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This category, "College football coaches," is to be used as the parent category of teams' football coaches subcategories, not individual coaches themselves. Example:
See the difference? Jrcla2 (talk) 02:06, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Then where do notable football coaches go if their college doesn't have a football coach subcategory tree? There are currently 139 people listed directly. The category text prohibiting individuals was added 2 years after the category was created, and seems a bit arbitrary. Is there some reason "college football coaches" shouldn't contain college football coaches? --Closeapple (talk) 06:00, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(1) It does contain college football coaches. (2) If you look at my recent contributions you'll see that I'm in the process of eliminating all of the individualized coaches from this category, which will take some time, probably a day or two. (3) If no coaching category already exists then create one, and be sure to use standard naming conventions (i.e. no "University" or "College" in it), and then add 'Category:College football coaches' to the new coaching category you've just made. Jrcla2 (talk) 06:15, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I know it seems arbitrary at first, but think about it this way: There are tens of thousands of college football coaches to have ever lived, and the number grows every year. Wouldn't it make sense, then, for one to be able to search for a particular school's coaching category (whether it be NAIA or FBS) and finding it simply by going to 'Category:College football coaches' rather than toying around to get to it? The goal here is to get every single college (minus county and junior colleges) to have its own football coaching category and then have them all centrally located in this one parent category. Also, this category could become a burden quite quickly if individual coaches were allowed to go here. Think of how inefficient that would be. Jrcla2 (talk) 06:22, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My concern is similar to BaronLarf's: There are a lot of Wikipedia editors who aren't yet bold enough/experienced enough to have the confidence to create a college football coach category (or other multi-parent categories), then know which parent categories to put that new category in. If it is consensus that any college with at least one football coach article should have its own football coaches category, then one needs to remember that somewhat experienced editors will still have to do that work. And if it is not consensus, then college football coaches (especially ones that were notable for their college coaching) still need a category. That is, just removing the parent category isn't appropriate unless the subcategory is being created. (Maybe Jrcla2 is doing that.) On the subject of making categories for single articles: A category I created (Category:Sportspeople from Peoria, Illinois) was deleted as "overcategorization" when it had 24 articles (21% of the parent category Category:People from Peoria, Illinois). It seems to me that the threshold for what is enough to have a category now is getting pretty high. Not that I myself am necessarily opposed to having small-count subcategories here — it seems reasonable to have compound categories that make finding people easier rather than harder — but: Jrcla2 seems to be saying this category of sports people must be diffused even for single articles, yet Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 June 16#Category:Sportspeople by city says another category must not be diffused even though the category is even broader (any sports people at all by city, not even football coaches by specific school). I think those two are conflicting signals. --Closeapple (talk) 09:42, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
From the 40 or so articles that I reviewed, no additional subcategories are being created and added. If they were being created, I would not have a problem. Ex: 1 (Emporia State Hornets football coaches not added), 2 (Doane Tigers football coaches not added), 3 (Bakersfield football coaches not added); 4 (Santa Monica City College football coaches not added); 5 (Marquette football coaches not added). --BaronLarf 10:00, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Last night, in the midst of my category removal from all of those pages, I forgot to make the necessary category creations (such as Category:Marquette Golden Eagles football coaches). Trust me, I had been making new categories as I was going along (ex:Dickinson Red Devils football coaches), but sometimes I just forgot to do it. I will definitely create new coaching categories as I go along and when necessary so that I may address one of the concerns raised here (that people aren't bold enough to do it unless very experienced). As for using this category to put special cases of individual coaches here, I have no problem with that. Specifically, I think Curtis Youel is an apt example. In general, however, this should be for subcats of teams, not individuals. Jrcla2 (talk) 19:32, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am a bit disturbed at the way this is being done. Why not create the categories first? And it might be a good idea next time to notify the concerned WikiProjects to make sure there is consensus for your change before just declaring on your own what does and does not belong in a category that contains hundreds of articles.--BaronLarf 19:50, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me that sweeping changes are taking place without a firm consensus. While I don't necessarily think its either right or wrong, it's certainly clumsy to do these changes as they are happening now...--Paul McDonald (talk) 01:21, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
