Commons:Categories for discussion/2023/11

Category:Haplogroups in Poland

unexplained weird category, no info how things are put here and what it even means Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 12:41, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

See also https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Categories_for_discussion/2023/11/Category:Haplogroup_U_(mtDNA)_by_country Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 12:41, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Category:Brooklyn, New York City by year

All the subcat should be move to "<year> in Brooklyn, New York City", as it is a common practice that the year goes first A1Cafel (talk) 09:08, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Category:Manhattan, New York City by year

All the subcat should be move to "<year> in Manhattan, New York City", as it is a common practice that the year goes first A1Cafel (talk) 09:09, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Category:Queens, New York City by year

All the subcat should be move to "<year> in Queens, New York City", as it is a common practice that the year goes first A1Cafel (talk) 09:10, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Category:Files using the Mandarin language (Standard Beijing variety)

Rename to "Category:Files using the Standard Mandarin Chinese language", because:

  1. Reference to Beijing can be confusing. Many people dont speak with a Beijing accent.
  2. It can be called "Mandarin Chinese" but probably not "Mandarin language".
  3. Current title has rather strange letter case. Roy17 (talk) 16:29, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

The scope of this category tree is for 現代標準漢語 / 普通話 / 中華民國國語 / 馬來西亞華語 / 新加坡華語, with the possibility of further subdivision into each standard.--Roy17 (talk) 16:35, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

How would you rename the related Category:Files using the Mandarin language (non-Beijing variety)? Lovewhatyoudo (talk) 16:39, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
You dont put things together as "non-xx". Either you just put them under "Category:Files using the Mandarin Chinese language", or you create subcategories like "Files using the Southwestern Mandarin Chinese language". Roy17 (talk) 16:49, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
Non-xx was a way to alleviate the burden on the editors to identify the variety of Mandarin someone is speaking in a video. But maybe after all editors just have to accept that burden. In principle I have no objection to your proposed change to the two categories in question. Lovewhatyoudo (talk) 17:58, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Category:Cimbal

I strongly suspect this is either a duplicate of Category:Cimbalom or possibly refers to something slightly more specific. At the moment, it is linked to Category:Cimbali (Q89494430), which is about a manufacturer of espresso machines. Jmabel ! talk 01:10, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

I think it is like that. Both categories refer to the same instrument. Nemo (talk) 16:53, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Category:Kneeling sportspeople

This should be merged with Category:Kneeling in sports. There is essentially 100% overlap. Denniscabrams (talk) 05:01, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

I suppose kneeling by spectators or other non-sportspeople at a sporting event would qualify as Kneeling in sports but not Kneeling sportspeople, but I am not sure that is a distinction worth making. Josh (talk) 18:36, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Category:March on Washington, D.C. to Free Palestine (November 4, 2023)

The actual name given by the organizers is "National March on Washington: Free Palestine!" The original category was closer to the correct name (without the colon, exclamation point and omitted word "National." The full date is not needed . Ooligan (talk) 17:58, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Don't feel strongly about the "!", but I've created en:National March on Washington: Free Palestine if we want to be consistent. -Another Believer (talk) 22:38, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
I think the article and category titles should match. APK (talk) 11:41, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
No objection on the page move. --A1Cafel (talk) 12:10, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Category:Streets in Schwabing-Freimann

Die Unterteilung in "Freimann" und "Schwabing" macht so keinen Sinn, denn in die Kategorie "Schwabing" fallen auch Straßen aus dem Bezirk "Schwabing-West", die liegen dann aber nicht im Bezirk "Schwabing-Freimann". Das Stadtviertel "Schwabing" lässt sich nämlich nicht als echte Obermenge mehrerer oder Untermenge eines Stadtbezirks einordnen. Was Sinn machen würde, ist Schwabing-Freimann in "Freimann" und "Schwabing-Ost" zu unterteilen. Schwabing-West und -Ost wären dann zusätzlich Subkategorien von "Schwabing". SuPich (talk) 22:21, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

 Keep Die Kategorie Streets in Schwabing-Freimann kann gar nicht zur Diskussion stehen, da sie sich in das Schema Streets in [Stadtbezirk von München] richtig einordnet. Es geht hier um die Unterkategorie Category:Streets in Schwabing, die hier nicht passt, da Schwabing-West ein eigenständiger Stadtbezirk von München ist, aber Schwabing-Ost nur ein Stadtteil vom Stadtbezirk Schwabing-Freimann. GeorgDerReisende (talk) 22:27, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Category:Barack Obama before 2004

Seems unnecessary to have "before", and why 2004 is the cut-off year? A1Cafel (talk) 15:23, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

 Keep This catches the few existing pre-2004 photographs that are Commons compatible. In the future, if there is enough photos for a new pre-2004 category, it will likely be made from photos gathered from this category. --Ooligan (talk) 17:30, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
  •  Delete The only parent for this is Category:Barack Obama by year and "before 2004" clearly isn't a year. So it's obviously wrong. There's no reason the images can't just be up-merged to something that makes more sense and fits policy like Category:Barack Obama either. The category only contains 29 as it is. So it's not like there's a need to defuse it anyway. --Adamant1 (talk) 11:38, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Category:Categories of the Ottoman Empire

Useless duplicate of Category:Ottoman Empire. Yann (talk) 18:53, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

This appears to be the same issue for all contents of Category:Categories of countries, which is a useless extra tree of parallel categorization:
  1. For hierarchical navigation, all of these categories should be correctly positioned in the Category:Ottoman Empire, so this is useless for standard navigation, but,
  2. For direct navigation using an index to find a topic of the Ottoman Empire directly, Category:Ottoman Empire by topic serves as a proper index.
Either way, this structure is obsolete and can be deleted. Josh (talk) 18:32, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
 Oppose deletion. While there are proper index categories for direct navigation by topic, the Categories of countries categories are still useful to list categories of countries "by city", "by location", "by state", "by district" etc. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 09:43, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
@Sbb1413: Usually what we do in instances like your talking about is create a categories named "X country by subject" or whatever. All these do is duplicate those categories with the word "categories." there's absolutely zero difference what-so-ever between "X country by subject" and "categories of X country" though and there's zero point to have different category structures for the same exact thing. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:54, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
  •  Delete I can kind of see the merits of this at a more general, project wide level. It's rather pedantic and nonsensical (if not totally pointless) once you get down to level of a town, city, or similar smaller administrative unit though. There's also the whole paradox that any "categories of X" are going to be circular and self-nesting. By that I mean if you have something like Category:Categories of Łódź then it's also a category of Łódź. So what exactly would you do there? Put Category:Categories of Łódź in Category:Categories of Łódź? come on. That just doesn't work. Plus that's not even getting into the fact that Category:Łódź is a category of Łódź itself. Again, making the whole thing just circular, self-nesting nonsense. I think you could have a general "category for categories" though, like an overarching project wide metacat or something, just as long as it's not called "categories of whatever" or contains other categories called that. --Adamant1 (talk) 14:33, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
 Oppose deletion, per Sbb1413. But renaming everything to Category:Meta categories of X is IMHO the best solution. --Orijentolog (talk) 16:37, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Category:SC class London buses

Delete altogether - is made-up fleet code which was not used on either a Stagecoach/East London Bus Group Scania OmniCity-type bus or any London bus, as far as I'm aware. Hullian111 (talk) 22:21, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Category:Maps to year

I created this category to contain all categories ending with "to <year>". Most of these were created by the same user. I don't understand what these categories are for and how they're different from "in <year>" categories. Cryptic-waveform (talk) 16:13, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

So the difference between in the year and to year is that one card was valid until that year and the other category was only valid in this year. Both apply to my traffic control card. But if no adjustments take place in a year, then such a card can be valid for 2 years or longer. --Tschubby (talk) 20:11, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
When I first encountered the category Maps of Allier to 2015, I thought the category was intended to include all maps before 2015, like for example this 1852 map. Also, 2015 is before 2016, so the whole 2015 category ought to be a subcategory of Maps of Allier to 2016?
So yeah, there are some definition problems. Ideally, each category should have a header that explains which content is expected. I just shook my head and moved on.
Maps of arrondissements of Allier to 2016 is a much better name, because it makes clear that only arrondissements are going to be included... and Locator maps of departements of Région Bretagne to 2023 is even better, again, making clear that the category is exclusively about Locator maps (of subdivisions (of areas)).
--Enyavar (talk) 21:50, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Category:Leyland Olympian buses in Greater Manchester

Delete category - redundant and underused since its creation, files would be better suited categorised by body/manufacturer and borough of Manchester they are located in. Hullian111 (talk) 13:43, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Category:Leyland Titan (B15) buses in Greater Manchester

Delete category - redundant and underused since its creation, files would be better suited categorised by body/manufacturer and borough of Manchester they are located in. Hullian111 (talk) 13:43, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Category:Leyland National buses in Greater Manchester

Delete category - files would be better suited categorised by body/manufacturer and borough of Manchester they are located in. Hullian111 (talk) 13:51, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Category:Gridiron football punters

Judging by its subcategories, this parentless category is not parallel to Category:Gridiron football (which, in turn, I don't fully understand because it is not interwiki linked; is it intended to correspond to gridiron football (Q1546270), which lacks an interwiki link to Commons? If so, its content is not really the content it should have, either, and I would presume that American and Canadian football should be subcats of that latter category.) Anyone care to try to sort this out? Jmabel ! talk 00:57, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Category:2007 in Gündlischwand

if there is no general rule that EVERY image should be placed in a per year category, we should use per year categories wisely and only in cases, where there are overwhelmlingly many images. Which is not the case here. Herzi Pinki (talk) 07:22, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I propose to delete this category and move everything up to Category:Gündlischwand. --Herzi Pinki (talk) 07:25, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Category:National Museum of North Ossetia

I believe this should have some relation to Category:Prospect Mira, 11 (Vladikavkaz), but I'm not sure how they should be related. Jmabel ! talk 04:38, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Typically I have seen the building as the parent category, with the museum under it, being the occupant. Lots of museums in Europe are not purpose-built but rather the collection is hosted in existing buildings, such as older former hotels or train stations, then move to another existing building as it makes sense. MarbleGarden (talk) 06:04, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
& not just in Europe. But the correct relation will depend on whether the entire museum is in the one building. If the museum has multiple buildings, we'd typically put the building under the museum. - Jmabel ! talk 19:11, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Category:Organoiodine compounds

Unclear what Category:organoiodine compounds are as distinct or superset of Category:Organoiodides‎. Propose merging into Organoiodides‎, per the naming pattern of other subcats of Category:Organohalides DMacks (talk) 06:45, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

I don’t have a strong preference either way, but the original intent was to have a superset of organoiodides that would also include organic hypervalent iodine compounds. So RI would be in organoiodides, RICl2 and the like would be in iodanes (or whatever the category is called), and both of those categories would be in this parent category. Following en:Hypervalent organoiodine compounds. Ben (talk) 12:38, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
That hierarchy does make sense. But then "organoiodine compounds" sounds somewhat redundant to Category:Carbon–iodine compounds. Using that latter as the parent avoids having to decide if things like Category:Bromochlorofluoroiodoalkanes are "organic". DMacks (talk) 05:11, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
Sounds fine to me. Alternatively, if you did want to keep the existing categories but were worried about hard-to-categorise species like CI4, you could keep them in the parent Category:Carbon-iodine compounds and put unambiguously organic C-I species in the subset Category:Organoiodine compounds. Another reason I just remembered for having the categories as they are at present is for consistency across all elements - not essential but not unreasonable. Ben (talk) 21:04, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Category:Steam turbine submarines

Delete as too confusing. "Having steam turbines" is not a useful defining characteristic of submarines, as it overlaps between the British K class and all modern nuclear submarines. Andy Dingley (talk) 08:23, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Delete category though I do think powerplant arrangements have potential value as defining characteristics. In this case, however, it appears that what this category really is too limited to be a useful breakdown of Steam submarines, as its only contents are the K-Class (I suppose it would also include the German Project 50 if we have anything on that), not the nuclear subs, so realistically this one should be Category:Oil-fired steam turbine submarines if kept, but in reality, I think just upmerge to Steam submarines and be done with it. Josh (talk) 17:36, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Category:Les Halles

It is unclear what should exactly be inserted in this category: old images should go in Historical images of Les Halles, old market related files in Les Halles de Paris, in Forum des Halles (1979-2010) the situation of Le Halles after the demolition of the market and before the recent renovation. Forum des Halles for the modern shopping mall and Quartier des Halles of general photo of the 1st arrondissement. ZandDev (talk) 12:14, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

  •  Comment Currently in use with files and subcategories. What do you think is the best thing to do here? Possible suggestions 1)Make it into a {{Metacat}}, a parent category with subcategories that should have no individual files 2)Make it into a {{Disambiguation}} ? -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 16:59, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Category:College gates

This recently created category was intended to split off material from Category:University gates that depicts colleges rather than universities. However, there is no meaningful distinction between a college gate and a university gate that one could observe on sight — both are entrances to higher education institutions. Further, the meaning of "college" varies widely by geography, so splitting in this way groups institutions more by name (with a bias toward English) than by any actual distinction. This is why categories like Category:University and college presidents are just named to include both. I think we should follow that precedent here and just rename it Category:University and college gates rather than splitting. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 15:24, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

The Universities and Colleges categories are intended for those countries who maintain an obvious distinction between an university and a college, although the distinction varies by geography. In India, universities are autonomous higher education institutions, while colleges are dependent to a particular university. In the UK, universities consist of several colleges and all the university educations are conducted through these colleges. Countries without an obvious distinction between them may merge these two categories into Higher education institutions. I have already created Gates of higher education institutions to address the problematic distinction between universities and colleges, and it should be used for countries without an obvious distinction between universities and colleges. Therefore, I !vote to  Keep College gates and University gates separate for countries with distinction between universities and colleges. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 02:30, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
I've also tagged Gates of higher education institutions so that all three categories are considered. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 03:31, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
Categories should not have meanings that vary based on what country photos in them were taken. Your examples of how the terms differ (and there are plenty more) seem to me to be evidence in support of the nomination. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 04:42, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
@Sdkb, you are correct that the meaning of a word used in category naming should be consistent across category trees and levels--this is essentially the main point of the Universality Principle. If what is a college or university is being applied inconsistently, this is a problem, but one for the institution level (Category:Colleges and Category:Universities), not a small sub-cat such as their gates. The gates categories should be organized consistently with the institution categories and apply the same scope for inclusion in either as their parent categories apply. Josh (talk) 16:25, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
 Keep, Colleges and Universities are both distinct sub-categories of Higher education institutions, and thus College gates and University gates are both valid continuations of this hierarchy under Gates of higher education institutions in compliance with the Universality Principle and Hierarchic Principle. gates of colleges and gates of universities would be even better names for true universality, but that's a minor quibble. Josh (talk) 16:19, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Category:Signs taken with Nikon D40

Do we really need to spilt "Taken by [camera]" into subject sub-categories? See also other newly-made sub categories of Category:Taken with Nikon D40. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:03, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

And now we have Category:Buildings in India taken with Nikon D40. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:24, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
  • I would say 'yes'. Before explanation, please see Canon PowerShot SX60 HS which I started, and which is used by others. A cat with literally thousands of images makes it pretty useless for searches. If it is accepted to have any cat for 'Taken with…', and that might well be a debate, then it is reasonable to split it, as we do with all overpopulated cats. Why would people want to search photos by a particular camera? The only reason I can see is to judge how a camera and its set-ups behave in different situations, places, and with differing types of subject. I know this splitting is rare for cameras, but common and reasonable for everything else, and should happen if the 'Taken by…' cat's existence is viable and of any use for searchers, and of course if anyone can be bothered to do this for such obscure cats. Acabashi (talk) 10:16, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
I'm in agreement with Andy on this. It doesn't make sense to duplicate the whole categorization based on each camera type. What's next? ISO, flash, shutter speed? If searching is the concern, then contributors should use the "incategory" keyword search. Cryptic-waveform (talk) 00:38, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
I'm also with Andy. We should not keep making arbitrary category intersections that are unlikely either (1) to be what any significant number of users are looking for or (2) to break down what would otherwise be a very large category along geographic or temporal lines. Otherwise we'd move toward an atomization where every combination of categories that is used gets a category of its own. - Jmabel ! talk 22:29, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
@Acabashi bonjour, je suis du même avis que Andy Mabbett, Cryptic-waveform and Jmabel. Cette série de catégories est superflue, inutile, ingérable et non conforme à l'objectif de Commons : offrir des images pour illustrer des articles encyclopédiques. (1) Le but de Commons n'est pas de trouver des image prise par un type donné de caméra ni de promouvoir des caméras (2) Il est très peu probable que les contributeurs utiliseront de telles sub-categories. (3) La fonction de recherche est parfaitement opérationnel pour repérer ces images. Il semble que les catégories sont maintenant "cachées", isolées, n'ayant aucun lien avec d'autres catégories semblables. Ainsi, elles sont inutilisables pour la communauté. Même si je n'en vois pas quel à quoi cela pourrait servir : des pages de galeries avec un choix d'exellentes images pourrait-elle être une solution alternative acceptable ? Cordialement,--Bohème (talk) 13:28, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
[google translation] : @Acabashi: bonjour, I agree with Andy Mabbett, @Cryptic-waveform and Jmabel: These categories are superfluous, unnecessary, unmanageable and inconsistent with the purpose of Commons: provide images to illustrate encyclopedic articles. (1) The purpose of Commons is not to find images taken by a given type of camera nor to promote cameras (2) It is very unlikely that contributors will use such subcategories. (3) The search function is perfectly operational to locate these images.
It seems that the categories are now "hidden", isolated, having no link with other similar categories. Thus, they are unusable for the community. Although I don't see what use this could be for: could gallery pages with a choice of excellent images be an acceptable alternative solution? Sincerely, --Bohème (talk) 13:28, 7 February 2024 (UTC)