Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/U.S. vs. American sports

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The following discussion comes from Wikipedia:Categories for deletion, where it is currently listed as unresolved. It may be reviewed again in the future in the light of evolving standards and guidelines for categorization. 22:00, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Note: I went ahead and redirected several of these. --Aranel ("Sarah") 22:00, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

13 Sept 2004[edit]

--Beland 04:50, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No, re US: move both
Category:United_States_sportspeople
and
Category:Sportspeople of the United States
to
Category:American sportspeople
since "U.S." is not appropriate to activities that are almost entirely independent of the U.S. government (decentralized phenomena of American society). The only contexts where it's proper to say either "U.S. athletes" or "U.S. sportspeople" is where there is a formal national team, e.g. in the Olympics.
--Jerzy(t) 05:42, 2004 Sep 15 (UTC)
I have never heard anyone make such a distinction before. I think it has more to do with whether the phrase works better with a noun or an adjective. Like "American invasion" or "Rivers of the United States" vs. "U.S. invasion" and "Rivers of America". There are 103 "sportspeople" categories, and the only other one that has "Sportpeople of Foo" is Category:Sportspeople_of_the_Dominican_Republic, so I agree that "American sportspeople" is best. Hopefully non-U.S. North, South, and Central Americans are not offended. -- Beland 05:42, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
BTW, we currently have 250 U.S. categories, from Category:Art_galleries_and_museums_in_the_U.S. to

Category:Women's_universities_and_colleges_in_the_U.S., 208 United States categories, from Category:1950s_TV_shows_in_the_United_States to Category:Zoos_in_the_United_States, and 131 or so American categories, from Category:1951_American_League_All-Stars to Category:World_War_II_American_vehicles. -- Beland 05:42, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In deference to non-US people (ie. non-Americans), the categories should say "United States of America" or "USA", and not just US, and definitely not America/American. Note that the feminine form of America/American is Columbia/Columbian (yep, there's a feminine form, even though English doesn't genderize most words, and almost no one uses Columbia/Columbian). So if we use America/American, then any female category should say Columbia/Columbian, which would be very confusing indeed. * 132.205.15.4 05:41, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
We'll call our country what we feel like calling it, thank you. RickK 06:11, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

Well, at least United States sportspeople has been deleted. Upon more consideration, I think "United States" is better, to prevent USA/The Americas ambiguity. We still have to decide between Sportspeople of the United States and American sportspeople. -- Beland 01:41, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Not realizing there was an open discussion on this, I moved everything over to Category:American sportspeople. As a newbie making my first attempts at categorizing articles I received a nice little slap on the hands for breaking with the general naming conventions that were already present. (see my talk page) So as a result I try to maintain consistency with other categories. In this specific case because all of the other categories are named "xxx sportspeople", the category should be named "American sportspeople" and not "Sportspeople of the United States" unless you are prepared to change all of the other categories too. —Mike 21:26, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)

  • I'm not understanding the continuing debate on this—when is "American" ever used to mean something other than "of the United States"? Do Venezuelans and Colombians really say that they're Americans? Also, keep in mind we're dealing with the english wikipedia, so only the conventions in english are relevant, and "American" exlusively means U.S. in english usage. If something is Central American or South American, then Central or South is used as a qualifier. The only time that it is used as a general term to include North, South, and Central America, it is always plural—"the Americas". There is no ambiguity. Postdlf 02:50, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I myself am not understanding the debate, either. The U.S. is called the U.S. This side of the world is called 'The Americas'. In my own speech (Canadian) I certainly use 'America' in place of 'the U.S.', but in the context of biology, 'American' means the continent. The acurate term is U.S and every non USian knows it, IMHO. 'American' also means something different to native americans.
jericho4.0 03:08, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (U.S. vs American).


Category:Cricketers of the United States[edit]

Not needed, use Category: American cricketers (maintains naming consistency). —Mike 18:36, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)

Cricketers of the United States is a better name, the American -* categories should be renamed 132.205.15.4 17:58, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Damn Straight! American doesn't mean the same as of the USA in the certain usage... American = of the America's / of N. America, whereas 'of the USA has no ambiguity.
Disagree - Canadians are perfectly familiar with the term 'American' and would never confuse it to include themselves. I suspect the same can be said for Mexicans. I've never come across any confusion between North Americans & Americans simply because the former term is so rarely used. American cultural dominance carries a lot of weight :) --Hooperbloob 03:00, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Category:Sportspeople of the United States[edit]

Not needed, use Category: American sportspeople (maintains naming consistency). —Mike 18:36, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)

  • I agree with the deletion of the " - of the USA" cat, the "American" one is a better match to the other national types. I'm seeing numerous spelling variants as well: (USA, U.S.A, etc.) --Hooperbloob 02:15, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Category:U.S. athletes[edit]

Not needed, use Category: American sportspeople (maintains naming consistency). —Mike 18:36, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)

  • No, one can make the distinction that 'of the USA' can mean mere representation of the USA rather than being an American citizen. Numerous nationals change countries for a chance to compete in the Olympics for example. Using the 'American' prefix makes this unoquivocal and is consistent with all the other usages.--Hooperbloob 02:26, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Category:U.S. sportspeople by specialty[edit]

Not needed, the subcategories in this category should be subcategories of Category: American sportspeople. —Mike 18:36, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)

Category:U.S. volleyball players[edit]

Not currently needed, it would only contain Category:Olympic volleyball players of the U.S.A. at this time. (Also it should more properly be named "American volleyball players" to maintain naming consistency. —Mike 18:36, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)

Category:USA Olympians[edit]

Should use Category:Olympic athletes of the U.S.A. instead. —Mike 18:36, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)

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