Commons talk:First steps/Sorting

Adding images and other kinds of media files to galleries is preferred over categories as they can keep more information and look more polished to an outsider.

Um, what? Preferred? Since when? Remove it from the gallery and not only does it become an orphan, but the uploader has no idea. At least if they have their own uploads on their watchlist they can find out if categories are removed from their images. "More polished to an outsider", who decided that?

You (whoever added this particular line) also forgot to mention the major disadvantage that they require significantly more work for the uploader.

(unrelated) Maybe want to mention Xinjiang as a good gallery too. To me it is good because it it's multi-lingual, well organised and not overloaded, and also leads users to the categories for further media.

--pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Ditto. But what's more important is that categories are preferred over "galleries" as the latter approach does not associate the media files from their relevant metadata. Another issue with the galleries approach is that they are not scalable. As I see no objections to the above concern for over a month, I'm going to change this misleading sentence. Wojsyl 20:05, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Both of your opinions are irrelevant, unfortunately, since we have this vote which resulted in having a mixed system until Categories have all their disadvantages removed, for example Categories present images unordered, categories cannot be searched, moved easily, moved with version history, nor is there a simple way to redirect them. Also, they aren't cached, so they are slow. Since the text snippet contradicts the vote, I'll remove it now. -- Ayacop 07:42, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

'images should be categorized'

Hello, can you please provide me with a reference to this consensus. -- Ayacop 17:06, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The vote is clearly in favor of "Use a merged system (Duesentrieb's proposal) ... using a mixed system until it is implemented", with 37% supporting Duesentrieb's proposal and 82% of those supporting a mixed system in the meantime. The description of what that means is on the same page: "Images can be both on normal pages and in categories; some can be both, but only images that are neither are considered 'defective'." — Omegatron 16:29, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

This does not support your notion of 'images should be categorized' which you gave as reason for reverting Commons:First steps/Sorting. Hint: this differs from 'should be categorized and/or in gallery'. If you cannot give support for it, I'll have to re-revert the patch. -- Ayacop 17:46, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

That has always been the consensus, and the reason categories were created. Images must be categorized so they can be found in our hierarchical structure. They can also (optionally) be in image gallery "articles". Categories are for keeping track of images and making them easy to find; galleries are for displaying the best images of a certain type and including editorial content. Some examples of this consensus:

"The category structure is the primary way to organize and find files on the Commons. It is essential that every file can be found by browsing the category structure." (Commons:Categories)

"Files should always be added to descriptive categories, since if they are only added to galleries, they can be easily removed from them and thus "lost". Categories are useful as indiscriminately large "containers" of images on a topic. Galleries (on article pages) are useful as showcasing the best, most illustrative, informative and interesting images of a category." (Commons:FAQ)

And you should never destroy information by removing categories just because an image is part of a gallery. The vast majority of editors have agreed on this, as per the vote that I already explained to you.

If you want to change the status quo, you'll have to get support for it before changing policy/guideline pages. I will move this discussion to the talk page so it can be discussed with others, too. — Omegatron 16:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Strange... no one seems to have read the other languages. At least the german version (Commons:Erste Schritte/Sortierung) says to add pictures to a gallery page or a category and that gallery pages are preferred. I guess (for instance) Commons:Erschti Schritt/Sortierung is just a translation. The spanish version as far as I can guess says the same. Others maybe also. --BerndH 17:22, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

@Omegatron: you appear to be confused about the difference between 'removing existing categories' and 'removing of category tags from images'. Also, pictures in galleries still have their licence tags, so are at least in license categories. Uncategorized images always miss a license!

You also are confused about what we do in plants categories: images are put in species galleries, and the family category tag is removed. Information is gained, not lost, because a species is a part of a family.

Finally, you too are misrepresenting my work. I'm against removing of categories, and the policy upgrade I did to the Tree of Life Policy aims to make this reality and workable within the project. I'm on your side there, really. -- Ayacop 17:51, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

@Omegatron: Anyway, all your arguments except the text in Commons:FAQ are refuted. We'll see how that goes and, in case, re-revert here, too. Unless you come up with better arguments, of course. -- Ayacop 18:23, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

@Siebrand: See my discusion on the dutch wiki: imho you do what you condemn me for: instituting a change of policy without a vote. I reinstituted the 7 september 2006 text, without the reqwuirement to always add a category to each picture. There has never been a vote which requires a category. So please restore the etxt of 7 september. TeunSpaans 16:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

We dont vote we are a Wiki. If you have a problem go away. Arnomane 22:36, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Arnomane, I'm not quite sure what you are trying to say to who where. Could you elaborate? Siebrand 00:07, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry for my ranting (btw. the IP some time ago with the blabla comment was me, I was just logged out by accident) but I don't get it if people rant about so called policies and demand silly votes (I hate wiki votes and most wiki policies I like recommendations and the tutorial is meant as a recommendation). We all know that categories vs. galleries is currently an unsvolved issue. I tried to solve the situation somewhat when I said "categories on images are like an incoming directory on an ftp server and galleries are a sorted collection" and thus suggested removing the category if an image is sorted in the same gallery in order to avoid duplication. Well but people even didn't like that solution. I basically did gave up on that matter as long as people at least sot their images resonable be it a category or a gallery. Arnomane 00:16, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the clarification. I almost thought you had given up! :-) It's too bad that this debate has gotten so heated. A valuable Dutch contributor to the Tree of Life project has become almost inactive because of it; a tangiable loss IMO. It makes me sad that we are having this debate resulting in loss of previously enthousiastic contributors in my opinion mainly because of a lack of support for proper image search and a way to combine galleries and categories (or 'enriched categories', or however you would like to call it), and not because of people really being unreasonable in any way - both sides have valid point and there is really no best of both worlds here. We need to try and get some improvement in the core product to support this project in particular. Should we make a plea to the foundation to have more of an eye for this meta project? Siebrand 22:10, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

There is a bug - bugzilla:3712. But somehow I don't think we will be too successful asking them to overhaul the entire MediaWiki for us (although that's exactly what we need). Some of the recent fundraiser money might be used towards paying developers. Let's hope so. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 01:19, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Sections

I would add a specific section for sounds (and Category: Sound). --Mac 08:25, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

'Image' or 'File'

AFAIK we should now use rather File: than Image: - and, time by time, change to that spelling. If this is the Wikimedia policy, it would be better to tell not more about Image: on the project pages. -- sarang♥사랑 06:44, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Details

Can we detail where?: Simply place something like the following example code at the image page itself: This is gross neglect. BrendanKennedy (talk) 17:13, 27 July 2019 (UTC)