Category talk:Sports festivals

Best use

Moved from User talk:Earflaps

Hi, I note that you have been creating, and in some cases re-creating, a hierarchy for Category:Sports festivals. The old categories by this name were split to international sports competitions and multi-sport events, see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2014_March_20#Category:Sports_festivals_by_country. Would you be prepared to undo your edits, and tag the new pages with {{db-author}}? – Fayenatic London 18:25, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Fayenatic london, thanks for the polite question. I respect that the old categories were sensibly deleted to help simplify the fork between the multi-sport and int. sport cats. However, the festival tree at large has undergone enough maintenance lately that other types of sporting festivals (boat shows, air shows, auto shows, festivals with folk athletic competitions like the Highland Games, etc.) need a home, and "sports festivals" seems the simplest option to me. Perhaps you can think of a better parent category? Otherwise I'll stick with this one, and people are free to nominate for deletion and open a new discussion on the matter, if they like. Earflaps (talk) 18:59, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

IMHO those examples are a mixture of selected multi-sports events and Trade shows. Although you have attempted a definition, given the lack of a lead article, it's partly circular: "festival-sized physical competitions". It seems to be a matter of opinion as to what is a sports festival, and WP:OC#SUBJECTIVE is a good reason not to make it a category. – Fayenatic London 08:01, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

see also comment in previous section, there is inadequate reasoning as to how boat shows and auto shows are in any way 'festivals' JarrahTree 09:46, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for opening a discussion on this, it's good to clarify. I'm going to move it to the Category:Sports festivals page, so others can contribute as well, and will respond there. Earflaps (talk) 11:07, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

1. About logic on trade shows being considered festivals, I also agree this isn't ideal, but this is a secondary matter to sports festivals. The trade shows could be removed from the sports festival category, and there would still be other types of athletics festivals ("mountaineering festivals," for example, or "Ancient Greek athletics festivals" and "sailing festivals"), that would accurately fit under the category "sports festivals/sporting festivals/athletics festivals." This means that the sports festival category could have use beyond "multi-sport events" and "international sporting events." Part of my problem with not having a broad, vague sports festival category (and instead relying on the "multi-sport events" category as a standin in the festival tree) is I feel it incorrectly leads readers to feel that "multi-sport events" and "athletics festivals" are synonymous by definition. They aren't, of course, since for example a notable high school sports competition could be called a "multi-sport event," but hardly qualifies as a festival. To add to the complications, by definition, "events" should be the parent category, and "festivals" should be a child category, much like "music festivals" goes under "music events." I'd love to magically create "festival" subcategories in each "multi-sports event" country category, but frankly that's not going to happen - the amount of work that would into fixing that problem would be monumental. And how do you even define a large sports event as a festival or not festival, anyways? Get's confusing to the point of impossible. Hence, hoping a "sports festival" parent category, defined as broadly and vaguely as "arts festival" or "cultural festival," might give all related sports festival categories a simple place to be found by readers, at least as the best option given the state of things. Thoughts? Earflaps (talk) 11:07, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

2. On trade shows being considered festivals: I wouldn't make a fuss if there's a consensus to not do this. Part of this choice came from the parent category "fairs" being considered festivals (which they undoubtedly are, with many categories actually including both fairs and festivals as synonyms), and trade shows being categorized under "fairs" (most are categorized under "trade fair," not "trade shows."). And frankly, it gets blurry in that a lot of trade shows market themselves as festivals; for example, while not all boat shows are "festivals," many are. I suppose ideally, each type of trade show would have its own festival child category? There are only a few trade show categories, so it wouldn't be impossible or something I'm unwilling to do, just tedious. Earflaps (talk) 11:11, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

tediousness is what it is all about Current sporting festivals include air shows, auto shows, boat shows, and other festivals for racing sports as well as festival-sized physical competitions..

• The word 'festival' is a dangerous one to over-use and over-associate - with oed a day or period of celebration, religious or secular, and its very close relative - festivity a festive celebration. I fail to see how trade shows, car shows, boat shows as being such. I totally fail to see anything about sports events being festivals in any sense of what I have found in dictionary definitions.
• Some of the reasoning in earflaps 1 and 2 I think is, from where I understand the usage of the word, is a mis-use of the word festival, and I believe a separate category tree about organised 'events' would be far more appropriate. I do hope others join the conversation, as I feel it is helpful to see others points of view, rather than earflaps and myself. JarrahTree 11:55, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Subsequent discussions

• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2016_January_29#Sports_festivals (closed as No consensus}
• RfC at Talk:Multi-sport_event – Fayenatic London 21:23, 4 May 2016 (UTC)