Upmerge at least to the Russian Army Category. Although do we really want to divide Imperial Russian Army generals by ethnicity? Do we haveGerman generals in the Imperial Russian Army which was so common there was an ethnic Russian officer in the Imperial Russian Army who asked to be made a German to point out the Germans seemed to be preferentially given higher rank.John Pack Lambert (talk)04:03, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete' per nom. I have to admit I question whether having 21st century categories is really needful at all. Although since they have survived past challenges we are just getting to the point where the overlap with the 20th-century categories is starting to get maybe low enough that thry might actually be justified. On the other hand since Zimbabwe has only existed since 1980, I would highly question the need to divide a category for a place that has existed only 45 years by century at all. For example we do not divideCategory:People from Austria-Hungary into 19th and 20th century categories, and Austria-Hungary lasted 51 years, about 6 or so years longer than Zimbabwe has.John Pack Lambert (talk)04:10, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale These 1 article categories make navigation harder. Upmerging to the parent categories will make it easier. I would have included the wrestling coaches category as well since in also only has 1 article, but that was nominated in a much broader nomination to upmerge wrestling coach categories that were 1 and 2 articles in size.John Pack Lambert (talk)21:07, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment We have upmerged many of these 1-article categories. There is already at the CSU Pueblo ThunderWolves coaches category 1 direct article. The end of small category guidelines and replacing them with narrow category guidelines made it so "well established scheme" was no longer an accepted reason to keep overly narrow categories. Beyond this when the majority of sub-cats within a category have only 1 article as is the case with the CSU Pueblo ThunderWolves coaches category it is not really a "well established scheme" at all.John Pack Lambert (talk)21:48, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Merge for Now These individual articles can still be found in the team cat and no objection to future recreation if the article count ever grows substantially. -RevelationDirect (talk)03:15, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale This is a 1 article category. Such make it quite hard to naviage between categories. Merging up to the parent categories will make navigating to other articles easier.John Pack Lambert (talk)20:53, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment With the end of the small category guidelines we no longer accept well established schemes as a reason to sort into 1 article categories. There are lots of other men's soccer players from the US who have not been sorted by team. Having 1 article categories hinders instead of helps navigation.John Pack Lambert (talk)21:50, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Mike Selinker, better for navigation to keep it as a separate cat in these trees than to dump evrything together and make it harder for readers.Fram (talk)08:36, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Merge for Now These would still be easily found in the team athletes and state cats. No objection to future recreation if the article count grows substantially. -RevelationDirect (talk)03:16, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
1 article categories in Category:College men's track and field athletes in Alabama
Nominator's rationale all of these categories have no more than one article. The first three I think we should merge up to make navigation easier. I am not sure all the targets are justified either (mainly the x college/university track and field) but this is a big enough nomination for now. The last category only has a redirect. I am not sure if we really want to categorize that redirect, so I would not oppose just plain deletion, but maybe it is a justified categorzation, but we should not have a category just to have a redirect. I do not think that makese any sense at all.John Pack Lambert (talk)20:37, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep the first three, delete the last. Part of a well-established scheme of sorting athletes by school. But there's no reason to have a category just for redirects.Mike Selinker (talk)21:33, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment With the end of the small category guidelines "well established schemes" are no longer justified reasons to keep categories, especially 1 article categories. 1 article categories that include biographies of living people actively make it harder to abide by biogrpahy of living people guidelines. 1 article categories hinder navigation by making it harder to navigate between articles.John Pack Lambert (talk)21:51, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"1 article categories that include biographies of living people actively make it harder to abide by biogrpahy of living people guidelines" -- can you expand on this? --Habst (talk)21:12, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Upmerge per nom. It's not useful to have categories with only one article. They can be recreated if more content can be added in future.Mclay1 (talk)23:37, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Fram, no opposition to upmerging theCategory:Troy Trojans men's track and field athletes (although an even better solution would be to find other WP articles to put in there -- for example,Titus Dixon and many others you can find withthis search query). One-article categories are allowed on Wikipedia, partially because it takes some effort to create a category but significantly less to add an article to a category. So long as the categories follow proper naming conventions and there's likelihood that other WP articles may be added -- and in this case, I think there's a high likelihood -- they should be kept. --Habst (talk)21:18, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As someone who has created and populated hundreds of categories I respectfully disagree. I just found another example item to populateCategory:Troy Trojans men's track and field athletes with a simple search; creating these categories on the other hand takes hours and a lot of research to determine e.g. what format to use, which container categories to use, and which Wikidata item to link it to. --Habst (talk)14:12, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Merge for Now These tiny 1 article cats make navigation harder by requiring more clicks across articles and the merges keep the biographies in both the school team category and the state sports categories. -RevelationDirect (talk)03:19, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Utah Valley Wolverines men's track and field athletes
Nominator's rationale This 2 article category does not assist navigation and in many ways makes it harder. Merging to the parent categories will make navigation easier.John Pack Lambert (talk)20:23, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
With the end of the small category guidelines something being part of a well established scheme is no longer a defense for one article ctegories. We regularly upmerge 1 article categories because in almost all cases they hinder navigation. There is no good reason why we should keep this article isolated in a 1 article category when we can easily upmerge it to its relevant parents.John Pack Lambert (talk)21:54, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Fram. One- and two-article categories are generally allowed on Wikipedia, and it's likely that other articles can be added with sufficient research. --Habst (talk)21:36, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Merge for now Small categories hinder navigation by taking more clicks between articles. No objection to future recreation if/when the article count grows substantially. -RevelationDirect (talk)03:20, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale The majority of the people in this category are people who explored beyond the current to their time effective control of New Spain long before any attempts by the Spanish colonial government were made to establish control in the area. Most of modern Arizona was outside effective control even by the Mexican government. Even among the later people, we had one person who did exploration of this area after the American annexcation. He died in the summer of 1863. Arizona Territory was only formed in February 1863. Most exploration at least in this area was done when defining polities more specific than North America in not reasonable, and so I think that is the reasonable place to merge this category.John Pack Lambert (talk)20:02, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale In general explorers explore over a broad area. Several of these people were maritime coastal explorers from a time before California was established. Some later ones likeGeorge Vancouver went a lot of places. In general I think explorers need to be categorized by where they were exploring. Those who were actually exploring in the recognized boundaries of the United States, that is after 1848 in this area, can go in Explorers of the United States. But we should not be so placing people who came by ship from New England in 1820 to explore in the northern regions of New Spain, or people who came a few years later and explored in the north areas claimed by Mexico that the US had recognized as not then in its territory. We have another tree of Explorers by nationality, and that is a place we can we have American explorers, Mexican explorers etc. based on their nation of origin, these categories are by what is explored and we should not split it up by political divisions that post-date when the exploring was done.John Pack Lambert (talk)19:57, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Selective merge to American eugenicists for both. It was made by the same category creator and has the same sourcing issues as the recently closed[1].SMasonGarrison18:49, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Merge I think at least if it defining we can categorize people as eugenicists. I do not think we need to categorize them by specific societies or organizations advocating eugenics they were in.John Pack Lambert (talk)18:54, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
MergeCategory:Explorers of Montana toCategory:Explorers of the United States orCategory:Explorers of North America depending on whether the exploration was done before of after the annexation by the United States of this area in the early 19th-century. Montana itself is very close to a box because its boundaries were arbitrarily drawn in 1864 without regard to population or geographical features in the area by people far away. Most of the exploring was done before Montana even was made a territory in 1864 so this is not a very useful category, and I think it would be best to upmerge to these parents, making sure we do not call people operating in the area long before the United States made any sort of claim to the area as exploring the United States. If people want to cut off at some point after the Lousiana Purchase claim and want to use some other later date when US control became more real on the ground that might work, but including pre-Lousiana purchase explorers in this area in the Explorers of the United States category just plain does not work.John Pack Lambert (talk)18:33, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is an interesting nomination. I assume that it is a trial nomination, because there are multiple sibling categories. Explorers often explore areas that are not part of a state. The nomination implies that many explorers should only be categorized by continent. I am not against the proposal, because it is historically accurate, but I would still propose a milder alternative of adual merge toCategory:Explorers of North America andCategory:People from pre-statehood Montana.Marcocapelle (talk)19:16, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Each state has different issues. Montana has less clear identify before it was a territory than some states did. I want to think about these on a case by case basis.John Pack Lambert (talk)19:49, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale This category has 3 people who exploered Washington Territory, and everyone else explored before that. We should not categorize people as by narrow bordered exploered when they were exploring broad areas, and we should not categorize them by bordered they did not even know of because they would not exist for years if not decades afterward. So I think this would be the best move.John Pack Lambert (talk)18:21, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is a pretty ambiguous category name considering Mario and Donkey Kong's history. All parent categories are for video games. I could have ostensibly done speedy renaming underWP:C2C, but figured I'd put it here. Why wouldn't that apply? Particularly this part ofWP:CATNAME "Choose category names that can stand alone, independent of the way a category is connected to other categories".WinstonDewey (talk)21:08, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the category should be for the franchise or series, then it needs significant edits. The parent categories should largely be removed, includingCategory:Donkey Kong platform games. But doing so would only be in service of including one article that can easily be placed in a music specific category. It should be made consistent with its parent categories unless there is enough content to expand beyond and in that case there should be a video game subcategory that can be placed in this same spot.WinstonDewey (talk)21:18, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: PerWP:EPON andWP:NARROWCAT. These categories contain few articles directly about the subject and are primarily populated by multi-team arenas and categories for their respective coaches and players.User:Namiba16:12, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Merge Eponymous categories need to at an absolute minimum contain either 1 article besides the eponymous article or at least 2 sub-cats. Even at those levels their utility is debatable. When they only contain the main article and 1 sub-cat there is no reason at all for us to have the category.John Pack Lambert (talk)21:56, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for different reasons. It looks like there was 1 team,Salt Lake Golden Eagles, that bounced between 3 different leagues and has player subcats for all 3. I understand the subcats (so you can find the players by league) but keeping these together makes clearer this is one team not a shared name. -RevelationDirect (talk)03:33, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as a parallel category in a well-established class of categories. When category deletion degrades parallelism, it makes navigation more difficult, not easier.Jweiss11 (talk)03:11, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When we ended the small category guideline we ended the applicability of the argument that something is a well established category. The question is is the category large enough on its own. In this case it clearly is not. As seen by the other nomination on this page there are several overly small player categories for college football players in Pennsylvania, merging them on that level will make it easier to navigate between the articles.John Pack Lambert (talk)20:26, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There have been multiple recent decisions to upmerge these very few article categories. There is no reason to keep 3 article sports player categories. No one has explained at all why the relatively few articles that will be in the parents will be too much for people to navigate througgh. You are basically ignoring precedent, arguing based on the small cat guidelines that are no longer in place and ignoring the narrow category guidelines that do not at all justify keeping narrow categories just because there are other similar ones. There is no reason at all we should keep a 3 article players category when we can easily move it to a reasonably size players by state category.John Pack Lambert (talk)18:38, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This is not "countless others from such small categories" this would be at most 16 articles if all categories with 3 or less articles were upmerged, and that is assuming there is no overlap between pages. That is not an unreasonably large number of articles for people to navigate through.John Pack Lambert (talk)14:03, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How is navigating through 16 pages easier than having to click one level down, the same it is done for all these others we wouldn't upmerge? Why is an extra level not an unreasonable burden for these hundreds of articles that you don't want to upmerge, but an unreasonable burden for these 16? Or takeCategory:Drexel Dragons athletes, another upmerge target. At the moment, this is an extremely easy to navigate category, with 10 logically defined subcats and no loose articles. If this proposal was accepted, you would have 9 nice subcats, and one loose article without indication of the sport. How does this make navigation easier? How does this help readers?Fram (talk)14:14, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Both these categories appear to be for identical purposes. All of the entries are for the PRC not any other form of China. PerWP:Commonname, we don't use formal names of countries. Categories like these with the formal names are overcat and are unnecessary subcats. One category can suffice.
This is a borderline case. One may argue that society of China has changed so much since 1949 that a separate period subcategory is warranted.Marcocapelle (talk)21:35, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But general articles like Social issues in China is in the PRC cat but the main category for this article is in Society of China. Not really borderline given this strange categorization.WikiCleanerMan (talk)02:07, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale There are at most 18 articles underCategory:Dordt University. There are 4 articles in the faculty category, 12 in the alumni category, 0 directly in the football one, 1 in the players, and 2 in the coaches. Plus an article on Dordt University. The Dordt Defenders do not have an article or Category, and Dordt Defenders football lacks an article. These mergings and deletions will give us 13 articles in the alumni category and 3 in the main article, while also placing the articles in the football players in Iowa and football coaches in Iowa. This will move us away from too small categories that hinder navigation. If we had an articleDordt defenders football, I would want to merge the category toCategory:College football in Iowa, as well as Dordt University, but we do not so these mergings are keeping the players and coaches categories under those trees.John Pack Lambert (talk)22:09, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all as a parallel categories in a well-established classes of categories. When category deletion degrades parallelism, it makes navigation more difficult, not easier.Jweiss11 (talk)03:01, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When we got rid of the small cat guidelines we removed the "well established category tree" argument as a valid one. The question is is this category large enough to justify. Here we have 1 football player. He is the only alumni of Dordt University who has been sorted out as having been an athlete. We cover him just as well putting him inCategory:College football players in Iowa andCategory:Dordt University alumni as we do splitting him out. Lots of other players of college sports are directly in the College x sport player in the US or the College x sport player in y state categories. Just because we can if we try create one article categories intersecting every sport and team does not mean this is a reasonable way to aid navigation. By splitting out at the state level we ensure that no one category will be too large. There is no good reason to keep categories this small.John Pack Lambert (talk)19:57, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support Having a bunch of these small categories hinders navigation versus going to the the school or state categories. (No objection to future recreation though if multiple additional articles are ever published.) -RevelationDirect (talk)03:47, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rational There are several sports that we have athletes from in the Drury Panthers category. However we do not have a coaches category. The meetings here will keep the articles in their various catrgory structures. We do not need to keep Drury Panthers football just for these 2 coach and 1 player article. After these mergings the Drury Panthers athletes catehory will have 4 or 5 direct articles and the Drury Panthers catrgory will have 4 direct articles.John Pack Lambert (talk)22:37, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all as a parallel categories in a well-established classes of categories. When category deletion degrades parallelism, it makes navigation more difficult, not easier.Jweiss11 (talk)03:01, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When we ended the small category guidelines and replaced them with the narrow cat guidelines we decided to no longer keep categories just because other parts of the tree were small. Keeping 1 and 2 article categories just because there are other larger similar categories does not help. There are lots of x players at y school who are just in the y school athletes cat and the x players in either the US or the state cat.John Pack Lambert (talk)19:07, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support Having a bunch of these small categories hinders navigation versus going to the the school or state categories. (No objection to future recreation though if multiple additional articles are ever published.) -RevelationDirect (talk)03:47, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: I don't think it is possible to separate topics related to human migrations in this way. Why areMigration policy andPeopling of the world ineffects? The defining characteristic of articles in this category is their relation to human migration. Simple up-merge, no other parent.Place Clichy (talk)11:07, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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'stalk page or in adeletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
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'stalk page or in adeletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
Keep. Why is it considered better to have inCategory:South American veterinarians separate cats for Argentina or Brazil, but then the smaller countries are dumped together? Either people look for these by country, in which case dividing them all is best: or people don't look for them by country, in which case all of them should be upmerged. But having incomplete trees for the sake of a rigid "no small cats" approach is not helpful.Fram (talk)08:52, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When you're in e.g.Luis Gneiting (the Paraguayan one) you wouldn't care less if Argentina has its own subcategory. The merge allows to get quicker to other articles about veterinarians and that is what matters.Marcocapelle (talk)17:13, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. if it is useful to have the European veterinarians divided by country, then it is useful for large and small groups alike. Having the French or Germans separate, but the Croatian and Icelandic ones dumped together, is not helpful.Fram (talk)08:53, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When you're in e.g.Agnes Sjöberg (the Finnish one) you wouldn't care less if Germany has its own subcategory. The merge allows to get quicker to other articles about veterinarians and that is what matters.Marcocapelle (talk)17:16, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When I go toCategory:European veterinarians, I would expect all (or none) to be grouped by country, not some countries with a cat and the remainder dumped together. Category trees are used in multiple directions, not only starting from this article.Fram (talk)17:52, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
? Of course not? No idea why you need to point out the obvious, that you gave an example and that my reply would have been the same for any other example.Fram (talk)08:53, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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'stalk page or in adeletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
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'stalk page or in adeletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
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'stalk page or in adeletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
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'stalk page or in adeletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
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'stalk page or in adeletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
Nominator's rationale: Not enough content for an eponymous category perWP:OCEPON. Since the subcategories interlink anyway, there is no need for this parent.StarcheerspeaksnewslostwarsTalk to me00:03, 9 December 2025 (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'stalk page or in adeletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
Relisted, seeWikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 December 16#Category:People associated with Gilbert and Sullivan