Commons talk:Galleries/Archive 1

Great!

Whoever wrote this has read my mind. Or are they a genius, too? Samulili 15:43, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Great minds think alike ;) Rocket000 16:55, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Captions and sections

There should be something about captions and sections too. These are somewhat problematic because each media file can't have a caption in every language, and each heading can only really be written in one language too. Richard001 04:43, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is something that needs to be addressed. I just don't know what a good solution would be. I have seen some galleries that use collapsible divs for the captions that have a lot of translations. It solved that problem of length, but was kinda annoying to have to click on each one to expand it. I have seen some headers that try to accommodate more than one language (e.g. == Header / En-tête / Коллектор ==). But that's not practical. I'm going to have a look around. I'm sure there's some good ideas already out there. Rocket000 16:55, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Categorizing galleries

I'm pretty sure about this, but I wanted to double check.

Let's say I have Category:A with subcategories: B, C, and D. I also have Galleries: B, C, and D (matching letters = same subject) Should these be place in their respective category (e.g. gallery B in category B) or in Category:A? Rocket000 19:36, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

That's an important question, though I'm not sure about the answer (maybe take it up on the 'pump?, you could also have a look around and try to work out what is more common). If we use the latter option, there are twice as many things to look for when browsing ("so there's no category... better check the galleries too"). Richard001 04:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

That depends. If it is a species of a living organism, there should not be a category B actually and the gallery should be categorized to A (the genus), see COM:TOL. If the gallery is of the type "the best of category B", the gallery b should be categorized to B. -- Slaunger (talk) 20:59, 14 June 2008 (UTC). Examples

• The species gallery Saxifraga nivalis (B-gallery) is categorized to Category:Saxifraga (A-cat) in accordance with COM:TOL. And there is no (and should not be any) Category:Saxifraga nivalis. There also exists a genus gallery Saxifraga (A-gallery). If this one was done right, it would be a gallery showing one good example of each species, as this gives a nice idea to what species in this genus look like. In this case it is mostly a set of links, which is unfortunate - and redundant to the galleries, which are already categorized to the parent category.
• The category Category:Pipe organs has quite a few images, a subset is shown in Pipe organ - in this case sub-divided in countries.

-- Slaunger (talk) 21:17, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok. That's what I meant. My hypothetical situation assumes all categories exist already. So it's:

Gallery B → Category B if exists, else → Category B's parent cat (Category A).

Add it's ok if Gallery A and Gallery B share the same Category? Rocket000 (talk) 21:21, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Almost yes, Common(s) sense should still be used. Like, someone has created Category:Saxifraga aizoides (against COM:TOL) while there is also a gallery Saxifraga aizoides (OK). Now, although the category with the same name exists (which it should not), Saxifraga aizoides should still be categorized to its parent category Category:Saxifraga. It is really confusing that there are the species categories, but there is such a large community pressure on requiring an image should be categorized, that it is a general turnoff to go and remove the redundant species categories (and also against the fuzzy mixed system gallery/category vote). As you have have guessed I disagree with quite a few formulations in the current policy proposal. An image should always be properly organized, but that does not necessarily means categorized. -- Slaunger (talk) 21:32, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Not being in a category can only hurt it. How is two ways of finding material worse then one? Galleries and categories should not affect each other. It's same for Wikipedia articles (or any other project's mainspace). Most people assume categories contain all and galleries contain the best or a least a good sample of the selection. It's unreasonable to go with the gallery only view. Why would you want to put 10 nearly identical images in a gallery? Or what if there's 100s of images of one species. You're saying all of those should be in a gallery? That would be a lot of work to maintain if galleries are the only way an image is "organized". On the flip side, not all images should be in galleries (unrelated to being in a category). For example, this doesn't make for a very interesting gallery. (Yes, those are all different :-) 22:19, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'd say if there are houndred images of a species it should all go into one gallery. you just organize the gallery in suitable subsections. You will be very happy about that the day some geneologist finds out it actually belong to another genera and thus needs renaming. now, instaed of changing the categorization of 100 images to the new genus name you just cut and paste the gallery to the new gallery page, modify descriptions in the gallery page, change the categorization to the new genera cat, and create a redirect from the old gallery to the new (as this will now be an official synonym). That saves a lot of work. Renaming of organisms happen frequently these days. Now, if the images are both in the gallery and in a cat you also have to go in on all the image pages to change the cats. That is not something the average maintaining user does. It is a myth that it is tedious to add an image to a gallery. I always start out my plant image pages with an interwiki link to the species gallery from the description. If the link is red I create the page and add the image, if it is blue I open it and add it, not that hard really. If you do the same with a category, you save a step if the category already exists, but if not, you have to open that and associate it with an appropriate parent cat. Quite often contributors just saves the image without checking that the category exists (I have fixed many redlinked species cats). If you add the image to a gallery instead you have to go edit that page and actually create it if it does not exist. (Of course some are too lazy to do that too). -- Slaunger (talk) 22:35, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

A related discussion on living organisms is here. -- Slaunger (talk) 21:27, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

HOWTO?

But how does one create a gallery? Shouldn't this be addressed here too?

SamJohnston (talk) 12:30, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I guess so. There isn't that much to say but I'm sure something could be added. Richard001 (talk) 08:44, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Plural or singular gallery names

Category names are normally supposed to use the plural version of a name. See Commons:Categories#Category_name.

I think that the same should be true for gallery names in order to avoid confusion in gallery naming.

Galleries are not the same as Wikipedia articles. Galleries are compilations of images. Therefore it makes more sense in my opinion to use the plural form of names most of the time for gallery names.

People may want to use inline links for both the singular and plural names. That can be made possible even if the plural name is used for the gallery name. For example:

• graph redirects to graphs

Here is the wikicode for the redirect:

#REDIRECT [[Graphs]]

One can see and edit the wikicode by looking at the history of a redirected page:

• http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Graph&action=history

The same method can be used for seeing the wikicode of redirected Wikipedia articles. It is easier to redirect Wikipedia articles, though, since they have the "move" link at the top of article pages. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:56, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

It depends on the subject quite a bit, but I guess it does make sense to use the plural with words like 'building' etc. (By the way, you might want to sign that comment). What is the current guideline/practice? Richard001 (talk) 23:41, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if there is a guideline currently. --Timeshifter (talk) 00:11, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I removed that line. Rocket000 (talk) 18:24, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Peculiar Overlay on Project Page

There is a peculiar overlay of text over The Call for Participation on the project page, on the right side. This is true in both Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. Am I right? Can anyone help? Davidt8 (talk) 11:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)Davidt8

Yes, seems to be unique to this page. Richard001 (talk) 07:11, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

You mean the shortcuts? They're created by {{Shortcut}} and sometimes get in the way of other things. Rocket000 (talk) 07:33, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

The overlay is not unique to this page. Davidt8 (talk) 14:28, 23 March 2009 (UTC)Davidt8

proposed status

I removed some of the questionable things from this page (like the singular name thing). I also restructured it to make it more of a help page instead of a guideline/policy page (see reason). I'd like to label this as a guideline if we're going to be linking to it in the newarticletext system message. And start the translations up. Any objections? Any issues we need to address first? Rocket000 (talk) 18:45, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if "interwiki" in the introduction shouldn't be replaced by categories (or moved further down in the content). I think interwikis are more important on categories than on galleries. -- User:Docu at 18:53, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Categories definitely belong in the main list (not "other things"). I think I left that out because telling someone how to categorize properly takes quite a lot of instruction (a whole page actually), but I agree we should at least mention that galleries should be categorized. They might get it wrong but it's better than nothing. The main purpose of the extra emphasis on interwikis is due to the common trend of new users to treat Commons as an extension of Wikipedia, and usually the English one. They include links and "see also"s like it was a local page. Or worse, they duplicate all the links in a non-interwiki/side-bar format for some reason (this is slowly getting better, categories are worse, e.g. Category:Astronomy). Rocket000 (talk) 21:17, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I like linking the main subject back to Wikipedia, e.g. as Category:St. Moritz.

At Lake Burley Griffin, I'm not convinced that interwikis and descriptions are really needed (I expanded it some time ago as the lake article is featured at WP and needed illustrations). Category:Lake Burley Griffin has descriptions (in the commons sum-it up format, somewhat shortened though.).

In any case, I think we should link this from MediaWiki:Newarticletext for namespace 0. -- User:Docu at 23:13, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I'll let you know a secret. I personally can't stand descriptions on galleries. For most galleries, you don't need one. The name speaks for itself and any other text should be about the images not the subject in general. BUT I wrote this as a reflection of current practices, while trying to leave out my own biases. I have no problem if you change this. Rocket000 (talk) 06:36, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not too convinced about that, but it seems that I'm visiting mainly galleries with 1-4 images. We could phrase the list more like this one ("should contain the following information (in order of importance)"). -- User:Docu at 02:09, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Which part aren't you convinced of? That I hate descriptions, that most don't need them, or the current wording is it's a reflection of current practices? Rocket000 (talk) 16:25, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

(sorry for the delay in answering this). The part that it reflects current practices to write all these descriptions. It probably depends on the field though. Recently I worked with a series of images of Barcelona. There some galleries are longer than corresponding Wikipedia articles (e.g. Plaça Catalunya (1929 Barcelona Universal Exposition) compared to ca:Plaça_de_Catalunya#Hist.C3.B2ria or en:Plaça_de_Catalunya,_Barcelona#Sculpture). -- User:Docu at 17:52, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

You're right, it completely depends on the purpose of the gallery. I guess I was writing this with general subjects in mind where the descriptions are completely unnecessary in my opinion yet it's very common to see them with some intro text at the top. When I wrote that a "brief description" should be included I was writing with the assumption that people were going to include a description anyway. My point was to say that it should be as brief as possible, not that galleries must have a description at all. Here's an example of text ruining a category (same applies to galleries but I couldn't find a good example right now): Category:Aldous Huxley. Rocket000 (talk) 13:06, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. BTW Huxley might simply be a sample where {{Multilingual description}} could be of use. -- User:Docu at 13:28, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Naming conventions

• Conclusion: the proposal to modify the section was withdrawn by Evrik. -- User:Docu at 15:27, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Singular/plural?

In the recent time, I noted some people who moved galleries from plural to singular. I was just wondering if that's covered by this guideline. In my opinion, Grey-green orthographic projections map instead of Grey-green orthographic projections maps would sound funky. --The Evil IP address (talk) 19:52, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

It used to, until someone pointed out the problem with it. It originally said gallery names should match Wikipedia article names. Usually it's pretty clear if it should be plural or not (like in the case you pointed out), but I haven't worked enough with galleries to come up with some general rules yet (other than the unhelpful "just use common sense and go with what sounds the best"). Rocket000 (talk) 06:50, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Alphabets

« Galleries should be named in language most associated with the subject. This applies to people, places, art, culture, etc. »

What about the alphabet used ? This came up on the french village pump regarding Иван Семёнович Куликов, a gallery about a russian painter. Jean-Fred (talk) 19:10, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Seems perfectly reasonable. Compare, e.g. 胡锦涛. What is odd, is that there is no description in the language of the title. -- User:Docu at 19:16, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I think we should use the alphabet most affiliated to the subject. If we would say "only Latin characters" then this would be unfair for those who don't have them on the keyboard. If someone can't type in the title, then one should create a redirect in English or their preferred language. If they want to link the gallery, they can simply copy paste the gallery title. --The Evil IP address (talk) 19:26, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi, sorry The Evil, I do not agree. If I understand well (sorry for my bad english) an english redirect should go to the russian version? For what reason not from the russian to the english? I do not see any unfairness to the russian speakers on that. Most of the contributers do worldwide their best to contribute in english, willing to make and keep this project coherent for both - contributers and users. I am shure the russian contributers do as well and I think there is no need to make things more complicated that they are. This russian UFO-gallery was lost in space without any category before I created one. I guess that happend because the largest part of the community was unable to read the gallery name. What happens when the maintenance helpers have to handle galleries in at least 3000 different languages spoken in the world? --Bohème (talk) 03:20, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this: "For what reason not from the russian to the english?" --Timeshifter (talk) 21:32, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

 Question Do you know how many people are not contributing to Commons because it's too English for them (see for example this discussion where it's part of a complaint about Commons that it would only be something for people who can speak English; one of the reasons why de.wikipedia doesn't yet have an upload form in the en.wikipedia style) or how often people of the German village pump have difficulties with categorizing because they can't come up with a good English category name. Besides these problems for people who aren't a native speaker of English, there are other problems with English names as well: Many things which don't exist in English language countries don't have an English name, which then leads to self-translated names. The other problem of using English as main language is that as a consequence, fewer redirects will be created from the native title, as the English title suffices. Then the galleries are much more difficult to find. All in all, I believe that making all gallery titles English would lead Commons to much more problems than the current way. The policy to name all categories in English already leads to too many problems and should be deleted. Considering other languages: You can always use Google translations (yeah, it's not perfectly accurate, but enough for a rough translation of what's meant) or the gadget Wiktionary Hover. --The Evil IP address (talk) 00:35, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) So we help the people of one language, and hinder people speaking hundreds of other languages. People can not browse the Commons if it is in hundreds of languages. English is the most universal language, and it gives the best chance of helping the most people. It certainly isn't going to make everybody happy, but it makes the most people happy. And you did not really directly answer the question: "For what reason not from the russian to the english?" For example: Search for Иван Семёнович Куликов from Special:Search

You wrote: "The other problem of using English as main language is that as a consequence, fewer redirects will be created from the native title, as the English title suffices." At some point the English title has to be used for the category. Otherwise the gallery is not categorized. So it sounds like the problem is about teaching people how to create gallery redirects from the gallery page with the native name. Here is the wikitext:

#REDIRECT [[ENGLISH NAME]]

This is not that difficult since the category name is usually known. Mainly it is about teaching people the word "REDIRECT". I understand how difficult it is to read outside one's native language. I have lived outside my native land of the USA. But using hundreds of languages on the Commons only makes the Commons more difficult, not less.

Redirects are the solution. --Timeshifter (talk) 03:50, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I do not think having gallery names in multiple languages causes any substantial problems. It would if we were talking about categories due to the technical differences (category redirects suck and just imagine what our category tree would look like if we mixed all languages together..) Yes, we could easily redirect all other language names to the English one, but I don't see how that makes things any better. As long as the redirects are in place (one way or another), why not try to be a little more multilingual? Rocket000 (talk) 12:29, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

The problem is browsing. Do you know what these are about?: Россия, Ελλάδα, ประเทศไทย, 日本 and 中国. I can try to be as multilingual as possible, but how will that help in the case of browsing hundreds of languages? --Timeshifter (talk) 08:49, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I guess I don't see any problem because I don't browse galleries. Either I see them within a (English) category or via a search. Rocket000 (talk) 09:53, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

When one browses categories one sees the galleries listed too. Sometimes one can correctly guess what the gallery is about by the category it is listed in. Sometimes not. Some categories have more than one gallery listed in them, too. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:26, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Country galleries

Why aren't these country galleries (and others) using English names?: Deutschland, België - Belgique, Sverige, Brasil, Italia, España, Россия, Ελλάδα, ประเทศไทย, 日本 and 中国

Only a few people will figure out what these galleries are about: Россия, Ελλάδα, ประเทศไทย, 日本 and 中国. Redirects from other languages to galleries with English names are a better solution in my opinion.

#REDIRECT [[ENGLISH NAME]]

Many more people will be able to browse the Commons directories and subdirectories and figure out what the galleries are about. Because English is the more universal language. People can use the sidebar search and Special:Search to look for Россия, Ελλάδα, ประเทศไทย, 日本 and 中国. They will see those names in the search results if there are redirect pages.

The Commons is about browsing, and not just searching. English significantly helps browsing. More people will find things when English is used most of the time for titles. I mean, do you want to browse when the gallery names are in many languages?

I think this has become unfortunately a political/nationalist issue. Nationalism causes all kinds of problems on Wikipedia. We don't need this kind of problem on the Commons.

What we really need is to improve the software. Maybe the Mediawiki developers can be encouraged to work more on language options. So that people can easily toggle between languages on the Commons for categories and galleries. In the meantime we should be using English titles for gallery names most of the time.

More Mediawiki developers need to be hired too for many other needed changes too. They are overworked now. I think the Wikimedia Foundation needs to be encouraged to spend more money to hire more Mediawiki developers instead of wasting money on stuff of less importance. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:57, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps part of the problem is that we're operating a picture archive, using software intended for an encyclopedia. Technical improvements that only indirectly benefit the encyclopedias will surely attract less effort than they would in the kind of software other online picture archives use. Jim.henderson (talk) 05:47, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I guess people from the non-English wikipedias need to explain to the Mediawiki developers the importance of these suggested changes to all the Wikipedias. Most of the Mediawiki developers are native English speakers, I believe. So they may not see how important it is to make the Commons more accessible to non-native English speakers. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:18, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

To make the pages easier to read, you might want to convert them to use {{Multilingual description}}. This generally improves the layout of galleries and category descriptions. -- User:Docu at 04:16, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Good tool. Here is the "what links here" link that lists the pages it is used on:

Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Multilingual description --Timeshifter (talk) 09:01, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

@Timeshifter: Keep in mind this page is simply a guideline. The naming convention part is mainly to let new gallery-creators know that languages besides English are fine and "this is how things are". It's not a policy and it's not trying to become one (we would need a lot more input/discussion from the community at large to make this anywhere close to absolute). I like to think that nationalism and/or politics have not played a role. I despise nationalism and tend to prefer usability over accessibility (or in this case liberalism, i.e. "all languages are equal"). I wrote it to reflect common practice as much as I could. There hasn't been a ton of discussion (at least not in the last couple years) over this, so don't go into it like there's all these strong opinions to argue against. We're just trying to figure out what we're doing here. :) Rocket000 (talk) 12:50, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I am not saying you have strong opinions, but after my years of experience on Wikipedia, I believe there are strong opinions about such things.

Is Mediawiki capable of recognizing the language of non-registered users, or what country they reside in? That ability might be used someday by the software to automatically put up category and gallery titles in the majority language of that country.

Commons:Galleries says it is a policy. And the naming section is vague: "Unlike naming categories, where English is almost always used, galleries should be named in language most associated with the subject. This applies to people, places, art, culture, etc. For general subjects and ones not tied to any specific language, the name most likely to be searched for (usually English) should be used. An exception to this rule is the naming of galleries of organisms and subjects where Latin names are considered universal. These follow the same guidelines as categories and should share the same name."

Currently, due to the software limitations, if people want country galleries to be read by the most people, English is the way to go for the gallery title in my opinion. I tried to change a country gallery title to English, and was soon reverted. The reason given was the policy. I read the policy differently than this person did. It could be read both ways. --Timeshifter (talk) 08:51, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's the other purpose for this guideline (it says guideline at the top, not policy). It's to prevent edit-warring over names. If people can't decide what to call a category, just take the advice on this page. I guess this role pushes it towards a policy-like status, but if it's better to have centralized discussion over these things instead every time there's some naming dispute.

Is Mediawiki capable of recognizing the language of non-registered users, or what country they reside in? No, unregistered users always get the English interface (unless they came from a link on a Wikimedia project in a different language). Rocket000 (talk) 10:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I must have been sleepy when I wrote my last comment. It does say guideline, not policy. I really wish Mediawiki developers could develop the software so that it recognizes the country and adapts the language of the category and gallery titles accordingly. I think it could possibly be done. I see web pages now and then that tell one what IP number one is using. That tells the country. I have a free stats addon (addfreestats.com) on a website of mine that tells the IP number, hostname, country, and sometimes the city of the last 500 visitors. I just checked it again to make sure I remembered it correctly, and wasn't sleepy. :) --Timeshifter (talk) 16:22, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I have been told back in September that we sure could do it (mw:Extension:LanguageSelector is for that), but that it is not possible because of cache issues... Jean-Fred (talk) 18:23, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that info. I wonder if mw:Extension:LanguageSelector could be fixed and developed further to work only on the titles of categories/galleries and not the text on the pages. Maybe it could work if simplified for that task only. --Timeshifter (talk) 06:48, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

HOW TO create a gallery page

For those poor newcomers like me, a few words should be included like: Go to Search, put in "(the name of your future gallery page)", then click on the red gallery name, edit the page (marked as gallery page on the very top) by putting in the gallery tag and the pictures. Then add the category:[[Category:xyz]]. A gallery can have any name, but it is usual to follow the category name. Finally click on the button "Show preview", make final changes, and if you like your work, click on "Save page". --AHert (talk) 20:37, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Agree with this - I was trying to figure out this basic first step, and was happy these instructions were included on the "Discussion" page! Jwild (talk) 20:49, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Most of use come to Commons from Wikipedia, hence are already familiar with the procedures outlined in en:Wikipedia:Your_first_article#How_to_create_a_page. Yes, a sentence or two should be added in this gallery guide, for those who come direct to Commons. Jim.henderson (talk) 15:28, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

So, with minor changes and additions, I pasted your recommended text into the page. Perhaps others will find ways to improve it. Jim.henderson (talk) 14:57, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

A single image on a page is not a gallery.

Resolved

I have a problem with this statement. Say that an image is promoted as Commons:Valued images in a scope corresponding to a category for which there is no gallery. Now, I would like to highlight that photo for image repository users. The simplest thing would be to make a gallery in the category and tag that with {{VI-tiny}} ( ). But that is not accepted practise (albeit I do not understand why). The alternative is then to create a gallery page to highlight this content. And the highlighted content is only this image (and it is the most relevant to see). But that is not allowed according to this guideline. Now, all this redundant gallery category stuff is really a symptom of a broken system. (In my opinion the Mediawiki SW should be capable of higlighting content in the categories or make options available for sorting a category according to different criteria (usage, size, featured, view, upload date) but we don't have that). Considering that we have a broken system which we need to implement the best compromise solution on, I really think one-file galleries should be allowed. How else, should we show highlighted content for repository users in cases where only one image is highlighted in a given category? --Slaunger (talk) 22:54, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

See also the related discussions at

• User talk:Slaunger#Not "alone in the scope" any more
• User talk:Rocket000#Interesting idea
• Commons:Village pump/Archive/2012/01#Highlighted content in main category structure
• Commons talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive/2011#GA1. Empty gallery.

--Slaunger (talk) 23:12, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

We must be free to create gallery for even a single image. It's a job that some want to do, do not discourage them. --Archaeodontosaurus (talk) 06:18, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Just add a second picture to get rid of the nitpickers. --Foroa (talk) 09:46, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Surely, You're Joking? It is better to change the guideline to make it explicit that single image galleries of highlighted content (FP, VI or QI) is allowed if it is the only hightlighted media file available in the corresponding category. --Slaunger (talk) 09:51, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Not joking. I remember, during the discussions of deletion edit summary messages. Some people wanted to delete (replace with redirect) galleries whenever it had no additional layout and description texts, even with more than 20 images (some people of TOL and ships, in order to decrease maintenance work). So we landed with a compromise of more than 1 file; result, sometimes I add just a file in single image galleries. --Foroa (talk) 12:33, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I tried to look back in history. The sentence first appeared in 2009 as part of a restructuring edit made by Rocket000. I do not know the objective for adding it at the time, but I will go and ask him. --Slaunger (talk) 09:54, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think this is a well-founded rule. As pointed out above, situations exist where they have merit. I've created single image species galleries. I expect that additional images will be added. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 00:55, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Seconded. I think the rule is somewhat "unwiki". A gallery for which there is reasonable expectation of being expanded in the reasonably near future can be started with just one image. Galleries that are too narrowly defined or where the content is almost impossible to expand should be merged or renamed, but that's not currently in the guideline, and the one-image rule is a poor substitute. Rd232 (talk) 22:51, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

There are several issues here. One that I think you are all ignoring is that ten to twenty new single image galleries are created every day by newbies and vandals -- galleries that are entirely outside of scope, that this rule makes it easy to delete. Without this rule, they would have to go to DRs and we are already falling behind on those.

Second, I, and I think many other Admins, do not apply the rule to single image species galleries -- they have a special place because they will logically get more images as we grow.

I confess I do not understand how a VI can require a single image gallery to show its scope. That seems to me a little like saying that I am the most valued editor on Commons with the Username Jameslwoodward. What is the point of saying that an image is a Valued Image over a scope that includes only itself? It seems to me that the problem here is not the rule against single image galleries, but a rule that allows such VIs.

What does a single image gallery do that the image file itself does not do? Since a gallery is always at thumbnail size, most images will initially display two to three times larger on their own file page than in a gallery. Sure, the gallery is a little prettier, but we are not really in the business of pretty -- we are in the business of creating and maintaining a repository of images.

Finally, my personal belief is that galleries have one important purpose. This is to gather a selection of images the best images on one topic. These are of particular value if the relevant category has many images and when it would be good to have several related categories presented in one place. An example of this is Lighthouses in Maine, which has one image for each lighthouse, taken from about ten different categories. A gallery with only one image does not fit that need.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 00:27, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

"It seems to me that the problem here [is the rule] that allows such VIs" : I do not consider VIs as miss universe election within a category, but as images with a particular value, and being the only image depicting a species seems to give such a value to me. Totodu74 (talk) 11:51, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Let me be clear. I'm fine with saying "This is a valued image", but it seems absurd to me to say "This is a valued image within a scope that includes only this image." That demeans the image -- better to expand the scope. However, as I have made clear, my time on Commons is not spent finding our best images, so I am not qualified to make recommendations on how to manage that effort. I spend my time getting rid of images and pages we do not want, and am, therefore, opposed to allowing single image galleries, except as I noted above.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 14:29, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

@James: Thanks for coming here to comment. Your view is appreciated. I think both worlds can meet, and I also hope I will be able with providing you clearer idea of the objectives, drivers and meaningfulness of the VI project. See my replies below :-)

• I fully understand your objective regarding the fight against vandalism. I am not interested in making any change in the guidelines which makes it harder to fight vandalism. I do think though that some nuances can be put on the "no single image gallery statement", which still allows for speedy deletion of gallery pages made by vandals. For instance,

A single image on a page is not considered a gallery unless it higlights an image which has been elected by the community as either featured picture, quality image, or valued image

• You are (in my opinion) missing a important nuance regarding the VI project. You ask what the point is in electing an image as VI if it is the only image on Commons within a scope? The point is to encourage diversity on Commons. It has greater value for Commons to get a single (reasonably good) photo of an entirely new topic, narrow or not, than YAETI (Yet Another Eiffel Tower Image), not to mention YAPI (guess what P "stands" for :-)). If you want to get a VI of the Eiffel Tower, fine, but very hard to get as there are so many high quality images of it already. But is some user has done an extra effort to show us something new, this should be encouraged. It is not such that any image of some narrow scope can then get the VI tag. No, it has to follow a standard and meet six well defined criteria. That is to assure that if a user opens the file page, he/she can expect a certain level regarding the overall quality, the description, geolocation, categorization, etc. Moreover, if there are a lot of images in a category, it can be hard to see in the small thumbnail view, which images are worthwhile to see. VI/QI/FP tags help in that respect. Now, a lot of users do not need these "rewards" to contribute, but for others, it can be a driver to dig up new stuff (we are all volunteers, and do this in our spare time, so why not make it into a sport, for those who want to?). For instance, we have users, who has uploaded countless high quality studio images from a private collection of rare items. It is my impression that the work used in making all these photos accumulate to very many man hours. It is also my impression that the VI project is one of the drivers for these contributors to invest so many resources in uploading media. Because getting another VI from a new topic is fun and motivating - for some.
• I agree with you that the single image galleries derived from single image categories are kind of silly. But it is the only (alllowed) option we have for highlighting content. In my mind it would be better to simply remove the category from the image(!) and insert a gallery tag in the category page with the VI/QI/FP tag on. For the repository user it would give enhanced browisng experience. But it will break our stupid rule that everything should be categorized (the sensible thing would be to say organized). Moreover, to my knowledge, such galleries on category pages are not accepted. It woud be even bettter if the Mediawiki framwork had the capability of showing the VI/QI/FP icons automatically based on the presence of the template on the corresponding file pages. Much like the FA stars in the interwiki links in the wikipedias. Unfortunately, we do not have that option.
• I agree comletely with you regarding the obvious relevance of having gallery pages for parent categories highlighting the best content from sub-categories, like in your lighthouse example. Another example could be a genus gallery page listing all the best photos of each species in the genus.--Slaunger (talk) 20:39, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

 Comment this is drifting a bit into "what are galleries for" territory. There is currently an RFC on galleries: Commons:Requests for comment/galleries. Rd232 (talk) 23:57, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I would be entirely happy with a slight rewrite:

"Galleries with only a single image are permitted if they highlight an image which has been elected by the community as a featured picture, quality image, or valued image", but see below.

(Again -- my Commons task is getting rid of what we don't want, not encouraging what we do, but...) I think that the principal problem I have with using a single image gallery to define the scope of a VI is that it does not, as you say, highlight the image -- it loses it. We have more than 12 million pages on Commons, growing at around 7,000 a day. Who is going to go to the gallery page that started this discussion? Why will they go there? There is no path to a gallery except through a category. If you want to highlight VIs, then I suggest creating galleries slightly up the category tree, so that they contain maybe ten or twenty VIs, not just one.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 14:00, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

It actually seems like we are pretty aligned on this view. The single image gallery living side-by-side a few-image gallery with no subcategories does not make much sense as hardly noone would navigate to it. That is also why I observe it would make more sense to embed the gallery directly in the category page. Since it only contains a few images, the gallery on top will not disturb browsing the other few images in the category. But if there is only one image in the category, I admit that this distinction does not really make sense. Besides that I agree with you that it is of further benefit to make galleries for overlying parent categories to highlight the good stuff that can be found underneath. However, if they are created from fresh, they will quite often only contain a single image. And that is a relevant stub which can later be expanded. And no I do not think it is the responsibility of the creator to expand it. The creator may simply be doing an administrative task of working on, e.g., our backlog of more than 2000 VIs, which should be considered for tagging in a relevant gallery to highlight it. Very often a VI is the first within some broad topic area, and there are not 5-10 other VIs to accumulate in a gallery. You start out with one, and it can then later be expanded.

Let me give an example. Here is a VI of a prison in Oregon that I recently tagged. I do not know anything about the topic, I was just working on the backlog. At that time the file page was categorized to Category:Buildings in Oregon and Category:Prisons in Oregon. The first thing I did was to create a new category Category:Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution and let that be a subcat toCategory:Prisons in Oregon and Category:Pendleton, Oregon as it happens to be located near that place. I then replaced the original cats on the file with the new cat specific for this prison. I also found another photo of the same prison and changed its categorization accordingly. I then created one of those galleries which neither you nor I like, Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution to make a single image gallery with the VI-tag. Not very useful, and more sensible to place direcly in the category page, but I am unfortunately not allowed to according to current quidelines for categories. Now, further to that, following your line of thought I went to the parent categories. First Category:Prisons in Oregon is really a few-image category with some 17 images. Now there was no Prisons in Oregon gallery page, so I created one and placed the current single VI in it. Unfortunately no other images of prisons in Oregon has been elected VI, so another single image gallery. This one makes perfect sense to me. It is like a stub, which can be expanded later as we get more material in that category, or if others more knowledgeable about the topic area add some more photos to the gallery. Not my responsibility. Same story for the Pendleton, Oregon gallery, which did not exist previously, but which is now a single image gallery "stub". Quite tedious, actually to do, but given the limitations in the Mediawiki framework and our current guidelines the only way to highlight this content in the main category structure. If the Mediawiki software allowed filtering or sorting in categories, or tagging based on the presence of specific templates on file pages all these extra gallery pages would not be needed. It has actually this series of edits which made me realize very clearly that the system is broken, and triggered that I initiated the above-referenced thread on COM:VP. Unfortunately we have to make the best possible out of a broken system and sometimes unfortunate guidelines. --Slaunger (talk) 21:44, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the effort which went into the lengthy explanation for my benefit. I am afraid that I still don't understand why we have two different single image galleries for one VI, but perhaps this is the moment to drop it and move onto other things.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 00:12, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, sorry about my tl;dr post. I have a weakness of not mastering brief and concise comments. Anyway I appreciate that you acknowledge my effort in trying to explain. But lets leave it at that. We have agreed on adding VI/FP/QI exceptions to the statement, and I have modified the policy page accordingly. --Slaunger (talk) 10:24, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with English, so I have not talked so much, but thanks for this move. Totodu74 (talk) 13:28, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Intention

I feel like an explanation is in order regarding my addition of "A single image on a page is not a gallery." First, let me state that I created this page as my proposal for some kind of guidance concerning galleries. It was meant to fall more on the help-page end of the guideline spectrum, not the policy end. At all. As much as I would support a policy banning single image pages (outside of the file namespace), that was not my intent with that single sentence.

I can understand how the language I used was misinterpreted. I wasn't thinking Wikimedia Commons "Gallery" at the time, but "gallery" as in the common sense. Galleries, by definition, contain multiple works (or are expected to eventually). We call our mainspace pages galleries because that's what they're normally used for. That doesn't mean they must never contain 1 (or even 0) images. Just have a reason for doing it. If the community feels that VI designation is a good reason, that's fine. Rocket000 (talk) 03:44, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Gallery linkage

Piggybacking on the above comments, i think we need to set guidelines for how galleries are linked, both from other projects, and within the commons. we have some very high quality galleries, such as London and New York City, which one can only find if you type the search term, or happen to be in the category tree for that specific category. I think large galleries can, and should, be placed in as many categories as people may be likely to want to see them, so that London might be in Category:Cities, Category:Europe, even Category:Tourism. I know this goes against overcategorization rules established here, but those rules NEVER mention galleries, only files. we can modify those rules for galleries. I also like Category:Gallery pages, which never got off the ground. that category tree could work well if used more. I would also like to suggest that there be a review process for rating galleries, similar to Featured Article and Featured Image status. Since this talk page is not seen much, i will mirror these comments elsewhere, when i can figure out the best places.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 17:48, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia links to galleries

In my experience, galleries rarely contain all the best images for a subject, and often times not anything good at all. So I'm puzzled by the fact that the links to Commons from Wikipedia always direct one to the Commons galleries, instead of the categories. I have no problem with galleries, though I personally find no use for them, but is there any good reason why Wikipedia should link to galleries rather than categories? FunkMonk (talk) 14:52, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I had the same concern, that many galleries linked to from WP are horrible, whereas the category tree may be well organized (though some are not, of course). I finally figured out, as you may have, how to solve this:

{{Commons}} links to the gallery of the same name

{{Commons|actual gallery name}} links to the gallery name indicated, which may be different from the article name

{{Commons Category}} links to the CATEGORY of the exact same name as the article

{{Commons Category|actual category name}} links to the category which most closely corresponds to the article, but which has a different name.

hope that helps. I would say that unless the gallery is really comprehensive, change the coding on the WP page to target the category insteadMercurywoodrose (talk) 17:42, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

{{commonscat}} is enough (it's shorter than 'Commons Category') - but please only change commons-links from galleries to categories when necessary (if you worked on a gallery, it's really frustrating to see the link changed - even if it's often only a general change and has nothing to do with your work... ;->). Anna reg (talk) 12:39, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Botanical galleries

Hello,
I wanted to notify some people interested in galleries of the discussion I just started at Commons:Village pump about plant galleries (if they should be strict species galleries or provide an overview of the material about the plant that's available on commons). I'd appreciate comments!
Best wishes, --Anna reg (talk) 23:43, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Category:Categories with a gallery for a better choice of sub-categories

Hi,

People upload their images into categories. But often, it should be better if they uploaded into sub-categories. To avoid crowded categories. But users dont know what sub-categories exist or what sub-category to use.
To help, I add sometimes a gallery in some crowded categories. With an image for each sub-category to use.
I added this type of galleries inside a category into the present article, but it has been reverted.
I have added this in the examples of galleries :
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

• A gallery for a better choice of sub-categories. Example : Category:Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress

The categories with such a gallery are gathered here : Category:Categories with a gallery for a better choice of sub-categories

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other wikipedians added this type of galleries inside a category in the categories they update.
I think that the category with the largest gallery is Category:Eiffel tower (21 sub-categories).
Is the revert appropriate ?--Tangopaso (talk) 11:15, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I confess that I did not understand what you are trying to illustrate with the additions that I reverted. Now I do, thank you.

While I think that the system you show might be a good idea, I see two problems. First, policy on categories says nothing about adding a gallery to a category, see COM:C. It calls for only a "short description". Second, if this is to be allowed, I think the captions in the gallery must exactly match the categories that they are intended to illustrate and that they should be in the same sort order. In all of the half dozen that I have looked at, one or both of these was not true. This very much limits the usefulness and makes the added gallery just clutter.

I also see that there are 59 examples of this system in all of Commons. We have over three million categories and over a hundred thousand galleries (see Commons:Database_reports/Page_count_by_namespace). Even if the system were approved, I don't think something that has only 59 uses deserves any mention on a page that illustrates common practice on Commons.

I suggest that you organize approval of this system before you do anything else. Without that, you run the risk that one of our colleagues will simply remove the galleries for being confusing clutter and outside of policy. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 14:39, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Incidentally, I think that Category:Eiffel Tower is a very poor example of this scheme. There is almost no correspondence between the images in the gallery and the categories available, so that the gallery offers no help at all in picking a subcat for an image. Unless it is promptly cleaned up and made actually useful for the purpose you describe, I will probably remove it. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 14:51, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for answer.

1. Obviously, only the main sub-categories are present in those galleries. For example in Category:Eiffel tower. But it is very useful, because before that, there were dozens (or even hundreds) of images in the main category Eiffel tower. Its stupid, but every month, users upload more and more photos of the Eiffel tower. From all the point of views. Now the gallery help to put the photos in the right sub-category.

2. The order of the categories in the gallery is not the same than in the main category to put in head the most important ones..

3. The names of the sub-categories in the gallery are often shorter than the plain name of the sub-category for a purpose of place below the image. And with the "blue link", you can reach directly the right sub-category..

4. I created this system for categories that I am following, but other wikipedians do the same in their categories. It is "piranha effect", I suppose..

5. These galleries are only useful for crowded categories. Here are examples of crowded categories :.

• Category:White House : 906 images
• Category:Kew Gardens : 696 images
• Category:Golden Gate Bridge : 558 images
• Category:Manhattan, New York City : 409 images
• Category:Consolidated B-24 Liberator : 308 images. In Category:Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress (with gallery), there are only 31.

I think that with a gallery in these categories, these images should be transferred to sub-categories..

6. What do you mean by I suggest that you organize approval of this system. What is the procedure to follow ? As you read, my English is not very fluent..

Best regards. --Tangopaso (talk) 22:24, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Obviously, the gallery is very useful for non-speaking english users. But I don't think we need the category:Categories with a gallery for a better choice of sub-categories.--Paris 16 (talk) 23:23, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Paris 16 in regards to the galleries for non-English speakers. As for the categories grouping the galleries... I'm not sure what is the best choice for them. WhisperToMe (talk) 21:40, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I have put it up for deletion. See Commons:Categories for discussion/2015/01/Category:Categories with a gallery for a better choice of sub-categories. It is probably best to use that as a place for discussion at this stage. Alan Liefting (talk) 04:46, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

нужно редактировать этот текст

Я удивлён - почему никто не отредактировал правила на русском Викискладе? Разве это не важно для нашей работы? Хотя бы стилистически обработать текст! --Rumata10 (talk) 08:39, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Proposed addition

Since this is a guideline, I figured I should come to the talk page rather than just start editing.

I think Commons:Galleries#The benefits of galleries currently omits one of the most important benefits. I'd like to add something to the following effect: "Galleries can include relevant images from subcategories. Commons' rule against over-categorization means that images in a given category should not be in any of its ancestor categories. However, it can be very useful to have them in a gallery corresponding to an ancestor category. For example, a gallery page about a city can show images of the most famous places in the city, even though those famous places each has a category of its own. Similarly, a gallery page can gather together examples of different species of a particular plant genus, to make them easy to compare and contrast."

Any objections? - Jmabel ! talk 05:06, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Proposal to improve navigation from gallery pages to parent categories

Background

I'd like to raise a particular issue with gallery pages which I think gets overlooked: galleries are landing pages. When a user comes to Commons in search of images (usually through a Wikipedia link) they often land on a gallery page instead of the subject category. The same is also true of searching within commons. If I search for "London" I end up on the London gallery page rather than Category:London. While gallery pages offer various advantages, they have the distinct disadvantage that it is not usually obvious that the user can browse deeper into the range of images – the user must scroll down to the bottom of the page to locate the link to the subject category, or open an image and then find the image category hidden at the bottom. This is very poor usability as it requires the user to have a working knowledge of Commons functionality. It is very likely that a first-time user will assume that the images shown in a gallery page are all that is on offer, and fail to explore the category. An example of this is the page for the National Gallery of Art in Washington; it is not at all clear that there are over 1700 images of artworks hidden below this selection, unless the user knows that they must find the category link hidden at the bottom of the page.

A possible solution is demonstrated in the London page – near the top of the page, the {{Maincat}} template is used to point the user up to the parent category thus:

Main category: London

This provides an instant signpost to more content. Additionally, under some headings, the {{see}} or {{Maincat}} templates can provide relevant links to sub-categories to assist the user with wayfinding. Another good example of this is the page devoted to Star Wars.

I would like to propose that these wayfinding templates be recommended, possibly mandated, as a matter of policy for gallery pages. Perhaps a new template could be developed as a gallery page header and automatically applied across the board - its aim would be to make clear to the user that the gallery page is just a selection of highlights, and for a wider selection of images, they should delve into the category taxonomy.

Does this seem like a fair idea? Cnbrb (talk) 16:37, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

In my opinion - you are absolutely right! I'm also interested of creating of Gallery Pages - so good as possible and encourage users to browse more, all what is available in all concerning categories. Probably I found the best and easy configurable solution: {{for2}} and use it on Raspberry Pi gallery. Many great examples and inspirations can be found e.g. at User:Nilfanion/Galleries, also at Commons:Galleries of course. --Jasc PL (talk) 19:07, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you Jasc PL! Very interesting comparisons. Cnbrb (talk) 10:06, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Proposal

So I propose a couple of changes. First, a new template, provisionally called {{gallery page}} (not created yet). It could look something like this:

Shotwell logo

This is a gallery page containing specially selected images. They have been chosen as highlights of a particular topic, but do not represent the full range of images that are available on Commons. For a wider selection of images connected with this subject, see Category: CategoryName

Secondly, an addition to this policy page: Under Starting a gallery, after the Categories section, I suggest we add the following wording:

Category Linking

A gallery page is often the first place a user arrives at a subject, for example when they search on Commons. Therefore it is important to make it clear to the user that the gallery only contains a small selection of images, and that more images are available. It is recommended to add the template {{gallery page}} at the top of a gallery page to make it easy for the user to understand this difference, and to provide a link up to the parent category.

Additionally, if your gallery page is split up under subheadings, users may benefit from links to relevant subcategories. If an appropriate subcategory exists, add the template {{maincat}} under a subheading to provide a relevant link.

For example, If you have a gallery page about London, and a subsection about Big Ben, add {{gallery page|London}} to the top of the page and {{maincat|Big Ben}} under the subheading.

Not all subheadings have corresponding categories, so you do not have to use this template if an appropriate subcategory does not exist.

Comments

• Strong  Support I personally prefer for any page that is not filled with a gallery to link to a category e.g. "XXX" redirects to "Category:XXX" and where galeries exist they should immediately link to the relevant categories, not force us to scroll to the bottom of the page to find the category. This proposed template would immediately solve this issue. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (Talk 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 13:06, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Gallery pages are not allowed to redirect to categories. Such a cross namespace redirect is an official reason for speedy deletion. A link to a gallery page should be red if the gallery does not exist. Jcb (talk) 23:14, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
• User:Cnbrb You have also my  Support of course - I'm fitting in with above arguments. I see, you are doing a very good work! --Jasc PL (talk) 13:43, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
•  Support: Ideally, the namespace would be deleted after the contents of the the very few sensible galleries is moved to categories; this seems to be a step in that direction, and it’s eitherway a good idea. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 22:53, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
•  Support Seems good. I had created some galleries which follows most of this proposal, including links to categories in all sub-heads. And those galleries are only to display the best photos to describe the subject in each sections. Jee 05:51, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Beautiful gallery and many of your hard work @Jkadavoor, but isn't it to big / so long; near 1000 images on the one page? Maybe better idea would be to keep main gallery and 6 subgalleries? --Jasc PL (talk) 14:04, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Off course; they can be split if difficult to load. The Birds of Kerala gallery is a bit difficult to load; but all other fauna galleries I created so far works well. BTW, I have no problem if some one make changes on them. The goal is to give people an easier way to identify their photos without browsing through so many pages. Jee 14:13, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Ooppsss... Jkadavoor. "Butterflies of Kerala" was any problem - for me. "Birds of Kerala" is beautiful too, probably, i don't know :) - I must close its tab due to some "Page is not responding" errors. In my opinion, there are some serious problems we all must resolve by creating a big gallery pages:

• Technical: there are billions of people, not only from poorest countries, they use older computers with weaker CPU, small amount of RAM and older browsers - they should't be excluded from using Wikimedia resources due to their equipment.
• (so called) Usability: in this example - how to fast end easy find something on the page that have a TOC that's many screens scrolling long? Also navigation on pages like that is significantly straitened. However, you excellent linked the page content to other resources.

It's not simply my criticism of your work - only some insights based on my "technical" point of view and experiences by web pages design.
Greetings, --Jasc PL (talk) 15:26, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

I understand. But we've many heavily loaded galleries. We can't avoid them for the sake of some users. I too avoid visiting them when in a weak resource. Other times, I enjoy them! :) Jee 15:40, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

This example has any problems with loading, displaying or editing (having an appropriate amount of code the browser must render to display content). Some issues with page design, but who care about it if a page have so beautiful content! :) --Jasc PL (talk) 16:21, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

@Tuválkin: Am I missing something? Is there a proposal here to get rid of galleries entirely? If so, I oppose that strongly. While galleries have been underused, the best of them are very worth having, and categories are no substitute. A couple of examples, from among my own work: Romanian Orthodox churches in Bucharest, Seattle and the Orient. There is absolutely no way that categories can serve an equivalent purpose. - Jmabel ! talk 16:10, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Strong  Support - for:

• consciously created galleries having the best examples of category content - and/or
• galleries including all (with the reasonable amount) content of category/s - with valuable descriptions, helpful links etc.
  --Jasc PL (talk) 16:35, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

•  Support. This exact issue is why I so rarely create galleries—I'm always worried that I'm making things harder to find rather than easier if the gallery is anything less than perfect. –IagoQnsi (talk) 15:35, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
•  Support excellent idea, imho. --El Grafo (talk) 12:48, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks for the input everyone. The template {{gallery page}} is now available to add to your commons pages.

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

User galleries

Just curious but are galleries from categories of Wikimedia photographers considered to be "regular galeries" or "user galeries"? ---Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 20:14, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

• In general, if you have a gallery of your own work, it belongs in "user space" (e.g. User:Jmabel/People). - Jmabel ! talk 22:45, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

For some reason this didn't get automatically archived

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Wide support for proposal to update the Commons:Galleries policy as proposed. The template {{gallery page}} is now available to add to commons pages, and proposed text will be added to the policy page. Cnbrb (talk) 16:04, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

---

Quite a few things here I'd like to change

There are quite a few things I'd like to change here, and I wondered if there would be objection to my having a serious go at this. The following list is not comprehensive, it's just what struck me offhand.

1. There seems to be an implication here that a gallery page will have a single pair of <gallery></gallery> tags; for the good ones that is almost never the case.
2. There is no mention of <gallery></gallery> tags being adjustable with things like mode="packed", which are generally better for this sort of thing, nor for the use of {{Wide image}}.
3. There is no discussion of the value of using a gallery on a moderately high-level category to embrace images from a variety of lower-level categories: e.g. different species within a genus or varieties within a species, different churches within a city, different people who have held the same office.
4. Almost nothing that is stated here is fleshed out with examples.
5. There is no discussion here of using galleries as an internal tool, to aid visual identification of future images (species within a genus or varieties within a species are a good example here).

I could just "be bold," but I don't want to put serious time into this just to be reverted, and I know that guidelines should not be edited casually. Jmabel ! talk 16:10, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Makes sense to me, I have no objections. Jcb (talk) 19:40, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Interwiki links?

Isn't this largely supplanted by Wikidata items as a means of linking to Wikipedia articles? - Jmabel ! talk 03:08, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Changes to this page

See this discussion. Synthwave.94 (talk) 13:19, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Add always a "Gallery" category

I would like to add to point 4. (about categories) that a gallery page should have at least two categories:

1. A "normal" category: one with the same name or another relevant category, as it already says.
2. A "Gallery" category, one from Category:Gallery pages or it's subcategories. Too often I miss this one at gallery pages. Mention it on this Help page might prevent it.

JopkeB (talk) 03:15, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Issue with headers in gallery TOC

Seems like this gallery uses some way of showing translated versions of the headers depending on which ?uselang= is set: Deutschland

The headers display fine in the gallery itself but are bugged in the TOC. Why is that / how can this be fixed – is there some issue about this? (I don't think galleries are very useful, e.g. even large ones are barely viewed or well-populated, but as long as they are used and displayed in search results, they should work properly.)
(Archived before solution & 0 replies) Prototyperspective (talk) 23:00, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

This discussion of one or several categories is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive.

Proposal to add always a Gallery category to a gallery page

Proposal: change 4. Categories

Current text: "Every gallery should be categorized. Add the gallery to the category with the same name, or if there is none, to relevant categories (see Commons:Categories)."

Change to: "Every gallery should be categorized. Add the gallery to at least two categories:

1. with the same name, or if there is none, to relevant categories (see Commons:Categories)

2. at least one subcategory of Category:Gallery pages."

Reason/problem: There are a lot of gallery pages without such a gallery category, it would not surprise me when there are more than a thousand. That makes it hard to find them if you do not know the exact name or when you just want to browse gallery pages. JopkeB (talk) 15:24, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

 Support — I also face problems finding gallery pages related to India due to the lack of dedicated gallery categories. I always try to categorize existing gallery pages to dedicated categories. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 16:48, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

 Support - Jmabel ! talk 18:10, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

 Support as a general guideline of a desirable target,  Oppose if that means that all gallery pages must be reviewed by someone, or that some galleries could be deleted because of lacking a subcategory of "Gallery pages". MGeog2022 (talk) 18:11, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Clearly the remedy for lacking an appropriate parent category is not deletion, it is adding the parent category. - Jmabel ! talk 19:07, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

OK, this makes sense. As it is only a guideline (should),  Support. MGeog2022 (talk) 12:16, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

 Support This is a guideline. There usually aren't consequences for not following guidelines. Except that someone will hopefully fix the issue based on the guidance in it. --Adamant1 (talk) 02:57, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

 Oppose Many gallery pages are low-quality. They should not be added to the corresponding category. It is good that many galleries do not have the corresponding category set. They often have just a handful of images, are outdated by decades, are unmaintained, usually created and edited by just one editor, and feature often arbitrary images while hiding the media that is in the category page. However,  Support for the requirement of all galleries to be in a Gallery pages category. Prototyperspective (talk) 22:58, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

"gallery pages [of] low-quality ... should not be added to the corresponding category." But that is a rule that have been established many years ago, ever since the version of 28 jul 2009 21:04 (under Other things to include). So that is not the question here. If you want that to be changed, then please start a separate discussion. JopkeB (talk) 02:12, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense anyway. How are people suppose to improve galleries if they can't find them to begin with because they aren't categorized? A better solution would be to come up with some kind of way to evaluate galleries based on their quality and ability to be improved and then create maintenance categories or something based on that. Excluding them from main categories for galleries doesn't make sense though. It's not like we do that with anything else. --Adamant1 (talk) 05:17, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

When it comes to anything else, those things are usually put into subcategories, not very prominently as the only page in a category as large as Animals or Health care etc. Moreover, people can find them in the search where they always show up but I wouldn't have a problem with them being in a subcategory of a large cat...however if that subcat only contains one page some category for galleries shouldn't be sorted to be at the top of the cat. Prototyperspective (talk) 09:21, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

People can find them in the search It really depends since you have to know what to look for and galleries don't always have the same name as the category. So it's not that sure of a thing that someone will be able to find one that way. --Adamant1 (talk) 09:40, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I meant they can find them enough for the gallery to get improved up to state where it becomes relevant for the page. I could make a hundred gallery pages each with one random image about the subject for all of the largest categories. If they are about the same subject or contain text about it they show up way too far up and near/at the top of "Categories and Pages" so if you search for animals and then click on that, a gallery named like it would should show up even if it contains just one image added by one editor one decade ago. The main point however was that those things are usually put into subcategories, not very prominently. Instead of doing things about galleries, I think category page need to be improved so that e.g. people can use them to browse most relevant most high-quality files about the subject rather than going to a gallery page and the file-titles should describe the contents at least as well as any captions on a gallery page. Prototyperspective (talk) 09:48, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Instead of doing things about galleries, I think category page need to be improved. I have complaints about how categories work myself but they aren't mutually exclusive and I assume fixing them would be on the dev team anyway. Whereas improving the quality and findability of galleries is something we can do ourselves. Plus like this a talk page for discussing galleries. Its a little wierd to come up in here and be like "I know this has to do with galleries, but lets talk about the issues with categories instead." --Adamant1 (talk) 10:03, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

those things are usually put into subcategories, not very prominently Prototyperspective (talk) 10:10, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, this is according to the Commons category policies. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 10:12, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

What is according to the Commons category policies and which part of that policy? Does it address my main point which Adamant1 ignored and which I requoted above? The policy says gallery pages according to topic which would be accomplished with a cat like "Gallery pages about history". Prototyperspective (talk) 10:20, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to repeat what JopkeB said above: the issue at hand here is whether to add a requirement that all galleries be categorized directly or indirectly under Category:Gallery pages. If you want to discuss something else, start a new section. - Jmabel ! talk 21:27, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

---

This category discussion has been closed.
Consensus	Resolved by consensus
Actions	Make the proposed addition in 4. Categories  Done by Sbb1413 before I could do it JopkeB (talk) 06:45, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
Participants	Sbb1413 (talk · contribs) Jmabel (talk · contribs) MGeog2022 (talk · contribs) Adamant1 (talk · contribs) Prototyperspective (talk · contribs)
Notes	Whoever wants to help categorizing galleries without a gallery category: use query to see which ones lack such a category (and add more search terms to your own interests)
Closed by	JopkeB (talk) 06:25, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Proposal to add always a Gallery category to a gallery page

Proposal: change 4. Categories

Current text: "Every gallery should be categorized. Add the gallery to the category with the same name, or if there is none, to relevant categories (see Commons:Categories)."

Change to: "Every gallery should be categorized. Add the gallery to at least two categories:

1. with the same name, or if there is none, to relevant categories (see Commons:Categories)

2. at least one subcategory of Category:Gallery pages."

Reason/problem: There are a lot of gallery pages without such a gallery category, it would not surprise me when there are more than a thousand. That makes it hard to find them if you do not know the exact name or when you just want to browse gallery pages. JopkeB (talk) 15:24, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

 Support — I also face problems finding gallery pages related to India due to the lack of dedicated gallery categories. I always try to categorize existing gallery pages to dedicated categories. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 16:48, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

 Support - Jmabel ! talk 18:10, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

 Support as a general guideline of a desirable target,  Oppose if that means that all gallery pages must be reviewed by someone, or that some galleries could be deleted because of lacking a subcategory of "Gallery pages". MGeog2022 (talk) 18:11, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Clearly the remedy for lacking an appropriate parent category is not deletion, it is adding the parent category. - Jmabel ! talk 19:07, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

OK, this makes sense. As it is only a guideline (should),  Support. MGeog2022 (talk) 12:16, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

 Support This is a guideline. There usually aren't consequences for not following guidelines. Except that someone will hopefully fix the issue based on the guidance in it. --Adamant1 (talk) 02:57, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

 Oppose Many gallery pages are low-quality. They should not be added to the corresponding category. It is good that many galleries do not have the corresponding category set. They often have just a handful of images, are outdated by decades, are unmaintained, usually created and edited by just one editor, and feature often arbitrary images while hiding the media that is in the category page. However,  Support for the requirement of all galleries to be in a Gallery pages category. Prototyperspective (talk) 22:58, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

"gallery pages [of] low-quality ... should not be added to the corresponding category." But that is a rule that have been established many years ago, ever since the version of 28 jul 2009 21:04 (under Other things to include). So that is not the question here. If you want that to be changed, then please start a separate discussion. JopkeB (talk) 02:12, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense anyway. How are people suppose to improve galleries if they can't find them to begin with because they aren't categorized? A better solution would be to come up with some kind of way to evaluate galleries based on their quality and ability to be improved and then create maintenance categories or something based on that. Excluding them from main categories for galleries doesn't make sense though. It's not like we do that with anything else. --Adamant1 (talk) 05:17, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

When it comes to anything else, those things are usually put into subcategories, not very prominently as the only page in a category as large as Animals or Health care etc. Moreover, people can find them in the search where they always show up but I wouldn't have a problem with them being in a subcategory of a large cat...however if that subcat only contains one page some category for galleries shouldn't be sorted to be at the top of the cat. Prototyperspective (talk) 09:21, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

People can find them in the search It really depends since you have to know what to look for and galleries don't always have the same name as the category. So it's not that sure of a thing that someone will be able to find one that way. --Adamant1 (talk) 09:40, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I meant they can find them enough for the gallery to get improved up to state where it becomes relevant for the page. I could make a hundred gallery pages each with one random image about the subject for all of the largest categories. If they are about the same subject or contain text about it they show up way too far up and near/at the top of "Categories and Pages" so if you search for animals and then click on that, a gallery named like it would should show up even if it contains just one image added by one editor one decade ago. The main point however was that those things are usually put into subcategories, not very prominently. Instead of doing things about galleries, I think category page need to be improved so that e.g. people can use them to browse most relevant most high-quality files about the subject rather than going to a gallery page and the file-titles should describe the contents at least as well as any captions on a gallery page. Prototyperspective (talk) 09:48, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Instead of doing things about galleries, I think category page need to be improved. I have complaints about how categories work myself but they aren't mutually exclusive and I assume fixing them would be on the dev team anyway. Whereas improving the quality and findability of galleries is something we can do ourselves. Plus like this a talk page for discussing galleries. Its a little wierd to come up in here and be like "I know this has to do with galleries, but lets talk about the issues with categories instead." --Adamant1 (talk) 10:03, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

those things are usually put into subcategories, not very prominently Prototyperspective (talk) 10:10, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, this is according to the Commons category policies. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 10:12, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

What is according to the Commons category policies and which part of that policy? Does it address my main point which Adamant1 ignored and which I requoted above? The policy says gallery pages according to topic which would be accomplished with a cat like "Gallery pages about history". Prototyperspective (talk) 10:20, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to repeat what JopkeB said above: the issue at hand here is whether to add a requirement that all galleries be categorized directly or indirectly under Category:Gallery pages. If you want to discuss something else, start a new section. - Jmabel ! talk 21:27, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

---

This category discussion has been closed.
Consensus	Resolved by consensus
Actions	Make the proposed addition in 4. Categories  Done by Sbb1413 before I could do it JopkeB (talk) 06:45, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
Participants	Sbb1413 (talk · contribs) Jmabel (talk · contribs) MGeog2022 (talk · contribs) Adamant1 (talk · contribs) Prototyperspective (talk · contribs)
Notes	Whoever wants to help categorizing galleries without a gallery category: use query to see which ones lack such a category (and add more search terms to your own interests)
Closed by	JopkeB (talk) 06:25, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Discussion about galleries on Village pump (Aug-Sept 2024)

Just for the record (to be able to find it more easily again): There was a discussion on Commons:Village pump/Archive/2024/08#Further dissemination of Wikimedia Commons Atlas of the World needed that in fact was about several aspects of galleries (their importance, lack of quality in too many of them and some other problems). Three follow-up actions were:

• Talk:Main Page#Proposal to link featured galleries and Atlas of the World from Commons main page
• Commons talk:Galleries#Proposal to add always a Gallery category to a gallery page
• Commons talk:Galleries#Add "criteria for creation of galleries" section to guideline

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --JopkeB (talk) 07:52, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

JopkeB (talk) 07:52, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Galleries with only one image

I think galleries with one image are not useful and instead hide the other media & subcats on Commons or make it require an extra click. This is especially the case for galleries with just one image that is set on the Wikidata item of the category.

It's plausible one could argue having galleries with just one image can be useful to make it quick and easy to find the best-quality / most useful / only useful image of the subject. There are many galleries of that type. With this query linked by JopkeB above the first gallery I looked at was already of that type. It shows there are over 51,000 galleries with a gallery hatnote that includes the category link at the top and it may be difficult to correct and likely to a large extent due to galleries created by bots.

However, when that one image in the gallery is set on the Wikidata item of the category, it's already easily findable in the category as it's shown in the infobox (which is added by a bot if no user adds it). This means there is really no use in having these types of galleries but only problems since these are often what is linked from the corresponding Wikipedia article.

The question is could somebody create a query that shows 'galleries with just one image that is set on the Wikidata item' and can these then be deleted? It would also bring that 51 k number down a lot. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:09, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I'd support deleting them however their ultimately found. There really isn't any point in a single image gallery and their just extra work to maintain. Plus I think they go against the guideline anyway. Per Commons:Galleries "Galleries (gallery pages) exist to present readers with a structured and meaningful collection of the media found here on Wikimedia Commons." One image isn't really a "collection." --Adamant1 (talk) 11:20, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Agree. I forgot to link the example I found which has the one image also set in the Wikidata Infobox anyway (galleries with one image that is not set in the Wikidata item are probably exceptions and could be used to add images to the Wikidata item): Pieter Burmann the Younger. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:37, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Even multi-language descriptions are not an excuse here, since the image itself can have its description in multiple languages. MGeog2022 (talk) 13:11, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

 Comment Not sure on this. Consider (just for example) a famous painting, painted in France by a French painter, but whose category name is in English. Would it really be out of line to have a gallery page named with the French name and showing only our best image of the painting? - Jmabel ! talk 19:37, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes because there can be an English category-description, and an English-language redirect as well as machine translated category titles as proposed and likely overdue. Your example is to some extent absurd as in never or extremely rarely occurring. In any case, the Wikidata item of the category would well-visibly show the English name of the category along with other metadata. Prototyperspective (talk) 10:57, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

 Agree: Galleries with only one image are not useful and should be either deleted or get more media (but I think it is the responsibility of the creator to ensure that a gallery page meets the criteria, so I usually ask for deletion). And indeed: it is just annoying and disappointing when the link from Wikidata (and thus from Wikipedias and other projects) is to such a gallery instead of to the corresponding category with more files.

In case of "a famous painting, painted in France by a French painter, but whose category name is in English": the best image can be shown in the Wikidata item (famous paintings nearly always have a Wikidata item) and the Wikidata item can have translations in all the languages of the world, also in French. When there is no Wikidata item, the category can have a description in French and the best image can be put in the upper right corner of the category. And so you can find the painting with a simple search, also when you search with the French name.

By the way, the link to the query shows any gallery page without at least one gallery category, no other searching criteria are involved, like having hatnotes or category links at the top. JopkeB (talk) 03:56, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

@JopkeB: I'd be interested to know why exactly you think a gallery with two images is any more useful then one with a single image since your making an issue out of it. At least IMO it doesn't really make a difference in a lot of cases. It certainly doesn't seem to with the ones your making an issue out of. --Adamant1 (talk) 14:54, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

@Adamant1: If the two images were a "before" and "after" some major change (such as re-cladding a building, or an institution moving from one headquarters to another), it could be quite useful. - Jmabel ! talk 19:45, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel: Sure. I don't disagree. There's plenty of instances where its useful to have a gallery with two images. Your example being one. What I'm refering to though is cases where there's a gallery for roses with 2 images and one of those images is just a superficial crop or slightly diiferent angle of the same rose. I don't think its useful in that case and it doesn't seem like anyone else except for JopkeB thinks it is. I assume you wouldn't either since its clearly not on the same level as your example. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:34, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

The point is that Adamant1 nominated a lot of gallery pages about roses with two to even six images with a speedy deletion template (GA1, for only zero or one image), while I think that should have been a proper deletion request. And then we could have judged ourselves whether in that cases the gallery page with two (ore even six) images is useful or not. JopkeB (talk) 04:38, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I left a message about it on Yann's talk page. I have zero problem discussing it with other people in an undeletion request. I don't think your way of handling this has been appropriate though. Nor do I think there's anything from the guidelines or any discussion about it that I've seen saying galleries containing more then one image can't be nominated for speedy deletion. At least from Jmabel's comment it sounds like he thinks there's instances where it's totally justified. No one took your side on the ANU board either. So I think this is more just a case of IDONTLIKEIT and personally I rather see you drop it since it's just a time suck that clearly isn't going on your end at this point. Be my guest and open undeletion request if there's specific galleries that you think shouldn't have been deleted though. Again, I'm more then willing to discuss the merits of specific deletion requests. But I don't think there should be (or is) a hard and fast rule about it in the meantime. --Adamant1 (talk) 04:49, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Adamant1: please don't "speedy" these unless they clearly, unambiguously meet deletion criteria. And please don't nominate too many at once before you even see what sort of consensus might develop in the DRs. There is no emergency here if you don't create one. - Jmabel ! talk 14:35, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel: As far as I know most, if not all, of the galleries that I've nominated for deletion recently only had a single image or were written like pseudo Wikipedia articles. Which I assume would qualify for GA2. As far as I know there's only one DR though and I have no plans to nominate similar galleries for deletion until it's resolved. But then I don't really feel like acquiescing to JopkeB's dishonest derailing in the meantime either. So I'm still going to nominate galleries that I think are glorified articles for GA2 along with ones that only have a single image. There's no hurry to delete the other ones though. --Adamant1 (talk) 14:41, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Adamant1: again, while there seems to be some doubt about consensus, please use DR instead of speedy, and please let's have a reasonable number of discussions to see what the consensus really is before you bring this to a mass level. The change (or refinement) of criteria was recent; it might turn out not to be a reflection of what people want; "be bold" is not a Commons principle. - Jmabel ! talk 14:54, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel: JopkeB went off for multiple days about how galleries with only one image qualify for speedy deletion and then changed the guideline to say as much. So I think she's the one you should be talking about this with. It's not my thing though and I don't see anything wrong with nominating single image galleries for deletion since the guideline has been changed. I'm more then happy to stop doing it if either one of you want to revert her edit though. Personally, I think it make sense at least in the case of gallery pages for roses, if not others. But I'm more then willing to hold off on it for now until there's more of a consensus if, or when, her edit to the guideline is reverted. Otherwise it's a done deal as far as I'm concerned. --Adamant1 (talk) 15:06, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at proposals related to Taxon Galleries

Realized I didn't advertise this discussion here: Commons:Village_pump/Proposals#Redirect_undermaintained_Species_Galleries_to_Category_pages, Sadads (talk) 01:05, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Add "criteria for creation of galleries" section to guideline

Per the Village Pump discussion it's pretty clear that a lot of galleries either shouldn't have been created in the first place or are otherwise lacking in quality. Although it's not really clear what makes a good quality gallery, but there are some things that I think clearly make bad ones. So there should be some kind of guidance in the guideline about when it's worth creating a gallery or not and what makes a gallery "good." These are just a few of the things I can think of off the top of my head. People are free to modify, add to, and or change the criteria as the discussion about it evolves.

1. Gallery pages should not be created for a topic where there are either to little images to justify it due to copyright or similar issues.

2. Gallery pages should not be created in cases where they merely serve to duplicate the main category for the topic, unless some additional information, such as translations or showing a large number of images in a structured way, is provided.

3. Any galleries that contain only a few images without realistically being expendable and/or ones that merely serve to recreate the main category for the topic can be nominated speedy deletion.

Obviously that's not much, but it's just a start and I expect other people to contribute their ideas to the list. Adamant1 (talk) 03:07, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

That last one is actually trickier than you might think. The fact that (unlike a category) a gallery allows for description of each image, a rather small gallery could, at least in principle, be pretty useful. I don't have a great example, but I'm thinking of things just a little more complicated than the matter we handle with a description at the top of Category:International Fountain, Seattle Center, where we show two subtly different fountains that have existed at the same location. - Jmabel ! talk 03:40, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Uhhhh, maybe? It's tangential, but I've never been totally sure where the line is between an informational gallery and something that's starting to slow creep into being a glorified Wikipedia article with images. Not to say the later is a bad thing or shouldn't exist. But I do think it's something worth considering and maybe noting down purely for documentational purposes if nothing else. I'd be interested to check out an example of what your talking about if you can find one though. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:46, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I would add to point 2: Gallery pages should not be created in cases where they merely serve to duplicate the main category for the topic, unless some additional information, such as translations or showing a large number of images in a structured way, is provided. MGeog2022 (talk) 12:19, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Already added by Adamant1 now. MGeog2022 (talk) 19:11, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah. Sorry, I should have mentioned I added it. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:44, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

My criteria for good galleries:

• They have a good, clear name, that covers the content, as short as possible.
• They have a Wikidata infobox or a short description about the subject. A gallery about a location preferably shows a map indicating the location, for example via the Wikidata infobox.
• They have a clear purpose, direction and theme, for example:
  • a guide to the subcategories of a large main category, with links to the subcategories (and grandchildren), showing with images what the subcategory names mean, for laymen and non native English speakers;
  • an overview of a complex subject, a help by categorizing files, like the works of an artist by theme or year (with links to subcategories); another example: Overview of the Ajanta Caves
  • an impression of for example a populated place, the collection of a museum or an art movement; extra criterium: showing different aspects of the subject
  • showing beautiful things, sharing with the world what a location possesses/has to offer/is about, like art, culture, landscapes, vistas
  • the best pictures about a subject (rewarded photographs)
  • presentations (with slides; example: Register Varend Erfgoed Nederland was initially created for a presentation at a congress/symposium, see discussion (in Dutch))
  • otherwise educational, for example: showing processes or developments, or explaning technical stuff
  • offer translations, showing the names/descriptions of files in a category in more than 1 language (via Wikidata items or otherwise).

And of coarse a gallery page can have a mixe of purposes.

• They have a clear structure, with subheadings and a logical order of the media, like alphabetically or chronological.
• They show a decent amount of media, also depending on the theme and availability, but at least two, preferably a lot more.
• Each of the media is captioned in the gallery (or has a link to a subcategory or a Wikidata item in lieu of such a caption).
• They are in at least two categories: one for the topic and a subcategory of Category:Gallery pages.
• They have {{Gallery page}}, not only for the useful message, but also to be able to search more easily for certain galleries in Petscan (and probably other search tools).

If a gallery page does not meet all of the criteria: it does not mean that it should be deleted. A gallery may be adjusted or the creator can be encouraged to improve it. Reasons to delete: see above.

For excellent galleries there might be more criteria, but that is out of scope of this discussion. JopkeB (talk) 12:51, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

@Adamant1, Jmabel, JopkeB, and MGeog2022: This discussion was being archived, and I've brought it back here. --Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 08:19, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Where should this guideline be implemented?

@Adamant1, Jmabel, and MGeog2022: We should still discuss where we will implement this proposal: here or on Commons:Guide to layout/Gallery pages (just discovered), or perhaps you know another page. If it is not here: there should be a link to the other page (I cannot find such a link here).
I think that our text fits better on Commons:Guide to layout/Gallery pages, also because earlier we spoke about a "guideline". What do you think?--JopkeB (talk) 14:22, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

@JopkeB, Commons:Galleries page itself includes things such as: Obviously: Media! (images, sounds, video). Galleries without media are not galleries at all. They are considered out of the project scope and meet the criteria for speedy deletion.

If stricter criteria are wanted (even if only as a recommendation), it's probably the place to include it. I think Commons:Guide to layout/Gallery pages is a bit redundant with Commons:Galleries, it is not clear to me what the purpose of that separate page is. MGeog2022 (talk) 18:22, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I would recommend merging Commons:Guide to layout/Gallery pages into this page (and of course the new content belongs on this page).

My only compunction is that some of this may need to be carefully framed as a statement of best practices, not a set of requirements. For example, I certainly wouldn't want to see a proposal to delete a gallery because some images lack captions, or because someone considers its name unclear. Jmabel ! talk 20:09, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

+1. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:00, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I have created Commons:Deletion requests/Commons:Guide to layout/Gallery pages to discuss merging Commons:Guide to layout/Gallery pages into this page. Please join that discussion. JopkeB (talk) 05:01, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

So some editing still needs to be done. There are two sections that we would like to integrate in the current Commons:Galleries:

1. The current paragraph When to create a gallery should be extended with three reasons when not to create a gallery:
   1. The first two points Adamant1 mentioned (I leave out the third one because there is is no consensus about that one).
      1.  Request: Can a native English speaker edit the first one better? I think the word "either" should be removed or there should be an addition that justifies this word, and I guess "to little images" should be "too few images or other media". Am I right?
   2. My line "[Gallery pages] show a decent amount of media, also depending on the theme and availability, but at least two, preferably a lot more." should be moved to this section.
      1. This might conflict with the current line "Galleries with only a single image are permitted if they highlight an image which has been elected by the community as a featured picture, quality image, or valued image." I think when there is only one photo to be highlighted, then you can also put it in the Wikidata item/infobox or in the upper right corner of the category, you do not need a gallery page for that reason. So I would like to change the current text accordingly.
   3. This paragraph should also have a line like: Gallery pages that do not meet these criteria can be nominated for deletion. Exceptions: they have been vandalized (then revert the removal of the media) and/or had media that have not been deleted since (then start a discussion).
2. A paragraph should be added with criteria for good galleries. This part should be carefully framed as a statement of best practices, not as hard requirements.  Request: Can someone make a proposal for that frame?

JopkeB (talk) 06:13, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

+1 MGeog2022 (talk) 10:04, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Obviously: Media! (images, sounds, video). Galleries without media are not galleries at all. They are considered out of the project scope and meet the criteria for speedy deletion. Unless they have been vandalized, of course (they meet the criteria for speedy deletion only if they have never had any media, or all the media they once had has been deleted since). It would probably be good to include this too. MGeog2022 (talk) 10:11, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Good point! I have extended point 3. with your remarks. JopkeB (talk) 04:37, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Galleries with few images hiding / less useful than category pages

Could such galleries please be redirected to the category pages? There seems to be agreement in Commons talk:Galleries/Archive 1#Galleries with only one image and in the other discussion about galleries that are not useful or much less useful than their corresponding category. I couldn't find the other discussion about this, could somebody please link it? There also is Template talk:Wikidata Infobox#Inconsistent linking by category infobox. One could start via a Quarry query that shows gallery pages with just one or two images. These pages create many problems, including pointing Wikipedia users and Web search engines to an outdated page containing just few images created by one user two decades ago instead of a well-organized well-populated up-to-date category and hiding of category pages in the search results (example). Prototyperspective (talk) 12:06, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

At your example, the first two things I looked at (Roses by grower and (Roses by color) looked like reasonably developed gallery pages, which I don't think would be candidates for speedy redirects. But perhaps I am missing your point. - Jmabel ! talk 16:41, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, good thing to note. This example was not to illustrate low-quality galleries but to illustrate that galleries can hide category pages. It would have been better if I had chosen an example of galleries just containing one or two files each that hide a category page.

-

Here I found 4 relevant queries: undermaintained Species Galleries, Number of galleries on Wikimedia Commons with 0 image, Number of galleries on Wikimedia Commons with less than 5 images, Number of galleries on Wikimedia Commons with 1 or 2 images. I think these could be modified so that they list the galleries rather than their count. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:53, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Do you mean Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/09/Category:Redirects connected to a Wikidata item by "the other discussion about this"? This discussion is about (in short) whether these kind of gallery pages should be getting a redirect to the category or just be deleted.

 Question How can a gallery page hide a category page? JopkeB (talk) 05:27, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Found it, it's Commons:Village_pump/Proposals/Archive/2024/09#Redirect undermaintained Species Galleries to Category pages (edit: now archived) but it's not about only species galleries. Answer: it doesn't hide them literally, they move these out of sight&use via 1. pointing Wikipedia users and Web search engines to an outdated [gallery] page [instead of a cat page] and 2. burying category pages in the search results as can be seen in the example. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:02, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I get it. I think the problem for the two examples Jmabel gave, is at the Wikidata item: they do not even have Statements for categories nor for gallery pages. Somewhere (I guess in Meta.Wiki, but I cannot find it anymore) there is a proposal about the possibility to have the category as well as the gallery page be in the Multilingual sites of the Wikidata item, and so be able to choose in for instance a Wikipedia page which one you want to see.

For now I am not a fan of a redirect of a good gallery page to a category, because that means that the gallery page should be emptied. I think it is better to just add the category to the Wikidata item. JopkeB (talk) 16:59, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikidata has a property for Commons category and Commons gallery as well as a Commons link. I think with the exception of galleries that are well-populated Commons links to galleries are best replaced with the link to the category because that's usually (or often?) the one Commons page Wikipedia users looking for media about the article subject are linked to from Wikipedia. For now I am not a fan of a redirect of a good gallery page to a category, Fine but this thread is about galleries with just one or two images for example. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:05, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I can agree with that: "with the exception of galleries that are well-populated Commons, links to galleries are best replaced with the link to the category". So then the Wikidata item has:

• a statement for a Commons category (if it exists)
• a statement for a Commons gallery page (if it exists)
• a link in the Multilingual sites to:
  • the Commons category if there is only a poor gallery page, or the Wikidata item is about a category (I somewhere read that the Commons link should be to the Commons category if the Wikidata item is about a category; in that case the Category Wikidata item usually has also a link to the Wikidata item about the subject, where the Commons link should be to the gallery)
  • the Commons gallery if it is a good gallery with lots of images and the Wikidata item is not about a category; if this is not possible (because the category is already in use in another Wikidata item, like in the associated Category Wikidata item) then there should be no link at all in the Commons link (I think then automatically the one in the Category Wikidata item is used on other Wiki sites, but this is one of the subjects in Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/09/Category:Redirects connected to a Wikidata item).

Will this be correct? JopkeB (talk) 09:22, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for summarizing this. then there should be no link at all in the Commons link (I think then automatically the one in the Category Wikidata item is used on other Wiki sites I agree with that and it's half of what the thread is about (the other half being asking about deleting gallery pages which are of overly low quality i.e. having only eg ≤2 images). I think many Wikidata items have gallery pages specified in the Multilingual links. Possibly it's often because the category can't be added there anymore since it's already set on the WD item so any tries to add it by users have failed while the user (or bot?) adding a gallery page there can add it successfully. A query that shows all relevant Wikidata items with a gallery page in their Multilingual link for Commons set would be very useful, if possible either each with stats columns like number of files in the gallery or specific to galleries with relatively few items in the gallery despite of many files in the category so that users can check these. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:01, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that is true: "because the category can't be added there anymore since it's already set on the WD item", see Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/09/Category:Redirects connected to a Wikidata item. So that part of the discussion is in that discussion, I suggest we therefor do not discuss it here also.

I agree that we should have a query like you describe it, but I am not at all good with making queries. So I hope someone else will do it. And then the next question is: how will the changes be done? Because it is a lot of work to do all the replacements by hand. JopkeB (talk) 16:36, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

"a link in the Multilingual sites to… the Commons category if there is only a poor gallery page": not Wikidata's rule, and we can't tell them what to do. If there is a gallery page, then their rule says to link it. From their point of view, our options are (1) fix the poor gallery page, (2) eliminate the poor gallery page, (3) suck it up. - Jmabel ! talk 19:48, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

1. It was not portrayed as being a Wikidata rule 2. It's not "their rule" that such is then to be linked. 3. Disagree that this would be "their point of view" and nothing substantiates that. Prototyperspective (talk) 20:13, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

@Prototyperspective: after some research, you appear to be correct. I'm rather surprised: it looks like Wikidata has no policy at all on this. The discussions never led to consensus. What I described is what I've seen people consistently do. I'm rather amazed that it's not driven by a policy on that project. - Jmabel ! talk 04:10, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Other example of galleries hiding categories: search for 3D model does not show the cat. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:29, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

How to handle Gallery pages with a wrong format?

I am adding gallery categories to galleries without them. Along the way I see too many galleries that are technically galleries, but in fact are/should be project pages, Wikipedia pages or other pages that should have another namespace. For now I have created Category:Gallery pages with a wrong format, to collect them. But how should we properly handle them? JopkeB (talk) 15:31, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I assume they would qualify for speedy deletion as G2, "Page intended to be an encyclopedic article." I nominated a few for deletion. So I guess we'll see. BTW, it looks like most, or all, of them we're created in the early 2010s or before. So they probably aren't useful at this point anyway. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:08, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I think you cannot just delete them. At least the pages in Category:Gallery pages of Wiki Loves (project pages) should be kept one way or another, they are part of history. And we should warn the creators of Wiki Loves pages not to use gallery pages for communication and rules and give them a proper alternative. JopkeB (talk) 03:50, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate you wanting to give the creators of the galleries a chance to copy their contents or whatever, but I really don't see the point in keeping them. Especially the ones that are just code from 2006 that probably doesn't work anymore anyway. Regardless, how is it not an attempt to use galleries like Wikipedia articles? --Adamant1 (talk) 06:39, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Offhand, Category:Gallery pages of Wiki Loves (project pages) looks like it is all stuff that should be moved to "Commons" space. - Jmabel ! talk 16:06, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with those types of galleries being moved to "Commons" space, but realistically who's going to do that and how long should we wait for them to do it? In the meantime there's a bunch "galleries" that are just lists for things in Paris without anything that would make them actual galleries. Apparently for some bizarre reason JopkeB thinks they should stay though. So it would be good if we could what exactly do with them. Personally, I think they clearly qualify for either G1 or G2 and I haven't seen her propose an alternative to deletion. Nor do I think there even is one since as far as I'm aware there aren't list articles on Commons. Maybe we could just wait for the no longer active user who created them to turn them into legitimate galleries or something. Although I'd argue the whole "list" thing is totally pointless and serves zero purpose what-so-ever regardless. But again, JopkeB thinks they should be saved. So I'd like figure out what to do with them if she's so against their deletion. You have any ideas about how to deal with it? --Adamant1 (talk) 07:09, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

No, I don't think they should per se stay as they are, as gallery pages. But I think the content might be valuable and therefor the content should stay one way or another, and cannot be deleted recklessly. Therefor I have created Category:Gallery pages with a wrong format, to collect them. And after someone comes up with a good idea, then we can handle them in a proper way.

Whether the creator is still active or not, is not relevant. Archives and libraries keep many documents written by people who have long ago passed away, and still we preserve them, because we might need them in the future.

I think "lists" can be valuable, to get a quick overview or to search more easily through a lot of information, in another way than is possible via a category. Even when you do not value them, lists can be valuable to others, otherwise there were not so many lists in Wikipedia and even in Commons (see for instance galleries in Category:Gallery pages of paintings: though they are not always called "List", there are many lists in this category).

Please have a little more patience: these gallery pages have existed for many years, in the past the format 'gallery page' might have been the best solution for them, or the content was put accidently into a gallery page, and now they should be deleted within a day? JopkeB (talk) 10:42, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Therefor the content should stay one way or another, and cannot be deleted recklessly. For me it depends on the content, situation, and I reject the idea that there was anything reckless involved here. Regardless, I don't think we should keep "content" simply for it's own sake. We aren't Wikipedia or Wikidata. I understand that you think it's rude or whatever to just delete content that people have created, but at the end of the day it's their responsibility to think about if what they are creating is in scope or belongs somewhere else.

Whether the creator is still active or not, is not relevant. It's relevant to me purely as a pragmatic issue when it comes to how many hoops someone should have to go through before deleting something. I don't think it's realistic or a good use of time and resources to ask someone who clearly isn't contributing to the project if they want to improve a gallery page that was created 10 years ago and hasn't been improved in the meantime. That's all. Bureaucracy for it's own sake and regardless of the particular circumstance isn't a good thing.

I think "lists" can be valuable, to get a quick overview or to search more easily through a lot of information I agree with that. But two things here 1. At least IMO most galleries are lists anyway. Like if someone a gallery for "libraries in Paris" then it will essentially be a list of libraries in Paris regardless of they call it a list or specifically created it as one 2. Isn't that what metacats and catcats are for? Saying it is, then it's just redundant to also have "list" galleries as well. Especially when they aren't being used as galleries to begin with.

Please have a little more patience The pages have exited on here for more then 10 years even they clearly go against the guidelines. I think the community in general has shown plenty of patience. Maybe I didn't, but the pages have been around more then along for them to be improved or fixed if the original creator had any intent to do either one. IMO there's a realistic, fair, amount of we should wait to deal with or clean up things that clearly go against the guidelines and I think enough time has passed at this point to delete the pages. There are a few that I plan to move and improve on though. Your free to do the same with any that you think are worth saving. Also if you want to say "content" that was created less then six months ago and/or where the user is still active shouldn't be speedy deleted unless they have been given a reasonable amount of time to deal with it, then fine. I'm totally cool with that. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:55, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Solutions

1. Solution one: Project pages: As Jmabel pointed out earlier in this discussion: A page that is in fact a Project page (like some Wiki Loves gallery pages were) can be moved to "Commons" space; then in the upper left tab "Project page" is mentioned. Any editor with renaming rights can do it: click on "rename" and just change in the first box "Main" to "Commons". Jmabel has already done it for the 'Wiki Loves' gallery pages, I did for some others.
2. Solution two: Help pages: same recipe: move gallery pages with instructions that are not about a specific project to "Help" space. And add (a subcategory of) Category:Commons help.

For the pages that are now still in Category:Gallery pages with a wrong format we still need to come up with solutions. --JopkeB (talk) 05:52, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

3. About tables

Categories are the basics. No doubt about it. But sometimes they are not enough to find what you are looking for. The language may be a problem (frequently used words like houses, animals and rivers may be learnt at school, but rarely used words like buttresses, crustacea‎ and river forelands not), or the category structure is too complex for visitors. Then some guidance may help. That can be in the form of:

• a gallery page with links to the subcategories (as captures under well-chosen images), well usable for concrete concepts, where pictures are worth a thousand words; example: Headgear;
• a Category by topic, especially for theoretically subjects;
• perhaps a table, only tolerated by Commons, not fully allowed yet. I think on Commons there are two possibilites for tables:
  • Each row also has at least one image; they can for example be used for overviews of artworks of an artist or art movement; this is OK on Commons yet, see for example Paintings by Rudolf von Alt. OR
  • [New, my proposal] Each row has at least one link to another page on Commons, for example: to a category, gallery page or a Help page, useful for overviews of those pages, for example: Tombs in the Panthéon de Paris. Perhaps you can call them index pages.

And of coarse each row can have both. The advantage above Categories by topic is that you can choose your own layout and columns and add extra information (including links to Wikipedias and other websites) and/or images. Red links may show which pages still are needed. Note: If a gallery page has a table and does not have at least an overview of images or does not meet either of these criteria, it can still be nominated for deletion.

@Adamant1 and Jmabel: Would this be a good role for gallery pages with tables on Commons? --JopkeB (talk) 12:18, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel: What should be done to have such a solution being accepted on Commons? Can the three of us decide this or should it be brought further, does a procedure exists? --JopkeB (talk) 12:34, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with that. I'm sure it can be refined later if it turns out to be less then perfect. My main issue is with tables that don't have images or where it's one image that is just being used superficially. It looks you've addressed that with the last point though. Thanks for coming up with a solution. --Adamant1 (talk) 12:27, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

I think creating one good example would help me answer that. Probably yes, but I'd want to see it. Jmabel ! talk 11:46, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

What should be improved in Tombs in the Panthéon de Paris? JopkeB (talk) 15:17, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel: Could you please indicate what changes should be made in Tombs in the Panthéon de Paris to help you answer the question? JopkeB (talk) 10:19, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Maybe it needs a new namespace for tables? Prototyperspective (talk) 11:42, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I think the main thing would be to add at least one picture of the person and one of the tomb as additional columns, wherever possible. Probably format them 250px wide (or 250px high and centered if vertical).

Also: do we know if this is a complete or an incomplete list? It should say so. - Jmabel ! talk 12:23, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

So there are two new  Question:

1. Do we need a new namespace: Table?
2. Should a gallery page that only contains a table be deleted if it has no images, though it might be useful because it gives columns with links to subcategories and other information that is not visible in a category?

My answers:

1. Perhaps, if there are a lot of tables. Does anyone know how to search for such tables (in gallery pages)? I didn't succeed.
2. No, I would not vote for deletion of such tables.

And we need a new rule for the guideline: such a page should mention whether the list is complete.

JopkeB (talk) 06:34, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

@Prototyperspective, Jmabel, and Adamant1: Could you please give your answers to these two questions? JopkeB (talk) 03:23, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

1. I think tables are probably (currently at least) too rare for a new namespace. It may be best if they were included in the Data namespace. 2. I don't know – I think they shouldn't be deleted if they don't cause notable problems. Prototyperspective (talk) 10:38, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

1. Isn't there already a "data namespace" that's essentially for tabular data? I don't really see why galleries should be used as tables anyway, but more so given there's a specific namespace for them already anyway. I guess there could be a special namespace outside specifically for tables, but I think it's necessary.

2. Yes. Gallery pages that are just tables with no actual images should be deleted. I'd argue ones containing images should be deleted, or at least heavily edited to not be a table, should be deleted as well depending on the situation. It doesn't really help anyone to have a gallery that's a table with 50 rows and only a few images at the bottom of it.

3. I'd be interested to know what basis is in the guidelines for using galleries for tables regardless of this conversation. I don't think the purpose of galleries, "to present readers with a structured and meaningful collection of the media", should be disregarded just because someone put the time into making a tabular gallery. More then likely they just copied and pasted the data into the edit field anyway. But regardless, the guidelines are clear that galleries are for "collections of media." --Adamant1 (talk) 03:34, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

1. If "Table" were to be a new namespace, how would it differ from "Data" namespace?
2. If a "Gallery" is just a table that has no images, but if it's obvious what images would belong there, add images rather than deleting. If there are no relevant images, then the only reason I can imagine to keep it is if it is internally useful on Commons, and then it belongs in Commons space, not gallery space. E.g., for the latter, a list of works that are annually going to come out of U.S. copyright might be very useful to have, but would not belong as a gallery.
3. These should not be speedied, because there is a fair chance of salvaging them.
4. Definitely we should distinguish complete and incomplete lists. - Jmabel ! talk 05:03, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

   @Jmabel: Yes, I agree: "add images rather than deleting". But who is going to do that? It is a lot of work, for one thing: the coding for adding a new column is not as simple as in Word or Excel.

   And about the differences between a "Table" and the "Data" namespace: could you please answer my questions below, perhaps they might give the answer. JopkeB (talk) 05:21, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

[Answer to Adamant1:] Yes, it turns out there is indeed a Data namespace, it is in Help:Namespaces. I did not know it. But:

• I could not find a page of its own, Commons:Data is a disambiguation page and Help:Data redirects to Commons:Data. So I think Help:Data should be changed to a proper instruction page about this namespace.
• when you look at an Edit tab of such a Data page, I only see complicated program coding, not the kind of tables we are discussing here.  Question:
  • Is it allowed to have a table like Tombs in the Panthéon de Paris in the Data namespace as well?
  • What is the extension "tab" (or "map") doing: is it just an extension or does it actually do something?
  • When someone later on puts images to such a table, is it technically possible to rename it to a gallery?

And by the way: it is not just "someone put the time into making a tabular gallery", but such a table might also be useful to other users, there has been put effort and time into it with a reason, not just for fun, but to make Commons better. JopkeB (talk) 05:09, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Totally agree about the data namespace. It's way to hard to find information about it. Let alone to create something in the data namespace to begin with. I'm not really sure why it involves complicated coding either. It's hard to argue for transferring tabular galleries over to the data namespace when it doesn't seem to be doable by just copying and pasting the code from one editing window to the other. Although I don't think that justifies the status quo. And just to be clear, I'm not advocating for speedy deleting the galleries. But there is a basic expectation that galleries should contain images and ones that don't should be dealt with somehow.

I don't buy the idea that they are useful or worth keeping simply because someone created them either. A lot of the galleries, tables, Etc. Etc. on here were created using bots or other semi-automated methods. I highly doubt Paris 16 manually entered the code for Tombs in the Panthéon de Paris since they created hundreds of similar galleries around the same time. So I don't really see any reason why we can't or shouldn't be able to just delete it and other galleries that were clearly created through automated or semi-automated methods. Otherwise your just allowing the site to be taken over by low quality bot edits for it's own sake. Interestingly that particular gallery apparently has 362 views a month. So I think it's worth keeping, but I doubt most, or all, views are from people looking for a navigational page. But I would say galleries that purely serve as navigational aids should be deleted or at least turned into actual galleries. --Adamant1 (talk) 05:43, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I'd guess we have photos of every one of those tombs in the Panthéon. - Jmabel ! talk 10:43, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

You want to turn it into an actual gallery then? I still wonder where the line is (or should be) regardless. Using a gallery as a navigational page just seems weird and totally pointless anyway even if said gallery ends up having a couple of images added to it. That's clearly not their purpose. My opinion is clearly in the minority though. So however you guys want to do it. --Adamant1 (talk) 12:26, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Jmabel and Adamant1: for your answers. I did not really get answers to my three questions. I presume you do not know either. Again  Question:

• Where can I pose questions about the Data namespace? On the Village pump or is there a better place?
• And who can turn Help:Data into a proper construction page? Who knows enough of this namespace to write instructions? Or where should I asked it?

JopkeB (talk) 15:08, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

For knowledge of Data space, I'd look for someone who has edited in Data space. It looks like most of what is there is map data. - Jmabel ! talk 15:32, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

• Is asked my questions on User talk:Ebrahim#Questions about the Data namespace.
• There are 31,003 Data pages with .tab and 54,678 for map. So indeed, there are more for map data than for tabs.

JopkeB (talk) 04:31, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Feedback from User:Ebrahim:

1. It is not allowed to have a table with regular wiki code for a table in the Data namespace, it should be in json.
2. The extensions "tab" and "map" do matter. You cannot use these extensions without a content that contains json.
3. No, it is technically not possible to change a Data namespace to a gallery page, the gallery page should be created as such.
4. There is no known documentation in Commons about the Data namespace, but there is in MediaWiki: mw:Extension:JsonConfig and some of Q/A's in mw:Extension_talk:JsonConfig might be useful.
5. He has created Data:Tombs in the Panthéon de Paris.tab.

My conclusions are:

• We cannot use the Data namespace for gallery pages with a table without images. We should come up with something else. There are at least three alternatives:
  • 1) Convert these galleries to the Data namespace, with json. Data:Tombs in the Panthéon de Paris.tab can serve as example. But that is not an easy conversion, especially not for people who are not familiar with json. And if ever someone wants to add images, the conversion should be reversed.
  • 2) Add images to the gallery pages. But that is a lot of work, and moreover the coding for adding a new column is not simple.
  • 3) Create a new namespace Table.
• Help:Data should become a proper Help page. We can start with adding the answers by Ebrahim.

@Jmabel, Adamant1, and Prototyperspective: What are your thoughts? Do you know other alternatives? Do you prefer one above the other? Do you agree that Help:Data should become a proper Help page? --JopkeB (talk) 05:17, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I was thinking about this and at least IMO a good solution would be to create separate namespace specifically for galleries like currently exists for categories. Then random things like tables can just stay where they are in a separate section. Although it would obviously take some time and effort to implement, but way less so then moving the tables over to the data namespace or adding images to them. I'm not sure adding images to them is a good option anyway since most or all of them weren't created for that purpose to begin with anyway. But having a specific namespace for galleries would be super beneficial outside of this. So I think it's worth doing regardless. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:38, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Coding to add a column is actually pretty simple, unless these tables were done very poorly. Let me play with that Pantheon one. I'll probably get to it within 24 hours, maybe much sooner. - Jmabel ! talk 06:43, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Done (Tombs in the Panthéon de Paris). Took 10 minutes, including planning. I recommend that if someone uses this, rather than have the categories be explicitly visible, they are just inserted as [[:Category:WHATEVER|category]], which will take up less space. Jmabel ! talk 06:55, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Could also add another column for images of the people rather than their tombs. - Jmabel ! talk 06:57, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Of these options and if things are not to be left as they are currently, option 3 would be best. One shouldn't images for the sake of it and that wouldn't really make it a genuine gallery. Maybe some other namespace already exists for these since Commons: and Help: pages also seem to be in a separate namespace. There's also the issue that some tables are metapages about Commons, e.g. currently in Commons: or Help: so maybe it should be a different name/scope (like e.g. 'Content tables' or 'Tables of contents') or something. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:58, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Re: "not a real gallery", is there anywhere on this page a prohibition against using tables as a way to format? Otherwise, it is no less "real" than any other gallery. - Jmabel ! talk 14:13, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

That's not what this was referring to but the meaning of gallery which is about an exhibition of media. Or are you suggesting one can create a gallery of words? I don't think so.

However, I just noticed there is the issue of gallery often being defined as an exhibition of artworks in specific but a more widespread and colloquial use of the word is about exhibitions of any kind of media (also see <gallery></gallery> which accepts any image media) which is also the meaning of the word used here. Prototyperspective (talk) 14:36, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel: You have to admit tables aren't super intuitive or useful. There's much better ways to makes lists in galleries without the tables being involved anyway. Like check out Logos of postcard publishers. Everything done in a table can be done perfectly fine without it though. @Prototyperspective: I don't think "gallery" in this instance is that inclusive. Otherwise most things on here would be galleries. It's pretty clear they were meant to be places to mainly, if not exclusively, display images. The idea of a gallery just made up of text is totally ridiculous. There's already Wikidata and Wikipedia for tabular data anyway. So I don't really see the point in using galleries for that purpose regardless. --Adamant1 (talk) 14:46, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

"aren't super intuitive or useful": if you have a goodly amount of parallel data, they are a lot more intuitive than the "gallery" element. Not an example drawn from Commons, but the tables in the lower portion of National Register of Historic Places listings in Nebraska present their information about as well as I think it could be presented. I certainly don't think that page would be improved by converting to the "gallery" element.

I believe most main-space pages on Commons that are presented as tables would be appropriate to keep if pictures were added. And I suspect few of them would be made better for end users by using the "gallery" element instead. - Jmabel ! talk 14:54, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

That's not a bad example. I was mostly thinking about Tombs in the Panthéon de Paris though. There's no reason why most, if not all, of the tabular data in that case couldn't be turned into section headings and/or image titles. I can't think of an example on here that's much more complicated then that either. But the end of the day there's what, descriptions, sections and sub-sections, image titles, Etc. Etc. So there's plenty of ways to store and organize information about without the table. People really should spend more time thinking about if what their doing is actually the best way to do it or adds meaningful information to Commons though. Otherwise it's just an exercise in needless redundancy. --Adamant1 (talk) 15:05, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Adamant1: Let's make things clear:

1. I like Logos of postcard publishers, gallery pages like this one can be very useful, they show images and links to categories, I created a couple of them my self and I often consult them. But a table has more possibilities, like extra columns with more information. So I do not agree that tables are not useful in Commons, like you suggest, on the contrary.
2. Yes, I agree, Wikipedia can have tabular data. But end users are not going to a Wikipedia page if they need links to categories in Commons, like in Tombs in the Panthéon de Paris.

So I think the possibility to create tables in Commons should be kept.

Thanks Jmabel, for adding the extra column to Tombs in the Panthéon de Paris. I now tend to agree that your solution to add a column with images is the best one, the more because until now not many gallery pages are involved. In Category:Gallery pages with a wrong format I see just four pages that in my opinion do not meet the criteria and should have such an extra column:

• List of public baths in Paris
• List of hospitals in Paris
• List of kindergartens and elementary schools in Paris (this is a very long one, with I guess about 90% red links)
• List of libraries in Paris (also a long one with many red links).

Would you like to share the method you used to add the column?

Creating a special namespace, like 'Table', 'Content table' or 'Table of contents' (without the plural "s" because it is about a namespace) would be a good option if we had hundreds of them. Perhaps we can create a (hidden) category for those kind of gallery tables: if ever we still would like to create such a namespace, then we have them all together in one category. JopkeB (talk) 09:31, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

they show images and links to categories From what I've seen none of these tabular galleries have images. and I don't really see anyone changing that. You could probably argue it's worth having "navigational pages" in the meantime but that's a separate issue and it's not like there aren't ways to do that with links in normal galleries. At the least there should be a special category purely for sorting tabular galleries out from the normal ones. Although I'd really like to see a better solution. Whatever that ends up being. obviously some solutions will be better or worse then others and I'm not saying people have to do it my way. Most of the time there's multiple solutions based on the particular situation anyway. --Adamant1 (talk) 11:06, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

"I don't really see anyone changing that": are you telling me I didn't do what I just did? - Jmabel ! talk 13:12, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

1. Do you intend to convert lots of pages with tabular data into galleries by adding images to them? 2. Even if you intend to or it's plausible that this will be done, if the wasn't media in them so far it seems like their use and purpose was not being a 'gallery' of media files but something else so one shouldn't add images just for the sake of it then being able to get passed under the term gallery even when the actual purpose and use and intent of the page isn't being a gallery. Prototyperspective (talk) 14:36, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

@Prototyperspective: if you think what I am proposing to do here is somehow counter to the interests of Commons, and that these should be deleted, please nominate them promptly for deletion, not after I have put work into them. - Jmabel ! talk 16:20, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Why would I think they should be deleted. Prototyperspective (talk) 16:23, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Because you are arguing that they are not galleries and seem to be saying that you don't believe they have the potential to be turned into useful galleries, and the broader context of this discussion has been about getting rid of things that are inappropriately in gallery space, and because one of the options above was deletion, and the other was the sort of fix I've started. If you meant something else, please be clearer. - Jmabel ! talk 17:09, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

See above: We cannot use the Data namespace for gallery pages with a table without images. We should come up with something else. There are at least three alternatives:[…] Prototyperspective (talk) 17:21, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel: I think when I made the comment originally you had just added the "no images yet" thumbnails to the gallery and I assumed it would stay that way until someone else added actual images. I see you've been doing it in the meantime though. So I'll change my opinion with that particular gallery. But still, I doubt your going to do the same thing for every tabular gallery in existence on here and I did say I "don't really" anyone doing it. Not that there isn't anyone. Not that a single user adding some images to one gallery isn't helpful, but we're here to find solutions to the issue in general right? --Adamant1 (talk) 03:48, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

@Adamant1: given that it is about a week since the issue was raised at all, it's not surprising that the work is just getting started. And there is nothing urgent about any of this. - Jmabel ! talk 19:49, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel: Yeah obviously. I never said anything needs to or should be done about it immediately. I could ultimately care less either way though. The only reason I'm participating in the discussion or having anything to do with it what-so-ever is because JopkeB pinged me and ask my opinion. No one is saying this needs immediate action though. I'm certainly not. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:55, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel: No offense, but I do find it a little sanctimonious and bad faithed to act like I'm the one rushing things here when i've had essentially nothing to do with this or anything else related to galleries for a couple of weeks now while you and JopkeB have been implementing your way of doing things in the meantime when the conversation hasn't even concluded yet. Is there nothing urgent about any of this or does that talking point only apply when I'm commenting about it because someone pinged me, not when you and @JopkeB: are actually editing galleries? --Adamant1 (talk) 18:21, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Adamant1: were you not the one who CfD'd these? That's what creates a sense of urgency. - Jmabel ! talk 23:11, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel: I nominated a couple of list galleries having to do with monuments in France for deletion like a month ago because that only had a single image since that's the standard JopkeB seemed to want people to follow at the time. I don't see how that creates a sense of urgency about this though. Let alone why it's my issue when I'm not the one who decided single image galleries should be deleted to begin with.

Honestly I don't think the conversation had even been started at that point and again, it's not like I've had anything to do with this in almost a month anyway. So I still think your overacting and pointing the finger at me when it's not my issue and essentially has nothing to do with me at this point. My bad for creating a sense of urgency because I followed the guideline and someone else's standards like a month and a half ago though I guess? --Adamant1 (talk) 23:34, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Adamant1: sure, I'm acting in bad faith, have it in for you, never come to your defense, and am just looking for ways to attack you. Please file about that at COM:AN/U. I promise not to comment on the AN/U thread unless directly asked a question. - Jmabel ! talk 23:40, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel: That's not what I was saying. It just feels a little like I'm getting blamed for something after the fact because JopkeB changed her standards a month later and after she edited the guidelines. aybe I could have phrased it better, but I don't see what's wrong with saying that there's no urgency here on my end because I haven't had anything to do with this for a month and only made the edits to begin with because of JopkeB changing the guidelines.

In retrospect I probably could have waited a little longer to make sure she wasn't going to waffle on it or anything, but still. People seem to treat me like I have no patience about things and edit against the consensus when I've just been sitting here waiting for both of you to figure it out. I just don't want you to think I'm trying to push the issue when I'm not. That's all. I'd appreciate it if you assumed good faith and didn't read more into it then that. Feel free to ping me once you guys have ironed things out and I'll probably help add images to the galleries once you've decide how to handle things. --Adamant1 (talk) 23:50, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Proposal for gallery pages with a table without images

Facts:

1. At least two us think the possibility to create tables in Commons should be kept because they can be useful.
2. In Category:Gallery pages with a wrong format four pages are left with tables without images, that are worthwile keeping and should have an extra column with images:
   1. List of public baths in Paris (column with images has been added by Jmabel)
   2. List of hospitals in Paris (column with images has been added by Jmabel)
   3. List of kindergartens and elementary schools in Paris (this is a very long one, with I guess about 90% red links)
   4. List of libraries in Paris (also a long one with many red links).
3. Ebrahim has given some good answers, that deserve to be included in a Help page about the Data namespace.
4. In Category:Gallery pages with a wrong format 19 other pages are left.

Proposal:

1. To solve the problem of a gallery table without images by us, a table without images should at least have (1) a column with links to Commons categories or other Commons pages and (2) one other column with useful information that cannot be shown directly in a Category by topic.
2. Contact the creator(s) of those four gallery pages and ask them to add a column with images, or to help us doing so, referring to this discussion.
3. Create a (hidden) category for gallery pages with tables: if ever we still would like to create such a namespace, then we have them all together in one category.
   1. How should we call it? Category:Gallery pages with tables?
   2. Implement it: search for gallery pages with tables (how can we do that in a smart way?) and add them to this category.
4. Mention on Commons:Galleries that it is allowed to have gallery pages with tables, but only if they have a column with images or a gallery with a good sample of images from the category/ies the table is about (for example: I think List of Paris Metro lines is a useful gallery page, it does have a lot of images, only not in the table). And they should be added to Category:Gallery pages with tables (or whatever the name will be).
5. Mention this solution also on Category:Gallery pages with a wrong format.
6. Help:Data should become a proper Help page. We can start with adding the answers by Ebrahim.
7. Judge the other 19 pages in Category:Gallery pages with a wrong format and think about what should be done with them. Discuss it here.

@Jmabel, Adamant1, and Prototyperspective: Did I forget something? What do you think? --JopkeB (talk) 07:07, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

• @JopkeB: what further would you want to see done on List of public baths in Paris (since you list it as a fact that it needs further work)? - Jmabel ! talk 21:21, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

  No, nothing, this one is good now. Thanks! I did not look into it yesterday, just copied the list. I'll strike it out from the list, just like List of hospitals in Paris. JopkeB (talk) 04:16, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

• (I've now also done similar work on List of hospitals in Paris. I'd appreciate not being the only one fixing any of these.) - Jmabel ! talk 22:36, 29 October 2024 (UTC)
• NOTE: There might be a lot more of them, see Commons:Deletion requests/List of libraries in Paris; they were deleted with a speedy deletetion, but will be restored. We have to check them after restoration. --JopkeB (talk) 13:51, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Not that I think either one of you care but I'd be interested to know what basis there was for undeleting the galleries since from what I can tell there's no consensus about it either way and the guidelines still seem to be against these types galleries in the meantime. Sure @JopkeB: has proposed something but so what? The guideline clearly says single image galleries qualify for speedy deletion. Plus the conversation hasn't concluded anyway. Someone can't just write a proposal and then do things however they want regardless of if there's a consensus to do it their way or not. Otherwise why even bother with it if your just going to implement it without giving people a chance to comment or otherwise ignore their opinions? --Adamant1 (talk) 17:50, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Lack of consensus is usually not a basis for speedy deletion so, yes, I think undeletion is in order so they can at least be discussed with some ability to see what is being discussed. - Jmabel ! talk 23:13, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel: I agree, but then I didn't nominate the galleries for deletion because of the lack of consensus. The guideline says galleries with a single image qualify for speedy deletion, which the last time I checked we all agree on. So I'm not really sure what your getting at. I could really care less if the galleries were undeleted. I do have an issue with them being undeleted based on the wrong belief that their deletion had anything to do with this conversation when that's not what it was about though. In retrospect though I probably should have waited for a while after the guideline was changed to nominate single image galleries for deletion since it seems like JopkeB is waffling over the whole thing and no one else seems to actually be behind it at this point anyway. --Adamant1 (talk) 23:55, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

We are here discussing the guideline you are referring to. At least two of us want to keep this kind of gallery pages in one way or another, and we are looking for ways how to do that. And then you nominated again a lot of gallery pages that were just kept and reverted (see Commons:Deletion requests/List of libraries in Paris). What about the rule that during a discussion no changes are made in disputed pages as long as the discussion has not been closed? What is the hurry? JopkeB (talk) 05:56, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Overview of gallery pages in Category:Paris-related lists with tables without images: (28)

• Ateliers Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris
• List of cinemas in Paris
• List of embassies in Paris (but it has small flags)
• List of islands of Paris
• List of kindergartens and elementary schools in Paris
• List of Monoprix supermarkets in Paris
• List of monuments historiques in Paris
• Monuments historiques in Paris 10e arrondissement
• Monuments historiques in Paris 11e arrondissement
• Monuments historiques in Paris 12e arrondissement
• Monuments historiques in Paris 13e arrondissement
• Monuments historiques in Paris 14e arrondissement
• Monuments historiques in Paris 15e arrondissement
• Monuments historiques in Paris 16e arrondissement
• Monuments historiques in Paris 18e arrondissement
• Monuments historiques in Paris 1er arrondissement
• Monuments historiques in Paris 20e arrondissement
• Monuments historiques in Paris 2e arrondissement
• Monuments historiques in Paris 3e arrondissement
• Monuments historiques in Paris 4e arrondissement
• Monuments historiques in Paris 5e arrondissement
• Monuments historiques in Paris 6e arrondissement
• Monuments historiques in Paris 7e arrondissement
• Monuments historiques in Paris 8e arrondissement
• Monuments historiques in Paris 9e arrondissement
• List of music schools in Paris
• List of swimming pools in Paris
• List of Paris railway stations

These gallery pages have a table without images, but the gallery pages themselves have a gallery with a sample of images (13):

• List of cemeteries in Paris
• List of foreign cultural institutes in Paris
• List of green spaces in Paris
• List of hôtels particuliers in Paris
• List of libraries in Paris (perhaps the long text should be shortened)
• List of markets in Paris
• List of museums in Paris
• List of middle schools and high schools in Paris
• List of sculptures in the Musée Rodin
• List of stations of the Paris Metro
• List of stations of the Paris RER
• List of town halls in Paris
• List of Wallace fountains in Paris

For me these lists have enough images to keep them.

My  Question: Would it indeed be enough to keep pages with a table without images in the table if those pages have a gallery with a sample of images? Then we might just add such a gallery to the pages in the first list above to be able to keep them. JopkeB (talk) 06:53, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I still disagree that it should be needed to convert tables to tables containing some media files just for the sake of being able to call it a gallery and oppose "Gallery pages with tables" and instead support something like "Tables" or "Index pages" and/or converting them to categories. I thought "Gallery pages with a wrong format" was missing most pages that belong into it. I don't think it's a big problem to not yet have a formal, separate namespace for this type of lists or tables yet. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:14, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

@Prototyperspective: You might be right that "Gallery pages with a wrong format" was missing most pages that belong into it. And I agree that for now a formal, separate namespace for this type of lists or tables is not needed, but only if we agree that we can keep those pages if they have either

• a table with images in the table OR
• at least one gallery with a sample of images.

@Jmabel and Adamant1: The second possibility would be a new addition to the Gallery guideline. So the question still is: Do you agree with this proposal? JopkeB (talk) 05:09, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the general direction. Adamant1 won't be replying for a while, because he is blocked for a month. What I'm not endorsing is a big deletion spree of possibly salvageable pages. If a "gallery" just consists of one or two images, it probably should be deleted, especially if it seems unlikely to be expanded, and certainly I have no problem with having Wikidata wikilink to a useful category rather than a mediocre gallery. But for things that look salvageable, I think we should be very inclined to try to salvage, whether that is a move to "Commons" space (a.k.a. "Project" space), userfying, outright fixing it as I did on a few called out above, or whatever. - Jmabel ! talk 21:06, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel: I'll wait for Adamant1's return before closing this discussion.

 Question Would adding a gallery to a page with a table without a column for images, like in List of cemeteries in Paris, be a good solution to salvage a page as a gallery page? I would be prepared to help salvage the pages in the first list (28, now 27) in this way. JopkeB (talk) 04:45, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

@JopkeB: I personally think that is reasonable (would view that as sufficient not to delete), though I personally would still be inclined to add the column and use it where we have content. - Jmabel ! talk 20:12, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Sequel to How to handle Gallery pages with a wrong format?

State of affairs

@Jmabel, Adamant1, and Prototyperspective: Last week I have:

• Added a gallery to each of the galleries in Category:Paris-related lists, if they did not have already one. So these galleries are OK now and can stay.
• Reorganized Category:Wikimedia logo mosaic and Category:Gallery pages of Wikimedia logos and moved two galleries to namespace Category. So they can also stay.
• Added a third way to keep lists in Category:Gallery pages with a wrong format: if they should be categories.
• Nominated Lists of KITLV and Naturalis for deletion because I do not think they fit within the scope of Commons.

Now there are two groups of gallery pages left, which I still do not know what to do with:

1. the galleries in Category:Orchidaceae - species lists of genera. They look like overviews and lists of wanted gallery pages at the same time, because there are a lot of red links in.
2. The four pages starting with User:JopkeB (on 24 dec 2024 04:42 The Squirrel Conspiracy copied them to my namespace and deleted them according to Commons:Deletion requests/London Underground geographic maps/Tables). I guess they are part of or are used in London Underground geographic maps, but I do not have enough knowledge of this matter.
   1. User:JopkeB/London Underground geographic maps/CSV
   2. User:JopkeB/London Underground geographic maps/PHP
   3. User:JopkeB/London Underground geographic maps/SQL
   4. User:JopkeB/London Underground geographic maps/Tables

Do you have suggestions? JopkeB (talk) 14:31, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

@Ed g2s: it looks like that last set are yours. Do you have any suggestions?

@Jopke: barring that we should hear from Ed g2s, I'd say just move those four to "Commons" space in case they are useful to anyone. - Jmabel ! talk 16:56, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks Jmabel, I moved those four to the Commons space (I collected them in Category:London Underground maps technical information) and wait for Ed g2s for a reaction. It turns out that the Lists of KITLV and Naturalis are still needed; I discuss the best way to do so in Commons:Deletion requests/List of species and genera in Category:Mammal specimens at Naturalis Biodiversity Center and Commons:Deletion requests/List of photographers with work in Category:Photographs from KITLV. Then for now there are only the galleries in Category:Orchidaceae - species lists of genera left. JopkeB (talk) 08:08, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

 Question Can Data:Tombs in the Panthéon de Paris.tab be deleted now? Ebrahim created it because of the discussion in User talk:Ebrahim#Questions about the Data namespace. But you added a column with photos in the corresponding gallery page, so there is no need anymore to change it to a tab/data file. JopkeB (talk) 09:26, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

JopkeB:  Done Thanks −Ebrahim^talk 12:18, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Flags with flowers

@Enyavar: re: [1], I would have thought "Flags with flowers" could be quite useful, because it could help in identifying an unfamiliar flag. - Jmabel ! talk 17:31, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

In a gallery page? That counters the words right before my insertion, should be used to display specific collections of flags from closely related entities, - if this means we have to have galleries of flags with bears, lions, flowers, birds, crosses, stars, half moons, swords, rifles, hammers and bells, we are right back in the territory of unmanageable all-over-the-place flag galleries. As far as I understood this whole preceding debate, that was the kind of maddening collections we wanted to get rid of? --Enyavar (talk) 17:43, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

@Enyavar: I thought it was more the things like aspect ratios, which are perfectly handled by categories. But you are probably right: now that I look at Category:Flags with flowers, I see that a crazy number of the inclusions there are things where the flower is entirely incidental. No, we don't need a gallery for that, or if one is merited it would be more of a "most interesting images on this motif" type of gallery, rather than an effort to be comprehensive. - Jmabel ! talk 18:23, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Was there an agreement I didn't see to change the guideline to recommend against "packed"?

I see by this edit that the guideline has been changed to recommend against "packed" galleries. I strongly disagree. Was this discussed somewhere? - Jmabel ! talk 15:36, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Lacking response, I will revert. I would have no strong objection to deciding against use of "height" and "width", but the others should be no problem. About half of the featured good examples use "packed". - Jmabel ! talk 12:59, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Again, moving signed statement from guideline. There is no consensus for this: Note that using anything but the plain <gallery> tag will make the gallery difficult for anyone with a large or small screen and may be impossible for those with limited vision. All of those users can set the default gallery size to suit their needs. .     Jim . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 13:28, 27 October 2025 (UTC) - Jmabel ! talk 03:52, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

I completely fail to see how using (for example) the "packed" attribute is in any way harder for someone with a different size screen or limited vision. Similarly, how adding a title to a gallery would have this problem. Similarly, outside of the <gallery> tag as such, how the use of {{Wide image}} or using a thumb (as is routine in Wikipedia), as appropriate, is in any way a liability. I certainly don't think there is a consensus to deprecate these. - Jmabel ! talk 03:55, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for moving it here. Maybe this was intended to be about setting a specific size/width/height or would make sense if it was specifically about that? Prototyperspective (talk) 11:11, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

Then it should say that. But, in any case, no one should be unilaterally changing a guideline over an objection, nor signing a paragraph of a guideline. - Jmabel ! talk 12:40, 31 October 2025 (UTC)

"Packed" galleries present no problem, and are fully responsive - it's not difficult to go to any page with a "packed"-mode gallery and resize your browser window to check. Taking an educated guess, there could be an issue with the "widths" parameter, but this would be down to a discussion here to identify any problems. Cnbrb (talk) 10:00, 3 November 2025 (UTC)