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June 23

Category:Conspiracy theories

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: do not delete; keep existing name. Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:48, 5 July 2013 (UTC) reply
Nominator's rationale: Rename/delete/purge/other. This is a follow up discussion to this closed discussion. There was some support for deletion. In looking at entries like Area 51, how is that a conspiracy? In may be the location behind specific conspiracy theories, but is not itself a conspiracy theory. Or Bielefeld Conspiracy where the article calls it a running gag but it is also a satirical story rather than a hoax or an urban legend, but not a conspiracy theory. Or Trilateral Commission which seems to be classified here since some conspiracy theorists have issues with it, but again I don't believe that it is itself a conspiracy theory. So what is the best solution? Besides those mentioned in the nom, we could simply keep it, or maybe a note about what should be covered or maybe {{ container category}} so that there are no articles and the content issues is resolved in the children? This would probably mean a nomination of the subcategories so that they can be discussed individually. Vegaswikian ( talk) 22:26, 23 June 2013 (UTC) reply
  • Keep -- the closed discussion ended in renaming to match this, rather than deletion. No objection to purging, but that (if necessary) should be a discussion on the article talk pages not here. Peterkingiron ( talk) 15:40, 24 June 2013 (UTC) reply
  • Purge of things that are not in fact conspiracy theories. Area 51 exists, this is not disputed. What occurs there is, but its actually existence is not. The same of the Trilateral Comission. This should be limited to articles on conspiracy theories, not used to tag everything brought up in a conspiracy theory. Otherwise we have to put Mitt Romney, Thomas S. Monson, the Pope and every other target of a nutball in the last 2 years in here. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 17:52, 24 June 2013 (UTC) reply
  • Keep as is. Widely covered topic, properly named. Improperly added articles should be removed, like in any other category. From what I can see some of the articles, such as the Shakespeare authorship theories and death-related theories, are more properly covered in their specific subcategories. See Category:Shakespeare authorship theories and Category:Death conspiracy theories. Dimadick ( talk) 08:47, 25 June 2013 (UTC) reply
  • Keep This is a rather strong defining characteristic of certain fringe theories and an appropriate aid to navigation. Any borderline cases should be addressed through cleanup at the article level. Alansohn ( talk) 18:36, 26 June 2013 (UTC) reply
  • Keep Usefully and clearly defines a reader interest area, not a deep ontological statement on the Platonic essences of the things in the category - David Gerard ( talk) 12:59, 27 June 2013 (UTC) reply
  • keep includes a main article, logical subcategories and many articles. The category serves the purpose of categories, help readers navigate to a set of articles on a common theme. Hmains ( talk) 04:53, 30 June 2013 (UTC) reply

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:Iterated binary operations

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. Vegaswikian ( talk) 01:58, 25 July 2013 (UTC) reply
Nominator's rationale: Delete. No idea what this might mean. If it's iterable binary operations, it should be Category:Associative binary operationsArthur Rubin (talk) 14:35, 23 June 2013 (UTC) reply
In either case, either Summation and Product (mathematics), or Addition and Multiplication, should be in the category, but not both. I lean toward the latter, as the former are not binary operations. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:50, 23 June 2013 (UTC) reply
I'm surprised that you have no idea what this might mean since the iterated binary operation article seems to be quite explanatory. The purpose of this category is to classify binary operations that are commonly used on sets of operands rather than binary pairs. Iterative representations of binary operations - by using a prefix operator on a set rather than an infix operator on two values - are very common and are a more elegant notation than, for example, using Sigma notation.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Eptified ( talkcontribs) 19:26, 23 June 2013 (UTC) reply
The article is ordinary (although possibly could be merged to Fold (higher-order function).) The category is not meaningful (do we include addition or summation? Do we include idempotent operations such as maximum, which are normally applied to sets, in addition to pairs?) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:44, 25 June 2013 (UTC) reply
Fold is a term from functional programming, not a form of mathematical notation so a merge would not be appropriate in my opinion. The iterated form is a very common idiom that I believe is worth mentioning in Wikipedia for explanatory purposes but if it doesn't fit with the overall categorical structure used to classify mathematical notation and/or a better category could replace it, go ahead and change it. I just don't think a better alternative exists from my (albeit cursory) research into Wikipedis's mathematical categories. Also, apologies for my former signature; a novice's mistake. As for addition vs summation, summation is _specifically_ an operation on sets of numbers that is formed from an iterated application of a binary operation as opposed to addition. Summation is the kind of article that should a member of this category, addition is not. The maximum function is not used as a binary operation so it does not belong to this category. I believe this line of reasoning is clear and applicable to other potential candidates for this category. Eptified ( talk) 06:01, 30 June 2013 (UTC) reply
By the way, idempotency is a property of operations not functions such as maximum. Eptified ( talk) 07:15, 30 June 2013 (UTC) reply
Much of this relates to what should be in the category, which should only be discussed on the category talk page; the discussion here should only be as to (1) whether the category should exist, and (2) whether there is a description as to what should be in the category.
As for details, though
  1. In mathematics, there is no difference between an operation and a function.
  2. Relations can be reflexive; operations or functions can only be idempotent. (There is some confusion between an idempotent function and an idempotent with respect to a function.)
  3. Perhaps there is a difference between "Fold" and mathematical iteration; however, there's little that can be said in the abstract which distinguishes them.
  4. Maximum (or minimum, join, meet, union, intersection, and, I'm sure, a few other operations) of a countable set can be thought of as iterating the corresponding binary operation, even though there may be a better way to think of it; hence they would belong in this category, if summation and product would.
Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:17, 1 July 2013 (UTC) reply

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:Lakes of the Tibet Autonomous Region

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: do not merge. Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:45, 5 July 2013 (UTC) reply
Nominator's rationale: Categories on geographic features in Tibet should be named either of Tibet or of the Tibet Autonomous Region. My preference would be to use of Tibet for all features except for administrative divisions. Inwind ( talk) 05:43, 23 June 2013 (UTC) reply

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:Syed Noor Zaman Naqshbandi Shazli

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 (category was still empty at the time of close). Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:44, 5 July 2013 (UTC) reply
Nominator's rationale: Single person category Auric talk 01:11, 23 June 2013 (UTC) reply
  • Delete Just to make things more odd, this category actually does not have any articles placed in it. The article it is linked to is up for deletion, but even if kept would not justify this category. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 04:06, 29 June 2013 (UTC) reply
  • Strong DELETE. Promotional, creator ( User:Faizanhb2) banned. kashmiri TALK 14:00, 3 July 2013 (UTC) reply

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:British investors in slavery and slave trading

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. Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:43, 5 July 2013 (UTC) reply
Nominator's rationale: This is the only "investors in" cat I can find and I assume it exists because most find slavery immoral. I don't think it is defining. Also see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 June 20#Category:Slave traders and slave holders. JFH ( talk) 00:04, 23 June 2013 (UTC) reply
delete Not defining, and hard to define anyway. Is this for people? Companies? Are we going to start a whole tree of "entities which once profited from slavery"? This isn't workable.-- Obi-Wan Kenobi ( talk) 14:31, 23 June 2013 (UTC) reply
  • Delete -- This is a sort of attack category to brand respectible merchants, becasue they had some peripheral involvement with slavery. Members of Lloyds of London probably insured slaving ships: that does not make them slave traders. Lloyds itslef certainly did not: it was (and is) only an insurnace market. Slavery is morally repugnant, but that is not the point. Apart from LLoyds we have a Glasgow merchant and a Liverpool merchant. Contrary to popular opinion the majority of trasnatlantic shipping in the slave era was not in the infamous triangular trade, but direct trade between Britain and the West Indies or America. While both merchants may have had some indirect involvement with slavery, such as buying sugar or tobacco cultivated by slaves, that doers not make them investors in salvery or slave trading. At worst, merge with whatever categories emerge from Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 June 20#Category:Slave traders and slave holders]], purging out LLoyds. Peterkingiron ( talk) 15:52, 24 June 2013 (UTC) reply
  • Delete This takes a presentist bias and applies it on the past. What next Category:American investors in the oppression of Iraq, where we will tag anyone who owned stock in a company said to have "oppressed" Iraq. Tagging people by what they invested in is just a very bad idea. It still overstates things in the 18th century. If applied to the 21st, with the proliferation of mutual funds, it will become a total mess. Another fun fact, what do you do with people (or more often organizations) who held donated stock? Are they really an investor if they accepted the stock and sold it as soon as possible. I have seen the use of donated stock holding by one group used to try and discredit it, so I distrust this type of category as a mark of attempts at shaming that tells us nothing significant or useful. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 17:56, 24 June 2013 (UTC) reply
  • Delete per nom. Carlossuarez46 ( talk) 04:43, 25 June 2013 (UTC) reply

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.