Category talk:Regions of Chile
Regions of Chile - category naming convention questions[edit]
Hi. I would like to clean up the Category:Regions of Chile a bit. Before starting, I am seeking some advice, especially from Chileans or at least Spanish speaking South Americans familiar with Chile and also from Commons participants who work on categories a lot.
First a little background information. Chile has 15 administrative divisions, or regións, that are comparable to states or provinces in other countries. All but one of the regións are numbered with a roman numeral that indicates (at least through number XII) it's relative north to south position within the country (originally I being the most northern región and XII being the most southern). The Metropolitan Region of Santiago (Región Metropolitana de Santiago) is abbreviated RM but takes the place of number XIII. RM is similar to the U.S. District of Columbia, in that it is not a regular state, but a special administrative region that is the home of the nation's capital (Santiago de Chile in the case of Chile). Two new regións were carved out of existing regións, and they became regións XIV and XV (breaking the north to south numerical order). Several of Chile's regións share the name of large comunas (similar to counties and/or large city areas), like Antofagasta which is within the Antofagasta Región.
Currently, Commons has a terrible mixture of names in use for the various regións . They combine English and Spanish in a very inconsistent manner. Photos of regións are stuck in categories covering the comunas. Many of the regións don't even have categories setup, and their photos are just dumped in Regions of Chile or some other Chile-related category. It makes it very difficult to locate media or organize the media that is there.
The official Spanish name of each región is quite long, and I do not think it would make a very useful category name. The regions each have a shorthand name (e.g., "O'Higgins" instead of "VI Región del Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins") that could be used instead of the full name. I think using the abbreviated name would be very acceptable to native speakers and locals, while also keeping the names simple to type.
In Spanish, the proper order for a category name would be "Región de O'Higgins" (as you can see in use at w:es:Categoría:Regiones de Chile), but each category must be manually ordered, otherwise they would all be alphabetically sorted under "R" for "Región". It is customary in English names to reverse the order ("O'Higgins Region"), which also helps with the automatic alphabetizing of the category names.
Therefore, I suggest using the Spanish spelling of each región's abbreviated name (Biobío instead of the English Bio-Bio), followed by the English word "Region" on Commons and en.wiki. On es.wiki, keep the categories in the "Región de ___" format currently in use. I think that would be clear and non-offensive to native speakers and locals, while also making it easy for Commons contributors to find things. I do not know whether it would be better to name RM in Spanish ("Región Metropolitana de Santiago") or in English ("Santiago Metropolitan Region"); Spanish would be more consistent with the other names. Where regións and comunas share a name, the región will be easily identifiable as the región, though someone will still have to move miscategorized media occasionally from the comuna category into the región.
I was also going to suggest that the English Wikipedia's (en.wiki) categories be organized in the same way, but I discovered that they already are that way. I seem to be duplicating the efforts of other people. The main variation from en.wiki that I would recommend on Commons is to use the Spanish name for RM ("Región Metropolitana de Santiago") instead of the English name, since all the other regions are (mostly) in Spanish.
I am also curious if it would be proper to shorten "Magallanes y Antártica Chilena Region" to "Magallanes y Antártica Region" as it is currently on Commons? I like short category names, but only if they are proper and would not be offensive or misleading. Another common short name I see is just "Magallanes Region", though that really short name might have political overtones and be more popular with people who do not feel Chile has legitimate claims to land in Antartica. If either "Magallanes y Antártica Region" or "Magallanes Region" are acceptable, then en.wiki's category should be renamed, too.
Below is my complete recommendation. I do not speak much Spanish, so all spellings came from the w:es:Categoría:Regiones de Chile and its related articles.
Please leave your comments below. Thanks! --Willscrlt (Talk) 03:27, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Note: Also check Category:Maps of Chile which has some inconsistent names, too.
Great![edit]
Hi,
it is a great idea!.
- I would let "Magallanes y Antártica Region" instead of "Magallanes Region" because Wikipedia should not "invent" new names and the also because of the Chilean claims over the antartic.
- There is another issue with "Aysén" or "Aisén": http://www.emol.com/noticias/nacional/detalle/detallenoticias.asp?idnoticia=253698 says that the second one is right:
- because the Instituto Geográfico Militar writes it so (nevertheless many writes it with "y")
- there are no words in spanish with a Y in the middle (No hay palabras en nuestra lengua (y que respondan a eso que los gramáticos llaman el genio del idioma) que tengan a la "y" como vocal al interior de una palabra e.g. aymara--> aimara)
--[[User:Createaccount|Antipatico]] (talk) 17:23, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks for commenting. I completely agree with your comments about "Aysén" or "Aisén". Fortunately, "Aisén" is the one already in use.
- I just discovered that there are several categories that all seem to cover the same topics:
Category:Magallanes y Antártica Region-— only 4 images and 1 subcategoryCategory:Chilean Antarctic Territory-— only 5 images and no subcategories- Moved to Category:Antártica Chilena
Category:Antarctic of Chile-— the largest and with several subcategories- Moved to Category:Antártica Chilena
- Category:Claimed territories of Antarctica -— a few images with several subcategories
- Left as-is. It was not pertinent to this discussion after all.
- The number of images and subcategories doesn't mean that it is right or wrong... just that there is more work to do to fix something if we change it. --Willscrlt (Talk) 03:33, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Additional improvements[edit]
It's no big surprise, but I have noticed that the smaller subdivisions (provinces, municipalities, etc.) are equally confusing. I propose the following structure be the standard.
- Region: Tarapacá Region (as discussed above)
- Province: Iquique Province (following the same logic)
- Regional/provincial capitals: Iquique (no special designation, just the municipality name unless ", Chile" needs to be added for disambiguation from another category with the same name)
- Other municipalities: Alto Hospicio, Chile (add the country name for clarity)
This matches the general method used in both es.wiki and en.wiki as well as several of the categories here at Commons. I don't see the need to create the individual Province or Other Municipality categories until there is some content to go inside. The Regions and Capitals should be created, leaving them empty even if there is nothing to put in them yet. There will be eventually, I'm sure.
On each of the Region categories, a list of the Provinces, Capitals, and Municipalities should be added and redlinked to the correct category name. This will help people starting the new categories to automatically use the preferred naming format by following the redlink to start the category.
Any feedback? --Willscrlt (Talk) 07:53, 27 September 2008 (UTC)