[WikiEN-l] Category:Criminals // Category:American Criminals

[jayjg]

On 5/10/06, jf_wikipedia at mac.com <jf_wikipedia at mac.com> wrote:
> I would like to hear your opinion on these categories and their
> compliance with [[Wikipedia:Categorization of people]]
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization_of_people)
>
> My concern is that people are using Category:Criminals //
> Category:American Criminals as a way to push negative POVs aginst
> such persons (regardless if the person is alive or dead). The reason
> for  my concern is that it indiscriminately group people as diverse
> as  person that was convicted from stealing a pair of jeans at Wal-
> Mart with serial killers, rapists and the like.
>
> See for example the bio of [[Ron_Karenga]] (http://en.wikipedia.org/
> wiki/Ron_Karenga). In his biography it is described that "in 1965,
> and in 1971 was convicted of felony assault of two of the group's
> female members, for which he spent time in prison", so he was added
> to the Category:Criminals. That IMO, is not acceptable.
>
> One possibility would be to restrict the addition to people to the
> main category "Criminals" and request that people are added to a
> specific sub-category of[[:Category:Criminals]]. And if such sub-
> category does not exists, either to create a new subcat, or simply
> not adding a category.
>
> I am interested to hear what other editors think on this matter, and
> what can be done to curtail abuse of this category.

There has already been a discussion on this topic on the list.  These
Categories are problematic at best; perhaps they should be changed to
"Americans convicted of a crime" or something similar.

Jay.