Category talk:Navigational boxes

Container category

following discussion copied from User talk:Slivicon#Category:Navigational_boxes, and continued below.

This one really is a genuine container category - fairly obvious really.

I cleared out something like 130 templates from this cat some time ago, and regularly remove the odd one or two new ones that creep in. We're basically left with {{Navbox}} and its siblings, which should indeed be recategorized I left them for a while, as there are one or two other subcats there that are not quite right, and it is best to consider the whole lot together. Quite likely that some discussion will be required to decide the best approach.

It is importaant that {{Container category}} should remain, so that editors don't inadvertently add templates to this cat, and so that any new ones are promptly removed.

--NSH002 (talk) 07:16, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

@NSH002: Speaking of "obvious", how can Category:Navigational boxes be a container with articles? By definition it says right on it, only subcats. Are you planning to create subcats for the remaining articles, otherwise catdiffuse is the appropriate choice if and until you get around to subcategorizing as you mentioned. --Slivicon (talk) 13:07, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Simple, it's the top-level cat for all navboxes, so it can hardly be anything other than a container cat. The handful of templates (not articles) remaining there can and should be removed from the cat; the reason they haven't (yet) been recategorized is that it will take a bit of work to do so, which might entail some discussion first. And yes, that might (or might not) mean creating one or two additional subcats. If I were to do this, I would want to spend some time thinking it through first, time which (for now) I would rather spend on other matters; meanwhile a handful of templates that are slightly miscategorized don't bother me that much. --NSH002 (talk) 17:59, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

@NSH002:Well, semantics aside, it's still a category that has a big banner that says "contain only categories" and it does not, case and point. Still, I've made my suggestion as part of my effort to clean up container category misuse/misrepresentation, it is now in the edit history and explained here; it was undone and I've no desire to press the issue further, I leave it to someone who cares more about the category in particular to be more aggressively interested in correcting the category so it actually reflects the statement it includes in its banner. --Slivicon (talk) 20:10, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

DexDor, re your edit comment: "If its a container category then where do Template:Navbox etc belong?", one possibility might be Category:Navbox suite templates, or Category:Navigational box suite templates; other names are also possible. They would, of course, be subcats of this cat. I do find it a bizarre argument that, because a few templates are (incorrectly) categorized here, that therefore this cat isn't a container cat. There are other subcats here that are also wrong, for example Category:Navigational meta-templates (none of the templates there are meta-templates). That's a particularly interesting one, because there is a good case for categorizing the "Navbox suite" templates (most of them, anyway) there, or in some synonym of that name. Also note that many of the templates in Category:Navigational box wrapper templates are miscategorized, since they're not wrapper templates.

Correcting these miscategorizations needs proper thought and (probably) discussion, but there is no question that this cat is a container cat. --NSH002 (talk) 07:04, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

You appear to be starting with the dubious premise that "obviously" "there is no question" that this should be a container category - then from that you conclude that any templates that are directly in the category must be incorrectly categorized (even if, as you admit, it's not obvious what subcats could be created that those pages could go into). This category is not like, for example, Category:American politicians by state where a container tag may be appropriate. DexDor ^(talk) 22:40, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Well at least adding {{Category diffuse}} is better than just instantly reverting as you did before; you could have saved me a lot of time and annoyance by doing that in the first place. This is a judgement call where you and I differ: you prefer something that reflects the imperfect de facto state; I am thinking what it should ideally be. --NSH002 (talk) 23:13, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

P.S. Thanks for setting up Category:Navigational boxes by topic, a step in the right direction. --NSH002 (talk) 23:42, 15 July 2015 (UTC)