Category talk:American law by year

United States or American?

Why not create Category:United States law by year instead?

All parents of this newly created category are named: United States law /Years in the United States/Legal history of the United States Why create a name (American) that will cause confusion? User:Ottawahitech (talk) 01:14, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Where is the consensus that we should depart from the "FOOian law" standard for categories for U.S. law? Other categories use the "FOOian law" format: see Category:Law by country. "American law" would be the FOOian form, not "United States law". Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:39, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

@Good Olfactory: Not sure what consensus you are referring to, however the parent category you mention, Category:Law by country, contains Category: United States law‎ not Category: American law as you seem to imply. Am I missing something? Ottawahitech (talk) 03:36, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I was unnecessarily unclear in my above comment. What I'm saying is that the overwhelming majority of the subcategories of Category:Law by country use the "FOOian law" form, which would suggest that "American law" would be the correct format. Yes, the category is currently Category:United States law, but this seems to be an anomaly, and ideally such an anomaly would be supported by some sort of consensus in a discussion where it was decided that we would create such an anomaly. I can't find such a discussion. Thus, I tend to think that it is simply misnamed. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 08:41, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

@Good Olfactory: There are hundreds if not thousands of categories with United States in their title, such as Category:United States case law by year. Introducing a brand new category scheme in the midst will lead to confusion. Just my $.02 Ottawahitech (talk) 10:21, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

BTW there is also Category:United Kingdom case law‎. Ottawahitech (talk) 10:25, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Each category tree has its own standardized format. Of course there are some that appropriately use "United States". But in the case of law categories, "United States law" is the wrong format. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 21:56, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

@Good Olfactory: Category:United States law was created in 2004. It now has 34 subcategories and hundreds of sub-sub-categories but only 3 of the sub-categories are named American:

• Category:American law by year created on 10 December 2014 (by a editor who has been invited to participate in this exchange)
• Category:American legal terms which was moved from another category name by a BOT with no explanation (???)
• Category:American jurists which refers to American people. This one is the only one that makes sense of the 3 Ottawahitech (talk) 03:17, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

• I have been referring to the convention of the overall scheme of Category:Law by country. Category:American legal terms matches the overall convention of subcategories of Category:Legal terms, so it too is correct. Just because a category is old doesn't mean it is correctly named today. Conventions develop and sometimes change over time, so categories that were once named correctly can become incorrect. (In 2004, category naming conventions were nonexistent to rudimentary.) It sounds like we just need a formal discussion to change the format of the base category and its subcategories. Alternatively, you could start a formal discussion to proper the reverse for this category and see what happens. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 03:20, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Just wondering why no one else is commenting? Ottawahitech (talk) 16:04, 25 December 2014 (UTC)