User talk:Andy Dingley

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Herculaneum is not in Pompeii ![edit]

Hi Andy. This rollback you made is a nonsense. The old Roman city of Herculaneum is not located in the old city of Pompeii! They are 20 km away from each other. I don't know why over 50% of the photos taken by Van de Poll in Herculaneum have in their name the inscription Pompeii and not Herculaneum. Obviously it is a mistake that I corrected by putting the files from Pompeii to Herculaneum. Now you make the category of the photograph of Herculaneum a sub-cat of the photos of Pompeii, i.e. you put the category of these photos of Herculaneum in the category of the photos of Pompeii. This is nonsense and it is wrong! Please correct this nonsense or I will do it. Thanks. --DenghiùComm (talk) 02:45, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I noticed your large moves of those images from Pompeii into Herculaneum; is that just an old naming error and we can be sure now that the locations are right? We could even rename the files here? Or at least add a note to the description – otherwise we have files with one name in the other category, which will just be confusing in the future (and likely to get reverted on that basis).

My point for the sub-categorisation is that we need to preserve the "Pompeii and Herculaneum" group. Maybe this make no sense to a Roman, but to a modern tourist the two sites are usually visited together. Would you be happy with a link between them instead? Andy Dingley (talk) 10:21, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

When there are errors in the files, they must be corrected, not perpetrated in the categories, even adapting the categories to them. In the meantime, I have seen that the solution that I wanted to propose to you has already been applied, that is, to create reciprocal links with "cat see also". The problem remains with the wrong names of the files that could cause someone to move the files back to the wrong category. I am a file-mover so I can change the names of the files, so I can correct the names. You could correct the descriptions of each file. This morning I identified for each photograph the exact place that is shown, and I assigned the relative categories of houses and streets (cardo or decumanus), so it is enough that you report this information in the descriptions of each file. Is this solution good for you? Thanks. Best regards --DenghiùComm (talk) 14:15, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

files renaming Done DenghiùComm (talk) 15:09, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
correction of descriptions (only a notice) Done DenghiùComm (talk) 18:37, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Categories for Pottery[edit]

Hi Andy! We chatted a week back or so when I mistook a Mackintosh table for... Mackintosh.

I am (marginally) more cognisant of how the categories work here on Wikimedia, and... I am trying to sort out the Pottery category tree. I am trying to move the category Shipibo-Conibo pottery‎ to be a subcategory of Pottery in Peru.

Have I done this? I'm trying to have the Shipibo-Conibo pottery not show up as a subcategory of pottery. Because that should be nested (not the right word, sorry) within the Peru category (as a parent category) automatically, right?

Thanks, Sicklemoon (talk) 15:10, 29 April 2020 (UTC) (trying to wreak order, not havoc)

Also--what's the difference between a subcategory and a subclass? Pottery is a subcategory of Ceramics, but Porcelain is a subclass. What's the significance of the distinction? Sicklemoon (talk) 15:27, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

It is a different material. Pottery is purified clay; when it is not purified it is called terracotta or pottery. Porcelain is not clay: it is made with kaolin. --DenghiùComm (talk) 19:15, 29 April 2020 (UtTC)

That was not my question, though, yes, many who have uploaded images have had that confusion so there are a number of porcelain items categorised as pottery. There is a massive amount of material, much of it not very well categorized, which makes it difficult to find things. This said, if I am putting time in to sort things, I want to have a clear understanding of how the category tree has been set up, and not do work that others will end up undoing.

It looks to me like this area hasn't had attention for awhile, so things are a bit disorderly. Pottery, as it stands, appears to be categorised as an activity, whereas ceramics is characterised as objects. But the people who have uploaded images have not attended to this distinction. And there are many items in pottery that should... be in porcelain.

Sicklemoon (talk) 13:57, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Several issues there!

The MediaWiki (both Commons and the Wikipedias) syntax for categories is simple, but not well explained, and so is often not understood. There are two forms:

[[Category:Pottery]]

does two things: it places that page into the category (i.e. the page will appear on the category page) and it makes the category linked from the bottom of the page.

[[:Category:Pottery]] (there's a colon prefix there)

does just the one thing, it places an inline link to the category page onto the article page. It doesn't place the page into the category.

That's the lot. Everything is built from that.

If you want to edit a lot of categories, then investigate the editing Gadgets (from your Preferences tab) for HotCat and Cat-A-Lot. Also there's a 'Batch task' thing on the LHS column, which is powerful, although somewhat slow and complicated to use.

For Category:Shipibo-Conibo pottery, I think you've already worked this out for yourself and removed the [[Category:Pottery]] from it. There's no magic definition to the category structure, it's just done link by link, from each of the sub-categories, with that syntax.

I'm not sure what you mean by "class" rather than "category"? MediaWiki has categories, not classes. We might have "class" as a concept in ontology or taxonomy, but MediaWiki doesn't do that and what it does do isn't powerful or rigorous enough to really allow such definitions to be made or implied.

I don't know what the difference between "Pottery" and "Ceramics" is, in Commons terms, or how this was arrived at (I can see several potential structures for them, but have no idea as to which was selected). You could try going to a high-level category within this and raising a "Categories for Discussion" request - however this almost never works! The discussions are ignored, so there are only a handful of editors who join in. Usually any such discussion gets dominated by one of the same handful of names, who simply shout louder and longer until they get their way (it is a mistake to take this futile situation too seriously, or to waste too much of your time on it). Commons typically copies a structure or definition from en:WP, but then expresses it in German (the most active editors in this are German, and don't have half the English language skills they think they do), badly transliterated to pidgin-English. It barely works. If the category for discussion is too high, not enough people notice (they don't watchlist high-level categories as they're "obvious" and "stable"). If the category is too low, then few people see such a narrow corner. I suggest nominating any category you like, but then pasting the notification message onto some other related categories to broaden the exposure. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:01, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Discussion Category:Monochrome pictures Kurpark Bad Mergentheim[edit]

Hi, you started a discussion at March 8th. There have been no more contributions in the discussion since March 9th. Everything necessary is said. It's required, to get a clear state. You initiated the discussion, it's still your turn! HubiB (talk) 18:16, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

That's not really how Commons DRs work. There's no time limit, thus they tend to wander on aimlessly for years. If no others, or no admins, happen to take a passing interest. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:33, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, that's obviously an easy way to disturb and and run off, not caring about your own action leading to an unresolved state. No, that's not how Commons DRs works, it's maybe how you work without following the obligation of a user feeling responsible for his results! HubiB (talk) 18:54, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

This is just the way it is. I have no magic ability to summon other editors to comment or resolve it. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:34, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, the discussion seems to be ended without further comments. This should be a reason for you to remove your "needs discussion" entry from the category to avoid this blocking like item from existing needlessly over time. Otherwise: It's you who intended to rename, I agreed. So do it! HubiB (talk) 14:22, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Commons' poor responsiveness for DRs is a problem, but it's not going to become an excuse for closing DRs how you feel anyway. If you want to get some further opinions on this, I'll ping @Themightyquill: and @Tuvalkin: who are regularly active on DRs and might have time to comment. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:27, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Gongs[edit]

Dear Andy Dingley, Today you changed Category:Gongs of the Netherlands to Gongs in the Netherlands. That seems odd, because there are 8 similar categories Gongs of [country name], and because of your reason for renaming: "They're located in the Netherlands, but they have no distinct origin, nor cultural connection there." That's simply not true. One of the gongs is used at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament. There is a Tata Steel plant in the same city, Wijk aan Zee. The other 3 photographs are depicting a modern gong, and the photos were made in the Netherlands in 1965. Do you have any evidence to link these two gongs to other countries? If not, I would like to keep both categories as separate entities, and move these 4 photographs back to the old category. Vysotsky (talk) 22:45, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

there are 8 similar categories That's not how MediaWiki categorization works, by pattern matching. It works by parent categories, which these categories all have in common.

You might also note that the other countries have specific national types of gong, often with specific subcategories, because they each have a long and distinct tradition of using gongs. The Netherlands do not. If we had images of the Rank Pictures gongman Bombardier Billy Wells, or of Pink Floyd's Nick Mason, then they too (famous gongs though they are) would be "gongs in the United Kingdom" rather than of. The UK has no gong tradition either. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:56, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Informative. I am glad you're an expert on Dutch gongs. I didn't know the Netherlands had no tradition on using gongs. Thanks! Vysotsky (talk) 00:10, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Euwe 1956
Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands in 1968
Willem de Koning in 1911
Adriaen van Ostade (1650s)

If you're seriously equating the musical traditions of Bali with a town crier's simple noise-maker, then there's little point in discussing this. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:28, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm not equating or comparing. This is not about the quality of gong traditions. I'm quoting: "They're located in the Netherlands, but they have no distinct origin, nor cultural connection there" -which is simply not true. I just wonder why you ever started to make a difference between of and in. And I will stop banging on this gong. Vysotsky (talk) 00:43, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

The "of" / "in" distinction is a perennial issue. Typically for cars and the like, where there's a clear and obvious distinction between origin and present location. DAF vehicles (as a group) are car makers of the Netherlands, but a photograph of a single DAF in Warsaw is a car in Poland. If I eat haggis in Antwerp, that doesn't make it Belgian. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:49, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

That's interesting. So a gong made in the Netherlands, located in the Netherlands, would be a gong of the Netherlands? (Last time I ate haggis was in Edinburgh, 2019.) Vysotsky (talk) 01:03, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

See you're from Cymru. Love Blaenau Ffestiniog! Vysotsky (talk) 01:08, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

That might depend. If we associate "of" with a concept of "origin" (this is largely supported on Commons), then what does "origin" mean? And does that change with the nature of the object? Is a Volkswagen car still German if it's a Czech design, built in Spain? Do the Netherlands have vast gong factories? Turkey does, because they might not have them as part of their musical tradition, but they do have a considerable manufacturing history for hand-worked cuprous alloys (most of the world's cymbal makers are in Turkey, or have their origins in Turkey). But in this case, I know of the Netherlands neither having a musical tradition based on gongs, nor a tradition of making them, so neither would apply. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:14, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Nor for that matter am I from Cymru. I'm in Cymru, not of it. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:14, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

File tagging File:EAW plug wiring teatowel.jpg[edit]

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Roy17 (talk) 10:50, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Please[edit]

Do not consider my reverts as edit war or any kind of confrontation. If you open Category:Iron beam bridges, in the "blank area" you'll see iron beam bridges sorted by country‎, function and type. The "A-Z area" is for named bridges, hence, Cast-iron beam bridges should go in the middle (at least temporarily). The same principle exists in tens of other similar cases related to the categorization of bridges. If you have any objections or suggestions, please just leave me message instead of making improvisations which make things messy. I'm doing it for days and it's not easy at all, and I don't say everything I did is without a mistake. --Orijentolog (talk) 10:33, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

It was already sorted to the start (had you not looked and seen this?) Cast iron is not spelled with an asterisk.

Also please don't change the name of template parameters to non-existent values. Even if that value "makes more sense", it's not what the template uses. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:03, 9 July 2020 (UTC)