Commons:Categories for discussion/2009

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October 2009 [edit]

Category:Railway lines [edit]

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:
Forch - Forchbahn IMG 3909.jpg Jona (SG) - Blumenau IMG 1838.JPG Jona (SG) - Blumenau IMG 1835.JPG Zürich - Affoltern IMG 3882.JPG Zürich - Affoltern IMG 3880.JPG Kempraten - Ansicht von Süden.jpg
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)
I would support the original proposal to merge the categories. Both are describing the same thing - all the images which are now categorised under "railway lines" also come within "rail track"; if there is a need for a category just showing close-up images of railway infrastructure, then it should be created for the infrastructure in question. There is no need for categories for every country and in fact it is more helpful from a categorisation point of view if each section of rail track (Linie) can be assigned to a particular route (Strecke), rather than being all put together as photos of lines (Gleise). Ravenseft (talk) 15:41, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
Sorry but you mix up the German terms. Eisenbahnlinie is not a synonym to the English word railway line. In terms of infrastructure we only speak about Eisenbahnstrecke and that would be Category:Railway lines which should be geographically divided. Ãnd the Category:Rail tracks should contain pictures that show details of rail tracks de:Gleis and these can be very different among several countries. If you put them all together in the same global category you will never again find anything. But building up specific sub-categories like Category:Gauntlet track or Category:Rack railway points is a good idea. But somebody would have to sort out several hundreds of pictures and have to find good enough sub-categories to avoid that one category has more than about one hundred pictures. Not an easy task!-- Gürbetaler (talk) 22:23, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
That's a good point, and we need to make sure that only de:Gleis are found in the Rail tracks category. The best way to do that would be to create sub-categories for the different infrastructure. Yes, this will not be an easy task, but it would be best to start now rather than allow more and more non-rail track images be put into this category. We don't need to divide between countries at the beginning and we don't need to sort everything straightaway, this can be done over time. In my categorisations for the UK, I have found not so many images which would come into this category. Ravenseft (talk) 13:15, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Given a category like Category:Midland Main Line, should there be a subcategory Category:Track of the Midland Main Line that includes any photo that shows the actual track? I don't see that it matters whether an image is close-up or not, if it shows a track it seems to be in scope for both the lines and tracks categories. Personally I don't think the two category trees are needed in practice: if you want to find photos of track, it's not hard to find them in the "lines" categories. If it's supposed to be easy to find particular types of track, it would be easier to create a category "Lines using track type X" and add the relevant lines categories to that (or entire country categories, if they all use the same type of track.) ghouston (talk) 02:35, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

November 2009 [edit]

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

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.: [1]). --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)
  • Rename to category:Northern Allience. Reasons: 1)Keep it simple. 2)Do not create complex neologisms unnecessarily. "Northern Alliance" is what it is widely and commonly known as in English, and other things called "Northern Alliance" are unlikely to generate confusion. It may well be officially called "United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan", but I doubt it is called "United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan (Northern Alliance)" nor "Northern Alliance (United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan)". Such compound phrases with parenthesis not in common use outside of Wikimedia should not be created unless actually necessary to disambiguate. -- Infrogmation (talk) 00:31, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Symbol oppose vote.svg Oppose Northern Alliance can be anything (see en:Northern Alliance (disambiguation)), "Northern Alliance, Afghanistan" seems acceptable. This is not en:wikipedia, see COM:CAT basic rule: "The category name would be enough to guess the subject" which is clearly not the case, except for countries that are intensively involved in the Afghan war. --Foroa (talk) 19:34, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
    • Sorry, would it be possible for you to rephrase your position? I am afraid I find your last sentence, "which is clearly not the case, except for countries that are intensively involved in the Afghan war..." unclear. WRT to en:Northern Alliance (disambiguation), I suggested above that all the other organizations listed there are also-rans, non-entities, worthy of a footnote, at best. I'd be very interested in your counter-point to this point. Geo Swan (talk) 23:00, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
Till a couple of years ago, Northern Alliance could mean anything as can be seen in en:Northern Alliance (disambiguation) and when looking here, on the en:wikipedia, Northern alliance is very much present apart from Afghanistan. Moreover, it is perfectly possible that in other languages like Chinese, Arabic, Russian, they have items that will translate in Northern Alliance. For example in Italy, this would create confusion as it would in Germany de:Nordallianz.
Since a couple of years, the war in Afghanistan becomes more and more in the news headlines and slowly, Northern Alliance became a popular shortname for "United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan", especially in the countries that are heavily involved in the war. But that is not necessarily the same wording or name that will appear in Russia, China, Japan or in countries that have nothing to do with that war. It is possible for example that in a couple of years, a war or political party develops around Russia that have their own "Northern Alliance" involved. On Commons, we cannot afford to state that other items are "also-rans, non-entities, worthy of a footnote, at best" because we have to make a classification system for the whole world, not a system that provides the best possible hitrate when entering some vague name that is very much present in the current headlines but might disappear in a couple of years. So, we avoid a lot of confusion and mistakes by using a disambiguation term such as in "Northern Alliance, Afghanistan". --Foroa (talk) 19:41, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
For completeness, When I see the term "Northern Alliance", for some reasons, I think in the first place on en:Lega Nord --Foroa (talk) 22:18, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
Where could you find your cited basic rule, "The category name would be enough to guess the subject"? I can't find that in the guidelines.
First paragraph in COM:CAT --Foroa (talk) 22:18, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
Considering this rule, your statement sounds logical. So which name should we use?
  1. Northern Alliance (United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan)
  2. Northern Alliance, Afghanistan
  3. United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan (Northern Alliance)
  4.  ?
I suggest to use #1. I don't want to keep the current name, because the term "Northern Alliance" is more commonly used. --Zaccarias (talk) 20:46, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
Any other opinions? If nobody comes up with something different here within the next week, I will move it to Category:Northern Alliance (United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan) and close the discussion here. --Zaccarias (talk) 23:15, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Afghan Northern Alliance is more widely used and I think that's much better and easy to find.--Officer (talk) 14:14, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
On commons, we are not using terms that start with the country name, as "Afghan ...", Standard notician for disambiguation is "xxx, place". --Foroa (talk) 21:41, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
Category:Northern Alliance (Afghanistan) is a group of warlords and Category:United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan is the name of a political party which was formed sometime around 2007.--Officer (talk) 07:03, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
Good point. Then break into 2 cats, which looks like this has been done. FieldMarine (talk) 14:33, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Category:Royalty of Sweden [edit]

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))

Go ahead and post a list here if you can. Or explain what you are looking for somehow. Wknight94 talk 12:08, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Thank you so much! I hope to get to this soon. Y t SergeWoodzing (talk) 23:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about the delay with this. Here is a suggested list, only for the existing subcategories to "Monarchs of Sweden" to begin with. Category names in italics would be unchanged in this system. Comments are also in italics.

  • Adolph Frederick (Swedish king) – most common English exonyms
  • Albert (Swedish king) – main claim to fame
  • Anwynd James of Sweden (Anund Jakob)
  • Birger (Swedish king)
  • Canute I of Sweden (Knut Eriksson)
  • Canute II of Sweden (Knut Långe)
  • Carl I of Sweden (Karl Sverkersson)
  • Carl II of Sweden (Karl Knutsson) – Charles obsolete English for Swedish royalty since 1973
  • Carl IX of Sweden
  • Carl X Gustav of Sweden
  • Carl XI of Sweden
  • Carl XII of Sweden
  • Carl XIII (Swedish and Norwegian king)
  • Carl XIV John (Swedish and Norwegian king)
  • Carl XV (Swedish and Norwegian king)
  • Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden
  • Christian I (Scandinavian king) - Scandinavian = of Denmark, Norway and Sweden
  • Christian II (Scandinavian king)
  • Christina (Swedish queen regnant)
  • Christopher III (Scandinavian king)
  • Eric (V) the Victorious (Swedish king)
  • Eric (VIII) Goodyear (Swedish legendary king)
  • Eric (IX) of Sweden (Erik den Helige)
  • Eric (X) of Sweden (Erik Knutsson)
  • Eric (XI) of Sweden (Erik Eriksson)
  • Eric (XII) of Sweden (Erik Magnusson)
  • Eric of Pomerania (Scandinavian king)
  • Eric XIV of Sweden
  • Frederick (Swedish king)
  • Gustav I of Sweden
  • Gustav II Adolph of Sweden – most common English exonym
  • Gustav III of Sweden
  • Gustav IV Adolph of Sweden – English exonyms
  • Gustaf V of Sweden – legal spelling since 1900
  • Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden
  • Hacon Red of Sweden (Håkan Röde)
  • Hacon VI (Swedish and Norwegian king)
  • Ingi the Elder of Sweden (Inge Stenkilsson)
  • Ingi the Younger of Sweden (Inge Hallstensson)
  • Ingiburga (Ingeborg Håkansdotter)
  • John (Scandinavian king)
  • John III of Sweden
  • Magnus I of Sweden (Magnus Nilsson)
  • Magnus II of Sweden (Magnus Henriksson)
  • Magnus III of Sweden (Magnus Ladulås)
  • Magnus IV (Swedish and Norwegian king)
  • Margaret (Scandinavian queen regnant)
  • Olaf Scotking of Sweden (Olov Skötkonung)
  • Oscar I (Swedish and Norwegian king)
  • Oscar II (Swedish and Norwegian king)
  • Regents of Sweden
  • Sigmund III (Polish and Swedish king) – English exonym for Polish Zygmunt
  • Sweartgar I of Sweden (Sverker)
  • Ulrica Eleanor (Swedish queen regnant) – English exonyms
  • Waldemar (Swedish king)

SergeWoodzing (talk) 05:03, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Category:Jurists [edit]

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:

— 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)
    • Comment: I'm curious. What's a 75-cent word? A term (ab)used by journalists? — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 16:44, 26 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)

Behalten: Juristen sind alle, die eine grundständige juristische Ausbildung erahlten haben (in Deutschland z.B. mindestens Referendarexamen). Diese Kategorie kann man dann nach Tätigkeitsbereich (Rechtsanwalt, Notar, Staatsanwalt, Wirtschaftjurist, Verwaltungsjurist, Rechtswissenschaftler etc.) untergliedern. --Mogelzahn (talk) 08:27, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

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