[WikiEN-l] More category annoyance

[Earle Martin]

A while back, after noticing the existence of [[Category:Wikipedians
in Croydon]] as a subcategory of [[Category:Wikipedians in London]], I
decided to start [[Category:Wikipedians in East London]]. (I know,
that should be 'east', I'll come back to that in a moment.)

Now I see that someone's brought it up on [[WP:UCFD]] and proposed
that it should be "upmerged" to the wider London category because
"Only one user in this category, I cant [sic] see a Userbox for it
either". Is it just me, or are those both absurd reasons to delete a
category?

This brings me to a related point, about proposed merges for user
categories. When it comes to merging pages, we put proposed merge
notices on them and it gets discussed on the talk pages. For user
categories, they have (?) to go through this process instead. I feel
powerless to defend this harmless little category, because it's
accumulating votes (let's not kid ourselves to what they are) there to
be removed.

One person comments it's "too specific for collaboration", something I
can't understand at all. (Wikipedians in east London certainly exist -
including both myself and Sam Blacketer on this very list.) My hope in
creating the category was that it would encourage collaboration
between Wikipedians in the area. Another person dittoes the nominator
that the category should be merged, despite apparently having a hobby
in creating nonsense like [[User:Patricknoddy/Userboxes/Chocolate chip
cookie]].

I'm going to say here that should this category be upmerged as a
result of the "discussion", I think I will simply recreate it, as I
don't have any confidence in the process at all.

On a more mundane topic that I mentioned briefly at the start of this
mail, I noticed that I'd actually created the category with the wrong
name - it should be "east" with a lowercase "e", not "East". However,
apparently it's not possible to rename (move) categories. How come? Is
it a technical failing or a political decision to defend against
possible vandalism?

Thanks,

Earle.

-- 
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/