Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Category:Olympic competitors by country

Olympic athletes of X

moved to this subpage by Courtland 03:17, 2005 Mar 9 (UTC) original posting on categories-for-deletion: 1 Dec 2004

We have a mixed convention in Category:Olympic competitors by country:

We previously deleted the category "Olympic athletes" in favor of "Olympic competitors" because "athletes" means all competitors in US English, but means "track and field athletes" in UK English. I propose renaming all the "Olympic athletes of X" categories to "X Olympians". "Olympic competitors of X" sounds like it should be an athletics enemies list of country X, instead of a manifest of its representatives. -- Beland 08:12, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Also note the following, some of which are on /unresolved:

-- Beland 10:16, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The Olympic website uses "athletes" and their commission is named the "Athlete's Commission". You can't get any more official than that. Also it was mentioned at one time by someone (I realize that's pretty vague) in a previous discussion that "Olympic athlete" in Britain refers to the people who compete at the Olympics and not just the track and field competitors. Also I prefer the "-- of country" form rather than the "countrian --" form because categorization is less ambiguous. Take Nate Ackerman as an example; he was born in the U.S. and might have dual citizenship since he competed for Great Britain (I don't know if the rules require citizenship to compete for a country's team). I don't know if calling him a British athlete would be correct, but saying he was an Olympic athlete of Great Britain is most certainly correct. —Mike 08:11, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)

My primary reason for preferring competitors is that it is something that does not cause arguments. (At least, none so far.) Even if the Olympics officially use athletes, there are folks who strongly dislike the term. Would you consider it wrong to use competitors?

As for the "of country" form, I agree. It's more accurate. (But please, let's use "of the United States", not "of the U.S.". Less potential for confusion of punctuation.) -Aranel ("Sarah") 15:21, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It isn't wrong since we can call them anything we want, but it just sounds a bit odd to me since I don't hear "Olympic competitors" much. —Mike 06:05, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

(CFD tags added 4 Dec 2004. -- Beland 08:03, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC))

OK, so then current proposal is to change all of these to "Olympic competitors of CountryName"? Does "Olympic competitors for CountryName" sound better or worse? -- Beland 08:03, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Although I prefer the "athletes of", "competitors for" would likely be less ambiguous than "competitors of". —Mike 05:57, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

How about "Olympians of X"? --MPerel 17:51, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

I prefer the "competitors for" over "of" Sortior 04:46, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)

I prefer Olympic competitors for Puerto Rico, Olympians has a subtext of being winners rather than competitors, "for" is less ambiguous... I think we should use "Olympic competitors for CountryName" Pedant 23:27, 2005 Jan 10 (UTC)

OK, changing to "competitors for". -- Beland 08:36, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Just to throw a spanner in the works, may I suggest "Olympic competitors from X" or "Olympic sportspeople of X"? Grutness|^hello?

09:40, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I like "Olympic competitors from X". I'll give another day for objections, but this has been here for a month and a half now, so it's time to get moving... -- Beland 01:53, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The problem of using "from" is that some may take it to mean their point of origin, not who they were competing for. (I still prefer the 'Olympic athletes of X'.) —Mike 03:54, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

I prefer "X Olympians" Philip 03:48, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
~~Yes, I prefer X Olympians as well; though I've not used that phrase before, it does have a nice ring to it. Courtland 07:04, 2005 Feb 17 (UTC)~~

"X Olympians" makes no sense, if X is the name of the country. Greece Olympians? Turkey Olympians? Perhaps what Philip means is "Xish (or Xian) Olympians." I generally prefer to see the unmodified name of a country used, as it's easier to keep consistent and for editors to remember. Also the distinction between the country of origin, and the country the athelete is competing for needs to be maintained. For those reasons, I prefer Olympian competitors for first and Olympian competitors from second. I think the "competitors" could be dropped. -Willmcw 03:24, Feb 21, 2005 (UTC)
- I think it does make sense and you're being facetious by not recognizing that I wouldn't suggest the use of "Greece Olympians" over "Greek Olympians" or "Turkey Olympians" over "Turkish Olympians". Nonetheless, and I've changed my vote - see below. Courtland 04:35, 2005 Feb 23 (UTC)

I thought I would try to pull together the current results from this long an relatively complicated thread of input. I've listed here the options that have been put forth and the people who support(ed) them.
- Olympic athletes of (CountryName) ... Mike, Kbdank71 [most existing categories]
- Olympic competitors of (CountryName) ... Aranel, Grutness
- Olympic competitors for (CountryName) ... Sortior, Pedant, Courtland, Grutness (2nd)
- Olympians of (CountryName) ... MPerel
- Olympic competitors from (CountryName) ... ~~Grutness~~, Beland
- ~~Olympic sportspeople of (CountryName) ... Grutness (2nd)~~
- (modifiedCountryName) Olympians ... Philip, [some existing categories]
- Olympian competitors for (CountryName) ... Willmcw
- Olympian competitors from (CountryName) ... Willmcw (2nd)
- {umbrella category: Olympic competitors by country}

The reason why I put this list up is that it illustrates how varied our different views are on this and it might allow people to re-evaluate their positions in order to reach a consensus. Another outcome could be that this topic be put back into the /unresolved category to be brought out later. In fact, I'm changing my vote based on my look through the thread (I've struck out my previous input above).

Olympic competitors for (CountryName) (revised vote) Courtland 04:35, 2005 Feb 23 (UTC)
I now think either Olympic competitors of (CountryName) or Olympic competitors for (CountryName) are better than the ones I'm listed as voting for previously (and have changed the listed votes above). At least that completely removes one option! Grutness|^hello? 12:31, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I'll assume that since this is still on the CfD page, it's still a live topic, so here are my two cents: basically, all of the entries on the list of votes are just different ways of saying the same thing, no? "people who are in the olympics from a certain country" (no, not my vote). Seeing as most of the categories are already Olympic athletes of (CountryName), and no-one that I can see has directly complained about not liking "Olympic", "athletes", "of", or "(Countryname)" (just how some people might not like one or more words), my vote is to keep it simple and leave it the way it is. Kbdank71 21:19, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- Actually, there were a few complaints about the word "athletes", as in many parts of the world that word applies only to people who compete at athletics, and not to sportspeople in disciplines like swimming, cycling, canoeing, or team sports. (See Mike's comments above). If you don't regard that as a direct complaint about not liking those words, then I will happily tell you that I do not like using the word "athlete" other than for people competing at athletics. Grutness|^hello? 06:48, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  - I checked Mike's comments. I saw a) the Olympics refers to them as athletes, b) we can call them whatever we want, and c) Mike prefers "Olympic Athletes". I see your point about parts of the world not using Athletes as the US does. But do you think any of them would be confused if the word "Athlete" was proceeded by "Olympic"? And would they (and you) be so upset as to not use Wikipedia if that happened? I'm thinking in the long run, we'll all get over it, whatever is chosen. -Kbdank71 22:19, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

RESOLUTION? I think this has been open long enough and the votes diverse enough to have this topic filed away as unresolved for re-consideration at a later date. Do you agree? If you would like, please vote below on this.

yes on unresolved

no, keep the item live

Thanks. Courtland 18:51, 2005 Mar 5 (UTC)

Keep the item live, if for no other reason but consistency. Can we at least agree to fix the few cats at the beginning of the list for now (to match the rest), and then we can revisit the issue of whether or not to change them all later? -Kbdank71 17:55, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- bringing consistency would be a step in the right direction, I think. Courtland 23:39, 2005 Mar 6 (UTC)
yes on unresolved Things are supposed to be on here for a week, not for as long as it takes for people who want change to get their way. The proposal failed to gain consensus approval. Wincoote 18:59, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)