Any thoughts on this thread?

[Alan Liefting]

Can someone have a read of the thread at Commons:Village_pump#removel_of_a_category_so_the_file_left_uncategorized (T-H-L). Some of the editors there are putting forward poor arguments and I get the impression that Commons is being treated as a resource for editors rather than trying to create an easily used repository of files for people who are not interested in editing.

I think I am



Alan Liefting

[Zoloft]

I read the thread.

This is a culture clash.

Your view:

Fæ, the removal of the last category is just as important as removing any one of the other categories. It is not the absolute number of categories a file has but it is whether the category is appropriate or not. Removing a completely relevant category is wrong. Removing any category instead of sub-categorising is not the best (which is what I did) but can be a means to an end. Removing a completely irrelevant category is right. Etc. Alan Liefting (talk) 06:16, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Their view:

Alan Liefting, I agree that the category system is not optimal, but it is better to have some general categories than no categories, and If you are not willing to put effort to improve categorization of those files, at least do not throw away work of others who caried the categorization that far. Of course some files might have nothing to do with any aspects of Israel, but that is hard to decide automatically for 1,157 files. --Jarekt (talk) 19:54, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Why?
You stated it:

...My editing rationale is based on what is best for those who use Commons and it appears all the other editors commenting in this thread see Commons as something that is used by editors alone. ...

I have used only snippets and quoted them out of order to emphasize the issues.

I do believe if you continue in this vein, they will block you.

[Midsize Jake]

Well... I'd say that here on Wikipediocracy, as it relates to Commons, we're more focused on pornography and the use of the site as a personal image-upload service for various people, though categorization is obviously a problem. A lot of images are miscategorized because they have no conceivable purpose, but if they don't have at least one category they become "lost," because then you can only find them if you know the filename (or the name of the user who uploaded them), correct? So people put the most generalized-looking categories they can think of on files, "Israel" being a good example. I guess they figure someone else will come along and clean them up (i.e., recategorize them) eventually, except there's no way they could keep up with that kind of volume even if it were a fun and interesting way to spend one's time, which it isn't.

I looked at some of the files in question and it looked to me (I'm not an Israeli) that the category in question, general as it is, probably could apply to about 10-20 percent of them. The rest are just snapshots or pictures of unidentified people doing unidentified things. If it were me, I guess I'd say the "Israel" category in these cases isn't doing any actual harm, so I can't blame them for deciding it's best to just leave them as-is... but are you saying it is doing harm, or is it just a matter of it not doing any good?

I suppose there are ways by which miscategorization can cause harm, but it would have to be dealt with case-by-case, which obviously wasn't your solution here. But as for things that aren't doing any good, that could be said of about 75 percent of the content hosted by Wikimedia. Some people would say it's closer to 95 percent. So you end up in a tilting-at-windmills situation - and that's often the first step on the road to giving it all up completely, which of course is what I always recommend.

[Poetlister]

Perhaps Alan could explain exactly why he removed the category. No doubt he has his reasons.

As a side issue, shouldn't categories of places in Israel, such as Category:Tel Aviv-Yafo, be subcategories?

[lilburne]

The problem is that you are dealing with fuckwits applying an idiotic system that is not fit for purpose. Take this image linkhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... 914%29.jpg[/link] the problem is that they have stupidly dragged an image, that was taken on a honeymoon in Safed Israel, from flickr into Commons simply because it has a CC license. It doesn't fit into any hierarchical categorization system, which is all the idiots have. Images like this need to be tagged, the most appropriate tags being: door, gate, entrance, metal, blue, paint, letter box, stone, quatrefoil, and drainpipe. The photographer tagged it with: safed, israel, blue, door, blue, and honeymoon, which are a hell of a lot better than the Commons fuckers can manage who even lost its geographic location.

[Lukeno94]

Commons is filled with idiots anyway. I managed to find (with the help of a friend) that a whole museum had pretty much faked every single F1 car that they own (from repainting a similar car and passing it off as another, to completely and utterly botching far older cars and just saying they're something totally different.) So I nominated a bunch for deletion. What is the response I got?

Keep Not enough reason for deletion. I see no problem. If car is "fake", is enough with rename file and add this point to the description. --Ganímedes (talk) 17:32, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, because keeping images of cars that are clearly fake (some of them aren't even close) is helpful... particularly when some idiots on foreign wikis will just instantly revert any removal of the images, even when there's an image of the real car in there, and it shows that the fake car is not even close!

[Kelly Martin]

Wikimedia tried to court librarians and archivists to develop a categorization system for Wikipedia and for Commons back in the 2005-2007 period. What happened is the architects of the current idiotic system either silently but persistently reverted the attempts to apply a rational system, or just screamed "DON'T TOUCH MY CATEGORIES THEY ARE RIGHT AND YOU ARE WRONG" and chased off the actual experts, who said "Fuck this, this is totally not worth getting into fights with obviously crazy people, I'm outta here". And so the idiotic, undisciplined, random system that you see now is what Wikimedia has and loves.

[thekohser]

My personal thought was that I liked how the thread was entitled "removel".

[eppur si muove]

A sensible system would have an automatically generated category for, or a list of, otherwise uncategorised pictures. There would then be people who would look at items on the list of category who would consider what people might use these items for and check whether they were up to the standard of other members of the categories they were candidates for or covered an aspect of any of those categories that was otherwise uncovered. If they could not find a sensible use for these items, then they should be deleted or else left in a junk folder called "stuff we're only keeping because we don't believe in deleting stuff we can't find a use for".

The users of the system would then be left with less irrelevant rubbish to go through when they want a decent photo for a particular purpose.

[Vigilant]

Categories are just a stupid, stupid way to sort pictures.

[Jim]

My thoughts on the wikipedia "category" system can be found here: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=5211

[DanMurphy]

Nowhere do they consider why they're spending so much time swiping badly composed vacation snapshots from flickr. Let alone worrying about categorizing the likes of this.


Why? Just, why?

[Alan Liefting]

Categories are just a stupid, stupid way to sort pictures.

I don't agree. It is one of the ways to sort and view pictures. Other methods, such as gallery pages, have advantages and disadvantages.

[Alan Liefting]

Can someone have a read of the thread at Commons:Village_pump#removel_of_a_category_so_the_file_left_uncategorized (T-H-L).

Now moved to Commons:Village_pump#Removal_of_a_category_so_the_file_left_uncategorized (T-H-L)

[lilburne]

Categories are just a stupid, stupid way to sort pictures.

I don't agree. It is one of the ways to sort and view pictures. Other methods, such as gallery pages, have advantages and disadvantages.

Seriously its fuxored unless the image is of something that can be hierarchically categorized. Even then it presupposes that the searcher knows what the categorization system is. This is impossible as the dumb fucks shift it about every few months or so.

I've seen a pink flower in some garden (lets say it is Kolkwitzia amabilis) but I don't know what is it. However, I do have a photo and know that it is a tubular bell-shaped flower and in sprays on a deciduous bush. How do I find an image on either Commons or wikipedia using the category system (Caprifoliaceae, Flora of China)?

[Ross McPherson]

Nowhere do they consider why they're spending so much time swiping badly composed vacation snapshots from flickr. Let alone worrying about categorizing the likes of this.


Why? Just, why?

The picture pretty much demonstrates what Alan is saying - Commons is being used as a resource for editors i.e. the composition could suit a story line, with corn in the foreground and evidence of crappy civilisation in the background. It is a picture you would find useful iif you are writing about the effect of corn/agriculture on civilisation. Otherwise it is just a sad picture of a struggling home veg patch and a struggling family's home. Somewhere behind the scenes, the family dog is chewing the tyre off the eldest son's scooter, which has been abandoned ever since Papa cut off the handle bars for scrap metal (without the son's permission because then the boy would have hidden it in a nearby cactus patch).

[Alan Liefting]

Categories are just a stupid, stupid way to sort pictures.

I don't agree. It is one of the ways to sort and view pictures. Other methods, such as gallery pages, have advantages and disadvantages.

Seriously its fuxored unless the image is of something that can be hierarchically categorized. Even then it presupposes that the searcher knows what the categorization system is. This is impossible as the dumb fucks shift it about every few months or so.

I've seen a pink flower in some garden (lets say it is Kolkwitzia amabilis) but I don't know what is it. However, I do have a photo and know that it is a tubular bell-shaped flower and in sprays on a deciduous bush. How do I find an image on either Commons or wikipedia using the category system (Caprifoliaceae, Flora of China)?

I think most things can be sorted hierarchically. As for plants there should be both common name and binomial name categorisation. The Linnean naming system actually lends itself quite nicely to the wiki categorisation system. It is a bit different for common names.

[lilburne]

Categories are just a stupid, stupid way to sort pictures.

I don't agree. It is one of the ways to sort and view pictures. Other methods, such as gallery pages, have advantages and disadvantages.

Seriously its fuxored unless the image is of something that can be hierarchically categorized. Even then it presupposes that the searcher knows what the categorization system is. This is impossible as the dumb fucks shift it about every few months or so.

I've seen a pink flower in some garden (lets say it is Kolkwitzia amabilis) but I don't know what is it. However, I do have a photo and know that it is a tubular bell-shaped flower and in sprays on a deciduous bush. How do I find an image on either Commons or wikipedia using the category system (Caprifoliaceae, Flora of China)?

I think most things can be sorted hierarchically. As for plants there should be both common name and binomial name categorisation. The Linnean naming system actually lends itself quite nicely to the wiki categorisation system. It is a bit different for common names.

Perhaps they can be sorted hierarchically but if that is all you have then the thing is useless if the person doing the looking up doesn't know where the thing is hierarchically. You cannot get to a picture of Kolkwitzia amabilis if you don't know that is what you want. Images should not be labeled only by a hierarchical category, this is why people go to flickr, or google to search for images not Commons.

The Linnean naming system is useless for non-specialists and the common name much better. Linnean naming system works when you want to refer to "X x" without ambiguity across language barriers, at a specific point in time. It falls down in that things get shuffled about all the time so if I pick up a book of Lepidoptera from the early 20th century, the Linnaen names will have no correspondence to the Linnaen name of today. However, an Imperial moth (Citheronia imperialis) in 1900 is still an Imperial moth (Eacles imperialis) in 2015.

[Jim]

The question is this. If it's a moth, and you search for "moth", does it come up?
If it's also blue, then it also needs to be returned in a search for "blue moth".

If it doesn't, or is potentially hidden in infinite layers of "sub-categories", on which one needs to click before finding it, then the system is fucked.

That's all, really.

Attributes (tags), and a usable search interface. Cache the results of intersect searches if common. I'm not seeing why this should be rocket science.

Or would that just remove all the "fun" for the "category warriors" and addicts?

We need [[Category:Blue indigenous moths of South American socialist republics]]?
No, we fucking well don't. All those things are attributes upon which one should be able to query.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

This garbage is the biggest hole in wikimedia software.
But it panders to the obsessives, and permits endlees POV labelling and defamation wars.

So expect a fix never.

[thekohser]

We need [[Category:Blue indigenous moths of South American socialist republics]]?
No, we fucking well don't. All those things are attributes upon which one should be able to query.

Semantic Mediawiki can handle that rather nicely, but Jimbo's brain wasn't fully able to grasp the benefits, so he voiced his opinion against Semantic Mediawiki, and the rest was (as we say) history.

[spp]

And blocked...

[Kelly Martin]

The problem with Commons (which I first expressed back in 2006) is that MediaWiki is almost entirely unsuitable as a digital asset manager. This is an example of "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail". Wikipedia needed a digital asset manager, because MediaWiki is really quite bad at doing digital asset management. So they went and made one, using.... MediaWiki. Yes, indeed, the stupid, it does burn.

Now, guess whose idea this was. No, really, guess.

[Poetlister]

Wikimedia tried to court librarians and archivists to develop a categorization system for Wikipedia and for Commons back in the 2005-2007 period. What happened is the architects of the current idiotic system either silently but persistently reverted the attempts to apply a rational system, or just screamed "DON'T TOUCH MY CATEGORIES THEY ARE RIGHT AND YOU ARE WRONG" and chased off the actual experts, who said "Fuck this, this is totally not worth getting into fights with obviously crazy people, I'm outta here". And so the idiotic, undisciplined, random system that you see now is what Wikimedia has and loves.

It's a bit like getting experts to try to improve articles. That's the wiki way with experts.

[EricBarbour]

Now, guess whose idea this was. No, really, guess.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?t ... ldid=34181

[Vigilant]

The problem with Commons (which I first expressed back in 2006) is that MediaWiki is almost entirely unsuitable as a digital asset manager. This is an example of "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail". Wikipedia needed a digital asset manager, because MediaWiki is really quite bad at doing digital asset management. So they went and made one, using.... MediaWiki. Yes, indeed, the stupid, it does burn.

Now, guess whose idea this was. No, really, guess.

The Mole:man?