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This page provides a centralized place to discuss the naming convention of categories. Currently the naming conventions for categories are spread over the following pages:

• Commons:Categories and Commons:Rename a category
• Commons:Naming categories, which is still a draft
• Commons:By location category scheme, a "proposed Commons guideline or policy"
• w:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) (from English Wikipedia)
• <add list here>

This documentation under revision, please see the talk page

[edit] Listing a single category on this "Categories for discussion" page

I.	Add {{subst:cfd}} tag:
	Add the following code to the top of the category page. {{subst:cfd}} The easiest way for doing the next steps II, III and IV: After saving the category with {{subst:cfd}} the templatd will have created a link on cyan background. Click it (for step II), the template will create a subpage with instructions for editing and links (you must open it in new tabs or windows) for further steps.
II.	Create a subpage of "Categories for discussion" :
	Enter the name of the category that you wish to nominate for discussion, click on "Create the subpage", and follow the instructions given there. (eg Commons:Categories for discussion/2009/02/Category:Comics)
III.	Add a link to the sub-page in the "Discussion Request Log":
	To make your discussion visible here you have to add the newly created sub-page to Commons:Categories for discussion/2009/11. The log is sorted by date. Add the following code at the bottom without erasing the existing requests. Remember to save the page. {{Commons:Categories for discussion/2009/11/Category: CATEGORY-NAME }} (Where CATEGORY-NAME is the name of the category you tagged with {{cfd}}.) (eg {{Commons:Categories for discussion/2009/02/Category:Comics}})
IV.	Notify the creator with {{cdw}} tag:
	Sometimes it makes sense to notify the creator of a category on their talk page. Use the notify text suggest in the box at the top of the sub-page created in (II) above. {{subst:cdw|Category: CATEGORY-NAME }} --~~~~ (Where CATEGORY-NAME is the name of the category you tagged with {{cfd}}.) (eg {{subst:cdw|Category:Comics}} --~~~~)

[edit] Listing multiple categories on this "Categories for discussion" page

Perform all the operations above for the first category, then tag all the other related categories with

{{subst:cfd|Category: FIRST-CATEGORY-NAME }}

(eg {{subst:cfd|Category:Comics}} to category:Comic strips)

• Note that if you want to have modifications in this list appear in your watchlist, for each new month and for each new item in the list you want to watch, you have to open the item for editing and click the watch tab.
• For simple category rename requests, one might put the {{Move|New name|Reason|2009-11-25}} template in the source category. These can be discussed on the categories talk page or Category talk:Requested moves
• For non-controversial requests, e.g. inappropriate use of capital letters, plurals, disambiguation terms etc, you may file a request at User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands.

[edit] Current Requests

[edit] March 2009

[edit] Category:Cycling infrastructure

I have already posted on the Village Pump (sorry for not posting here in the first case - was unaware). I'm proposing this category scheme for Category:Cycling infrastructure. I would like your comments. The goal is to minimise the chaos within this category tree. I am in disagreement with User:ŠJů whether to use a "networked" or a "hierarchical" structure (he's in favor of the former). Please note his arguments here (starting with: I never ...): [1]. Thank you Nillerdk (talk) 22:27, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Relevant discussions are Category talk:Cycling routes, Category talk:Cycling infrastructure and primarily Category talk:Bikeways. I think, this depiction of passed disputes isn't just exhaustive and correct. The diminutive question, whether is to be in the category "bikeways" one element in addition or isn't to be, means no "chaos". Separate and individual improvement proposals can be stated, but the category structure is functional in principle and there's no need to create some complex reconstruction. It is necessary to sort many insufficiently or bad categorized photos, not make some revolutions regarding category structure. --ŠJů (talk) 07:30, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Part 2

Foroa has suggest to start the discussion over, starting with the main points. Let's do that and let's keep the discussion shortest possible. The first crucial problem is whether there is a adult-child relationship between cycling routes and bikeways and if there is, which one. This question is identical to: Can a category cycling routes be descendant of bikeways (a), bikeways of cycling routes (b) or none (c)? Before restating my personal point, I would like to ask (especially ŠJů) if you agree in clearing this question (reaching consensus) before going any further. If you agree, you are - as far as I'm concerned - welcome to state your point with a short argument. Nillerdk (talk) 13:01, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

First off all we should reflect that in current categorization are "bikeways in..." categories used and established as umbrella categories for all types of ways which are anyhow recommended or signed for cyclists, no matter whether segregated or partly seperated or full shared. This system is functional, practical, intelligible and unified. We have acknowledge that the word "bikeways" in names of such categories mean neither "way signed by cycle path sign" nor "way marked by color lane" nor "separated way for cyclists" (though this narrower meaning of this word exists certainly too), but the word "bikeways" in names of categories means all types of ways which are anyhow recommended or signed for cyclists.

Let's see that categories "Bikeways in..." can have subcategories by separate regions or cities, by type of equipment (types of signs), by particular ways or routes (and maybe in addition by type of way - shared road, trail, cycle path, collored cycle path, shared cycle-pedestrians path, cycle lane, shared cycle+bus lane etc. That's a good idea.). If some route or way haven't its own category yet, photos of it are placed directly in "bikeways" category for the time being. If we understand this system, so we have to acknowledge, that photos of cycle routes and categories of photos by cycle routes belongs into "Bikeways in..." category.

I have seen, that attempt to found "cycle routes" categories aside from "bikeways" categories conduced to unlucidity, disconnectedness and duplicity mainly. That way acquits ill IMHO this once. Even if would categories "Cycling routes in..." filled up purposefully, such category will perform as "bikeways by route" category factually. That's why they have to be subcategories of "Bikeways in...". I propose to keep the current system in principle and eventually to found "Cycle paths in..." categories for "bikeways" in narrower meaning. --ŠJů (talk) 17:47, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

As regards the original question: one specific cycle path or bikeway can be a part of some one or more marked cycle route or can be not marked as part of some route. Some specific cycle route can involve (use) one or more cycle paths, but all used roads and trails and paths are "bikeways" in broader meaning. But category "Cycle routes in SOMEWHERE" can involve ONLY photos or maps or equipment of bikeways (in broader sense) and that is why those have to be a subcategory of "Bikeways in SOMEWHERE". The category "Bikeways in SOMEWHERE" can involve among others photos of cycle ways which aren't signed as named or numbered cycle routes, that is why such category should not be a subcategory of "Cycle routes in SOMEWHERE". If we had this couple of categories without direct relation, it will generate chaos and duplicity, two uncommitted categories with similar content, as we have seen in some few of cases. --ŠJů (talk) 18:05, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Final points from my side

ŠJů, I understand perfectly what system you favour, and you understand perfectly what system I favour. We disagree, but I respect your opinion. I don't respect, however, that you keep recategorizing according to your personal plan (more than 500 cycling-related edits just during the last 4 days) while the topic is under discussion. At the same time you have blamed me for making "chaotic changes" ... (At this point I have to admit that I made a few strange edits before the discussion started, as I became aware that the categorization of cycling infrastructure, as it is now, is far from ideal).

The answer to my own question above: None. Everyone agrees that cycling routes and bikeways (in the narrow sense in ŠJů's terminology) are different concepts:

• There are bikeways which don't belong to a cycling route (The small municipality Copenhagen has 350 km segregated bikeways of which currently only 10% are named, numbered or otherwise signed cycling routes)
• There are cycling routes which don't follow bikeways (Denmark has more than 3000 km of signed and named national cycling routes, mostly following calm countryside roads without bikeways)
• There are certainly also cycling routes which follow bikeways (for example the mentioned 10% in Copenhagen or large sections of riverside cycling routes in Germany)

ŠJů's idea to broaden the bikeway concept to also include ordinary (car) roads which are used as part of cycling routes seems simplifying (positive) at the first glance. Unfortunatly, it has the following serious disadvantage(s) for the users:

Example: Suppose a user A needs some photos from the Rhine Cycling Route. If there was a category Category:Rhine Cycling Route, he would go there. He would find photos of segregated bikeways, roads which the cycling route follows, photos taken from along the cycling route but not showing bikeways/roads/signs (views), signs and maybe some infrastructure closely related to the cycling route like bicycle ferries, bicycle racks etc. Voìla.

Suppose another user B needs some photos of bikeways in Koblenz. If we choose to define bikeway in the "narrow" sense (road with special cycling infrastructure), he would go to Category:Bikeways in Koblenz (or if it doesn't exist yet to Category:Bikeways in Rheinland-Pfalz) and he will find photos of segregated bicycle facilities, but no ordinary roads marked as cycling routes. Some of the files, he finds, will probably also be found be user A in Category:Rhine Cycling Route, because Koblenz is at the Rhine. User B could also have another wish: To find photos of different implementations of bicycle lanes. He will go to Category:Bikeways by type and then Category:Cycle lanes and he will find what he needs.

Notice that user A and B have two completely different goals: While A wants files associated with an abstract route (through many area-locations), B wants files of certain physical objects (in certain area-locations).

My points:

• Let's keep the ordinary (in ŠJů's terminology: narrow) definition of bikeway (see the definition I endorse)
• Let's accept that objects (bikeways, signs etc) and routes should be categorized seperatly. Infrastructure has two parts: the physical (Category:Bikeways, Category:Cycling signs etc. ) and the organizational (Category:Cycling routes) and the one common overcategory should be: Category:Cycling infrastructure)
• Every cycling route is important enough to have it own category if there are just a few files to populate it
• "Sign" categories should not be subcategories of bikeway categories (example: Category:Bikeway signs in Germany should not be in Bikeways in Germany and Category:Cycling route signs of Elberadweg should not be in Category:Elberadweg). If this was the case, files depicting bikeways and signs would (due to COM:OVERCAT) "disappear" down in the "signs" categories.
• My recommendation of a category scheme take these points into account and can be found here. It is not complete (I didn't even try to make it cover every possible subcategory). When it mentions very specific categories like Category:Vía Verde de la Sierra it is just an example. Oh, and the "cycling signs" subcategory might be improvable. I don't understand ŠJů's criticism of this subcategory, but I would be open to discuss an alternative, would it be given in a structured and comparable form.

Lastly, I'll ask User:Foroa, User:Ingolfson, User:MGA73 and the rest of the community for their opinions. Neither I nor User:ŠJů have much more to add I think - we have already been repeating ourselves. Nillerdk (talk) 15:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

As I mentioned previously, first of all it is necessary to classify hundreds of photos, which are insufficiently categorized. Yes, recently I categorized many photos, which have been inserted directly in "Bikeway signs" category (I distributed them by meaning and by country) or in "Bikeways" category (I distributed them by country). It is needed to categorize many of them more precisely: by city or region or by specific way or route - many of them lack some location category etc. Categorization by type of way (shared road, trail, various types of urban or rural cycle paths, cycle lanes etc.) can by added surely as well - I made nothing what obstruct it (just I added more photos into the specific category of cycle path signs or into cycle lane category recently). Let's give our effort to such usefull and needed work instead to struggle irreconcilablely for/against implacement of one category into the second category. Discussions about some marginal specific proposals should not restrain our constructive laborious work meanwhile. As I was saying, I'm not against existence of special categories for various types of ways for cyclists, but I'm against pointless doubling of categories and I advice to base upon the current system, which is workable in principle and can be developed furthermore without some (controversial) rebuilding. --ŠJů (talk) 20:16, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The reason why we cannot to come to an agreement is, that You did bethink yourself that "bikeway" can mean only "segregated bikeway" and nothing else. Your question refered to "bikeways" and our self-answer to "segregated bikways". However the disputed categories are named "Bikeways" and not "Segregated bikeways" really. I never made some protest against existence of special categories for various types of segregated bikeways (as e. g. bicycle paths/roads or bicycle lanes). The fact, that presently in Denmark are urban bikeways mostly signed only as cycle paths and rural bikeways only as cycle routes shouldn't deny the need to have some common category for all types of bikeways (independently of type of signs and traffic segregation). By the way, "cycle path" is (by traffic and legislative aspects) more similar to some forest or rural trail than to cycle lane. How do you want to take it into account? --ŠJů (talk) 20:43, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Nillerdk, Your examples indicate that you don't understand the principles of categorization yet. Categorization of a photo by some criterion does never restrain to categorization of the some one by other criterion. I respect this principle, You didn't respect it in some your edits.

see the definition Your link don't prove that the word "bikeway" can mean the segregated facilities only; moreover we discussed already that most of cycle lanes and cycle pahts are shared (not strictly segregated) and more ordinary trails are really segregated although they are not signed as "cycle paths".

"Every cycling route is important enough to have it own category" is absolute nonsense. Perhaps it is so in Denmark, but surelly not generally. For example, there exist or are planned about hundred of numbered cycle routes of first or second class in Prague and times out of number of third class, which are numbered only in documentation. Have we create own category for every cycling route, for every streetlamp, for every bus stop, for every vehicle, for every house? It's absurd.

Cycling signs are equipment of ways for cyclists or of their crossings. That's why category of cycling signs should be a subcategory of bikeways category. If Category:Cycling route signs of Elberadweg exists, it should be in Category:Elberadweg surelly and it is impossible to doubt of it rationally. If some photo portrayals at once some sign and the trail, it is no ovecategorization, if it is categorized by both of such objects. --ŠJů (talk) 21:33, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

My final (for this round at least) comments:

•  Support for the retention of "Cycling infrastructure" and "cycling infrastructure by country" scheme.
•  Comment to retain BOTH cycle routes and bikeways, but define them better in a meta-description. Not all bikeways are routes, not all routes are bikeways. In my view, the two do not overlap in a way that allows us to conclusively merge, or place one of them under the other. Confusion will have to be avoided by clearer disambiguation, i.e. route = concept of a link, bikeway = physical facility. Not all routes then need categories, nor do all bikeways of course.

Ingolfson (talk) 00:00, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Of course I had to add something after all - hunting through categories like "bikeways" while working on cycling infrastructure categories has found categories like bikeways in japan, which was not linked to anything except the bikeways by country cat. In fact, all the cycling-related cats in Japan were pretty orphaned. Now they aren't, partly because they are in the cycling infrastructure logic now. Ingolfson (talk) 00:49, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] April 2009

[edit] Category:Bicycle road signs

I propose to rename:

• Category:Bicycle road signs to Category:Cycle path signs
• Category:End of bikeway signs to Category:End of cycle path signs (or anything like that, some better name: Signs of cyclepath end? Signs of end of cycle path?)

"Bicycle road signs" is unclear, it may be wrong perceived as "Bicycle / road signs" instead as "Bicycle road / signs".

A current system of categorization uses a word "bikeway" as a generall term for all forms of ways for cyclists. Signs contained in above-mentioned categories pertain only to one specific form of them (one specific way of marking, different for example from cycle lanes). "Cycle path" is most unambiguous term, which is in some coutries even an official term. "Bicycle road" is apposite only for some of cycle paths.

Also compatibility Category:Pedestrian path signs and Category:Pedestrian and cyclist path signs is relevant. --ŠJů (talk) 16:59, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

 Comment I'm neither going to support nor oppose this proposal as long as no conclusion on the cycling infrastructure category schema has been reached (see Commons:Categories_for_discussion/Current_requests/2009/03/Category:Cycling_infrastructure). These things need be discussed in context. I'm against any change in the cycling infrastructure categories until a conclusion has been reached. Nillerdk (talk) 19:37, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I also prefer that this be discussed in the category scheme. This group of categories is still "young", so let us deal with it there, and sort out an agreement. I will spend some more time on the weekend looking at the above question of ŠJů and decide what I would suggest is best in case of the signs / whether I agree or disagree with ŠJů - but let's discuss it at the category scheme page. Ingolfson (talk) 10:16, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: I don't think any native English speaker would misunderstand "Bicycle road signs" as "Bicycle / road signs", but I have a question: is the category intended to include or exclude signs on a road that warn cars of a bicycle crossing? If exclude, where would those fit this scheme? - Jmabel ! talk 18:32, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] May 2009

[edit] Category:Desperation

I'm not a native English speaker, but couldn't it be merged into Category:Despair? Or the other way perhaps? Or is it necessary to maintain both? --Eusebius (talk) 11:18, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Despair and desperation can be two different things. Despair is mainly when you've given up hope, and while desperation can mean the same thing it can also mean "extreme recklessness, reckless fury" and so on, usually "arising from despair". So I guess desperation is what happens when you've despaired and you're desperate? ... such a confusing language, English.

Point is, while it's possible for them to mean the same thing they can also mean different things. I guess category separation makes sense. -- Editor at Large • talk 05:09, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

OK for me, if you feel like it is possible to distinguish despair from desperation in a media file! :-) --Eusebius (talk) 06:42, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Narrow gauge railway lines

The category is only duplicate of Category:Narrow gauge railways. "Narrow gauge railways" can mean only "narrow gauge railway lines" (a railway company cannot be "narrow gauge" and it would be pointless to categorize railway companies by gauge). --ŠJů (talk) 07:27, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi - I agree with you that this is just a duplicate of Category:Narrow gauge railways. Since we (including your vote) decided that "railways" should be avoided, I have proposed a move of the Category:Narrow gauge railways over to --> Category:Narrow gauge railway lines. That would also nicely resolve our dispute over whether "railways"-name categories should be in the "railway lines" parent cat, because then we would have only "narrow gauge railway lines" as a name.

If you agree, can you say so on the Cfd for Category:Narrow gauge railway lines so the merge can go ahead as I have asked for on the Delinker? Thanks. Ingolfson (talk) 05:42, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

It was decided (after the wikipedias) that "railways" categories should not prove umbrella categories of the whole theme of rail transport. But the world "railways" should be used in names of categories by type of railway ("industrial railway" is a clear terminus technicus, "industrial rail transport" is an incompatible and obscure neologism) and in names of categories which categorize specific railways by type.

The reason why the term "railways" was problematic is its ambiguity ("a railway line" as the authentic meaning and "a railway company" as the metonymic derivated meaning). I (as a no-native user of English) perceive a word "way" as clear base of the word "railway", but i can understand, that the original meaning of the word can be almost displaced and forgotten in some of English-speaking countries.

In case of categories of railways by type, there is no fear of ambiguity: the company cannot be "narrow gauge". "Narrow gauge railways" is an unambiguoous, exceptable and standard term. I never agreed to leave it. Category names shouldn't be superfluously euphuistic and complicated, if there exists some simpler and more established term.

The idea of formal unification of category names is useful, but it shouldn't be implemented ad absurdum, at the expense of idea of utmost simple, expectable and usual names. It is necessary to respect a common and technical language and not to create some "newspeak" here. In additional, it is undesirable to break the consistency toward en-wiki and other wikipedias (see en:Category:Narrow gauge railways) needlesly. I think, the category structure of en:Category:Railway lines at en-wikipedia is quite reasonable and we should result from it here. --ŠJů (talk) 15:16, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

It is not always clear, what a "narrow gauge railway" is. Most people associate it with "narrow gauge railway company", e.g. Rhätische Bahn. This seems clear. But then, what is Berninabahn. It was a railway company once. Now it is a railway line of Rhätische Bahn. Should we list Berninabahn under narrow gauge railways together with Rhätische Bahn? And then, what is the Cerdagne line of SNCF? A railway or a railway line? I think, "railway line" is quite clear, "railway" may have different meanings but is nearer to "company" than to "line".-- Gürbetaler (talk) 23:56, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

So ŠJů - you are actually proposing that we keep Category:Railway lines after we have decided - as per YOUR request - to delete Category:Railways, but we are supposed to delete Category:Narrow gauge railway lines and keep Category:Narrow gauge railways? That makes no SENSE. Especially to then put that category "Railway lines". That is so inconsistent.

And to point to Wikipedia is no argument in my view - if we use inconsistency on another project to keep it inconsistent here, we will never remove this needless duplication. Which I in the past felt you were quite against, by the way. Ingolfson (talk) 01:48, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

My past request aimed to an elimination of a unreasonable duplicity. My requests here aims to the same goal. I think, the structure at en-wikipedia is consistent and suitable in this respect. It is absurd to blame the wikipedia from duplication: it is no duplication at wikipedia in it. You Ingolfson are who created many duplications and unconsistentness and needles complicacies here. Some railways aren't findable in the appropriate categories of railways (railway lines) because you are displaced them to the upon-category "rail transport" or you have deleted a category of some type of railways etc.

@Gürbetaler: The English word "railway" (or the German word "Bahn" or Czech word "dráha") means primarily the rail-way, i. e. a railway line. In cases where the word "railways" cannot be ambiguous, it should be used instead of some artificial and longer word construction. The company which operate a narrow-gauge railway isn't a narrow-gauge company. This seems clear, the the company cannot be narrow-gauge. Thus "narrow gauge railways" can have only one meaning. If some specific railway line is operated by the homonymic company, it is ordinarilly suitable to use one common category for both this railway and this company. Such category should by categorized as a railway (line) and simultaneously as a railway company.

There are many cases that some railway (line) was divided into two or more lines or that several railways (railway lines) was joined into one railway (which can have more branches). One numbered railway (line) can be composed from more named railways (lines) and several numbered lines can form one named railway. It is independent from the fact whether the appropriate category of railways is named "...railways..." or "...railway lines...". --ŠJů (talk) 22:25, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Industrial rail transport

The category name "Industrial rail transport" is an artificially created term which is no established generally. For specific type of railways (see en:Industrial railway) is the subcategory "Category:Industrial railways" full sufficient. For industrial rail transport in general the category "Category:Freight rail transport" is sufficient. The category:Industrial rail transport is a pointless intergrade. --ŠJů (talk) 08:04, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Industrial rail transport is rail transport outside of the "normal" rail network, such as on factory grounds, within a mine, etc... often without a railway line at all (such as just moving rail vehicles from one hall of a company to another). It is much more specific than the genereic "freight rail transport", and as such far from "pointless" (what is the deal with opposition against more specific categories - if a file also applies to a more generic category, it can still be sorted there too!).

Also it is a "concept" - industrial rail transport is not a specific Category:Industrial railways - and as ŠJů himself called for the top category "railways" to be abolished as a duplicate system recently, I do not quite understand why he feels it is okay to use a specific category like industrial railways here to replace the concept category.

Finally, "industrial rail" and "industrial railways" gets you loads of hits on google. The fact that this category is called "industrial rail transport" is a function of consistency with parent categories and not an "artificially created term" in the sense of "someone just made this up, it is not established generally". It is quite well established in Category:Rail transport and Category:Industry. Cheers Ingolfson (talk) 20:17, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Industrial railways are non-public railways. However, there have been many industrial railways that have finally become public railways. And, the term "non-public" depends on national legislation. Thus, a little railway turning its circles in a park or the like may be regarded as "non-public" from a legal point of view...

I think we should stick to the term "Industrial rail transport" but put an explanation on the category page.-- Gürbetaler (talk) 23:40, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Ingolfson as to what an "Industrial railway" is, basically a works railway in the grounds of factories, port etc, so I have no problems as to what it is and what it should contain. However I disagree vehemently with the use of the term "Industrial rail transport" as its name. With regards to ghits "Industrial railways" produces 12000 ghits with the restrictive search terms whilst the same search for "Industrial rail transport" produces just under 200, which suggests that "Industrial rail transport" is the more generally used and understood term. My temptation is to simply echo with ŠJů and call "Industrial rail transport" an artificial construction in order not to use the word railway in the title, but I suspect that to do so will just fall on deaf ears. By the logic of being consistent with the Commons naming scheme Ingolfson is correct

I was directed here I guess because of what I wrote on Foroa's talk page, forgive me if I repeat myself a little here. Commons exists as a service to the various wiki projects, and the categorisation scheme exists as a tool to editors of those projects. Without being of utility to those editors however perfect consistent and logical the categorisation becomes then Commons and the categorisation scheme may as well not exist.

Names of systems, organisations, things have a semantic, cultural and historical weight which might not at all be logical and consistent, while every effort should be made to be logical and consistent what Ingolfson is trying to do is to try and remake the world in the image of Commons, rather then reflect the world as it is. Ingolfson allow me to ask you this, imagine for a moment that Commons did not exist and you was not the champion of this naming scheme. Now imagine that you wished to find a picture of factory, port, mine railways using google, what search term would you use? Industrial rail transport? are you sure.

The names we use should and where possible parallel those used in en:wiki (for bot categorisation if nothing else), they should be accessible to casual users of Commons looking quickly for a file to illustrate an article, they should not create an artificial nomenclature used on Commons but no where else and they should not be uglier then need be.KTo288 (talk) 20:00, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

p.s. Gürbetaler, I do it myself, but I think you have to agree, that any clarification in the intro as to how a category is to be used, points to an intrinsic weakness in the choice of name for a category.KTo288 (talk) 20:03, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

"that any clarification in the intro as to how a category is to be used, points to an intrinsic weakness in the choice of name for a category." So we can just have "railways" and "rail transport" both, and it will sort itself out, without explanation? Speaking bluntly, expecting a two/three word category name to always have to be totally un-ambigious is a very tall order. Ingolfson (talk) 02:07, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Regarding my whole insistence on the consistency: I understand that "general usage" can diverge from a consistent system, because it grows organically, rather than logically. However, if we use that as Commons logic (i.e. we follow "general usage") then we need to rename the whole category structure. Outside of Commons, the usage is clearly "railways" for the whole shebang, rather than "rail transport". But we call it rail transport anyways, because we are an archival project that needs a more rigorous structure than one that has grown organically with all its inconsistencies.

Also, using categories "industrial railways" logically leads to more and more new "XYZ railways" categories popping up - which is already happening, to my frustration (such as Category:Double-line railways) often created by the same user who some months back asked for Category:Railways to be removed as a duplicate structure. Now it's all coming back. I once proposed to make a distinction between "rail transport" AND "railways" via explanatory text, and keep both, one sitting below the other. Also opposed - by the same user. Apparently, a muddle of both naming systems is better.

Now regarding the user-friendlieness issue. I see little problem with that generally - that are what redirects, explanations etc... are for. We have a technical structure in place that will easily move a searching user into the right direction. We can also assume that anyone who has an attention span worth dealing with will be able to navigate logically, and not be shocked and leave, upon encountering that on Commons, what he expected to be called "Industrial railways" is called "Industrial rail transpport". Ingolfson (talk) 02:07, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I guess that's the closest I'll get to an admission that Industrial railways' is the proper name for this topic, and be satisfied with that. I was in the process of writing of a rebuttal, which was just getting longer and longer and which on re-reading was just so much special pleading. Basically I find Industrial rail transport ugly, artificial and inelegant. And sorry about the cheap quip.KTo288 (talk) 16:21, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Dictators

The equal category to this one has been deleted from Wikipedia a long time ago: see the deletion request. The final criteria was that "Violates POV by endorsing a subjective view, which could never have unbiased criteria as to what a dictator is". The same criteria can be applied here.

Note that this deletion request is ony about the category in itself, none of the images in it (as long as they have good licences) or subcategories by people's name are being proposed for deletion --Belgrano (talk) 17:49, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Commons has no POV restrictions as the purpose of categories is to find items in the first place. If the category dictators is not deemed "politically" correct, another name should be proposed as anyway, we need some sort of dictator category. --Foroa (talk) 18:37, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually: Commons:Project scope/Neutral point of view states that the neutral point of view concept does not apply to images in themselves. For instance a stamp of Hitler and Mossolini is clearly favourable to them, and a comic book parody is clearly desfavourable; what the policy says is that such things are ignored and only the copyright is considered. However, it has never been stated that NPOV does not exist on Commons. That very same policy states that neutrality of description shold be aimed. And considering that categories are not an inherent element of image files but part of the structure builded around them, then I see no reason to allow them to be based on non-neutral criteria Belgrano (talk) 23:22, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

That was very well put. I agree totally. Samulili (talk) 06:53, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Book market

The beginning: Category talk:Book market.

First of all, there is a direct loop between Category:Book market and Category:Literature.

Second, the categorization of literature based on the assumption that literature is, first of all, what is sold at the book market(?), doesn’t seem to me a very good idea.

User:Olaf Simons, the creator of the category page, put Category:Books, Category:Fiction and Category:Reading in it. I think if Books was a parent of Book market, or even when it is its child, such categorization is redunant.

I guess there are legitimate uses of the category, but at least about half of what it is now looks wrong to me.

--AVRS (talk) 20:47, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the category is supposed to be about the book market, that is, the commercial trade of books as such. This does not seem very useful, as it will contain almost all book-related categories. I would not mind a category "book markets", that does what I originally thought this category does, namely show markets for (used) books. --rimshot^talk 06:15, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

First thing: This is a field of studies - book history, you can take courses at universities, secondly I began with it to cover statistics etc. like these. --Olaf Simons (talk) 08:20, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I suggest Category:Book market as the parent category of Category:Literature, Category:Publishing do not need a subcategory of that. But it is a sector of Trading. I will recat Category:Book market for this points/items. --Diwas (talk) 12:06, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

A lot of Literature (Drama, oral traditions) is not part of the book market. The book market is rather a commercial enterprise among other markets like car manufacturing, banking... --Olaf Simons (talk) 13:52, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Do you suggest Category:Literature should be the parent category of Category:Book market but not a subcategory of Category:Book market? It can be a good way. On the other hand, are all elements of the book market literature? --Diwas (talk) 15:34, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

"are all elements of the book market literature?" - that depends on your concept of literature. The book market is everything from fiction to sciences and religion. I'd say literature is part of the market. Yet literature is not entirely a sub-category, only part of the literary production is paper based, printed in books, and that part (basically fiction) is sold on the book market. --Olaf Simons (talk) 18:27, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

One way would be to put a see also to both category pages and uncat Category:Literature from Category:Book market. On the other hand, Literature as a knowledge sector is a object or subject of the study field book market and all literature is a potential object of the market sector book market. Are E-books and hear books parts of the book market? --Diwas (talk) 22:47, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

"Are E-books and hear books parts of the book market?" - good question. I suppose the book traders hope these things will remain their business. For the moment the publishing houses have the rights on most texts, and the publishing business is to a good extent a business of rights. --Olaf Simons (talk) 16:26, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] June 2009

[edit] (Roman bridges series of discussion)

[edit] Category:Ancient Roman bridges

I am currently ordering the Ancient Roman bridges. Unfortunately, User:Foroa has several times refused to move my proposed categories without proper explanation. He is invited to give reasons for obstructing progress on the renaming of these categories below. Specifically, it needs to be clarified whether the naming scheme for bridges should run bridge name, local name or bridge name (local name). En detail:

• My proposal: Ponte d'Augusto (Rimini): unchallenged name of the English version (alternatively Ponte di Tiberio, since, being constructed by two emperors, the bridge features both names)
• My proposal: Puente Romano (Mérida): unchallenged name of the English version
• My proposal: Puente Romano (Córdoba): following the same naming scheme as the Puente Romano in Mérida
• My proposal: Römerbrücke (Trier): unchallenged name of the English version
• My proposal: Ponte dei Quattro Capi: the bridge's name is unique, and anyway there is only this one at Commons, hence no need for any specification by "Rome" Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:42, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Just a procedural question: have you tried to follow the steps outlined at the top of this page? --rimshot^talk 20:33, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Not for his original requests, see PS below. The CFD procedure has been corrected and followed since yesterday. --Foroa (talk) 06:03, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I have created all the subpages now and also consulted the guy who had a strong opinion on this. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:48, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

First, a more clear reformulation of your request:

Rename Category:Tiberius bridge in Rimini as Category:Ponte d'Augusto (Rimini).

Rename Category:Roman bridge, Mérida as Category:Puente Romano (Mérida).

Rename Category:Roman bridge, Córdoba as Category:Puente Romano (Córdoba).

Rename Category:Roman bridge, Trier as Category:Römerbrücke (Trier).

Rename Category:Ponte Quattro Capi (Rome) as Category:Ponte dei Quattro Capi.

• While I tend to be very tolerant for local names, for bridges that tend to be often on language, cultural and country borders, that often changed in history, English names are definitively better as they create less conflicts. And this is anyway the Commons main rule. This does not imply automatically that the En:wiki can be taken as a reference for correct names.
• Especially in Spain, with its four official languages and its many borders, a generic English name such as Roman bridge is a real blessing. Trier too, with its important role in the Roman, Frank, French and Luxembourg history, benefits from more international names.
• The current names are according to the commons rules and I definitively try to avoid renames once a compromise (and peace) is found and unchallenged since several years. --Foroa (talk) 22:19, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Please point me to the exact Commons rule you refer to. Actually, there is no ongoing naming conflict on any of these bridges, which makes your actions even more mystifying. The renaming request of mine is merely meant to give consistency to the naming scheme of Roman bridges. Since Colin O'Connor 1993 monograph, the main English reference on Roman bridges, uses the local names such as Puente Romano, Ponte di Tiberio, and since the general rule on all Wikipedias is to rely on published scholarly resources, your contention to use 'English' names is actually close to original research. These are not even used by English authors. Finally, you are also still avoiding any discussion on why you refuse to use the widely employed brackets, nor did you justify your removal of Ponte Quattro Capi. Personally, I find these subjective interpretations of Common rules rather irritating, and I would like to hear some qualified opinions. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:43, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

The names: English names are to be preferred but only a reference when they are referenced as such in widely available reference works such as Encyclopedia Brittanica or Encarta. In the case of bridges, there seem to be very few bridges referred as such. A second option is to use an English generic name when possible, typically for generic names, such as Roman bridge. A third option is the local name, and in that case, the only logical name is the official local name as is displayed on the bridge and on the maps of the city; it makes no sense to give them a name in the local language that is different from the local name, even if historically incorrect.

The format. Commons format rules are quite wide and indeed open for interpretation. In general, I try not to interfere with the local naming habits that tend to converge to some uniformity at the local level, but indeed show differences when looking at the international level.

In terms of format, I would say that here are the priorities I see

• "yyy bridge in/of xxx" This is by far the preferred Commons format, but as the in/of/from often creates problems, we see that an upcoming de factor standard is "yyy bridge, xxx" where xxx is the place. Indeed, the latter avoids not only the in/of/from problem, it is easily extensible for places that need disambiguation terms.

• another format we see often is "yyy bridge (qualifier)". The qualifier is typically stating what the object is.

But as I stated, there are many variant possible and I will certainly not move categories for such details, especially when the local naming consistency is strong, such as in Italy. --Foroa (talk) 17:49, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, Foroa, you make strong claims of how things are done at Commons in this or that way all the time, but where is your evidence? Why don't actually cite the relevant Commons rules to prove your views? Right now you give the impression of following your own idiosyncratic rules.

With only 1,5 million entries as opposed to 8-10 million for Wikipedias, you should be aware that citing Encyclopedia Britannica for verification is in many cases logically impossible.

And on what grounds do you continue to refute the naming convention of the specialist literature I gave you (O'Connor, Galliazzo)?

And, if you like, we can do a comprehensive search whether "yyy bridge in/of xxx" or "yyy bridge, xxx" or, as it is, "yyy bridge (xxx)" is the common naming standard.

You, as an administrator, are here not to make rules, but to follow them. If there is a standard, let's follow it; if not, not. All your "upcoming standards" speculation falls between these categories and is thus totally out of place here. So, I would ask you to give for every and each of your claims evidence. I already did long ago the same with the specialist reference. I am on the verge of bringing up he topic again on the main page, if you cannot substantiate your arguments. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:01, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

---

Ps:Please stop false accusations. On your referenced delinker request, it is clearly stated:

Warnings Note: Please do not request name changes that you know may be controversial (this includes, for example, renaming locations into a different local language - even if "that is the official name used there"). Such move requests should be undertaken via {{move}} or COM:CFD instead, to allow objections - if any - to be made on the talk page. All moves have to follow the language policy for the category namespace.

So it is normal that your request was declined and that trying to slip move requests several times in the delinker request page made no sense. Despite the fact that it was suggested by other people, you did not introduce a formal move or CFD request. Discussion went on on Category_talk:Tiberius_bridge_in_Rimini and on my talk page. --Foroa (talk) 22:19, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Tiberius bridge in Rimini

I am currently ordering the Ancient Roman bridges. Unfortunately, User:Foroa has several times refused to move my proposed categories without proper explanation. He is invited to give reasons for obstructing progress on the renaming of these categories below. Specifically, it needs to be clarified whether the naming scheme for bridges should run bridge name, local name or bridge name (local name). En detail:

• My proposal: Ponte d'Augusto (Rimini): unchallenged name of the English version (alternatively Ponte di Tiberio, since, being constructed by two emperors, the bridge features both names) Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:35, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
•  Oppose:

• While I tend to be very tolerant for local names, for bridges that tend to be often on language, cultural and country borders, that often changed in history, English names are definitively better as they create less conflicts. And this is anyway the Commons main rule. This does not imply automatically that the En:wiki can be taken as a reference for correct names.
• Requester prefers "Ponte d'Augusto", no doubt with very good reasons. He named and wrote the en: and de: wiki articles, so those set has to be considered as one single reference (and not three as suggested).
• Given that the majority of wikipedia's (all the roman countries) refer to the Tiberius bridge (de:Ponte d'Augusto (Rimini), en:Pons Augustus (Rimini),, fr:Pont de Tibère, it:Ponte di Tiberio), the Italian wikipedia where the bridge is located, nor the Spanish or French wikipedia don't even mention a potential other name resembling "Ponte d'Augusto", I see no sufficient ground to rename the category to "Ponte d'Augusto".
• It would be not very clever to rename a bridge to an Italian name that is different from the name used by the citizens of the city.
• The current name is according to the commons rules and I strongly oppose any move to an Italian name unless there is a consensus for it and the Italian name is proven as the official used one. --Foroa (talk) 22:13, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

The current name is not in accordance with the Commons rules since a) the additional "in Rimini" is rather commonly expressed as "(Rimini)" and b) the English name, being a proper name, should be in any case "Tiberius Bridge". However, this name is not common in the scholarly works, which prefer either "Ponte di Tiberio" or "Ponte d'Augusto" (see O’Connor, Colin (1993), Roman Bridges, Cambridge University Press, pp. 84f., ISBN 0-521-39326-4). These are also the official Italian names (see Galliazzo, Vittorio (1994), I ponti romani. Catalogo generale, Vol. 2, Treviso: Edizioni Canova, pp. 108, ISBN 88-85066-66-6). So please stop obstructing progress on the work on Roman bridges for purely personal reasons. 10:52, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

For the name, see Commons:Categories_for_discussion/Current_requests/2009/06/Category:Ancient_Roman_bridges

For the format: I am under the impression that there is in English quite some mixup between title cases and proper names, as you can read in en:Title-case#Places_and_geographic_terms. Especially generic terms are quite mixed up. Moreover, those habits (as the rules are not very clear and solid), are leaning to the culture of the US and Germany, but not so much in other countries. In the US and Germany, one will find often Xxx Castle, while in other countries you will find Xxx castle, where castle is quite rightly to me, a generic term. All this to explain I don't waste my time executing moves that change case in one direction or in the other, until there is somewhere a clear and unambiguous rule for the title/proper noun case. I often check the use of the title case in the articles and very often they are incoherent with the title, meaning that the title case is often confused with the proper name. So there is nor Iron simple rule that specifies if one has to write the one or the other. Just look in en:Category:Churches in Sweden and Category:Churches in Skåne: if they are so inconsistent, it just proves that we have a problem with the rule (or its interpretation) in the first place, not with its implementation. Anyway, if you would use Roman Bridge as category/article name, to be consistent, you have to write al the times Bridge with capital in the text when you refer to the bridge, which is obviously not done.

To the best of my knowledge, on Commons, there is no simple comprehensive rule for capitalisation (besides the unfortunate "No Title Case rule"). --Foroa (talk) 05:39, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

---

Ps:Please stop false accusations. On your referenced delinker request, it is clearly stated:

Warnings Note: Please do not request name changes that you know may be controversial (this includes, for example, renaming locations into a different local language - even if "that is the official name used there"). Such move requests should be undertaken via {{move}} or COM:CFD instead, to allow objections - if any - to be made on the talk page. All moves have to follow the language policy for the category namespace.

So it normal that your request was declined. Discussion went on on Category_talk:Tiberius_bridge_in_Rimini --Foroa (talk) 22:13, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Roman bridge, Mérida

I am currently ordering the Ancient Roman bridges. Unfortunately, User:Foroa has several times refused to move my proposed categories without proper explanation. He is invited to give reasons for obstructing progress on the renaming of these categories below. Specifically, it needs to be clarified whether the naming scheme for bridges should run bridge name, local name or bridge name (local name). En detail:

• My proposal: Puente Romano (Mérida): unchallenged name of the English version Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:41, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

•  Oppose See discussion in Commons:Categories for discussion/Current requests/2009/06/Category:Ancient Roman bridges. The essence:

• While I tend to be very tolerant for local names, for bridges that tend to be often on language, cultural and country borders, that often changed in history, English names are definitively better as they create less conflicts. And this is anyway the Commons main rule. This does not imply automatically that the En:wiki can be taken as a reference for correct names.
• Especially in Spain, with its four official languages and its many borders, a generic English name such as Roman bridge is a real blessing. Trier too, with its important role in the Roman, Frank, French and Luxembourg history, benefits from more international names.
• The current names are according to the commons rules and I definitively try to avoid renames once a compromise (and peace) is found and unchallenged since several years. --Foroa (talk) 06:17, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Roman bridge, Córdoba

I am currently ordering the Ancient Roman bridges. Unfortunately, User:Foroa has several times refused to move my proposed categories without proper explanation. He is invited to give reasons for obstructing progress on the renaming of these categories below. Specifically, it needs to be clarified whether the naming scheme for bridges should run bridge name, local name or bridge name (local name). En detail:

• My proposal: Puente Romano (Córdoba): following the same naming scheme as the Puente Romano in Mérida Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:40, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

•  Oppose See discussion in Commons:Categories for discussion/Current requests/2009/06/Category:Ancient Roman bridges. The essence:

• While I tend to be very tolerant for local names, for bridges that tend to be often on language, cultural and country borders, that often changed in history, English names are definitively better as they create less conflicts. And this is anyway the Commons main rule. This does not imply automatically that the En:wiki can be taken as a reference for correct names.
• Especially in Spain, with its four official languages and its many borders, a generic English name such as Roman bridge is a real blessing. Trier too, with its important role in the Roman, Frank, French and Luxembourg history, benefits from more international names.
• The current names are according to the commons rules and I definitively try to avoid renames once a compromise (and peace) is found and unchallenged since several years. --Foroa (talk) 06:17, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Roman bridge, Trier

I am currently ordering the Ancient Roman bridges. Unfortunately, User:Foroa has several times refused to move my proposed categories without proper explanation. He is invited to give reasons for obstructing progress on the renaming of these categories below. Specifically, it needs to be clarified whether the naming scheme for bridges should run bridge name, local name or bridge name (local name). En detail:

• My proposal: Römerbrücke (Trier): unchallenged name of the English version Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:40, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

•  Oppose See discussion in Commons:Categories for discussion/Current requests/2009/06/Category:Ancient Roman bridges. The essence:

• While I tend to be very tolerant for local names, for bridges that tend to be often on language, cultural and country borders, that often changed in history, English names are definitively better as they create less conflicts. And this is anyway the Commons main rule. This does not imply automatically that the En:wiki can be taken as a reference for correct names.
• Especially in Spain, with its four official languages and its many borders, a generic English name such as Roman bridge is a real blessing. Trier too, with its important role in the Roman, Frank, French and Luxembourg history, benefits from more international names.
• The current names are according to the commons rules and I definitively try to avoid renames once a compromise (and peace) is found and unchallenged since several years. --Foroa (talk) 06:18, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] SVG category names

This discussion started on User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands, after a request concerning the subcategories of Category:SVG coats of arms : Rename Category:SVG coats of arms - Algeria as Category:SVG coats of arms of Algeria. Rename Category:SVG coats of arms - Argentina as Category:SVG coats of arms of Argentina, et caetera...

These moves are of no use at all since all the SVG cats were named the same way. So what is the reason? --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 15:49, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

These SVG cats are named the same way, but I don't think this way is a good way. Categories are usually named on the pattern "Category:Tigers in Spain", not "Category:Tigers - Spain". I think the hyphen should be replaced by an article like "in" or "of" or "from", etc... instead of using the hyphen. Teofilo (talk) 16:15, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Well to name a cat SVG image somthing is also not a good way. But that you did not change. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 16:20, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean. What should we use instead of "SVG image something" ? What do you suggest ? Teofilo (talk) 16:25, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Note: This page was moved from User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands/requests where it was wrongly placed. CommonsDelinker is a tool to execute category moves, it is not a place for discussion in any way.--Martin H. (talk) 16:30, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Come on, CommonsDelinker is a place where people perform some tasks, in particular write requests for that robot. The Wikimedia projects are collaborative projects, and people need to talk with each other on the very place where they are working, not 2 or 3 pages away from there. Teofilo (talk) 16:45, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Teofilo - a talk page directly associated to the requests page would be good. Ingolfson (talk) 05:19, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

The SVG should be at the end. Like "Flag foobar in SVG format". --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 07:05, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, "Flag of xxx, SVG format". Problem is that in many cases, the first part of the category name (SVG Coats of arms...) are generated by tens of templates, the second part as a parameter to the template. Just horrible and not manageable by standard bots. --Foroa (talk) 08:46, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I insist on "in". "Category:Tigers in Spain" sounds to me better than "Category:Tigers, Spain". Is it OK to use the SVG acronym ? Should we not write "scalable vector graphics", as we write "United States" and "United Kingdom" instead of US or UK. How about "Category:Flags of Switzerland in scalable vector graphics" ? (I am not sure if capitalization is required : Scalable Vector Graphics ?) Teofilo (talk) 01:18, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Lowercase "scalable vector graphics" would seem to refer to any vector graphics format (they're all scalable pretty much by definition). The name of the specific XML-based vector graphics format used on Commons is "Scalable Vector Graphics", or "SVG" for short. Yes, it's kind of confusing, though not really more so than the names of any other common graphics formats.

(For comparison, "GIF" stands for "Graphics Interchange Format", which could describe pretty much any image file format. "Portable Document Format" is even more generic. "Portable Network Graphics" isn't much better either, especially as there's nothing in the format that'd actually involve a network. And "JPEG" isn't even the real name of the file format (which is actually named "JFIF"), but simply an abbreviation of "Joint Photographic Experts Group", the committee which developed the standard.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:45, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

So we should use either the acronym or the capitalized version. I remove the lower case version from the proposal list below. Teofilo (talk) 11:19, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Rocket000 made the following proposal on Category talk:SVG :

I think we should try and make all these sub categories follow a similar naming scheme. Right now we have the following (note the case changes):

• SVG — <topic>
• SVG — <Topic>
• SVG <topic>
• SVG <Topic>
• <Topic> (svg)

I may have missed some in the sub-sub-categories. The majority seem like they use "SVG <topic>". Any suggestions? Rocket000 07:38, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I like the principle of starting from the topic, rather than from "SVG". Instead of using parenthesis, a natural use of the grammar of the English language, using prepositions like "in", or "with" has my preference. I am also unsure if we should use acronyms. So I would like to add the following suggestions :

• <Topic> in Scalable Vector Graphics
• <Topic> in SVG
• <Topic> in SVG format

Note that the principle of starting from the topic, and following with the medium is not what is being done in - for example - Category:Cats in art where we find "category:paintings of cats" "Statues of cats" "graffiti of cats", "drawings of cats" instead of "cats on paintings" "cats as statues", "cats on graffiti", "cats on drawings" (but "cats on stamps" is being used, and all these "cats" categories could be changed in the future in order to implement the principle of starting from the topic. (This would also require changing the text on Help:SVG#Naming_conventions where "SVG...<topic>" is recommanded).

Teofilo (talk) 08:08, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

There would appear to be guidance-in-the-making at Commons:Naming_categories. See below, however. Globbet (talk) 21:49, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Rationale

Can I take this back a step? What is the point of any 'SVG by topic' categorisation? Is there extensive 'media type by topic' or 'topic by media type' for other formats? A quick search suggests not much of the former, anyway. Surely <topic> and <media type> are orthogonal concepts and categorisation as 'SVG by topic' would actually make it harder to find files on <topic> that just happened to be SVG? See previous brief discussion at Help_talk:SVG#Categorization. Globbet (talk) 21:35, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree that we shouldn't be dividing up topic categories into SVG and non-SVG, however I still think having a additional category system (that is by format) can be useful. Because of the inherent difference between vectors and raster graphics, it's useful in many cases to browse media that way (especially in cases like maps, heraldry, translatable diagrams, etc. where it makes a huge difference when you're looking to make derivatives). It wouldn't be very useful if we were talking about making categories like "PNG by topic" or "JPEG by topic". Maybe we should change "SVG" to "vector graphics" to help point out that the format itself (which can consist of purely raster images anyway) is not important but it's main feature is? BTW, we also have Category:Pdf files, animation-only categories, and audio-only categories, which are essentially accomplishing the same thing. That reminds me, Category:Pictures and images needs a complete makeover. Rocket000 (talk) 20:57, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Let's restart.

1. The main thematic categories we are looking at are mainly a subset of a parent category with similar images but with no medium format limitation. So the first rule we should agree upon: The category name should be the same as its parent category with a prefix or suffix.

2. The secondary categories, being the category structure of SVG related categories in Category:SVG, should not be so evolutive and I think that the top level could remain mostly the same. Anyway, renaming them has no significant repercussions on the other categories.

3. Considering that the category is a specialisation of its parent category, it sounds logical that its name receives a suffix, not a prefix.

4. We need a suffix notation that allows to express a particular file format subset category, and although we target here svg formats, in other places, we have similar problems with pdf, audio, video, DjVu, B&W, animated gif, tiff, jpeg, ... We need to find a distinguishing notation, such as a suffix like @svg, ^pdf, ~audio, +agif, "DjVu, °jpeg, ++tiff. Before choosing here, it would be nice to check that the special characters are available on all worldwide keyboards and if those strings return easily a result when using a search facility. The latter discards some special characters such as dots and paranthesises. How this suffix is glued, formatted and packed is to be discussed below (+parenthesises, lower/upper case, syntax)

Comments are welcome in the appropriate subsections. --Foroa (talk) 15:07, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion on the principle

To simplify finding SVG files, wouldn't it be easier to modify Mediawiki to categorize all SVG files into a category by MIME type? This shouldn't be too complicated as MediaWiki identifies the MIME type (img_minor_mime). For most applications (with catscan), one such category can be sufficient. -- User:Docu at 00:51, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

As the mime type is already stored in a table, it would be more efficient to change the interface/CatScan to use it, rather than to duplicate this into the category table. -- User:Docu at 07:11, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Catscan does not meet the wikimedia quality and availability standard. But I agree that a simple filter on the category display function that allows to filter out some media types (for example based on MIME type or file extension) would greatly decrease the need of (redundant) parallel categories. --Foroa (talk) 09:35, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Not sure if mediawiki meets Wikimedia standards at all times, but in any case, this doesn't preclude us from relying on it. As yours is an abstract argument without any reference, I'm not quite sure where you intend to go.

The file table and automated categories seem more stable and reliable to me as manually maintained categories. -- User:Docu at 18:25, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

The new version of CatScan outputs the image type. Currently it can't filter for it though:

try http://toolserver.org/~magnus/catscan_rewrite.php?language=commons&project=wikimedia&ns%5B6%5D=1&ext_image_data=1

You'd have to ask magnus to add it. A thumbnail output option is currently missing as well. For most applications it works much better than the old one. -- User:Docu at 18:13, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think Catscan is something that the vast majority of commons users would want to get into. The interface is far too daunting. Come to think of it, Mediawiki seems to me to be lacking in navigation facilities at present. We are having this discussion precisely because the category system just does not work all that well. An enhanced, built in, search tool that would find categories and then find their intersections would vastly facilitate the processes of categorisation and searching (making this whole discussion redundant). Globbet (talk) 12:05, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion on the suffix format

Agree with all 4 points. Now let's concentrate on the suffix notion (for any and all formats, not just SVG). Before talking about the syntax, let's get the capitalization and abbreviation issues out of the way. I suggest SVG, PDF, GIF, etc. Always capitalized and abbreviated. The reason being that is what they are best known as. Abbreviations should normally be avoided, but in this case it makes the most sense. And calling it (for example) PDF instead of "Portable Document Format" it perfectly acceptable and not considered informal in any way. Adding "format" at the end is also not necessary (and saying "PDF format" is like saying "PIN number" or "ATM machine"). One could also say the we are referring to the file extension instead of the format (Things like JPEG would have to be JPG/JPEG/etc.). "DjVu" is an exception to the all-caps rule.

Ok, now for the notation. Personally, I like parentheses. Simple to use and looks the best (IMHO). A negative of this (potentially) is that it's the same format we use for many other things, either as part of names themselves or as disambiguation terms. Both of these uses relate to the subject itself and are not "meta" characteristics like the file format. The same goes for commas. Many names have commas in them (e.g. "city, country"). Using hyphens is another choice I can live with (but not en/em dashes please, too hard to type on most keyboards), e.g. "category - SVG". Of course brackets aren't an option, e.g. "category [SVG]", due to the wiki link syntax. "category {SVG}" and "category <SVG>" are ugly. @svg, ^pdf, ~audio, etc. are good ideas for searching but would be confusing/inappropriate if we used any of them for the category names themselves, e.g. "category @SVG" - no way. Let's see... there's "category; SVG", "category -- SVG", "category (in SVG)", "category in SVG"... what else? Rocket000 (talk) 18:14, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

On second thought, maybe @SVG, ^SVG, etc. would be ok once everyone becomes familiar with it, but, in general, I think people will take the symbols as meaning something else like @SVG = "at SVG", or °jpeg = "degrees jpeg? what?", or "DjVu = "someone forgot to close those quotes". Rocket000 (talk) 18:41, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

In a wider perspective, I don't think we really need a file format extension specification but a wider functional content oriented specification, as comes clear from other discussions (Black and white pictures for example). File extension specifications have other drawbacks too, suchs as:

• SVG: what if another scalable vector format , other than SVG, becomes supported here
• Ogg: how to distinguish movies from sound ? What if mp* becomes supported ?
• gif: how to filter animated gif from normal gif

I think that a content oriented notation like this could be more generic:

• category:name in location, city (f:vector): for all media containing vector graphics (SVG by now)
• category:name in location, city (f:audio): for all media containing audio files (some ogg files by now)
• category:name in location, city (f:video): for all media containing video files (some ogg files by now)
• category:name in location, city (f:animated): for all media containing animations (some gif and video oggs (TBC))
• category:name in location, city (f:drawings): for all media concerning drawings, paintings and graphics (excluding photographs basically, allmost all formats)
• category:name in location, city (f:black&white): for all black and white pictures (jpg, Jpeg, tiff, png, DjVu))
• category:name in location, city (f:etext): for all media containing "copy/pastable" texts (pdf, some DjVu, ...)
• category:name in location, city (f:stext): for all media containing non editable texts, basically pictures of texts, scans, ...
• category:name in location, city (f:cad): for all media containing editable 2D and 3D cad drawings

• category:name in location, city (f:graph): for all media that use editble/autogenerated graphs (for statistics, demographics displays)
• category:name in location, city (f:alegend): for all media that allow for adaptable multi-language legends

Other cases to be considered: spreadsheets, programs, formulae (Tex sequences), ...

Templates with the same syntax could be made and added to the specific images for later search and automated bot recategorisation (or additional filtering on the category displays. --Foroa (talk) 17:49, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Good point. We shouldn't use file extensions. We should use labels that highlight the reason for separation; formats themselves aren't really important. Even right now, there's cases where extension oriented categories include/exclude things we didn't intend to be, but there's certain issues with the ones above. (And now I'm going to contradict myself...) For one thing, there are important differences in file formats at least in terms of reusability and accessibility, e.g. I currently ignore TIFFs and PDFs because they are very inconvenient to me (this includes anything I have to download just to preview, but for others it could mean downloading new software too). I would hate to have a once useful category be swamped with these. There are also some multi-"content" formats. You already mentioned the OGG and GIF ones, but here's some other ones: PDFs can embed vector graphics and practically anything else. They can be all text or all images. SVGs can include raster graphics. There are some animated SVGs here, but the MediaWiki thumbnail isn't animated (most browsers support them now, you need to view the file directly to see it move). Who knows the future. And then there's the maintenance side. Someone looking to restore an image may want to browse by TIFFs only. Someone looking to convert PDF books into DjVu may want just PDFs. But these aren't just for us editors since our "readers" are more interactive than a encyclopedia's readers. People usually come here to find an image to use, not just look at.

Basically, I think trying to make such broad rules may be too great a task for us right now. I don't want to lose focus on the SVG thing which desperately needs help. We should keep the bigger picture in mind, but concentrate on SVGs vectors and get that in shape to see how it works and then possibly extend it to other areas. Since this is a media repository, I think it's ok to be a little "meta" minded when it comes to naming categories. Meaning that there's nothing wrong with having a category called "Drawings of X" or "X sound files", in the same way Wikipedia calls some pages "List of X". They wouldn't say "Article of X" in the same way we wouldn't (or shouldn't) say "Files of X" or even "Images of X" because it's self-explanatory, but that doesn't mean that the subject should always take precedence. More importantly, by using natural language their meaning becomes apparent instantly. Who's going know what "(f:stext)" means without looking it up? I know that's just an example, but I'm having trouble coming up with something similar that works as well as the plain old names we have now. We just have to get them all following the same conventions. Rocket000 (talk) 05:26, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Tickets of rail transport in Argentina

This should be renamed to Category:Rail tickets in Argentina to match all the other categories of rail tickets that Commons has. See the sub-sub categories of Category:Rail transport tickets. --Thryduulf (talk) 23:08, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

 Support --ŠJů (talk) 00:01, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

According to the root category name it should be renamed to Category:Rail transport tickets in Argentina --Foroa (talk) 12:10, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

That does make sense, but the only sub-cat that follows that naming is Category:Rail transport tickets in the United States. Thinking about it would support changing the "in <country>" to "of <country>", as tickets for travel in one country may be photographed in another country. Indeed for international services, tickets issued in country 1 may be valid for travel in country 2 and may be very different in design to tickets issued in country 2. In order of preference, I would support renaming all the categories to one of the following schemes (using Argentine as an example)

1. Category:Rail transport tickets of Argentina
2. Category:Rail tickets of Argentina
3. Category:Rail transport tickets in Argentina
4. Category:Rail tickets in Argentina

My knowledge of Commons processes is so out of date that I don't know whether proposing this here will suffice or if I have to do it more formally? Thryduulf (talk) 17:23, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree, that in case of portable things is more suitable to use "of". --ŠJů (talk) 18:11, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

It would better "railway tickets" (see Railway tickets in India) than "rail tickets". "Rail transport tickets" is accaptable too, but needlessly long, and it would better to not mix tram (streetcar) or underground (metro) tickets with classical railway tickets. --ŠJů (talk) 18:11, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about everywhere, but in places like London tickets for trams and the underground can be identical in form to those for mainline railways. But if people want them separate then maybe specific tickets could be subcategories of rail transport tickets. Thryduulf (talk) 16:09, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

For example, in Prague and its surroundings tickets of Prague Integrated Transport (extended Prague city transport) can be used in trains, but they aren't perceived as "railway tickets". Instead them the passenger can choose and use a true railway ticket. I think, the category of railway tickets should be intended for special railway tickets, not for universal (integrated) tickets. --ŠJů (talk) 22:43, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that generic tickets should be in the Rail transport tickets of... and that railway specific ones should be in a sub-category Railway tickets of... ? If you are, then I will support that. Thryduulf (talk) 13:29, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm suggesting, all railway tickets should be in "Railway tickets of...". Integrated tickets which are valid in several types of transport should be only in up-categories "Public transport tickets of..." generally. --ŠJů (talk) 03:46, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah so "Category:Public transport tickets of..." would contain integrated tickets (e.g. London travelcards) and the subcategories "Category:Railway tickets of", "Category:Tram tickets of", "Category:Bus tickets of", etc. If I have understood you right this time, then I'm happy with that. Thryduulf (talk) 23:25, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Hemp events

This seems to me like effectively a duplicate of Category:Cannabis events. If there is a difference, something on the category pages needs to make it clear. - Jmabel ! talk 17:08, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

The difference is that "Cannabis" is the drug and "Hemp" (also Industrial Hemp) is the industrial low-THC-level plant.

Cannabis Events usually deal with the legalisation of Marihuana while Hemp Events are usually deal with what you can create out of Hemp (e.g. choclate with hemp flavour, clothes, hemp seeds as snack, bread made of hemp seeds and lots of other stuff) and the plant as cultural plant through hundreds of years.

I would keep both, because cannabis is not hemp and should may not be mixed.

--D-Kuru (talk) 13:08, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. Well, if we are making a distinction that subtle, then we should at least say something at the top of each page, so that either category can be found from the other and so that the distinction is clear. But the terminology for the distinction seems very odd to me, since Cannabis isn't particularly a "drug" term (for example, it is the etymological root of "canvas"). If we are going to make that distinction, shouldn't it be something like "marijuana" rather than "cannabis"? Also, a lot of events and groups seem to focus equally on both: for example, Seattle's Hempfest certainly has drug culture origins and elements, but does a lot of work related to medical marijuana and industrial hemp. - Jmabel ! talk 16:46, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

There is no clear seperation between cannabis and hemp events, because they usually deal with both. But some deal more with one issue than the other. Even Cannabis is not only the drug it is often used for drugs. However I wouldn't call events "Marijuana events".

We could create an new category named "Cannabis and hemp events" to merge moth because many of them deal with both.

--D-Kuru (talk) 13:19, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] July 2009

[edit] Category:Railway stations by year of establishment

Do railway stations belong in a category tree with other buildings or with organizations?

Template {{railcat}} automatically categorizes railway stations by the year in which they opened (e.g. Category:Railway stations opened in 1845). However, it places the railway station by year categories in the Category:Establishments by year category tree (i.e. Category:Railway stations opened in 1847 is a subcat of Category:1847 establishments). While the establishment categories are for entities such as municipalities, organizations, railway companies, etc., railway stations categories ought instead to be placed in the Category:Buildings by year of completion category tree along with other buildings and structures.

I mentioned the issue to User:AnRo0002, who created the template (but did not do the original categorization), who suggested that he preferred the establishments category tree, because railway stations are often renovated or expanded (and, thus, it is presumably difficult to settle on one year in which they are built or completed). However, that's true of all types of building, and if we follow that logic, we should therefore be collapsing Category:Establishments by year and Category:Buildings by year of completion into one category tree (which makes no sense). It would be nice if there was a consistent distinction between the two category trees. --skeezix1000 (talk) 17:53, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I suppose to keep the categories within establishments by year because the opening date of a train station is in many cases different from the date of the building. When you compare it for example to monasteries: A monastery or a cathedral founded in the 7th century with 18th century architecture is categorized as "religious organizations established in the 7th century" and "18th century architecture". For the buildings of train stations schould be used another category tree. --anro (talk) 10:27, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

You've raised two issues. First, every other type of building can similarly give rise to a situation whereby the completion date differs from the opening date. That's not at all unique to railway stations, and doesn't mean that we should treat railway stations differently than other buildings. Nor does including railway stations in the establishment category tree help that situation, as year of establishment and year of opening are not necessarily the same thing (a stronger argument can be made that the year of opening is the year of building completion, as that is the year that the station is fully functional for the first time).

Second, as for Cathedrals and monestaries being included in the establishment tree, those two types of building differ significantly from railway stations. The difference is that a Cathedral has a related congregation and a monastery has a related religious order or the like, and the congregations and orders are organizations that would obviously fall into the established organizations category tree (e.g. "religious organizations established in the 7th century"). Technically, such organizations should probably have their own categories, separate from the buildings they occupy, but the two are so interrelated it probably is difficult to do (esp. since most files would relate to the physical buildings). Railway stations, on the other hand, are strictly buildings that don't necessarily have a related organization. Certainly categories related to the railway company belong in the establishments tree. And where a special corporation or organization exists (or existed) to build/run a railway station(s), we should certainly create a parent category for that entity and ensure that it is included in the establishments tree. But given that a railway station is not synonymous with a related organization in the same way as, say, a monastery, it belongs in the buildings category, along with town halls, shopping malls and airports.

The solution I would propose here is to make sure that we have railway companies and organizations are properly categorized and included in the relevant establishments categories, but in the meantime make sure the actual station buildings are moved to the buildings category. --skeezix1000 (talk) 19:49, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

As an aside, I can see some situations where an airport, given that the larger ones operate out of numerous terminals and support buildings, could fall into an establishments category, because the size and nature of the airport is more comparable to an organizational entity than a mere building. Most railway stations, however, consist of one main building (even where the station has accessory and out buildings, there is usually one main terminal building). I suppose, however, there may be some large railway stations that are comparable to large airports in the above-described sense, and we could include those particular stations in establishment categories. However, that would be on a case by case basis, and the template's default option should still be limited to the buildings category tree. Let me know what you think. --skeezix1000 (talk) 20:03, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Any objection to those solutions, Anro? --skeezix1000 (talk) 16:52, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Finally, I would just note that the main Category:Train stations falls within the buildings category tree, not establishments, so I'm not sure what the rationale is to have this particular subcat be an exception. --skeezix1000 (talk) 17:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Just coming back to my arguments from the beginnings: 1st I have not established this category within this category tree "establishment" I have just facilitated it by creating the templates. 2nd. I still belive its a huge difference between the establishment of a train station and the building, coz most of the train stations established in the 19th century have newer buildings. I do not categorize e.g. a gothic cathedral built in the 13th century as a 6th century building when a former building was set up centuries before. For the Buildings there might be created a different category tree "train stations built in xxx" but for the opening date i still think the "establishment" tree schould be kept. --anro (talk) 23:24, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Young people by Russia

If the category persists, it must be renamed to Category:Young people of Russia.

But do we need this category? Who is young? And we already have Category:Girls of Russia etc.

--Ikar.us (talk) 20:48, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, we have already boys, children and girls per country. And what makes "young people" different ? What is the definition of "young" ; all ages between children and 25 year ? --Foroa (talk) 05:54, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Now I see that whole Category:Young people exists and is well populated.

So creating the usual subcategories is OK, and we should discuss it at a higher category level.

Category:Girls is placed in Category:Children, but contains many young women.

--Ikar.us (talk) 08:25, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

"Young people in Russia" might be better than "Young people of Russia" because the location of the photograph is easier to know than the actual nationality of the depicted people. (American tourists in front of a Russian tourist spot in Moscow can be "young people in Russia", even if the photographer didn't ask them to show their passport). Teofilo (talk) 09:42, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

We already have Category:Young women by country and I think a similar "by country" subcategorization would be a convenient way to diffuse overcrowded Category:Young men too. The "young people" categories should be used as

1) supercategories for "young men" and "youg women" subcategories

2) a categorization of pictures showing groups of young men and young women together.

Teofilo (talk) 09:52, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Before I had read the remarks to this category, I had tried to sort the Category:People by age (also the associated Files). There had been many double relations in the files and especially in the categories. I mean, the Category:Young people by Russia should remain, but in assimilation to the categories of other countries and age classes it should be called Category:Young people in Russia. --R. Engelhardt (talk) 20:55, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, without clear definitions, those categories will always be a mess and subject to recurring disputes. --Foroa (talk) 21:38, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Girls

By the case above, I found that Category:Girls is placed in Category:Children, but contains mostly teens and young women, following colloquial use uf the term.

This should be clarified. For symmetry with Category:Boys, which won't be applied to adults, I suggest to restrict the girls accordingly and move the files to Category:Young people and below.

--Ikar.us (talk) 08:56, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

•  Keep Category "Girls" is useful as subcategory of category:Children by gender. That some people put images by slang usage that should more properly go into Category:Young women is not an arguement against having the category, but rather that some images should be more precisely categorized. -- Infrogmation (talk) 23:43, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Cyclists

I do NOT want a deletion I just want a clear cut for the content of this category. In my world cyclists are people on a bike. They MAY be sportspeople but it could also be a guy in China takeing his chickens to the market.

We have Category:Cycling (sport) with the "(sport)" there is no doubt it is about sport. My dictionay (danish-english) says that the english word for a "cykelrytter" (in Danish a person from ie Tour de France) is a "racing cyclist". With that knowledge i would say that sportspeople should be in a subcat of Cyclists ("Racing cyclists" or "Cyclists (sport)"). --MGA73 (talk) 15:30, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I think this is a good place to discuss it. You might want to suggest a category description and possibly a some corresponding sorting guidelines (preferably not in Danish though). -- User:Docu at 15:42, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I checked out en:Bjarne Riis and there they call him a "road bicycle racer" and an other guy was called a "racing cyclist". If it is common to refer to them as "bicycle racers" the category should be called that but a native english should know better. --MGA73 (talk) 15:55, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

en:Category:Cyclists uses just "cyclists", but any person with a bicycle is unlikely to get a Wikipedia article. For Category:Cyclists, it doesn't necessarily matter that both are in the same category as professional cyclists are likely to end up in other categories as well (e.g. Category:Tour de France 2009 or in one named after themselves). -- User:Docu at 16:37, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I know that ordenary people are not likely to get an article :-) But it is likely that commons will have images of ordenary people on a bike. --MGA73 (talk) 07:42, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Many thousands of them can be found in Category:Cycling in China and other Commons cats. Category:Cyclists should be reserved for people notable for this activity, for example racers. Any pictures of me delivering three broken laptops and some beer to an amateur repairman in Brooklyn nine days ago belong in Category:Cycling in New York City, as does my File:ERGW traffic jam jeh.JPG, because they don't show people who are notable for cycling. Jim.henderson (talk) 15:07, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Castle (Gorizia)

I think this category should be moved to Category:Gorizia Castle in the same fashion as :

• Category:Krasiczyn Castle
• Category:Buda Castle
• Category:Bellver Castle
• Category:Windsor Castle
• Category:Dunvegan Castle
• Category:Prague Castle
• Category:Bolingbroke Castle
• Category:Okehampton Castle
• Category:Bramber Castle
• Category:Tamworth Castle
• Category:Bronsil Castle
• Category:Dacre Castle
• Category:Alton Castle
• Category:Bristol Castle

Note also that most French castles are named :

• Category:Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye
• Category:Château de Chambord
• Category:Château de Chenonceau
• Category:Château d'Eguilly
• Category:Château d'Oiron
• Category:Château d'Époisses
• Category:Château d'Oyé
• Category:Château d'Echéry
• Category:Château d'Écouen
• Category:Château d'Ouchy

So that Category:Castello di Gorizia is not bad either.

Teofilo (talk) 07:10, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

There are different styles, all depending from region to region. Other examples: , and the following list:

• Category:Beaufort Castle (Luxembourg)
• Category:Belvedere Castle (Central Park, New York City)
• Category:Birkelse (Åby Sogn)
• Category:Castello Requisenz (Buscemi)
• Category:Castello sforzesco (Pavia)
• Category:Castle (Budapest)
• Category:Castle (Gorizia)
• Category:Castle (Tata)
• Category:Craigdarroch Castle (Victoria BC)
• Category:Grand Ducal Palace (Luxembourg)
• Category:Gravensteen (Ghent)
• Category:Kokkedal Slot (Nordjylland)
• Category:Krabbesholm (Skive)
• Category:Kørup (Krogsbølle Sogn)
• Category:Matsuyama Castle (Bitchu)
• Category:Matsuyama Castle (Iyo)
• Category:Oreshek (fortress)
• Category:Oud Kasteel (Vichte)
• Category:Schloss Wirtgen (Diekirch)
• Category:Szigliget (castle)
• Category:Sæbygård (Volstrup Sogn)
• Category:Wildenstein (Bubendorf)

The most important is that the naming style in a particular region is consistent. And that is generally the case with the edits from Giovanni Dallorto in Italy. With his work force (232.000 edits) and his often very long and detailed category names, he must have a consistent category naming system. --Foroa (talk) 07:15, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Normaly, only English names should be used. The exception is when the castle has a formal proper name, for which some of the Châteaux apply, but certainly only a minority. You might be more tolerant for that rule for things like châteaux, castello and so on, but you migh change your mind when you encounter castles like Крепост, Hrad, Linnus, Burgo, Dvorac, Pils, Pilis, Kasteel, Vár, Крепост, Burcht, Câté, Zamek, Cetate, Замок, Kalaja, Hrad, Grad, Замак, Linna, Borg, ปราสาท, Kale, Замок, Tchestea, Pėlis. --Foroa (talk) 07:38, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I think we can bring harmonization by allowing only a limited set of patterns :

• (fr) Château de <location> like Category:Château de Chambord
• (en) <location> Castle like Category:Bristol Castle
• (es) Castillo de <location> like Category:Castillo de Gibralfaro

The parenthesis should be used only for disambiguation between two or more castles with the same name in two or more different locations :

• <proper name> Castle (disambiguation)

Category:Beaufort Castle (Luxembourg) (disambiguation page on en:Beaufort Castle listing 4 castles with the same name in 4 different locations)

Category:Matsuyama Castle (Bitchu) (disambiguation page on en:Matsuyama Castle listing 3 castles with the same name in 3 different locations)

I don't think it is good to allow two naming patterns in English. It should always be "Bristol Castle" and never "Castle (Bristol)". If we find more than one castles called "Bristol" they will be called "Bristol Castle (California)", "Bristol Castle (New York)", "Bristol Castle (Massachusetts)", not "Castle (Bristol) (California)" "Castle (Bristol) (New York)", "Castle (Bristol) (Massachusetts)".

I share your view concerning the tolerance of local languages. The problem is that Wikimedia Commons is influenced by the English language Wikipedia, and the English language Wikipedia is perhaps too tolerant with the "châteaux" and the likes.

Teofilo (talk) 08:33, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

• Hello. Yes, I am using a consistent pattern in categorising. The simplest one: Name (town), as in the Italian Wikipedia, where I started from. When the category has an English name, I use the English name: Castle (Gorizia). When the object has an Italian name, I keep it: Castello sforzesco (Milan) or Castello sforzesco (Pavia). This systenm is consisten all trhought: Cathedral (Gorizia) - Central Station (Gorizia) - Archbishopry (Gorizia) and so on.
  

Of course everything can be discussed and changed. But the only thing I ask for, is to avoid to use a different, original, separate and creative criterion for EACH category. I moved this category from "Castello di Gorizia" (in Italian!). Do you want to have "Gorizia castle" instead? Go for it. But please change the whole category "Castles in Italy", which currently needs a thorough revision, and invert all other Italian cathegory.
My request is that one must know in advance and by heart how an image will be cathegorised in Commons, be it as "Gorizia Cathedral" or "Cathedral (Gorizia)". The only thing wa may not afford here, given the gigantig numebr of uncategorized images about Italy, is using a different criterion for each cathegory.

By the way, to date each country moved with a certain, limited freedom. The French example concerning castles shows it clearly. Ditto for Germany: Category:Castle Colmberg. Therefore categories about England are in no way a standard. They are merely the way categories are dealt with in England. Not the yardstick. In short: criteria may vary from country to country, unless a general plan of harmonising was started, as in the case of cataloguing in museums (but not in case of castles). However, within the same nations they should be consistent. For this reason whatever the final decision we may take, "Castello di Gorizia" is simply wrong, since this is not the name of the castle, but merely a generic name, and as a rule already agreed upon generic names should be translated into English.

Of course I'd like to keep all Italian names and have the whole of WikiCommons in my oen language, however Commons is a transnational project, and a common language must be used. While waiting that everyone learns Italian, then, giving English this role is fine for me :-) Best wishes --User:G.dallorto (talk) 17:35, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Cathedrals should be named according to one the following patterns :

• St <name>'s Cathedral (Category:St Finbarre's Cathedral)
• St <name>'s Cathedral, <location> (Category:St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne, category:St Andrew's Cathedral, St Andrews)
• Cathedral of St <name>, <location> (Category:Cathedral of St Joseph, Sofia)

My sources (Oxford Guide to Style, Concise Oxford Dictionary) give "St" (no dot) as the abbreviation for "Saint", and "St." (with dot) for "street" (en:Talk:St Catherine's College, Oxford)

For Gorizia, I suggest either Category:St Hilary and St Tatian's Cathedral, Gorizia or Category:Cathedral of St Hilary and St Tatian, Gorizia, but adding ", Goriza" is perhaps unnecessary. There is probably only one "St Hilary and St Tatian's cathedral" in the whole world.

I would tend to be tolerant to using Italian (Cattedrale di Ss. Ilario e Taziano) (See en:List of cathedrals in Italy) (or French speaking tolerance of Category:Cathédrale Saints-Michel-et-Gudule de Bruxelles (adding "de Bruxelles" is probably unnecessary, by the way), but as Foroa said earlier, this creates an injustice if we refuse to be tolerant with other roman character languages, not to speak about chinese character names or cyrilic charcater names...

Teofilo (talk) 10:44, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

If we define a naming convention for cathedrals or castles, we should probably define first to which buildings this should apply. It's one thing to place a series of castle-like buildings into a category named "castles", but another one to name a category for each one of these "Castle". At least one of the "château" listed above isn't really a castle, but a restaurant named "château". Many of the samples lack interwiki links, so it's hard to tell what they are about and how they are named in Wikipedia. If everybody already translates it as "castle", it's likely that this is reflected in Wikipedia and a convention isn't really needed. If it's not, I'm not sure if it's a good idea to introduce a translation. Consistency in formatting throughout a region is useful and, at least, categories for the castles of a region should use "castle", e.g. I'd rename Category:Castelli della Valle d'Aosta to Category:Castles of Aosta Valley (consistent with Category:Buildings in Aosta Valley).

BTW, there were lengthy debates about the "st."/"st" over at en.Wikipedia. Not sure if they really came to a conclusion. -- User:Docu at 08:38, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

The problem is presented in a wrong way. First, most "xxx Castle" or "Castle yyy" categories, are not really proper names but reinvented names because the real proper names are unknown or less popular. As such, according to the english rules, "xxx castle" should be written with castle in lower case. But anyway, those categories fall under the commons naming rules as I see them in order of priority:

• "Castle in/of xxx" This is by far the preferred Commons format. ("Topic preposition qualifier", "Castles in xxx", "castle of xxx" when there is only one castle, like "churches in/of xxx")
• As the in/of/from often creates problems, we see that an upcoming tendency is "(yyy) castle, xxx" where xxx is the place. Indeed, the latter avoids not only the in/of/from problem, it is easily extensible for places that need disambiguation terms.
• another variation is "castle (yyy)" which I should not promote.

As a conclusion, it makes no sense to discuss if the (invented) castle name should be "xxx Castle" or "Castle yyy" as we are talking about inventing proper names while the commons rules are clear for such naming. --Foroa (talk) 08:06, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I think the "xxx castle" solution Foroa mentioned would be worth to be included as a suggested naming solution (not necessarily a naming convention) for cases where one hesitates on how to name a category. -- User:Docu at 17:15, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

• The nominated castle at Gorizia should certainly be moved. For English category names, wherever the subject, "Location (castle)" is unacceptable as it is normally totally unidiomatic in English. The 3 castle versions given above should normally be used, but if a different name is normally used, that should be be used here - eg "Tower of London", "Bastille" (not now obviously) etc. Most cathedrals, local or foreign, except those of major capital cities, are known in English as "Location Cathedral" and this should be followed. Who knows the dedication of Lincoln or Chartres Cathedrals? This is in fact the same in the major European languages - compare Salzburg & Vienna in the different languages. If you go for the most formal name, you have to include "Basilica" for half the Catholic ones, which is not normally used and will confuse people. Omitting the location just because the dedication may be unique for a cathedral is frankly crazy, and will make searches very difficult. Johnbod (talk) 18:57, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Coasts of Var and all French coasts

{{move cat|Coasts of Var|Coast of Var}} withdrawn Teofilo (talk) 07:49, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I created coast of Var, and then user:Millevache changed into Coasts of Var.

In French people usually say "côte varoise", not "côtes varoises".

I know that in English using the plural "coasts" as a generic name even when no plurality is meant is more usual than in French, but using "coast" in singular to mean a single territory where a given Sea meets the land is not strange either. For example Ivory Coast (not Coasts) is quite a large country, and a long stretch of beaches and harbours.

When there is clearly a West coast and an East coast like in Corsica, or more than one sea like in Finistère, the plural is better, but for most French departments the singular seems better.

So what I propose is

• at department level : Category:coast of <department name> (except special cases like Haute-Corse or Finistère)
• at region level : Category:coasts of <region name>

Most of these categories have not yet been created, so we are entirely free to choose whatever we like, without fearing to have too much work to do moving files and categories.

Teofilo (talk) 15:27, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi and thank you for letting me know about this discussion. I perfectly understand your point and I had it in mind when I did the initial change. In the end, I have changed "coast" into "coasts" for homogeneity reasons. All other categories for other countries are "coasts". More generally speaking, the vast majority of categories in commons are in plural form. Also, we could find counter examples for many departments: CoastS of Bouches-du-Rhône could be the coast of the Mediterranean Sea or the coast(s) of Étang de Berre, to name just one. From my experience with Wikipedia and Commons, if we want to make exceptions, we will end up talking for a long time about each department until we realize, that, yes, most of them have "coasts" and not a single coast. So in order to avoid this unnecessary exercise, I would rather chose "Coasts of" as a general rule for any French entity. Cheers. Millevache (talk) 01:04, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I know that lakes have "shores" rather than "coasts", but I believe that many shores are already or will anyway be sorted under "coasts". For instance: "Category:Beaches of France" is under "Category:Coasts of France". Beaches obviously could be along seas, lakes or even rivers. Just wanted to address this point before someone else does, and I remain in favor of the plural for "coasts". Note that referring to a specific coast in singular form is perfectly valid, and is already the case for instance in "Category:Côte d'Opale". Millevache (talk) 01:15, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

• OK let's go for "coasts of" at all levels, then.
• For beaches we could divide categories with "Sea beaches of <department name>" , "Lake beaches of <department name>", "River beaches of <department name> when needed. There is already a small Category:Lake beaches which could be developped. Teofilo (talk) 07:49, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I forgot to say that one of the reasons why I had chosen a singular was that I had seen Category:Coasts of England (with s) and Category:Coast of Hampshire, Category:Coast of Devon (without s). Teofilo (talk) 07:42, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] September 2009

[edit] Category:Statue of Liberty

I would like to perform the following category renamings :

Rename Category:Statue of Liberty as Category:Statue of Liberty (New York).

Rename Category:Replicas of Statue of Liberty as Category:Replicas of the statue of Liberty of New York.

Rename Category:Statue of Liberty in art as Category:Statue of Liberty of New York in art.

Rename Category:Statue of Liberty on coins as Category:Statue of Liberty of New York on coins.

Rename Category:Statue of Liberty on stamps as Category:Statue of Liberty of New York on stamps.

Rename Category:Statue of Liberty costumes as Category:Costumes after the statue of Liberty of New York.

The reason is that there are many other statues of Liberty in the world, as listed in category:Statues of Freedom.

Teofilo (talk) 16:54, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

•  Support --Foroa (talk) 18:06, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
•  Oppose This is the Statue of Liberty: in the USA, of course, but around the world as well. Look at the Wikipedia links at Statue of Liberty — none of those using the Hebrew, Cyrillic, or Greek alphabets have any form of "New York" in the name, and only three using the Latin alphabet. In my mind, this shows that it's generally known as the Statue of Liberty (or a translated form) around the world, even in France and Spain that have three statues in subcategories of Category:Statues of Freedom. Let's keep this category name consistent with the name most of the world uses for it. Nyttend (talk) 12:33, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Most of the world is ignorant of the existence of other statues of liberty. But is the purpose of the Wikimedia foundation to promote knowledge or ignorance ? Teofilo (talk) 19:54, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

•  Oppose The Wikipedia article is titled without the New York designation, so I don't see the need for doing so in Wikimedia Commons. Xnatedawgx (talk) 00:54, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article is not a container for files, like the Wikimedia Commons category is. "Statue of Liberty" is a perfect wording for any allegory of liberty depicted in sculpture, anywhere, at any time in the world so it leaves open the possibility that people will mix all kinds of statues of liberty into that category, whereas if we use a category name with "New York", people will know that this category is not suitable for other statues. Teofilo (talk) 19:50, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

See into which category File:Fedipio.jpg is being inserted now. Teofilo (talk) 08:07, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

That was done by an auto-categorizing bot. It's used in an article about the Statue of Liberty (which was it's inspiration but no one calls that "Statue of Liberty" too). At least it was a statue of some sort and the category wasn't something random like "Rail transport in England by county" which these bots tend to do a lot. Rocket000 (talk) 08:04, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

•  Oppose Statue of Liberty is only one, first and most famous. Every hearing this name, at once thinks about the New York City. Other monuments having the similar names or the similar symbolics, one modelled on this idea. --Starscream (talk) 16:50, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

"Every hearing this name, at once thinks about the New York City. " Yes and this is a prejudice. Is the purpose of an encyclopedia to help prejudices or to fight them ? Teofilo (talk) 19:33, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

That's like saying we should rename Category:Abraham Lincoln because other people have same name and going with the one that's unquestionably the most associated with that combination of letters is a prejudice. (BTW, prejudice is not really the right word. Maybe predilection or bias? Americentric?) The only thing it would do is make categorization harder and more work for everyone else since no one's going think something like this would be disambiguated. Put a see also hatnote at the top if you need to but don't disambig to make a point. Usability and accessibility are more important than political correctness. Rocket000 (talk) 07:52, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

•  Oppose Ditto as per above comments that oppose. I don't see the need to dab. RedWolf (talk) 08:39, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

• Question: If it would be moved, what should be at Category:Statue of Liberty? -- User:Docu at 08:10, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

• Discussion closed: No consensus to rename. -- User:Docu at 09:31, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
• Reopened the discussion that was closed by User:Docu at 09:31, 18 October 2009.[2] Walter Siegmund (talk) 17:17, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

• the fundamental problem I do have is that for some names that exist currently in 13 places, but in practise in 20 or 30 places, augmented with various "Liberty Enlightening the World" variants, we disambiguate. I am really stunned if we have such series of categories and for one of them, we say, in our world (Western and US), we have a special rule that you have to know/guess: the category without disambiguation is the one from New York (I could live with a redirect to the New York one, but it contains already many images that are not in their right category). I can understand that for capitals with a very long history, we don't disambiguate but I think that can be the only exceptions. There is no rule in Commons that gives a priority for a name over another in case of disambiguation, and I see no reason to make exceptions on that because for each of the 700 projects Commons is serving, the priorities might change. The en:wikipedia is not necessarily the reference, because it is very much US/UK/Western world oriented (in that order) and it provides 3 million articles out of the 14 million wikipedia articles. I am moving almost daily such categories to avoid disambiguity without asking any questions (and I am spending a lot of time explaining to users why we cannot give priority to "their" item name). --Foroa (talk) 17:22, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

• Question: We have Category:Stonehenge and Category:Parthenon. Should these, and all similar categories, be treated as has been proposed here? Walter Siegmund (talk) 17:06, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
  • of course if there are several categories that start with that name. Do we need a naming system or a celebrity contest ?--Foroa (talk) 20:39, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
    • I was thinking of Category:Stonehenge Replicas and Category:Replicas of Parthenon, but I see now that they are not the same as Category:Statue of Liberty (Budapest). Thank you for clearing that up. The Budapest (the second largest category) and New York categories contain 36 and 165 files respectively, but the disparity is not overwhelming. In the interest of multiculturalism and internationalization, I'm inclined to support, but will read other comments with interest. Walter Siegmund (talk) 23:49, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
•  Oppose: if someone says "Statue of Liberty" without further qualification, this is the one they mean. - Jmabel ! talk 18:11, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
  • That is typical American/Western. Go tell that to a guy in Ukraine or China who learned at school (in his language) that your symbol is called "Liberty Enlightening the World", knows hardly the difference between New York and Texas, and who needs to use google translate to find the term "Statue of Liberty" for his own "statue of Freedom". Of course, "Your great" Houston is the most important one; the others are supposed to know that they are not important whatsoever. And you call this a categorisation "system" and an international project. --Foroa (talk) 20:39, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
    •  Oppose FOr the very reasons you mention. If I were to mention The Great Wall, wouldn't your mind leap to China? In fact, Great Wall redirects to 长城. If you'd like you can redirect Liberty Enlightening the World in Chinese to the English equivalent, just for fairness sake. The fact is, this is the most famous statue with this name, and disambiguation is not necessary. -Nard the Bard 02:08, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
      •  Comment Just to point out that the category for 长城 is actually Category:Great Wall of China (the "of China" being the relevant part for this discussion). -- IANEZZ  (talk) 16:48, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
•  Support I support because of the reasons Foroa has mentioned.--Wouter (talk) 19:34, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

As mentioned “don't assume other users share your background” it means that the “oppose” and “support” mentioned here, is not a good representation in my opinion because just these other users do not read this. The best approach in my opinion is that as soon as the meaning of a category may be unclear for some of our users, the category should be disambiguated whatever the subject may be. Wouter (talk) 19:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

•  Support far more logical, even if the New York Statue is the most known (and it’s not the original “real” name). Cdlt, VIGNERON * ^discut. 15:01, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Regions of Catalonia, etc.

I see that Category:Comarques of Catalonia was moved to Category:Regions of Catalonia on the basis that Comarques isn't English. I think this was a bad move. Comarca (the singular of Comarques) is more specific than region. It is as if we changed "county" to "region".

Ditto for the recent move of Category:Maps of comarques of Catalonia to Category:Maps of regions of Catalonia.

And, no, there really isn't a proper English word for comarca and to use the Spanish plural comarcas (doubtless a better known word to English-speakers) would be something of an insult to this Catalan-speaking region. - Jmabel ! talk 17:44, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

 Support I'm agree with Jmabel.--MuRe (talk) 08:10, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I know that there have been discussions about that subject as you can see here. I think that this originates from the fact that there are four (co-)official languages in Spain and a number of other languages (not to mention the border zones), and Comarques is not Spanish. If one looks in en:Comarca and en:Comarcas of Spain, Comarques can have different names, comarques being less used than Comarcas. I think that user:Cookie (Anna at that time) decided to move to Category:Regions of Catalonia because there is no single comarca/comarques-like English name and because of the many attacks of Spanish people that try to get rid of all what is not English or Spanish. I was under the impression that using Comarques was an insult to some people in Spain, Comarcas an insult for others in Catalonia, which explains the supporting user above. So I would certainly ask the advice to natives that know the situation. I spend several months in trying to find a compromise for the Basque Country, and I can tell that the language issue in Spain is much more complicated and sensitive than in most other countries. If you rename Category:Regions of Catalonia, then you might have to rename a major part of Category:Regions of Spain. --Foroa (talk) 17:09, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

The singular is comarca in both Spanish and Catalan. In Spanish, this pluralizes as comarcas; in Catalan as comarques. There would be potential for insult in using a Spanish-language loan word to talk about Catalonia, and it would be simply bizarre to use a Catalan loan word to talk about non-Catalan-speaking regions of Spain.

I see no problem about using comarcas for most of Spain, but comarques for Catalonia and Valencia. (I don't know whether there may be distinct terms in Galicia, the Basque Country, and possibly elsewhere such as Asturias.)

If we must stick with "regions" we need a comment at the head of the category explaining that this is for comarcas/comarques, not for arbitrary regions. - Jmabel ! talk 16:17, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I requested advice from User:Cookie. I think that there is a underestimated problem because in many of the mentioned or adjacent regions, there are people that want Spanish only in Spain. I've reverted many hundreds of edits that removed Galician, Catalan, Basque, ... documentation, IW's and categories. But I do agree that as a minimum, those categories need to be properly documented (there are several types of regions in Spain). --Foroa (talk) 16:56, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I never intended to insult anyone by moving the category comarques to regions, my only intention was to avoid conflicts complying Commons rules. This category is a general container as well as the rest of them in Category:Regions of Spain. It is known that every region has its peculiar division, historical, traditional and/or administrative and this should be explained (as a short introduction on the head of the category as Jmabel suggests, for example) but, first of all, we must have in mind that Commons is dedicated to inform people from all over the world who might not understand the concept of "comarques", nonetheless they are familiarised with "regions", as every european country is categorized by regions, therefore, Comarques of Catalonia must follow the same scheme of categorization. Anyway, there is no reason to eliminate that title, the best way to keep it is to create a page/gallery called Comarques of Catalunya with a short introduction of the concept of comarca in several languages and some photos of every comarca, then people will be able to find that page in catalan and, at the same time, it will be posible to make a redirection with comarcas de Cataluña for non catalan speakers. Anna (Cookie) (talk) 01:15, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

You seem to be misunderstanding me. There is nothing insulting about regions; the potential insult (to Catalan speakers) would be to use the Castilian Spanish comarcas.

Yes, perhaps at some level we should have a "regions of..." category, but as I said, comarcas/comarques is more specific (and should possibly be a subcategory of regions). As examples of terms in existing categories more specific than regions we have Category:Provinces of France, Category:Arrondissements of France, Category:Cantons of France, and Category:Departments of France, as well as Category:Regions of France.

I don't think a gallery page is ever a solution to a categorization problem. The purposes are different. - Jmabel ! talk 05:50, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I think that you think too much in a proper administrative way where the administration is clearly split in levels and a hierarchy. To quote from en:Comarcas of Spain, : "In Spain traditionally and historically, some autonomous communities are also divided into comarcas (singular comarca). A comarca is roughly equivalent to a US "county" or an English district. In some of the regions (e.g. Comarques of Catalonia) they are regulated by law and even their comarcal councils have some power, and therefore are clearly defined. In some other (e.g. Extremadura) their legal status is not very formal so they rather correspond to natural areas (valleys, mountain ridges, and so on)." And you have to add to this the concept of several "nationalities" and language regions, historical regions (and kingdoms), geographic regions, juridic regions, electoral regions, religious regions, regions extending in other countries ...

There are several countries that have overlapping regions that are next to impossible to grasp in a hierarchical three (Belgium for example where the regions (places) are in parallel and overlap with the communities (languages). If you fully understand en:Autonomous_communities#Constitutional_framework, then you could try to improve on that. (I dont want to be pessimistic, it is just extremely difficult --Foroa (talk) 06:41, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that in some regions of Spain comarcas are loose. The present-day Catalan comarques are not, they have clear borders. There were also some historical comarques with different borders than the present-day ones (and of course many of those are now in southwest France), and many of those have poorly defined borders, but that's not what we are listing here. - Jmabel ! talk 17:21, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Verbs

Do we need both of this: Category:Activities and Category:Verbs? Is verbs the right category name? I think a verb is a part of speech, a word that indicates an action, an event, or a state, but a verb is not the action, event or state. --Diwas (talk) 22:13, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I support to merge it into Category:Activities. Commons isn't a dictionary but a media file repository. --ŠJů (talk) 16:45, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

 Oppose No need to do the same discussion as in Commons:Deletion requests/Category:Verbs again and again. --Foroa (talk) 06:15, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh sorry, i forgot that Commons belongs not only to Wikipedias but also to Wictionary and many others projects. The lexical aspect can be useful to categorize. --ŠJů (talk) 08:21, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

The discussion on Commons:Deletion requests/Category:Verbs was about deletion. Here we talk about a merge and the best name and category tree design. If both categories are merged, and there are a See also Category:Avtivities in the Categorie:Verbs page, you will find all the activities indicated by verbs as fast as now. In the Category:Verbs must only content like Category:French pronunciation of verbs or illustrations of lexicalic or gramatical knowledge. It is not a good category tree to put all the activities indicated by verbs as subsubcategories of the following categories: Words, Writing, Verbs, Book market, Literature, Linguistics, Econonic history, ... Why should be a smoking vulcano categorized in a subsubcat of Category:Book market? If you want the word verbs then I suggest a main category Category:Content by verb or Category:Activities indicated by verb directly under Category:Topics and under no other categories. --Diwas (talk) 13:23, 20 September 2009 (UTC)--Diwas (talk) 13:50, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that categories relating to activities may be subactegories of category:Activities, and that only topics of linguistics should remain in category:Verbs. --Javier ME (talk) 20:12, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Estoy de acuerdo en que las categorías que se refieran a actividades podrían ser subcategorías de category:Activities, y que solo los asuntos lingüísticos deberían mantenerse en category:Verbs. --Javier ME (talk) 20:12, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

It is the other way round: verbs is a superset of activities as verbs can relate to things that are are not directly activities such as emotions (hurting, loving), smiling, looking, smelling, heating, ... --Foroa (talk) 20:55, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure if resting or being idle are (no) activities. Perhaps, it is a good way to have both categories because they are not 100 % equal. But i suggest to put the verbs-category near to the top, this way:

• Category:CommonsRoot
  • Category:Categories
    • Category:Categories by word class
      • Category:Categories named by verbs
      • Category:Categories named by nouns
      • Category:Categories named by names
      • Category:Categories named by adjectivs
      • Category:Categories named by adverbs

--Diwas (talk) 00:49, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The following way is not my favorite, but not very bad?:

• Category:CommonsRoot
  • Category:Topics
    • Category:Topics denoted by verbs
      • Category:Lying (e.g.)
      • Category:Activities
        • Category:Fishing (e.g.)
    • Category:Topics denoted by nouns
    • Category:Topics denoted by names
    • Category:Topics denoted by adjectivs
    • Category:Topics denoted by adverbs
    • Category:Categories by topic
    • Category:Topic symbols
    • Category:Academia
    • Category:Art
    • ...

--Diwas (talk) 00:49, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Another question: Should be every category directly in the verbs-cat? Category:Jogging is a subcat of Category:Running, should it categorized directly in the verbs-cat?--Diwas (talk) 00:49, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

At this moment, there is a loop in the tree, cause

• the category of writing as a Concept/Content/Process is not separated to the category of writing as a word/verb/part of speech
• the category of verbs (list of all the verbs as Concepts/Contents/Processes/Statusses/...) is not separated to the category of verbs as a Part of speech/topic of Linguistics
• the category of words (list of all the words as Concepts/Contents/...) is not separated to the category of words as a Part of speech/topic of Linguistics.

--Diwas (talk) 10:57, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

A small part of the current tree:

...

• Category:Verbs
  • Category:Writing
    • Category:Words
      • Category:Verbs
        • Category:Writing
          • Category:Words
            • Category:Verbs
              • ...

--Diwas (talk) 10:57, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Pubs in the Czech Republic

We have some problem with terminology of Czech pubs and restaurants. Typical popular facility in villages or cities are traditionally called "hostinec" or "hospoda" (diminutive "hospůdka"). Some of them are comparable with pubs, some of them are rather restaurants really. "Restaurace" (restaurant) is a term used little differently: a tap-room can be called "hospoda", but not "restaurant". A restaurant in modern hotel hardly can be called "hospoda" or "hostinec", but in the old days just "hospoda" or "hostinec" were typical hotels. I don't know an English word that would be a good equivalent of the Czech word "hospoda". It would be unsuitable to split facilities called "hospoda" into two different category branches, some of them as "pubs" and some of them as "restaurants". I consider as good idea to join pubs and restaurants into one category at every geographic level:

Rename Category:Pubs in the Czech Republic as Category:Restaurants and pubs in the Czech Republic.

Rename Category:Pubs in Central Bohemian Region as Category:Restaurants and pubs in Central Bohemian Region.

Rename Category:Pubs in Moravian-Silesian Region as Category:Restaurants and pubs in Moravian-Silesian Region.

Rename Category:Pubs in Ostrava as Category:Restaurants and pubs in Ostrava.

Rename Category:Pubs in Prague as Category:Restaurants and pubs in Prague.

Rename Category:Pubs in South Bohemian Region as Category:Restaurants and pubs South Bohemian Region.

• Category:Restaurants in the Czech Republic should be merged into Restaurants and pubs in the Czech Republic

--ŠJů (talk) 20:26, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the current status with Category:Restaurants in the Czech Republic and Category:Pubs in the Czech Republic is Ok. I don’t agree with merging these categories, because there are no other country with category “Restaurants and pubs in...”. --Packa (talk) 08:04, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Do take a note that "pubs" categories don't prevail worldwide. Those categories exist only for 9 countries: Ireland, UK, New Zealand, Jersey and Australia, the Netherlands, Norway, Argentina and Israel. Very few countries, only two lands of the Continental Europe, no one of the all Central Europe. In addition, I have suspicion that Australian meaning of the word is utterly different toward the Irish or British one. I think, the category "Pubs in the Czech Republic" collects a content which would be categorized as "Restaurants" for near countries with a similar culture.--ŠJů (talk) 12:45, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

But Category:Pubs in the Czech Republic is a subcategory of Category:Restaurants in the Czech Republic so I prefer the current state. The absence of category Pubs in Central Europe is not a significant reason, I think. There is no uniform Central European drinking culture. --Packa (talk) 16:04, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I didn't propose to create the category Category:Pubs in Central Europe and didn't lack for it, we have no similar category. I did claim that the word "pub" don't bear ship to the culture of Central Europe and that is difficult and useless to try to differentiate which "hospoda" or "Gaststäte" etc. is a pub and which isn't a pub. --ŠJů (talk) 16:25, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

 Oppose. In many countries, pubs are something in between drinking (cafés) and eating places, but no real restaurants. You could use taverns, but this redirects to "public houses", which are pubs ... (I guess that in many non-English countries, the word cafés is used, pubs are reserved for English style cafés). It seems not a good idea to start to mix restaurants (which seems to be a pretty much uniformly used word across our world) with pubs. I think that it is sufficient to document properly with what you mean with pubs in the Czech Republic. Moreover, such a renaming would be confusing as a subcategory from "restaurants in the Czech Republic". Hospoda would probably map to Inns. --Foroa (talk) 12:54, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

There is more types of eating places (see Foroa) : cafe, bar, fast food etc. not only pubs and restaurants. If is category restaurants for all of them, it is not exact, but good solution.

I think Hostinec is suitable Czech word for inn (eating + accommodation). --Ladin (talk) 20:42, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

The naming is historical. In the old days, every "hospoda" or "hostinec" provided full accomodation services and catering services. Nowadays, neither "hostinec" nor "hospoda" is perceived as accommodation unit. All inns are named "hotel" generally. Nowadays, "hospoda" aswell as "hostinec" are practically synonyms of both restaurants and pubs. (Cafés have absolutely different role here, more similar to a confectionery than to a "hospoda".) --ŠJů (talk) 10:02, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I would say avoid the word "pub" altogether. Its meaning varies too much from place to place. In the U.S., a pub is basically a restaurant and a bar combined. That's it. There is no association whatsoever with lodging. We call those hotels, motels, lodges, B&Bs, or inns. If the hotel is relatively small and looks like a big house, "inn" is more fitting. No one calls Holiday Inn a inn. Usually it's assumed they serve food and drink but it's not a requirement for the classification. Pub is actually not that commonly used in everyday language, but more what modern restaurants call themselves when they are going for that British/Irish theme. Some bars use it too but then it's one of those old-fashion terms like tavern or saloon. Cafés are for coffee and tea (sometimes with more food than coffeehouses but otherwise synonymous), and very rarely serve any alcohol.. So let's get technical and use "drinking establishments" for places you go to drink, restaurants for places you go to eat, alcohol may or may not be served ("eating establishments" would actually be worse here since "restaurant" has the commonly understood all encompassing sense), and hotels or inns (or whatever is appropriate) for places where you go to sleep, which may or may not include food or drink. Rocket000 (talk) 11:08, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] October 2009

[edit] Category:Drawers or draughtsmen or draftsmen

Rename to what? --Hesperian 03:06, 22 October 2009 (UTC) The drawers or draughtsmen or draftsmen were without category and their pictures were being released in the categories art, design etc. Possible reasons: 1) The collective Drawers is simpler and more reasonable but is likely to be confused with (drawers = sliding boxes in a table etc). 2) draughtsmen and draftsmen are masculines (some women can even consider, with reason, such names as anti-feminist). Drawers or draughtsmen or draftsmen it is a category that was missing, it is a disambiguation and it is a way for the simplest word to establish itself with more intensity. (Google translator + little adaptations). Cordially,Paulo Cesar-1 (talk) 15:10, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

If you are afraid of being accused of sexism, you could rename it to Category:Draughtsmen and draughtswomen. Regards, Vincent Steenberg (talk) 14:33, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Twelve categories, nine pages and one hundred thirty-one images of 'desenhistas' (unisex Portuguese word for drawers, draughtsmen or draftsmen) were without their own category, equivalent to that of painters, illustrators, etc. Of these, seven are described as drawers, dozens as draughtsmen and and dozens as draftsmen. Among the drawers, four are men and three are women. Of these women, one created a category in which title is the word (drawer), thus, in parentheses. Cordially, Paulo Cesar-1 (talk) 11:52, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Nobody is questioning the need for this category, but I agree with Hesperian that the title sounds a little strange. That's why I made the proposal above. Regards, Vincent Steenberg (talk) 12:06, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Draughtswomen be a neologism. Word not existent in dictionaries as the Webster, for example. And it would, it seems, a neologism less reasonable than, for example, tripsigraphs or tripsigraphies as synonyms for the, also problematic, English and French rubbing and frottage. (Google translator + little adaptations + eventual errors), Cordially, Paulo Cesar-1 (talk) 12:20, 26 October 2009 (UTC)- Paulo Cesar-1 (talk) 12:23, 26 October 2009 (UTC) I'm not afraid of being accused of sexism. I created the category because there are some subtle signs that some men and women non-US, the Commons is worldwide, do not like to define those that draw only as draughtsmen or draftsmen. (Google translator + little adaptations + eventual errors), Cordially,Paulo Cesar-1 (talk) 13:04, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

What is the point of such category? we already have Comic Artist (by country) categories? The exact label of categories is imo irrelevant. What is important is their description. not their exact spelling or formulation Esby (talk) 13:27, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The point is that Vincent van Gogh for example made drawings, but wasn't a comic artist. So a category drawers/draughtsmen/draftsmen/designers is necessary I think. Regards, Vincent Steenberg (talk) 13:34, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I see the point, still, The comic artist mother category should be categorized into this category, and no duplicate categorization should be performed... And, Imo, it should be renamed to Category:Drawing People with redirects created to it in Category:Draughtmen Category:Draftsmen Esby (talk) 15:15, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Category:Draughtspersons? Hesperian 23:17, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking to Category:Drawers but it is already used for something else, so unless we rename the actual drawers category, we need to use something simple. Esby (talk) 10:16, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

After thinking, I'd rename the actual Category:Drawers to Category:Drawers (furniture) (or something similar) and I'd rename Category:Drawers or draughtsmen or draftsmen to Category:Drawers Esby (talk) 10:20, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

 Support Yes, good idea, I'm all for it. Regards, Vincent Steenberg (talk) 11:37, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be better, to leave category:drawers nonexistant, so nobody could accidentally add the wrong images to it. --Flominator (talk) 09:58, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Category:Drawer Persons and Category:Drawer Furnitures ? Esby (talk) 10:08, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

In that case I would chose Category:Drawers (artists) and Category:Drawers (furniture). I'm note sure, but I think the word furniture is always singular. Vincent Steenberg (talk) 10:50, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

1 - Through no to have, before the category drawers or draughtsmen or draftsmen, a category that would unite them, those that draw not are on the main page of Commons (with the architects, composers, sculptors, photographers, painters). 2 - In the English language exist and are used the three words (drawers, etc.). 3 - "Drawers or draughtsmen or draftsmen" is, unfortunately, a very long title. 4 - Suggestion: To maintain the category "Drawers or draughtsmen or draftsmen" and create a link "Drawers .." that under the mouse pointer would show the rest of the category name. 5 - To use this link "Drawers .." on pages where there was little space or aesthetic, and on the main page, where, where in disambiguation would be given its proximity to painters etc (to do justice to they that draw). (Google translator + little adaptations + eventual errors).Paulo Cesar-1 (talk) 11:41, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

The fact several terms exist for a concept does not means the corresponding commons category must be using all of these terms. English Wikipedia (and other Wikipedias) choose the most used term when several ones exists. The other terms are just redirects. see en:Draughtsman and en:draftsperson for example... Esby (talk) 09:43, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Apartment buildings vs. Apartment blocks

Category:Apartment buildings in Barcelona and Category:Apartment blocks in Barcelona.

As far as I can tell, these are synonymous, and we should merge them. I don't have any preference about which way we go, or even whether we establish uniformity across all geographical areas, but we should not have both of these for the same place. -- Jmabel ! talk 20:32, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I personally prefer the term Apartment building. An apartment block is for me a huge isolated building and is always an apartment building, which can be as well a smaller building in a city with several apartments. --anro (talk) 20:43, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Several weeks, no one else has weighed in. I have no objection to "Apartment buildings", but there is certainly no reason to have both. - Jmabel ! talk 05:40, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Úholičky (train station)

Reasons for discussion request

Myslím si, že by bylo vhodnější tuto kategorii přejmenovat buďto na Úholičky (železniční zastávka), nebo na Úholičky (train stop), jelikož železniční stanice má kolejové rozvětvení, což u Úholiček neplatí.

---

I think, that this category should be renamed either to Úholičky (železniční zastávka), or to Úholičky (train stop), since it isn't an actual station with rail junctions, but just a stop. --DavidSpanel (talk) 20:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree. See Commons:Categories for discussion/Current requests/2009/02/Categories of train stations in the Czech Republic.

The naming policy and the question of distinction between "zastávka" (train stop) and "nádraží" or "železniční stanice" (train station) were disputed. Two possibilities was proposed:

• var. 2.1: to make distinction ("Liberec, train station", "Všenory, train stop")
• var. 2.2: to use "train station" for both types ("Liberec, train station", "Všenory, train station")

Most users supported 2.2. Please see the reasons there. Btw., it is IMHO an Austro-Hungarian speciality that we have no unified word for both types. Btw 2- in most of countries, such terminology distinction doesn't exist. In addition, at metro and at funiculars in the Czech Republic, all stops are named "stanice". Until recently (early 70-s) bus and tram stops are named "stanice" officialy too. --ŠJů (talk) 05:04, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Fossil something

Long term difficult discussion. Follow the link: Commons talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Fossils vs. Fossil vs. Extinct. --Snek01 (talk) 12:28, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Zacatecas (municipality)

Category:Zacatecas (municipality) and Category:Zacatecas, Zacatecas mutually include each other. I suspect they are synonymous and should be merged. If there is a distinction, someone should make it clear what is the difference, and decide which category belongs inside the other. --Jmabel ! talk 01:04, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:AMX-32 tanks

Category-names for tank models, as for car models (or rifles), should not be in plural (tanks) but in singular (tank). Therefore, a user at the Forum has requested to change all tank-category names into singular form[5], and asked me to apply his request. --Túrelio (talk) 09:12, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Which name do you or does he suggest? -- User:Docu at 09:23, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

tanks -> tank --Túrelio (talk) 09:24, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't be it be either:

• (1.) AMX-32 (tank) - if the name is "AMX-32"
• (2.) AMX-32 Tank - if the name is "AMX-32 Tank"
• (3.) AMX-32 tanks - if the name is "AMX-32"
• (4.) AMX-32 Tanks - if the name is "AMX-32 Tank"

rather than

• (5.) AMX-32 tank

The general convention is that category names be in plural (3.), possibly (4.). If the category is named after a specific model name, it would be (1.) or (2.). -- User:Docu at 10:02, 18 October 2009 (UTC), 10:04, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

As I'm not really interested in tanks, I hope user Roman, who original requested this, will participate in this discussion. The main issue was to change the cat names to singular, as this makes sense as with car or rifle models. Therefore, I would prefer either variant 1. or 5. As this request is not only for the AMX-32, but for all tank model cats (see under "Links to this page"), including such as Chieftain tanks, IMHO only your variant 5 would make sense. --Túrelio (talk) 10:16, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I support Túrelio's proposal in any respect. The plural form of specific vehicle models is completely wrong. It would be the best if the person that initialized that mass dislocation would take part at this discussion, too. Besides, in my view solution no. 5 is the best. --High Contrast (talk) 12:05, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

The person seems to be Foroa diff. I didn't find any corresponding request on talk.

BTW, at WP, the articles are at en:AMX-30 and fr:AMX-30 (this one being French). -- User:Docu at 12:20, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, we do not discuss all category movements to "XY_tanks", not only this specific "AMX-32"-move. I hope User:Foroa will tell us his thoughts about it. --High Contrast (talk) 12:32, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok, maybe first the situation before I executed some cleanup in several armement categories. I spend an awfull lot of energy in cleaning up category names and experience shows that for categories, the first step is to have their naming consistent, and if needed, changing the naming notation in a second round. In Category:Main battle tanks, there where all sorts of naming rules, many of them plain wrong or against the basic Commons naming rule (COM:CAT: "The category name would be enough to guess the subject"). Obviously, then existing names as AMX-32, M47, MBT-70, T-55, T-62, Type 59, which I consider proper names, don't comply and become more and more in conflict with all sorts of alphanumerical namings such as for ships, aircraft, ...

Considering the main used naming in Category:Main battle tanks, the most consequent and easy way was to add the qualifier tank to the AMX-32, M47, MBT-70, T-55, T-62, Type 59... model names. It could have been xxx (tank) too, but the "xxx tanks(s)" form of naming was more prevailing. The form "AMX-32 Tank" is not acceptable as the tank is a generic term, cannot form part of the proper name and should hence not be capitalised. Commons uses plural for all its categories, including for example "Ford vehicles", not "Ford Vehicle". Basically it should be "Volkswagen Polo automobiles/cars/models", but we will all agree that we can drop the automobiles part of the name and that we can make an exception on the plural rule because "Volkswagen Polo's" or "Volkswagen Polos" would be quite funny.

So, we should not take the latter (exception) rule backwards and saying because we write "Volkswagen Polo" not in plural, the "xxx tanks" categories should be in singular as well. --Foroa (talk) 15:30, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I can only answer in short due to lack of time. First part is OK, but that is not discussed here. Second part is particularly OK: the plural form of Commons cats is widely know (your "Ford vehicles" example), but this is not discussed here, too. Example: what about this: Category:M4 carbine? According to your logic that category name must be transformed into Category:M4 carbines. --High Contrast (talk) 16:12, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I see 3 possible solutions: "Colt M4", "M4 carbines" and "Colt M4 carbines". I hope that you will agree that many categories, such as category:Bolt-action battle rifles, Category:Assault rifles and category:Light tanks could use some clarification and harmonisation. --Foroa (talk) 19:34, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

It is very hard to agree on one scheme for categorynames. If you have only a few people you can ask it's quite easy. If you have a bunch of people who can't figure out one standart it's impossible to get rid of the mass many cooks have brewed (or: the mass many user who didn't know have created). I fully understand Foroa's solo attempt because it's not quite easy to figure out a standard on Commons (if it is possible at least). One problem is that some user want to have his or her own standard and do not accept anything else (maybe not here but it may would be like that if we would ask some more people). Another problem is that after some time nobody cares about such discussions any longer and they get lost somewhere on Commons. (I know that this is not actually a topic in this discussion. It's just about what beyond the rename thing is)
@ topic: I would support either (1.) or (5.) but I would prefer (1.). The reason is that many tanks have a name or nickname (such as the Leopard 2) which should not be plural. In (1.) and (5.) the name is not changed ("Leopard 2s" or "Leoprads 2" would be such a unfeasible plural form; (2.)-(4.) don't change the name as well. I just think that we shouldn't have categorynames like "M4 carbines") even (1.) shows people who don't know Commons exactly that eg. "Leopard 2" is the tank's name. If there would be a car named "Leopard 2" "Leopard 2 (automobile)" could be used. (2.) has the upper case letter "T" so some people may think that the tank's whole name is different. (3.) and (4.) are plural (which is widely used on Commons) but (again:) I think that names shouldn't be plural (Latin names of species are also singular without "whateverspeciess"). Example: I would move Chieftain tanks to "FV 4201 Chieftain (tank)" or "Chieftain (tank)" and Leopard 2 tanks to Leopard 2 (tank). However, I would not delete the old categories but rather create category redirects (eg. Category:Leopard 2 got deleted even some may search fo that categoryname because nearly every Wikipedia calles the article about the Leopard 2 "Leopard 2" or use different letters like ja.wikipeda ("レオパルド2") which say "Leopard 2" in that specific language. Just da.wikipedia and fr.wikipedia have an addition)
--D-Kuru (talk) 15:56, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Personally I would favour the singular for individual named systems. Taking the Leopard 2 example although a category may contain pictures of Leopard 2s the subject of the category is (The) Leopard 2. Although the plural is favoured for categories, this is not universal, eg Category:Panthera pardus pardus and not Category:Panthera pardus parduses.KTo288 (talk) 20:44, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Old hospitals

What are the criteria for inclusion in this category? Is it in any way distinct from Category:Former hospitals, or should it be merged? --Jmabel ! talk 18:57, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

•  Comment which one would you suggest? -- User:Docu at 12:24, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
  • My inclination is always get rid of highly subjective categories like this. I'd look through the content by hand and re-classify. But if someone had a meaningful definition for this, I'd be open to hearing about it. - Jmabel ! talk 17:02, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
    • Sounds ok. It would be nice to have categories for 17/18/19th century hospital buildings. -- User:Docu at 17:10, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
    •  Delete Agree. Specific categories for hospitals by date per Docu sounds reasonable; "Old hospitals" is too vague to be of much use. -- Infrogmation (talk) 18:00, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Rails in art

• Comment: What about Category:Rail tracks in art? That would avoid ambiguity. Note that a rail is a type of bird, and could also be used to mean a handrail (though of course it's highly unlikely anyone would create artworks dealing with the latter). — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:46, 22 October 2009 (UTC) (copied from here)

I agree to it. I additon, we should revolve, what indicia should be reasons for inclusion of some photo into this category. Does fall into it every photo made from bottom or unusual view? Or should be decisive some mood or feeling? --ŠJů (talk) 17:33, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Do we generally specify criteria for inclusion of images in "in art" categories? I thought this was generally left up to editors. Special types of photographs (e.g., black and white or sepia-toned) and rail tracks in media other than photographs (e.g., drawings and paintings) would be obvious candidates for this category, but I'm not sure if it is desirable or even possible to specify what sort of ordinary colour photographs of rail tracks should be placed there instead of in "Category:Rail tracks". By the way, the current images in "Category:Rails in art" are pretty "artistic". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:08, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

• I would have expected sculptures made of rails or paintings. Multichill (talk) 18:09, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

• "Category:Rail tracks in art", it is good name. Each object has two views: Material and Abstract. For selection photo is used filter: substandard view, color balance, level of detail, composition, mood and feeling of the image ... Hapesoft (talk) 18:58, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
• No real strong opinion. The pictures I like the most show rails, not rail tracks. Not sure if the rails birds will cause problems as there many quite different types of rails. --Foroa (talk) 20:51, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Comment: Another reason why I thought Category:Rail tracks in art is a better name is because one of the main categories for Category:Rails in art is actually Category:Rail tracks. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 04:46, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

• The images in this category seem to be artistic photographs of rail tracks, and so Category:Rail tracks in art would seem to be a better name. Thryduulf (talk) 11:47, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
• I agree with Foroa - rails are intended to be components of rail tracks, but many images display rails in some other place, e. g. in a store room, steel works, during transporation of material etc., or separately (in a book, drawing etc.). --ŠJů (talk) 17:01, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

• To delete, because incorrect name of category. Files which contains this category are not artistic. Or are not sufficiently artistic. No mosaics, drawings, reliefs, paintings etc. --Starscream (talk) 18:18, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

This category is not building architecture or artistic relief. Intended for "railwaymen". --Hapesoft (talk) 21:04, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

"Art" namely art! Rails possibly subject of mosaics, drawings, reliefs, paintings etc. Actually lack. --Starscream (talk) 21:27, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Every photo has own artistic aspect. The heart of the matter is how large artisticness substantiates such categorization. --ŠJů (talk) 22:40, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

So categories with contains ...in art we must add to every files? --Starscream (talk) 00:35, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

The heart of the matter is how large artisticness substantiates such categorization. We should revolve what indicia should be reasons for inclusion of some photo into this category. Do you understand the question? IMHO none of the contained photos meet my criteria but somebody can have some different opinion. Usually use to be categorized this way mainly older photos of well-known artistic photographers only. --ŠJů (talk) 06:05, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

There seem to be two issues emerging here:

1. The main issue is whether "Category:Rails in art" should be renamed "Category:Rail tracks in art". I think it should for the simple reason that the latter name is unambiguous. For the purpose of this discussion, I believe this is the only question that needs to be answered.
2. The subsidiary issue is whether there should be "in art" categories in the Commons in the first place, and if so, whether there should be criteria determining which images should be placed in such categories. This is a broad issue that needs more general discussion elsewhere, such as at the Village Pump. "In art" categories are common, and personally I think it would be extremely difficult to develop criteria for inclusion or exclusion. It would require an answer to the question "What is art?". I doubt if it will be possible to achieve consensus on the issue. It may be better to (or we may have no choice but to) let such categories remain, and leave it to the discretion of editors to decide what constitutes "art".

— Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:40, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Ad 2), nobody impugned "in art" categories generally. With regard to depicted sculptures, reproduced paintings etc., we have no problem, independent of their artistic value. Only photographs are problematic. This category can remain tolerated. However, this is a typical case that gallery page would be more useful than a category. Gallery page is more suitable for aplying of subjective criteria as wall as for selecting of interesting images. --ŠJů (talk) 08:44, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

The problem arises because most files in the Commons are in fact photographs, so there is the question of whether a particular photograph should go into main category for a topic (e.g., "Category:Rail tracks") or into the "in art" category ("Category:Rail tracks in art"). As a matter of principle there is no reason why photographs should be regarded as any less "artistic" than paintings and sculptures. Photography is a well established art form. Are you suggesting that in practice in the Commons only artworks other than photographs should be placed in "in art" categories, and that all photographs should be put in main categories? Perhaps it is worth raising the issue at the Village Pump. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 13:17, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I think, placing into "in art category" should be "additional" in principle, it shouldn't preclude a categorization by location (if identificable), by type of depicted device (if it's specific) etc.

The common usage of "in art" categories is that they include subcategories by form: a photograph is generally conceived as a basic form of image, other forms as "special". "In art" categories are mostly used for grouping of special forms. If we should handle photographs similarly, we need to place all photographs into subcategories of Photographs by topic. We can see, only very few themes are represented here. Is it a good idea, to add millions of other images here? --ŠJů (talk) 19:28, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you that there is no good reason to put a lot of images in "in art" categories rather than in the main categories dealing with the subjects of the images. But this is really not the right place for discussing what should be put into "in art" categories. I suggest that the matter be raised at the Village Pump. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:09, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Railway lines

• category:railway lines
• category:railway lines by country and all subcategories
• category:rail tracks by country and all subcategories

I supposed, category:railway lines is intended for images and files sorted by specific track line and country, while category:rail tracks for images sorted by type of technical element (points, sleepers, technical drawings of rails etc.). However, the meta-subcategory category:rail tracks by country and all its subcategories (and its current content) is mainly duplicite toward category:railway lines by country and splits the content needlessly. Some conceptual treatment is needed. Let's not neglect the distinction between (classical) railways and rail transport tracks generally (including trams, funiculars, rapid and city transport rail systems etc.) too. --ŠJů (talk) 21:29, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the content of

Category:Rail tracks in Switzerland

Category:Railway lines in Switzerland

I think the situation is quite o.k. like this: Detail photos of the track are in the first mentioned category, photos with landscape and/or trains in the second category. I don't think we should change this but it is necessary to regularly come back and sort out badly categorized photos. --Gürbetaler (talk) 22:10, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

So, should we have separately categories of railway lines in global views and separately categories of detail images from railway lines? As I mentioned, detailed images of rail track components should have their own categories: points, sleepers, derails, overhead lines, cog-rails, railway signs and signals etc., by type of device. However, why we need categories category:rail tracks by country and its subcategories in paralell to category:railway lines by country? We can see examples what is (or was) included in the Category:Rail tracks in Switzerland:

I see no reason to divide such photos into two different and paralel categories accidentally. Even if your idea were good, the practical effect is and will be a chaos, duplicity and shattering. We should put them together, no matter if under the first name or under the second one. Eventual category for images of rail elements should be named quite otherwise, to not be confused with images of railway lines (tracks). --ŠJů (talk) 02:00, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but railway lines and rail tracks are two different things. Rail track is a detail of the physical plant like overhead line, points etc. and I see absolutely no reason to remove this category. Or how would you then call a category where I can find photos that show how track is constructed? Sure it is possible to put some photos in a more detailled category. Rail track is part of "Rail transport infrastructure" while railway lines aren't.--Gürbetaler (talk) 23:22, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, we have in Czech a term "železniční trať". It can be traslated "rail track" or "railway line" (die Bahnstrecke or die Bahnlinie in German). It means a way for trains. Unfortunately, the category name "Rail tracks in Switzerland" associates this meaning primarily, synonymic to "Railway lines in Switzerland". For the second meaning of the English words "rail track", we have a word "kolej" in Czech (das Gleis in German). I suspect that English language can hardly differentiate this two meanings. We have "dvoukolejná trať" in Czech (or zweigleisige Strecke in German), but no "double-track track" in English - only "double-track" (= Zweistrecke?, dvojtrať?). Track which have two tracks. The English word "track" is ambiguous, compared to other languages. The category name should be unambiguous. (The word "rail" means rather "kolejnice" (Schiene) than "kolej" (Gleis).)

We can have a global view of some track/line (e. g. aerial view), we can have a detailed view (e. g. a commonly photo, ranging tens or hundreds metres or some few kilometres usually), we can have a more detalied view from the line (a point, a platform, a station, a sign along the track, a rail). Both the global and the detailed views belong to the identical and specific track(s)/line(s) allways. We can categorize them into subcategories by station or by section, we can categorize them in parallel by type of device (category of overhead lines, of cog-rails, sleepers etc.), but the category Category:Rail tracks in Switzerland itself is nothing but harmful duplicity of Category:Railway lines in Switzerland. It causes that unsorted photos of railways in Switzerland fall (accidentally) into two different categories, which isn't included one in the second even. Categories "railway lines in..." was always intended for photos of real parts and places of railway infrastructure, not (only) for some abstract and ideal lines. I wrote arguments and I gave examples that category name "Rail tracks in (country)" attracts such images which belong into category "Railway lines" (and its subcategories) primarily. If we should have in "rail tracks" every photo like this (no detailed photo of rails, but global view of railway station), we can place here 80 % of railway photos from Switzerland. What it makes sense? As I said already, an eventual category for images of rail track elements should be named quite otherwise, to not be confused with images of railway lines (tracks). "Rail track elements" would be a suitable name (per samples Architectural elements, Bridge details, Vehicle parts etc.). For images of rail track details, the unambiguous name can be "Details of rail tracks", "Types of rail tracks" etc. If you understand the problem, maybe you will come up with some better solutions. --ŠJů (talk) 05:56, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

What we discuss here is a linguistic problem. Often, people who put photos in categories do not really understand the words. Hence we shouldn't rename categories but try to give useful translations. "Rail tracks" is the perfectly correct name for the category "Gleise" and "Railway lines" translates as "Eisenbahnstrecken". There is even a distinction in German between "Linie" and "Strecke" but unfortunately both translate as "line" in English...

And then, unfortunately, many uploaders do not really care about categorizing and I have corrected hundreds of category entries. Renaming "Rail tracks" doesn't resolve this problem. Unfortunately.--Gürbetaler (talk) 23:26, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

line = Strecke/Linie

track = Gleis

rail = Schiene

thus:

single track, double track = eingleisig, zweigleisig/doppelspurig

double track line = doppelspurige Strecke

Sure, naming of categories is a linguistic problem. That's why we need to keep from unfitted category names which cause that image files are disorganized. I have made clear that "rail tracks" isn't an unambiguous equivalent of "Gleise" but that this term have a meaning synonymic to "railway lines" too. That's why such categories attract many of images which belongs into category "Railway lines" (and its subcategories) primarily. Btw., as you noted, railway lines is ambiguous too, in English. In some regions, the Strecken-system of passenger transportation is or was changed to Line-system which means that one line (Linie) can use more "Strecken" and one "Strecke" can be used by more "Lines" (Linien). Hundred years ago, such trend changed a tram transport. But this ambiguity causes no serious problem yet, contrary to the previous one. This problem concerns tens of countries, category descriptions aren't able to reduce all disarray caused by unsuitable category names. --ŠJů (talk) 04:13, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm really sorry, dear ŠJů, but you have a linguistic problem. Your interpretation of the term rail track is wrong. Please read en:Rail tracks.-- Gürbetaler (talk) 00:12, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I claim that categories "Railway lines..." are intended for photos of real parts and places of railway infrastructure, not (only) for some abstract and ideal lines. This meaning is practically identical with the definitiion of en:Rail tracks you linked. Hardly some photo displays a railway line but not a rail tracks, hardly som photo displays a rail tracks but not a railway line. Rail tracks are the main visible physical substance (not only an equipment) of every railway line. --ŠJů (talk) 00:30, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] November 2009

[edit] Category:Online games

This category was repeatedly deleted by Bayo for unrelevant reasons (Bayo don't like several images which was included, see User talk:ŠJů#Online games). I am convinced that it is an important category: analogous categories exists at 23 Wikipedias. Category:Video games which is used by Bayo has a different scope: most of video games are not intended for online play, as well as there exist online games which aren't video games. I propose to keep the category Category:Online games and to fill it by adequate content. Subcategories as Category:Online video games can be created. --ŠJů (talk) 07:26, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Useless to categorize games... Mostely all games have online mode, and this category is not a good way to categories (for example between an online FPS and a no online FPS, the more usefull category is FPS, then a category according to the gameplay, not according to a network feature). If we search a feature Wikipedia is better than commons. And at the moment we do not categorize game genre on Commmons, because we dont have a lot of games. It is more usefull (and less painfull) to sort games by alphabet, or to create a first level of "by genre" (like FPS) if it is really need. Categories like "multiplaye/online/free to play/shareware..." are (at the moment) not usefull.

And I delete this category because it containe mostly shit. And we can see it is empty.

"it exists online games which aren't video games"? Really? That's funny, anyway.

Thanks for your help. ~ bayo or talk 10:38, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

 Delete The criteria to categorize is not the same here and in wikipedias, because there they categorize article, and here imges and other media files. Being online or not is a valid criteria for organizing articles (as such is information that would impact in the article), but not for screenshots or other images of games. Belgrano (talk) 15:20, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

•  Comment. If most games are just categorized in a category named after the game, one could just list them all in Category:Games by alphabet. To build a navigation structure around this, one could use User:EuseBot. It would add parent categories from en:Category:Games to each game. "Online games" could be one of them. -- User:Docu at 09:28, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

  We already have Category:Video games by alphabet, and i dont think it is a good idea to dup it with "tags" like that. It will need more work for finally nothing, imho. ~ bayo or talk 19:12, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

  • You may read my previous commment while replacing Category:Games by alphabet with Category:Video games by alphabet. -- User:Docu at 10:49, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan (Northern Alliance)

I am suggesting this category be renamed Category:Northern Alliance -- the name the coalition is most often known by. --Geo Swan (talk) 19:28, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I think you are definately right that the term Northern Allicance is more commonly known. When I made the category I looked at the name on En-wikipedia. As a matter of fact United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan is the official name (actually the official translation of the name).

Maybe we could rename the category to Category:Northern Alliance (United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan). I would not use the name Northern Alliance only because there are also other northern alliances in addition to the one, which we are talking about and I fear that some other files - which have nothing to do with Afghanistan - would end up in the category. (f. ex.: [6]). --Zaccarias (talk) 09:55, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Geo Swan.--Officer (talk) 15:44, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I acknowledge that there are other organizations that might be called "Northern Alliance". But they are all "slso-rans", merely deserving a footnote.

I think this is an instance when practicallity should over-ride a strict compliance with literal transliteration. Over on the wikipedia we have an article on w:Mark Twain, not w:Samuel Clemens. Similarly, the article is on w:Joseph Stalin, not w:Lavrenti Djugvali. Inhabitants of the country we call w:Germany call their nation w:Deutchland. But we don't have Category:Tugboats of Deutchland, we have Category:Tugboats of Germany. Category:Northern Alliance can have a note at the top telling readers that "United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan" is the literal transliteration.

A fact for you: a dozen or more Guantanamo captives had their continued detention justified due to their membership in the "United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan" or one of the organizations within the United Front, strongly suggesting that the Guantanamo intelligence analysts were unable to recognize which groups within Afghanistan were on their side and which were allied with al Qaeda. I see this as a strong argument for using the usual name. Geo Swan (talk) 23:02, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Well ok. If you want to use Category:Northern Alliance that would be fine for me too. I tought it might would be helpful to also keep the official name, so I suggested Category:Northern Alliance (United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan). If you say, other Northern Alliances are not relevant, that's also fine with me. (I didn't really check the relevance of these factions.) I think we should just go ahead and rename it, instead of making endless discussions here. --Zaccarias (talk) 23:43, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Smilacina japonica

Rename Category:Smilacina japonica as Category:Maianthemum japonicum.

As mentioned in the last request, Smilacina has for some time been merged into Maianthemum and this category should be renamed Maianthemum japonicum. See LaFrankie, J. V. 1986. Transfer of the species of Smilacina Desf. to Maianthemum Wiggers (Liliaceae). Taxon 35: 584–589. --Choess (talk) 00:53, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Japanese culture / Culture of Japan

We currently have Category:Japanese culture and Category:Culture of Japan. As discussed at Commons:Village pump/Archive/2009Nov#Japanese culture and tangled categories, the theory is that the former is for what is culturally Japanese (regardless of where in the world it is) and the latter for cultural matters in Japan (regardless of whether they would normally be considered "Japanese" culture). So:

Example	Culture of Japan	Japanese culture
Noh play in Osaka	Yes	Yes
Japanese cultural festival in Stockholm	No	Yes
Symphony orchestra in Tokyo	Yes	No

In practice, though, as anyone can see from looking at the contents of these categories, they've become hopelessly tangled. There is very little correlation between the intent and what is actually located in which category. Here is my proposal to untangle them:

1. Merge contents of Category:Japanese culture into Category:Culture of Japan, leaving a category redirect.
2. Add a new category Category:Japanese culture outside Japan under Category:Culture of Japan
3. As appropriate, move content into Category:Japanese culture outside Japan, typically in addition to some other subcategory of Category:Culture of Japan
4. As appropriate, for subcategories of Category:Culture of Japan add "by country" categories (e.g. Category:Karaoke by country)

So:

Example	Culture of Japan	Japanese culture outside Japan
Noh play in Osaka	Yes	No
Japanese cultural festival in Stockholm	(implied supercategory)	Yes
Symphony orchestra in Tokyo	Yes	No

I'm open to other suggestions (and there are some other ideas at Commons:Village pump/Archive/2009Nov#Japanese culture and tangled categories) but we should get consensus and disentangle this one way or another. - Jmabel ! talk 05:45, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Chiese

Judging by supercategories, this was meant for a river in Italy, but judging by contents, in practice it has just been a place for Italian speakers to categorize images that should be under one or another subcategory of Category:Churches. Proposal: move current content to Category:Churches (or more specific subcategories) and rename this Category:Chiese River. --Jmabel ! talk 00:32, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

As I can't seem to find anything about the river, we could just redirect it to Category:Churches after moving all files to Category:Churches in Italy. -- User:Docu at 07:02, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

OK erm, try en:Chiese for the river? I agree with the proposal. I'll have a quick look at where all these churches are, move them to country-level perhaps. -- Deadstar (msg) 15:28, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I mean, the category doesn't include any images of the river. It seems that it was created empty. -- User:Docu at 15:38, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah - I see! I also found Category:Chiese (river), which has all the images for this river. Perhaps just deleting this cat is enough. Working on emptying it, but it seems to be a bot that is adding this cat to images more than people - deleting it is vital for this to not happen again. -- Deadstar (msg) 16:09, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

If they are all of churches, a redirect to Category:Churches would bring them to the right place. I'm hesitant to suggest to redirect it to Category:Churches in Italy ;) -- User:Docu at 16:19, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

About one third was already in Category:Churches in Italy or one of its subcategories. I had my bot remove them and re-categorized the remaining ones. I added a redirect, but I'm not too sure about that one .. -- User:Docu at 04:49, 17 November 2009 (UTC), 04:50, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

 Comment So the only question remaining on this request is whether Category:Chiese should redirect - I think it should be deleted so as to not confuse as not all churches that were in the cat were in Italy to start with. -- Deadstar (msg) 09:26, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I think it should redirect. Maybe not necessarily to Category:Churches in Italy, but to Category:Churches. BTW all churches were in Italy. -- User:Docu at 09:24, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Michigan State University alumni

I had created Category:Michigan State University alumni, because I did not found the uncomplete categorized Category:Alumni of Michigan State University. What ist the better name? Should be named all Alumni categories by the same format, or are there different generic names or different usually used names for the alumnies, in dependance by wich university they are from? --Diwas (talk) 13:58, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Royalty of Sweden

I would like to get a number of categories renamed so that they are more consistent in name format with others in the same subject groups. This desire of mine pertains especially to several of the subcategories listed under those of the kings and queens and princes and princesses of Sweden where the inconsistencies are confusing and disturbing. Is this a hard thing to do? Can I post a proposed list here, or send it to someone (administrator?) by email, of how this would look if we can do it? I need help with this idea... Cordially, SergeWoodzing (talk) 22:07, 20 November 2009 (UTC) (Transferred from Commons:Categories for discussion/2009/11/Category:Michigan State University alumni--Diwas (talk) 12:44, 23 November 2009 (UTC))

[edit] Category:Wedded couples

I see that Category:Bridal couples was recently moved to Category:Wedded couples. If there was any discussion, I must have missed it. Up until the point where the wedding ceremony has been performed, the couple is a "bridal couple" or even a "wedding couple", but not a "wedded couple". Since many of these photos will be from before the ceremony, I believe the new name is wrong.

The deletion remark said that "bridal couple" is not idiomatic English. As a native speaker of English, I beg to differ, but would have no problem with "wedding couple" (even though it strikes me as less idiomatic than "bridal couple". FWIW, "bridal couple" gets 688,000 Google hits. - Jmabel ! talk 01:36, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree fully. Wedded couple is a very odd expression, to me. Thus inappropriate as a category name. Also for the reason given above. In 59 years of speaking English as my first language, I've heard of a married couple, never once of a wedded one. SergeWoodzing (talk) 04:10, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I too am a native English speaker, and "Bridal couples" is the phrase that immediately makes most sense to me. "Wedded couple" on the other hand strikes me as very odd phrasing. Thryduulf (talk) 09:27, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Law offices

I propose that "Category:Law offices" be merged into "Category:Law firms". The existence of both categories is, in my view, confusing and unnecessary. An editor added a usage note to "Law offices" stating that images of "Offices (the physical space) of lawyers, barristers, solicitors, and other legal professionals" should be placed in that category, but such images could easily be put into "Law firms" as well.

What is likely to happen is that photographs relating to a particular law firm will be put in a subcategory (say, "Category:Doe & Roe"). Since the images will be a mixture of photographs of the office(s) in which the law firm operates, the firm's logo and the lawyers employed by the firm, it will be necessary to make "Category:Doe & Roe" a subcategory of both "Law firms" and "Law offices". In that case, we might as well just ask editors to put all such subcategories into one main category such as "Law firms". The alternative is to create separate subcategories called "Category:Law offices of Doe & Roe" (for images of Doe & Roe's offices, to be put into "Law offices") and "Category:Doe & Roe" (for other images relating to Doe & Roe, to be put into "Law firms"), which seems rather pointless since there probably won't be a huge number of photographs in each subcategory. Also, "Category:Law offices of Doe & Roe" will presumably have to be a subcategory of "Category:Doe & Roe", which means that it will end up being a sub-subcategory of "Law firms".

If the above proposal is accepted, I think the following subcategories will also require renaming:

• Category:Law offices in Africa → Category:Law firms in Africa.
• Category:Law offices in Canada → Category:Law firms in Canada.
• Category:Law offices in the United States → Category:Law firms in the United States.
• Category:Law firms of the United States → Category:Law firms in the United States.
• Category:Law firms of Northern Ireland → Category:Law firms in Northern Ireland.
• Category:Solicitors' offices in Australia → Category:Law firms in Australia.

— Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:35, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. Desiring to deal with fewer categories is not a reason to sacrifice accuracy. Law office is to law firm as factory is to manufacturing company. It clearly makes sense to categorize physical places and companies separately, and the nom has not in any way explained why it's a problem to do so. Even if the only contents of law firm subcategories are images of company logos, lawyers, and offices, we will still also categories those images as such as well as by their association with the law firm.

Perhaps most importantly, the nom's description of the contents of these categories is not accurate. As can clearly be seen from the current contents of the categories (and as is obvious from some knowledge of the legal profession), not all law offices pertain to law firms. Many will be the offices of individual practitioners that can hardly be characterized as firms, and many are historic offices maintained as landmarks. Would you really categorize the images in Category:James Monroe Law office or Category:John W. Woodson law office as a "law firm"?

In fact, we can expect more images of the offices of individual practitioners than we can those of law firms. Law firms will typically operate out of floors in office buildings or skyscrapers to which the public does not have access, and which externally depict nothing of their contents, so there will be few pictures of actual law firm offices. Instead, the law firm offices that the public will be able to take pictures of most frequently will be the proverbial "shingle" hung out—the small offices of solo practitioners. (Full disclosure: I created the category just to fix the pluralization of Category:Law office, which another contributor started. I've also worked at three law firms.) Postdlf (talk) 13:07, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. At first I was just going to comment with some questions, but after looking at some of the images and subcategories, I think keeping seperate categories would be best. I note that there are images such as File:Maison des avocats -1.JPG which are law offices but not law firms, and others like File:LeathesPriorSolicitorsLogoBlue.JPG which are law firms but not law offices. It looks to me like the problem gets even worse with subcategories. I notice we already have some country categories like Category:Law offices in the United States. As categories become more populated the tendancy is to break them down further geographically. But there are many big law firms that have offices in multiple cities, states, and countries. For example a branch office of a law firm based in New York City might be located in South Carolina. If categorized by firm it would go in the New York subcat, and if by office in the South Carolina subcat. Having seperate categories for firms and offices may be a bit messy, but the alternative seems to me even messier. -- Infrogmation (talk) 13:21, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. I am the creator and seem to be the principal seeker of images for Category:Law offices. I considered putting the law offices I found into the Category:Law firms, but I did not for the reasons stated by User:Postdlf and User:Infrogmation. I appreciated and support their comments. Estillbham (talk) 13:35, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

• Mixed — I don't see any reason that "Law firms of the United States" and "Law firms of Northern Ireland" should not be moved; virtually every geography-based category is "___ in ___". However, as noted by others already, it's good to have different categories for the companies and for the buildings themselves. We can easily add a notice to the categories that images of the buildings themselves should go into Offices, while other images should go into Firms. Nyttend (talk) 13:51, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. Thanks for the interesting comments. A few observations:
  • If "Category:Law firms" and "Category:Law offices" are retained, it will be necessary to define their scope carefully in usage notes. For the reasons suggested above, I think it is acceptable to use "Law offices" for the physical buildings or offices occupied by lawyers and "Law firms" for law practices.
  • I a little troubled by Postdlf's suggestion the category "Law firms" is unsuitable for sole practitioners. The Commons is used by a worldwide audience, and I believe that to many people law firm includes all law practices, including those run by sole practitioners. I used to work as a lawyer in Singapore and that is how the term is used there. If the term is ambiguous, then perhaps we need to find a term that covers both law firms and sole practitioners – "Category:Law practices"? Or should there be a separate category for sole practitioners?
  • As Infrogmation has pointed out, there are large international law firms that have offices in many cities around the world. I guess that means we need to have categories such as "Category:Law firms in Brasilia" and "Category:Law firms in Singapore" for images of those international offices. However, do we also need to have categories for the head offices of such firms such as "Category:Law firms of Singapore"? In other words, images of the head office of the firm of Doe & Roe which originated in New York would be placed in "Category:Law firms of New York", and images of the firm's offices in Singapore would be placed in "Category:Law firms in Singapore".

— Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:08, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

If "firm" doesn't just mean company in British English (which I find surprising), what do you call a company of lawyers practicing law, in contrast to just one lawyer conducting the practice of law? Though maybe as pluralized "law practices" won't be ambiguous on that point? Postdlf (talk) 16:46, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you – according to the OED, firm can mean "[t]he 'style' or name under which the business of a commercial house is transacted" and "[a] partnership of two or more persons for carrying on a business; a commercial house". However, the fact is that the term law firm is sometimes used (perhaps loosely) to refer to all kinds of law practices, including sole practitioners. Indeed, in Singapore it is not uncommon to find sole practitioners practising under a name such as "Doe & Co" or "Roe & Partners" even though there are no other partners. Perhaps it is best to rename "Category:Law firms" as "Category:Law practices". I don't think it is a good idea to put images of sole practitioners' practices in "Category:Law offices" if we are using that category for images of buildings and offices, as that may be confusing. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:21, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Confused on your last sentence: why not? If a sole practitioner's practice has a specific building, isn't that his office as much as it would be if he had a partner? Nyttend (talk) 18:30, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't a distinction be made between a sole practitioner's business and his or her place of work, in the same way that some editors are drawing a distinction between "law firms" and "law offices"? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:35, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I say yes on the surface level of your question, but I don't understand your point: how does it matter (for the purpose of categorisation) how many lawyers work in an office? Nyttend (talk) 00:34, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Never mind, I just realised what you meant. Nyttend (talk) 00:35, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

A solo practitioner's business is, by definition, one lawyer (and maybe some support staff, but I doubt we'd have images of those). So yes, we would categorize a picture of a lawyer differently than we would a picture of the office where that lawyer works. Postdlf (talk) 02:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal

Just wondering if we have consensus on the following:

• Retaining "Category:Law offices" for the buildings and offices occupied by lawyers.
  • Creating subcategories in the format "Category:Law offices in the United States" for offices that are located in the named city or country, whether or not they originated from there (i.e., including branches of international firms).
• Renaming "Category:Law firms" as "Category:Law practices" for both law firms and sole practitioners.
  • Creating subcategories in the format "Category:Law practices from the United States" or "Category:Law practices of the United States" for law practices originating from the named city or country.

— Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Etchings of Moses

This category is incorrectly named. None of the images appear to be etchings; most look like engravings; a few are woodcuts. A better name would be "Prints of Moses". Ecphora (talk) 03:36, 22 November 2009 (UTC) (Transferred from Commons:Categories for discussion/2009/11/Category:Michigan State University alumni--Diwas (talk) 12:30, 23 November 2009 (UTC))

[edit] Category:Living people

Reasons for discussion request --Nilfanion (talk) 12:54, 23 November 2009 (UTC) I just removed {{OverPopCat}} from this category. As I understand it the entire purpose of the category is to monitor RC on pages, so diffusion is self-defeating. Commons is different from Wikipedia - as we don't have biographies - but we can still get libellous comments here. That suggests that all files, categories and galleries relating to living people should be included in some manner. That is clearly not the case at present (Andre Agassi and File:Agassi-Auopen2005.jpg) are examples.

I can think of a few questions here:

1. Do we even need this category on Commons?
2. If we do, which of the 3 content namespaces (file, gallery, category) do we need to include?
3. How should we do this? It might make sense to split out Category:Images of living people for example?

Obviously we should get some sort of consensus before acting, as it is vastly underpopulated compared to the comparable categories on the Wikipedias and will take a lot of time and effort to populate. (Moved from AN at request of Docu)--Nilfanion (talk) 02:16, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

With reference to your three questions above:

(1). It might be useful, but I think People by alphabet is more important for Commons.

(2). I think it should be limited to categories (possibly galleries, if there is no category named after the individual)

(3). An easy way to maintain it, would be to request EuseBot to sync it with en.wp. This would make it fairly low maintenance.

-- User:Docu at 13:04, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

As a content category, agree with you, and the by alphabet cat does that role better for the most part. That said the by alphabet doesn't make a distinction between living and dead people so there is a difference. The thing is on en.wp the whole point of this category is as a maintenance category not a content one. I'm not sure if we need it in that role here and that's the big question to my mind. Personally, I'm not sure about its utility here - and it needs work whichever way we go (to clean it up or add a load of stuff to it)--Nilfanion (talk) 13:23, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

1. I'm not sure what the workflow is for the corresponding category at the English Wikipedia, but I think in order to make use of it, one would need bots to monitor (a) when content is added to or removed from the category and (b) when content in the category is otherwise changed, with this monitoring resulting in a summary of changes requiring review by trusted human users. Considering we don't have cascading watchlisting, I don't see how the category would otherwise aid in giving living people priority in reviewing edits. Or am I misunderstanding the purpose of the category?
2. One possibility, as you suggest in (3), is to have separate categories for Category:Gallery pages of living people, Category:Categories of living people and Category:Media files of living people.
3. One question I'd like to raise is whether we want to include files featuring non-notable living people (such as photos featuring identifiable but unnamed passers-by in a street scene). —LX (talk, contribs) 19:30, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

In response the the first point, the reason for the set up on en.wp is that w:Special:RecentChangesLinked/Category:Living people functions as a watchlist. I believe (but am not sure) that there are IRC bots that monitor that feed. It might be worth coordination with en on this - as it would give us a much larger pool of people to monitor BLP issues (and problems here will show through on WP).

It would probably be worth monitoring every identifiable image like you raised. If you have a picture of an identifiable non-notable person on a street corner and someone changes the caption to say "prostitute", that's a problem. The en.wp BLP policy is inherently about identified people as opposed to identifiable, but due to our different scope perhaps we should monitor anything that is eligible for {{personality rights}} tagging.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:40, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Comment for those people who work mainly on Commons, and may not know, the foundation has written about what they expect projects to do with regard to matters that deal with living people, and there's also this on Meta. Just wanted to provide those links. As far as the discussion about the category here, I don't know what we should do, but some action should be taken. It's far too unorganized. Killiondude (talk) 07:53, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

 Comment: I think for images we should just tag them with {{personality rights}} and patrol the category. Sure, not everything is tagged with this template, but creating other progresses is much more complicated than to use existing ones. --The Evil IP address (talk) 15:19, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Jurists

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word jurist can mean:

• "One who practises in law; a lawyer".
• "[A] judge".
• "One who professes or treats of law; one versed in the science of law; a legal writer".
• "In the Universities: A student of law, or one who takes a degree in law".

Given the potential for the term to be misunderstood, I propose that "Category:Jurists" be merged into "Category:Legal scholars". It appears that most of the content of "Category:Jurists" relates to legal scholars. In any case, we should not have both "Category:Jurists" and "Category:Legal scholars".

Content relating to lawyers should be placed in "Category:Lawyers" and to judges in "Category:Judges". It should not be put into "Category:Jurists".

If the proposal is accepted, the following subcategories will also require renaming:

• Category:Jurists by country → Category:Legal scholars by country
• Category:Jurists by faith → Category:Legal scholars by faith

— Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 13:04, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

• Agreed. In the US, I see "jurist" in headlines and in articles or speeches with a bunch of other "75-cent words." I also suggest that some descriptive statement be placed at the beginning of each of the categories. Estillbham (talk) 15:00, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

• On the English Wikipedia, we use jurist categories just as a general parent category for all legal professions, grouping together specific subcategories for lawyers, judges, legal scholars and professors, and legal writers. Why shouldn't that be done here as well? It certainly isn't synonymous with just "legal scholar," so if these categories need cleaning up, renaming it in that manner is not the solution. Postdlf (talk) 16:24, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: I guess that's possible. However, it seems a bit unnecessary to have an overarching category called "Category:Jurists" with "Category:Judges", "Category:Lawyers" and "Category:Legal scholars" as subcategories of it, as these three can simply be subcategories of "Category:Law" (which is the case now). I appreciate that "legal scholar" is only one of the possible meanings of jurist. However, at present it seems that most editors seem to be treating the two terms as synonymous, and this is undesirable as there shouldn't be two categories covering the same subject matter. I feel the most appropriate solution is just to delete "Category:Jurists" because of its ambiguity and distribute its contents among "Category:Judges", "Category:Lawyers" and "Category:Legal scholars", as appropriate. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:10, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Let's see some further discussion on whether it's helpful as a grouping category. And I suspect it might be the best term for some historical/ancient figures that are known as codifiers or law-givers (or "legal philosophers"), but who weren't legal scholars or judges per se. Postdlf (talk) 22:43, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
    • Comment: That's a good point. How do you think we should define "Category:Jurists" and "Category:Legal scholars" to make this distinction clear? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:12, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Admin reviewed Flickr images

Misleading name. The files aren't solely reviewed by admins, but by other users as well. I'd propose to rename the category to "Reviewed Flickr images", which is more accurate. --The Evil IP address (talk) 16:52, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Yep! --MGA73 (talk) 11:16, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

How about "Reviewed files from Flickr"? This would match "Category:Files from Flickr" -- User:Docu at 11:19, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure, as long as the term "admin" isn't used. --The Evil IP address (talk) 17:20, 25 November 2009 (UTC)