Commons:Suggested category scheme for people

Shortcut: COM:PEOPLECAT This is the organisational schema for media related to People. It prescribes the use of categories. Anyone can comment on this scheme.

Note: At the moment the Category scheme is under construction (so it is not yet definitive) and it will serve as the baseline to refer to from the discussion page.

You can contribute, but please get agreement for any non-trivial changes on the talk page FIRST.

Content depicting people can be put into topical categories describing them, such as Category:Economists from the United States.

If there is a category for a specific person (e.g. Category:Albert Einstein), don't put such descriptive categories on images, but on that category.

Categories describing people with specific elements or objects subject to change (e.g. clothing) should be placed on images rather than on categories for specific persons. Sample: Category:People with hats, Category:Smoking people.

• For notable people, it's generally worth creating a specific category, such as Category:Albert Einstein. "Notable people" are usually those with many images depicting them at Commons or with a Wikipedia article about them (in any language).

• You may find yourself creating new categories frequently, if you upload the first picture of a notable person.

• Use the common English-language spelling and word order for the category name.

Category descriptions for categories about specific persons in the following order:

1. The sortkey, to sort the category in its parent categories by family name. The form is {{DEFAULTSORT:Lastname, firstname}}, sample: {{DEFAULTSORT:Einstein, Albert}}
2. Topical categories, sample: subcategories from Category:People by occupation
3. Category for the birthplace, sample Category:People of Berlin
4. Categories for year of birth and year of death. Sample: Category:1879 births, Category:1955 deaths. The exact birth and death dates should not be included as categories.
5. If the Category:People by occupation isn't with Male or Female then use the nationalty Category:Men by country or Category:Women by country
6. Category:People by name
7. Blank row
8. Interwikis to existing Wikipedia articles [[en:{{PAGENAME}}]] (or via wikidata)

Category descriptions for categories about specific persons can also include (above DEFAULTSORT):

1. A short description of the person (in any language)
2. Alternate spellings and transliterations of the person's name. The person's name in other languages and scripts.
3. {{Authority control}}

Info:For artists with an existing creator page, the description should transclude it, e.g. Category:Paul Cézanne transcludes {{Creator:Paul Cézanne}}

Some people are prominent enough to have a great number of images in their personal category. If a personal category gets too full, it can be subdivided in a number of ways.

• by year: Category:Ronald Reagan is sub-divided into Category:Ronald Reagan in 1981, Category:Ronald Reagan in 1984, and so on.
• by location: e.g. Category:Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office

Samples of subcategories used for "creators" are:

• Paintings by John Doe
• Photographs by John Doe
• Portraits of John Doe
• Self-portraits by John Doe

Commons hosts a considerable number images of the same two persons meeting, generally, heads of government. For these, a category can be created for images of two persons together and named after both of them (e.g. with both President Z of A and President Y of B). The category name should generally list their names in alphabetical order of their family name linked with the word "and", i.e. "Y and Z" (e.g. Category:Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan).

Categories of people by country or occupations by country should be organized as follows:

• Originating from or residing somewhere

→ People of [location]

(e.g. Category:People of the Netherlands, Category:People of Guizhou, Category:People of Vancouver)

(also applies to men, women, children, etc. e.g. Category:Women of Sicily)

• Doing something somewhere

→ [Occupation] from [location]

(e.g. Category:Physicians from South Africa, Category:Artists from Montreal)

• unless the occupation has an official connection to the location, in which case

→ [Occupation] of [location]

(e.g. Category:Royalty of Spain, Category:Mayors of New York City, Category:Presidents of Mexico, Category:Diplomats of India)

Reasoning: "People of xxx" is preferred because it is a more open and wide term. It can contain the more narrow people "originating from, living in, worked in, died in" categories. On the other hand, using "of" instead of "from" for everything creates problems for several occupations: categories like Collectors of China (apart from the capitalisation, porcelain aficionados?), Models of France (small versions of France or just petite Frenchwomen?), Designers of Norway (Slartibartfast?), and many others (Editors, Educators, Engineers, Explorers, Inventors and so on) can be rather confusing. For this reason, it makes more sense to list occupations as "from" rather than "of" certain countries, aside from those with an official connection to the location.