Category talk:Ports and harbours by country

Rename to "Ports and harbours"

 Oppose - "Ports" are facilities for moving goods, harbours are sheltered anchorages, whether manmade or not. The fact that they are often confused or mis-named does not mean we should just throw them in together. Ingolfson (talk) 11:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

A lot of languages (for example Dutch) don't make the distinction between port and harbour. The English wikipedia already merged it at en:Category:Ports and harbours by country because the two are closely related. Multichill (talk) 12:23, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

English DOES draw the reason, and I don't think they are too closely related to be understood - what is needed is a good disambiaguation template at the top of the category. And the fact that the English Wikipedia has merged them is just that - a fact, not a reason. Ingolfson (talk) 12:43, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I could see a rename of all categories to "ports and harbours" for consistency and ease of finding for laymen, but allow separate subcategories within, for those files where the distinction is clear. Ingolfson (talk) 12:43, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that we have to be careful; merging very often results in painful un-merging in the long run. Is there somewhere one or more example with fully developed harbours and ports ? --Foroa (talk) 13:36, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

You cab take a look at Category:Ports and harbours in the Netherlands. You'll see that a lot of languages (at least Dutch, Spanish, German & French) have a single tree for ports and harbours. Multichill (talk) 14:01, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I think Foroa was asking for the opposite - i.e. an example where ports and harbours had been divided according to the dictionary distinction. Again, the fact that other languages make less of a distinction doesn't really apply - what we need to find is a compromise that allows people who don't make the distinction (either due to language or due to lack of information) to use the structure (including when sorting their own images) and yet does not "dumb down" the fact that there IS a difference between the two. Therefore, at the moment, a "ports and harbours" main cat with optional subcats splitting it up seems to me a good idea. We would have to produce category templates that explain this, however, or others will come along and ask for future merges/un-merges etc... Ingolfson (talk) 22:51, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

That's correct. Obviously, if you don't have only one word for ports and harbours, there is little chance that you will split the categories in two different meanings of the same word. I meant: Is there an example that clearly needs the ports and harvours in a separate category. In other words, do we have a valid and practical use case ? --Foroa (talk) 22:03, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

How about en:Waitemata Harbour and en:Ports of Auckland? Or en:Wellington Harbour and Wellington's port, which is (in geographical terms) a little flyspeck at the western edge of the Harbour? Ingolfson (talk) 08:39, 9 April 2009 (UTC)