Category talk:Paralympic competitors by disability category

Consistent terminolgy

I'd like to propose that we move the subcategories to "XXXXXX category Paralympic competitors". The terms "category" and "class" have clearly distinct and specific meanings in the context of the Paralympic classification system. For example Oscar Pistorius is an Amputee category athlete who participates in T44 class track races. Roger (talk) 13:57, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Sounds fair enough to me. Do you think all of them should be moved that way, or just the ones which are prefixed by "class"? I'm tempted to do something similar to Category:Paralympic competitors with cerebral palsy, as I later found out that not all cerebral palsy-category athletes necessarily have cerebral palsy (though that means that such a category can't be neatly subcategorised into Category:People with cerebral palsy. Graham87 14:20, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes please do it consistently. The fact that categories do not necessarily correspond perfectly with the actual condition that an athlete has is IMHO not terriby important. Category:People with cerebral palsy is a medical category, our concern here is sport. The "Les Autres" category contains people with a wide variety of conditions so "neat subcategories won't work anyway. If an athlete in the CP Paralympic category does in fact have CP then it's no big deal to add them to both categories anyway. I don't think we should worry about that. Wheelchair category athletes also have a wide variety of conditions, not all have SCI. To put it simply, such "neat subcategorisation" won't work in any of them. Roger (talk) 14:34, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Alright, the distinction between medical and sporting categories is a helpful one. I have three more questions, before I do any more extensive work on this: I assume that Category:Sportspeople with a vision impairment can be neatly subcategorised into Category:Visually impaired category Paralympic competitors, and ditto with Category:People with intellectual impairment and its Paralympic subcategory? Is Category:Paralympic sighted guides OK as it is (i.e. a direct subcategory of Category:Paralympic competitors)? And which Paralympic disability category would Matt Levy go under? I assume cerebral palsy, based on his classification, but I'm not 100% sure. Graham87 15:10, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

For the sake of consistency and accuracy we should use exactly the same terminology as the official IPC Categories:

• Amputee - Category:Amputee category Paralympic competitors
• Cerebral Palsy - Category:Cerebral Palsy category Paralympic competitors
• Intellectual Disability - Category:Intellectual Disability category Paralympic competitors
• Wheelchair - Category:Wheelchair category Paralympic competitors
• Visually Impaired - Category:Visually Impaired category Paralympic competitors
• Les Autres - Category:Les Autres category Paralympic competitors

Roger (talk) 15:41, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

All done. Graham87 10:54, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Brilliant! Roger (talk) 11:56, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Responding to your specific questions: Not all viually impaired sportspeople are Paralympians but all VI Paralympians are VI sportspeople. The same with ID category, in fact only a tiny minority of ID sportspeople are Paralympians due to the elitist nature of the Paralympics as opposed to the inclusive "participation for all" ethos of Special Olympics. If we're not sure of the category of a Paralympian then don't categorise them - it's better to be uncategorised than incorrectly categorised. Roger (talk) 15:54, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

• @Graham87: Shouldn't these categories be non-capitalised? The Paralympic website doesn't seem to be consistent and the categories make sense in plain English anyway. SFB 09:21, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Not sure. The capitalization indicates that Paralympians classified as "Cerebral Palsy" don't nececessarily have CP, but may have a related condition; in that case, the category names don't make sense in plain English. Graham87 09:47, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Fair enough then! Good to know the background. SFB 17:55, 6 May 2014 (UTC)