who use this category do so for antisemitic reasons. But it is mighty useful for those antisemitic trolls out there editing to have this label they can so easily tack on to whichever article, thus instantly raising hackles and creating a furor. Much easier to track the changes made to a centralized article, than to monitor every single individual article that may or may not be eligible for the "Jewish atheist" label. --woggly 09:29, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply to Orange et al regarding "dual religions" The argument to keep based on the opinion that the word "Jewish" can refer either to ethnicity or to religion or both isn't valid. The reason is two fold. First, in the case where Jewish refers to ethnicity, then we are dealing as I described above with a category similar to Category:Eurasian athiests which intersects ethnicity with religion without demonstrating a reason that this category is any more useful than simply having two category tags: one for the person's ethnicity, and one for the person's religion. Second, if "Jewish" refers to the person's religion, then this would be the equivalent of a category such as Category:Christian athiest, which again isn't necessary and is even somewhat paradoxical. A person can't reasonably be expected to have two concurrent religions, so the only context in which it would make sense to have something like "Christian athiests" or "Jewish athiests" would be to instead have a category that talks about former Christians or religious Jews who converted to atheism. But if that is the goal of the category, it would be called something like Category:Christians who converted to atheism, and such categories have a spotty history.
So therefore whether the word "Jewish" in this context refers to a person's ethnicity, or whether the word refers to the person's religion, this category still doesn't appear to be valid. It's either a random intersection of ethnicity and religion, OR it's a misguided intersection of two religions. Either way the category still should be deleted. The only category I could see that might be valid would be something like Category:Religious jews who converted to atheism, but I'm not even sure that category would be supported in cfd. Dugwiki 15:12, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Oh dear, I thought I was all done, but I can see that I need to make a brief comment here! (I was finishing up my mini-essay below while Dugwiki was posting his remarks.) Okay, in a nutshell: the root of the problem is semantic. We use the same term -- "Jewish" -- to cover a variety of interrelated things. The concept of being "Jewish" -- and the complex, messy reality it references in the world we inhabit -- is sui generis. It simply isn't like anything else, much less any other semantic category. So it can't just be shoehorned into the typical Wikipedia categories that, for the most part, work reasonably well for other things.
We all know that "Jewish" can refer to a religion. But then it gets complicated. The rest is some sort of very complex sociological phenomenon. It's not quite accurate to say that it's an "ethnicity", although there are elements of ethnicity. The best term I've been able to come up with in that regard is "quasi-ethnicity". The point, I'm sorry to say, Dugwiki, is that all of your highly logical manipulations of semantic categories simply bear no relationship to the real world. None whatsoever. These categories need to be handled on their own terms, not forced against their will into a pre-existing category schema. Please give serious consideration to my comments below, which elaborate on this very issue. I hope this helped! Regards, Cgingold 15:40, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You would seem to be arguing then that because the word "Jewish" can refer to either a person's ethnicity or their religion that this would make the category a valid intersection. My point, however, was that it doesn't seem to matter whether you are referring to Jewish as an ethnicity OR as a religion or both. The category also seems to go against the prior deletion of Category:Jewish Christians. Basically I'm saying that there's no reason to handle this category differently from Category:Jewish Christians (people who are ethnically jewish but religiously Christian) or Category:Christians who converted to Judaism. By the way, in order to avoid confusion on replies, and since I made a similar point below at the end of the cfd, I'd recommend that replies be placed at the end of the cfd instead of directly below my comment here. Dugwiki 15:55, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I want to succinctly address a couple of claims that Rrburke made in his nomination.
1) "Only in the rarest instance is the person's putative atheism actually mentioned in the article..." Now, I haven't yet looked at the articles that he removed from the category (with the exception of the aforementioned Leon Trotsky), but this assertion is just plain wrong when it comes to the articles that I've added. There may be one or two where it's not actually mentioned, but that can easily be remedied. More importantly,
2) "...because there is usually no reference to the person's atheism in the article, the claim is unsourced and unverifiable..." Again, I found reliable sourcing for each of the articles I added to the category, and in nearly every case I made sure that this info was included in the article. The need for credible verification of the individual's atheism should be stipulated on the category page. (I actually left out several people who I am nearly certain belong in this category because I was unable to locate good sourcing via the Internet.) Cgingold 15:15, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Judging by some of the comments here, it looks as though this category called Category:Jewish atheists struck a number of editors as being some sort of unsightly appendage sprouting from Wikipedia. Jewish atheists??? Well sure, there may be a few, but what does that have to do with anything?!

Clearly there is a fundamental issue/question that really needs to be addressed, which is obviously a mental hurdle of sorts for many people. It's basically a definitional issue: what does it mean to say that a person is "Jewish"?

I presume that for the great majority of people, the first thing that springs to mind -- call it the "default definition" -- is roughly: "somebody who belongs to and practices the religious faith called Judaism". In which case, "Jewish atheists", of all things, appears to be a confounding, self-contradictory term. But, in reality, the Jewish community comprises a wide range of people, many of whom are Jewish by ancestry or heritage but non-religious -- or secular -- in their daily lives. That's a simplified answer to what is a decidedly complex issue -- an issue which leaves an awful lot of people feeling very confused about the whole thing.

Generally speaking, our approach here on Wikipedia should be to use the most inclusive criteria when it comes to putting individuals in Jewish categories. The critical point in that regard, in terms of Category:Jewish atheists, is that it establishes that the individuals so-categorized don't come under that "default definition", and thus helps to convey a broader notion of the term "Jewish".

Now, I would never suggest creating a Wikipedia category purely for the purpose of educating the public on a narrow issue like that. However, I do think it's worth pointing out that the existence of Category:Jewish atheists, along with its matrix of related categories and articles, helps to clarify and illuminate the issues around the larger subject of what is meant by Jewish identity -- and hopefully, to some small degree, to dispel some of the confusion that surrounds that subject.

As can be seen from the current contents of the category, some of the most eminent Jewish figures in modern history are/were atheists. (Many would also argue for the inclusion of Albert Einstein, but he's not included because there's no concensus on the issue.) A number of them are/were, broadly, philosophers whose atheism is/was an integral part of their philosophical outlook; and many of them are/were actively engaged in promoting atheism.

The fact is, there's a long history of Jewish atheism. Moreover, the history of Jewish atheism is embedded in the larger history of Jewish secularism (or secular Judaism, as some might phrase it).

With that in mind, I decided to undertake a comprehensive review of the entire array of Jewish categories. Needless to say, that's a major undertaking, and there's still more work to be done, but what gradually dawned on me was that there was no existing category embracing the range of articles and categories pertaining to that larger subject. So I decided to remedy the problem by creating a new category -- and after giving it a good deal of thought, I decided to go with Category:Secular Jewish culture.

If you look at Category:Jewish atheists, you will see that it is now embedded in four parent categories (two more than previously), one of which of course is Category:Secular Jewish culture. And if you look inside that category, you will see that among the sub-categories there is a matrix of sub-cats that are "cousins" of Category:Jewish atheists -- part of the spectrum of secular identities, if you will. The point is, Jewish atheists are an integral part of Jewish culture and history -- not merely some sort of ad hoc contrivance. And Category:Jewish atheists should be regarded as an integral part of Wikipedia's category structure.

Cgingold 15:15, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Also note previous deletion of Category:Jewish Christians Since someone cited it as an example, I should also note for reference the previous deletion at cfd of Category:Jewish Christians, which is essentially a very similar category that groups people of Jewish ancestry who converted to Christianity. The cfd for that category can be found at [3], and I would suggest that the only real difference between the phrases "Jewish Christians" and "Jewish Atheists" is the religion to which the ethnically Jewish person converted. So again, prior precedent would seem to suggest that the intersection of "Jewish (other religion here)" probably isn't valid as a categorization scheme. Dugwiki 15:27, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Quick reply - Please be sure to see my reply to you, above, Dugwiki. I will simply add that atheism is not a religion. (Honestly, that's an absurd notion.) And one does not "convert" to atheism. (Yikes -- another absurd notion!) Jewish atheists don't stop being Jewish -- they simply don't adhere to the religion. Okay, that's it -- I've got to go now! Cgingold 15:50, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Atheism is very much a religion, as it is the religious belief that god does not exist. It does not have religious rites or places of worship, but it is still clearly a religion as it is a clear definition of a person's religious beliefs (ie what the person believes in relation to the existence and nature of God.) So while atheism has a different organizational structure than codified religions, it is as much a religious belief as believing in the existence of any particular deity.
And yes, you can convert to atheism from Judaism or Christianity or vice versa. Religious conversion is a redefining of an individual's beliefs in the nature of God. So if your religious beliefs change from being one of believing in the existence of God to one of the non-existence of God, or vice versa, you have undergone a religious conversion.
So again, just because atheism doesn't involve religious rites doesn't mean it's not a religious belief. And regardless of whether you prefer to call atheism a "religion" or simply a "religious belief", either way for purposes of categorizing articles, Category:Atheism and the related categories are treated as religious categories. Dugwiki 16:07, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Orders, decorations, and medals of the German Democratic Republic

Propose renaming Category:Orders, decorations, and medals of the German Democratic Republic to Category:Orders, decorations, and medals of East Germany
Nominator's rationale: The main article is at Orders, decorations, and medals of East Germany. Since the last renaming, the article on the country has been moved from German Democratic Republic to East Germany. This is the only subcategory of Category:East Germany that now doesn't use the name and should be brought in line. Note also that other national subcategories of Category:Orders, decorations, and medals use the common name form for the countries, including Category:Orders, decorations, and medals of Germany. Timrollpickering 13:38, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:WikiProject Rugby league (State of Origin) articles by importance

Category:WikiProject Rugby league (State of Origin) articles by importance - Template:Lc1
Nominator's rationale: Your Replaced by Category:Rugby league (State of Origin) articles by importance SpecialWindler talk 12:43, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:WikiProject Rugby league (State of Origin) articles by quality

Category:WikiProject Rugby league (State of Origin) articles by quality - Template:Lc1
Nominator's rationale: Your Replaced by Category:Rugby league (State of Origin) articles by quality SpecialWindler talk 12:43, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

State highway categories in the United States

For standardization, as these categories are at nonstandard names. This is renaming to what the categories are called on Commons. The parent category is also being renamed for standardization as well to Category:State highways in the United States. (note its parent, Category:Roads in the United States. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 05:22, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The following categories are to be renamed to Category:State highways in <state>:

There's a problem with this one, it should be Category:State highways in Georgia (US state) or Category:Georgia (US state) state highways. 132.205.44.5 22:08, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please respond below.


I am confused as to why some of the above are struck out, and the explanation above wasn't clear. What is the reasoning? --Holderca1 17:17, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:DC Comics crises

Category:DC Comics crises - Template:Lc1
Nominator's rationale: Delete overcategorization. Don't categorize by storyline type. Wryspy 04:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'd agree, but there's not actually anything to merge. They're all already categorized under DC Comics storylines. Wryspy 07:04, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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