User talk:Grutness/archive46

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The loanwords debate

Loanwords

You've today created Category:Māori loanwords and included the statements "This category is not for articles about concepts and things but only for articles about the words themselves..." and "This category is not for articles about concepts and things but only for articles about the words themselves...". However, you've then proceeded to place loads of articles that aren't about words (i.e. articles that shouldn't be under Category:Words and phrases) in the category. You may also want to look at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2012_January_17#Category:Loanwords and Use–mention distinction. DexDor (talk) 19:49, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I copied the heading from Category:Italian loanwords. That category contains such articles as aria, antenna (radio), graffiti, artichoke, intermezzo, arpeggio, scenario, barista, cantata, cappuccino, latte, extravaganza, monsignor, papparazzi... all of which are about the concepts and things rather than the words. Similar headings can be found in Category:Portuguese loanwords (which contains Breeze, Capybara, Cashew, Fetish, Flamingo, Marmalade, Molasses, Mulatto, Piranha, Stevedore, Tapioca, Verandah...), Category:Russian loanwords (agitprop, balalaika, bistro, borzoi, bolshevik, mammoth...), Category:Spanish loanwords (armadillo, avocado, flotilla, conquistador, sombrero, cafeteria, mosquito...)... If you removed the articles which relate to concepts and things, you'd reduce all of those categories to a mere shadow of what they are. Given that each of the articles does relate to loanwords and that such articles usually have an etymology section, surely it would make far more sense to remove the headers? Grutness...wha? 00:08, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

See WP:OTHERSTUFF. Just because an article contains an etymology section doesn't make linguistics a WP:DEFINING characteristic of that article/subject. That editors keep putting articles in these categories inappropriately should be a reason for purging/deleting the categories - not for making the situation worse. DexDor (talk) 05:03, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Hm... which suggests that you would be happier if the categories were deleted. Interesting. I also find it interesting that you don't see the etymology as a defining characteristic of an item. As WP:DEFINE says,

• "a defining characteristic is one that reliable, secondary sources commonly and consistently define, in prose, the subject as having". Look up any item in a dictionary and you will find the etymology of an item's name. Many encyclopedias will also have the etymology listed. Frequently, the etymology will provide important information about the object's origins, or the concept's first definition. If that isn't a defining concept, I find it difficult to know what is.
• "If the characteristic would not be appropriate to mention in the lead portion of an article, it is probably not defining". Again, the etymological origin of an object's name is frequently of such importance that it would make sense for it to appear in the lede. Take "luau", for instance, which you removed the category of Polynesian loanwords from. The first sentence of the lede says: "A luau (Hawaiian: lū‘au) is a traditional Hawaiian party or feast that is usually accompanied by entertainment." The first four words mention that it is a Hawaiian word, and then immediately afterwords it is defined as being a Hawaiian party or feast. What part of that suggests that its Hawaiian etymology is not defining?
• Finally, "if the characteristic falls within any of the forms of overcategorization mentioned on this page, it is probably not defining". It doesn't. None of the forms of overcategorisation mentioned on this page are relevant to the concept of the origin of a concept, discovery of an item, or cultural significance of either, all of which are often intricately enmeshed in the etymological origin of the item or concept's name.

Okay - look at it the other way. The loanwords categories are "only for articles about the words themselves, not for articles about concepts and things". That means that every article which would qualify for the categories under these rules would instantly be flagged as a dictdef, and would be likely to be removed from Wikipedia. You have basically two options for the categories - either allow articles about items and concepts which have loanwords as their names, or delete the categories because they will become empty. If these categories are to be meaningful at all, they should be treated the same was as all other categories for words and phrases, and allow articles based on items and concepts named for those words. Which makes sense, as this is how many other categories on words are ordered on Wikipedia (yeah, I know, quote "otherstuff" again. I do know it. It's an interesting essay - not a policy or even guideline - which I helped write). And my initial comment still applies. If you remove the articles which are not specifically about the words themselves, most of those categories would be almost empty anyway - even the largest ones would be whittled to a shadow of their current size. Take the musical and cuisine terms alone out of Category:Italian loanwords (in none of which cases are the linguistics of the concepts defining), and you drop it from 168 pages to about 25. You are right, however, that I should never have included that header in the category I created - I have removed it. Grutness...wha? 08:50, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure what you are doing, but Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 17#Category:Loanwords said to delete the categories but instead, you are populating them. This is becoming part of the problem instead of the solution.Curb Chain (talk) 20:30, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Since the categories were still there after over a year, I assumed that the decision had been overturned. If not, I apologise. In normal Wikipedia practice, once a CfD discussion is closed with "delete" as the outcome, the categories are removed immediately. Is there any reason why this hasn't happened in this case? If they have been recreated, why have they not been speedied and salted? If the decision still stands, let me know and I will listify and delete them. It should have taken hours to do that - not sixteen months! Grutness...wha? 00:07, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Such as with articles that closed in AfD's with cleanup, I can only guess that the categories were not depopulated because simply no one has yet had the time to do so.Curb Chain (talk) 03:37, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

I think you will find this discussion intresting: It seems that some germane CfD's had been nominated that resulted with the same close, where the participants were-not-aware/did-not-know-about this previous CfD.Curb Chain (talk) 03:42, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

(nods) It could be that the depopulation hasn't been done because no-one's got round to making the list articles - or they fear the list articles would become problematic in the same way as the categories. But sixteen months is too long. Is it any wonder I thought discussion must have been reopened/overturned? There must be others who have thought the same. I'll convert the Maori category I made into a list and delete it. Grutness...wha? 04:21, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

I can only hypothesize that creating the lists (per the closing-instructions) risks getting the lists deleted, as I can hypothesize the lists will be unsourced and even hard to verify.Curb Chain (talk) 04:53, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Would you mind letting me know when you have made the article? I'm concerned that if we put it through a WP:AfD test, it might not survive. This might be a deeper issue than what it seems....Curb Chain (talk) 04:57, 4 May 2013 (UTC)I don't think that this sourcing is an issue.Curb Chain (talk) 05:16, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

I found another category that has a related situtation: Category:Slavic loanwords. Slavic is not a currrently living language, but still, articles are categorized under it, and Category:Slavic loanwords has subcategories.Curb Chain (talk) 05:16, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Here's another one where all the categories where simply deleted and not listified. There doesn't seem to be a standard. Concerning...Curb Chain (talk) 05:18, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

I made the article, then realised afterwards that a very similar article already exists (List of English words of Māori origin), so I've merged the two at the former previously existing title. Looks like this might be the tip of a worrying iceberg. As to finding sources for the lists, it should be possible to confirm a lot of the words, simply by looking for their use in newspaper articles. Evidence of their use in English language news media would probably be enough to indicate that they are being used as loanwords. Grutness...wha? 05:36, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

The simple solution to this problem is simply to listify the remaining categories, purge and clean. As you can see some articles are already created. Once empty, the categories will be deleted, I think they can be speedied too.Curb Chain (talk) 06:08, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Done another of the simple ones (Portuguese), which already had a list page. Will start on some of the others when I get some time. Grutness...wha? 08:57, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Category:Lists of loanwords

Hi, I don't understand why you depopulated Category:Lists of loanwords. What was the rationale for that, please? Special:Search/intitle:Loanword indicates plenty of scope to keep it. – Fayenatic London 16:38, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

There have been several CFD debates, all of which have suggested that the loanword categories overall should be listified and deleted. This is explained at the top of Category:Loanwords. This one is one of the more relevant. It's been a long process, but all of the categories are slowly getting the treatment, and we've just got round to Cat:List of loanwords. Grutness...wha? 00:51, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen some of the CFDs, and agreed with listifying the words. I don't see how it follows that the lists should not be categorised. – Fayenatic London 19:44, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Fayenatic. The Category:Loanwords CFD didn't discuss Category:Lists of loanwords which is/was a valid category. DexDor (talk) 20:05, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

The lists are already in a category - or at least the English ones are - Category:Lists of English words of foreign origin. Removing them effectively gutted the category down to only one or two lists. If you think it's still worth having, that's fine, but my understanding was that all categories relating to loanwords should be deleted. Grutness...wha? 00:55, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

If there's articles that were legitimately in Category:Lists of loanwords (e.g. List of loanwords in Indonesian) (and I think there's more than 2) then the category should have been taken to CFD (e.g. to propose deleting or renaming to something like "Lists of loanwords in non-English languages") rather than emptied. The loanwords CFD included a list of categories (although the cats weren't tagged), but didn't include the lists category. DexDor (talk) 05:38, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

If it was wrong to delete it, then simply re-create it. I'm simply trying to help out here (I would have preferred if none of the categories were deleted, BTW, as you'll see if you look at the section of this talk page above this). It was clear to me (although it seems erroneously) that the message at the top of Category:Loanwords was intended to cover the entirety of that category and its subcategories; if it didn't, it should have said so. There were only two articles that I recall, BTW, but I've worked on so many of these things in the last couple of weeks that there may have been more. Grutness...wha? 07:56, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

More than that! I have restored it. – Fayenatic London 12:54, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

You found a large number that i've never seen before too (I'd only even visited about a quarter of those pages!) The category must have been heavily underpopulated to start with. Grutness...wha? 13:58, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I also restored Category:Lists of Celtic loanwords, although that should perhaps be renamed as "Lists of loanwords of Celtic origin". There are sufficient pages to populate ...of Germanic origin and ...of Arabic origin. Do you agree that these would be useful? – Fayenatic London 13:08, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

If you want to make them, make them. I don't mind either way. I got dragged into this whole thing as a favour to someone who thought the lot should be deleted. As long as their not in Category:Loanwords, there's no problem that I can see. (After all, this whole business started up because that category was to be deleted). Grutness...wha? 13:46, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello, someone has prematurely deleted Category:Loanwords. It seems to me that it should exist until the non-list sub-cats of Category:English words and phrases of foreign origin have been listified, namely Category:Hungarian loanwords‎, Category:Italian loanwords‎, Category:Latin loanwords‎, Category:Russian loanwords‎, Category:Slavic loanwords, Category:‎Slovene loanwords‎, Category:Spanish loanwords‎ and Category:Turkish loanwords‎. Also, if its head categories were valid then the lists category should probably go into most of them. – Fayenatic London 16:23, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Fayenatic. I depleted it, since its one list subcategory was better categorised elsewhere and at the rate with which I'm listifying the loanwords categories they should have gone very quickly. Having the loanwords category still there simply encourages further creation of subcategories (I've already deleted two which were created since the listification process started). I'm afraid I don't understand your last sentence by the way. What is a head category? Do you mean top parent category - if so, that's the one being deleted, so putting them in there would be a waste of time. Grutness...wha? 23:53, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Ah - think I've got you... the other, more general parent categories. Yes, I already put it in all of them. Grutness...wha? 00:42, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

"it"? I meant that you should have put Category:Lists of loanwords into Category:Language contact, Category:Historical linguistics and Category:Words and phrases by language, as these were parent categories of Category:Loanwords. – Fayenatic London 17:34, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

By "it" I mean the only one that wasn't there which made sense to put there. And I wasn't talking about Category:Lists of loanwords, I was talking about Category:Lists of English words of foreign origin, which is the category I'm working through. Category:Historical linguistics was the only one of those three which wasn't already there. I thought you were the one dealing with Category:Lists of loanwords! Grutness...wha? 00:26, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, you last "dealt with" Category:Lists of loanwords, by removing it from all those hierarchies at a stroke. What I mean to encourage you to do is to check, when editing category/article A to remove it from head category B, whether A should instead be placed in any of cat B's parents. So when you edited Category:Lists of loanwords to take it out of Category:Loanwords, IMHO you should have put it into those parent categories instead. Likewise, you simply removed the article Turkic loanwords in Armenian from Category:Loanwords, whereas it would have been better to move it up to Category:Etymologies. – Fayenatic London 08:20, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I put that article in Category:Turkic words and phrases and have since added Category:Armenian words and phrases - both of which seemed a more sensible place and precise to put it than Category:Etymologies. Etymologies are accounts of the origin and historical development of individual words - there are no individual words referred to in that article. Instead it talks in general terms about the origins of a subset Armenian words and phrases. And yes, I removed Category:Loanwords from Category:Lists of loanwords, since the parent category was being deleted. Surely it should already have been in all the other categories you mentioned though - if it belonged in them, you'd have put it in them when you created the category, no? Grutness...wha? 08:33, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

No, because that would have gone against WP:SUBCAT. That's why when you remove a category, IMHO you should consider whether any of its contents need to be upmerged to any or all of its parents. Simple deletion breaks hierarchies. As for the article on Turkic loanwords: loanwords is a sub-field of Etymologies; lists of loanwords is a sub-cat of lists of etymologies; but you are right, Category:Etymologies is not quite right for the article as it is not a list of examples, so I am moving it up to Category:Etymology. – Fayenatic London 17:31, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

List of English words of Italian origin

Hello, Grutness, I'm sorry for invading your article, but I was collecting words from many months. As you can see, I've kept your edits. Lele giannoni (talk) 15:44, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Not "my" article, and any additions to it are useful :) (referencing them would also be useful, though). I started the article to empty Category:Italian loanwords, which is set for deletion, but I've been distracted by other tasks in the last few days. Grutness...wha? 00:44, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Adjectivals and demonyms for countries and nations

As a contributor to the article, you may wish to comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adjectivals and demonyms for countries and nations (2nd nomination).
—Wavelength (talk) 02:18, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your support for keeping the article.
—Wavelength (talk) 21:39, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Any time :) Grutness...wha? 21:59, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Compliment of the season

And a belated seasons greeting to you.

Yeah, I know that Pōhutukawa do not occur naturally down our way but it is our indigenous Christmas tree. Cheers. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 08:11, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

What a nice picture! Very peaceful to me...--Jetstreamer ^Talk 00:30, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Scott Statue

HNY to you. I've removed Category:Port Chalmers from the Scott Statue article again, as it is (was) located in Christchurch. Please put it back (with some explanatory note) if I have overlooked something. Schwede66 09:58, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Again? I only created the category a couple of hours ago! There are two different Scott monuments, as explained in the text. One is in Christchurch, the other is at Port Chalmers. Perhaps the category should wait, however, until a separate article is created for the PtC monument.Grutness...wha? 10:39, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, writing a separate PtC article would be the right thing to do, I suggest. There are lots of Scott memorials outside of New Zealand, so it would be great to get a series for them started. Schwede66 14:07, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Meanwhile, I've tidied the files on Commons up including category names, so that it's not quite so ambiguous. Schwede66 23:54, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Cheers. Grutness...wha?

NZ association football cats

Hi; I nominated those other NZ soccer cats you mentioned, but they were opposed because the article is at Soccer in New Zealand. See here. However, the first two I nominated went through. Kind of weird. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:41, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

I've added my 2¢ at the speedy nom. Looks like it may have to go to a full nomination. Grutness...wha? 01:30, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Afterwards I decided to "boldly" move the article to Association football in New Zealand. That move is being discussed right now at Talk:Association football in New Zealand. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 02:11, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Talk:South Dunedin/GA1

You nominated this for Good Article status in mid-February, and it was reviewed at the end of the month. It's now the end of March, and you haven't yet addressed any of the issues raised in the review. Are you planning to follow up on the review, or should we close the nomination? Please let us know. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:38, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I didn't realise that an official review had been done separate to the comments on the article's talk page (I expected to receive some form of notification if any other form of review was started). I did follow up on the talk page comments, which is where I though the review suggestions would be made (and where quite a number were made) - but that was quite some time ago, and to be honest I'd completely forgotten about it, having moved on from that to working on other things. Grutness...wha? 18:31, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation of what happened, but what's important now is what you plan to do now that you know what the GA review says. (The actual page with the review is transcluded onto the article's talk page, so you can respond in either place.) As the final sentence above asks, will you be participating in the review, or should we close the nomination? You can reply here or to the review; I'll be monitoring both, so no need for another talkback. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:25, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Might as well close it, for now at least - as I said, I'd forgotten about it (two months ago... that's what - 2000 articles ago?). In any case, a lot of what requires citations can't be easily or quickly cited. It comes back down to the old problem with Wikipedia that the only way to readily show something is through "original research" (I can go down to Cargill's Corner, photograph the South City mall, and upload the photo - but that wouldn't count as a citation that the mall exists there. Same with the residential and light industrial districts blending into one another). Grutness...wha? 23:33, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I'll arrange to have it closed. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:09, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Category talk:Gibraltarian media

Hi Grutness, I just saw you moved "Gibraltar media" to this category. Can I just point out that the term "Gibraltarian" has a specific legal definition which only applies to people from Gibraltar that meet certain criteria. The term for anything from Gibraltar other than people is "Gibraltar", i.e. Gibraltar Health Authority or Gibraltar Broadcasting Corporation. Please let me know if you need further clarification. --Gibmetal 77^{talk 2 me} 09:50, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

replied on Gibmetal77's talk page. In brief - it's a subcategory of Category:Gibraltarian culture, so the name was following from that. Grutness...wha? 10:37, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining your rationale. The way I see it, culture is something intrinsically linked to people so I see no problem in the use of the term Gibraltarian culture. Whether this would also apply to its media is, in my view, debatable... It is generally accepted that Gibraltarian is the demonym (with restricted use, see Gibraltarian status) and Gibraltar the adjective. Although I don't think it's a huge issue in any case but it may be important to clearly define when it is and when it isn't acceptable to use the term Gibraltarian to avoid confusion in future. Let me ponder on this for a while and I'll get back to you. By the way thank you for the great job you do sorting all those categories! :) --Gibmetal 77^{talk 2 me} 11:16, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

OK - again sorry for any bother. As for the categories, my obsessive-compulsiveness got the better of me again! I only meant to do the media categories for one or two countries, but it looks like I've nearly done the lot! :) Grutness...wha? 11:18, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Academic journals and media

Hi, over the last couple of days you have been adding several articles on academic journals to "media in" categories (sometimes even going down to city level). I'm not sure that's correct. The top cat for all these media categories is Category:Mass media, which explains that "media" should be understood as "mass media", which academic journals most certainly are not. In addition, almost any journal is international in scope (or at least national), so categorizing them down to city level doesn't make much sense. In the Academic journals project, we don't even categorize journals by country, because that is usually too complicated: an editor in one country, a publisher with offices in several others, a typesetter in yet another one, a printer somewhere else, and authors and an editorial board from all over the world... In short, I don't think that these cats belong on academic journal articles at all. --Randykitty (talk) 08:50, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I've only been adding them where the articles make it clear that they originate from one specific university (and therefore are based in one city). I've only been categorising by city, and only where a country is already listed, so the "sometimes going down to city level" is a bit of an odd comment. Any which have more general bases I've not been categorising by city (maybe one or two have slipped through, but it's not been my intention to categorise them like that). Grutness...wha? 10:11, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I stand corrected, they've been categorized down to city level. Nevertheless, the other points stand: these are not mass media and no academic journal will ever identify itself with just a single city. But the first thing is enough, these cats are for mass media, which academic journals definitely are not. --Randykitty (talk) 22:55, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

If they identify solely with one university and are aimed at membership only of that one university, then they definitely do count, and are definitely local media. And, as I said, it is only those which i am aiming to categorise at the city level. Any journals which are aimed at a national or international readership, I am leaving without a city tag. As I said above, one or two may have accidentally slipped through, but it is not my aim to categorise widely disseminated journals in that way. Grutness...wha? 00:57, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

• You're missing the main point. Let's forget for a moment the silliness of categorizing academic journals on city level. The real problem here is that academic journals are not "mass media" and don't belong in any "media" category at all, as I explained in my very first comment here. --Randykitty (talk) 08:35, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not missing the main point - but you seem to be missing (or misreading, or misinterpreting) everything I've said. Let me repeat it in bullet points. Please read it:

• If a journal is written for use only by one specific university, then it should be categorised according to where that university is. This happens only very rarely, since most academic journals are not specific to a particular university.
• The 99% of journals that are not university-specific are for use by the academic community as a whole. As such I am not categorising them and never have been.
• These categories are not for "mass media". They are for "media". If they were for mass media alone, then none of them could be categorised by city - mass media doesn't belong to a specific city. There would be no local newspapers in there. Nor local radio stations. Nor local television stations. Yet all of these are quite definitely categorised by this category scheme. University journals have been categorised for years on Wikipedia as an (admittedly specialised) form of media, and they would be almost always mass media in that - with the very few exceptions mentioned above - they are not for local use only, but for wide dissemination. I repeat I am not categorising these journals by city.

Let's consider some hypothetical examples: The "Taihape University Journal of Crunt-laden Positronics" explains in its article that it is for use within the Taihape University's world-leading Positronics Faculty and contains articles written by that university's staff and students. It is only used in the one city, so it makes sense for it to be categorised as "Media in Taihape", as well as being categorised under "Taihape University". The "New Zealand Crunt-laden Positronics Quarterly", run from Taihape University, would not be categorised as "Media in Taihape" or media from any city. It would be classified as "New Zealand media", within the subcategory "New Zealand academic journals". The "Journal of Positronics and Cruntology", a leading journal in the field worldwide, and run from Taihape University, would not be listed under "Media in Taihape", and might not be a member of "New Zealand academic journals" either (if it's there, it's there - I wouldn't add it to that category, nor would I remove it from it), but it would be listed in a subcategory of "Academic journals by subject", as appropriate. I would not add a city-specific category in any case other than the first case, as in tat case it would be appropriate.

As it happens, for the most part I have been completely avoiding looking at the academic journal categories; those journals which I have looked at have mainly been in general magazine or periodical categories, and I have been adding them to the appropriate academic journal categories if I've noticed them. As I mentioned before, it is possible that I have inadvertently marked an academic journal or two to a city category, but if I have it has been just that - inadvertent - and likely because the journal was incorrectly categorised as a periodical or magazine. It is quite plausible that I have failed to notice that an article categorised as a periodical was actually for a journal and marked it in a city category - that sort of thing can easily happen when you are looking through literally thousands of articles.

For the most part, other than our difference of opinion as to whether a publication edited for specific dissemination to a wide academic community can be regarded as media (that is, as publications edited for specific dissemination to a wide community). In other regards, you are telling me to do exactly what I am already doing. As I have now explained three times. Grutness...wha? 09:40, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm being particularly unclear, I guess, because you keep misunderstanding me. There are TWO separate issues: 1/ All these cats are for "mass media", because all media cats fall under the parent cat, Category:Mass media. The kind of academic journals you are talking about will have print runs of a couple of hundred max, perhaps not even that. In any case, if you want to redefine the "media" cats as containing all media and not just mass media, you should start a discussion to rename the topcat. (BTW, as far as I know, local newspapers and local TV stations are generally considered to be "mass media"). 2/ Any academic journal that is "written for use only by one specific university" is almost certainly non-notable, I can guarantee you that. Let's take a real example of a journal that you categorized to a city (Valdivia): BOSQUE. Now go to "online access (in the journal infobox), and click on the latest issue (2012:3) and just for fun, look at the first article in that issue (English version here. No author is from Valdivia. They're not even from Chile. Same for the following 4 articles (I stopped checking after that). Now go to the journal's homepage and read its mission. Nothing says that this is a journal "written for use only by one specific university". Have a look at the editors and editorial board. True, the editor-in-chief is in Valdivia, but the co-editors are from Spain, Argentina, and another Chilean university. The board members are from all over the world. In fact, it's a thoroughly international journal that happens to be published by the forestry faculty of the university in Valdivia. It's not a mass media (99.9999% of the population of Valdivia probably never have even heard of this journal, which really is quite specialized), it's not particularly connected to Valdivia either. I took BOSQUE just ad random from those that you categorized and I expect that what I wrote about this journal goes for 99% if not all of the journals that you categorized. As I said in the first sentence under point 2: journals that fall within the limits that you set for categorizing them are almost certainly non-notable and hence won't even have articles that can be categorized. Just to make sure that I didn't just coincidentally pick one of the rare exceptions that you mentioned, I looked in your contributions for the last three academic journals that you categorized: Norte Grande Geography Journal, Magallania, and Historia. Check them out, they all show the same pattern (even though they are a tad more "local" than BOSQUE, as can be expected given their subject matters): editors, editorial board members, and article authors from all over the world. None of them obviously connected to a single city. None of them are journals "written for use only by one specific university". --Randykitty (talk) 13:15, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

1) If the categories are for mass media, then I suggest they've been made that way for a purpose. I propose that you remove all local media from them - any local newspapers, television stations, radio stations, journals, and magazines. That should also have the effect of tidying them considerably by reducing their content by some 70%. However, it should be noted that with the sole exception of the top level category (which I haven't had to deal with, since I am only working on media by city), every single category is simply named as "media", and all of them would also need to be renamed. And there are a LOT of them. If you think this is a bad idea, and since you seem to be the one who has the major problem with it (I've no real problem with it - the definitions of mass media seem surprisingly vague, and the catalogue tree has worked fine for a considerable time), perhaps you should take the top-level category to WP:CFD for possible renaming. I would be likely to support such a move, since the term mass media is a woolly one (in fact, I've seen a couple of places which have simply said that "mass media" is a term meaning "the media"!) 2) There are several such journals that I have come across that I would regard as particularly notable - though you're right that in general they would be non notable. It does seem that I slipped with a few of the Chilean ones, for which I apologise (I have removed those categories). I can easily see why I made the slip in three of those cases - they are categorised as Category:Chilean magazines and I would have automatically treated them as such. Considering the number of articles I am working with here, once something is listed as a magazine I simply look for its point of origin. If they had been correctly categorised just as academic journals, that would not have happened. Grutness...wha? 13:28, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

They're not magazines, so they should not be in that category at all. In fact, for all the reasons outlined above, the Academic Journals Wikiproject discourages the categorization of journals by country and currently no categories named "German journals" or such exist. Magazines are different, they are almost always targeted to a national or sub-national audience. As for the media categories, I don't care about them as such, I just want them removed (because inappropriate) from journal articles. You are filling them and I thought you should be aware of the inconsistencies of what you are doing with what the topcat says. Limiting them to mass media sensu stricto would not really thin them out much. It will remove the newsletter of the local bowling club or such, but not local newspapers, TV or radio stations, and such, because those, I repeat, are generally considered to be mass media. But as I said, I don't care about those media cats and you can feel free to fill them with whatever your fancy strikes. However, I do care about articles on academic journals and I would really appreciate if you could check the other academic journal articles that you have categorized (I remember seeing quite a lot on my watchlist a few days ago) and remove any inappropriate "media in" categories that you have added. If you find any really local journals, let me know and I'll probably take them to AfD. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 13:46, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

The only ones I'm "filling" are the by city ones - I'm working with what's already there in the by-country media categories. I'm certainly not adding in any new articles that aren't already categorised as media. And believe me, culling the local media from them would, as I said, remove over half the articles (and also as I said, I wasn't aware that the title of the top cat was inconsistent with the title of all the lower level categories). Newspaper categories in particular (which often make up the bulk of national media categories) are predominantly local and would have no place in a "mass media" category - at least according to the definition of "mass media" at Mass media, which says clearly that it " is distinguished from local media by the notion that whilst the former aims to reach a very large market such as the entire population of a country, the latter broadcasts to a much smaller population and area, and generally focuses on regional news rather than global events". If you can, please supply me with a list of the other journals I've edited articles on. I've edited approximately 5,000 media articles in the last three weeks, and since you seem to be the one noticing which ones are incorrect, it'd be far easier for you to let me know, especially since quite a large number don't have titles which indicate that they're journals (e.g., the Magallania and BOSQUE ones you mentioned above). Perhaps since you seem to be working on journals yourself, which are - to say the least - only peripheral to the work I'm doing, it's be a good idea if you removed them from the media categories. As far as the journals being in national categories, there is an unfortunate loophole which means that they often are. Journals are frequently in categories for specific universities - which in turn puts them into a higher level category for university presses - arranged by nation. Thus, for example, Category:University of Belgrade academic journals is in Category:University of Belgrade publications, which is, quite correctly, in Category:Serbian media. Unless you can work out a way to reconcile that, the problem will remain. Oh, and if you're sure that all one-university journals are likely to be NN, I suggest starting by nominating Harvard Law Review :) Grutness...wha? 14:10, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm fine with removing them myself (gradually, no time for a big sweep right now), just didn't want to appear to be on a "revert war path" :-) With HotCat probably less work than making a list and posting that on your talk page. You're right about unexpected twists of category trees, I hadn't noticed this yet. At least the journal cats themselves are not directly in the media cats... Law reviews in general are a special type of academic journal. In the US (and some other countries), they are mostly edited by students, which of course all are local. Don't know directly about the HLR, but almost all articles on these reviews claim to have published articles by all kinds of national notables that are not necessarily connected to their respective universities (those articles are almost invariably rather promotional when first created). So at least the authorship is wider than the local university and they all are certainly intended to be read outside of the local university (they all like to tell us that their journal has been cited in this or that Superior Court or Circuit Court case). Just as a general remark, the whole category system is pretty messy. There are not that many people regularly working on it (as opposed to people who would categorize CNN as "media in the US", "media in Georgia", "media in Atlanta", etc). I mostly limit myself to academic journal cats and think that I've been able to keep those reasonably clean, but it's a constant battle (just in the last few days somebody created Category:Reviews journals and insists that all law reviews should be included in it (even though a review journal is quite something different altogether). Oh well, I'm digressing. Going to get a cup of coffee now and actually do some real work... :) Cheers. --Randykitty (talk) 14:32, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks - and keep up the good work on the journals :) Grutness...wha? 00:40, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Cupcakes not Bulldog gravy

Hafspajen has given you a cupcake! Cupcakes promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. I like your work, go on..... †

.

Thank you! Grutness...wha? 11:11, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

User:Grutness/common.js

Hey, just a heads up that right now your js is probably broken. You should be able to fix it by adding "); to the end of the line, leaving you with:

importScript("User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/orangeBar.js");

Legoktm (talk) 11:59, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks - I was wondering what was up with it. Grutness...wha? 12:02, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Hm. And now it doesn't work at all! Grutness...wha? 00:56, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Your awesome flag

I put your flag on Uncyclopedia's article on New Zealand. It's a lot better than all the other flag designs, so why the hell not? You need a flag anyway that shows you're not just South Britain. Check it out. Article here. About Uncyclopedia here. InMooseWeTrust (talk) 14:48, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Heh. Glad it helps the article! Grutness...wha? 00:17, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Dunedin mayoral election, 2013

I've started an article for the Dunedin mayoral election, 2013, given that candidates are now coming forward. You are probably better placed than me to keep up with developments, so you might want to add to that article when necessary. Schwede66 22:03, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I probably shouldn't - I know one of the candidates (Aaron Hawkins) pretty well, and don't want to run the risk of COI. Grutness...wha? 01:07, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough. If there's something of relevance in the ODT or on Channel 9, can you please bring it to my attention? Maybe post a link to it on the article's talk page. Much appreciated. By the way, I removed the redlink for Hawkins from the Dunedin mayoral election, 2010 article, as from the distance, your mate looks non-notable. Is that a fair impression, or would he possibly pass the requirements? Schwede66 01:52, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

He's close to notability, but probably not quite there. Yet. He's working on it :) And yes, I'll pass on anything worthwhile! Grutness...wha? 02:21, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Dunedin history books

Hi Grutness, I keep an eye on Canterbury history books listed on TradeMe. Sometimes, my search returns Dunedin history books (examples 1, 2, and 3). Are you interested in those, and shall I pass URLs to the auctions on to you? Schwede66 21:28, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks... it's tempting, but I probably have enough Dunedin history books of my own, and I regularly visit the public library, so I probably wouldn't need them. It's a nice thought though... might be worthwhile if you see something interesting! Grutness...wha? 00:45, 31 May 2013 (UTC)