Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 October 31

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October 31

Category:Church History

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, without prejudice to future re-development of a historiography-related category under a similar name. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 08:46, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Propose deleting Category:Church History (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Nominator's rationale: Which church? Editor2020, Talk 03:39, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The category Church History actually covers the history of all churchs and denominations. It is also an academic discipline that is studied and for which advanced degree are granted.

Here are the definitions and information I use to justify the creation of this category -

the history of the Church:The company of all Christians regarded as a spiritual body.

The Wikipedia article that defines Church history.
Another definition was found via the dictionary link on your talk page) Church History.

In addition my central goal of creating this category is to provide navigational links to all Wikipedia pages in a hierarchy of categories which readers, knowing essential—defining—characteristics of a topic, can browse and quickly find sets of pages on topics that are defined by those characteristics. WP:Category

Bfpage |leave a message 10:50, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep This category was just created, and the nomination for deletion is too premature. I believe time should be given for development and expansion. --Cheers-- JudeccaXIII (talk) 15:24, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

When a bad category is created (that shows a lack understanding of wp categorization) it makes sense to bring it to CFD asap. DexDor (talk) 18:46, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete this seems to cover what already is encompassed by Category:History of Christianity. The duplication is confusing and unnecessary. The history of particular periods and subsets of churches is also already covered in Category:History of Christianity. • Astynax ^talk 19:24, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This new category takes a completely different approach to linking articles together in the study of Church history. It will not even resemble the Category:History of Christianity , which I believe is completely overwhelming and unorganized at this point. If someone is looking to study church history, it would be better to follow the pattern available from colleges and universities who have already developed a syllabus on the topic. That is the intent of this new category.

Bfpage |leave a message 00:10, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:OVERLAPCAT. Based on the discussion, I expected to favor this category as I think it could be useful. But I don't think the current strange medley of articles will aid navigation. In practice, I don't see any clear distinction between this and Category:History of Christianity. RevelationDirect (talk) 02:00, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I definitely like the category in principle, but I can't make head nor tail of the current structure. Bfpage, would you be able to explain why you added this category to Ambrose? St Anselm (talk) 04:28, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete this most definitely does not cover all churches, or all values of "church", therefore is highly ambiguously. The content is itself a grab bag of things with similar names, so WP:SHAREDNAME. The subcategory Category:Church historians should also be deleted. The putative main article "Church history" is too ambiguous for a category name, since this category is not about the academic study of the history of the Christian church. "Church" does not automatically make it Christian, so as a category name, should not be used without further specification. -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 04:43, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Astynax and RevelationDirect. Marcocapelle (talk) 13:37, 1 November 2014 (UTC) (change of opinion after the later discussion below)Marcocapelle (talk) 13:02, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Rename The topic appears to be one which is widely used in the academic discipline, but it needs clarification within the category system. I propose we rename this to Category:Church history (Christianity). SFB 09:44, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or purge and rename to "Study of Christianity" (a better fit under Category:Study of religion). DexDor (talk) 18:46, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: There is no meaningful difference between the Theopedia definition of Church history and our Category:History of Christianity. If there are deficiencies with the structure of the C:HoC, I would work on fixing them rather than creating a largely duplicate category. Ignocrates (talk) 01:29, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as a category pertaining only to the study of the History of Christianity rather than its content. I realise I am in the minority here, but I see here the need for a category containing the following sort of articles: American Society of Church History, Church history, Church History (Eusebius), Ecclesiastical history (Catholicism), The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique, etc. I think most of the !delete votes above were cast before most of these articles were added to the category. St Anselm (talk) 02:46, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I could support that idea as a subcategory of C:HoC. In that case, the name needs to be changed to make it clearer that the subcategory is the study of the History of Christianity rather than its content. Ignocrates (talk) 13:59, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any workable distinction between the study of Christianity and the study of the history of Christianity? DexDor (talk) 18:42, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's a great question. The better approach would be to start over with an RfC, make a proposal, and provide specific examples to show why a new category or subcategory is needed. Ignocrates (talk) 14:37, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The term for this is 'historiography' if I'm correct. Could be workable - however currently the category contains much more than historiography so purging would be needed to begin with. Marcocapelle (talk) 03:58, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The phrase "history of the study of" a given topic is also used by such sources as the Eliade/Jones Encyclopedia of Religion as the name for articles dealing with how the historical study of a given topic has been conducted and in some cases changed over time, and I think that there is probably sufficient material for an article on the "History of study of the Christian church" or "Historiography of the Christian church" under one such title. For the record, I support the article being kept and possibly renamed to one of the above if such is deemed preferable. John Carter (talk) 21:08, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete bad precedent nip this in the bud, per DexDor. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:31, 3 November 2014 (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.