Category talk:Orders

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This category is a mess. I emptied "Cross orders" because this term means nothing. If "Orders in the shape of a cross" were meant it is a useless categorie because the insignia of more than half of the appr. 2000 orders have this shape.

With more than 200 countries and lots of countries that have dissapeared the only way to categorize is, in my view, the geographic method used on the Dutch Wiki.category Continent > category country > category order.

Example: Order in Europa > Order in France > Legion of Honour.
Or Order in Asia > Order in China > Order in Mansjoekwo > Order of the Pillars of the State.

That leaves room for special categories like Knightly orders, International orders, bogus orders,uniforms and costumes etcetera.

I was shocked to find the Cistertian monks and the Vatican Order of the Golden Spur in the categorie "religious orders", the latter a subcategorie of orders... That is plainly wrong. The Cistertian order is a community of monks, the Order of the Golden Spur is an order of merit. Religious orders should not be a subdivision of orders. Do you agree?

Greetings from the Netherlands, Robert Prummel 00:13, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't agree. Amongst the numberous meanings of the word “order”, I selected:
  1. A group of persons living under a religious rule: Order of Saint Benedict.
  2. An organization of people united by a common fraternal bond or social aim.
  3. A group of people upon whom a government or sovereign has formally conferred honor for unusual service or merit, entitling them to wear a special insignia: the Order of the Garter.
  4. The insignia worn by such people.
So I don't agree to restrict Category:Orders to the two last meanings. Those are honorific awards, and as they are associated with insignia, they are decorations. Orders which are decorations (w:order (decoration)) can be categorized in the existing structures (Category:Military decorations and Category:Civil decorations). We don't need new structures like “Orders and decorations”. --Juiced lemon 09:22, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment 1: Category:Orders is a generic category and should include all things that relate to orders, including the range of definitions giving by User:Juiced lemon - i.e. anything commonly known as an order, of whatever kind - sub-categories can then distinguish between all the different types and those sub-categories can also be included in other master-categories of relevance to them, to help with location. Remember the Commons has a slightly different category system than the wikipedias. Madmedea 17:21, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment 2: I agree that it is not a good idea to confuse decorations and orders by using them in the titles of the sub-categories - having "and" in a category title doesn't seem like a great idea and I've not seen it very widely used across the Commons.
  • All the symbols/medals/patches/iconography/chains etc of an order can go in that order's category - as essentially they are what make up the visual side of an order (along with recipients).
  • Any other decorations/medals/etc. should go in the Military or Civil decorations categories of the relevant countries (or both if the award overlaps).
I don't see why the orders section should contain images of objects/artwork unrelated to the orders contained within it. At the moment the United Kingdom category has military decorations in it which are not orders. Madmedea 17:15, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've created the standard "by COUNTRY" category for the Orders and categorised all the existing orders by country categories into it. Out of courtesy I haven't deleted "orders and decorations" categories, yet, but as explained above this is not a good category name and non-order bearing decorations are dealt with elsewhere.Madmedea 18:02, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please, don't move files before we agree on a scheme regarding orders (which are not decorations) and decorations. --Juiced lemon 18:40, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't moved them, I've left the existing category scheme in place but put the normal category system in place as well so Robert Prummel can see how the standard category system works. We cannot keep the new system which in effect duplicates all the existing "decorations" categories in Category:Awards and has a bad name.
I've started to think that this may be a problem of translation as it seems perhaps that in Dutch "orders" is the equivalent of "awards", not a specific sub-category of awards as it means to me.19:17, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Categories “Orders in COUNTRY”

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These categories are ambiguous, and their name doesn't comply with Commons:By location category scheme. I suggest to rename them “Orders of knighthood of COUNTRY”. So, we'll create Category:Orders of knighthood and Category:Orders of knighthood by country for current countries.

Example: the contents of Category:Orders in Germany will be moved to Category:Orders of knighthood of Germany (like w:Category:Orders of knighthood of Germany). --Juiced lemon 09:39, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Sounds fine to me. Would help all the people with knighthoods ending up next to King arthur. Madmedea 17:15, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sorry, just had another thought - thinking of the British orders many of them are "knightly orders" but they also have levels of recipients below which individuals do not receive knighthoods. Therefore in the British case I'm not sure pulling out "orders of knighthood" into a new category is useful. But it may be for other countries I'm not sure... it might be an idea to scrap the Category:Knightly Orders completely and put the orders currently in it into their country categories only....Unless we're likely to develop a "types of orders" sub-category of "Orders" it may be overkill at the moment. Just a thought.Madmedea 18:23, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that is a bridge to fat just now but I have been thinking about this as well. In the Dutch language we call the orders of merit "Ridderorden", the knights of Malta c.s. are called "Ridderlijke orden" but this is a kind of order like the rest. It is only in the UK that knighthoods are part of the system.In my country one becomes a knight in an order but not a nobleman. The name of the categorie "Orders" is a problem. Shouldn't it be broader? Not awards because prizes (like nobelprice, Field-medal, Citizen of the year, Mister Leather U.S.A. and things like that ) are not the same. We should define tokens of appriciation and insignia issued by governments, the Cristies and Sothebies call their sales "Sales of orders medals and decorations" this is also the title of a authoritative book by Paul Hieronymussen. The word orders covers both the insignia and the institution. Lemonjuice is right in protesting against it but it is the usual way to talk about them. I allways call the insignia "cross", "badge" or "jewel". But a categorie badges or jewels would be filled with very different photographs...

I like your category "Orders by country", very accesable!

The hundred or so ribbons, batons and samples of ribbons have been stored in "ribbon". It is not an ideal solution. Should we disperse them ?

I propose to study the matter a bit longer. There is no urgency..

Proposal?

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I think there has definitely been a confusion of language - in UK English, an order is a type of award and therefore needs to sit as a sub-category of all "awards" - which includes all kinds of awards, honors, decorations etc. To put it another way, being granted membership of an honorary order is an award.

Therefore Category:Awards is the master level category under which everything can sit. This is the structure roughly as I think it should be - using the UK and France as examples - and is it was before the new categories were created in Category:Orders - which I feel duplicate the existing system and could cause confusion. Remember images and sub-categories can be in more than one higher-level category if they have a multiple identity:

  • Awards
    • Awards by type
      • Civil decorations
        • Civil decorations by country
          • Civil decorations of the United Kingdom
          • Civil decorations of France
      • Military decorations
        • Military decorations by country
          • Military decorations of the United Kingdom
          • Military decorations of France
        • Military decorations of the Soviet Union (a former country)
        • Military decorations of World War I
        • Military decorations of World War II
      • Orders
        • Orders by country
          • Orders of the United Kingdom
          • Orders of France
      • Film awards
      • Sports awards etc.
    • Awards by country
      • Awards of the United Kingdom
        • Civil decorations of the United Kingdom
        • Military decorations of the United Kingdom
        • Orders of the United Kingdom
      • Awards of France
        • Civil decorations of France
        • Military decorations of France
        • Orders of France

N.B.This is just an illustration and is not intended to suggest any limitations!

Is it ok if I redirect the sub-categories of Category:Orders recently created which include the words "orders and decorations" and just "decorations" (as opposed to military or civil) as these are confusing names and duplications of existing categories. I would also ask if we can remove all the continental groupings in Category:Orders as I think this is not necessary at the moment, and the standard Category:Orders by country is more accessible.

I understand the difficulty arises as an order can all at once be 1) an Order 2) a civil decoration and 3) a military decoration. But if this is the case then there is nothing inherently wrong with it appearing in all three relevant sub-categories....so that anyone looking for it will have the best chance of finding it. On the other hand many awards will only be in 1 or 2 of the 3 possibilities!

I hope this explains what I mean... Madmedea 16:20, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In the English Wikipedia, an order is a disambiguation page. An order (decoration) is an award. I suggest that we restrict the present debate to the scope of this last article.
In the French Wikipedia, there is a list of orders, that's a list of decorations with the word “order” in their name. So, we should ask ourselves, what is exactly an order (decoration)? Is it useful to build a new structure for orders (decorations), then they can already be found in the existing structures Category:Military decorations and Category:Civil decorations?
The English Wikipedia uses a structure Category:Order of knighthood for orders like Légion d'honneur, Order of the Garter, or Knights Hospitaller: I don't understand the consistency of this classification, so I'll not recommand it for Commons.
My conclusion: don't create a categorization structure when you cannot define the criteria for an item to belong to this structure. --Juiced lemon 17:35, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Above is basically the existing categorisation structure - minus the "orders and decorations" categories. I was just trying to fit around what was already here, but if we need a more radical rethink maybe "Orders and decorations" should be the master category for all military and civil awards? So...
"Orders" would then not have their own category but be integrated so we wouldn't have the problem of trying to work out the order/decoration definition problem - as the English wikipedia articles suggest. Madmedea 22:02, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Orders and decorations of the Holy See (Vatican City)

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A difficult name. The vatican is a state and the head of state awards his own orders, nobility, decorations and medals. This right is internationally recognised. As a head of the church the pope is an font honoris as well. He appoints citizens of other countries in his orders of merit for their services to the church. The term "Orders of the Holy See" is appropriate and often used here. Citizens in Sweden and New Zealand are not made Knight in the Order of Saint Sylvester because of their sevices to the Vatican. They are rewarded for working in the church in their own country.
Most important is the accesibility. Someone who visits "Orders" will find the word Vatican. In a sense they are international orders as well because the Pope is head of a global body (or should I call him COE of a global enterprise?) Robert Prummel 13:57, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Vatican City" is the name of the country as used on the Commons - see Commons:Territorial division of the World for the official list - and so that should be the name of the country category i.e. Category:Orders of the Vatican City. The category for the order itself needs to be the name of the order so "Category:Order of Saint Gregory the Great" or "Category:Order of the Holy Sepulcher" if that is the case.Madmedea 16:32, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Or as they are tied to the Pope rather than the political entity of the Vatican City, it could be Category:Papal Orders as in the Wikipedia article en:Papal Orders of Chivalry. These could then sit in the main Category:Orders. Madmedea 17:21, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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