Category talk:Taken with Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS10

merge with Category:Taken with Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ20

This category is a duplicate of the DMC-TZ20 category, which is the same model with a different name (and maybe also DMC-TZ22). It looks like there has been an edit war and a discussion at Commons:Categories for discussion/2014/08/Category:Taken with Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS10, regarding which category should redirect to the other. I think there are a couple of reason for redirecting to the TZ category: 1) this is what has been done for all the other ZS categories 2) not every TZ model has an alternative ZS name, so to list the full series, you need to use the TZ names. There's also a possible argument that TZ seems to be the main marketing name used worldwide, while the SZ names are only used in North America. --ghouston (talk) 00:12, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

• It has been my position that it is a mistake to rely on the opinion of experts as to what the "real" name of cameras should be. Every modern camera embeds the manufacturer's idea of its name in the exif data for every image. The name in the exif data has strong advantage over reclassifying based on the opinions of experts:

1. The name embedded in the exif data is unambiguous;
2. Anyone can read the name from the exif data;
3. Robots can read the name from the exif data, and we can leave the donkey work of this kind of low level organizing to robots.

I dispute I edited warred. My revisions were based on discussions where previously uninvolved third parties weighed in.

I've pointed out that two cameras, might share the same case, same internal circuit board, and other key components, and yet be functionally distinct, because they were flashed with different firmware. We know they were flashed with different firmware, because they embed different model names. Two physically identical cameras might be functionally distinct because they were manufactured on different dates. The later camera's firmware might enable features not available in the earlier camera, merely because those features weren't ready when it was manufactured.

I've pointed out that two physically identical cameras might be functionally distinct because the manufacturer wanted to market a camera at every price point, to compete with their competitor's range of products at every price point. The two models of cameras might be physically identical, with the less expensive model being run by firmware that provides drastically reduced set of features to the more expensive model. That is Capitalism for you. Manufacturers do pull this kind of stunt, as intel did with their 486sx, 486dx and 487 cpus. Do you know that story? Previous generations of intel cpus required a separate floating point co-processor, to handle floating point intensive applications. Consumers were told that the deluxe version of the 486, the 486dx, had an onboard FPU, while the less capable and much less expensive sucky version, the 486sx had not FPU, but could be supplemented with the purchase of a 487 fpu co-processor. Wrong. All the chips looked the same, but were mounted in packages with different pinouts. The 486sx chips were 486dx chips with defects in the manufacture of their floating point regions. The 487 was not a coprocessor. If a 487 was installed the motherboard shut off the 486sx.

There is no reason for us to be pawns to the marketing tricks of sneaky manufacturers.

Before you did your two edits, did you click on the "what links here" button, to see where this category had been discussed? Did you look at Commons:Undeletion_requests/Archive/2014-12#Category:Taken_with_Panasonic_Lumix_DMC-ZS10? Let me quote what an uninvolved third party said:

"As for the question of one or two cats for the camera, I strongly favor having two. While it may be true that the two cameras are identical under the hood, many users will not know that and confusion will arise again. El Grafo would have a redirect, but which way should the redirect go? We do not, after all, combine Dodge and Plymouth cars, even though they were made on the same assembly line with the same parts except for the labels front and back."

User:Ghouston, the "What Links Here" button is your friend. Geo Swan (talk) 18:19, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

My edit was to simply group the two categories, since the cameras are generally considered to be the same model. I don't really object to having separate categories for the two names, although I don't think it's necessary either. It would be possible to group them and still keep them separate, using three categories: a grouping category like "Taken with Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ20 / DMC-ZS10" with the two separate categories inside. The grouping category could then be linked at other places where the variants share a single page, since Wikipedia and Wikidata generally wouldn't have separate entries for minor variants. --ghouston (talk) 05:39, 5 January 2016 (UTC)