User talk:Skinsmoke

Welcome to Wikimedia Commons, Skinsmoke!

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Tip: Categorizing images

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Hello, Skinsmoke!

Tip: Add categories to your files

Thanks a lot for contributing to the Wikimedia Commons! Here's a tip to make your uploads more useful: Why not add some categories to describe them? This will help more people to find and use them.

Here's how:

1) If you're using the UploadWizard, you can add categories to each file when you describe it. Just click "more options" for the file and add the categories which make sense:

2) You can also pick the file from your list of uploads, edit the file description page, and manually add the category code at the end of the page.

[[Category:Category name]]

For example, if you are uploading a diagram showing the orbits of comets, you add the following code:

[[Category:Astronomical diagrams]]

[[Category:Comets]]

This will make the diagram show up in the categories "Astronomical diagrams" and "Comets".

When picking categories, try to choose a specific category ("Astronomical diagrams") over a generic one ("Illustrations").

Thanks again for your uploads! More information about categorization can be found in Commons:Categories, and don't hesitate to leave a note on the help desk.

BotMultichillT 06:14, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

• Image:Blakelaw and North Fenham - BMX Park.jpg was uncategorized on 14 September 2009.
• Image:Harewood - Harewood House.jpg was uncategorized on 9 August 2010 CategorizationBot (talk) 18:03, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Re: Wirral categories

Hi Skinsmoke,

Thanks very much for recatting and fixing many of the images in the Wirral/Cheshire categories.

Just to let you know that in addition to the Cheshire heirarchies, we also have heirarchies for the Wirral peninsula, which has always (even before I used commons) contained images from both the Merseysdie and Cheshire parts of Wirral.

The way this has been dealt with is to put anything that is in Wirral into the Wirral categories, and then have the Wirral categories appear in both the Merseyside and Cheshire heirachies.

Of course this is very much open to debate, but it does allow anyone searching in either Merseyside, Cheshire or Wirral categories to find anything at all on the Wirral via any of those three routes. This is why I have put some of the Wirral related stuff e.g. "Ness Gardens" (which is in Wirral) back into the Wirral tree. Taking it out means that it couldn't be found via the Wirral heirarchy. This way it can still be found via the Cheshire heirarchy too. I hope that makes sense. Of course please let me know if you disgaree, but the Wirral is a bit of a unique case, being a small self-contained geographical enitity that unfortunately straddles two counties.

Thanks again Benkid77 (talk) 08:42, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I was following the English Wikipedia rule that places go in their ceremonial county, which in this case would be Cheshire. I wonder if the way round wouldn't be to have a Wirral Peninsula category (or alternatively a Metropolitan Borough of Wirral category). Must admit the whole lot was begining to swim in front of my eyes, and I was wishing I had never got sidetracked (I set off trying to get some of the images in Cheshire into subcategories, and one thing sort of led to another.... Two hours later!). What do you think? Skinsmoke (talk) 08:51, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Just checked and English Wikipedia does indeed use the two pages Wirral Peninsula and Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. Skinsmoke (talk) 08:57, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think there is a strong case for splitting the whole Wirral hierachy into two, the Metropolitain borough of Wirral, Merseyside and "South Wirral, Cheshire". This would totally solve the issue and completely comply with the usual method of respecting the sorting of images as per the ceremonial counties. Until this is done, I think people will still put Wirral stuff randomly into either Wirral/Merseyside or Cheshire categories. The only reason I haven't made this change until now was that the Wirral heirarchies have grown so big, so it's something of a mammoth task. The second reason is that it does somewhat leave the part of Wirral that is in Cheshire somewhat vague. So it needs at little further thought as to what to do with places in "Wirral Cheshire", perhaps it's best just to absorb them back into the Cheshire heirarchy, although they may be a issue of people still putting images from those locations into Wirral cats, as kept happening in the past. I'm certainly open to the idea of this change though and as I know the Merseyside/Cheshire boundary well, I'd certainly be willing to implement the above change. Perhaps I should move this discussion to the Wirral talk page. This debate is certainly needed. Regards, Benkid77 (talk) 09:08, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

The other issue is also what to do with things like "The Wirral Way", "M53 motorway", "Saltmarshes in Wirral" and these other things that straddle the two parts of Wirral. I'm sure something can be worked out though, by placing them in multiple cats and/or dissovling some of those cats. Benkid77 (talk) 09:12, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I have now copied this discussion to Category_talk:Wirral. Lets continue any possible future discussion there. Benkid77 (talk) 09:16, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

How about a new category of Wirral Peninsula. Metropolitan Borough of Wirral would be a subcategory of both that and Merseyside. Wirral Peninsula would be a subcategory of both Merseyside and Cheshire West and Chester The others, where they cover both sides of the border, could go into both The Wirral Peninsula and the two local authority areas. Skinsmoke (talk) 09:21, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I have replied on this Wirral cat discussion page here Thanks Benkid77 (talk) 09:37, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Why are you blanking the categories of categories? -- Mentifisto 16:19, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Is there another way of doing it when the category has been replaced by another? Can find a way of requesting deletion of an image page, but there doesn't seem to be a way of requesting deletion of a redundant category. Skinsmoke (talk) 04:30, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi Skinsmoke, in the category you want to delete, you can just place {{bad name|new category name}}. Eventually an admin will delete the cat. Regards, Benkid77 (talk) 07:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Cheers for that. Am quite good on Wikipedia, but still learning on Wikimedia Commons. Thought there must be some way of doing it, but couldn't find a reference anywhere. I think the comment referred to some of the Cheshire categories rather than Wirral. Skinsmoke (talk) 08:00, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Over to the east.

Thanks for giving some tender loving care to some of my images. Can I add a few suggestions that I haven't seen written down.

• Firstly I find it helpful to add a brief comment to any category I create, that puts in context for a reader that hasn't visited the area. For example on :Category:Marple canal junction

Marple canal junction is on the Peak Forest Canal in Marple, Greater Manchester. After a level run from Dukinfield in the north, the canal crosses the River Goyt. Marple locks, are a flight of 16 locks that were opened in 1804. They raise the canal 65.2m :(214 ft). At the top of the locks, it joins the Macclesfield Canal.

Category:Macclesfield Canal

Category:Canal junctions in the United Kingdom

Category:Peak Forest Canal

Category:Marple, Greater Manchester

This wasn't too difficult as I lifted it from the description on one of the images.

• Beware of over classification, I find that eight images in a category is about right when searching for images for a wikipedia edit- any less and I don get a full overview.
• I couldn't care less whether something is Stockport or Metropolitan Borough of Stockport- I use the former because it is consistent with all the other GM boroughs Oldham Wigan Bolton etc., and there is less redundant typing. Rarely do we hit a problem, except in cases of over classification.

"Over classification" shouldn't really be a problem, provided that the categories are included as subcategories of the larger category. For example, images in Marple canal junction can now be accessed from everything from Canals downwards, whilst not cluttering up the search for someone who is really looking for images of canals in Bolivia. Skinsmoke (talk) 10:34, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I have tried to mirror the Wikipedia pages, which used to be under Stockport, but are now split. Skinsmoke (talk) 10:34, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

• We still have the problem of whe classifying by camera location or object location. I like the example of standing in Tintwistle in 1964 and taking a photograph of Milbrook in Hollingworth. I was standing in Cheshire, taking a photo of Cheshire, but now the camera is in Derbyshire and the object in Tameside GM. (Camera for geotag- object for Category!)

Surely it would be appropriate in both categories: it's both a view of Hollingworth and a view from Tintwistle. Skinsmoke (talk) 10:34, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

• Do please have a look at my contributions- there are about 2500 images that need a little cat-scrutiny?!

I actually came across your images whilst working on the Stockport categories. If I come across any others I'll have a look. Skinsmoke (talk) 10:34, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Hope that that is helpful.

File tagging File:Canterbury_-_Greyfriars_Chapel.jpg

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shizhao (talk) 01:30, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

The link to the page granting permission was already provided. Skinsmoke (talk) 01:37, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Geograph images

Please don't manually upload images from Geograph. You're adding the wrong license, no Geograph template, location is missing, etc etc. Please use http://toolserver.org/~magnus/geograph_org2commons.php to upload the images. This tool will ensure that the proper information is added (and it's probably a lot faster for you!). Thank you, Multichill (talk) 15:14, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi Multichill. Thanks for your message. I have tried to use http://toolserver.org/~magnus/geograph_org2commons.php on several occasions, but have not been able to get it to recognise my TUSC account. However, have tried again and, this time, it's worked! Don't know why, cause I've not done anything different from the other umpteen tries I've had. Now that it's finally working, will certainly make things a hell of a lot easier! Skinsmoke (talk) 15:50, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Skinsmoke, please don't hop talk pages. I have a watchlist and I happen to use it. Nice to hear you got it working, now we just have to fix the old uploads. I will probably make a simple bot to fix these kind of images.

Thanks for that! Skinsmoke (talk) 16:01, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

BTW did you know I'm about to upload 250.000 Geograph images? Multichill (talk) 15:55, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I had picked up that someone somewhere was aiming to upload a whole host of Geograph images, but that there were major problems with categorising them. Will you be covering Geograph Deutschland as well? Another point that springs to mind is, what happens to new Geograph images (the collection is growing rapidly, by the hour!). Skinsmoke (talk) 16:01, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Categorization is a challenge, but now we have pretty decent results. At first I'm working at geograph image 0 to 250.000. After that I might do more Geograph British Isles images or maybe the German project. If more images are added I can do batch transfers every once in a while. Multichill (talk) 16:50, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Best of luck! It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it! Seriously, it's well overdue. There's some dross on there, but there are also a lot of extremely good images. And I note that coverage of Ireland seems to be taking off at last. Skinsmoke (talk) 17:30, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

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I am now proud owner of a TUSC account!

And this time it works! Skinsmoke (talk) 16:01, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Lea-by-Backford

Hi Skinsmoke, I try to stick to the names at enwp. At enwp the name is Lea-by-Backford. Are you sure Category:Lea by Backford is correct? BTW To move a category you should use {{Move}}. Multichill (talk) 19:18, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi Multichill. It's questionable, as both forms appear to be in use in both official and unofficial circles. The latest document I found is from three years ago, Lea by Backford Parish Council : Lea by Backford Parish Plan, which uses the form Lea by Backford, which is also shown on the road signs illustrated in the document, which were erected by Cheshire County Council. It therefore appears that both the parish council and the former county council were using Lea by Backford. I suspect this is one of several cases where the "official" form used locally differs from the "official" form used nationally (the East Riding of Yorkshire is riddled with them), usually because the local authority has failed to notify the Department for Communities and Local Government of the the change of useage.

In this instance, I had already created the duplicated category before I realised one already existed, so it was not a simple move (to be honest, I wouldn't have bothered moving it). As this appeared to be the latest form of the name in official use, I stuck with it, but was too lazy to bother changing the English Wikipedia name, though I also generally opt for the same name also. Frankly, I could go with either version on this, as I don't have any particularly strong feelings (though on en:User:Skinsmoke/Sandbox/Civil parishes/Cheshire, which I am working on, I have opted for Lea by Backford as hyphens bugger up the alphabetical order and cause problems with column width). Skinsmoke (talk) 01:09, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

If you have a list of categories to create, I can have my bot generate them. Multichill (talk) 06:21, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that. However, I don't have a list. I am coming at this from working through the civil parishes in Cheshire. Most are already listed as categories, but occasionally you get one that isn't. They are usually very small parishes (though I have come across a couple with 500 or more population). Clearly, someone has mass created categories in the past (many are empty). I can understand how some (with a population of 3 or 8) were missed out, but some are surprising. I initially thought somebody had perhaps used a List of villages in Cheshire as their basis, in which case some civil parishes would be excluded as they don't actually contain a village, but clearly that is not the case. There just doesn't seem to be any logic, and the only way of identifying them appears to be when you come across them (or not). Skinsmoke (talk) 16:03, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

That someone would probably be me. I did this for all articles in en:Category:Villages in the United Kingdom and in en:Category:Towns in the United Kingdom. So only the articles in en:Category:Villages in Cheshire have a category here, not the ones in en:Category:Civil parishes in Cheshire. Multichill (talk) 17:16, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

LOL. Strange though that some pretty large villages were obviously not in the category. Incidentally, I'm not criticising - the village categories here are a massive help. Skinsmoke (talk) 19:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

It's possible to create all the missing categories from the articles in en:Category:Civil parishes in England by county. Would probably help when the Geograph floodgates open ;-) Multichill (talk) 19:50, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. Also en:Category:Communities of Wales, the Welsh equivalent of civil parishes. Skinsmoke (talk) 20:05, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Almost all these communities are in the town categories I worked on, so it should be pretty complete.

My bot is now working on England. Multichill (talk) 22:12, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, that didn't take long ;-) Skinsmoke (talk) 02:43, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Category:Isle of Anglesey

Category discussion notification

Category:Isle of Anglesey has been listed at Commons:Categories for discussion so that the community can discuss ways in which it should be changed. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this category, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for discussion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it. If the category is up for deletion because it has been superseded, consider the notion that although the category may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new category. In all cases, please do not take the category discussion personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

--Anatiomaros (talk) 00:38, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Skinsmoke, sut mae? I've put this up for discussion as we have two cats for the same place. The 'Isle of Anglesey' one is empty whereas the 'Anglesey' one is reasonably well populated and myself and others have spent a lot of time working on it. If a bot can do the job I've no objection to having this in place of the Anglesey one (assuming the bot can get it right!). Hwyl, Enaidmawr a.k.a. Anatiomaros (talk) 00:42, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Cat sorting

Hi. I have reverted a number of your recent category changes, which I feel were unnecessary (see the railway snow plough, etc cats). Another editor got to some of your changes first and did the same thing, so it's not just 'me'. There may be a number that I missed, as you were clearly very busy this morning.

In most cases, the category sorting works 'automatically', so there is no need to add the full page/cat name. It is only necessary to add any text after a pipe where the resulting cat list will otherwise be unhelpful. So where you have added the country for the 'railway snowploughs in (country)' cats, that is helpful. But adding a space after the pipe should be used sparingly, or you make an awful lot of work for yourself (and others), and produce a pile of cats at the start of the list, which is of no use to anyone.

PeterJewell (talk) 13:47, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I suppose I should also explain why I reverted these edits.

• You moved Industry in the United Kingdom from Economy of the United Kingdom to Business in the United Kingdom, Economic geography in the United Kingdom and Economics in the United Kingdom. Since you created these latter three categories yourself, you must surely be aware that you created Economic geography in the United Kingdom as a subcategory of Economics in the United Kingdom, which you in turn made a subcategory of Business in the United Kingdom. Thus, you placed Industry in the United Kingdom into three different levels along the same branch of the category tree. This is called over-categorisation and should be avoided. You should only use the most specific category along each branch of the category tree.
• Industry in the United Kingdom belongs in Industry by country rather than Industry, because the United Kingdom is a country. Industry is a redirect to Industries and should therefore be empty at all times. No other Industry in Country X appears directly in Industries.
• Compare the categorisation of Industry in the United Kingdom to the other subcategories of Industry by country. You'll find that for most of them, the other parent category is Economy of Country X, and I see no compelling reason for making an exception for the United Kingdom.

You are making rather sweeping changes to a lot of categories. On the one hand, it's a good initiative, because the categories do need a lot of work. On the other, some of your changes go against very well-established basic principles of how categories are used at Commons. I would like to make two suggestions. Firstly, please read Commons:Categories. Secondly, please discuss major structural changes that may not have a clear precedent, such as the introduction of Category:Topics in the United Kingdom (which I don't really see the point of).

Cheers, —LX (talk, contribs) 14:49, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I have merely tried to follow the pattern on the global categories, and bring the United Kingdom categories into line with those. If this is over-categorisation, then the global categories are over-categorised. Skinsmoke (talk) 14:54, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

That's probably very likely. Let's fix that rather than add to the mess, though. :) Also, taking that idea all the way to Topics in the United Kingdom doesn't really make much sense, because almost everything under United Kingdom is a topic category. Category:Topics exists only to separate topic categories (which is in some sense the "default" type of category) from maintenance and meta categories at the top CommonsRoot level. —LX (talk, contribs) 15:28, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough.Skinsmoke (talk) 18:35, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Again, please do not do things like moving Buildings in the United Kingdom from Buildings by country to Buildings. Buildings by country is a more specific category than Buildings, and the United Kingdom is a country, so it belongs there. Furthermore, Buildings in the United Kingdom is also in Buildings in Europe, which is a subcategory of Buildings, so you once again introduced over-categorisation. Again, please read Commons:Categories. I would also recommend reading Commons:By location category scheme and Commons:Category scheme countries and subdivisions. —LX (talk, contribs) 12:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

See also #Categories_by_country.2Fcontinent. --Foroa (talk) 13:10, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Furness and Westmorland

The problem is this: South Lakeland is not a subset of Furness nor is it a subset of Westmorland. Doing it your way means that Kirkby Lonsdale is a sub-subcategory of Furness and Ulverston is a sub-subcategory of Westmorland. That is just wrong and if you insist on doing it that way, we might as well just delete Furness and Westmorland because they are serving no useful purpose. -- Dr Greg  talk  23:03, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't disagree. I suspect the only way round this is to subdivide the Furness and Westmorland categories, in the way that Wirral was subdivided a couple of years ago. Westmorland into North Westmorland (which went into Eden) and South Westmorland (which went into South Lakeland); Furness to have subcategories of North Lonsdale (which went into South Lakeland) and Borough of Barrow in Furness (which is the remainder). However, all that will take a fair bit of time, and it might be better to leave things as they are, as a temporary fix, and try to do the subdivisions a bit at a time over a few months. I helped out a bit on the Wirral issue, and it was a massive task! I don't think any of us realised how big it was going to be when we started. Skinsmoke (talk) 23:13, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

That would make sense, provided the proposed subdivisions (e.g. North & South Westmorland) correspond to terminology that was actually used in the real world and isn't just made up for the convenience of Wikipedia editors (and I don't know enough about the subject to know the answer). The other approach is simply for villages, towns, parishes etc to be subcategories of both South Lakeland and Westmorland without the use of a named category to collect all such places together. I don't see any urgency at all in sorting this out (particularly as these are historical divisions no longer in official use), but I feel uncomfortable with the current position set up by your edits, which is implying something that is false (e.g. that Ulverston was in Westmorland). I'd prefer the categories to be lacking content (to be added later) rather than have false content (to be removed later). -- Dr Greg  talk  13:00, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't really object either way. The North Westmorland/South Westmorland division is fairly easy to resolve. The former North Westmorland Rural District went into Eden; South Westmorland into South Lakeland. Similarly, the former North Lonsdale Rural District went, in its entirety, into South Lakeland. They therefore form a good basis for splitting the categories. Give me a few days, and I should be able to sort that out. Skinsmoke (talk) 13:34, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, that sounds like a neat solution. No hurry. -- Dr Greg  talk  19:42, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Earth sciences

I reverted your edit because Earth sciences are not exclusively applied sciences, in the same way as biology isn't an exclusively applied science. Ciaurlec (talk) 14:37, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I had been trying to avoid over-categorisation, but on second thoughts, I agree with you. Skinsmoke (talk) 14:44, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

A gadget to change categories

Hello. You can enable in your Special:Preferences a gadget called HotCat to be able to change categories quickly and (by clicking “+⁺”) many at a time. That will also add a useful edit summary. --AVRS (talk) 09:01, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that! Skinsmoke (talk) 09:05, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Categories by country/continent

Can I remind you that the main world categorisation is "by country" as can be seen in Category:categories by country (flat list), not Category:categories by continent (flat list). The whole Commons world is organised on Commons "by country" (More than 6400 categories and growing every day): that is the current Commons standard. Moreover, political/administrative organisations don't map very well on continents: there are several countries that have territories on several continents (up to 6 , check en:List of countries spanning more than one continent). Categorisation by continents are just a side categorisation that should have no impact on the by country categorisation. Interfering by continent categories are bot moved. Thank you for your good work. --Foroa (talk) 10:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying here. Although I have been placing, for example, Category:Management in the United Kingdom as a subcategory of Category:Management in Europe, I have also placed it as a subcategory of Category:Management, thus retaining the organisation "by country". I have also placed Category:Management in Europe as a subcategory of Category:Management. I'm not sure how that contradicts what you are saying is correct. Skinsmoke (talk) 15:02, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I think I might have realised what you are trying to get over. Are you saying that Category:Management in the United Kingdom should be a subcategory of Category:Management by country, rather than Category:Management? Skinsmoke (talk) 15:12, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I got indeed a problem with this one

If you develop categories above the country level, priority should be given to the "by country" level; incoherencies or redundancies will be detected easier (for example) . The "by continent" (Europe) level is really secondary and don't really help the overall world level category structures. World level structures are easier observed and checked by many people than "local" continent structures. --Foroa (talk) 15:33, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Think I now understand you. In the example you gave, which has now been fixed, Category:Buildings in the United Kingdom is a subcategory of Category:Buildings in Europe and Category:Buildings by country, which is in line with what I set out in my last reply. Should Category:Buildings in Europe then also be moved from Category:Buildings to Category:Buildings by continent? Skinsmoke (talk) 15:48, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

That is correct, but I don't have time to waste on what I consider redundant or overcat categories. --Foroa (talk) 16:00, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

No need to get huffy, dear! Skinsmoke (talk) 16:02, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Overcategorisation

Again, please read Commons:Categories before engaging in further categorisation work. In particular, you need to read Commons:Categories#Over-categorization. —LX (talk, contribs) 05:39, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I have read it. Do you have a particular gripe? Skinsmoke (talk) 13:23, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Ah, looking at your contributions, it appears that the point that concerned you was including Category:Places as a subcategory of Category:Geography, while maintaining it as a Topic. There were good reasons for that particular change. The Places and Geography categories are hopelessly messed up further down the category tree, with many (hundreds, if not thousands) of pages that should link to Places (following the global category tree) instead linking to Geography. There is also the problem that many people will look for Places under Geography, as demonstrated by the many Places subcategories that have been incorrectly linked to Geography instead. Indeed, you could question whether Geography as a category can be complete without including the places and features that the subject studies.

One solution would be to remove Places as a topic, and have it link through to Geography instead. However, Geography leads up through to Category:Science. Is someone looking for, for example, a town or a river, really going to start looking for it under Science? Probably not, but unless a link is provided between the two categories, and until the mess lower down the category tree is resolved, a town in one country is in a completely different branch of the category tree than a town in another.

Finally, it should be pointed out that Places as a topic linking through to another branch of the category tree would not be unique. Already Category:Communication is both a topic and a subcategory of Category:Processes, itself a subcategory of the topics Category:Technology and Category:Society. Society itself, in addition to being a topic is a subcategory of Category:Culture, which in turn is both a topic and a subcategory of Category:Human, which leads up through the Category:Academia, Science, Category:Nature, Category:Business and Technology topic branches. Other topics which are also subcategories of other topic branches are Category:Concepts and Category:Materials.

In summary, the problem is not one of Over-categorization, but rather one of Improper categorization of categories is a cause of over-categorization, which is not likely to be resolved, if it ever is, without months of work sorting out the Geography/Places subcategorisations. Skinsmoke (talk) 14:28, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Yep, that's the edit I meant. Thanks for your explanation. In order to avoid over-categorisation, subcategories of Category:Topics should not have any other parent categories. Any over-categorisation at that level is sure to propagate down the hierarchies. There are, as you have discovered, other categories violating this principle. In fact, the category tree is generally messier the higher up you get, but that doesn't mean we should add to the mess.

A major part of the problem is that places is such a broad term, and it's not clear what actually belongs in this category. Countries are places (in one sense of the word), and the study of countries is a part of human geography (as opposed to physical geography. Playgrounds are also places, but in a completely different sense and not really related to geography at all. If we are indeed to have such vaguely named categories as places, it should really have a description explaining what it covers and what it doesn't cover.

I'm sure the problems you have found with miscategorised items further down the tree are actual problems (examples would help, though), but I think it all stems from the ambiguities at the top level, and I don't think we solve it by introducing over-categorisation. It's probably going to take a planned approach with a somewhat complete idea of what the tree should look like at the top. As I mentioned before, such sweeping changes are best discussed beforehand, for example at Commons:Categories for discussion. Category:Places is a prime candidate for a discussion there, in my opinion. —LX (talk, contribs) 16:41, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Hej! Tack för svaret (hope I've got that right. It's a few years since I learnt Swedish!). I'm a little puzzled by your assumption that a Topic cannot also be a subcategory of another topic. The examples I quoted above demonstrate that this is not just an exception. Seven of the 20 topics are subcategories of other topics, and nowhere that I can find in the Help or explanation pages suggests that a topic cannot also be a subcategory of another topic.

I'm not sure that I accept your premise that Playgrounds are not part of Geography. They are most certainly part of Urban studies and planning, which in turn is part of Urban geography, and therefore Geography. Of the subcategories of Places, I can see three that do not relate to Geography: Category:Extraterrestrial places, Category:Universe and, possibly, Category:Sky, though I wonder whether some of the subcategories of Sky are really in the correct category.

Having said all that, I suppose I've just conceded that not all Places are part of Geography, and that the appropriate subcategories should therefore be linked to Geography (or its subcategories) at a lower level (I must admit I hadn't initially noticed that Places included off-planet places). Skinsmoke (talk) 17:12, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Civil parish categories

Hi, I spotted that you remove a category Category:Preston (civil parish), East Riding of Yorkshire from an image and reverted to the original Category:Preston, East Riding of Yorkshire. A user has created a number of these "<place> (civil parish)" categories while I was away and wondered if this was just adding in an extra level of complexity here and that filing the images under just the village name (where same as the parish name) is sufficient. I have not checked if the user has gone and changed the Commons category links on other wikis to conform to this but if not these will also need changing. Personally I think that adding the civil parish category to the village would be sufficient. Any thoughts? Keith D (talk) 19:59, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi Keith. I agree with you completely. They seem to have mastered the complexities at Category:Civil parishes in Cornwall as far as I can see, and it solves the problem of the Towns and villages categories, leaving the hamlets and villages in those, while adding them to the respective civil parish. I had been working through Category:Civil parishes in Cumbria and sort of got sidetracked into East Yorkshire, as you do! If we followed the East Riding pattern I think it would be a nightmare, creating thousands of extra categories, and endless arguments over whether an image is in the village or outside but in the parish (villages, of course, have no defined boundaries). What I was trying to do (eventually) in Cumbria was place the subsidiary villages and hamlets into the civil parish (or main village) category, and leaving them linked to the towns and villages category, which I think is probably the best solution, even though it creates an element of overcategorisation.

Hope you had a good holiday by the way! Skinsmoke (talk) 20:09, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Holiday was OK and relaxing, though got wet a few times - typical Derbyshire weather. May be good to revert out the changes and kill the categories. I think they have also done Kingston upon Hull things by adding (area) to places. I have not added the hamlets to the main village category as yet, I got bogged down with the Geograph image overload in Hessle before I went away and intended doing that on my next pass but at the current rate of progress that will be some time. Keith D (talk) 20:26, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Am working through Category:Preston (civil parish), East Riding of Yorkshire at the moment, and have already got rid of Category:Hedon (civil parish), East Riding of Yorkshire. Will see how much I can do before returning to what I'm really supposed to be doing in Cumbria! Skinsmoke (talk) 20:32, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - I was hoping that there was not too many changes since I went away, have not looked at wikipedia changes yet! Keith D (talk) 20:50, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

All now done. Nice to see you got the blame though ;-) Skinsmoke (talk) 04:07, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for all the hard work, I only managed a few before transferring over to look at wikipedia changes. Not going too fast there as PC keep hanging and have to re-boot it which takes an age. I see you have changed streetlamp to street light in the cats - is this something that is filtering through for all counties so I can adjust when I spot them? Keith D (talk) 16:03, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Just did the Street lights thing while I was going through and checking the categories. The main global category is at Category:Street lights, so it made sense, and brought the United Kingdom into line with the other 44 countries at Category:Street lights by country. Moved the English and United Kingdom categories at the same time, though have just left the English ones within the new category for now, rather than moving each county, as I didn't have the time to get too involved. Skinsmoke (talk) 16:07, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Aaargh - These are appearing again! Keith D (talk) 12:00, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Restricted_byways

Restricted_byways has been listed at Commons:Deletion requests so that the community can discuss whether it should be kept or not. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this gallery, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it. Please remember to respond to and – if appropriate – contradict the arguments supporting deletion. Arguments which focus on the nominator will not affect the result of the nomination. Thank you!

:| TelCoNaSpVe :| 04:44, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice. Skinsmoke (talk) 05:16, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Multilingual welcome signs

Hello. Just a question (for interest): what's your thinking on categories of multilingual welcome signs? Just being idly curious, seeing the pattern of edits. Man vyi (talk) 04:46, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for your message. It just seemed to be getting a bit ridiculous that we were categorising to such an extent (what was next? Bilingual welcome signs and Trilingual welcome signs?).

I was actually working through Category:Welcome signs and at first went along with putting the Multilingual welcome signs into national categories, and I got half way through and just thought this is bloody ridiculous. Half the files weren't Welcome signs and were in the wrong category anyway, and for most countries we were left with, at most, one or two files. It didn't help that most files that would fit the category weren't in it anyway, being under Multilingual files or Welcome files (or a completely different category altogether). That seems to suggest that our categorisation is getting too complicated for most users to understand or be arsed with, and that simplification is needed. You have to ask yourself, would the average person trying to categorise an image immediately think of Multilingual welcome signs?

Once Multilingual signs gets put into national categories, each should be fairly manageable (if not, we can always reverse the change, as nothing is ever final on a project like this). Hope that all makes sense.

By the way, some really nice images on your user page! Skinsmoke (talk) 05:01, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. Yes, the categorisation by country can easily get out of hand (and for a small country like mine, the results can sometimes be bizarre). For multilingual signs, it would probably be more useful eventually to categorise by language... Thanks for noticing my photos - there's a few that I'm just a little proud of! Man vyi (talk) 15:36, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Woodland/Forest

Hi, I am curious as to why the change of Category:Woodland of the East Riding of Yorkshire to Category:Forests in the East Riding of Yorkshire. I would consider that there are no forests in the East Riding of Yorkshire and that woodland was a more appropriate category. The woodland category is used in other counties in England such as Category:Woodland of Derbyshire. Keith D (talk) 13:05, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Just trying to follow the global category pattern, where Category:Woodland has been replaced by Category:Forests. I agree that it looks a little strange at first, but we seem to be the only country that has a problem with this. I think it probably depends on how you view forests. In a global perspective, I suppose all trees are part of the world's forest, whereas in the United Kingdom we tend to immediately think of the narrower definition of a forest being a large area of trees covering many square miles. On the whole I think we should really try to keep to the global category pattern unless there is a fairly obvious reason not to (spelling of Color perhaps?), and this didn't really seem to be one where the global definition was completely alien to English language use in the United Kingdom, particularly as the pattern had already been adopted in Scotland (see Category:Forests in Scotland) and Wales (see Category:Forests in Wales). Incidentally, a quick look at Category:Forests in the United Kingdom is a bit surprising! Perhaps the whole thing needs sorting out one way or the other! Skinsmoke (talk) 14:12, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I think I created the East Riding of Yorkshire woodland entry as per the other entries in Category:Forests in the United Kingdom but placed it in down a level in Category:Forests in England as that seemed more appropriate to me. Keith D (talk) 17:03, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Commons:Categories for discussion

Hi; I see you have been doing much cat wrangling, including neatening that has long been needed. For a change in Category:New York State Historic Markers however, you cited a discussion in Commons:Categories for discussion as a reason for an adjustment. I don't see that the page has had any discussion in months, so am I looking in the wrong place for it? Jim.henderson (talk) 23:38, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Jim. Thanks for your message. You're right, the discussion was long dead (I think you were the last to contribute, six months after the previous contributor!). The relevant page is here. There didn't really seem to be any opposition to the proposal, which was in line with other states in the United States. In addition, the apathy was almost deafening! It was certainly time someone closed down the issue one way or another (these categories for discussion seem to drag on for years with no contributions, and nobody finalising the issue). I didn't have time to properly merge in the category (I'm up to my neck in welcome signs!), which really needs doing, but at least they are all reachable from one heading now. Skinsmoke (talk) 00:57, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh, you did a good thing with this cat and the others; that's for sure. We just don't have many people working the categories and especially we don't have Admins closing out discussions or otherwise organizing the organizers. Many want to be photographers; fewer want to be photo clerks. Me especially; it's midsummer and time to pedal around town, snapping photos in the sunlight. However, those few who are doing it can better communicate, if we post notices a few days ahead in several places including the talk pages of the categories that are to be renamed, subdivided or otherwise put through substantial work. I have griped that NYC schools are not diffused by Boro, but did I do it myself? No; I'm having too much fun puffing my way up a hill in Mt Vernon in pursuit of a pic of a minor tycoon's Gilded Age mansion. Jim.henderson (talk) 09:59, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

As you say, it's midsummer, and it's raining stairrods here in Manchester! Hopefully it will clear up a bit before we head up to Scotland next month (though yesterday was St Swithin's day, which supposedly means 40 more days of rain!). "Here comes summer, doo-be-doo-be-dooby-doo"! Skinsmoke (talk) 12:06, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Ah. I mistook you for a fellow New York photographer. Rather you are a rarer and hence more valuable beast, a rectifier of sloppiness in local geographical categories, especially in the United States where the diverse systems of civil subdivision combine with the inattention of photographers to make things very messy indeed. Thank you, and do carry on. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:17, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Huh, you think your civil subdivisions are complicated! You should try ours (which is where I started off before I somehow found myself drifting into the Empire State! It seems a long way from civil parishes in Cumbria!). Skinsmoke (talk) 02:20, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Category:Wisconsin

I see that you made some badly needed changes to the category. I came home from a weekend getaway to find 88 emails about changes that you made to my watchlist. I appreciate your work, but you don't understand the political subdivisions of Wisconsin. It's so unusual that it has its own article on the English Wikipedia. There are the following municipalities: 1) City 2) Village (so far so good) 3) Census-designated places (CDP), 4) Unincorporated communities, and 5) towns. Cities and villages are separate communities that have their own government for the urban landscape. The rest of the land between these 2 communities are towns (the rural landscape). Frequently towns are 6 mile by 6 mile plots of land. Often towns are named after any of the other 4 types of communities which fall inside their boundary. So towns are politically independent from communities which have the same name. For example, check out Category:Brown County, Wisconsin. You created Category:Town of Wrightstown, Wisconsin, then placed in it images from the CDP named Greenleaf. How do you expect anyone besides a local expert to know that this CDP is within this town? Why not create a category for the community instead since the point of categories is so that images can be found easily? Also, there are lots of towns with the same name as the community and you used the existing community category for images taken within the town (and vice versa). I understood this when I created the categories but you changed some. You have ignored CDP and unincorporated communities completely so Category:Populated places in Wisconsin isn't very useful. Me and my fellow Wisconsinites frequently fight this non-obvious topic frequently on the English Wikipedia. I kept things simple here to try to avoid the issue but you've changed it so lots of things are wrong (in my opinion) or at least too difficult to find. I want to work with you to reach an agreeable solution. It's summer here so I'm taking lots of photographs now so I don't have much time to deal with it. Royalbroil 04:23, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry I've been away from Commons for a couple of months (it was summer here too, or as close as we get to one!). I'll try and have another look at this, but will be a couple of weeks off as am going to try and grab the last of the good weather with a trip up north. Skinsmoke (talk) 03:01, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Category:North_Lincolnshire

North Lincolnshire has been listed at Commons:Categories for discussion so that the community can discuss ways in which it should be changed. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this category, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for discussion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it. If the category is up for deletion because it has been superseded, consider the notion that although the category may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new category. In all cases, please do not take the category discussion personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

Imgaril (talk) 23:06, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Category:Perry_Township,_Ohio

Perry Township, Ohio has been listed at Commons:Categories for discussion so that the community can discuss ways in which it should be changed. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this category, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for discussion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it. If the category is up for deletion because it has been superseded, consider the notion that although the category may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new category. In all cases, please do not take the category discussion personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

Nyttend (talk) 04:43, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

District of...

Hi,

What exactly is the point of the "District of" nomenclature? Its a necessary evil (for disambiguation) for some districts, typically the cities and met boroughs as the central settlement has the same name. However, for the more typical rural districts that is not the case. So why add it?

With regards to the specific "Category:District of South Hams" - that doesn't even exist (as the district is properly "The South Hams", not "South Hams".--Nilfanion (talk) 23:36, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Having had a second think about it, I can see your point. I was trying to get some consistency across the board, as there are a large number of districts where a form of disambiguation is required. Many are also rural districts, such as the Borough of Tewkesbury or the District of Selby. There are also others, such as the Borough of High Peak, the District of West Berkshire, or the District of North Devon, where the name itself may be used for a larger area than the local government authority, and disambiguation is also therefore required.

It just seemed easier for editors to know which category to use if all English district categories were named in the same pattern, rather than having to guess if, in a particular instance, it took the Placename format or the Type of Placename format.

In legal terms, the local authority in South Hams is set up by the legislation as the District of South Hams, even though we may normally refer to living in the South Hams. I suspect there may be a difference between north and south in how we would refer to living in South Hams District or living in the South Hams District, just as in the north we would refer to walking along Oxford Road, whereas down south people would often talk about walking along the Oxford Road.

There appear to be merits in using either South Hams or District of South Hams. Have a think about it and let me know which you prefer. The moves I've made can always be reversed if you still prefer the South Hams format. I'll put a hold on things until you get back to me.

Whichever we choose, I would suggest we put a Category redirect template on the alternate title. Skinsmoke (talk) 00:13, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

My preference with these things is always going to be the same, the simplest possible option. With regards to the South Hams, that means plain "South Hams" as there's no prospect of confusion there. It also aligns with the en.wp page name, which if we can do so should always be a bonus :) The South Hams comes from the precursor to the current district, the geographic area being known as such - in the same manner the South Downs.

On the topic of the the, good point on its legal name. I think the inclusion of the the in everyday speech is the result of it being a plural form - you'd say you live in the South Hams just like you'd go for a walk in the Pennines, its not a N/S divide. No one would say they live in (the) South Hams district as there is no need to add the word district. The vernacular form "The South Hams" is so prevalent that the district council sometimes refers to the "District of the South Hams" on occasion.

I'm not really sure we need to worry about requiring disambiugation for ones like North Devon. In that case, there may be potential for confusion with the general geographic area or the AONB, but the AONB is clearly a subsidiary meaning, and more importantly the geographic area is ill defined (so inappropriate for a category here). That's clearly different from the case where the district is named after a settlement in it - both have well-defined meanings, and categories are desirable for both.

With regards to the name for the district cats, I'm not fond of "<type> of <name>" in any case. I'm inclined to prefer parenthetical disambiguation, as one benefit is if you don't know if Tewkesbury is a district or a Borough, you can use HotCat to find "Tewkesbury (borough)" but you are going to struggle to get to "Borough of Tewkesbury" if you don't know its a borough. That really should be supported via cat redirects regardless.

Another problem is the disambiguation bar is / should be a lot lower on Commons: eg Category:Peterborough (as opposed to Peterborough, ON and the rest) will probably get disambiguated eventually. "Peterborough" -> "Peterborough, Cambridgeshire" is fine, but "City of Peterborough" -> "City of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire" is really unappealing. But both will be equally necessary if disambiguated because of the Canadian city.

And that last eg points to my biggest concern of all actually, the "City of X" ones. Is Category:City of Peterborough about the city of Peterborough or the City of Peterborough? IMO it fails to disambiguate between settlement and the local government area, as both could be referred to as "city". I know it's the preferred form on WP, but IMO its a mistake there and there's no need to copy it here. If anything, avoiding confusion is more important here than on WP, as people who may not be aware of the distinction will use which ever category looks right - and are unlikely to check the WP article to learn which means which. WP can use the article body to resolve any confusion, which is not an option here, so we need to make sure they know what it is from title alone.

"Peterborough (city)" and "Peterborough (district)" is one solution. Both of these indicate its subject is called "Peterborough", and the thing in brackets tells you which Peterborough it is. "district" isn't actually part of the name but is being used as in "a local government district", so isn't really inaccurate and is less of a mouthful than "unitary authority area".--Nilfanion (talk) 11:40, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah, but aren't you building in even more confusion over Peterborough? You are referring to the settlement as Peterborough (city), when it is demonstrably not a city, simply a settlement within the City of Peterborough, which you are calling Peterborough (district). As for your preference for parenthetical disambiguation, I think you are very much in a minority on that. The overwhelming consensus appears to be to follow Wikipedia's choice of Placename, County (or whatever). Incidentaly, in Wales, they opted for Conwy County Borough rather than County Borough of Conwy, and so on. Skinsmoke (talk) 16:10, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Well yes the Peterborough situation is inherently confusing as we have two terms: A settlement (which is what a "city" is) and a local government area (which is what a "City" is). My examples of disambiguators are just that, examples, someone with better knowledge can probably think of better ones. The pair "Settlement" and "unitary authority area" is unambiguous and correct for the Peterborough situation. Having one at the ambiguous base name, and the other at an ambiguous alternate title is not ideal, as the only way anyone can tell them apart is foreknowledge of en.wp conventions on this matter. On wp that isn't too bad, maybe, as the article body makes it clear what the meaning is, but here its worse. If we had a pressing need to split parish from village the same approach would apply - X (village) vs X (parish).

You've misunderstood my comment on parenthetical disambiguation - I don't mean as opposed to comma disambiguation for "placename, county". I mean "<everyday name> (type)" in preference to "<formal name>" which is in "<type> of <everyday name> format". In the case of the "City" districts, parentheses provide a way to break the ambiguity.

The Welsh pattern is different to the English pattern too, the districts are called by the councils "Conwy County Borough" for instance - in terms of naming they are much more like the pre-1974 Urban/Rural Districts. Its not a different choice by Welsh WP editors, but the different reality of Welsh boroughs.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:12, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

OK - I really do think you are taking things much too far here, applying a level of "consistency" that really isn't needed. The how to disambiguate is a relatively minor issue. The more serious ones:

• Why add the "Borough of" or "District of" when the name is unambiguous: Category:Cheshire West and Chester is clear - there is zero potential for confusion.
• Ones like North Devon or South Staffordshire, where the district name might possibly be confused with a geographic area. IMO, there is no realistic chance of confusion for ones like that and Commons certainly doesn't need categories for those vague geographic areas (this is different to the situation that applies to Wirral - where the peninsula is a significant area in own right)
• The urban districts - where the core settlement is all but identical to the district. Ipswich and Luton for instance. Do we really need seperate categories for the area and settlement in those cases? It makes things harder for uploaders, and hinders maintenance. For instance: which is the parent of Category:Buildings in Ipswich? Should I upload my image, which is on the outskirts to "Ipswich" or to "Borough of Ipswich"?

I'd strongly suggest that the district name is only used to disambiguate, and if no disambiguation is needed, don't use it. This is actually the longstanding convention for Commons categories, just the same as for en.wikipedia categories and en.wikipedia article names. Ideally all three should match, unless there is a need for greater disambiguation here.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:04, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Undiscussed, which is never a good sign as to the appropriateness of such changes.

For the purposes of our naive readers (who are the major community we're here to serve) we've now lost Category:Forest of Dean in favour of Category:District of Forest of Dean, an obscure neologism that's confusing to readers and doesn't even have some obscure historical excuse for it. These are bad changes, and should be reverted. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:20, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest that the parent of Category:Buildings in Ipswich should be Category:Borough of Ipswich. Ideally, you would upload your image to (1) the geographical category for the settlement, which would be Category:Ipswich and (2) the generic category for the subject, which would be Category:Buildings in Ipswich, Category:Buildings in Suffolk or Category:Buildings in England, depending on which is the lowest rank. It perhaps makes more sense to ask the same question for Category:City of Bradford. Would you have a difficulty deciding whether to upload to Category:Keighley or Category:Buildings in Bradford? It should, of course, go into both (although it would be better to upload the image into Category:Buildings and let someone familiar with that category decide which subcategory (Churches, Saunas, Bus Shelters, etc) it belongs in, then it can work its way down the category tree.

Remember, that there are those who insist quite forcefully (and Reading and Southampton spring to mind) that areas outside the city are part of the settlement because they are in the larger urban area. And I hardly need mention all the arguments that have raged on English Wikipedia over the difference between the settlement and the city in places like Leeds, Carlisle and Peterborough, which almost descended into warfare on occasions.

The pattern you are objecting to has actually been rolled out in some counties for a good few months, and has proven quite stable. Yours is the first objection (and I am including the failure to amend the pattern in that, as well as those who can be bothered to comment). Discussion in Lincolnshire, Lancashire and Cumbria actually supported the pattern.

Finally, for the moment, you haven't lost Category:Forest of Dean. It's still there for the forest itself as a subcategory of Category:Forests in England, and as a subcategory of Category:District of Forest of Dean, which covers a larger area than purely the forest. Skinsmoke (talk) 11:38, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

You've removed the constituent members from Forest of Dean in order to populate the new District of category. So readers come to Commons looking for the Forest of Dean, they find the category and now it's empty. That, let alone the naming issues, is why this is a problem. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:43, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Please don't confuse the case of eg the West Yorkshire boroughs (much larger than the settlement) with ones where they are the same thing. I'm very uneasy with the idea that "Buildings in Bradford" should contain all buildings in the City of Bradford, surely just buildings in the settlement of Bradford itself - its what both uploaders and viewers will be expecting (if one for the district is needed it would be "Buildings in the City of Bradford"). No objections so far doesn't necessarily mean "this is correct", suggest further discussion is done on the CFD.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:48, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry Andy, I wasn't trying to be obtuse. The overwhelming majority of those 1,200 or so images did not relate specifically to the forest, but to the area. Are the villages and civil parishes really part of the forest, or of the district? That doesn't mean that some shouldn't move back to the forest category once reviewed, but it appears that all that's been done previously is to move images down from Category:Gloucestershire into the districts. I did specifically leave a See also tag on Category:Forest of Dean, because I could see a clear argument for a distinct category for the forest itself (though personally I'd be happy with a category redirect instead). I'm off the computer for a few hours now, but will check later for any further messages. Skinsmoke (talk) 11:52, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

District_of..._renaming

District_of..._renaming has been listed at Commons:Categories for discussion so that the community can discuss ways in which it should be changed. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this category, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for discussion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it. If the category is up for deletion because it has been superseded, consider the notion that although the category may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new category. In all cases, please do not take the category discussion personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

--Andy Dingley (talk) 11:39, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Greater Manchester

Hi Skinsmoke,

Noticed you'd created a number of subcategories with Category:Greater Manchester. They're great. However, I wouldn't mind if you could help tidy it up a little - I've been doing a lot of the housekeeping work for this category, but have a real task on my hands to keep up with you!

For instance (and these are ones I've done), Category:1893 in Greater Manchester‎ was directly within Category:Greater Manchester, but really needed taking out of Category:Greater Manchester and placing in Category:19th century in Greater Manchester.

Simillarly Category:Ansaldo Firema T-68 trams in Greater Manchester was directly within Category:Greater Manchester, but ought to have been in something more like Category:Transport in Greater Manchester.

In a nutshell, a lot of the new categories you've created need pulling out of Category:Greater Manchester and putting in a more appropriate sub-category. Would you be able to help by any chance please? Jza84 (talk) 23:54, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Don't disgree at all, but I was trying to work up the category tree to get them to link up with the global categories. It was probably big mistake, as it all got so complicated I eventually gave up! It would probably have been better to just leave them in the global categories, and wait for them to work their way down to Greater Manchester in (probably) 20 years time (if at all)! Will have a go at helping tidy up when I get the chance, but unlikely to be this week as I am right in the middle of working on a Wikipedia article. With a bit of luck, should get round to undoing some of the damage next week. Skinsmoke (talk) 05:39, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Intersection categories

Regarding "X in Y" categories - for example "Buildings in Bradford", this necessarily implies it is about Buildings in w:Bradford; not w:City of Bradford. I'll use Bradford as there is an obvious difference between the two concepts - the settlement and the governmental district, but the same applies in all cases even when both are all but identical. There are a number of reasons for preferring this:

1. If X is in Bradford, that would be taken to mean it is in what is commonly called "Bradford" - that is the settlement. An inhabitant of Keighley is highly unlikely to say they are from "Bradford", they are much more likely to respond "Keighley", "(West) Yorkshire", "England" and so on, depending on context. The only time they would likely answer with some variant of Bradford is if the question was specifially "What district are you from?".
2. If there is a need for a "Buildings in district" cat, it should align with the name of the district cat - that is "Buildings in the City of Bradford". The "the" is necessary as that is more correct grammatically.
3. Finally, if "Buildings in Bradford" is taken to mean Buildings in the government district, what possible name is there for the also useful category describing buildings in the settlement? The reverse situation of using "Buildings in Bradford" to describe buildings in the settlement doesn't have this problem.

Of course as the settlement of Bradford is contained within the government district of Bradford, if saying "X in Bradford" means it is in the settlement, necessarily implies it is also in the government district.

This also is an indicator as to why there is potential for serious harm in creating a false dichotomy between settlement and district, when the two are in practice the same thing - as some things that logically are of the district specifically (local government maps for instance). As the district is the same as the settlement, those maps are relevant to the settlement and should therefore be included in a sub-cat of the settlement's category...

I'd strongly suggest that if you want to create a district-level intersection category, that it uses the name of the district's category not a shortened form. "Category:Churches in Eden" sounds like it describes churches in the Garden of Eden, not a district of Cumbria. "Category:Churches in the District of Eden" is clear. Category:Pubs in the City of Lancaster is an example of how these should be done, and it properly has Category:Pubs in Lancaster, Lancashire as a sub-category.--Nilfanion (talk) 18:49, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Nilfanion. That is exactly what I was initially doing. I was then taken to task for being too specific and producing cumbersome category titles that were unnecessary as we were unlikely to have subcategories below the district level, except in a very small number of cases, for many years to come. It was suggested that if there is ever a need to further diffuse the categories the problem can be tackled at that time. I could see some merit in that argument, so acquiesced. You just can't win, can you? Skinsmoke (talk) 23:58, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I do sympathise there its never fun trying to get balance right! :)

Personally, I think settlement-level is much more interesting than district-level, so I'd rather populate those categories first. I'd also rather spend my time diffusing categories like Category:Fields in Devon into subcats for topic rather than district (Category:Wheat fields in Devon ahead of Category:Wheat fields in North Devon.

We are highly likely to have settlement-level categorisation for the major towns, in the cities we'll probably go to even finer detail (see Category:Districts of cities in England). Those are the settlements most likely to get a detailed category tree, and are also the ones that will have conflicating names with districts.

There is logic in the country -> county -> district -> settlement method diffusion, of course, and I wouldn't discourage you from doing so. What I would suggest is you think about how the category is named - is there potential conflict between the district and a namesake settlement? In those cases the plain term normally means, so should be the name for the plain category. Even if you don't plan to create a settlement-level cat at that point, it would be wrong to put the district category there. It would have to be moved to make way for the settlement one in long term - and we really don't want to move categories around its a messy, awful process. Don't worry about making the name too long, if its because you need to have a long name for the area. Leaving aside settlement/district ambiguity ones like Category:Village greens in Cotswold are awkwardly named in my opinion - I'd prefer "in Cotswold district" or "in District of Cotswold" instead.

IMO its easier to go "too far" on the subject aspect. Category:Buildings in Ilfracombe should be diffused, but there's no point to diffusing Category:Churches in Ilfracombe into by-denomination or by-construction date categories - there's only 4 pictures, so what's the point? The more localised the area, the less detailed the subject categorisation needs to be.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:46, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

There is, of course, the added problem that any category should link through to the global category. Someone accessing Category:Pubs painted pink and purple (to pick a ridiculous example—or is it?) should be able to move down to images of Category:Pubs painted pink and purple in Little Wombourne by the Sea, as should anyone simply accessing Category:Pubs.

The influx of images from Geograph has resulted in massive categories. They do require diffusing into subject categories, but that is likely to take a long time to happen. At least on the geographical side, it is fairly easy to split counties into districts, so that you only need to wade through a few hundred images, rather than the few thousand that some counties are blessed with. While not decrying the need to diffuse into subject categories (I agree it is necessary), when you're looking for an image to put on an article about a village, for instance, I don't think you are often too bothered whether it is a wheat field or post office. The main problem is trying to sort through thousands of unsorted images at county (or even national level) to find images of the village you are interested in. At the present time, it's usually easier to find the image on Geograph and either see if it has already transferred across, or manually import it.

In any case, we are not likely to solve the problem in the forseeable future. All we can really do is set the parameters and move in the right direction. Skinsmoke (talk) 01:05, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Well to use your example - and take it further - suppose the notional pub in Little Wombourne by the Sea is the only pub painted pink and purple in the world. In such a case, Category:Pubs painted pink and purple in Little Wombourne by the Sea is pointless. It would be better to just place the images in the categories: Category:Little Wombourne by the Sea, Category:Buildings in Suffolk Coastal, Category:Pubs in Suffolk, Category:Pubs painted pink in the United Kingdom, Category:Pubs painted purple in the United Kingdom and Category:Pubs painted pink and purple than create dozens of redundant categories. Creating the very precise intersection cat actually make it harder to find the images, as if you want a generic picture of a pink and purple pub, you'd have to go down maybe 6 levels (Europe, UK, England, Suffolk, Suffolk Coastal, Little Wombourne) to find anything - you'd probably lose patience rather than keep going.

My thoughts are there's only need to diffuse down if the parent is getting bloated. High level ones like Roads in <county> desperately need diffusion. On the other hand, quite precise subjects - with only a dozen images in the county category - shouldn't really be diffused at all. Just add broader categories for the next level down rather than create a meaningless intersection. Doing that means you get there from all possible starting points, without the hassle of going through empty categories to get to content.

For villages, it will may be enough to just stop at the village category - with no need for further sub-cats. Medium sized towns may need some basic subcategories, such as "Buildings in". Major cities will need heavy sub-categorisation, but still less extensive than the county.

As for point of thread - district-level may be handy, but if done it should not be possible to confuse with major settlements in district. Is Category:People from Manchester about people from Manchester or the City of Manchester? (If there's any meaingful difference?). Its natural to assume its about the first, if the second is meant it should say that.--Nilfanion (talk) 01:40, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

On the last point, my natural inclination is to agree with you. As I said, I was cajoled into doing otherwise (plus, I have to admit, it was easier to type the bloody names). With some support from elsewhere now, I probably feel more able to resist!

Don't disagree with you on the categories. Part of the problem though is that we are not starting from the ideal. Thousands of subcategories have already been created at lower levels. For instance, an image arrives from Geograph of a farm. Ideally, it should be placed in the category for the lowest subdivision (the civil parish or settlement), and in the generic categories Category:Farms, Category:Farmhouses, Category:Trees, Category:Fields, Category:Tractors and Category:Snow, as all those things are clearly shown in the image. As and when those categories need diffusing, they can work down into generic subcategories (Category:Farmhouses built in 1532, Category:John Deer tractors painted red and Category:Snow that's not quite firm but isn't mushy either). Unfortunately, some well-meaning soul decides to shortcircuit the process and creates those subcategories for the village, and we're landed with Category:Snow that's not quite firm but isn't mushy either in Little Wombourne by the Sea, and before we know what's happened we have 12 images in that category (because the photographer went on an picture taking spree in Little Wombourne that winter day). Sounds ridiculous? Well, maybe that's an extreme example, but it is happening. I did some work on Category:Signs a few weeks ago, and got rid of dozens of categories such as Category:Red welcome signs of municipalities in Ohio, placing them in, for example Category:Signs in Ohio, Category:Welcome signs, Category:Red signs and Category:Township signs, to be filtered downwards at a later date when it's needed. Skinsmoke (talk) 02:06, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Category:Past_in_the_United_Kingdom

Category:Past_in_the_United_Kingdom has been listed at Commons:Categories for discussion so that the community can discuss ways in which it should be changed. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this category, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for discussion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it. If the category is up for deletion because it has been superseded, consider the notion that although the category may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new category. In all cases, please do not take the category discussion personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

Skeezix1000 (talk) 00:28, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Overcategorisation 2

Not really sure of best way to describe the problem here but...

Categories have a definite structure and if X is a subtopic of Y then it Category:X will be in the tree for Category:Y. This is logical at each individual step, however it can produce absurd results onces its taken a few steps. For instance, Category:United Kingdom is a subcategory of Category:Astronomy.

What this means is its probably not that sensible to create "by location" intersect categories all the way up the category tree. Consider what the content is (the files), and if it actually has any relevance to the concept described by the high level category. For example Category:Canals in the United Kingdom is clearly useful. Category:Linear structures contains Category:Canals, and it is reasonable to assume the relation there. However, the parents of Category:Lines are abstract mathematical concepts.

Therefore its counterproductive to mirror the global category tree there, as images of canals have little-or-no relevance to curves, linear algebra or geometry.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:08, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

The problem you are referring to here is a problem within the global category tree. Regardless of whether the location categories interlink the problem you refer to still exists. An image of a canal in Devon is still included in a subcategory of Canals, and therefore is still in the parent category Lines. Sort out the global categories, and the location categories can then be amended to mirror these. I have already opened discussions on some of the more obvious global category anomalies that have been thrown up (Past and History is one). Feel free to do the same on any others you come across. However, in the case you highlight, I have a sneeking suspicion that a geometrist would argue that a canal, or any linear structure, is a perfect example of his art (or should that be science). What puzzled me was that canals are considered linear structures but railway lines aren't (I could be wrong, as I haven't bothered to check out the subcategories of Linear structures. Skinsmoke (talk) 10:21, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Have now checked and railway lines are definitely not there! Skinsmoke (talk) 10:25, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

And a picture of a derelict building is interesting to a biologist looking for stuff of the central nervous system? So does Category:Central nervous systems in the United Kingdom exist, and contains pictures of buildings, moors... and not one of a brain? The key difference is Category:Geometry in the United Kingdom only contains pictures of canals, which are of tangential relevance only. It does not contain any picture of geometry in the UK or lines in the UK...

The point is the category tree relates topics. At each step, that is logical. However X is subtopic of Y is a subtopic of Z does not necessarily imply X is a subtopic of Z. It is not a strict "X is contained in Y" relationship, that can be scaled - and it shouldn't be. Sometimes that is true for a number of steps, most of the time it isn't. Geography is exceptional as you get several strictly related levels Settlement < district < county < country < UK.

Its not ideal, and bots struggles to identify if there is a meaningful relationship or not. As is it takes human judgement to see if there is a connection, see if there is a relation between the global high-level category and the low level subject material before creating the high-level UK category.

If we had images of UK-specific linear algebra (what would that contain, really?) then it makes sense to have a UK category for it. As we don't we shouldn't have such a category.

With regards to linear structures, I'd suggest your time would be better spent getting Linear structures in the United Kingdom up to scratch - than to charge up the tree until you get to Category:Mathematics in the United Kingdom and the like (only to populate that with a deeply nested tree down to the same canal images!).--Nilfanion (talk) 10:39, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

If you've done any work on the category tree at all, you will realise that it is impossible to deal with all aspects at once, and that it only starts to come together as the different interlocking fields are dealt with. Whichever way you choose to go (vertically or horizontally), there is always someone prepared to whine that there are gaps, missing items, or that this doesn't seem logical. I was asked to assist another editor sorting out Category:Greater Manchester, which I gladly agreed to do. The first stage was ensuring that each category linked vertically up to the global category. The second stage has been to mirror the global interlinking at the local level, therefore avoiding having hundreds of subcategories stranded from their main topic categories at that level. As the categories have been carried up vertically, this will need to be repeated at the English and United Kingdom levels once Greater Manchester is finished.

I repeat that the problem you have highlighted is one that exists at the global category, rather than at the local levels. If it's wrong at the local level, then it's wrong at the global level as well, and needs sorting out there. The local level can then be amended to reflect the global position. And no, I am not the one who made the links at the global level. If you feel so strongly about linear structures (containing canals) being a subcategory of Geometry, then why don't you start a category discussion as I suggested previously?

None of this has anything to do with Overcategorisation, which is where an image (or category) is placed in several levels of the same vertical category tree. I would suggest you try reading that section again.

Coming back to your very first point, it is very difficult to see how we could avoid the United Kingdom being a subcategory of Category:Astronomy. The United Kingdom is on the planet Earth, which is part of the Universe. According to the Wikipedia article, astronomy is concerned with the evolution, physics, chemistry, meteorology, and motion of celestial objects, as well as the formation and development of the universe. So, technically, as astronomy is concerned with the development of the universe, it is concerned with the development of all things in the universe, including the United Kingdom. You should also find that a Red Admiral butterfly is also a subcategory of Astronomy. Skinsmoke (talk) 11:32, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I know what overcategorisation is about in Commons terms. You notice I started the thread with "Not really sure of best way to describe the problem here".

The global tree is not fundamentally broken, it is logical to have a picture of a Red Admiral in a deep subcategory of Astronomy. But at the same time it is idiotic to have it in a deep subcategory of Category:Astronomy in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom flavour of the cat tree should not be an exact copy of the global tree. The problem is not the global tree, but blindy copying-and-applying to the UK level.

Helping improve Greater Manchester's categories does not imply creating pointless parent categories up the tree. It is much more productive to create and populate the categories you actually need. As an example, perhaps Charity shops in Manchester is needed. If so, its immediate parents (Shops in Manchester, Charity in Manchester and Charity shops in Greater Manchester) are worth creating if they don't exist. At the same time, the existence of charity shops in Manchester is no reason to create Category:Emotions in Manchester. The global Charity < Emotions is OK, but the local "Emotions in the United Kingdom", only containing a few pictures of charity shops, is a tad silly.--Nilfanion (talk) 12:54, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

And you might link it to poverty in Manchester, unemployment in Manchester, austerity program of the Cameron government, connected to the financial system collapse to Obama and the US federal money policy. Not to mention the impact of the closing of the coal and steel industry in Manchester caused by ..., end of World War II and Thatcherism, so in the end, Manchester has to be connected with conservatisme. --Foroa (talk) 14:30, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Pretty much what these guys said - there's no point recreating a massive category tree for every city, town and village in the world. I'm sorry, but there will probably never be any need for a Neuroscience in St David's (a city of under 2000 population), and even if there were, there would be no point creating a massive tree down to it unless there was a lot of it. Categories should assist people trying to find media - yours make it much much harder to find things, especially when you create category loops (Brains in Greater Manchester is a subcategory of itself about 10 levels down, 10 levels which are entirely useless). You find a picture of a neuroscientist in St David's, great, categorise it in "St David's" and "Neuroscience in the United Kingdom", unless there are about 10 pictures of the guy in St David's, there would be no need for a neuroscience in St David's category, and even if you did have one, it would be at most a level 2 subcategory of St David's because there would simply be no need for the intervening layers. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:22, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Village cats

Hi, I took a few months break after the problems over Civil Parishes above and returned having thought that things may have gone quiet. Yet today I find that another user has just started creating village cats such as Category:Welton village, East Riding of Yorkshire which is just the reverse of what was happening before. Do you still think that this is not what we should be doing and that it is best just to have them in the upper cat as these lower level ones that are being created (both by the original user and the new one) may contain only a handful of images. Keith D (talk) 20:50, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Cemetery

Hello Skinsmoske. The photo (File:Green-Wood Cemetery Graves1.jpg) was shot a the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. TCY (talk) 19:29, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks for that! Skinsmoke (talk) 19:31, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Cemeteries by city

Hi. I was wondering why you felt it was necessary to dismantle the entire Category:Cemeteries by city tree. I found them to be a useful set of categories. - Eureka Lott 18:49, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Eureka. Sorry about the delay. Computer crashed, and had to wait for repair. Mainly because the category tree just wasn't being used. There were just five country categories within it: Mexico, the United States, Hungary, Lithuania and Germany.

Mexico contained just two cities (Guadalajara and Mexico City).

Germany contained Berlin and a couple of smaller municipalities which don't even have city status. Nothing for Hamburg, Dortmund, Essen, Bremen, Hannover, Düsselforf, Cologne, Bonn, Aachen, Mannheim, Frankfurt am Main, Augsburg, Stuttgart, Nürnberg, Munich, Saarbrücken, Dresden, Kiel, Rostock, Brandenburg, Chemnitz, Magdeburg or Leipzig.

Lithuania covered about 10 municipalities, only about four of which have city status.

Hungary included about 15 municipalities, of which about 10 have city status.

The United States was the largest, with 20 subcategories. That's 20 out of the thousands of municipalities with city status in the United States. Among the major cities, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Dallas, St Louis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Miami, Birmingham, Boston, Honolulu, Anchorage were all missing.

In itself, that simply means that an awful lot of work needs to be done to make sure that the category is properly populated. However, the main problem was that users had been placing city categories into the Cemeteries by city in... category, without them also placing them in the main category tree in that country, meaning that instead of making it easier for other users to find the category they were looking for, it made it harder. Firstly, they had to realise there were two places to look (which most would not realise), then they had to look in both places. To prevent that happening, the category would require permanent maintenance, which it clearly wasn't getting (there were over 280 unsorted images in the main cemeteries category last week!)

Most users would know the state that includes the city they were looking for, and so should be able to find it just as easily without a cities category. However, I would concede that in the United States at least, it makes sense to have a cemeteries by city status within states. How many people know that Pittsburgh is in Allegheny County, for instance? That probably outweighs at that level the "damage" that a duplicated category tree causes.

That was my reasoning, but I'd be glad to hear your view, particularly if there are any points that I hadn't taken into account. Skinsmoke (talk) 17:16, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Antarctica

Hi - its not a country, and its not a territory either - Antarctica is extraterritorial. Antarctica itself is not claimed as a single entity by any nation and is not a country in any way shape or form - its status is analogous to Europe, not France. However, sub-regions like the British Antarctic Territory are territories (with limited recognition) and could be handled in the same way as any other territory (Gibraltar has some "by country" and some which are lumped into of the "British Overseas Territories".

The fact some of the "by X" places for Antarctica are "by country" doesn't mean they are right. There is the correct by continent category for cemeteries - so that should be used not the others.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:48, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

The main purpose is surely that users can find the bloody thing. And if they find that the largest number of categories for Antarctica are listed by country, that is where they will tend to look. That doesn't prevent it continuing to be listed by continent as well. You can wiki-lawyer all you want on this, but the end result is that you leave users more confused and less able to find the category they want. And that helps nobody. Skinsmoke (talk) 00:56, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

If the by-continent categories are properly maintained (where's Category:Cemeteries in Europe?) users will naturally use those. Antarctica in the by-country lists is a stopgap measure (the by country cats are typically the most mature), and shouldn't be used once by-continent lists are in place.

Put yourself in the position of a user after an image of an Antarctic cemetery. You might start at Category:Cemeteries, in which case you'd more naturally go "cemeteries -> by continent -> in Antarctica" not "cemeteries -> by countries -> in Antarctica". Or alternatively start at Category:Antarctica. That user isn't going to start looking at a meta-category halfway down the tree.--Nilfanion (talk) 01:06, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Strange you should say that, because it's not so very long ago that several others took me to task and told me "we don't use by-continent lists on Wikimedia Commons, we list by country instead. We don't need to complicate matters by listing by continent." They went on to state that even where there is a "by continent" list, we should always also include in the by country list. It appears that your opinion is not universally held, and some editors are even more vehement in their view than you are. I understand your viewpoint, and initially took the same view (it's a lot easier to find a country in a smaller continent list than in a world list), but there just wasn't the consensus to go with that. It also, I presume, saves the problem of having to list countries in more than one continent (Cyprus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Greenland, Indonesia, all produce different opinions about continent classification; not to mention places like Egypt, Turkey, Spain, France, the Netherlands or Russia, which spread across more than one continent).

I agree that someone just looking for cemeteries in Antarctica would start at Category:Antarctica (or even, more likely, at Category:Cemeteries in Antarctica). They aren't likely to have a problem. But the person who is looking for cemeteries in a number of places, and is used to accessing from Category:Cemeteries by country is unlikely to think of looking under Category:Cemeteries by continent. Skinsmoke (talk) 01:17, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Well in general the "by country" listing is more useful. "Buildings in France" is more likely to be helpful than "Buildings in Europe". Its also much more likely to be properly maintained further down the category tree, with "by country" cats existing for more sub-topics. This is because editors are typically working at the national level (or lower). This in turn means the by country tree is typically more helpful.

One example Category:Buildings in France is contained in the relevant France-specific parents, Category:Buildings by country and Category:Buildings in Europe. Go up a level to Category:Buildings in Europe - its not contained in the by-country listings. I'd be surprised if you can find any examples where a "X in place" category is in both "X by country" and "X by continent".

The key difference with Antarctica is its not a country, its a continent - saying it is a country is flat wrong, just as saying the UK is a continent is flat wrong. Its not territory either (though various regions are). Therefore it doesn't belong in a by-country tree any more than Europe does. Convenience for a small portion of users (who, as they know our scheme, as just as likely to type the URL directly) doesn't offset the factual error. If you are to strictly follow the "pro-by country lobby" you mention you there should be categories like "Cemeteries in the Ross Dependency" (Category:Cemeteries in Gibraltar) and not even bother with the continental "Cemeteries in Antartica" (Category:Cemeteries in Europe}.--Nilfanion (talk) 01:40, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Except that, under the Antarctic Treaty, the Ross Dependency doesn't currently function, as all territorial claims are suspended by the signatories, and the civil power doesn't extend outside the country's bases. That is what marks Antarctica out as different. In addition, the territorial claims of Argentina overlap those of both Chile and the United Kingdom, Chile's claim overlaps those of Argentina and the United Kingdom, and Norway's claim is vague enough that nobody is sure quite what is claimed. This means that an item in, say Argentina's claimed area, would also have to be included in either Chile's or the United Kingdom's claimed area, or in some case both. On top of that there is a huge wodge that isn't claimed by anyone. Skinsmoke (talk) 02:03, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Yep no dispute there. The territories are only really relevant to a fraction of Commons material, just things associated with them - the governance of the territories, or the bases for instance. Antarctica is (partially, or wholly, depending on POV on the claims) terra nullius; in other words its not a country, and not part of any country's jurisdiction. The same situation applies to the high seas and the moon.

That means Antarctica doesn't belong in a list of countries, which in turn means it shouldn't really be in by-country categories. By-country is the most important localisation scheme, which means less significant topics may only have by-country. In those cases, including Antarctica is a better pragmatic option than not having Antarctica in any localisation scheme at all. When a topic has a more developed scheme it will also likely have by-continent or by-region (Category:Regions covers continents, oceans and things in multiple continents). When these exist, Antarctica naturally belongs in these and as it can now be placed in the right place (by-continent/region), there's no value in having it in the wrong place (by-country). Look at the most developed sub-cats of Antarctica (eg Buildings, Geography and Nature).

In general (using "Cemeteries in Egypt" as example) it should be in Category:Egypt (or rather the appropriate sub-categories), Category:Cemeteries by country and Category:Cemeteries in Africa. The inclusion of that category in a by-continent scheme doesn't mean it should be removed from the by-country scheme, or vice versa. Antarctica is an exception, precisely because its not a country.--Nilfanion (talk) 08:32, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't think we're all that far apart here. I wouldn't disagree with anything you've just written, though perhaps Category:Egypt isn't the best example, as some would argue it's not wholly in Africa. Neither of us disagrees that Antarctica is a continent, and I really don't have a problem with it being in Category:Cemeteries by continent. Our only real difference concerns those users who are in the habit, because of what happens with other category trees, of finding Antarctica under by country categories. You think they will realise it's not there because it's under Category:Cemeteries by continent, whereas I think they will just think the category isn't there at all (as that's where they've been used to finding it for other topics), and so it makes more sense to additionally include it under Category:Cemeteries by country. The point is really that they would expect Antarctica to be treated similarly no matter what category tree it is in. Skinsmoke (talk) 10:59, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we are pretty close. The problem is "Should Antarctica, a non-country entity, be in by-country lists?". By definition, it doesn't naturally belong in such a list. Perpetuating a misconception (that it is a country) is not helpful to Commons educational purpose, so should be avoided unless there's a good reason to do so (not just for convenience of people categorising - its people who use categories to find images that matter).

What I'd point out is the by-country categories where Antarctica is not included on, are for the more mature category trees on topics like Buildings and Nature. Those categories are both the most likely to be seen (more complete tree = more content, and its probably a more popular topic too). Other category trees should come into line with them as they get filled out. Given this, I can't see your concern - people are going to encounter those topics where Antarctica is not included in the country lists, and are more likely to do so than the ones where it is, because (for example) Animals are of rather more importance to users than Signs.

With regards to less mature topics, where the only localisation scheme is by-country, the situation is a bit different. The in-Antarctica category is still not a by-country cat - but where else can it go? As the only alternative is to have it in the top level category for the topic, its probably better in the by-country cat. Its the same on en.wp, Antartcica is only in by-country cat when a better alternative is not available.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:14, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Category:Transport

Looks like you added the Categories for Discussion template but you never said what needed discussing. Dankarl (talk) 23:17, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I now haven't got a clue why I listed it, so have removed the template. Skinsmoke (talk) 10:59, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Category:Buildings by Daniel Libeskind in Trafford

Category:Buildings by Daniel Libeskind in Trafford has been listed at Commons:Categories for discussion so that the community can discuss ways in which it should be changed. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this category, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for discussion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it. If the category is up for deletion because it has been superseded, consider the notion that although the category may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new category. In all cases, please do not take the category discussion personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

--ELEKHH^T 13:34, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Woolworths categorisation

Hi,

I notice that you partially sorted and created new subcategories for Woolworths in the United Kingdom.

(1) I don't understand the reasoning behind creating (Category:Woolworths Group in the United Kingdom) when there is already an existing Category:Woolworths Group (United Kingdom), nor why the latter should be a subcategory of the former. This seems like confusing duplication and muddying the waters.

(2) Regarding the newly-created Category:Woolworths Group in England, at present only a few of the English Woolies belong to it; the rest are in Category:Woolworths Group in the United Kingdom (of which Woolworths in England *isn't* a subcategory!) While one may be able to make a case for the usefulness of this category if done properly, at present it seems half-baked- the easy part of creation has been done, but it hasn't been properly filled.

(3) "Category:Woolworths Group in Greater Manchester" was created with its one member being a subcategory "Category:Woolworths Group in Salford". *That* category contains just a single image(!). With respect, I think this is excessive overcategorisation and counter-productive; categorisation is a means to an end, i.e. grouping related images together. I could understand if there were a number of images of Woolworths in that area (cf. Category:Woolworths, Monmouth, which is a worthwhile subcategory). However, unless we have more than one image of Woolworths in Manchester- let alone Salford- I think the clutter added in terms of empty/near-empty categories outweighs any benefit.

I'd welcome your feedback on this before I make any further changes/reversions. Thanks,

Ubcule (talk) 19:24, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in replying. Just back from holiday. No objection. Skinsmoke (talk) 11:09, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply (ironically, I started work on this the day before you posted this reply!) The second-level UK group has been removed, but the England and Greater Manchester categories have been left (and were added to for consistency) with images moved into them as appropriate. Ubcule (talk) 22:31, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Category:State_beach_signs

Category:State_beach_signs has been listed at Commons:Categories for discussion so that the community can discuss ways in which it should be changed. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this category, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for discussion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it. If the category is up for deletion because it has been superseded, consider the notion that although the category may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new category. In all cases, please do not take the category discussion personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

Ellin Beltz (talk) 04:47, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

X in place categories

Categories such as Category:Streets in York should about the specific location, not the broader district, and should be categorised in the town/city not the district.

This is apparent if you consider the situation where the district and settlement are completely different entities. "Buildings in Bradford" is about buildings in Bradford, not the City of Bradford.

If a category for the district is useful then it should be created too, but at a different location using the district's name like Buildings in the City of Bradford. Otherwise the useful distinction between district and settlement is lost.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:30, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Merseyside districts

Similar to the last edit.. I have corrected dozens of your edits on districts in Wirral, Knowsley and Sefton which you edited in May. You had added many districts incorrectly to other districts Hoylake being a prime example. I am not sure what you were trying to achieve please refrain from these type of edits. Babydoll0409 (talk) 17:44, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Re: Family Vault

Hi Skinsmore, I hope it's not too late, but I just updated the description of File:Vault.jpg with the location where it was taken (Los Toldos, Buenos Aires, Argentina). Pilaf (talk)

Many thanks for that. It's never too late! Skinsmoke (talk) 04:42, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

File:The pine, the pub sign and the church - Zennor - geograph.org.uk - 1807780.jpg

Hello Skinsmoke ! Congratulations on your classical composition of the nice image of Zennor pub, pine & church - & for the very good legend, written in very correct french. About the legend, we'd rather say bohème (used to describe the lewd & uncaring way of life of some artists) instead of bohémien (which means "related to Gypsies"). Thanks for your work, & best wishes for 2014, I've tried to send the same message to Sarah Smith, since I don't know which of you 2 took the photo, & wrote the legend T.y. Arapaima (talk) 08:16, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

The honours for the image and description belong solely to Sarah Smith, I'm afraid. I merely uploaded the file from Geograph! Skinsmoke (talk) 14:04, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Category:Public transport buses in the United Kingdom

Please note that this is not a parent category for Category:Buses in Manchester and the like - it's a sub-cat of UK buses by use, not location - so please don't remove it from images in the belief it is redundant to 'Buses in UK place'. Ultra7 (talk) 18:46, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

OK, thanks for that. I had seen the discussion about the category, and appear to have read it wrongly. Having re-read it, it was advocating diffusing the category, not using the existing diffused categories of Category:Buses in the United Kingdom. Skinsmoke (talk) 18:50, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

n.p. Ultra7 (talk) 19:26, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Recent edits - districts vs settlements

I've reverted a number of your recent changes. eg Buildings in Oldham is about buildings in Oldham, which is not the same thing as the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham - and so would not contain buildings eg in Saddleworth. The category for buildings in the Borough would be Category:Buildings in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham.

This is even more true with things like Category:History of Doncaster, as for most of the area's history Doncaster has only meant what was a small town.

If it is not useful to make the distinction between the district, and its namesake core settlement, and the district category itself is redundant (its not helpful to have a redirect to redirect Category:<name> to Category:District of <name>).--Nilfanion (talk) 11:18, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. I was just about to message you myself concerning the reversions. The problem for most of these categories is that the overwhelming majority of images contained in them are not in the townships, but are in the wider boroughs. If you are suggesting that categories should be established for the wider boroughs, and these "misplaced" images and subcategories moved to the wider borough categories, fair enough, but it will require an enormous amount of work, which I frankly don't see anyone doing. It appears that it has been done in London, but that is because one user appears to have spent months sorting out categories into "London borough" categories. However, as far as the bus categories goes, it was that same user who established the categories for the metropolitan boroughs in the format that you are objecting to (he seems to have given up in frustration partway through the Yorkshire boroughs). Let me know if that is still the format you would prefer and, as I come across them as I work through the bus images, I will change them. However, any help you can offer would be welcomed. Skinsmoke (talk) 11:27, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Short version is yes, if you mean the Metropolitan Borough then you should place in the Met Borough. If you mean the namesake town, you mean the namesake town - and the <foo in X> categories should match the name of their parents. I agree the "pollution" between the two is a nuisance, and the way to handle that is confront it. A major cause of the issues cats (as with many others), is the Geograph upload. eg if GeographBot identified a file as a building in Oldham, it went into Category:Buildings in Oldham - regardless of which "Oldham" it identified.

The quickest way to implement an improvement is to do following (with regards to my example):

1. Create Category:Buildings in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham
2. Use HotCat to move everything from Category:Buildings in Oldham to Category:Buildings in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham (or put a temporary category redirect in place)
3. Move back down to Buildings in Oldham those that are actually of Oldham (the slow bit ;) )

If just the first two are done, you get the status quo. However, it gives the ability to carry out step 3 - regardless of whether its actually done immediately, or over months - and makes this an improvement as the district and town can be disentangled.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:41, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough, I'll start on that as I come across them, at least as far as stage 2 (as you say, stage 3 can be dealt with at a later point). It will take a while, as there are 36 metropolitan boroughs (I think), but that will at least put them on a par with the London Boroughs. I would suggest that at the same time we convert the few that are only named, for example, "Calderdale" into "Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale" to give the same format across all 36, as has been done in London ("City of Westminster" being an example). In most there is a difference between the settlement and the borough, though that does not apply in Liverpool and Wolverhampton, where the settlement and borough are coterminous (Manchester and Coventry are almost coterminous, but not quite). Are you OK with that? Skinsmoke (talk) 11:52, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

My preference in the cases when settlement and borough are identical is to have a single category, and when a single category exists it should be as shortest possible name. Consistency is good, but IMO its the lowest of priorities compared to other things like conciseness, which have a bigger impact on ease-of-use. Its easier to find, and a heck of a lot faster to type, "Houses in Liverpool" than "Houses in the Metropolitan Borough of Liverpool". Another factor is they are not temporally identical. A picture of the Liverpool docks in 1860 is a picture of Liverpool, but isn't a picture of the Met Borough of Liverpool. Consistency is handled equally well by a redirect from Category:Metropolitan Borough of Liverpool to Category:Liverpool.

Unfortunately getting broader consensus on this sort of things on Commons is nigh-on impossible.--Nilfanion (talk) 12:07, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I was thinking of "City of Liverpool" rather than "Metropolitan Borough of Liverpool", as it is the borough that holds city status, and therefore the term "Metropolitan Borough of Liverpool" is never used. The same applies to Wolverhampton in practical terms, though in that case the royal charter is a little ambiguous. I was thinking more for ease of use. If you know that all the metropolitan boroughs are in the same format, you pretty quickly learn to look there for them (or to categorise them there). However, if most are in one format, but others aren't, it becomes extremely frustrating for editors and users alike when they forget the one or two examples that aren't in the common format. Skinsmoke (talk) 12:16, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

True, wasn't thinking about city status there(!) In the case of Liverpool, this would only affect the top level for the borough - any subject in Liverpool cat really should be at, and stay at, the plain name and I would object to that sort of move much more strongly. The top level cat is just a single case, and a single redirect makes things easy to use whichever direction applies, but short to long redirects are a bad idea.

The other thing to remember is subject-in-town categories are more interesting to end-users than subject-in-district, as towns are the units of highest interest - so the consistency should be with other towns not other districts. If Merseyside was a single district we would still need "Buildings in Liverpool", at that location, with its town-level categories as subcats of county-level ones. To use a case with clear distinction: People are much more likely to be looking media relating specifically to the settlement of Leeds than to the district of Leeds as a whole, for the same reasons as why w:Leeds gets ten times as many page views as w:City of Leeds.--Nilfanion (talk) 13:03, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

It's OK, I've accepted the point about Leeds, lol. A question about Liverpool and Wolverhampton though. Is it possible to categorise a redirect page? I don't think I've ever tried it, so I'm not sure. If, for example, "Buses in the City of Liverpool" is redirected to "Liverpool", can it also be categorised under "Buses in Merseyside"? And is there any point? Is it just better to live with the inconsistency that "Buses in Liverpool" (rather than "Buses in the City of Liverpool") would sit alongside "Buses in the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens", "Buses in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral", "Buses in the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley" and "Buses in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton"?

On the point of the Leeds example, I'm not sure most people outside the immediate vicinity are even aware there is a difference between the city and the settlement. It's now 41 years since the new local authorities came into existence, and I suspect for most people that "Horsforth" is in "Leeds", not in the "City of Leeds". There has been an insistence on English Wikipedia that the settlement and borough are separated, but that has sometimes created more problems than it has solved (not to mention endless wranglings over the years). Not to mention the illogicality of an area that was merged into Leeds in, say, 1933, is considered to by in "Leeds", whereas one that was incorporated into the city in 1973 isn't, but instead is considered to be in the "City of Leeds". Skinsmoke (talk) 13:33, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Category redirects (as opposed to standard redirects) could be categorised, but it would not be sensible - what benefit is there in making people click through a link? There's no harm in a mixture, and they would be in the same alphabetic order if sorted properly regardless (eg sort keys of "Liverpool", "St Helens", "Wigan").

I suspect, without being a resident, that "Leeds" is a fuzzy area with different locals having different viewpoints, and may even change their mind at times (eg when trying to sell house, you are likely to change the geography to suit your needs). I'd be surprised if any Wetherby residents say they live in Leeds. The most obvious expression of the modern city as distinct from the borough, will be road signs, and the point they transition from "Leeds" to "City centre". The ONS built-up areas work to define the city/countryside limit (but cannot differentiate between settlements in a single conurbation). What "Leeds" is is a philosophical discussion ultimately ;) Most non-locals would not be aware of distinction between district and settlement, and would assume the city is the settlement on the grounds a city has houses and factories not forests and moorland.--Nilfanion (talk) 14:06, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Not entirely sure about that last point. I'm thinking of Sheffield, which has included large areas of moorland since the 1930s, and a substantial chunk of the Peak District National Park. Because it had a Sheffield postal address, had Sheffield bus stop signs, was served by Sheffield buses, people tended to consider it as part of "Sheffield". I think a similar situation exists in Brighton and Hove, where there is a chunk of the South Downs National Park that has, again since the 1930s, been considered part of "Hove". And Rochdale, where the moorland above Norden is considered "Rochdale", of which it has been a part since the 1930s, whereas the adjacent moorland is considered part of the "Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale", because it has been in "Heywood" since the same time.

You are correct that people change their mind at times, not just for purpose, but also depending on who they are talking to. If I'm speaking to someone from Greater Manchester or nearby areas, I would say I was from "Bredbury". Elsewhere, I would say I was from "Stockport", and if I'm talking to someone from abroad, I would normally say I was from "Greater Manchester", or just "Manchester" (which is technically incorrect). Irritatingly, to about half the local population, that usually elicits a response of "Ah, Manchester United! Bobby Charlton, Georgie Best, Nobby Stiles..."

I think I agree with you on the category redirects. Skinsmoke (talk) 14:27, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Bus categorisations

It's probably too late, but a couple of other notes:

• The current convention for localising preserved buses is to create an event category, with a year if needed, (see Category:Bus rallies and events in the United Kingdom), and give that category a geographic 'Buses in XYX' cat
• The current convention for preserved buses is to categorise the image itself just with a registration identifying cat (see Category:Preserved buses in the United Kingdom), and if appropriate an event/museum identifying cat. All the other cats that relate to the bus, such as operator/type/manufacturer etc, are then placed on that reg cat. This is by no means universal, as placing them all directly on the image was the method used before reg catting started, but now it exists, it is as I understand it, the current method
• For localising buses in general, I've only usually added a 'Buses in XYZ' cat when it would help people find the bus - i.e. for local transport buses, and preserved buses at events/museums, and other rarer cases where the bus is tied to the place. I don't add them for images where the location is trivial, such as private coaches or preserved buses that just might be passing through. But I know at least one other editor used to add a local cat for everything, so I wouldn't call that a convention as yet
• In general, most of the buses in Category:Buses in the United Kingdom are not just awaiting a more specific local cat, they will also be awaiting a manufacturer/operator cat (as a minimum), or the whole operator/reg/make/model/use/date set of cats (as a maximum). In the case of preserved buses, they should already have event cats (if they were uploaded by me), but will be needing a preserved bus by reg. cat. too, to do the same job, as described above

Ultra7 (talk) 12:57, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

It's never too late! I don't think that's out of line with what I have been doing since our last exchange. I'm not specifically working through preserved buses, but am coming across a fair few as I work through "Buses in Greater Manchester" and its numerous subcategories.

Where I have come across them I have added the location to the image ("Buses in the City of Manchester" etc), rather than the event category, as a number of the categories include images of buses on their way to or from the event, so the image can be many miles away. The image almost always includes more than just the bus (street furniture, housing, shops, etc), so a local category would seem to be appropriate. The event category I have localised to the physical location of the event (with a category of "Heaton Park", for example, which works up through the category tree to "City of Manchester").

In a few cases, I have created a preserved bus category along the lines you describe, but have not done this where there are more than a few buses in a category, as this is digressing from my main task. Where I can with minimal inconvenience, I have added a maker category (and a bodywork category) to the preserved bus category, though have added the operator to the image, as the operator may well have changed during the lifetime of the bus (particularly here in Greater Manchester, where many of the preserved buses passed from a municipality or a National Bus Company subsidiary to SELNEC Passenger Transport Executive).

I think (and hope) that is inline with what you have being doing. Skinsmoke (talk) 13:14, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the point about street furniture. I wouldn't worry about buses going to/from events, but if necessary, you could isolate those from a main event space cat. All I'm concerned about is having categories like 'Buses in Manchester', which to me should be about showing the local buses in Manchester (but like I said, it's not really a convention at this time) being dominated by images of buses simply standing rows in Heaton Park/MMT, which people can just as easily browse by looking in the event cat one step down (and which has the advantage of having date details too). I wouldn't worry about creating the preserved bus reg. cats yourself, I only mentioned that so that you wouldn't feel the need to add cats to every image. But if you do, on the operator front, it's also convention to only include the operator cat which is represented by the livery - which in most preserved buses stays the same once it's preserved (and is usually the original owner). Ultra7 (talk) 21:32, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

It's OK, it is only the operator of the livery that I have added. However, I have come across at least three instances where the livery has changed while the bus has been in preservation (all cases where the bus has subsequently gone into the collection at Greater Manchester Museum of Transport), which is why I added it to the image rather than the "Preserved bus in the UK" category. Incidentally, I have also come across examples where the "Preserved bus in the UK" category includes images of the bus prior to preservation, when in service (I think one was an Oldham Corporation bus that by the time of the image was actually operated by SELNEC Passenger Transport Executive, though still in Oldham colours, but I could be remembering the wrong image).

There is a further problem with the event categories, in that some of them include images that are not buses. We don't really want images of fairgrounds, trams, bus stop signs, tickets, lorries, souvenir stalls, event advertising, vans and cars under "Buses in Manchester" The alternative would be to create a category of "Buses at the 2005 Trans Lancs Rally" etc, but this seems like over-categorisation at this stage. Skinsmoke (talk) 22:01, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

In the rare cases of multiple post preservation liveries, while by no means currently a convention, we should be aiming to sub-cat those under the preserved (reg) cat, and then apply the relevant operator cat to those branches - the format I would use would be 'operator bus xyz (reg) in abc livery'. If there are any in service images in preserved (reg) cats, that's probably my fault, but going forward, the current convention seems to be to only include preserved images in those - if needed, we can create a sibling cat for in service images, and group them all together within a whole life (reg) cat. There's no real convention for that yet, although I would think it would take the form 'model (reg)'. But like I said, don't feel you need to create any of these as you do your thing, I'm just saying this is how it will be done eventually, so there's no real need to directly apply cats to every image (even though, for legacy reasons, there are thousands like that). For locations though, I really don't think non-bus images in the event branch is an issue, there can't be more than 1% non-bus images in there, and most of those will in my experience be other, bus related vehicles (i.e. tow trucks). If really necessary, we should isolate those in sub-cats, rather than duplicate the 99% across two categories. But I'd say achieving that level of perfection is a very low priority given what still needs to be done for UK buses - especially as they can of course also appear in their own object branches too. Ultra7 (talk) 14:03, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Incidentally, while I was bored and needing a bit of a change, I had a go at the unidentified locations category, and moved about 15 images out into their appropriate towns and counties. Where the county/country was pretty clear, but not the locality within the county/country I have added the county/country category, but left the image in the unidentified locations category, in the hope that someone in those counties/countries might be familiar with the location. Skinsmoke (talk) 14:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Vehicles of the United Kingdom VS Vehicles in the United Kingdom

Hello,

You've made a change here. This change is problematic, since the picture wasn't taken in the UK, but in Lyon, France. Those are cars produced in the UK (hence the Vehicles of the United Kingdom category), but they are not in the UK.

Pleclown (talk) 08:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. It looks like the problem is somewhat academic, as Category:Vehicles of the United Kingdom is already a subcategory of Category:Vehicles in the United Kingdom. As far as I can see, all the vehicles are manufactured by BMC, so it may be more appropriate to move the image to Category:BMC vehicles, and to add them also to Category:Vehicles in France. There is no United Kingdom equivalent to Category:Vehicles built in France. Any thoughts? Skinsmoke (talk) 09:18, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Category:Pubs in Prestwich

Hi, not quite sure what you're doing here. By moving these images *back* to a less specific category (Category:Pubs in the Metropolitan Borough of Bury), you are going against the conventional wisdom, which is that images should be placed in the most specific category applicable. Prestwich is in the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, as is the town of Bury, and we already have categories at that level, which you are leaving empty but not asking for deletion. Placing images in the more specific category automatically includes them in the higher, by inheritance. Or have I missed something? Rodhullandemu (talk) 17:04, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. No you haven't missed anything. I am following the advice of an administrator on Commons (see the discussion above under "Recent edits - districts vs settlements") on setting up the Metropolitan Borough categories. He suggested that as many of the subcategories include images that are not actually in the places, that everything be moved up to the Metropolitan Borough category, so that everything is temporarily in one place and can be sorted at a later date into any subcategories. I suspect that you will find there were probably more images of "Pubs in Prestwich" under Category:Pubs in Bury (now all moved to Category:Pubs in the Metropolitan Borough of Bury), than there were under Category:Pubs in Prestwich itself. At the moment I am only dealing with stages 1 and 2 of his suggested procedure (setting up the Metropolitan Borough categories and moving images up for sorting). Skinsmoke (talk) 17:13, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Actually, there weren't more images not actually in the places, because I checked them all last night, thereby completing the phases you seem to be embarked upon. There was a cogent structure in place, which you could have realised was your intended goal in this process, and which you've now undone. I'll leave it up to you to fix it in your own time, as I have other things to do. Cheers. Rodhullandemu (talk) 17:17, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Must admit I hadn't noticed that you had had a go at them last night (I thought you were preoccupied in Scotland for a few years yet!). The work you had done would make it the exception, rather than the rule unfortunately. Did you do anything apart from the pubs category, so I can try to avoid undoing any more of your work? Skinsmoke (talk) 17:22, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

No, just the pubs. I usually use the "Map" dropdown to view placement of images (assuming they are all geocoded, of course) and then move ones in the "wrong place". Rodhullandemu (talk) 17:44, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I was referring to the confusion specifically relating to Bury vs Met Borough of Bury (as when the bots saw "Metropolitan Borough of Bury" they read that as "Bury"). That means there is a good chance of there are images in Category:Pubs in Bury that are not of Bury, but of the Metropolitan Borough.

That situation never applied to settlements in the boroughs which don't share the name - so the Prestwich edits are a waste of time.--Nilfanion (talk) 17:26, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

OK, thanks for that. I had understood you to mean all the locality subcategories. Skinsmoke (talk) 17:33, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

The Prestwich pubs have now been restored (plus, I think, an additional one). Skinsmoke (talk) 17:49, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Categories in Scotland

Most council areas already have a well-developed structure, e.g. "Fences in..", "Fields in..", etc., so it's unhelpful to categorise images by ".. in Scotland" as you have been doing. In any case, it's not so difficult to create new categories, as long as you understand their place within the subcategories of Scotland and of the council areas. For example, "Pylons in X" would be a new subcategory of "Pylons in Scotland|X" and "Structures in X". For what I've already done, see structure of Category:Fife and Category:Clackmannanshire. CHeers. Rodhullandemu (talk) 01:48, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Rod. I understand that, thanks. However, I am actually removing 113 images from the 116 in Category:Crosshill, Derbyshire that relate to South Ayrshire. I do not know which settlement in South Ayrshire they relate to (apart from the ones that are clearly in Category:Crosshill, South Ayrshire. Where they clearly belong to the village category, I have tried to add "X in South Ayrshire" categories where possible. However, where I am unsure of the settlement, community or civil parish, I have merely placed them in Category:South Ayrshire, so that they can be sorted at a later date. In those cases, I was reluctant to use the "X in South Ayrshire" categories, for fear that they would be missed in adding more localised settlement categories, and so placed them in the Scotland categories. Either way, it is an improvement on the existing situation, which is that the bloody things were categorised under an industrial village in the East Midlands of England! Come back to me if you would rather I just placed them in Category:South Ayrshire and ignored the other subject categories completely, for someone to add these at a later date. Skinsmoke (talk) 02:00, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

In the absence of a response I've put them all in Category:South Ayrshire, and someone else can sort out the additional categories at a later date. Skinsmoke (talk) 06:50, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately you didn't get a response because I need some sleep from time to time; perhaps you could wait a little longer next time. The "someone who can sort out the additional categories" is probably me, and I've already set aside until April 2016 for this task- I'd prefer it not to go beyond that as I do have other plans. There's no reason why you shouldn't use Catalot to move multiple files from one location to another, and "Crosshill, South Ayrshire" is sufficicently precise a location for now. Rodhullandemu (talk) 13:48, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound shirty. As far as I can see, Cat-a-lot only works if you want to move all the files, as there is no option to only add certain of the files in the category. In this particular case, the files did not, for some reason, only relate to Category:Crosshill, South Ayrshire, but also covered Category:Maybole, Category:Kirkmichael, Category:Straiton and a couple of others I can't remember. Looking at the maps on the Geograph pages, they appeared to cover a wide range of South Ayrshire with no apparent connection to Crosshill, although I didn't check the civil parish maps at the General Register Office for Scotland website as this is not working with Mozilla Firefox at the moment. In any case, I had no intention of spending a great deal of time on the Scottish element of the moves, as the task I was involved in, removing the Scottish intruders from Derbyshire, was large enough without adding extra tasks. I also wanted to get some sleep! I was aware that if I added Category:South Ayrshire this was likely to be seen as overcategorisation if I also added "X in South Ayrshire" categories, but that additional subject categories could easily be added simply by a quick glance at the image. I had assumed this would be helping you out on your Scottish categorisation task, but clearly was wrong in that belief. Perhaps instead of getting ratty with me, you should reserve your anger for the bot that placed a host of innocent images of Scottish countryside in the category of a village in the Derbyshire coalfield. In any case, it's worth bearing in mind that the absence of the additional subject categories has not actually worsened the situation: they weren't there before, and they still aren't. Skinsmoke (talk) 14:08, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Just ignore him, Skinsmoke. After the last time just above, it's pretty clear Rod is either not reading your posts, or he is, but is choosing to ignore them and continue to assume that you know nothing about Commons or categorisation, and you're only purpose here is to waste his time. There's nothing wrong with your edits, and your time is no more or less valuable than his. You're not obliged to consider his future workload when choosing how to fix the categorisation of misplaced images, and you're certainly not expected to fit your replies into his sleeping patterns. I tried to raise his treatment of you the last time in his Rfa, but I was ignored, and for some utterly stupid reason, there is apparently no expectation on Commons that an admin candidate should be expected to account for attitudes like this. Ultra7 (talk) 19:07, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

For the record, this was where I raised the issue in his Rfa. As far as I'm concerned, all those supporters owe you an explanation as to why they completely ignored my concerns, now that Rod is here behaving the exact same way just a few weeks later, totally oblivious to how he comes across to other users (even though that's a fundamental aspect of being an admin). Ultra7 (talk) 19:23, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry if I did sound "ratty" earlier, but after a night's disturbed sleep, and before coffee, one does not necessarily come across as one would wish to. I think the bot uploads were crudely executed and the result is now a huge backlog of disorder to deal with; the few of us who are dealing with it are doing so as time permits. But this has nothing to do with being an admin, just an editor, so I hope you'll take the above as it is meant; certainly it seems that only Ultra7 has an axe to grind in this regard. Thanks for your work, it means that when I get to Category:South Ayrshire at least I know it is likely to have few outliers; cheers. Rodhullandemu (talk) 19:34, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

It has everything to do with being an admin. Being a jerk to Skinsmoke was at least excusable when you were just another user, but it is inexcusable now that you are an admin. On other WMF projects at least, admins are not supposed to behave this way, and Rfa is supposed to be able to weed out the people who are likely to act that way. We see here though how effective it is on Commons. Thanking someone for their work, when you so clearly still think it's wrong, or is at the very least somehow wasting your precious time, is a pretty empty gesture. Ultra7 (talk) 20:02, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Guys, the same standards of behaviour apply to admins and non-admins; its no more acceptable in non-admins as in admins - being a jerk is unacceptable, and so is saying someone "is a jerk" (as opposed to saying they are acting like a jerk) :) Generally admins get higher levels of scrutiny, which is why higher standards are expected in practice - but same standards should apply to all users and the expectations should be just the same.

With regards to the issue: Removing Crosshill, Derbyshire - Good. Adding a correct and relevant Scottish cat - Good. Adding South Ayrshire - Indifferent: If South Ayrshire was sorted, files in the top-level would stick out like a sore thumb. In this case its just more stuff in the top-level cat. Bots can trivially move "X in Scotland" to "X in South Ayrshire", using Category:Geograph images in South Ayrshire (and similar) to determine the correct council area. The Geograph images in X cats are much more reliably applied, so should have very few errors.

@Skinsmoke: What was non-constructive was the removal of {{Check categories}}, when the cats were not fully checked. Cat-a-Lot removes it by default, but that can be changed in its preferences. I'd recommend that option is selected, when you are using Cat-a-Lot to remove junk from the cat of immediate interest. This makes it easier to find not-fully sorted files.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:17, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't know, you go out for a nice Sunday afternoon walk in the country and World War III breaks out while you're away. Stop it, the lot of you. We're all volunteers here, whether admins or ordinary editors. The aim of all of us is to improve Wikimedia Commons, and to make it easier for users to find the images they want. We may have disagreements on how exactly we do that, but we all surely have the same goal. And from time to time we all snap at each other. We shouldn't, but we do (I have been known to snap back when I'm in the mood, too). Thanks Ultra7 for jumping to my defence: it is appreciated, but I can assure you that Rodhullandemu is far from the worst user I have come across for snapping. At least I understand where he is coming from, having seen some of the work he's put in to the Scottish categories, which generally are in a much better state than the English ones. I wish I could say the same for some other users, who simply display a negative attitude to anything they themselves have not done, ignore all rules to suit themselves, and treat other users with utter contempt (and I emphasise I'm not talking about anyone in this particular discussion). So how about we all just play nice for a while? Skinsmoke (talk) 22:45, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

District/Borough cats

I know this has come up before - but district categories probably should not be moved from Foo to District (or Borough) of Foo by default. If there is ambiguity between the district and its namesake settlement (or other geographical feature), and its meaningful to make a distinction between the two, then there is benefit. If the district boundaries are identical to the namesake feature, or its name is effectively a neologism then there is zero value.

Three examples:

1. Teignbridge (the one that triggered this): The term "Teignbridge" is solely used for the district, and doesn't correspond to any other entity; and is called plain "Teignbridge" by reliable sources
2. Purbeck: The district is distinct from the Isle of Purbeck: The district is significantly larger than the Isle, and includes the area west of Poole.
3. Exeter: The district contains the built-up area of the city, plus a small rural fringe (so the boundary matches major linear features). The rural area does not contain any distinct settlements, and is treated as part of the city. The urban area is seen as a single unit, Topsham is today seen as a suburb of Exeter not as a distinct settlement.

In those 3 cases, I'd suggest "Teignbridge", "District of Purbeck" and "Exeter" are the appropriate category names. Consistency isn't a major virtue, particularly when you bear in mind 99% of people will not know, or care, if a given district has Borough status; the fact the plain name is more concise and better corresponds to what people actually call it outweigh that. When we need to make the distinction, a consistent approach to disambiguation is a good thing.--Nilfanion (talk) 12:03, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Apologies. It was getting very late! You are quite right with the three examples you give. Now reverted. Skinsmoke (talk) 14:53, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

No problem :)

Incidentally, one issue I'm not sure about is when the ambiguity is with a non-UK location. The one I'm thinking of here is Peterborough: The settlement and district in Cambridgeshire are quite distinct, so need separation. However, the City of Peterborough in Ontario is also significant. Commons should have a much lower Primary Topic bar than WP (eg because false matches are more harmful), so we shouldn't really have the English city taking primacy.

If there was only one UK term that would easily be resolved by Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, and Peterborough, Ontario. But there's 2 UK terms, and "City of Peterborough" is ambiguous with the Canadian city... That means additional disambiguation - and I'm not sure of best way to do that...--Nilfanion (talk) 22:09, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I would be inclined to say "City of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire", although "City of Peterborough, England" is a valid alternative. We have both examples is use at present, with "City of Preston, Lancashire" and "City of Worcester, England", both of which are perfectly valid. However, I personally don't think it is helpful to either users (those looking to find something in the categories) or editors (those categorising) to have parallel systems of disambiguation where this can be avoided. With the dropdown menus it isn't the problem that it used to be, but people tend to rapidly get used to a common style of disambiguation. I'm still trying to puzzle out why we have "Wells, England" (and that's at civil parish/settlement level!).

I also think it's helpful where "District of XXX" format is used to set up a redirect page from "XXX District", which works particularly well with the dropdown menus. I have only set those up comprehensively for Derbyshire so far. Skinsmoke (talk) 00:03, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Category:Connect Kettering et al

In case it wasn't obvious from the history, the primary purpose of this category, and the others like it, was to group buses in a specific branding together, as sub-cats of Category:Buses with route branding in the United Kingdom. That obviously has a parallel with routes, or in this case partnership transport networks, but it was never my intention for these to be about routes in a manner that can be separated from the buses themselves. If you think there needs to be that separation, there needs to be some kind of considered discussion on how to do that for this and all the others, because up-merging them is not the answer, imho. Ultra7 (talk) 00:08, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I see the problem. It didn't apply to Category:Connect Kettering, but on some of the other similar categories images that are not buses have been creeping in: dedicated bus stops signs, publicity material, route maps. As the categories are titled at the moment, that appears to be a perfectly appropriate place for these ancillary images to go. That really means these are not entirely appropriate under Category:Buses with route branding in the United Kingdom. The images of the buses would be appropriate under, for example, Category:Buses with Connect Kettering route branding as a subcategory of both Connect Kettering, itself a subcategory of Category:Bus routes in the United Kingdom (or even of Category:Bus networks in the United Kingdom, though I don't think we need to go that far at this stage); and also of Category:Buses with route branding in the United Kingdom. The two would then come together again under Category:Bus transport in the United Kingdom. How does that sound? Skinsmoke (talk) 06:43, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with anything that doesn't undo any specific categorisation that has already been identified and applied - in this case, it's the specific identification and grouping of buses in the same route branded livery, but the point applies generally to any issue you might think you find in the UK bus areas. You're not wrestling with any issues here that I haven't already given a great deal of thought to as to how to get the categorisation right, without straying into the realms of OVERCAT - if you find any category name or arrangement that to you appears to be a mistake needing correction, it's usually going to be because doing it some other way was going to either be OVERCAT, or not worth the time/effort, given the low number of images, especially in cases like Kettering, where we don't even have any non-bus images yet. It also might simply be because good is better than perfect - for example, it's clearly not ideal to place Category:Trentbarton (bus company) in that route branding category, because it's notionally a company category and has no business being in the bus branch, but I did so because it's going to take some time to sub-divide that cat into buses by branding, and the usefulness of the route branding category would obviously be degraded if we simply mass copied every image of a branded bus from there into the main branding cat. And obviously, there will be cases where, as more images have been found, improvements are now required to sub-divide buses/non-buses, but cases like Kettering are clearly not it. Ultra7 (talk) 15:24, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I must admit, I'd based what I'd done on the history of Category:Manchester Metroshuttle, where I'd simply followed what you had done. On 18 December 2010 you removed Category:Buses in Greater Manchester and replaced it with Category:Bus routes in Greater Manchester. It never formed part of Category:Buses with route branding in the United Kingdom at any time in its history (I have now added it). Naturally, I had assumed that was the way you had wanted to go. Skinsmoke (talk) 15:35, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

The reason why Manchester Metroshuttle was never in the the route branding cat is because Shuttle buses in the United Kingdom is a sub-cat of 'buses by use' - as per the note in route branding, these are excluded (as they more often than not are branded anyway). That said, it's no big deal to have it in there - because both are in the bus branch. That's why consolidating 'Buses in Greater Manchester' and 'Transport in Manchester' into 'Bus routes in Greater Manchester' wouldn't have caused me any concerns (although I don't know why I didn't choose 'Bus transport in' instead - I would normally use that for networks of routes like Metroshuttle). But like I said, Metroshuttle is one of those cases where it's long overdue to do some more specific sub-catting as more images have come in, to highlight the buses/routes/stops (noting that even in this case, it appears we are still lacking any images without a bus in at all - and that's not because I wouldn't have put them in this cat had I seen them). Ultra7 (talk) 16:25, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

There's another issue too - you don't need to add any cats to any images that have been cropped - their omission from those images is by design, per the note in Category:Cropped UK bus images. This is a hidden cat, but it should still be visible to logged in users at the bottom of the web page (albeit in small font). Ultra7 (talk) 16:31, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Is that really helpful to users? I would have thought that anyone looking for an image to illustrate a piece on public transport in, for example, Lincoln would look under Category:Buses in Lincolnshire. Surely, the last place they would look is Category:Cropped UK bus images. I realise that there is the blurb at the bottom of the image page stating that the image has a cropped version available, but how many users are really going to notice that in all the rest of the blurb? There is also the problem, of course, that for whatever reason, not all users are logged in. It's worth noting that there is no similar guidance at Category:Cropped images, not that there is much under that category for some reason, other than British buses. Skinsmoke (talk) 16:40, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Read the note - it specifically allows location related cats on donor images, as they are the only ones where the image is likely to be helpful browsing that cat in addition to the cropped one. Ultra7 (talk) 16:47, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I had read it. It just hadn't sunk in, lol. I'd have thought (for non-event images at least), that operator categories would be as useful as location categories. I would tend to agree that there is no need going into specific bodywork types or vehicle models. Skinsmoke (talk) 16:52, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

It's not a blanket ban, obviously if there's a group of buses, or they're outside the depot, then operator can be added too - it's a judgement call as to what is likely to be relevant. But like I said, I've given all these issues a lot of thought - and in cases where it's just a single bus which just happens to have not fully filled the frame, like File:Off To Perth - geograph.org.uk - 2423825.jpg, I couldn't come up with a single reason why someone browsing Category:Dochertys Midland Coaches (bus company) needs to see that as well as the crop. That sort of redundancy is maybe not an issue for Dochertys, but it's a big problem having a 100+ image operator cat, when anything up to half of those images might simply be crop donors. Ultra7 (talk) 17:40, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Incidentally, totally off topic, but do you have any theories why the Scottish buses categories are so poorly populated? As I've come across them, I've tried to expand them slightly by checking the operator categories for images that have not been added to Category:Buses in XXX, but that's not making a massive difference. I can't believe that people in (and visitors to) Scotland don't take just as many images of buses as those in England or Wales. Skinsmoke (talk) 16:57, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I'd not noticed - but are Scotland/Wales really any less covered in geograph in bus terms than say Cumbria or Lincolnshire? I'd say probably not. The biggest distortions on Commons will be more down to the areas of interest of CC license users on Flickr than anything else. Ultra7 (talk) 17:40, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I'd say there's still a fair disparity. For example, Category:Buses in Glasgow has 49 images (including subcategories). Compare that with its English equivalents: Category:Buses in the City of Manchester has 1,278 images, Category:Buses in Liverpool has 257 images, Category:Buses in Newcastle upon Tyne has 209 images, Category:Buses in Leeds has 218 images, Category:Buses in the City of Sheffield has 136 images and Category:Buses in Birmingham has 157 images. Wales is similarly underpopulated, but Category:Buses in Belfast has 397 images. We don't have a single image for the whole of Lanarkshire, an area of 652,000 people. It just seems strange. The only Scottish council areas where we have double figures are Glasgow, Edinburgh, Argyll and Bute, Highland, the Outer Hebrides and Perth and Kinross, and most of those are only because I've populated them from the operator categories in the last 24 hours. I suspect the images are out there somewhere, just that they are not reaching the location categories. Skinsmoke (talk) 18:38, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

If I may interpose here, there are 289 Geograph images in Glasgow that are not yet categorised under Category:Glasgow, and a quick look at the CatScan2 output suggests that at least 18 are bus-related. My experience elsewhere is telling that although the bus categories are being added, the location categories aren't, and this is compounded by the fact that the {{Check categories}} template has been removed from these categories before they are completely categorised. So I wouldn't read much into smaller than expected numbers of images appearing in council area categories. Glasgow is about halfway down my list of things to do, with about 6000 images, and I expect to reach it later this year, unless you want to deal with the bus-only images in the meantime. Cheers. Rodhullandemu (talk) 19:19, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for that Rod. I've largely spent the last month or so going through the Greater Manchester bus images, and getting them into the Category:Buses in XXX categories, so I think I appreciate what you're saying. At the moment I'm going through the last of the operator categories Category:Stagecoach UK Bus, which has about 900 plus images from the whole of Great Britain, and which is how I've come across the Scottish categories. As I find them, I'm moving them into the Scottish bus location categories, and in England and Wales into the civil parish/community and bus location categories. I haven't even started trawling through the general location categories in Greater Manchester yet, but that's the next task I've set. It wasn't so much a complaint I was making, as an observation, and wondering whether there was some institutional reason why the images weren't filtering down that I was missing. Incidentally, I just had a very quick look through the first 600 images in Category:Glasgow, and there was only one I noticed with a bus in it, and that was already in Category:Buses in Glasgow. Perhaps buses are just few and far between in Glasgow. Skinsmoke (talk) 19:47, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Those places all have one or more people on Flickr or even a Commons contributor that are interested in buses. Most of Belfast I think is down to just one guy - User:Adfern something, iirc. If you want to find bus images in a specific part of the UK which don't have a specific bus location cat, you just need to use CatScan - search for images in both Category:LocationX and in Category:Buses in the United Kingdom, but which don't appear in Category:Buses in LocationX. That will give you a starting point - but if you want to do it properly, you need to exclude all the categories that relate to images that don't need a location (the reasons for some of which I've explained before). From memory, they are: interiors, details, rallies/events, museums, cropped images and private use. There will be others, but you can figure that out iteratively. If you find an image that appears to have been comprehensively categorised by me (a good way to tell will be if it has both a year of reg. and year of photographing cat), but it doesn't have a location, then you can assume its omission was not an accident. If you find images that have been catted by me without those cats, and it doesn't fall into any of the classes of image which don't need locations, it's safe to assume the location is needed. Ultra7 (talk) 21:25, 28 March 2014 (UTC) On reflection, I've refined the criteria for spotting an image comprehensively catted by me, as some bus images can end up having a lot of bus related cats just by passing through, without ever having got the comprehensive treatment. Ultra7 (talk) 21:43, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for that Ultra. Certain names also crop up time and again as Geograph contributors who post many buses images (Basher Eyre in Portsmouth and Neil Clifton almost anywhere spring to mind). Skinsmoke (talk) 01:13, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I think you'll find it's more because they take a lot of photos of everything. I've yet to find a true bus spotter on geograph, whereas Flickr is chock full of them (but of course, only a tiny few use CC). Ultra7 (talk) 13:59, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I think Neil Clifton is more of a transport historian. His images practically always involve some form of transport (canals, railways, shipping, buses, trams, cars), and his historical archive is pretty formidable, though until very recently mainly in monotone. Skinsmoke (talk) 14:04, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Category:City of Newcastle upon Tyne

Can you please explain the logic of the changes you recently made to Category:City of Newcastle upon Tyne and Category:Newcastle upon Tyne. For all practical purposes, Newcastle the settlement is indistinguishable from Newcastle the city/met borough. I see no benefit to Commons in excluding buildings in Gosforth/Dinnington/Blakelaw from Category:Buildings in Newcastle upon Tyne, given the next closest category such images can now be placed in because of these changes, is Category:Buildings in Tyne and Wear. Ultra7 (talk) 13:50, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

No, it isn't indistinguishable. The settlement of Newcastle upon Tyne accounts for only 65 per cent of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne in population (probably considerably less in area). The split between the settlement and the metropolitan borough (in this case, city) is the pattern that we generally use in categorising on Commons, and is also used generally for articles on English Wikipedia (where there have been enormous arguments that eventually led to a general consensus). You will find the same splits for almost all those cities in England where the city and settlement are not coterminous (the only ones that are coterminous in England, apart from civil parishes holding city status, are Liverpool, Wolverhampton, Derby, Nottingham, Leicester, Lincoln, Kingston upon Hull, Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, Stoke on Trent, Southampton, Portsmouth, the City of London, Norwich and Cambridge). The split between settlement and city applies to the rest (Carlisle, Lancaster, Preston, Manchester, Salford, Sunderland, York, Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Sheffield, Birmingham, Coventry, Worcester, Chelmsford, St Albans, Peterborough, Oxford, Canterbury, Westminster, Winchester and Gloucester). Bath, Chester and Durham are special cases, as the city covers the area of the abolished districts, but not of the new districts (Bath and North East Somerset, Cheshire West and Chester, and County Durham respectively). A similar situation exists with districts/boroughs that take their name from their major settlement (such as Cheltenham, Wigan or Warrington). The closest category for the images you refer to would actually be both Category:Buildings in Tyne and Wear and , for example, Category:Gosforth, which again is the pattern that is followed through the rest of the country, until someone gets round to creating specific "Buildings" categories for the smaller units. Alternatively, you could avoid the wait by creating Category:Buildings in the City of Newcastle upon Tyne as a subcategory of Category:City of Newcastle upon Tyne and Category:Buildings in Tyne and Wear, and of which Category:Buildings in Newcastle upon Tyne would be a subcategory. I must admit I had previously taken the view that the easiest option was simply to move the "Buildings in XXX" category up to the city category, but that was technically incorrect, and the present structure is that advised by an administrator here. In due time, the "Buildings in XXX" categories will get linked into "Buildings in the City of XXX" categories, but it will take time. Skinsmoke (talk) 14:27, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I didn't say it didn't exist, I said that differentiating it had no practical benefit at all for Commons. This change is simply going to waste people's time and frankly confuse/frustrate them in their efforts to find/sort/categorise images relating to Newcastle upon Tyne. And any advice you will have been given will have had just one goal - ensuring a practical benefit for Commons. My question was specific to Newcastle for a reason - I can and do appreciate the need for separation in cases like Sunderland and Chesterfield, and I know all about the difficulties en.wiki has in those case. But having spent a significant amount of time dealing with Newcastle related images, I'm telling you now, the city boundary is the only sensible and only necessary definition of "Newcastle upon Tyne" that Commons will ever need . Whatever problem you think separating the city from the settlement solved, doesn't actually even exist (and for the record, according to en.wiki, "Gosforth is an area of Newcastle upon Tyne, which is "a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear"). The problems it creates however, are significant, and more importantly, are not likely to be fixed any time soon, not only because of the time it would take, but the sheer pointlessness of doing so. Churches in Gosforth will remain in Tyne and Wear categories forever as far as I can tell, and (supposed) mis-categorisation of them in Category:Churches in Newcastle upon Tyne will be an ever present likelihood, because it's not wrong (even according to en.wiki). And the frequency of that (supposed) sort of error is not likely to ever be reduced by using Category:Churches in the City of Newcastle upon Tyne instead - not while Category:Churches in Newcastle upon Tyne remains a separate and distinct category. Ultra7 (talk) 17:22, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

In fact, I can find nothing in Wikipedia that would support the idea that this split is necessary or advisable. It's importance to the geography/history/sub-division of Newcastle seems to have completely passed them by - there's no mention of civil parishes at all in the main article, and there's no categorisation of sub-articles (like Gosforth) along those lines either. It took me quite some time to even find an article where I would be able to know if I needed to place an image in Category:City of Newcastle upon Tyne or Category:Newcastle upon Tyne as you've defined them. In reality, you have simply used Category:City of Newcastle upon Tyne and Category:Newcastle upon Tyne to separate the parished and non-parished areas, without giving them names that would reflect that distinction in a way that isn't likely to be wholly confusing. Quite frankly, you could ask 100 people what they thought Category:Areas of Newcastle upon Tyne might include/exclude, and out of all the possible answers you might get, I guarantee not one would get the answer that is apparently the correct one here - 'it's for images from all the unparished areas of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne, which can in some instances completely surround parishes of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne, but which by definition are not themselves within Newcastle upon Tyne'. You must see how utterly bonkers it is to a) be caring about that distinction at all on Commons for largely un-parished places like Newcastle, and b) making it a primary sub-division, which everybody must be aware of, whatever their reason for coming to Commons. Ultra7 (talk) 18:53, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Seriously Skinsmoke, unless you can come up with something better, I will have to change this back as being completely untenable. Of all the possible ways we could possibly define the settlement of Newcastle upon Tyne in a way that was a smaller area than the current city/borough boundary, defining it as simply the un-parished areas of the city/borough has to be the least useful to anyone, and the most prone to errors/most demanding of ongoing maintenance. If that even needs to be done, then quite clearly it needs to be an accurately named category, implemented in parallel to the main branches of the city/borough. And even if a useful definition of a Newcastle upon Tyne that's smaller than the city/borough emerges, it quite clearly isn't going to have any better claim to the category name Newcastle upon Tyne than the current city/borough. Ultra7 (talk) 20:12, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't feeling too good last night, and went to bed without returning to Commons, so I've only just seen your messages. The fact remains that when you changed the structure in the back half of last year you placed a pile of civil parishes as a subcategory of Category:Unparished areas in Tyne and Wear. In trying to solve one perceived problem, you created another that defied logic. You also determined that Newcastle should be treated differently to the rest of the country, which might have helped you sort out your perceived problem, but only makes it harder for other users, who would expect all similar instances to be dealt with alike.

For some reason, the division we generally make on both Commons and English Wikipedia is that areas absorbed by a city (or town) before local government reorganisation in 1974 are considered part of the settlement, while those that became part of the new post-1974 structure are not. That wasn't my decision, but was the general consensus arrived at by others. It also appears to have been generally accepted by users throughout England. You may well ask why should Spondon, which was absorbed by the City of Derby in 1968, be treated differently from Horsforth, which became part of the City of Leeds just six years later, and it's a question I have also asked. A fully satisfactory explanation has never been forthcoming, but it seems to accord with how people in the real world view things, and may also be related to the fact that Derby simply annexed Spondon, while both Leeds and Horsforth were abolished and a new city created. Gosforth, Newburn and Newcastle's semi-rural civil parishes are in the same position as Horsforth.

The position in Newcastle is further complicated, however, because a new civil parish was created within the former county borough's area, that remains to this day surrounded by unparished territory. That is unusual, and I can only think of Bradford and Brighton and Hove where that has also occurred and survived. Other civil parishes have been carved out of former unparished ex-county boroughs in a similar fashion, in Portsmouth and Stockport, but they have subsequently been abolished, and so don't need to trouble us. Elsewhere, civil parishes on the edge of unparished ex-county boroughs have been created in Bradford, Oxford and Leeds, but because they are on the edge of the area they don't stand out so glaringly. However inconvenient this may be, it is a reality which our category structure needs to be able to accommodate. It is indicative of the mess that "community governance" is in England (as opposed to Scotland or Wales, where a uniform system exists across the country).

I fail to see why you are getting so agitated over the problem of churches in Gosforth. This situation is mirrored across the whole of England, and is hardly the worst instance of miscategorisation we have (we have hundreds of thousands of Geograph images that are in the wrong settlement, civil parish, county, even country category). I suggested earlier that in this instance you can simply create Category:Churches in the City of Newcastle upon Tune, of which Category:Churches in Newcastle upon Tyne would be a subcategory. If you remain unhappy about the distinction, then a simple hatnote on the settlement churches category stating "This category is for churches in the unparished area of the former County Borough of Newcastle upon Tyne. For churches elsewhere within the city see Category:Churches in the City of Newcastle upon Tyne." However, it appears that this has not caused a serious problem in any other namesake city/settlement categories in the rest of the country, and has not been deemed necessary.

Alternatively, you could do what User:Nilfanion suggested higher up this page, which is to move all the images up to Category:Churches in the City of Newcastle upon Tyne, and wait for them to be sorted into individual churches categories for each of the settlements, which may or may not, ever happen. Does it really matter whether it happens or not? The only problem I can see is that the churches images would have become dissociated from Category:Newcastle upon Tyne, and that can be resolved by adding that category to the appropriate ones before moving them if you think it necessary.

One final thought. The problem of "Towns and villages" categories, elsewhere on Commons referred to as "Settlements" categories, is fraught. We have no way of determining what is in or out of a settlement other than our own personal view. There is no official definition of what constitutes part of a particular settlement. Postal addresses are unreliable, and in some cases wildly differ from how people in the localities view their allegiances. Census statistical localities are almost impossible to determine, lacking widely available accessible mapping, and are based on an arbitrary number of metres from the next building. The only definition with boundaries that we have, that can easily be looked up on a map, are civil parishes (marked clearly at the Ordnance Survey Election Maps website); and the former urban districts, municipal boroughs and county boroughs (marked clearly, though not always accurately, at the Vision of Britain website). I have seen attempts to differentiate between the settlement and the rest of a civil parish with separate categories for the urban and rural parts (particularly in parts of Yorkshire), which seems to me to be wholly over the top, unnecessary, and completely impossible to define. Skinsmoke (talk) 10:29, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

You're not addressing the main issue - I want an answer as to why you think it is important to Commons to separate the parished and unparished areas of Newcastle upon Tyne? I know the theory behind why it is done elsewhere, it may or many not be right (I don't know the areas so I can't comment), but as far as I can tell, you are the only person who has ever objected to Gosforth et al being classified under Category:Newcastle upon Tyne. So, the question remains, what problem is it actually solving here? Unless you can provide any actual evidence of this causing any actual problems for editors or users, I'm going to have to assume it doesn't, and that the issue is merely hypothetical. It doesn't matter one bit that I accidentally put parished areas in Category:Unparished areas in Tyne and Wear, the fact that it wasn't obvious to me that was the purpose of the split between Category:City of Newcastle upon Tyne and Category:Newcastle upon Tyne is an example of this causing and actual problem. If I, a very experiences Commons user, can make that mistake, anyone can. It's easily fixed - create the parallel category Category:Unparished areas in Newcastle upon Tyne. The very good advantage of internal consistency frankly doesn't outweigh the very real problems it creates by applying it to Newcastle in such a non-obvious manner, which are: 1) inconsistency with the real world (and indeed English Wikipedia) idea of what area the name "Newcastle upon Tyne" covers, 2) definition of a settlement called "Newcastle upon Tyne" in a way which is meaningless to everyone except those people interested in parishes and which bizarrely has exclaves and a general shape and urban/rural combination that frankly nobody would ever class as the 'settlement' in preference to the various other more sensible options (wards, ex-county borough/districts, etc). The reason why there is no commonly understood definition of what the settlement of Newcastle upon Tyne would actually cover, if it's not the city/borough, is because nobody is remotely interested - not in the real world, not in Wikipedia, and most certainly not in Commons in my experience. For every map of the unparished/parished split, you'll find a hundred of the current city/borough boundary; for every document that talks about the difference between the settlement and the city in parish/unparished terms, you'll find a hundred more talking about it in other terms. Classifying the 'settlement' as the former county borough would be as good, if not better, than this split - but again, the question has to be answered, what possible reason could there be to do it? This matters very much to me because I've spent a long time on Newcastle images, and in my experience, it is frankly crazy that, under this system, a church in Gosforth can only be categorised Gosforth and Churches in Tyne and Wear, even though there is a category called Churches in Newcastle upon Tyne with images in it that are much further away from the city centre than Gosforth, in places that are as equally distinct settlements as the parishes of Gosforth et al. Yes, a 'solution' to that could be to rename all categories 'X in the City of Newcastle upon Tyne' so that 'X in Newcastle upon Tyne' can refer to the 'settlement' - but that would only be necessary if the split was justified in the first place, otherwise, we need no split at all, and the English Wikipedia principle of COMMONAME seems to apply as to what to call the city/borough cat. Seriously, you're not going to find anyone on Commons who will argue for ignoring common sense and common names, if the only reason to do so is to satisfy a desire for internal consistency and to solve purely hypothetical problems. This matters to me because it causes real problems for users and editors dealing with the minority of Newcastle images that are not of the city centre - and frankly it should matter to you because, to leave it like this, if you want it to remain consistent, you're simply going to be spending hour after hour, week after week, shifting images between the settlement and the city, in perpetuity - because as far as I can tell, for Newcastle at least, the distinction is entirely unimportant to everyone else - Gosforth is in Newcastle to the north, just like Elswick to the east and Walker to the west, all pretty much equidistant from the centre, and all quite obviously part of the urban sprawl of the city, where the bigger issue for casual Common categorisation is surely the lack of any green belt in between Newcastle and the MB of N Tyneside than any trivial concerns about parished/unparished areas. Honest to God, in several years of having hundreds of Newcastle images on my watchlist, I don't think I've ever seen anyone remove a single image from any 'X in Newcastle' branch because it was in a parished area, which for me is pretty good evidence to me that there is no issue here. The only issue I've had recently with Newcastle categorisation, was someone claiming that trees are categorised on a Watsonian county basis, which they may not have been entirely correct on anyway. Ultra7 (talk) 13:46, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Question: What does "Newcastle upon Tyne" mean to 99% of the population (excluding those who think it includes Gateshead)? That area is most closely aligned to the metropolitan borough boundaries (and is much larger than the unparished area). Therefore the metropolitation borough should be at Category:Newcastle upon Tyne and any other concepts should be disambiguated from it - not the other way round.

The boundary of the unparished area is an unnatural subdivision, of an area with no legal status. Its definitely useful to identify the civil parishes as distinct units, and that makes it worthwhile to have a category to group the remaining unparished area - but its not an area that anyone would consider to be Newcastle. The ONS fossilises the pre-1974 boundaries (and provides separate data for Gosforth and Newcastle), but that area is not the same as the unparished area and could be properly handled by Newcastle upon Tyne (unparished area).

What makes this different from, say Bradford, is that the borough boundary is broadly similar to the single built-up area at its heart - it doesn't include vast rural areas or significant distinct secondary settlements. Dinnington is the largest distinct settlement and has a pop of 1700 (0.6% of the borough). In contrast, Keighley is distinct from the built-up area of Bradford has 13% of the borough population. That means its useful to make the distinction between the two in the case of Bradford - I can't see the immediate need with Newcastle.--Nilfanion (talk) 12:47, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Exactly. Ultra7 (talk) 13:46, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I give up. I followed the advice that User:Nilfanion gave for similar places, and he/she has now advised exactly the opposite for Newcastle. Frankly, the idea of creating a new category for the core city (less Blakelaw and North Fenham, but including Gosforth and Newburn) called Category:Newcastle upon Tyne (unparished area), to which most of the images at present in Category:Newcastle upon Tyne should be moved, is mind boggling and barmy. I would hazard to suggest that if I had done exactly that, you would both be screaming blue murder! If that solution, unique to Newcastle out of the whole of England, is the way you really want to go, I'll leave it to the pair of you to sort out. Skinsmoke (talk) 16:05, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Far be it for me to speak for him, but I suspect the issue is not the advice, it's the fact you seem to have interpreted it as a hard and fast rule, rather than what I suspect it was, advice on how to differentiate a settlement from a borough where it is needed. I'm going to take this as a green light to reverse the change - if it's unique in England, I can live with that, as I know which one of the two systems is likely to cause less errors/confusion for this particular place. By all means, differentiate the parished and unparished areas if you want, for completeness sake, just do it in a way that uses unambiguous category names, and which is implemented in parallel, i.e. without interjecting a whole sub-strata between the main city cat and its object cats. Ultra7 (talk) 18:54, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, short version is Carlisle is different to Newcastle is different to Plymouth. Category:Buses in Carlisle, Category:Buses in Newcastle upon Tyne and Category:Buses in Plymouth should all be about buses in the geopolitical entity best known by those names, That's clearly the urban area (and not the district) for Carlisle, and clearly is the district for Plymouth. Newcastle is intermediate.

The thing about the unparished area of Newcastle is does that area have any significance as a unit? Is it used by anyone, for anything? The existence of a parish indicates there is to some extent a local identity. The absence of parishes doesn't indicate there is a single unit for that unparished area. The urban area as a whole is best viewed as consisting of several smaller units, some of which are parished, some of which aren't.

The table below indicates what I'd aim for with Newcastle:

Level	Parished areas	Unparished areas
County	Tyne and Wear
District	Newcastle upon Tyne
Parish	Woolsington	Unparished area
Neighbourhood	Newbiggin Hall	Byker
Street/Building-level	various

Every file would be in the most precise location available in the above scheme. Naturally they would also be placed in relevant subject-in-Newcastle cats like Category:Buses in Newcastle upon Tyne - I doubt there is any need for any subject-in-(sub-area) cats.

What I'm calling "neighbourhoods" are the most meaningful subdivision of the city. They are labelled on OS maps, though their boundaries are not. They are necessarily somewhat subjective, and they may not even have precise boundaries (except when defined by linear features like roads and rivers). Generally you can determine the right one, especially with local knowledge. Category:Districts of Plymouth gives an example of this.

The unparished area category is purely optional in this scheme. It's utility is it prevents overloading of Category:Unparished areas in Tyne and Wear, and can be used be used as a dumping ground for files which cannot be more precisely located.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:47, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Category:Weymouth_and_Melcombe_Regis

Weymouth and Melcombe Regis has been listed at Commons:Categories for discussion so that the community can discuss ways in which it should be changed. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this category, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for discussion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it. If the category is up for deletion because it has been superseded, consider the notion that although the category may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new category. In all cases, please do not take the category discussion personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

Nilfanion (talk) 21:56, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Valued Image Promotion

★ An image you created has been reviewed and promoted ★
Congratulations! The image you created was reviewed and has now been promoted as a valued image. It is considered to be the most valued image on Commons within the scope:
Chadkirk Chapel east view.

review

Can we get a view orientation in the scope? --Archaeodontosaurus (talk) 14:50, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

• Done. Nev1 (talk) 16:18, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
•  Support Useful --Archaeodontosaurus (talk) 17:58, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Result: 1 support, 0 oppose =>
promoted. Archaeodontosaurus (talk) 05:26, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Skinsmoke. I nominated the above picture of yours as a Valued Image and it was recognised as such. If you think other pictures of yours might fit the Valued Image criteria, why not think about nominating one and seeing how it goes? Nev1 (talk) 20:13, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, bugger me. Thanks for that Nev. I'd never really considered my photos were good enough, to be honest. Skinsmoke (talk) 14:59, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Category:Shires_in_New_South_Wales

Category:Shires_in_New_South_Wales has been listed at Commons:Categories for discussion so that the community can discuss ways in which it should be changed. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this category, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for discussion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it. If the category is up for deletion because it has been superseded, consider the notion that although the category may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new category. In all cases, please do not take the category discussion personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

Mattinbgn (talk) 22:28, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

COM:OVERCAT

Please don't overcategorise, as you did with Buses in New York City.    FDMS  4    08:29, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I will create a Category:Buses of MTA Regional Bus Operations for you now. Please don't touch bus categories until I've finished.    FDMS  4    09:10, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your note, but this is not overcategorisation. Category:MTA Regional Bus Operations should not be a subcategory of Category:Buses, but of Category:Bus operators, which belongs in Category:Bus transport (of which Category:Buses should also be a subcategory). A bus operator is not a bus, and the existing category has the problem that, not only (by its inclusion in Category:Buses in New York City) has it placed many images that are not buses (about 20 per cent of its images) into the Category:Buses, but it has also placed numerous images that are outside New York City in Category:New York City. Your proposed solution would not solve either problem, as far as I can see, but would merely add another layer, which isn't really necessary. The intention is that once the images are placed in Category:Buses in New York City, Category:MTA Regional Bus Operations will then be moved to Category:Bus transport in New York City and to Category:Bus operators in the United States. That should then enable someone in the future to move images downwards from Category:Buses in New York City to categories for each of the five boroughs, whenever that is considered appropriate. Skinsmoke (talk) 13:23, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Actually, looking at your new category, I can only immediately see one image File:100th-street-bus-depot.jpg that does not belong in Category:Buses in New York City. I haven't checked every single one (so there may be images from Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk counties (or even Connecticut state)) in there, but it doesn't look like there are. There remains, however, the problem that the new category is likely in the future to attract images of MTA buses in locations outside New York City, and so should not be a category of Category:Buses in New York City. Perhaps retitle it Category:Buses of MTA Regional Bus Operations in New York City? This would then enable those images that were discovered that are outside the city to be to be placed in newly created Category:Buses of MTA Regional Bus Operations in Nassau County, New York, Category:Buses of MTA Regional Bus Operations in Westchester County, New York, etc. Skinsmoke (talk) 13:41, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

For the record, I thought about splitting off many MTA Regional Bus Operations images into Category:Bus depots of the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority, before the new bus category was created, but I could still consider that and perhaps a separate category for the retired buses. ----DanTD (talk) 15:38, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Why not simply have Category:Bus depots in New York City as a subcategory of Category:Bus depots in New York as a subcategory of Category:Bus depots in the United States? Skinsmoke (talk) 17:41, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

1) It was overcategorisation, because Category:MTA Regional Bus Operations was a subcategory of Category:Buses. 2) Category trees will never be "perfect", I am sure there are lots of other non-bus files in one of Category:Buses' subcategories. (Did you know that Category:Bus transport is part of Category:Public transport, but at the same time, Category:Ambulance buses is part of Category:Buses? (Please don't change that without prior discussion.)) 3) In my opinion, the fact that MTA RBO is an organisation usually only operating buses in NYC is enough to consider all MTA RBO buses NYC buses too. (If I ever get bored here (never going to happen), I would start a RFC to change the standard category naming scheme from "[…] in [location]" to "[…] of [location]", which I think makes more sense most of the times.) 4) The layer is necessary, because Buses in NYC could contain files related to any kind of bus. Also, the MTA could start entrusting the operation of some of its lines to other bus operators. 5)  Done, added MTA RBO to Bus transport in NYC. 6) Please, feel free to create "Buses in [NYC borough]" categories. 7) I would  support the creation of "Bus depots in [NY/NYC]" categories. Thanks for your patience :).    FDMS  4    20:08, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I hadn't made myself clear on the first point. The intention once the non-New York City images had been removed was to transfer Category:MTA Regional Bus Operations from the Category:Buses in New York City to Category:Bus transport in New York City. I had thought that this was less disruptive for anyone searching for an image in the period while the work was being done (there were 450 images or so to check), than to do it first. Evidently I was wrong, as you jumped in when I had only checked 230 or so images. In the end, we have both reached the same position through different methods. I'll have a bash on points 6 and 7. Skinsmoke (talk) 01:59, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Category:Buses in the United States

Instead of lumping many subcategories under the "blank" section of this category, wouldn't it make more sense to create a Category:Buses in the United States by state, put the "by state" categories under that, and use the natural order for other subcategories? - Jmabel ! talk 17:06, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

It's something I considered (and may still do), once I've had a look at those subcategories. Some of them look like they may belong elsewhere other than in Category:Buses in the United States, so at this moment I was more interested in getting them out from being hidden in the states subcategories rather than create a new subcategory immediately. Give it a few days, and let's see what the situation is by then. If there's still such a jumble, I will probably agree with you. Skinsmoke (talk) 00:51, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Category:Common_lands_in_England

Common lands in England has been listed at Commons:Categories for discussion so that the community can discuss ways in which it should be changed. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this category, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for discussion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it. If the category is up for deletion because it has been superseded, consider the notion that although the category may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new category. In all cases, please do not take the category discussion personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

Adam37 (talk) 14:20, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Category:Unparished_areas_in_England

Unparished areas in England has been listed at Commons:Categories for discussion so that the community can discuss ways in which it should be changed. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this category, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for discussion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it. If the category is up for deletion because it has been superseded, consider the notion that although the category may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new category. In all cases, please do not take the category discussion personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

Adam37 (talk) 19:34, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Cheshire West and Chester

Hi,

There is zero value to renaming this category to the Borough of Cheshire West and Chester as it is completely unambiguous. In fact there are negative aspects:

1. Why waste time renaming all subsidiary cats?
2. It makes it harder to find, not easier. Its unlikely that someone will know immediately if its a "borough" or a "district".--Nilfanion (talk) 14:48, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Ditto for Redcar and Cleveland, or any other district of the United Kingdom where the name is unique. And, for that matter, any where the district is effectively conterminous with the settlement its named for.--Nilfanion (talk) 08:08, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

EDITS

It has come to my attention that you are moving an awful lot of categories for no reason. Can you explain this? I have identified two in Liverpool the main one being "Transport in Liverpool" changed to "Transport in the City of Liverpool" which is not required. I've just spotted a blatant act of vandalism where you have changed the page for Harrogate, North Yorkshire to Harrogate (town), North Yorkshire which is simply not necessary and needed. What is your explanation? Babydoll0409 (talk) 12:33, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

"I've just spotted a blatant act of vandalism where you have changed the page for Harrogate, North Yorkshire to Harrogate (town), North Yorkshire which is simply not necessary and needed. What is your explanation?"

Category:Harrogate, North Yorkshire is a disambiguation page which had over 1,800 images on it. As a disambiguation page, it should have NO images whatever, and I am currently working through it moving images to the appropriate category for the town, village or civil parish, as the page requests users to do (if you had checked the category page, you would have known this). I have so far dealt with about 150 images. The appropriate town/village category at present is Category:Harrogate (town), North Yorkshire. Once the images are separated, the page at Category:Harrogate (town), North Yorkshire can be merged into Category:Harrogate, North Yorkshire, which will then have become redundant, and all images for the town of Harrogate will be in the same place. So, not a "blatant act of vandalism" at all, but you may wish instead to take to task the no longer active user who created this mess in the first place. Instead of creating what was effectively a duplicated category, all that user needed to do was move those images out of Category:Harrogate, North Yorkshire into the appropriate categories. If you would like to help in clearing up this mess, your input would be gratefully received. I accept your point on Liverpool. Skinsmoke (talk) 17:35, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry if i misunderstood the Harrogate situation. But my first thoughts were that you were making inappropriate changes to pages which were not needed. The addition of "city of" and "town" were both similar so i hope you'll appreciate why i wasn't particularly positive. I saw a similar edit recently by a user who was subsequently blocked changing pages like "Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley" to Knowsley Metropolitan Borough" which were incorrect and inappropriate. Babydoll0409 (talk) 18:16, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Apologies if I reacted a bit harshly. I was a little bit put out at being accused of a blatant act of vandalism, especially as I was starting to wish I had never embarked on such a massive task. Checking the images in the category against Ordnance Survey Election Maps, I am finding that roughly 50 per cent are miscategorised in the wrong civil parish/town/village.

I know of the case you are referring to, and took part in reverting some of his moves (which extended to countries all over the world). Having said that "Knowsley Metropolitan Borough" is not necessarily incorrect, just less used in England than "Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley"; for places in Wales we do use "Wrexham County Borough" rather than "County Borough of Wrexham" because that was the clear preference of Welsh editors. Skinsmoke (talk) 18:26, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

50% error rate sounds about right to me - the Geograph upload had appalling quality in its guesswork. The most useful tool I have found to supplement maps is the MaPit/MySociety link on the geographic links page.

@Fæ: did some useful work fixing the dodgy county identification. I'd really like to see that bot extended to get the localisation down to CP level - fixing the {{Check categories-Geograph}} and {{Uncategorized-Geograph}} tagged images would make a huge dent on the workload.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:02, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Category:Disused_rail_tunnels_in_the_United_Kingdom

Disused rail tunnels in the United Kingdom has been listed at Commons:Categories for discussion so that the community can discuss ways in which it should be changed. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this category, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for discussion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it. If the category is up for deletion because it has been superseded, consider the notion that although the category may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new category. In all cases, please do not take the category discussion personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

Andy Dingley (talk) 17:06, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Domes in Cornwall

Hi Skinsmoke. Thanks for making the edit at [1]! It might make more sense to add the Eden Project category as a subcategory of Category:Domes in Cornwall rather than adding individual images and sub-categories, though. That would make it much easier for users to find out about other domes in Conwall that aren't at the Eden Project - it's not currently clear if there are any? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:40, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that a substantial number of the images under Category:Eden Project don't feature the domes, but are of the outside gardens, land train, café, bus service and so on, and are therefore not appropriate under Category:Domes in Cornwall. There is a Category:Eden Project dome which could be renamed to Category:Eden Project domes which could be used, and would free up Category:Domes in Cornwall for other domes in the county/nation, and would be quite easy to do before other domes get added. Let me know what you think. Skinsmoke (talk) 02:26, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Ah, that makes sense. Is Category:Eden Project dome for a specific dome, or is it just a redundant category to the other 'Biome' ones? Having Category:Eden Project domes would make sense, or maybe Category:Eden Project biomes? BTW, I don't think Category:Eden Project, The Core is a dome! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:16, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Looks like you are right about Category:Eden Project, The Core. It has been corrected by User:Nilfanion. As far as I can make out, Category:Eden Project dome doesn't appear to relate to any specific dome (one or two of them have their own subcategories), and I suspect you are right in that it has become redundant. Category:Eden Project:Biomes makes sense to me, and would give the opportunity to make it a subcategory of Category:Biomes in addition to Category:Domes in Cornwall. One question though, are all the biomes at the Eden Project located in the domes? (I've never been). It looks like they probably are. Skinsmoke (talk) 11:12, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I think so, but I'm not an expert. There are some outside gardens, I'm not sure if they count. See [2]. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:01, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

That helps. Looks like the biomes are entirely within the domes, and the outside gardens are considered separately. I'll see if I can reorganise over the next day or so. I notice the Eden Project website considers they have only two biomes (the Mediterranean Biome and the Tropical Biome), so will tackle that at the same time. Skinsmoke (talk) 18:19, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

OK, ping me if there's anything I can help with! :-) Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:50, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Cheers. Will do, but it doesn't look as if will be too much of a problem. Skinsmoke (talk) 19:52, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Cities/districts

Should categories like Category:City of Birmingham or Category:City of Carlisle be in Category:Cities in England? as districts with city status aren't really cities themselves, shouldn't the settlements Category:Birmingham or Category:Carlisle, Cumbria instead be in the city category? Maybe we need a category like Category:Districts in England with city status. Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:50, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

No. In the case of Birmingham and Carlisle (and most English cities), city status is held by the metropolitan borough and borough (districts), not by the settlement (hence Sutton Coldfield is part of the City of Birmingham, but not part of the settlement of Birmingham; and the rural parishes are part of the City of Carlisle). There are a few instances where city status is held by a sub-district institution, the civil parish (Ripon, in the Borough of Harrogate; Hereford, in the county and district of Herefordshire; Chichester, in Chichester District; Wells in Mendip District; Salisbury in the county and district of Wiltshire; Truro in the county and district of Cornwall; Ely in East Cambridgeshire District; and Lichfield in Lichfield District). In three instances (Bath, Chester and Durham) city status is held by a charter commission that covers only part of the district, corresponding to a former district that was merged into a larger district (the City of Bath, which was merged into Bath and North East Somerset District; the City of Chester, which was merged into the Borough of Cheshire West and Chester; and the City of Durham, which was merged into the county and district of Durham). The situation is slightly different in Scotland and Northern Ireland where, in some cases, city status is held by a defined area that corresponds to the settlement. See w:List of cities in the United Kingdom. City status in the United Kingdom can only be granted by the monarch, and if the monarch determines that the city covers more than the settlement, then it does. Skinsmoke (talk) 15:56, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Ok, resolved, as I can see, they are linked to the district page where it has a separate article. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:04, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

See also En:WP:UKDISTRICTS#Naming conventions which does indeed state that "City of" should be used when it has city status, even though it would seem logical that is someone types "City of Carlisle" wants to find the settlement and someone who types "Carlisle District" or "District of Carlisle" would want to find the settlement. I also re-created Category:City of Newcastle upon Tyne. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:04, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Ta for that. Skinsmoke (talk) 08:05, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

And that is a mistake - Please review the previous discussion.

The problem is not having a category about the "City of Newcastle upon Tyne", the problem how is that distinct from "Newcastle upon Tyne". Specifically, what content belongs in Category:City of Newcastle upon Tyne, but not Category:Newcastle upon Tyne? Defining "Newcastle upon Tyne" as "the unparished area within the City of Newcastle upon Tyne" is not helpful - that is not a natural unit, and more to the point is not used by anyone. "Newcastle upon Tyne" either means the local authority area (the City) or the built-up area within it, and the latter does not match the parish (or ward) geography.

For instance, the parish of Blakelaw and North Fenham‎ is within Newcastle upon Tyne for any meaningful definition.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:00, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps your comments ought to be directed to Crouch, Swale. However, I would answer your question "Specifically, what content belongs in Category:City of Newcastle upon Tyne, but not Category:Newcastle upon Tyne?" Let's start off with Brunswick, Dinnington, Gosforth, Hazlerigg, Newburn, North Gosforth and Woolsington, none of which were ever part of the settlement (and county borough) of Newcastle upon Tyne, and were, until 1974, free-standing towns in the county of Northumberland or part of Castle Ward Rural District. Skinsmoke (talk) 10:11, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

I am sure he will see this exchange. I am also sure this will lead to a CFD (and I will notify that CFD on en.wp to try and get some input).

Bear in mind a list of place names is a good start, but cannot determine fully which photo belongs in which category. The perfect situation would be a map that shows the boundaries, but I doubt that will be feasible in this case. Boundaries that have been defunct for over 40 years should be avoided, unless they are actually in use today - without the straitjacket of a boundary the settlement can, and probably has, expanded. It certainly has according to the ONS built-up area definitions - which include Gosforth fully in Newcastle upon Tyne.

The boundary will not match CP boundaries, and probably will not match ward boundaries.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:39, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

The area that the district includes is as noted partly rural, I don't think that people would think of the rural area north of the settlement as being part of Newcastle upon Tyne, while people probably do think of the areas south of the River Tyne as part of Newcastle upon Tyne. On the other hand people would probably regard Blakelaw and North Fenham as part of Newcastle upon Tyne. Maybe it needs to be made clear that "City of Newcastle upon Tyne" contains the parished area while "Newcastle upon Tyne" contains the unparished area. I think that a category 7 subcategories is viable but the issue of if "Blakelaw and North Fenham" is part of the settlement or not is questionable. I would've suggested keeping "City of Newcastle upon Tyne" for the parished area and "Newcastle upon Tyne" for the unparished area per above. I would suggest to Nilfanion to take this to CFD. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:00, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, and that's where I am going to take this. My chief concern is defining Newcastle upon Tyne as the "unparished area within the City of Newcastle". The unparished area is not a unit in its own right, it is merely an area without units. Having a category for the unparished area has potential utility, but that area is not "Newcastle upon Tyne" and we should not call it such.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:10, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

@Crouch, Swale: I've started the above CfD now. This needs resolving as we now have the passed into the absurd with Category:Milton Keynes not containing Category:Central Milton Keynes. Please stop from any similar recategorising in any district until the CfD is resolved.--Nilfanion (talk) 09:16, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your problem is with Milton Keynes, as this is an entirely different matter. The problem here is that Central Milton Keynes and Milton Keynes are separate civil parishes within the Borough of Milton Keynes. It would be possible to create a category of Milton Keynes New Town (including the civil parishes which fall into the former designated area), but the new town no longer exists as such, having been abolished along with all the other designated new towns. Its former boundaries are not easily accessible on the internet, and few users will be able to readily use any documents that may still exist in libraries. Life may well have been easier had Milton Keynes Borough Council decided to name the civil parish (which pre-exists the new town) "Milton Keynes Village" or "Middleton", but they didn't. Skinsmoke (talk) 09:32, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Well what is "Milton Keynes"? The subject of w:Milton Keynes is clearly the primary subject of the term, not the Civil Parish. The parish should be disambiguated as Category:Milton Keynes (civil parish) or similar, plain "Milton Keynes" should equal the subject of the WP article. We shouldn't need the council to cooperate and change the name of a parish to be able to do the right thing. And this is related to Newcastle - its about using divisions other than Civil Parishes when appropriate.--Nilfanion (talk) 09:36, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

If you are suggesting that the "new town" should be under Category:Milton Keynes how do you define the area in a way which is easily accessible to users? Which civil parishes are included in the "new town" Category:Central Milton Keynes certainly would be, along with Category:Bletchley and Fenny Stratford and Category:Stony Stratford but which others? The urban settlement area has certainly outgrown the former designated area, and may even include areas in Bedfordshire or Northamptonshire, along with parts of Aylesbury Vale District. The existing category appeared to include practically anything within 40 miles of Milton Keynes Central railway station, including large chunks of the neighbouring counties, which is clearly nonsense. Personally I am not averse to having an intermediate category (the "new town" or the one between the civil parish and the borough), which I would suggest be named Category:Milton Keynes New Town to avoid any doubt or confusion, but again I ask how do we define the area covered? Skinsmoke (talk) 09:48, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

This should wait until the Newcastle one is resolved, as I'm hoping that we will get something useful from that - and will give useful input here. For instance, I doubt a historical unit (the former New Town area) is worth using. My problem with all of these is not about being able to define the area on a map, its making sure the simplest term (in this case Milton Keynes) matches expectations.

Note that redirecting Category:Milton Keynes to Category:Borough of Milton Keynes is a viable stopgap option, while the Civil Parish is placed at a stable location away from plain Milton Keynes.--Nilfanion (talk) 09:56, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Hold on the last suggestion please. The first priority is to get Category:Milton Keynes sorted down to the civil parishes, and remove all the images that are "somewhere nearer to Milton Keynes than they are to Birmingham or London" repatriated to where they belong. That shouldn't take much more than another couple of days (there are only about 140 left to check). Separating out Category:Milton Keynes (civil parish) from Category:Milton Keynes will then be a simple task, and we can then seek to agree which areas make up Category:Milton Keynes (although I still think we need to to be more exact with naming that category to avoid anything with an MK postcode appearing in it). Skinsmoke (talk) 10:05, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

I've done the last part already (sorry but its only another 100 or so images, won't take long). If we cannot define a sensible area to use for Category:Milton Keynes, and I agree that needs to be done before attempting to use it, then leaving as a redirect to the Borough is a perfectly acceptable long term solution.

By the way, I'm not remotely surprised to hear a lot of the content is nonsense - it reflects poor bot categorisation.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:13, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

I think I've found a list of the civil parishes which cover the new town designated area, but a redirect to Category:Borough of Milton Keynes would work equally well for me. There were over 800 images under Category:Milton Keynes originally. I reckon about three related to the civil parish, perhaps about 30 or 40 to Category:Central Milton Keynes, maybe another 100 to the rest of the "new town", probably 200 each to areas in Category:Aylesbury Vale District, Category:South Northamptonshire District, Category:Central Bedfordshire District and Category:Borough of Bedford, plus bizarrely, about 20 to Oregon in the United States (the link with anything to do with Milton Keynes was, to say the least, tenuous). Skinsmoke (talk) 10:20, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

@Nilfanion: Apologies for the Milton Keynes mix-up, I was just fixing it so that it wasn't about Middleton. I did indeed think to myself that it didn't make sense having the parish at the base title (thanks Skinsmoke for fixing it). However is it appropriate for us not to have any category at the base title (Milton Keynes now redirects to Borough of Milton Keynes) because the settlement is a distinct area but unlike even Newcastle upon Tyne the whole area is parished so the argument there won't apply. For example Warrington, Buckinghamshire is clearly a separate settlement while Walton, Milton Keynes is clearly part of the settlement but both are in parished areas. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:53, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Category:Milton Keynes needs to exist either as a full category, or a redirect, because Milton Keynes is a high importance subject and a search term for Commons. As Milton Keynes is a conurbation, and civil parishes (or lack of them) are somewhat irrelevant to its identity. You cannot necessarily answer the question "Is X in 'Milton Keynes'?" by answering "what civil parish is it in?", so a different methodology is needed. What exactly, I'm not sure, but in the absence of anything better the Borough as a whole is OK. Something more precise needs a non-Civil Parish solution, and ultimately I would like to find a solution.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:13, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

I think its fine as it is now. Unless someone can provide some boundaries, it would probably just complicate things if we started splitting the category. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:16, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Category:Common_lands_in_North_Yorkshire

Common lands in North Yorkshire has been listed at Commons:Categories for discussion so that the community can discuss ways in which it should be changed. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this category, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for discussion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it. If the category is up for deletion because it has been superseded, consider the notion that although the category may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new category. In all cases, please do not take the category discussion personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

Crouch, Swale (talk) 13:46, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

I have also nominated Category:Common_lands_in_Cumbria as well. Crouch, Swale (talk) 14:01, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Kimbolton and Stonely

Are you sure that this is a civil parish and not just a parish council? I can't find any evidence of it being a civil parish. Crouch, Swale (talk) 14:19, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

No, not at all. I don't actually recall anything about this place. The civil parish appears to be called "Kimbolton" as far as I can see, and Category:Stonely, Cambridgeshire should be a subcategory of Category:Kimbolton, Cambridgeshire, but I would tend to also keep it as a subcategory of Category:Towns and villages in Cambridgeshire. Category:Kimbolton and Stonely can then be got rid of. Skinsmoke (talk) 08:17, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

I have now redirected it to Category:Kimbolton, Cambridgeshire, I don't think that we should have categories on parish councils but maybe we should. It is of course quite possible that Kimbolton and Stonely will one day become a civil parish. Crouch, Swale (talk) 11:42, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Kimbolton and Stonely Parish Council is the council of this civil parish. Kimbolton and Stonely will not become a civil parish one day - it already is one, just by a different name (Kimbolton). What may happen is that it is renamed in line with the council name. That means the redirect is correct.

That said, if the parish council refers to the parish by name, then that name is what we should call the civil parish. Other sources like OS will not necessarily propagate a name change immediately, but the parish council is authoritative as to the name.

A category for the parish council would be about the council itself, like Category:Plymouth City Council, which is clearly not needed for this parish council.--Nilfanion (talk) 12:06, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

If you look at http://mapit.mysociety.org/area/2262/children.html there is no Kimbolton and Stonely, only Kimbolton, while if you look at http://mapit.mysociety.org/area/2275/children.html it shows Penrith (which was only created in May 2015). Therefore there appears to be no evidence that the civil parish is called Kimbolton and Stonely. The parish council is not the same as the civil parish. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:16, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

No the parish council is not the same as the civil parish. However, the parish council is the local authority for the civil parish. The two concepts have the same relationship as a city council and a city. Kimbolton and Stonely Parish Council is the council of the civil parish of Kimbolton, not some other sort of parish. The Mysociety data is derived from Ordnance Survey - which can lag behind reality in some cases.

The source of the confusion here is that in 2003, the parish was apparently formally renamed to Kimbolton and Stonley (sic) under section 75 of the Local Government Act. However, for some reason the parish continues to be referred to as Kimbolton in more recent legislation - possibly because the order renaming it was never implemented.--Nilfanion (talk) 12:32, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

The same is maybe the case with Wymondham and Edmondthorpe and West Tytherley and Frenchmoor, while most like Ashwellthorpe and Fundenhall were renamed. If it was never implemented then doesn't that mean that the civil parish is still formally Kimbolton and the one that we should use. Note that civil parishes can be different to the parish council, see for example Swilland and Witnesham. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:52, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

You don't need to emphasise the civil - there is only one sort of parish under discussion here - parish councils are the councils of civil parishes, not ecclesiastical parishes. The intent of Huntingdonshire DC in 2003 was pretty clear (to formally rename the parish). It is possible errors were made in the implementation (eg OS was not formally informed), which may have prevented the change. That is speculation, and we can say nothing definitive.--Nilfanion (talk) 13:23, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

In that case shouldn't we just go by the Ordnance Survey unless we can find evidence otherwise. Maybe we should contact the Ordnance Survey. Crouch, Swale (talk) 13:29, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

IMO its the council that needs contacting, and I will do that in the new year. Furthermore they are the group who will be most inclined to actually resolve the situation (as in the actual situation, not our uncertainty about it). OS does make mistakes, but I don't think that is the case here.

As for Swilland and Witnesham, that's a grouped parish council, which is relatively common - small parishes join up in order to have the benefits of a functional parish council. Such grouping is irrelevant to Commons, as the grouped parishes are still distinct and not part of one super-parish.--Nilfanion (talk) 13:39, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

A note of caution. The parish council does not have the authority to rename the parish. Only the appropriate district council can rename (or change the boundaries) of a civil parish, though they will usually take the recommendation of the parish council. Some district councils are notoriously lax (East Riding of Yorkshire in particular) in processing the appropriate orders, and notifying the Ordnance Survey, Department of Communities and Local Government, Office for National Statistics and Royal Mail (as required by the legislation), resulting in a significant number of civil parishes that do not have the same name that the parish council uses. Technically the parish remains known under the unaltered name. It is usually the case that elections to the parish council are to the unaltered name, and the parish council informally uses the amended name in publicity. Skinsmoke (talk) 19:01, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Districts

I have set up User:Crouch, Swale/Districts so that we can discuss the districts, please discuss there. Crouch, Swale (talk) 13:47, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Category:State_border_signs_in_Alaska

State border signs in Alaska has been listed at Commons:Categories for discussion so that the community can discuss ways in which it should be changed. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this category, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for discussion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it. If the category is up for deletion because it has been superseded, consider the notion that although the category may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new category. In all cases, please do not take the category discussion personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

Beeblebrox (talk) 03:10, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Manchester

Why do we have categories like "Buildings in the City of Manchester"‎ rather than just "Buildings in Manchester" even if Manchester and City of Manchester should be split, is it really necessary to split the subcats to. Crouch, Swale (talk) 13:23, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

New CPs

Is there somewhere where it specifically lists new CPs (like Sutton Heath) in Suffolk. I know you have updated the Lists of civil parishes on Wikipedia[3] I know that you often use "District name Orders for the source but is there somewhere specific. Crouch, Swale (talk) 13:20, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

There used to be. The Department for Communities and Local Government (and before that, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) published an annual summary of all changes to civil parishes (which was available on their website in pdf format), but they stopped doing so a couple of years ago. The best these days is to check if there has been any change you happen to notice on the Ordnance Survey Election Maps site, and then go search for the relevant order. Not very satisfactory, but it's the best I can think of. Alternatively, you can try a general Google search for "New civil parish", but it throws up a lot of dross for very little of substance. Skinsmoke (talk) 18:30, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

I have checked the daterbases against Wikipedia and have found a significant amount of differences especially in Cheshire I will update in time, thanks. Crouch, Swale (talk) 15:51, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay. I was on holiday for the last fortnight in the north of Scotland. I know a little bit about Cheshire as I live in the next county. I don't think very much has happened in recent years in Halton (the last created were Halebank; and Sandymoor), Warrington or Cheshire West and Chester (the last created was Neston), but Cheshire East has been actively establishing civil parishes in some of the unparished urban areas: Wilmslow had three new parishes created (Handforth; Styal; and Wilmslow), while a new parish was established to cover the whole of Crewe. Macclesfield remains unparished. There have also been fairly recent changes in Lancashire and Cumbria in the North West (Darwen; Fleetwood; Morecambe; Colne; Nelson; Whitehaven; and Penrith have all seen new civil parishes created)

Take care with lists compiled by district councils as these are not always accurate. They often incorrectly list joint (or grouped) parish councils as a single civil parish, when in reality they remain separate civil parishes and only the parish council is joint. Some are notorious for not using the official legal name of various civil parishes (East Riding of Yorkshire is a bugger for it!). Skinsmoke (talk) 00:37, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

In 2015 it seems lots has happened, I was using here and here and using here to find out what parishes have gone where. Macclesfield was created in 2015. Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:33, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

I always do, indeed I would to be quite honest always use the name in the databases rather than the name of the parish council because they do indeed sometimes use different names or 1 parish council runs multiple CPs (like Swilland and Witnesham) grouped council. Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:33, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Well done on finding the Macclesfield order. I had missed that one completely. The last I had heard was that Cheshire East was leaving the town unparished as there was no local demand for a parish council. It appears the situation changed after Crewe got its parish! Jealousy? Anyway, Ordnance Survey Election Maps does indeed show Macclesfield as parished these days (which must make it one of the largest parishes by population, along with Crewe, in the North West). Skinsmoke (talk) 13:07, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Don't know why I didn't think of it before, but a fairly obvious Google search is "community governance review". You are correct about Cheshire West and Chester, which has carried out an epic number of reviews (most of which should have been done a hundred years ago, to be honest). I've listed all the changes I have found to date:-

• Aylesbury Vale created Buckingham Park from part of Weedon;
• Barnsley abolished Brierley, which became Brierley unparished area;
• Basildon created Bowers Gifford and North Benfleet from part of Basildon unparished area;
• Basingstoke and Deane created Sherfield Park from part of Sherfield on Loddon.
• Bassetlaw merged Cuckney and Norton to form Norton and Cuckney;
• Bassetlaw merged North Wheatley and South Wheatley to form North and South Wheatley;
• Bath and North East Somerset renamed Norton Radstock to Midsomer Norton;
• Bath and North East Somerset created Radstock from part of Norton Radstock;
• Bath and North East Somerset created Westfield from part of Norton Radstock;
• Birmingham created Sutton Coldfield from Sutton Coldfield unparished area;
• Blaenau Gwent created Badminton from part of Beaufort;
• Blaenau Gwent renamed Ebbw Vale to Ebbw Vale South;
• Blaenau Gwent created Ebbw Vale North from part of Ebbw Vale;
• Blaenau Gwent created Rassau from part of Beaufort;
• Bournemouth created Holdenhurst Village from part of Bournemouth unparished area;
• Bradford created Bingley from Bingley unparished area;
• Bromsgrove abolished Lickey End, which became part of Bromsgrove unparished area;
• Caerphilly renamed Risca to Risca West;
• Caerphilly created Risca East from part of Risca;
• Cardiff renamed Plasnewydd to Roath (2);
• Cardiff renamed Roath (1) to Penylan;
• Central Bedfordshire created Fairfield from part of Stotfold;
• Cheshire East created Crewe from Crewe unparished area;
• Cheshire East created Handforth from part of Wilmslow unparished area;
• Cheshire East created Macclesfield from Macclesfield unparished area;
• Cheshire East created Styal from part of Wilmslow unparished area;
• Cheshire East created Wilmslow from part of Wilmslow unparished area;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Aldford, Buerton, Churton Heath, Lea Newbold and Saighton to form Aldford and Saighton;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Ashton Hayes and Horton cum Peel to form Ashton Hayes and Horton cum Peel;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Bickley, Edge, Hampton and Larkton to form No Man's Heath and District;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Bradley, Macefen and Tushingham cum Grindley to form Tushingham cum Grindley, Macefen and Bradley;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Bridge Trafford, Hoole Village, Mickle Trafford, Picton and Wimbolds Trafford to form Mickle Trafford and District;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Bruen Stapleford, Hockenhull and Prior's Heys into Tarvin;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Burton into Duddon;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Caldecott, Church Shocklach, Horton by Malpas and Shocklach Oviatt to form Shocklach Oviatt and District;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Caughall and Chorlton by Backford into Backford;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Churton by Aldford, Churton by Farndon and Edgerley to form Churton;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Claverton, Eaton and Eccleston to form Eaton and Eccleston;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Cotton Abbotts into Waverton;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Cotton Edmunds into Christleton;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Crewe by Farndon and Kings Marsh into Farndon;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Delamere and Oakmere to form Delamere and Oakmere;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Dunham on the Hill and Hapsford to form Dunham on the Hill and Hapsford;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Foulk Stapleford, Hatton and Huxley to form Hargrave and Huxley;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Golborne Bellow, Newton by Tattenhall and Tattenhall to form Tattenhall and District;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Grafton into Tilston;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Iddinshall into Clotton Hoofield;
• Cheshire West and Chester created Kingsmead from part of Davenham.
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Lower Kinnerton and Marlston cum Lache into Dodleston;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Newton by Malpas, Oldcastle, Overton, Stockton and Wychough into Malpas;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Poulton and Pulford to form Poulton and Pulford;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Shotwick and Woodbank into Puddington;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Saughall and Shotwick Park to form Saughall and Shotwick Park;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Stanthorne and Wimboldsley to form Stanthorne and Wimboldsley;
• Cheshire West and Chester renamed Stoke to Stoak;
• Cheshire West and Chester renamed Sutton to Sutton Weaver;
• Cheshire West and Chester merged Tiverton and Tilstone Fearnall to form Tiverton and Tilstone Fearnall;
• Cheshire West and Chester renamed Utkinton to Utkinton and Cotebrook;
• Chiltern renamed Latimer to Latimer and Ley Hill;
• Copeland created Whitehaven from Whitehaven unparished area;
• Cornwall renamed Llansallos to Polperro;
• Coventry created Finham from part of Coventry unparished area;
• Craven merged Bordley and Hetton to form Hetton cum Bordley;
• Craven renamed Glusburn to Glusburn and Cross Hills;
• Craven merged Nappa and Swinden into Hellifield;
• Darlington merged Low Dinsdale and Sockburn to form Neasham;
• Derbyshire Dales merged Outseats into Hathersage;
• East Devon created Cranbrook from part of Broad Clyst;
• East Dorset merged Hinton Martell and Hinton Parva to form Hinton;
• East Dorset merged Long Crichel and Moor Crichel to form Crichel;
• East Dorset merged Pentridge and Sixpenny Handley to form Sixpenny Handley and Pentridge;
• East Hampshire renamed Froxfield to Froxfield and Privett;
• East Hampshire created Sheet from part of Petersfield;
• Eastleigh renamed Allbrook to Allbrook and North Boyatt;
• Eden created Penrith from Penrith unparished area;
• Forest Heath merged Wangford into Brandon;
• Harborough merged Bittesby and Bitteswell to form Bitteswell with Bittesby;
• Harborough merged Halstead and Tilton on the Hill to form Tilton on the Hill and Halstead;
• Harrogate renamed Menwith with Darley to Darley and Menwith;
• Harrogate renamed Pannal to Beckwithshaw;
• Harrogate created Pannal and Burn Bridge from part of Harrogate unparished area;
• Herefordshire merged Ross Rural into Ross on Wye;
• Isle of Wight renamed Gatcombe to Chillerton and Gatcombe;
• Knowsley abolished Tarbock, which became Tarbock unparished area;
• Leeds created Rawdon from part of Aireborough unparished area;
• Malvern Hills renamed Broadheath to Lower Broadheath;
• Mid Suffolk created Darmsden from part of Barking;
• Milton Keynes renamed Loughton to Loughton and Great Holm;
• Milton Keynes renamed Ouzel Valley to Old Woughton;
• Newark and Sherwood created Kings Clipstone from part of Clipstone;
• North Devon merged Brendon and Countisbury to form Brendon and Countisbury;
• North Hertfordshire created Great Ashby from part of Graveley;
• North Hertfordshire abolished Letchworth Garden City, which became Letchworth unparished area;
• North Kesteven merged Brauncewell and Cranwell and Byard's Leap to form Cranwell, Brauncewell and Byard's Leap;
• North Lincolnshire renamed Crowle to Crowle and Ealand;
• North Norfolk renamed Aldborough to Aldborough and Thurgarton;
• North Somerset renamed Easton in Gordano to Pill and Easton in Gordano;
• North Somerset renamed Portishead and North Weston to Portishead;
• North West Leicestershire created Hugglescote and Donnington le Heath from part of Coalville unparished area;
• North West Leicestershire created Whitwick from part of Coalville unparished area;
• Northampton created East Hunsbury from part of Wootton and East Hunsbury;
• Northampton created Hunsbury Meadows from part of Northampton unparished area;
• Northampton created West Hunsbury from part of Northampton unparished area;
• Northampton renamed Wootton and East Hunsbury to Wootton;
• Northumberland merged Hexham Low Quarter into Hexhamshire;
• Northumberland renamed North Bedlington to Choppington;
• Pembrokeshire merged Castlemartin and Stackpole to form Stackpole and Castlemartin;
• Pembrokeshire merged Trecwn into Scleddau;
• Pembrokeshire merged Slebech and Uzmaston and Boulston to form Uzmaston, Boulston and Slebech;
• Portsmouth abolished Southsea, which became part of Portsmouth unparished area;
• Purbeck merged Steeple and Tyneham to form Steeple with Tyneham;
• Ribble Valley created Barrow from part of Wiswell;
• Rotherham created Hellaby from part of Bramley;
• Rugby renamed Shilton to Shilton and Barnacle;
• Rushcliffe created Newton from part of Shelford and Newton;
• Rushcliffe renamed Shelford and Newton to Shelford;
• Sevenoaks created Badgers Mount from part of Shoreham;
• Solihull created Chadwick End from part of Balsall;
• Solihull renamed Bickenhill to Bickenhill and Marsten Green;
• South Gloucestershire renamed Mangotsfield Rural to Emersons Green;
• South Gloucestershire created Stoke Lodge and the Common from part of Patchway;
• South Lakeland merged Meathop and Ulpha and Witherslack to form Witherslack, Meathop and Ulpha;
• South Lakeland merged Scalthwaiterigg and Skelsmergh to form Skelsmergh and Scalthwaiterigg;
• South Norfolk renamed Morningthorpe to Morningthorpe and Fritton;
• South Norfolk renamed Runhall to Brandon Parva, Coston, Runhall and Welborne;
• South Oxfordshire renamed Goring to Goring on Thames;
• South Somerset renamed Charleton Mackrell to The Charltons;
• Stratford on Avon merged Old Stratford and Drayton into Stratford upon Avon;
• Stratford on Avon renamed Wellesbourne to Wellesbourne and Walton;
• Suffolk Coastal created Sutton Heath from part of Sutton;
• Swansea created Three Crosses from part of Llanrhidian Higher;
• Swindon created Nythe from part of Stratton St Margaret;
• Taunton Deane created Cotford St Luke from part of Bishop's Lydeard;
• Thanet created Westgate on Sea from part of Margate unparished area;
• Tunbridge Wells renamed Cranbrook to Cranbrook and Sissinghurst;
• Vale of Glamorgan renamed Sully to Sully and Lavernock;
• Vale of White Horse renamed Abingdon to Abingdon on Thames;
• Westminster created Queen's Park from part of Paddington unparished area;
• Wiltshire renamed Wootton Bassett to Royal Wootton Bassett;
• Wychavon renamed Church Lench to South Lenches;
• Wycombe renamed Great and Little Kimble to Great and Little Kimble cum Marsh;
• Wyre Forest created Kidderminster from Kidderminster unparished area;

Skinsmoke (talk) 12:38, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Guys - if you want I can check in the Ordnance Survey data and get you the full list of changes notified to OS from 2009 until 2016. Also let me know if any parish maps are out-of-date. On a quick scan, there also re-alignments (Chittlehampton CP in North Devon has gotten significantly bigger, and Welsh Communities have also changed (eg Beaufort in Blaenau Gwent has split into Badminton, Beaufort and Rassau).--Nilfanion (talk) 13:31, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for that. There are loads of realignments or boundary changes. I have ignored those on the list above, concentrating only on mergers, new parishes, parishes abolished and name changes.

I have now located the new place where the Bulletin of Changes to Local Authority Arrangements, Areas and Names in England is published. It can be found at The Local Government Boundary Commission for England, along with the bulletins published by their predecessors from 1973 onwards. Skinsmoke (talk) 19:35, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks very much, I have checked those from the 2013/14 order and made the changes, Nilfanion that would be great please. Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:49, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

• Just a note, Halstead parish in Leicestershire was abolished yaers ago, the parish called "Tilton" was just renamed to reflect this, that it absorbed Halstead years ago. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:34, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

In 1935 to be exact! It appears the modern civil parish change was simply a renaming (switching the order of the settlements). Skinsmoke (talk) 06:59, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Category:Tracks_in_Greater_Manchester

Category:Tracks_in_Greater_Manchester has been listed at Commons:Categories for discussion so that the community can discuss ways in which it should be changed. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this category, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for discussion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it. If the category is up for deletion because it has been superseded, consider the notion that although the category may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new category. In all cases, please do not take the category discussion personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

Themightyquill (talk) 09:39, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Copyright status: File:Pulloxhill - The Church of St James the Apostle - geograph.org.uk - 871581.jpg

This media may be deleted.

Thanks for uploading File:Pulloxhill - The Church of St James the Apostle - geograph.org.uk - 871581.jpg. I notice that the file page either doesn't contain enough information about the license or it contains contradictory information about the license, so the copyright status is unclear. If you created this file yourself, then you must provide a valid copyright tag. For example, you can tag it with {{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-all}} to release it under the multi-license GFDL plus Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike All-version license or you can tag it with {{PD-self}} to release it into the public domain. (See Commons:Copyright tags for the full list of license tags that you can use.) If you did not create the file yourself or if it is a derivative of another work that is possibly subject to copyright protection, then you must specify where you found it (e.g. usually a link to the web page where you got it), you must provide proof that it has a license that is acceptable for Commons (e.g. usually a link to the terms of use for content from that page), and you must add an appropriate license tag. If you did not create the file yourself and the specific source and license information is not available on the web, you must obtain permission through the VRT system and follow the procedure described there. Note that any unsourced or improperly licensed files will be deleted one week after they have been marked as lacking proper information, as described in criteria for deletion. If you have uploaded other files, please confirm that you have provided the proper information for those files, too. If you have any questions about licenses please ask at Commons:Village pump/Copyright or see our help pages. Thank you.

Yann (talk) 23:18, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Now resolved. Skinsmoke (talk) 17:54, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Moving categories

When you want to rename a category (like Category:Dinnington) could you please use the "move" tab instead of just cut and pasting the contents as it leaves the history split and makes it harder to track them thanks. Crouch, Swale (talk) 11:15, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I wasn't aware there was now a "move" tab on Wikimedia Commons. I am sure there didn't used to be! Skinsmoke (talk) 11:48, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, there didn't used to be for categories, its just been added in the last few years. Crouch, Swale (talk)

Japanese/Asian

Re: this edit, I don't get it. How can things that are Japanese-style not be Asian-style? - Jmabel ! talk 16:08, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

It is of course Asian style if it is Japanese style. However, the general pattern for these categories around the world (on Wikimedia Commons at least) is that the more specific category is used, and the "Asian" category is reserved for fusion style restaurants or those where the national style of cuisine cannot be determined. That means that someone looking for a specific national style doesn't have to worry about whether it is classed as (for example, with Lebanese style restaurants) "Mediterranean", "African", "European", "Western", "Middle Eastern" or "Asian" (and yes, I've seen Lebanese style restaurants in all those categories, despite the fact that Lebanon is in neither Africa nor Europe, and that Lebanese style restaurants have very little in common with what we normally consider to be "Asian style" restaurants, which tends to be Thai, Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolian, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian, Malay, Indonesian, Korean and Japanese). Skinsmoke (talk) 16:24, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Leeds, City of Leeds, West Yorkshire, Yorkshire ...

Hi! In the past months, I have tried categorizing files that belong into subcategories of those named in the heading, and noticed that you have recently worked on the category structure within Yorkshire. As I noticed some discrepancies myself (such as a lack of distinction between Leeds proper and the City of Leeds), I find your endeavours commendable and would like to help. I thought of re-categorising and restructuring some things myself, but I do not want to cause confusion by working on cross-purposes with you. May I inquire what your plans are? Do you intend to introduce a proper distinction between Leeds and the City of Leeds similar to what has been started for Bradford? Shall the place categories that were formerly listed in the category "Places in Leeds" be moved into the category "City of Leeds"? Would you agree that categories for the council wards (such as "Alwoodley", "Bramley and Stanningley", "City and Hunslet" "Morley North", or "Otley and Yeadon") make sense? These are geographically and administratively well defined, while popular usage of place names is often rather vague. --Schlosser67 (talk) 07:43, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. My work on West Yorkshire has been mainly on the City of Wakefield, although it has occasionally strayed into Bradford, Leeds, Kirklees and Calderdale just to add a bit of variety from time to time (at the moment I am cascading the files in Category:Electricity pylons in West Yorkshire down to the boroughs). I also intend to try to get round to sorting out the mess that is Category:Kirklees, Calderdale, where the settlement in Calderdale has become confused with the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees. I did some work on that last year, and will hopefully get round to picking up where I left off.

The places listed at Category:City of Leeds form the next level of administration down from the city itself. They are the civil parishes and unparished areas (mainly former county boroughs, municipal boroughs and urban districts) that make up the city, and largely correspond to the sub-units that people identify with. What is more important is that they can be identified as they have firm boundaries that are unlikely to change significantly unless further civil parishes are created (which may well be the case: Leeds City Council, like Bradford City Council, has tended to encourage the creation of new civil parishes). The maps at Ordnance Survey Election Maps (for civil parishes) and A Vision of Britain Through Time (for unparished areas) are particularly useful in checking boundaries.

I would caution against creating categories for council wards. The problem with these is that they exist for one purpose only: to create electoral divisions that are roughly equal in numbers of electors. That is the overriding consideration in their formation, and they often cut right across what people consider to be the natural boundaries of their communities. They have the added complication that their boundaries change every ten to fifteen years, which makes maintenance of the categories extremely difficult and, at times, confusing.

I agree that it is difficult to identify boundaries for settlements, as these are not defined anywhere. Some may relate to former civil parishes and urban districts that were annexed by the larger adjacent local authorities sometime between 1894 and 1974, while some may go back even further to former parishes that were included in, for example, the former Municipal Borough of Leeds before it became a county borough. I tend to leave them alone for someone with more local knowledge to decide what, for example, constitutes Category:Hunslet, and avoid placing files into those categories as much as possible.

If it is felt necessary to subdivide below the specific unparished area, I tend to favour categorising by street, as at Category:Streets in the City of Wakefield by name (for the city) and Category:Streets in Wakefield, West Yorkshire (for the settlement). Although streets (and addresses) do change occasionally, as a result of renaming or redevelopment, they tend on the whole to endure from one decade to another, and can usually be confirmed using Ordnance Survey Election Maps, other Ordnance Survey sites or Open Street Map (often linked from the image page), or even from a quick Google search for the name of a business identifiable in the image.

In conclusion, the distinction is already there between Category:Leeds and Category:City of Leeds, although it is not particularly obvious so far, as the various subcategories at Category:Leeds have not yet been sorted to take account of the creation of Category:City of Leeds. That would probably be a good place to start, and is a fairly easy task (check the settlement category and look at what it is a subcategory of: if it is Category:City of Leeds then the file needs moving up to a subcategory of the city, rather than its present position as a subcategory of the settlement). An alternative would be to work down within the subcategories at Category:West Yorkshire, moving files into existing (or new) subcategories of each of the five boroughs (Category:City of Bradford, Category:Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale, Category:Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, Category:City of Leeds and Category:City of Wakefield). As a word of caution, don't let the category at Category:Wakefield, West Yorkshire (city) confuse you: it doesn't relate to the city at all (city status is held by the metropolitan borough), but is a poorly named way of trying to distinguish between the city and the settlement!

Have fun, and if you have any problems, just message me and I will try to help you sort them out. Skinsmoke (talk) 12:46, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. Indeed, wards may change their boundaries. However, I notice that at least some of the council wards of the City of Leeds (which the OS Election map shows) have boundaries almost coinciding with those of the historical districts (as shown on Vision of Britain), so I'll probably use the former as a first guideline and the latter to decide what to do with objects near the boundaries. And yes, I have noticed the situation with Wakefield. Perhaps the category for the settlement should be renamed? The good thing about Wikipedia and Wikimedia is that errors can and will be corrected sooner or later! --Schlosser67 (talk) 13:34, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree about renaming Category:Wakefield, West Yorkshire (city). The question is to what? There is already a note in the introduction identifying the difference between the city and the settlement, but anyone using HotCat will not see this. I have instead concentrated on moving files down from the category to street or subject subcategories, and removing the considerable number of images that don't belong in the settlement category at all. There were 1,327 images in the category when I started (not counting those in its subcategories), and I have so far checked and dealt with about 64 per cent of those. My intention was that once sorting the category is completed, to then consider what it should be renamed to, or possibly to wait a few months and see whether there is still confusion being caused. It could well be that the mass movement of files from Geograph by bot caused the problem in the first place, and that there isn't really a problem for files being sorted by humans! Skinsmoke (talk) 13:44, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

The Geograph upload is the cause of a lot of categorisation problems across the UK. I fully expect that if that mammoth chore can be cleaned out there will be minimal issues, regardless of category set-up. Future bot uploads, such as the current panoramio one, will likely make the same mistakes but with manageable workloads.

With categorisation: I'd use only use wards for the things that should use wards (think electoral maps), but avoid them for photography if possible. A particular useful tool, if the file is geocoded is MapIt. I'd agree streets are a robust method within the urban areas. In unparished rural areas, I'd try to identify the features shown (like a hill).

With regards to the "city" problem: City status is vested in the borough, but that doesn't make the borough the city. A city is a large-population settlement, and an Act of Parliament cannot overturn the meaning of an English-language word. Its unfortunate that the city status was transferred to the borough, instead of another solution like creating charter trustees. That would have made things so much simpler.

WP compounded that by inventing the "City of X" construct, which is not consistently used by reliable sources (or used much at all). For instance, Leeds City Council calls the entire area it covers "Leeds". The district category (City of Leeds) should be renamed to something else (perhaps including "Metropolitan District") as that could eliminate, once and for all, any potential for confusion. And in a much cleaner way than awkward titles like Category:Wakefield, West Yorkshire (city).--Nilfanion (talk) 22:21, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

A useful sub-division of the urban areas might be neighbourhoods (as desginated under the Localism Act 2011). These are objectively defined, have some practical consequence, and (unlike ward boundaries) are defined in terms of local identity not equalizing head count. For Leeds, see documents and map. Headingley might be a good example. IMO these might be usable to break the unparished area down into meaningful chunks, thoughts?--Nilfanion (talk) 08:40, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

The neighbourhoods are certainly an improvement on wards. However, the process is somewhat incomplete. As far as I can see only nine of the neighbourhoods established in Leeds are in the settlement of Leeds. We will still be left with a large area that is ill-defined. Most appear to simply be civil parishes that have seen them have "neighbourhood" added to their designation in order to acquire additional planning powers. Some in the suburban areas have already been converted into civil parishes (I seem to recall that the civil parish recently established in Rawdon started life as a neighbourhood for planning purposes). And bear in mind that Leeds has gone further than most authorities in community development, so the situation elsewhere may not be as promising. Even so, anything which gives us a defined area for settlements within the urban area has to be an improvement. Skinsmoke (talk) 08:54, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Maybe Category:Wakefield, West Yorkshire (city) should be renamed to Category:Wakefield, West Yorkshire, per w:WP:DABCONCEPT as the district is a subtopic of the settlement, if not maybe Category:Wakefield, West Yorkshire (settlement). Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:15, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Wool Stores

Hi Skinsmoke. It says native English up above/ previous page but you don't know that a Wool Store is a Wool Store. How come? Eddaido (talk) 19:39, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

The category naming guidelines are that titles should be in sentence format. Hence we have Police stations not Police Stations; Electricity pylons not Electricity Pylons; Power plants not Power Plants; Bus stations not Bus Stations and Wool stores not Wool Stores. The exception is when we are referring to something that is unique, and therefore treated in the same way as a proper noun, such as Mata Hari or the Rolling Stones. The rules are complicated and at times contradictory (an indication is given in the English Wikipedia article linked). However, in short, a wool store is not a unique item (there are many wool stores in the world), and should not therefore be capitalised (for categories we capitalise the first letter of the first word, as we would for any common noun), but a specific wool store would be capitalised, as it would be treated as a proper noun and specific name (for example, Headington Wool Store, which would be the name of a particular and specific wool store in the village of Headington, or Smith and Dobson's Wool Store, which would be the name of a particular and specific wool store operated by the Smith and Dobson company). I hope that explanation is understandable, but if there is anything you are unclear about, just ask.

Incidentally, that wasn't the only problem in your categorisations. We use formats which match the parent category, so it should be United States not USA and United Kingdom not Britain (Britain does not include either Scotland or Northern Ireland and consists only of England and Wales: many Scots get very annoyed by its misuse to include the whole of the United Kingdom, viewing it as a form of English imperialism). Skinsmoke (talk) 01:06, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Unparished areas

Colchester isn't entirely unparished, Myland is a parish. Rushmoor appears to be entirely unparished see https://mapit.mysociety.org/area/2337/children.html. Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:13, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Myland is indeed a civil parish. The question is, when it was created as a civil parish, did it remain part of Colchester? It certainly remained part of the Borough of Colchester, but the question of whether it remained part of the settlement of Colchester is debatable. Did East Cowes remain part of the settlement of Cowes when it gained its independence as a separate civil parish? The problem is that we have no reliable definition of what a "settlement" is, and what its boundaries are. We can define an "unparished area" because the definition was set out in the local government legislation back in 1974, but once a civil parish is created it ceases to form part of the "unparished area".

Rushmoor is entirely unparished but consists of two unparished areas. Unparished areas were created during the 1974 local government reorganisation. Any county borough, municipal borough or urban district which was not succeeded by a "successor civil parish" became an "unparished area" under the terms of the act. The act therefore created two unparished areas in Rushmoor: the former Municipal Borough of Aldershot and the former Farnborough Urban District. Therefore, although Rushmoor is entirely unparished, it is not an "unparished area". Skinsmoke (talk) 09:24, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't think becoming a parish automatically makes an area separate to the settlement (although it often does, like Darlington or Corby), see Commons:Categories for discussion/2015/10/Category:Newcastle upon Tyne. Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:34, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I thought then the whole district is then still marked as unparished even still. Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:34, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

For some reason (basically, a refusal to accept that enclaves exist, and have for hundreds of years: is the Vatican City State part of Rome? Wikimedia Commons categorisation says not, but it is an enclave within Rome.) we treat Newcastle upon Tyne differently to other areas. Where a civil parish has been created on the edge of an unparished area (as has happened in Leeds, Grimsby or Oxford) no questions appear to be raised. Similarly, the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, for instance, is entirely unparished, but we treat it as six "unparished areas"; the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley the same. I suspect, if you ask people in Rushmoor where they live, they are more likely to answer "Aldershot" or "Farnborough" , rather than "Rushmoor". There is no clear-cut answer, but we should try to be as consistent as possible. Skinsmoke (talk) 09:45, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes in the case of Rushmoor many people won't be aware it exists, but also note that like Milton Keynes (and now apparently Swindon) are entirely parished. How is Nythe not part of the town anyway? Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:54, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I'd be cautious with urban parishes. When a place is parished, the identity of the settlement is generally associated with that of the CP, and the CP is likely seen as defining the place. However, with unparished areas that isn't true. Its the town/city that the unparished area is based upon that has community identity, not the unparished area itself. That means if an urban CP is carved out of the unparished area, it still retains its identity as part of the town, even if now has a distinct local identity. For instance someone who lives in Trident CP in Bradford, would still say they lived in Bradford. Similarly for Swindon, the town of Swindon hasn't lost its identity - its not been abolished by the creation of the parishes. Its possible the new parishes will develop a sense of local community, but that is in addition to, not instead of the town. They are sub-concepts of the town, which translates to sub-categories on Commons.--Nilfanion (talk) 09:59, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I wouldn't entirely disagree with that, and in cases like Swindon where the whole of the area is parished it doesn't really raise any problems. Trident is an oddity. I am not sure what the motivation for the creation of the civil parish was, but I find it hard to believe that hundreds of irate independence-seeking local citizens were marching on City Hall demanding independence for Trident (a place most Bradfordians would never have even heard of). Where civil parishes are created on the edge of urban areas, the motivation is very often to declare that the area is distinct from, and separate from, the larger area (that was certainly very much a part of the motivation in Sutton Coldfield, where residents very much resented being part of the City of Birmingham, and wanted a return to former glories as an independent town). Skinsmoke (talk) 10:13, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I would say, Nythe is still part of the town despite becoming a parish. Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:04, 8 April 2017 (UTC) I think that is the case with Sutton Coldfield but is there any evidence that Blakelaw and North Fenham is separate? Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:18, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

You've missed the point on Nythe. It never was part of Swindon. The town it was part of was Stratton St Margaret, and had been since medieval times. Skinsmoke (talk) 10:20, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

My gut feeling says to look at how the parish council styles itself. Sutton Coldfield has a town council, while Trident has a community council. "Town" (or "city") is a strong assertion of a distinct identity, while "community" a claim to a local one. A "village" is likely distinct, while just "parish" is ambiguous.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:26, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

The problem is, is it today part of the town?, all the evidence I can find suggests it is. I can't find anything on the parish council website that suggests that it isn't part of Swindon. Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:31, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Blakelaw and North Fenham is one of those annoying anomalies like Trident. Arguments can be made either way. It was certainly considered a separate settlement until 1904, when the former Benwell and Fenham Urban District was annexed by Newcastle upon Tyne County Borough, and consisted of two separate civil parishes: Benwell, and Fenham. The civil parishes lasted another ten years, and were not merged into Newcastle upon Tyne civil parish until 1914. The area to its immediate west was part of Newburn Urban District, and maintained its separate identity right up to local government reorganisation in 1974. Although Blakelaw and North Fenham may appear to the uninitiated to be an enclave within Newcastle upon Tyne, it was in fact on the very edge of the area, and once of the last places to be added to the County Borough of Newcastle upon Tyne.

I think all we can say with any certainty about Nythe is that it is part of the Borough of Swindon. It certainly wasn't part of the town eight days ago, and there is nothing to suggest that its identity has changed substantially since then, given that the Swindon parishing is extremely unpopular with a large number of residents of the former unparished area, and is seen merely as a way to get round government restrictions on council tax rises. Skinsmoke (talk) 10:45, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Be careful what you read into the designation community council. Many people prefer the name as it breaks the link with ecclesiastical parishes and civil parish (or just parish is seen as harking back to the Anglican Church's involvement in local government. I suspect that in this particular multicultural part of Bradford, that may have been as great an incentive as anything to chosing that designation. Skinsmoke (talk) 10:49, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Indeed that's what we were trying to work out with respect to the categories at the CFD.

Certainly? isn't it a suburb, I still can't find any evidence to suggest it wouldn't have been considered part of the town eight days ago. Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:52, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm aware that this is somewhat subjective however I would stand by my assessment - as rule-of-thumb and not a strict criteria. The default name is "parish", so if parish is used we can make no-value judgement. However if they actively choose to adopt city, town, or village, that is an indicator it sees itself as a distinct community. In contrast, actively opting for community means it doesn't see itself as distinct (why not adopt village if they want to avoid Christian overtones?)--Nilfanion (talk) 11:10, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I'd agree with that, my point is that Nythe appears to be unambiguously within the settlement of Swindon and the website didn't say otherwise. Crouch, Swale (talk) 11:14, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

But what is a suburb? There are no clearly agreed definitions in the United Kingdom (there are, for example, in Australia, where they are a legally defined entity), which is why the word is deprecated on English Wikipedia. I have come across people arguing that areas outside the Borough of Reading are part of Reading, because they are suburbs of Reading (I suspect what they really meant is that they were part of Reading postal town). By the same argument, a claim could be made that Esher or Epsom are suburbs of London, even though they are in a different county. I'd stay well clear of using suburb as a criterion for categorisation, or all sorts of problems are likely to occur.

I suspect that village was not even considered as an option for Trident. It's hard to think of a densely populated area of back to back houses and industry as a village, even though West Bowling (the main component of the area) could well be argued to be an urban village.

On Nythe, the onus is not to prove that it IS NOT part of the settlement of Swindon, the onus is to prove that it IS part. The absence of something on a parish council's website is not proof one way or the other, only proof that the matter is not addressed. Skinsmoke (talk) 11:37, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree with regards to Trident, and that's my point really. Village was an option, but it was not chosen as its clearly not appropriate. Community was chosen precisely because its not a distinct entity, and for whatever reason parish was deemed unsuitable.

Agreed on Nythe as well, we need positive evidence from sources not absence of info. However, I'd point out that the limits of "Swindon" may well be bigger than the former unparished area. The town of Swindon itself has had no formal boundaries since 1974 when the County Borough was abolished (unless you want to tie it to the current Borough). For example, the town of Swindon may well be understood to include Stratton St Margaret, and the fact it is an ancient parish may be irrelevant. In that case Stratton has gone from being a village close to the town, to being part of the town.

I have a strong dislike of saying that the pre-1974 boundaries still matter: Its absurd to say the places have been static for 40 years and haven't grown (or shrunk) in that time. That's the problem with unparished areas, they aren't a unit themselves but are merely areas without units; and the settlements they covered have ceased to have formal, legal, boundaries (unless the settlement is tied to the district as a whole, like it is for instance with Exeter).--Nilfanion (talk) 11:57, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't think you can argue legitimately that community was chosen for Trident because it's not a distinct entity (though I would tend to agree that it isn't). All you can say is that for some reason parish and town were not considered appropriate, and community was preferred to the other option, which was neighbourhood.

Swindon, incidentally, was never a county borough, merely a ismunicipal borough. As far as I'm aware, Stratton St Margaret was within the designated area of Swindon New Town, so there is some logic to your argument. On the whole though, most people still seem to identify with their pre-1974 towns, even though they have had no legal entity since then. Unparished areas are not the best subdivision possible, but they are the best that we have. The real problem is that it is virtually impossible to clearly define what the boundaries of a settlement are in a way that can be constently applied. If I'm not mistaken, your home town is Plymouth. How would you define the boundaries of, for example, Devonport, a former county borough that was annexed by Plymouth in 1914? Yet, people clearly identify to some extent with the area, judging from the number of images that are categorised under Category:Devonport. Similarly, people still clearly identify with Torquay and Paignton, even though both towns lost their independence in 1967 when they were merged into the County Borough of Torbay. Skinsmoke (talk) 12:21, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Yep, wrong label for Swindon (MB not CB). The absence of formal boundaries is the real problem - as without them Swindon can mean different things to different people. I think the New Town is the only boundary that makes any objective sense now. The ONS boundaries for the built-up areas are always viable, but as they completely ignore admin boundaries they will cause inconsistencies between ones like Swindon and ones like Salisbury - a bad idea. What I would re-iterate is that unparished areas are not subdivisions themselves, but are merely areas without parish-level subdivisions. Thankfully in most cases they approximate single pre-1974 urban district (or borough). I'll switch to the Devon examples, as clearly I can discuss these more fully.

Torquay/Paignton: my understanding is the boundary between the two towns is a natural one - along the Hollicombe Lake valley - so the pre-1967 boundary still has a practical meaning on the ground. I'm not sure if locals immediately on the border consistently apply it, but there are still two obvious and distinct town centres.

With Plymouth, I've been looking to improve the localisation there for some time but there's other more pressing tasks elsewhere. The former Devonport CB is completely irrelevant. Areas like St Budeaux and Pennycross are within the CB boundaries, but no-one would consider them part of Devonport today. The modern concept of Devonport today is pretty much "the core of the historic town plus the naval base", as reflected in the city council's neighbourhood. The new town construction of Sherford will cause difficulties; as its split between the city and Brixton CP. After the construction is done its possible that no adjustments will be made and Plymouth will end up with an illogical boundary comparable to the one between Poole and Bournemouth (which cuts through houses above Branksome Dene Chine). Its also possible that the boundaries will be adjusted either to include either the full development in Plymouth, wholly in Brixton CP or wholly in a new CP. Predicting what will end up happening is looking too far into the crystal ball, but the 1st situation applies for now.--Nilfanion (talk) 13:14, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Thinking about it I'd say that last point is insightful for elsewhere: Because Plymouth has a current valid boundary (those of the district), if any boundary changes are made for Sherford, we don't have a problem. We can follow those changes, knowing that what we are calling Plymouth is the correct area. In contrast, if a similar new town was built on the edge of the Bradford urban area, how on earth would we decide if it needed to be included or excluded from Category:Bradford? A positive definition (Bradford = unit) is more helpful than the negative one (Bradford = area with no units).--Nilfanion (talk) 13:34, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Surely, if a new town was built on the edge of the Bradford urban area, the chances are it wouldn't be a problem. Bradford is almost entirely hemmed in by civil parishes now (the exceptions are the Bradford|Shipley and Bradford/Queensbury borders, and both Shipley and Queensbury are pretty distinct communities with strong local identities. Admittedly, there are no civil parishes to the east, but the boundary is formed by the city boundary in that area, so again no problem. Skinsmoke (talk) 14:22, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Just to complicate the Swindon situation, I don't think, now I come to check up on it, that Swindon was ever designated as a new town, and so there are still no clear boundaries. Even if it had been, the new towns were formally abolished round about the Thatcher era and wound up, so would the boundaries be any more relevant today? As far as I can see, Swindon's expansion took place under the provisions of the Town Development Act, 1952, which provided for the expansion of a number of towns (including Andover and Basingstoke) in southern England with the involvement of the former London County Council. Skinsmoke (talk) 14:27, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Well my Bradford situation is hypothetical (and we shouldn't worry too much about them), but a possible location is the gap between Denholme and Allerton. That is mostly in the unparished area, but stretches into neighbouring CPs. If that was developed would it be in, or close to, Bradford? Would it make any difference if a new CP was created to cover the area? More practically, how should media of that rural area be categorised right now? As part of Bradford or something else?

To be honest, Swindon sounds it could benefit from a broader discussion. IMO the town is roughly defined by the M4 and the A419. Stratton St Margaret and Haydon Wick are both integral parts of that urban area. Furthermore, road signs switch from "Swindon" to "Town Centre" once they get into that area and that's also where the "Welcome to Swindon" signs are [4]. A reliable source (like the borough council) saying "the town of Swindon = this area" is what we really want of course.--Nilfanion (talk) 16:24, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Town and village categories

Why are you adding "towns and villages" categories to places that are cities? For example, you added Category:Towns and villages in Devon to Category:Exeter and Category:Plymouth. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:25, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

IMO, the cause of this problem is having "towns and villages" cats in the first place. Its a silly construct (why include only two types of settlement?), and the fact its only used for British places on Commons suggests the error. No other country uses it on Commons, and en.wp doesn't use it for British stuff either.

We should migrate this to "populated places" at the top-level and have well defined sub-cats ie "towns", "villages", "cities". There are some issues in determining if a given place is a town or a village - but either way it is still a populated place! And that's the same solution applied everywhere else...

I've now done this for Devon (also adding Exeter & Plymouth to the new cat), it won't take long to do the rest of the UK. I'll hold fire on that for the minute in case there are any objections. Migrating the towns/villages to "towns in x" or "villages in x" will take a bit of time, but they are all "populated places".--Nilfanion (talk) 17:15, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more, and was considering doing the same thing myself. The towns and villages construct appears to be a remnant from the very early days of categorisation, and has never been updated to follow global practice. I would also suggest having a subcategory at each county for, for example, Category:Populated places in Devon by name, collecting the whole lot in one place so that someone doesn't need to determine whether a populated place is a town, city, hamlet, village, neighbourhood or district, or whatever local government district it is in (which is becoming a problem in some counties), before they can find it on the lists. Skinsmoke (talk) 17:36, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm cautious about by-name cats, because they can generate of lot of admin for no real gain. For instance, similar logic to that which justifies putting Category:Plymouth in Category:Populated places in Devon by name also justifies putting it in Category:Populated places in England by name and Category:Populated places in the United Kingdom by name (and even the global Category:Populated places by name). After all why should users have to drill down to the county? At the same time, I can't see any harm either, so if you feel it adds value I wouldn't object.--Nilfanion (talk) 18:52, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

I understand your point, but I think it's a matter of finding a happy medium. Even Category:Populated places in England by name would be massive, never mind similar categories for the United Kingdom or globally. And most people have a rough idea which county somewhere is in (most, for example, haven't a clue whether somewhere belongs in Category:Towns and villages in South Kesteven, but they can probably work out it belongs in Category:Towns and villages in Lincolnshire). There is also the problem that a large number of people cannot distinguish between a city and a town, let alone the problem of distinguishing between a town and a village (probably why we got saddled with the Towns and villages categories in the first place) or between a village and a hamlet (the former distinguishing features of a village having a church, pub and post office are rapidly vanishing), so I think it's worth it, particularly as it saves users having to drill down to a further level below Populated places. Maintenance shouldn't be a major problem using HotCat: it's just a matter, from time to time, of copying the lower category's contents (town, city, village and so on) into the Populated places by name category (any that are already there HotCat will ignore). Skinsmoke (talk) 19:13, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Like I said I don't personally see much point, but I don't see any harm, so if you value it I wouldn't object! :) I also agree that your approach is fine, and wouldn't be too much hassle. I would say that while county is the easiest level for us, its not always the right level. For instance, an American will probably know (the British) Plymouth is in England, but not that its in Devon.

The reason I see limited value is that if you don't know the name of the place you are looking for, then no list of names will help you. If you do know the name, then you will almost certainly use the name to find its cat (such as using the search). Either way the by-name cat doesn't help you. IMO main use for a flat-list is category maintenance, and flat-lists can be generated easily enough on the fly.--Nilfanion (talk) 19:56, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Sort keys

What's the point to edits like this one? As far as I can tell all that does is remove something useful (the alphabetical breakdown). That's in contrast to ones like this, which makes perfect sense. But the A-Z of sortkeys aren't reserved for locations only, so why remove it?--Nilfanion (talk) 16:56, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Because it makes more sense, and is easier to read, if Meadows is listed alongside the other different types of fields, rather than with geographical locations. Sooner or later there will no doubt be further geographical subcategories in addition to Dartmoor, at which point the page becomes somewhat confusing. At this stage, it is more forward planning than anything else. Skinsmoke (talk) 17:01, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree there are two natural sub-groups there (possibly more). However, once a sortkey is applied its a pain in the neck to remove it and why give primacy to locations? Especially when location is always a good bet for future growth (Category:Fields in Devon by location is perfectly logical), no matter the nature of the subject, while in contrast other aspects depend on the subject - fields will have different needs to roads. In this case Category:Fields in Devon by type seems awkward, while Category:Fields in Devon by crop seems sensible - but pastures aren't crops...--Nilfanion (talk) 17:10, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

And of course if you are going to the effort of applying sortkeys to split out the characteristic "type", why not just go all the way and create the meta category "by-type"? Its no more effort and avoids any issues like this?--Nilfanion (talk) 17:13, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

I partly agree. However, there seems little point in having a separate category for locations when there are only two natural subgroups, both of which can be easily accommodated on the one page (a page can easily accommodate three or four subgroups by using the "*" and "+" symbols), and unless there are ten or so subject subcategories, division by alphabetical letters doesn't really aid very much. Once you get above that sort of figure, it is probably time to set up a subcategory for the geographical locations. The sortkey removal is a bit of a pain (though not particularly difficult), but it can easily be nullified by simply removing the space (changing | Meadows to |Meadows), so shouldn't really be a problem. Skinsmoke (talk) 17:22, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Bear in mind, this was not simply a case splitting out the characteristic type (which was already the case for all the other types), but of placing the types together. Skinsmoke (talk) 17:24, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

I get what you are saying, but if I were to update the sorting of the subcats in Category:Fields in Devon from the default, I'd probably go ahead and create the by-type meta category (no more effort than what you have done, with a much bigger payoff for functionality). If I didn't want to create a proper sub-cat, I'd move the single location sub-cat off the alphabetic listing, keeping the alphabet for the more abundant "type".

The biggest problem with a sortkey is it becomes redundant when a proper subcat is created, and may easily be missed in the migration to the subcat.--Nilfanion (talk) 17:35, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Category:ASD_Coaches

ASD Coaches has been listed at Commons:Categories for discussion so that the community can discuss ways in which it should be changed. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this category, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for discussion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it. If the category is up for deletion because it has been superseded, consider the notion that although the category may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new category. In all cases, please do not take the category discussion personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

–Davey2010^Talk 15:07, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Civil parish groups

I see that you changed Category:Boughton Aluph and Eastwell to a redirect which I agree with as they don't seem to be useful with categorization, should this also be done with Histon and Impington, Ashburnham and Penhurst and Grimston, Saxelby and Shoby? Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:23, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

I would say yes. The first two look like they are possibly separate civil parishes which share a joint parish council. The last one baffles me a little: Saxelby and Shoby are part of the civil parish of Grimston, and so should be subcategories of Category:Grimston, Leicestershire. I suspect this may be one of those cases where the parish council uses a different name to the official name of the civil parish, therefore causing the confusion. Are you going to go ahead and make the changes? Skinsmoke (talk) 11:09, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes that appears to be the case I will merge Histon and Impington and Ashburnham and Penhurstwith their districts, the last one was created by Saga City (talk · contribs) along with Wistow and Newton Harcourt so we will se what they say. Crouch, Swale (talk) 11:19, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi both. I'll look into those mentioned. The problem with Leicestershire is multiple "official" lists that differ. Best Wishes S a g a C i t y (talk) 13:05, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for that. It's a common problem. Local authorities tend to list parish councils, rather than civil parishes, and it is not always clear whether these are joint or grouped parishes. I tend to check them against Ordnance Survey Election Maps, though that may take a couple of months to catch up with any changes sometimes. Skinsmoke (talk) 13:22, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

And I wander what we should do with Theddlethorpe, I would also suggest merge. Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:20, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

We are talking about Theddlethorpe in Lincolnshire? That is somewhat different, as it is two separate civil parishes: Theddlethorpe All Saints and Theddlethorpe St Helen, and so should not be merged. Skinsmoke (talk) 10:25, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

I was suggesting that the category "Theddlethorpe" should be merged not the 2 CP cats. Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:28, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I misunderstood you there. Yes, there is no civil parish of Theddlethorpe. Images should be categorised under the respective civil parishes, and the category should be merged into Category:East Lindsey. Incidentally, is Cat-a-lot still working for you? Mine appears to have vanished sometime overnight! Skinsmoke (talk) 10:32, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

I will do that, Cat-a-lot has stopped as well for me as well! (there is a discussion about it at Commons:Village pump#Cat-a-Lot disappears) I guess the bots will just have to change the images instead. Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:35, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for that link. I hadn't checked there. Had looked at the Cat-a-lot talk page, but there was nothing mentioned when I looked there.. Ah well, just wait until it's fixed then, I suppose. Skinsmoke (talk) 10:43, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Wakefield

Ok - I'm confused by this, which makes no sense to me; it shows something just off J40 in.. Flanshaw? We have enough problems with bot errors which need human correct, but for the bot to be right, when the human (and I know you have high interest in Wakefield) gets it badly wrong?--Nilfanion (talk) 21:49, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

That is because it isn't actually in Flanshaw, which is part of Wakefield. This particular development is in Kirkhamgate (the part of Alverthorpe with Thornes which didn't get merged into Wakefield), which stretches right down to the A638, and became part of Stanley in 1937. Wakefield proper doesn't actually start until the junction of Dewsbury Road and Broadway, a few hundred metres to the east. The south side of the A638 west of that junction is in Ossett. Incidentally, the bot seems to be working fine from what I've seen of it today in the Wakefield area. Skinsmoke (talk) 22:05, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Its not part of Stanley either though, not today. Stanley UD does not exist and shouldn't be used for categorisation; to me, using historical units like that is worse than using the traditional counties - the borders of the traditional counties have much stronger recognition. IMO Stanley should be defined in terms of the small village (or suburb) on the banks of the Calder, not the whole extent of the former UD.

Thanks for feedback on bot, I've been using CPs where available - and switching to ONS subdivisions in the unparished areas. As I'm sure you've noticed, when in doubt I'm switching to district - its better than county. That's why that one got tagged as Wakefield - the ONS split for Wakefield/Ossett is pretty much the M1 (and Stanley is nowhere close). Only real problem I've picked up is my typing errors.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:14, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

OK, I've thought some about this. An "unparished area" is just an area without parishes, and the former Wakefield CB, Ossett MB, Horbury UD and Stanley UD now constitute a single unparished area. The 4 former districts do not exist in zombie fashion as separate units within that single contiguous area, but the 4 places certainly do still exist within it. For instance, while in 1970 the boundary of Wakefield CB passed through the junction of Dewsbury Road and Broadway, there is no formal entity called "Wakefield proper" which has actual boundaries, so there's no reason to consider that Wakefield today has exactly the same boundaries as the CB. Likewise while Stanley UD also covered Wrenthorpe, Outwood and Kirkhamgate, the modern Stanley is just the village of Stanley, not the other areas. As for doing parish-arithmetic and saying modern Kirkhamgate = "The part of Alverthorpe with Thornes not merged in to Wakefield"... in 1894? Hell no.

While its unfortunate that boundary of those places will not be rigorously defined, that's the inevitable consequence of not having proper administrative units covering them. In terms of how some organisations do draw the line: The Wakefield observatory - run by the district council - has Stanley is restricted to within the ward that contains it. ONS uses the M1 to split Osset and Horbury from Wakefield, but didn't even try to split Stanley from Wakefield in 2011. Back in 2001 it identified Lofthouse/Stanley as distinct from Wakefield. They drew the boundary line roughly along the A650 (so both Wrenthorpe and the buildings around Ferry Lane were included in Wakefield). Royal Mail has Stanley solely in WF3, so the Ferry Lane area plus the areas east of Baker Lane. The industrial estates east of J40 are in WF5, so RM attaches them to Ossett.

IMO, Royal Mail seems like a good starting point. That's simply because category titles can strongly resemble addresses: Category:Baker Lane, Stanley, West Yorkshire matches RM, while Category:Ashbury Chase, Stanley, West Yorkshire‎ doesn't (RM has it in Outwood, which is much more accurate). If the category title doesn't match the address, that seems odd. I'd certainly prefer saying Silkwood Park is in Ossett to Kirkhamgate.

In short, I oppose using the former UD in the category tree. Commons is primarily about the present situation, not the historical. The hierarchy should not be City of Wakefield -> Stanley -> Wrenthorpe, but City of Wakefield -> Wrenthorpe (or City of Wakefield -> Wakefield -> Wrenthorpe). A link to Wakefield seems natural, while Stanley is a historical legacy. Pinging Mtaylor848, who you also discussed this with.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:32, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Squares ---> Urban squares

Good job dear friend ;-)--Threecharlie (talk) 16:20, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

And thanks for your help in Italy. Skinsmoke (talk) 18:37, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Was there a discussion of this massive series of moves somewhere? I missed it. - Themightyquill (talk) 06:32, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

The main category has been at Category:Urban squares for 12 years. Category:Squares covers the geometric shape. Skinsmoke (talk) 21:37, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't know about other countries, but in Hungary, you've moved a lot of "Streets and squares in X" categories to just "Streets in X" thus removing the sub-categories for specific squares from the Squares/Urban squares category tree. - Themightyquill (talk) 06:36, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

If you look at the global category tree, Category:Urban squares is a subcategory of Category:Streets. There is no Category:Streets and squares. The national category tree should mirror that, and certainly Category:Streets and squares in X should not be a subcategory of Category:Urban squares in X, which is what the situation was in some Hungarian localities. Although urban squares are streets, streets are not urban squares. The urban squares in those locations need to be separated out into a subcategory of Category:Streets in X at Category:Urban squares in X. Skinsmoke (talk) 21:37, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Personally, I would have accepted the change had you proposed it, so I'm not arguing against it. But because you did this alone without discussion, you moved a great number of categories and images of squares into streets categories when there are appropriate squares categories. Is there a reason you left Category:Squares in Hungary as it is? - Themightyquill (talk) 07:58, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes. I am working through the subcategories of Category:Urban squares by city by country. Category:Squares in Hungary is not one of those, and it is physically impossible for anyone to deal with all the related subcategories at the same time. Category:Squares in Hungary will eventually get dealt with as a subcategory of Category:Urban squares by country. I would contest that the eighteen (not "a large number") categories were in appropriate "squares categories": they weren't. Nor were they even in the general pattern adopted for most of Hungary. However, if you wish to create categories for Category:Urban squares in X for each of these, as subcategories of Category:Streets in X, you would have my full support. The localities involved are Almásfüzitő, Balatonfüred, Békécsaba, Budakeszi, Érd, Gödöllő, Gyöngyös, Jászberény, Komárom, Makó, Nyíregyháza, Pápa, Székesfhérvár, Szentendre, Tamási, Tata, Tihany and Vác (I'm pretty sure that's the lot). Skinsmoke (talk) 10:20, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

I didn't say they were in appropriate categories, I said appropriate categories (namely Category:Squares in Hungary) exist. When you move those categories and images of squares out of "Streets and squares" to just "streets" categories, it's less than ideal. You may have only renamed 18 categories, but they had a large number of sub-categories which were affected. Those sub-categories of Category:Squares in Hungary are just the ones I found while looking through your edits. There may well be more that I missed. It also doesn't include any of the images of squares that you moved. Again, I don't disagree with your moves, I'm just not super impressed with the way you went about it. I think it warranted discussion. - Themightyquill (talk) 21:35, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Districts

I see that you moved many districts from Foo to Foo district like Category:North Norfolk District. I was wandering if that should be done with Category:South Holland, Lincolnshire and Category:Castle Point, Essex. In this case there isn't local ambiguity on Wikipedia but South Holland could still be thought to be about the southern area of w:Holland, Lincolnshire. GeoNames calles it "Castle Point District" like most districts as with Carlisle. w:WP:NATURALDIS would seem to apply here as I indeed think it is more common to say "Carlisle District" than just "Carlisle" for the district that's where I thought the article would be[5]. Its just that w:WP:UKDISTRICTS suggests that "districts with non-local ambiguity the county name is suffixed as in Waverley, Surrey" but maybe because we need to be clearer we don't need to follow that. Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:56, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, only just seen this. The actual name of "Carlisle District" is "City of Carlisle", as it is the district, not the settlement, that holds city status. South Holland I would say would lead to a degree of confusion if under "South Holland District", as there really needs to be something a little clearer to distinguish from the province of South Holland, in the Netherlands. The disambiguation by ceremonial county makes that quite clear. As to Castle Point, I can't see any advantage in moving to "Castle Point District", other than consistency with other districts. There is no other "Castle Point" as far as I can see, and disambiguation is therefore not really needed. I don't feel strongly either way though, to be honest. Skinsmoke (talk) 02:21, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

The point is that "City of Carlisle" isn't used in sources try searching for "City of Carlisle" -Wikipedia and "Carlisle District" -Wikipedia. "Carlisle District" would appear to be its common name, be less confusing and what people would naturally refer to it as. With South Holland it was at "South Holland District" until I moved it but your reasoning for it staying where is makes sense. With Castle Point there are many so I would suggest keeping it disambiguated. Crouch, Swale (talk) 07:07, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

To be honest, I think we should maintain consistency with English Wikipedia on Carlisle. The issue has been discussed ad nauseam there, and even led to an edit war at one point. As for Castle Point, you are right. There is more than one, and more importantly, there is more than one category on Wikimedia Commons. There is currently a proposal to move Category:Castle Point, Essex to Category: Borough of Castle Point, which would be the correct terminology rather than Category:Castle Point District. Skinsmoke (talk) 18:05, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

File:The White Swan Public House sign, Connington - geograph.org.uk - 1307801.jpg

File:The White Swan Public House sign, Connington - geograph.org.uk - 1307801.jpg has been listed at Commons:Deletion requests so that the community can discuss whether it should be kept or not. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this file, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it, such as a copyright issue. Please see Commons:But it's my own work! for a guide on how to address these issues. Please remember to respond to and – if appropriate – contradict the arguments supporting deletion. Arguments which focus on the nominator will not affect the result of the nomination. Thank you!

bjh21 (talk) 20:50, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Category:Upton_by_Chester

Upton by Chester has been listed at Commons:Categories for discussion so that the community can discuss ways in which it should be changed. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this category, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for discussion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it. If the category is up for deletion because it has been superseded, consider the notion that although the category may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new category. In all cases, please do not take the category discussion personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:10, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Category:Windermere Town

The name of the parish appears to be just Windermere though the ward is called Windermere Town. On w:Civil parishes in Cumbria you also put it as "Windermere Town". Though this may be an acceptable form of natural disambiguation its name does not appear to be Windermere Town. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:13, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Looks like the name has been changed. It was originally known by the rather stupid "Windermere Town" (Windermere Town Town Council? Really?), but I notice that Ordnance Survey Election Maps now have the civil parish by the much more sensible "Windermere". No idea when it changed, and at the moment can't be bothered checking to be honest. Election Maps is usually a fairly definitive indicator of the official name. Skinsmoke (talk) 02:10, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

The "town" was probably added to prevent confusion with the lake. Would suggest moving to Category:Windermere (civil parish), this makes it clear that it is not for Category:Windermere, Cumbria (town). Crouch, Swale (talk) 06:58, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps Category:Windermere, Cumbria (civil parish) would be more consistent with the category for the settlement. The civil parish also includes Bowness on Windermere, so merging the two is perhaps not a good idea. Skinsmoke (talk) 17:44, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

There is no need to add "Cumbria" onto the settlement category, Category:Windermere (civil parish) is precise enough. The settlement has to be titled that way because of the lake in Cumbria and Windermere, Florida also being a town. IMO the settlement would be better at Category:Windermere (Cumbrian town) but for some places that might not be possible to use (for example Greater Manchester) so the current title is probably OK. Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:11, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Wirral Urban District

I have created a category with this name, this was preferable to having the unparished cat at Category:Heswall, or should have it just stayed as Heswall? I'm just asking as you added the cat to Heswall. Crouch, Swale (talk) 15:40, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

I chose "Heswall" purely because I thought "Wirral" was confusing enough, with the urban district (and then unparished are), the metropolitan borough and the peninsula. I'm just as happy with "Wirral Urban District" when I think about it, and think it may well be a better option. Thanks for asking! Skinsmoke (talk) 01:58, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

What should be done with Category:Great Warley, shouldn't that be in the Brentwood unparished area cat. Should Category:Bulkington, Warwickshire be classified as an unparished area as it was a CP and UD (but the UD was abolished in 1932). Is Category:Wilton, Redcar and Cleveland an unparished area in its own right? What about Manchester, should the unparished area and district be separate, noting that there are still many "City of Manchester" cats. Crouch, Swale (talk) 14:13, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Great Warley was a civil parish until 1934, when it was split. The southern part became part of Hornchurch Urban District, and subsequently Greater London, while the northern part, including the village itself, was incorporated into Brentwood Urban District. So yes, I would agree it should be categorised as part of Brentwood unparished area.

Although Bulkington Urban District was abolished in 1932, it initially continued as a civil parish within Rugby Rural District, although only for six years. In 1938 the parish was abolished and the area incorporated into Bedworth Urban District, so I would suggest it should be categorised as part of Bedworth unparished area.

Wilton was a separate civil parish until 1974, although it had been incorporated into Guisborough Urban District from 1932. At local government reorganisation, the southernmost part remained with Guisborough, while the northern part, including the village, became part of what was to become the Borough of Redcar and Cleveland, so yes I would argue it should be categorised as an unparished area in its own right.

Manchester is a tricky one. The present City of Manchester is almost entirely made up of the former County Borough of Manchester, which is an unparished area. The exception is the single civil parish, Ringway. Technically you are correct, that the unparished area and the city should be separately categorised, as they are for almost every similar instance in England (Coventry, Bournemouth, Birmingham) but there is some vociferous opposition to this. It's not an argument I would want to get involved in at this time. There are more important things to worry about! Skinsmoke (talk) 12:14, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Great Warley fixed.

Bulkington parish wasn't abolished until 1974[6]. I expect like Burton and Topsham it will become a CP again soon (then it won't be under Bedworth anymore). If Bedworth becomes a CP then it will be an unparished area in its own right. If the far less likely thing happens and a CP is formed in between them then both will be unparished areas in their own right, like how Brighton and Saltdean are separate unparished areas from Brighton CB because of Rottingdean becoming a CP.

Added former CP cat.

Its also that there are many "City of Manchester" sub cats, but the main cat doesn't make the distinction. I will just leave it if you don't think it is needed.

What about Category:Borough of Havant, Havant and Waterloo UD covered, apparently the same area as the current borough. But the Hayland Island and Emsworth are large communities in their own right. What sould be done with Category:Byfleet? it was in Woking UD but was a parish until 2010. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:46, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't care whatever the hell you do about things like this. But one thing I will oppose most strongly. That's saying "City of Manchester = Manchester + Ringway". That's simply not true. The area "City of Manchester - Ringway" is "the unparished area in the City of Manchester", not "Manchester". If you want to WASTE time splitting them fine. But don't pretend the unparished area is Manchester. It isn't. (And similar story for the others)--Nilfanion (talk) 17:21, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

I said that I don't at the moment intend on splitting them, I just Skinsmoke still wanted it that's all. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:27, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

The important point is it is not automatically the case that "Unparished area in <district>" equals "town". An unparished area isn't a unit. Its an area without units. The boundaries of pre-1974 districts are of historical interest only, they have no relevance to today's places.--Nilfanion (talk) 17:45, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Which is in part why I was suggesting that Topsham needs to be clarified on WP that it isn't part of the settlement of Exeter. Even though in may have been in the unparished area or city boundaries for a long time. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:49, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

When the entire district is unparished, then it is a single unit - the DISTRICT.--Nilfanion (talk) 18:01, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

• Its now at CFD, see Commons:Categories for discussion/2019/03/Category:Wirral Urban District. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:21, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

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