Category talk:Dirty War

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Military history: South America

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Whoops

I accidentally submitted my edit before finishing the edit comment. I meant to say, "that's why this is included in Category:Human rights abuses". This covers all of the "possible" incidents covered by the other categories. If it's in the broader category, it doesn't need to be included in every possible subcategory. Rich Uncle Skeleton ^(talk) 09:36, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that there are many human rights abuses that can not be neatly categorized under the categories you removed: [1]

I agree that Dirty War encompasses a wide range of abuses.

But it is OK to use all the categories. There are many categories that are subcategories of many other categories. See

Wikipedia:Categorization#Categories do not form a tree

Wikipedia's category system. Definitely not a tree structure.

Each Wikipedia article can appear in more than one category, and each category can appear in more than one parent category. Multiple categorization schemes co-exist simultaneously. In other words, categories do not form a strict hierarchy or tree structure, but a more general directed acyclic graph (or close to it; see below).

Nevertheless, parts of the category graph will be tree-like, and it may be convenient to think of parts of the category graph as being like multiple overlapping trees. When applying the guidelines above, consider each tree to be independent of the overlapping trees. A person browsing through a hierarchy should find every article that belongs in that hierarchy. This can lead to a good deal of debate as to what the hierarchies actually are. To clarify the structure of the hierarchy and help people browse through it, you can add a classification to each category. For more about this, see Wikipedia:Classification.

To not include the Dirty War category also in the categories for torture, war crimes, and state terrrorism would be to deprive readers of access to the Dirty War categories and articles. --Timeshifter 10:04, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, thank you, I already know all this and extensive "quoting" of WP guidelines is generally not needed (a link should suffice). But I'm sorry, categorizing Category:Dirty War as a sub of Category:War crimes is not appropriate because not all the articles in the sub deal with the topic of war crimes. Ditto for including it as a sub of Category:State terrorism methods and Category:Torture. This is not a category about a dirty war it is a category about the Dirty War. Add the article Dirty War to Category:War crimes and the other categories if you must, but there is no real justification for using the whole category as a sub of the larger classifications. And give the readers some credit: we're not "depriving" them of anything. They can figure it out by reading the article. Rich Uncle Skeleton ^(talk) 11:08, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This same discussion occurs from time-to-time with image categorization. Nothing is a perfect fit. Just think of how tags are used to categorize images, videos, articles on various sites such as blogs, Flickr, YouTube, etc.. The point of categorization is to help the readers find stuff. From the above wikipedia guideline: "A person browsing through a hierarchy should find every article that belongs in that hierarchy." The Dirty War category belongs in those other categories. This is not a courtroom. This is wikipedia, an encyclopedia. Readers come first.

And the Dirty War category has to do with all dirty wars, not just the Argentinian one. Read the first paragraph of the Dirty War article to see that the term applies to more than just Argentina. --Timeshifter 11:17, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

an offensive conducted by secret police or the military of a regime against revolutionary and terrorist insurgents and marked by the use of kidnapping and torture and murder with civilians often being the victims; "thousands of people disappeared and were killed during Argentina's dirty war in the late 1970s"

wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

The term dirty war generally refers to a program of state terrorism in response to perceived subversion that threatens a country's stability. Such wars typically include the violent repression by right-wing fascists of left-wing dissidents and rebels—often by means of torture and murder.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_War --Timeshifter 11:23, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you're providing great reasons why the article should be included in the category, but not the whole subcategory. Not all of the articles in the subcategory deal with the parent category. I can't say it any clearer. The image you provided is cool and all, but it does not provide any sort of justification for throwing categories around willy-nilly without considering if they actually apply. Rich Uncle Skeleton ^(talk) 11:27, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dirty wars almost always include torture. A dirty war is by definition state terrorism. That by definition is a war crime. There may be minor shading. But let us not sacrifice the achievable on the altar of the perfect.

Therefore these categories you removed need to be returned:

Category:War crimes

Category:Torture

Category:State terrorism methods --Timeshifter 11:40, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also, in further response to an earlier comment of yours, I point out that the dirty war of Operation Condor operated in many nations. Category:Operation Condor is a subcategory of this Dirty War category. See Operation Condor.

It would be helpful if there were also a subcategory called Argentina Dirty War. --Timeshifter 13:25, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you're (still) providing great reasons why the article Dirty War should be included in the category, but not the whole subcategory. Not all of the articles in the subcategory deal with the parent categories you are trying to assign it to. Rich Uncle Skeleton ^(talk) 22:03, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I STILL point you to my previous replies. --Timeshifter 08:37, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but that's not helping me as it's not addressing my specific concerns about how certain articles line up with the applicable categories. I could point you to some of the articles to make my point, but I don't think carrying this on will be fruitful in any way. Rich Uncle Skeleton ^(talk) 09:23, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That is because categories overlap. They aren't perfect. Not all the articles within the subcategories have to exactly fit in all the higher categories. Categories are an aid to readers. --Timeshifter 09:39, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I know, I know—as I said, never mind. Rich Uncle Skeleton ^(talk) 10:57, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]