Category talk:English initialisms for organizations

Category:English acronyms for organizations
We don’t need categories that are just the intersection of a language category and a topic one - it serves absolutely no useful purpose.

These have just been created by, and populated en masse by removing items from Category:en:Organizations and putting them in these - mostly by bot. Theknightwho (talk) 09:33, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep. I had no idea this was going to be controversial. The purpose is to have Category:en:Organizations contain no initialisms and acronyms, which is going to be very useful for gaining an overview of what kind of names of organizations we include. I started doing the change using my main account and then switched to the quasi-bot account. It is an intersection of a topical and non-topical category, but a very useful one. Otherwise, Category:en:Organizations is going to be swamped by initialisms and acronyms since there are so many of them; most of the initialisms and acronyms for organizations are not there yet, so if someone would systematically add them, the category would be completely swamped by them. Since this is now controversial, I will stop moving items to the new subcategories, which is a pity, but what can I do. Right now, Category:en:Organizations is already much more useful to get an overview of names of organizations, but it would be even more useful if I were allowed to complete the task. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:44, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * You need to justify why we should have a category that is just the intersection of a language category and a topic category, because that could be applied to any number of combinations. The categories are not “swamped”, and you are just making people sort through additional layers to find things, and in a way that is incongruent with the rest of the site. Not helpful.
 * By the way - using the justification that this is useful for your current personal crusade in relation to the names of organisations is not a good idea. Theknightwho (talk) 09:53, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The justification is right above. Once done, this would not be an intersection category since the items would not be in Organizations category and only in the subcategories. The utility is obvious yet I explained it above; the utility is not there for any arbitrary combination. It is not too much to ask the users to navigate to a subcategory to find initialisms and acronyms, although I can't really imagine what kind of search one would want to make in this kind of category. And hardly any other topical category is going to be so badly swamped by initialisms and acronyms; none comes to mind. The task makes the Organizations category so much more useful for our regulatory purposes. This is not about me; it is the project that had a vote for names of organizations and that is trying to deal with them. It is not a problem invented by me. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:04, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * You have still not provided any justification for why we should have intersection categories. We don’t allow “nouns that are also adjectives” or “personal names named after countries” either, even though both might come in handy sometimes.
 * I have better things to do than bang my head against a brick wall trying to get you to understand basic points again, as it’s clear that you have absolutely zero interest in understanding why we should not make exceptions for things just because you happen to be interested in them. You are evidently able to sort the categories yourself, and in any event that should not take priority over anyone who just wants a complete list of all the organisations we have - nevermind that it’s obviously a lot more problematic to deal with if someone miscategorises them, which happens a lot with initialisms and acronyms. You have obviously not considered that these will quickly become an incoherent mess, too, as people will continue to categorise in the ordinary categories instead. Theknightwho (talk) 10:11, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I have better things to do than bang my head against a brick wall trying to get you to understand basic points again, as it’s clear that you have absolutely zero interest in understanding why we should not make exceptions for things just because you happen to be interested in them. You are evidently able to sort the categories yourself, and in any event that should not take priority over anyone who just wants a complete list of all the organisations we have - nevermind that it’s obviously a lot more problematic to deal with if someone miscategorises them, which happens a lot with initialisms and acronyms. You have obviously not considered that these will quickly become an incoherent mess, too, as people will continue to categorise in the ordinary categories instead. Theknightwho (talk) 10:11, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I have better things to do than bang my head against a brick wall trying to get you to understand basic points again, as it’s clear that you have absolutely zero interest in understanding why we should not make exceptions for things just because you happen to be interested in them. You are evidently able to sort the categories yourself, and in any event that should not take priority over anyone who just wants a complete list of all the organisations we have - nevermind that it’s obviously a lot more problematic to deal with if someone miscategorises them, which happens a lot with initialisms and acronyms. You have obviously not considered that these will quickly become an incoherent mess, too, as people will continue to categorise in the ordinary categories instead. Theknightwho (talk) 10:11, 16 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Re: "You have still not provided any justification": obviously false, as per above. Before I started, there was no complete list of organizations; I have expanded Organizations with initialisms a couple of days ago, making it a little bit more complete. It is a general property of subcategories that the supercategory is not a list of all items: if we create Companies as a subcategory, this will also make it harder to find all organizations. And those searching for bird names cannot find them all in Birds category; they have to navigate through taxonomically named subcategories so they will not know where to look. I think there are tools that allow to collect items from all the subcategories. In general, subcategorization has pros and cons, and these need to be weighted. The above is just undifferentiated dismissal of subcategorization.
 * There is no reason to think that, once this is completed, people will categorize different from the practice that they can observe. And this kind of argument could be made about any subcategory: what if those adding new items will put them into a supercategory? --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:25, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * “Companies” is not an intersection, whereas this adds no new information. I am done trying to talk sense into you - your mistake here is self-evident, no matter how much you prattle on, and these should be speedy deleted. Theknightwho (talk) 10:32, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Companies is not an intersection, but creates the problem you complain about: people will no longer find all items in one larger category. Any subcategorization creates that problem. Pros and cons need to be weighted. The pros have been explained and completely dismissed; no nuance or balance. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:39, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete. Pointless category intersections which were created not because they're useful but to try to prove some kind of point. &mdash; S URJECTION / T / C / L / 10:58, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Come on, the point is to give everyone a easy overview of the likes of United Nations, in contrast to NASA. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:10, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Were you planning on having categories for all the other kinds of shortening, too? What fun people would have looking through a bunch of different (topically) arbitrary groupings just to find something. At least with more specific topic categories you can start at the top and work your way down fairly reliably, but with these you have to know whether it’s an acronym or whatever before you find it. That’s why we have separate categorisation schemes, instead of blending them like this. Theknightwho (talk) 12:12, 16 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Delete. I have designed a hierarchical category system used in a library and we have a rule that you don't mix topics like this. You can have "Geography > Kenya" and "Industry > Metalworking" on the same publication, but never "Geography > Kenya > Metalworking": this kind of thing creates insane duplication. Equinox ◑ 12:16, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Just imagine the mess if we then added subcategories like “Companies” to “Organizations” - either we’d have an exponential number of abbreviations categories, or we’d have to start categorising all organisations twice (once for “Companies”/whatever and once for this). Madness. Theknightwho (talk) 12:26, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I do see that you usually don't do this, but I do believe there can be strong enough justification for an exception. Most rigid rules like that allow exceptions. We already have some useful categories being the exception, but I don't want them to be deleted. --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:39, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Let me add that Wikipedia does not abide by this: they have e.g. categories "Industry in England", "Textile industry of England‎", "Textile industry of Germany", etc. So they create "intersection" categories even though they could only have "Industry" > "Textile Industry" and "Europe" > "United Kingdom" > "England". They seem to want to make it more useful and easier for readers at the cost of a loss of certain elegance. Whether that's a perfect analogy I am not sure, but it seems to be what you are talking about above. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:06, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The difference is that "textile industry of Germany" is a meaningfully distinct concept. A direct analogy would be if they had "textile industry" under "Germany", and then placed any articles which happened to relate to both Germany and the textile industry in it, even if they have nothing to do with the textile industry in Germany. For example, a textiles company based abroad which primarily exports to Germany, or a German person who set up a big textiles plant in another country. That category would be completely pointless, because it would just be anything in A and B, even if there's no meaningful connection. Theknightwho (talk) 15:17, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * That's not the analogy at all. "English initialisms for organizations" is nothing like that since it names both supercategories: English initialism and Organizations. It isn't like Kenya > Metalworking; it is like Kenya > Metalworking in Kenya, which is a combination category and seems to violate Equinox scheme, if I understand it correctly. Metalworking in Kenya can have both supercategories, Metalworking and Kenya. Fairly many such combinations arise, by combining branches of industry with geographical locations, so one can complain about category explosion. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:25, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I will concede one point: the category says "initialisms" and then gets filed under "Organizations", but initialisms are not organizations. It would have to be "Organizations named by initialism", to be fully clean, and then only be filed under Organizations. What I would like to see is "Organizations named by initialism or acronym", with the sole supercategory being Organizations; that would be helpful. Could there be consensus for that? --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:36, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * You've very obviously not understood or not read my comment at all, as I directly addressed the point you just made. The name of the category is not ultimately relevant - what matters is what the category is for, and I have just explained the difference between an intersection and a distinct concept which comes from both. Wikipedia cares about the latter, while you care about the former. Theknightwho (talk) 17:19, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * "textile industry of Germany" is not a distinct atomic concept; it is a combination of concepts. So is "Organizations named by initialism". I could equally well say that "you have not understood or read my comment", but what good would it make for the discussion? It seems true enough. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:40, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes it is - I have already given you examples of things that could go in "textiles industry" and "Germany" but not "textiles industry of Germany". There are no things that could go in both "Organizations" and "Initialisms" that couldn't go in "Organizations named by initialisms". I keep explaining this, but it's obviously not going in. Theknightwho (talk) 17:54, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Organizations and Initialisms in fact have an empty intersection, literally speaking. Just to nitpick. There is some ambiguity in combining "textiles industry" and "Germany", but the fact that resolving that ambiguity results in a combinatorial explosion is undeniable. If one accepts that this resolution is required, what was Equinox argument about? I did not do anything like putting Metalworking under Kenya. My best understanding was that it was about having two dimensions uncombined: one dimension was about regions, another dimension was about industries. If that was not the argument, then I don't know what it was. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:11, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete Tbh I was unsure about this stuff while reading the discussion as it progressed here but now I feel these should be deleted for the various aforementioned reasons. Acolyte of Ice (talk) 12:23, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Let me just add that I would be happy with Category:English initialisms and acronyms for organizations instead of having two, to avoid having to decide whether something is an initialism or acronym. As it stands, this will be the content of Organizations category, upon first approximation: it will take quite some time for anyone to find all normal names of organizations. --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:39, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The categories are not only for readers but also for creators in so far as they pertain to our inclusion criteria. Initialisms and acronyms for organizations seem to get a free pass for inclusion, unlike single-word and multi-word names. Separation of items that get a free pass from those that don't by categories is eminently useful for the project, even if it violates a neat scheme of categorization. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:28, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Wiktionary does not usually intersect topical and non-topical categories, but it does intersect other categories. There is Category:en:Villages in England; upon the pure clean design, there would be Municipalities > Villages and United Kingdom > England but no such category. There then needs to be Towns in England, Cities in England, Towns in Germany, Cities in Germany, etc., the kind of combination categories that we are talking about here. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:01, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete. Pointless category. — Fenakhay ( حيطي · مساهماتي ) 13:48, 16 September 2022 (UTC)


 * An additional remark: Dan said, "The purpose is to have Category:en:Organizations contain no initialisms and acronyms..." But that approach makes no sense to me. The "UN", for example, is an organization. Whether the word "UN" is a noun, a verb, an initialism, a proverb or whatever is irrelevant here. The thing the UN is an organization, so it belongs in the category. If you (Dan) want a convenient way to get a list of orgs that are, or aren't, initialisms, you should find a way to do this with a data dump or a bot, and not by ignoring the valid category semantics. Equinox ◑ 17:22, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Sure, and Microsoft is an organization even if it ends up in Companies, a subcategory of Organizations, being no longer listed in Organizations. I accept that I should have probably created "Organizations named by initialism or acronym", with a sole supercategory Organizations, to avoid ontology mismatch. Many will still dislike it, I guess. I don't think it's just me who wants to see the likes of United Nations; other editors should have that need as well, and they should not need to make a dump analysis each time they want to see this category of items. We don't need to specifically regulate the likes of NASA, but we do have that need for the likes of United Nations. From a puristic perspective, the objection that the category proposed still combines syntactic properties with referent properties still holds true, but pure purism hardly ever works particularly well, and we do have some categories combining things like that for regulatory purposes, which I won't name for the fear that they are the next target. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:42, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh my god Dan. Shut up. You're wrong. No-one but you wants this bullshit. Theknightwho (talk) 17:56, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete, per Surjection. Nicodene (talk) 16:04, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete. Ultimateria (talk) 23:51, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

RFD deleted. Theknightwho (talk) 17:06, 15 November 2022 (UTC)