Category talk:Actors

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This discussion of one or several categories is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive.

Category:Actors from Germany[edit]

Suggest to rename it to "Category:Male actors from Germany" in order to avoid confusion. Similarly, "Category:Actors by country", "Category:Actresses by country", all other categories "Actors from YYY" and "Actresses from YYY" should be renamed to make the gender explicit.

Most occupation categories "XXX by country" and "XXX from YYY" refer to both males and females. Even if this naming was unusual in American or British English, it should be considered that a lot of non-native speakers (like me) are editing on commons. Being too explicit can hardly cause any harm. B.Hort (talk) 13:52, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Actor is already male and actress is female. In my opinion, this name change is, at least in this case, redundant. --Hiddenhauser (talk) 11:52, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
We certainly don't need to say "female actresses" because the word actress refers only to females. It might help to say "male actors" so that people used to using actor for both genders don't put female ones in the male category. English Wikipedia uses "male actors" and "actresses", with "actors" being a parent category to both. However, I wonder why we separate these at all. Eventually, in this area and others, we will have to address the case of people who don't identify as male or female, either by creating separate categories, combining them all without specifying gender, or grouping all the "other" (not a good solution). --Auntof6 (talk) 17:23, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly, let's start a the top. I'm certainly on board with creating Category:Male actors and equivalent sub-categories (by country, etc). The question is, do we keep Category:Actors as a parent for both Category:Male actors and Category:Actresses (and Category:Actors by country as a parent category for Category:Male actors by country and Category:Actresses by country), or not? We certainly have a gender-neutral category for everything else in Category:Performing artists and most occupation categories, then subdivide by gender. The only similar split we have is between Category:Waiters and Category:Waitresses but we have no Category:Comediennes. Actors/Actresses is one of the few occupations where no alternative gender-neutral term exists. Increasingly, actresses is replaced with female actor. As the linked wikipedia article mentions, the Screen Actors Guild annually gives out awards for "Best Male Actor" and "Best Female Actor". We might consider doing the same. You'll note that there are already a number of photos of women in Category:Actors. - Themightyquill (talk) 16:32, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There should be a parent category for the occupation. If it's called Category:Actors, then the gender intersection categories could be called Category:Male actors and Category:Female actors. Alternatively, if it's called Category:Actors and actresses then the intersection categories would be Category:Actors and Category:Actresses. It doesn't matter much, it's just naming. Care should be taken with the links to Wikidata though. d:Q33999 is gender neutral. --ghouston (talk) 10:10, 22 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
In enwiki, the categories are set up with en:Category:German actors as gender neutral, and subcategories en:Category:German male actors and en:Category:German actresses. The Commons category Category:Actors from Germany incorrectly links with en:Category:German actors. --ghouston (talk) 10:34, 22 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would be least confusing to match the enwiki categories. Then we just have to apply Hiddenhauser's suggestion and rename "actors" categories to "male actors", the actresses can be left unchanged, and the former "actor" categories become redirects that can be converted to parent categories as desired. In the meantime, I'll fix the male wikidata links with a script. --ghouston (talk) 23:46, 22 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I prefer the current structure. Actors for men and Actresses for women. Before actor or another word becomes a universally accepted socalled gender-neutral word for people who act for a living, Commons should not follow, because established usage of certain words have a much longer history than gender-neutralising movements.--Roy17 (talk) 12:07, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Universal acceptance of a term seems like an rather unfair requirement for anything. "Actors" remains ambiguous, whereas "male actors" and "female actors" are not. I think that's more important than history. - Themightyquill (talk) 12:47, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Film industry around the world doesnt find it ambiguous: for example en:Category:Film awards for lead actor 94/97 awards are called Best Actor (not Best Male Actor), for a man in a leading role.--Roy17 (talk) 13:48, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That only shows that it's not universal (or even dominant) which I've already conceded, but if any significant minority of people are using "female actor" then "actor" becomes ambiguous. Given that The Guardian and the Observer have been using "actor" for both genders since at least 2010,[1] it's not some minor fringe usage. It's certainly plausible that users might accidentally place a female actor in a subcategory of Category:Actors thinking it was genderless, but no one would make the same mistake if we used "male actors" and "female actors." -Themightyquill (talk) 08:58, 7 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The parent category for members of the occupation is still missing, e.g., to match Category:Dancers and practically every other occupation. I'm surprised nobody has created it yet, but it should be Category:Actors and actresses, with the current naming. Category:Waiters and Category:Waitresses have the same issue. Category:Female fishermen is an odd one. --ghouston (talk) 07:57, 7 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm coming across this problem repeatedly when matching enwp and commons categories. On enwp, "male actors" and "actresses" are subcategories of "actors". Given that this discussion started in 2016(!), perhaps the easiest approach for now is what @Ghouston: suggested, and to create the "actors and actresses" tree, and then rename categories later if there's consensus for that? (@Rosiestep: this is related to what we talked about at Wikimania.) Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:08, 19 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'll come up with some suggestions that I find least confusing.
Proposal 202005A
Actors and actresses (or another umbrella term, e.g. performers)
Actors
Actresses
LGBT actors
Proposal 202005B
Actors
Male actors
Female actors
LGBT actors
If other genders are renamed to XX actors, so should actresses to avoid confusion. Male, Female, LGBT... Perfect?--Roy17 (talk) 12:09, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
LGBT? Gender? Seriously? --E4024 (talk) 13:17, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

✓ Done: rename all "actors" categories to "male actors", and convert the newly created redirect categories "actors" into gender neutral entries. Not only is this the general consensus of the discussion, but a practice that has been widely in circulation on Commons even before the nomination. Category:Actors will be taken care of shortly and this change can be rolled out to its child categories, but these require care. There are many linked Wikidata items that require cross-project adjusting, so immediate and rushed category renamings should be avoided to not create a logistical nightmare. --ƏXPLICIT 07:00, 19 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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