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Category:Male humans

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Currently, we have only three category trees using "humans": Category:Adult humans, Category:Female humans, and Category:Male humans. This is inconsistent with our usage of the term "people" throughout Commons. Not only that, there has been attempts to treat people as adults by default (like using Category:Men for all male people and Category:Women for all female people). So I'm making multiple proposals in a tabular format (like Joshbaumgartner). Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 07:52, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Humans vs. people

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Current name Proposed name
Category:Adult humans Category:Adult people, or simply Category:Adults
Category:Female humans Category:Female people
Category:Male humans Category:Male people

--Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 08:00, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This proposal is a response to Omphalographer's comment in Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/08/Category:People performing sexual activity, "Describing people as "humans" sounds markedly unnatural ("Hello, how are you, fellow humans?"); if we can avoid doing so, we should." I myself find expressions like "female person" and "male person" more natural than "female humans" and "male humans" respectively. "People" is basically the collective plural of "person". Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 08:09, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Sbb1413: I wish I hadn't created these redundant categories. Should Category:Male humans be merged back into Category:Men? Jarble (talk) 14:44, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jarble Male humans includes both Men and Boys, so a merge into Men would not work. Eliminating Male humans and simply categorizing both Boys and Men was something that was considered, but since many files are not clear as to whether the person is a child or adult, but are clearly male, this step was kept for that reason. Josh (talk) 18:36, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Joshbaumgartner: Jarble says that we should merge Category:Male humans to Category:Men, and all subcats (including Category:Boys) would be categorized under Category:Men. But most dictionaries (Cambridge, Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster) define "man" as an "adult male human/person", so that's not a good approach and not something I would support. Although the Bengali term "পুরুষ" is often glossed as "man" in the context of people, the term is actually used for all male people, regardless of the state of development. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 02:02, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Sbb1413 Thank you for raising this question. When these terms were adopted, they were to disambiguate the previous Adults, Females, and Males categories, which are terms not specific to humans. While it was agreed that a disambiguation term was warranted, there doesn't seem to have been much consideration, however, of whether 'humans' was really the best one, or if 'people' or something else would have been better. So it is a good question to actually consider.
I am not a huge fan of the 'humans' term being used here as it is indeed not something we would normally use in everyday speech. I am not sure that 'people' is all that much more 'natural' however, and changing category names just to align with what might seem a bit more 'natural' to a few users doesn't seem like it has a great rationale. Honestly, the question ("Hello, how are you, fellow humans?") posed earlier doesn't sound any more natural as "Hello, how are you, fellow people?". Also, no, Adults cannot be the answer, as there are Adult animals as well, just as we have Female animals and Male animals. That all said, I do think there is one strong argument in favor of changing from 'humans' to 'people':
The parent category for members of the Category:Homo sapiens species is Category:People, so according to the Universality Principle, "people" is the term that should be used for them at all levels throughout Commons. Josh (talk) 18:58, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, no, Adults cannot be the answer, as there are Adult animals as well, just as we have Female animals and Male animals.

I was unaware about it when I started this proposal. So I'm striking the category name.

The parent category for members of the Category:Homo sapiens species is Category:People, so according to the Universality Principle, "people" is the term that should be used for them at all levels throughout Commons.

This is one of the actual reasons of this proposal. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 02:07, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
 Support @Sbb1413 I support renaming from 'humans' to 'people' in accordance with the Universality Principle. It is true that there are a lot of affected categories, but there are also still several 'females' and 'males' category that have yet to be moved to 'female humans' and 'male humans' yet, so maybe it is best to go forward with the change now so that when those are renamed, they can just go directly to 'female people' and 'male people' in one step. Josh (talk) 17:08, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What about shemales? I read somewhere that frogs are hermaphrodites. 186.173.138.246 02:11, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

People with no children

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Option 1 Option 2 Option 3
Category:People Category:People Category:Adults Category:Adult people

Most categories follow option 2 for people categories that have no corresponding children categories. However, since it may cause problems with automatic categorization templates and also violates the Universality Principle, I prefer options 1 and 3. --Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 08:00, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Sbb1413 This section is already the subject of discussion at Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/08/Category:People performing sexual activity, so we should not be having two separate discussions about the same thing. Let's leave this CfD to the humans vs. people discussion above and leave the people with no children discussion to the one linked where the discussion is already well-developed. Josh (talk) 19:21, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Joshbaumgartner: The local outcome may not be applicable globally. But waiting for that discussion to close is a good idea, and I have no objections to it. --Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 02:13, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Vote for option 1, alternatively drop categorization by sex altogother. Taylor 49 (talk) 09:01, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
 Oppose Keep as is for now. Babies shortly before or after birth and sometimes even years after birth are not considered people but are within the scope of this category. There is a related discussion on Wikidata. --Prototyperspective (talk) 12:39, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Prototyperspective: Really? I have to disagree. At least when it comes to babies that have been born. "Personhood" is a social construct based on existence in the social world and all the things that come along with it. I. E. legal documents, birth certificates, objects, names, Etc. Etc. associated with the person and their individual identity within the social hierarchy. All of which babies have. Although you could argue they don't have fully formed identities, but so what? We still treat babies as individuals separate from their mothers after birth. It would to say a toddler isn't human. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:31, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Personhood is relevant., e.g. Capacities or attributes common to definitions of personhood can include human nature, agency, self-awareness. I added subclass of: human to Wikidata:Person (d:Q215627) which currently only has subclass of: person or organization (it's not mainly that which in its item is defined as a "class of agents" e.g. in the economy), individual person or organism (It's not mainly that because that also refers to various nonhuman animals), legal person (also not mainly about that because the concept of people/person is about a thing in principle not legal things) but that was undone for now and I think the main thing is now missing. You are right but I still think it could be misleading to use that terminology then rather than "humans", see for example the philosophical debate that may make it somewhat ambiguous or the rare use of the word person or people when referring to specifically babies. I phrased it a bit exaggeratedly and should have written/meant something like "are often implicitly not considered or associated with the term people but humans more broadly". Here it says The Supreme Court held that personhood could not be granted to a fetus before “viability”—the point around 24 weeks of pregnancy when a fetus can survive outside the womb[…]Now, laws that establish fetal personhood—meaning they extend the legal rights of people to a fetus or embryo before viability. Maybe one could strike the oppose but I'm still quit unsure whether it's a good idea to move the cat title. Some input on the Wikidata item change would be good. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:21, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Men/women instead of male/female humans

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 Comment I had initially thought of eliminating Category:Male humans and Category:Female humans altogether in favour of Category:Men and Category:Women, which is consistent with Jarble's current belief. There were many reasons for this thought (male outside parentheses, female inside):

  • The distinction between males and men (females and women) is superfluous in many cases, where adults are more prevalent over children. In fact, men (women) have more occupations than boys (girls). So making boys (girls) a subset of men (women) is not a bad idea.
  • Individual male humans are usually categorized under "men of <country>" ("women of <country>") instead of "male humans of <country>" ("female humans of <country>"). This is how biographies are categorized in Wikipedia.
  • Since Commons is a multilingual project, we should consider other languages when deciding category structures. The distinction between "men" and "male humans" ("women" and "female humans") is absent in many languages. I had said in my earlier comment that although the Bengali word "পুরুষ" ("নারী" or "মহিলা") is used to translate the English word "man" ("woman"), in reality the term refers to all male humans (female humans).

The only reason for abandoning this thought is that virtually all English dictionaries define "man" ("woman") as a "male adult human" ("female adult human"), meaning the term does not include boys (girls). Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 09:48, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Individual male humans are usually categorized under "men of <country>" ("women of <country>") instead of "male humans of <country>" ("female humans of <country>"). This is how biographies are categorized in Wikipedia.

Although Category:Greta Thunberg is now a young adult, if she were a teenager (like in the late 2010s and the early 2020s), and if we consider teenagers as children and define "women" as any female humans, then we would categorize her under Category:Children of Sweden and Category:Women of Sweden, until we had the dedicated Category:Girls of Sweden. However, as virtually all English dictionaries restrict the terms "woman" to adult females, we would categorize her under Category:Children of Sweden and Category:Female humans of Sweden instead. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 10:13, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is what happens when we lose track of what we are supposed to be doing here. We should not be categorizing categories by transient characteristics of the topic, but instead categorizing files by what is depicted in them. If we have media of someone when they are a child, those files should be under children, and if we have media of them as an adult, those files go under adults, but the category for the person themself should not be categorized by age, except possibly in cases where all media we have depicts them in the same age category. I know there are a lot of folks who like to do this kind of using categorization to capture all manner of trivia about a person, but it creates havoc for good categorization of files. Wikipedia has very different reasoning for their categorization of articles (something we don't really have here) so it is understandable they go a different way on this, but that is a big reason why Commons categorization is not tied to English Wikipedia categorization. Josh (talk) 02:30, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I firmly oppose any elimination of Category:Female humans and Category:Male humans in favor of Category:Men and Category:Women. The former two are a diffusion of people by gender only, while the later two are a diffusion of people by both age and gender, so the two pairs cannot be conflated without creating significant inaccuracies and categorization inconsistencies. It also eliminates the ability to diffuse by gender when it is known but age is not. The fact that in many topics adults are more prevalent than children is irrelevant, as diffusion does not require equal buckets to sort into, they just need to be distinct.
@Sbb1413 is correct to keep other languages in mind and it is a good point that not all locales approach this issue the same way. That said, the same is true amongst English speakers and locales (e.g. 'girl' is still used by many to refer to adult females). But we define the category first, and the terms we use to name them are merely the best English words we can figure to represent the defined topic. It does not mean that the word cannot mean other things that are not within the scope of the category, either in English or any other language. We should never change the scope of a category merely because the term we use to describe it happens to also be used other ways, though if the current name breeds sufficient confusion, we can certainly consider changing the term we use to a more clear name.
Thus, I propose:
  1.  Keep current category structure and scope for Category:Female humans, Category:Male humans, Category:Adult humans, Category:Children, Category:Boys, Category:Girls, Category:Men, and Category:Women.
  2. Rename Category:Adult humans to Category:Adult people
  3. Rename Category:Female humans to Category:Female people
  4. Rename Category:Male humans to Category:Male people
Josh (talk) 02:51, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are we using this categorization in defining en:humans or en:persons? My understanding was that it was the former, which is why the rename Males to Male humans and Females to Female humans occurred. According to the English Wikipedia, "what makes a person count as a person, differ widely among cultures and contexts." Would we be required to choose a definition if people is used, or is it more straight-forward than that? I wonder if using Human males and Human females would be a difference. ✗plicit 06:57, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose - "people" & "human" are NOT SYNONYMS. HUMAN is specific to species; "people" is not. the change is also out of line with wikipedia definitions, & especially with wikidata on categorisations.
  • ALSO user Sbb1413, who created this discussion, improperly closed it himself which is inappropriate to begin with, MORESO when there has been only limited discussion & NO clear consensus to take the main action requested, & ESPECIALLY when said user then goes right ahead anyway & implements the thing they were requesting.... Lx 121 (talk) 04:13, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh man, what a knot. Just because English dictionaries don't have a singular word that encompasses all fe/male humans. Wo/Men is (in my opinion) the best word it has, and then this word is arbitrarily (!) restricted to adults, excluding juveniles. Other languages don't have this conceptual failing, and I would wish that here on Commons we would DEFY the English dictionary and just have "Men" as the overarching category for "Boys" and "Adult men".
Re Lx 121: please provide an example where "people" refers to non-humans? I am aware of fictional stories with anthropomorphised animals/objects where this idea holds true. But aside from that, I can't think of situations, not even in the US where companies have personhood. Three companies are still not "people". In another discussion, you brought up how AI would be classified as people in the future, but I don't think that idea holds much water, either. I would say that an AI can be "sentient" or "sapient", but it will not be "people" even if it controls a group of ten bodies. --Enyavar (talk) 14:13, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • & to be clear, i really don't care that much about the men/women - boys/girls thing. that is a SEPARATE ISSUE. i DO think it is sloppy categorisation to pretend that "boys/girls" are just subsets of "men/women" & ignore the INHERENT DIFFERENTIATION of the terms (& i  Oppose any proposal to mash them up together). but SPECIES-specificity is more important in the overall category schema of commons (for example how are we supposed to "split up" general media files on humans between "human/homo sapiens" & "person/people" categories? putting NAMED INDIVIDUALS into person categories is simple enough (& they still belong under the meta-cat of "human"), but how are you going to decide if "general" pictures of humans doing things, belong under "human" or "person"?).Lx 121 (talk) 00:01, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
respectfully, your question is "rigged"; you ask for an example, then arbitrarily RULE OUT whole categories of valid examples, without even providing a rationale. there are ENDLESS examples of non-human "persons" in fiction, religion, folklore, ethno-cultural concepts.
legal concepts of "personhood" are WIDE-RANGING. not just corporations; animal rights activists have argued personal rights for non-human animals, environmentalists have even tried personification arguments for nature,environments, etc.
A.I. "personhood" is certainly valid as a debated concept, & VERY CLEARLY the literary & movie, etc. precedents DO refer to AI's as potential "persons/people". (with or without a robotic body attached)
& then there are the endless other "anthropomorphisations". for what about "furry" art? a human dress in a furry costume is still a human (cosplaying/larping/whatever), BUT what about a "furry" non-photographic artwork? the characters would be "people" (they might even be respresentations of specific individual human person's furry characters),but figures in the art would most certainly NOT be "human".
AND it is a faulty arguement to pretend that people & person are not' linked terms in the english language. their roots might be different, but CLEARLY "people" is a plural, & "person" is the singular (with optional limited use or person as plural "persons"). BUT there is NO OTHER "singular" of "people" in the english language. we don't say "one people" (or at least not grammatically). there can be "lots or people", or "a few people", or "no people". but not "one people".
AND here is what wikipedia & wikidate have to say on the subject:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5 - human
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q215627 - person
ALL of which CLEARLY differentiate between human as species & person as individual in society
TO PUT IT SIMPLY: one can argue that "all humans are people/persons", but it is not possible to argue (successfully) that "all people/persons are human" (ever, in every possible, conceivable situation & circumstance, EVEN if you limit it to within the framework of commons' scope). fiction (& esp. scifi), religion, folklore, culture, law, science/technology, etc. categories all CLEARLY include the possibility of non-human "people/persons".
(& again, who actually says "male people/female people"? that sounds like a junior grade schooler who needs remedial help in english. "male human/female human" were CAREFULLY CHOSEN as the most descriptively accurate/UN-ambiguous & culturally npov terms, YEARS AGO when we set up these categories in the first place.)
Lx 121 (talk) 23:44, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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