User talk:Enyavar

Welcome to Wikimedia Commons, Enyavar!

First steps tutorial Our first steps tour and our frequently asked questions will help you a lot after registration. They explain how to customize the interface (for example the language), how to upload files and our basic licensing policy (Wikimedia Commons only accepts free content). You don't need technical skills in order to contribute here. Be bold when contributing and assume good faith when interacting with others. This is a wiki. Getting help More information is available at the community portal. You may ask questions at the help desk, village pump or on IRC channel #wikimedia-commons (webchat). You can also contact an administrator on their talk page. If you have a specific copyright question, ask at the copyright village pump.

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-- 18:42, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

About File:Arab Boycott map.svg

Taiwan has never participated the boycott. --Elnino199127 (talk) 12:07, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

I was using Gil Feiler, page 40, as a source for that: he claims that at some point, yes they did, "by 1987" which could mean they joined only in the 1980ies and stopped in the 1990ies after only a few years. He lists 26 states in the same breath, so no details are given. Best, --Enyavar (talk) 05:18, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Locator maps

Dear Enyavar, Good day, Thank you for your kind message. Nowadays i am so busy with my school. But i will complete for all Turkish provinces.--Emreculha (talk) 18:49, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

File:Silk Road in the I century AD - ru.svg

Hi!
Please, tell me why did you do this?

Hi, I was categorizing maps, and stumbled upon a couple maps that didn't belong into "Route Maps", hence I removed unnessecary categories. The end goal is to have maps of similar extents, timeframes or topics sorted together; and different types of maps sorted separately. And neither did these two maps of the silk road show "Natural Earth" nor are they showing local directions which would be the purpose of a "route map" (check the other maps within "Route maps"). --Enyavar (talk) 16:22, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Category:Natural Earth contains images created using data from the site www.naturalearthdata.com. If you look at the section "Source" of the file Summary, you will see that this picture was made using this data. As for the routes, I'm at a loss. The map consists of route images almost entirely. Look at there or there. --Kaidor (talk) 16:48, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

I restored the Natural Earth category, thanks for pointing out my error here. Merely 1000 maps have that category so far, so apologies, I didn't know. It is a valid maps-by-source cat.

About "Route maps", well we have hundreds of thousands of maps that highlight one route or the other. So we need to subclassify them as specifically as possible, in this case Category:Maps of the Silk Road", in other cases Category:Route maps in Connecticut or Category:Airline maps or Category:Maps of sea routes, etc. In the ideal world, the "Route maps" category would have no entry at all, only several thousand sub-sub-categories. --Enyavar (talk) 17:18, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Then I suggest including Category: Maps of the Silk Road into Category: Route maps.--Kaidor (talk) 17:56, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

It took me a while, but a month ago I placed it in Category:Maps of trade routes --Enyavar (talk) 22:56, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Category:Maps of the United States by theme

Hello. I see your native language is German. Mine is English. In English we wouldn't normally prefer this:

• Category:Cultural maps of the United States

over this:

• Category:Maps of the United States by theme

So I used Cat-a-lot to move the maps there. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:05, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

So you emptied the more specific category and put all the content into its broader parent category, leaving an empty node in the category tree? I didn't invent the structure, I merely put it in place as the maps of the US were mostly not sorted at all. There is "Category for Discussion" for a reason, why didn't you use that first? English is the universal and defining language of the Category tree, so following your argument, there shouldn't be any "Cultural maps of <places>". --Enyavar (talk) 05:18, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Actually, yes. None of the categories and subcategories inside this overall "cultural" category seem right to me:

Category:Cultural maps of the Americas

--Timeshifter (talk) 11:01, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Right, I created a CfD already. --Enyavar (talk) 11:50, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Please post the link here. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:28, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

You were notified by username, and I thought nobody else would read my talk page right now. Here you go: Commons:Categories_for_discussion/2022/01#Category:Cultural_maps_by_region --Enyavar (talk) 21:38, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

About deletion nominations

Hi: It is typical for one person to nominate, others to comment and a different person (usually an administrator) to close. I find things that have been previously categorized as no source, no category or no license. Most of those are just plain "Delete" and never worry about it again. However, occasionally I come across images which seem to have the wrong license or something else that could be fixed. It is not customary here for the finder to "just do it" unless the situation is absolutely cut-and-dried, obvious, no questions. What is typical is that the finder tosses the image/s over to Deletion Nominations to get the help from the community to fix the issues. While I deal with copyright all the time, I am not an expert on Crown Copyright - others are. We just wait until the discussion either provides the correct tags or other information - or an administrator expert resolves it. We don't rage at the system, we just share the load. Cheers! Ellin Beltz (talk) 00:36, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Some cheers back, and I can't really object to any of your statements. Which of my recent deletion requests led you to make this comment? --Enyavar (talk) 06:20, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Category: Republic of Rino Island

I thought I could upload images of micronations. What is the reason for its total elimination? Not even the flag and shield are relevant to commons? Is there a policy on images of flags and coats of arms? Sorry my English, I only speak Spanish What is the criteria to accept or not images of micronations? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arturoloretti (talk • contribs) 13:49, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi, please check out Commons:Scope and Commons:Deletion policy to find out about that, it should be translated to all major languages. Following that guideline, I understand that the fictional micronation should have been portrayed in prominent media. Sealand or Liberland GOT that news coverage, while the Deltarian Empire is unknown. (If you can find other examples on commons which encouraged you to also go public on commons - just point them out and they may be dealt with just the same. --Enyavar (talk) 14:42, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

These were the categories and images that made me believe that photographs of micronations could be included in Wikimedia Commons:

• File:Bandera_Virtualkingdom.jpg
• Category:State_of_Vishwamitra
• Category:Castoria
• Category:Central_Saharan_Republic

I did not find information in the news media about any of them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arturoloretti (talk • contribs) 15:36, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, deletion is pending on all of them by now. --Enyavar (talk) 22:56, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

1st crusade

Hello.

I don't really understand what is the problem with this category Maps concerning the First Crusade. Could you please give me a clue for that matter. Regards.

--Io Herodotus (talk) 13:57, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

"Famines in China"

[Category:Go-Hing_Festival,_Seattle,_1921&oldid=664819191]: Obviously, not an is-a relationship, but it was a fundraiser for famine relief. If we had a category for the specific famine of course I would have put it there instead, but we don't. - Jmabel ! talk 22:41, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Autopatrol given

Hello. I just wanted to let you know that I have granted autopatrol rights to your account; the reason for this is that I believe you are sufficiently trustworthy and experienced to have your contributions automatically marked as "reviewed". This has no effect on your editing, it is simply intended to make it easier for users that are monitoring Recent changes or Recent uploads to find unproductive edits amidst the productive ones like yours. In addition, the Flickr upload feature and an increased number of batch-uploads in UploadWizard, uploading of freely licensed MP3 files, overwriting files uploaded by others and an increased limit for page renames per minute are now available to you. Thank you. --Minorax^«¦talk¦» 05:22, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Nonono, don't thank me - thank you --Enyavar (talk) 06:06, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Flags of Toopian Nations

Dear Sir or Madam, I read your reasoning and related Wikimedia articles and I am in complete understanding and agreement with it. My question is in regards to where is best to categorize these files on the platform. It seems to me that there are various fictional flags hosted on this platform and therefore that it is appropriate for me to upload them in theory. My question is in regards to how I would appropriately go about this. I am not a highly tech savvy person and my expertise with Wikimedia Commons is limited, and you seem to be quite a bit more expert in this regard. Is it necessary for me to include the word fictional in the files' titles or do they need to be categorized differently? Or are they completely inappropriate for this platform, altogether? I would appreciate your input, as I would sincerely like to have these files available on Wikimedia Commons. Best Regards Presromanaw (talk) 02:54, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

The latter: inappropriate on this platform. Please read my user page to learn about my stance on the matter, and read Commons:Scope to learn about the community rules. Once we allow personal fiction, we'd get absolutely swamped - in fact, we already get swamped with stuff like yours. If you want to point out other fictional flags on Commons, then please do so, I treat everyone's files with the same standard. --Enyavar (talk) 05:15, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Ulrich von Zell Wirkungsorte e.i. - old maps as a base

origin of this was here

Thank you, Anyavar, for your comments concerning my use of old maps. The base of Ulrich von Zell map was published in 1954 and I would be only to happy to provide full details of the publication. But - shame on me - I don't know in which field of the Structured Data it should be done. As for Breisgau zur Karolingerzeit there is an obvious mistake in the name of my file - the book which I used was published in 1836. Again, I'm not sure how to correct it. I hugely appreciate your paying attention to these files and do agree they need correcting - please help me do it so that I know next time.DaLoetz (talk) 18:37, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @DaLoetz: for offering the full details. You may post them here and I'll try to carry them into the file descrptions, but you could also do it yourself. There is no definite/best formatting of sources I believe, but there is of course the possibility to mis-state them (and many uploaders do!). People who are used to mostly publish their own photos, can just forget to make different source claims when they upload old stuff, and also go with "current date, own work". So, for easy example, I present File:Portugal_OSM_Zoom_9.png: I can edit "Date", "Source" and "Author": in the first I can give the original year of publishing; in the source I can refer to where the map came from; under author I first credited the source and then myself because I did some minor arranging. In your case, "1834" is the date, "source" should name the book and edition number, then "author" gives the author(s) of the original map plus a mention of what you added, if anything. All the best, --Enyavar (talk) 22:54, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

HUGE THANKS! I've made the changes you recommended:

File:Breisgau zur Zeit der Karolinger Karte in "Badische Landes-Geschichte" v. Josef Bader, 18936.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

The number in the file name is still wrong but I have no way to correct it. It's the year in which the book I used was published (1836), which was a reprint of the first publication in 1834.

File:Ulrich von Zell Wirkungsorte.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

But I can't figure out why after all my changes this file info still shows Own Work as Source. It really beats me. I tried to compare the description in your file, but as it doesn't exhibit Structured Data I can't see how you filled in the fields there.

Anyway I do hope it is better, fairer, now. And you have helped me enormously to get to grips with Wikimedia (that is in fact more complicated than writing articles). Best regards. DaLoetz (talk) 19:59, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Huh, it seems that changing descriptions within the file is less obviously available. So, here's a better walkthrough: At the top right of each file's page, in the line below your username, there is an "Edit" button. By clicking on it, you are then able to edit the source code. Here is a revision comparison for your perusal.
Um... are we talking about the same Zeißig? The one you have stated, was a sculptor who died in 1944. If the person who created the map that was published in 1954, was still alive then, the map should get deleted, regrettably. Copyright law of Germany says "Life+70 years", so if the cartographer Zeißig died (for example!) in 1960, the map can get restored in 2030 by the admins.
All the best, -Enyavar (talk) 20:34, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Category:Elections by country by year

with the current contents it should be Elections by year by country. RZuo (talk) 18:35, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi, what exactly sparked this comment? Most election categories are by now set up in the pattern of "<year> elections in <country>", but there are often country-specific subcategories of each singular election process, that deviate from said pattern. Check for example: Category:2011_elections_in_Europe. I think that in the long term we can eventually homogenize the patterns internationally, but there is no reason why one pattern is superior over the other. --Enyavar (talk) 21:00, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Elections by country by year -> 2021 elections by country

Elections by year by country -> Elections in France by year RZuo (talk) 21:37, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Possibly. Please explain: what is the purpose of writing me? --Enyavar (talk) 21:39, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Category:Elections_by_country_by_year

Elections by country by year 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!

RZuo (talk) 22:05, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Unidentified maps by Gaby56000

Hallo Enyavar,
ich sehe, dass Du die Karte File:Bèrcay Land.xcf mit "Difficult case because there are no WP-articles "Aftam"/"Bèrcay" nor can I find a region with that names." beschrieben hast. Ich bin mir absolut sicher, dass alle Uploads von Gaby56000 völlig fiktional sind und keine reale Geographie abbilden.
Herzliche Grüße --Bürgerentscheid (talk) 21:32, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Ich war nicht sicher, aber ich hab mal nach 4-Augenprinzip gehandelt. LG Enyavar (talk) 05:25, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Category:Unidentified politicians

Hallo, wenn Du Einzelpersonen aus der Category:Politics aufräumst, verschieb sie doch bitte zunächst in die Category:Politicians statt in die Category:Unidentified politicians. Bei fast allen lässt sich zumindest das Land bestimmen - und da ist es weniger Aufwand, die Länderkategorie zu Politicians hinzuzufügen (sonst muss man für Hotcat immer erst "Unidentified" löschen, das nervt irgendwann...). Viele Grüße, Rudolph Buch (talk) 14:18, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Moin, würdest du dich dann um die "Politicians" kümmern? Von T abwärts mach ich dir das gerne. Ich habe hier einfach vorsichtshalber gehandelt, die Bilder liegen ja oft seit Jahren in der Kategorie.

Bei den "unidentified politicians" hatte ich den Plan, als nächstes noch einmal grob drüberzugehen (DRs auf Selbstdarsteller, Politische Journalisten sowie Kundgebungen wieder herausfischen und anders einordnen) und dann entsprechend in die "Unidentified politician of <country>" einordnen, wo ja alle hinmüssten, die keine Namenskategorie haben. Ich kann sie dir aber stattdessen auch einfach nach "Politicians" zurückschieben. LG --Enyavar (talk) 14:46, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Ich arbeite immer wieder mal an "Politicians" und versuche, sie wenigstens in "Politicians of country" zu bringen, das gelingt bei etwa 95 Prozent der Bilder. Dort kümmern sich dann hoffentlich die landesbezogenen Spezialisten darum, in DE klappt das ja ganz gut. Mal schauen, ob ich das wirklich für alle derzeit 2250 Bilder durchhalte. "Unidentified" wäre für mich nur dann zutreffend, wenn es wirklich keinen Identifizierungshinweis gibt (also weder ein Personenname in der Dateibeschreibung noch im Dateinamen und keine Artikelverwendung), nur wegen fehlender Individualkategorie würde ich sie eigentlich nicht als unidentifiziert betrachten, aber mach da gerne, wie Du magst. Rudolph Buch (talk) 15:31, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Die unidentifizierten Politiker sind jetzt wieder unter 2000 Bildern, aber es ist schon eine ordentliche Arbeit, gerade weil ich auch die restlichen Uploads prüfe: Fast in allen Fällen sind die Unidentifizierten von Einmal-Accounts angelegt worden, die nur einen Schwung Bilder abgeladen haben und dann nie wieder aktiv waren. Wenn es nur wenige Bilder von einem Politiker(in) gibt, dann lege ich keine neuen Kategorien an, sondern lege sie nur in die Unidentifizierte Länderkategorie, die ich jetzt zum Teil angelegt habe. Und auch Politikerbilder die ich in Category:Politicians of Bolivia finde, die aber keine plausible Bildbeschreibung haben, die einen Namen verrät, schiebe ich beim Anlegen der Kategorie nach "Unidentifiziert". Nicht in allen Ländern gibt es so disziplinierte Kategorisierer wie in DE/EU. ;-D --Enyavar (talk) 21:38, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Ja, mühsam, aber "Politicians" sind jetzt unter 1800. Ich verschiebe weiterhin nur in die Landeskategorien und kümmere mich nicht darum, was dort weiter passiert: Ich habe einfach keine Ahnung, wie die politischen Strukturen in Indien oder Brasilien sind und bin überfordert, dort feiner zu kategorisieren. Ich grüble aber darüber, ob vielleicht landesspezifische Sammelkategorien für Politiker ohne Wikipedia-Artikel sinnvoll wären. Bei Personen ohne Artikel(-relevanz) sind Individualkategorien IMHO meistens nicht lohnend, aber die Einzelbilder machen die Themenkategorien unordentlich und erschweren es, neu hinzukommende Bilder zu erkennen und aufzuräumen. Rudolph Buch (talk) 13:33, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Schon recht - bei Personen ohne eigene Relevanz und mit mieser Beschreibung zögere ich auch nicht, direkt die Löschung anzuregen. --Enyavar (talk) 13:38, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

I created a template for you

If in the future you will continue a number of your maps, then design them in this template: {{Other versions/Ancient Near East}} Пётр Тарасьев (talk) 12:45, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I originally planned to complete the series (my progress went up to the 1200s when I temporarily gave up, but I will find motivation to start up again, hopefully); so thanks a lot for what you did today! Just to be sure what you did: In the first moment I thought you made a new SVG template... but I still create and upload the next maps of the series like I used to, right? And then I include the uploads into this template which is a graphical list of all versions of the near east map. Correct?

Another thing, the maps are still floating around in Category:Other_versions_templates, shouldn't they be sorted into a subcategory? --Enyavar (talk) 14:24, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

@Enyavar If you are doing a series of cards about the Middle East in the same style, then put these cards in the template I made Пётр Тарасьев (talk) 14:32, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

@Enyavar but about sorting the template - I don’t understand what needs to be done and why all these cards are at the bottom Пётр Тарасьев (talk) 14:35, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

@Enyavar the template itself is not shown in the list Пётр Тарасьев (talk) 14:40, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

File:Fight For Justice.jpg

Regarding that file here https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fight_For_Justice.jpg I think that you miscategorised it. The uniforms in it match those of Indian civilian police as you can see here https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Police_of_India The officer on the right with a blue cap has a cloth badge on his shoulder. Not all the writing on that badge is clear to see but, it includes the words “CITY POLICE.” You can add the file to the category Police of India.

If you want, I can refer you to a separate photograph that you can add to the category Military police. That would be a replacement. Dreddmoto (talk) 23:06, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

@Dreddmoto: Of course, just change the categories, I hold no stakes in the picture whatsoever. You may also want to replace "Unidentified locations" with the correct city, too. My main objective was to identify the Politician (as part of a campaign to move thousands of pictures out of the Category:Politics), and after finding more of the stuff I switched my edit from Category:Unidentified politicians of India to the current identifier, but didn't change the other categories in the same breath. Apologies. --Enyavar (talk) 04:56, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. I'll make the changes and add the replacement photograph. --Dreddmoto (talk) 22:20, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Replacement? What for? --Enyavar (talk) 06:34, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Ottoman Empire history maps

hello

Thank you for your interest. In fact at the moment the A-H has very few maps showing history.

About the "Ottoman Empire history maps", do you think it could be organized by decades ? I don't think it's necessary by year.

I have tried to start something with Category:Maps of the history of the Ottoman Empire in the 1560s. I don't undertand why it is categorised with Category:1560s maps of Asia, it should be "Maps of the history of Asia" but it's late here.

Regards

---Io Herodotus (talk) 21:30, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

"Maps of the history of <place>" means maps that depict the history of that <place>.

"Old maps of <place>" means contemporary maps of that <place>.

"1560s maps of Asia" means maps that were created between 1560 and 1569, that show Asia to their knowledge back then. A 1895 map, or a map created today, when showing Asia in the 1560s is a "Map of the history of Asia", or a "Map of 16th-century Asia". The category you created here is named so that old maps from the 1560s may not be included. Wasn't your plan about something like "Maps showing the Ottoman Empire in the 1560s"? That would include both old maps and history maps. --Enyavar (talk) 06:23, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you

I mean Template:MapHistoryOttomanDecade should generate "<date> Maps of the history of Asia" and "<date> Maps of the history of Europe", but it generates "<date> maps of Asia". I don't understand why.

--Io Herodotus (talk) 10:11, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Ah! Okay, I mostly use templates that work from other areas, and modify them. But as far as I understand that template, it should work like you say, not like how it works right now. Maybe it transcludes the category from another template?

Anyway, I see only about 60 maps about 15th century history of the O.E., I don't think that's enough to justify ten subcategories. --Enyavar (talk) 10:23, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Category:Books_published_in_London_by_year

Books published in London by year 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!

Ricky81682 (talk) 07:36, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Főispánok - Lord-lieutenants of a county in Hungarian Kingdom

I've uploaded eight pictures that you put in a category that says: Unidentified politicians of Hungary. Please, if I add the caption, as I did for File:Főispánok, Magyar Szalon, 1885, 5. kötet, 2. évf. 441.oldal.jpg, will that be OK? Bizottmány (talk) 16:52, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Bizottmány: , I did not check each individual file. These files were just put into "(male) politician of Hungary" in that main category-collection, and didn't have file names that make it clear what their names were. It definitely helps to have captions, too. But as long as they are sorted in these men's correct categories, I'm already okay. I'm going to remove that "unidentified" thing from the files now. Thanks for caring, and sorry again! --Enyavar (talk) 20:43, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Dear Enyavar! Thank you very much for your quick response and action. Best regards! :-))--Bizottmány (talk) 21:27, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Unidentified politicians of [...]

I'm sorry but I'm not following your logic of populating this category. The majority of these photos have the name of the depicted politician(s) clearly stated either in the title of the description – so how are they "unidentified, unclassified, unknown or mislabelled"? Gikü (talk) 13:04, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Same goes for Category:Unidentified politicians of Romania and potentially other countries. Gikü (talk) 13:07, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Gikü: , I'm trying to lay out my full reasoning here, as follows: I am occasionally doing stuff like this or this. According to the guidelines, it is best to create categories for notable persons that tend to be depicted often - like politicians. There also have been "Unidentified politicians of..."-Categories before, but I hope I got them a bit more structured now, by applying the template (the one you cited above, which suggests to move the images into "politicians by name"). Whenever needed, I create new national categories while sorting through the wild assortment of (Category:Politicians+Category:Unidentified politicians). And when I make a new "unidentified politicians of..." category, I also go for a quick check in the parent category. Now, Category:Politicians of Moldova for example, has many more pictures of politicians that aren't yet sorted into their personal categories. Most are okay enough, they have the full name in the image title - those can be found with the regular search tool, and I leave them alone. But some images don't have a full name, which means they might not show up during image searches, and they should get organized better. Just look at the image titles in some of the "unidentified..." categories! Titles like "Macron meets Moldovan president", "Maksim in Sofia", "A. K. Pane", "André B.", "DCIM1234.jpg" and "Archif 19511208 btv9ASD10" are simply not descriptive enough, even if there might be a proper text description (that I wouldn't see in the category view). So one of my usual steps is to move all images with non-descriptive titles into the "Unidentified..." subcategory. In the result, there are multiple possibilities:

• The politicians may not be identified at all (not in the title, not in the description, not via the category, like for example here): Then they truly belong into "unidentified", until someone identifies them and brings them into the named category. As a demonstration: done like here. (People should ideally also move the file to a better name, or add a description, but that doesn't reflect in the categories.)
• The politicians may have been correctly named via the description text, like File:Foto_I._Turcanu.JPG. I assume you found cases in my moves yesterday that are like this. Yes, I could have created the Category:Ian Turcanu. In rare cases, I even do such detail work, but I often realize that I'm not familiar enough with the people. Mr. Turcanu might already have a category that includes his middle name, for example. Many categories I created have since been moved to better places, or got deleted. And the research can be lots of work, too. So I'd like to rely on the local editors who are familiar with the politicians and can sort them out more quickly than I ever could.
• The politicians in question have already been sorted into their own personal category, but also still lingered in the "Politicians of..." category. That means, they have been previously overcategorized, which is simply an error that someone else can fix when they go through the "unidentified" category later: Make sure all people in a picture are in their named categories, then remove the "Unidentified", and all is well.
• It's a group photo, like this one. Two people are properly categorized, but three are not, which means that I would claim this is still a case of "unidentified", as far as categories are concerned. If another editor familiar with the matter finds out that the three other persons are not even notable (within scope), the "unidentified" category can be removed as well.

I hope my motivation is now a bit more clear, and I laid it out fully so that others with the same question may also understand. I'm fully open to suggestions on changing the template, to give better instructions on why images have been brought there. --Enyavar (talk) 15:15, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your exhaustive explanation, I appreciate!

To me it still seems that you are using the "Unidentified politicians of [...]" category as a "we need to better categorize these people" pool – which I guess could be covered by {{Categorize}} – rather than a "we could not identify or classify these people, or they are unknown / mislabeled, but otherwise we know they are politicians from [...]" – the latter is what {{Unidentified politicians by country}} tells me.

I am not completely on board with your approach so I will not add more files to such categories, but I will go ahead and move out what I can from the Moldova and Romania "Unidentified" categories as a continuation of your impressive cleanup effort.

Have a nice day! Gikü (talk) 11:59, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

[1][2] I don't need your 600-word reasoning to understand that the "unidentified politician" is not a politician whose identity is explicitly specified, and whose photo is already in use in the related articles or Wikidata items. The obligatory personal category for the "identification" is totally your invention. Stop marking the files like that. It's irrelevant. INS Pirat (talk) 18:17, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Bad descriptions and labels are everywhere in original uploads, so in many cases, the names are not as easily found out. Just today I found multiple dozen politicians of India that were only in the category "Politician", and most images are not in use, either. Some have their name in the image title, but a different name in the image description. Some have weird names like Mr. Interview, Mr. Uttarakhand and Mr. Politics, the latter also known as Mr. Mass. Chandra Shekhar Azad, dead since 1931, looks quite alive in his 2022 election campaign. Is Lalpura his real full name?

Frankly, "Politicians of <country>" is not the proper category for any of the images anyway, so marking them as "unidentified" isn't that much worse, and it could be easily rectified by anyone who can create a proper named category and suddenly bring together several pictures of the same person. It's already a win with just two or three images.

Yes, the category could be named differently, like "Politicians of <x> needing categorization", but that would just change the label. Note that we also have "Category:Unidentified flags" and the like: Everything that should be organized because we have millions of pictures, but is still in the root category, needs to be sorted in SOME way, and Commons:Overcat tells me that this is the correct way. --Enyavar (talk) 21:15, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

You're mixing the different issues, not addressing the concerns of mine and of Gikü. You radically misuse the word "unidentified" and overpopulate the maintenance categories with irrelevant stuff. In my case and in your own example above, the people ARE identified. The lack of their personal categories doesn't make them unidentified.

COM:Overcat has nothing to do with your actions too. The files in the categories, which are too vague, ARE not sorted precise enough by definition. The separate "unsorted" categories are redundant.

I would even go that far to call your actions disruptive. You should have at least discussed them in advance with community, instead of inventing this novel vision on your own. INS Pirat (talk) 12:03, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

First, these categories are not my own invention. see here, here, here or here. Outside of politics, you may be interested that this whole thing also exists for people in general. So I merely found stuff that was not properly categorized - and Lo+Behold, I was knee-deep into thousands of smiling portraits unhelpfully categorized as "Politics", "Politicians" and "Unidentified politicians". All I did was to create a few more necessary "unidentified"-categories to begin processing these photos, and then move these pictures there. Second, Commons:Categories#Improper_categorization_of_categories_is_a_cause_of_over-categorization Overcat describes exactly this situation, so again, I am only applying practically what I found in the guidelines as the recommended action to do. Third, the "unidentified" categories are not redundant. In the ideal state of matters, all politicians are already sorted into sub-categories; ideally by their names which are themselves subnodes of "politicians of <country> by party/affiliation"; and the "unidentified" category is as empty as the "Politicians of <country>" parent category. However, Commons can only ever approach towards the ideal state, it doesn't ever arrive there as long as new images are uploaded. Fourth, in some cases I add a suggested category in red, but that does not yet "identify" a person. If the image is used in an article or in Wikidata about the person, all that needs to happen is that someone else uploads a better picture, which then gets used instead. As soon as the old image is unlinked from the article, your claim that the images are identified somehow automatically because of their usage, is no longer true. Fifth, this is a global project and in over six months, not a lot of people have had complaints. If you want, I am happy to discuss this matter on the village pump, if you want to bring it there. Do it: I won't move files around for a while, and we get to see if the community (or the 2-6 people who might voice their opinions) thinks of it as "disruptive" or not. Sixth, you and everyone else can always create the proper categories to sort these images for good: I am aware that these files do not belong into "unidentified" forever. Don't complain, act. The images are merely there until someone decides to apply the proper categories. Or at least have them renamed and described unambiguously, that would already improve the situation. Which leads me to Seventh: I am not the person who will do that final detail sorting. I might be able to do that in some cases, but I'm likely to screw it up. Is it Vundavalli Sridevi? Or is she known under the name en:Undavalli Sridevi? Does Commons need to use her middle name to distinguish her from three famous Indian actresses who all share the same name? With politicians from other continents than the one I live in, I am definitely the wrong person to settle the correct category name, so I only bother when I can be reasonably sure I got it right; and even then I might be wrong. The next thing after the category name is assigning the proper party affiliation... Which I have no clue about. This is all a task for the locals. It might even turn out that some hot young politician who uploaded thirty pictures of his campaign, is a non-notable hoax so the images can get deleted. Again, I'm also not the person who decides that a smiling face from Nepal, Algeria, Uruguay or Indonesia is a legitimate politician or not.

But what I can do is see what the file currently claims, and so I can replace the stupid tags like "politician" "for the people" "politics" "representant" "parliament" "Bangladesh" "progress" "justice" "anti-corruption" "campaign" "Dhakar" with one single slightly smarter category: "Unidentified politian of Bangladesh". And the file with a name in Thai that merely has the category "Politician", is probably still an "Unidentified politician of Thailand". And Mr. Jpg Jpg here is likely an "Unidentified politician of India". And so on. Some might also be businesspeople who just gave themselves a fancy label, but we can't figure this out if they remain unsorted in a supercategory, because nobody will find them there. --Enyavar (talk) 14:22, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

It seems that INS Pirat did not initiate a community-wide discussion after all. I held my feet still for two weeks, and 35 new portrait images of supposed politicians popped up, just counting Category:Politics. I think that is enough; I'm beginning to move these images into the [Unidentified politicians of...]-categories (unless the persons have a category) soonish. --Enyavar (talk) 07:17, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

You should initiate such discussion, not me, because you want to perform the bulk actions. (Sorry, I won't read that another huge block of text above. The unidentified people are those who are unidentified, not those who are identified, but don't have their personal categories) INS Pirat (talk) 08:46, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

File:Chase Gun Rear.png

Moin, das obige Bild ist ein Ausschnitt aus einem Gemälde, das ich bei Wiki Commons gefunden habe und ist in so fern 'mein' Werk, weil ich es ausgeschnitten und einen roten Kreis darum gemalt habe. Ich bin noch auf der Suche nach dem Original. Ich denke, es handelt sich um ein Gemälde einer Schlacht zwischen britischen und holländischen Schiffen während deren Querelen damals. Wenn ich es gefunden habe, werde ich dich unverzüglich informieren. Viele Grüße --ThomasJa276 (talk) 02:43, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Ging schneller, als ich dachte! Das Bild aus WikipediaCommons ist: File:Battle of Scheveningen (Slag bij Ter Heijde)(Jan Abrahamsz. Beerstraten).jpg.

Und es ist ein Bild aus der Zeit der Schlachten zwischen England und den Niederlanden im 17. Jahrhundert. --ThomasJa276 (talk) 03:03, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Moin, danke! Trotz Ausschnitt und rotem Kreis zählt das nicht als "own work". Sonst könnten wir einfach Ausschnitte aus urheberrechtlich geschützten fremden Werken als unsere eigenen Werke deklarieren und hier hochladen. Und sogar mit erheblich umfangreicheren Modifikationen (25% URV, 75% Eigenleistung) zählt eine URV als URV. 🙃 LG --Enyavar (talk) 05:13, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Category:Media without a license: needs history check

Hello Enyavar,

there are quite a few OSM related files in there last edited by you before marked by bot as lacking a license tag. Example: File:Northumberlandia map.svg. Would you please go through the category and add the appropriate license tags for these files? Thanks. Regards --Rosenzweig τ 18:40, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Sure, please link me the files and provide me the preferred OSM license (as long as it's not that horrible template locking them in the topmost OSM category) and how to place it on the file, and I can check whether or not they should get OSM-licensed. The Northumbrialand one makes me uneasy, as it is not a screenshot from OSM, just purported from the description that it's from OSM. But files like File:Map_of_Bath,_England.png, File:Los_Angeles_locator_map.png or File:Lehrterstr.png I feel comfortable to confirm that yes they have been taken from OSM. --Enyavar (talk) 20:42, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Persia, Afghanistan and Baluchistan‎

Hi. Would you please explain the reason behind your recent edits in that category? HeminKurdistan (talk) 12:51, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I realized that this extent of the Middle East (Persia+Afghanistan+Baluchistan) was quite commonly selected in 19th-century cartography, so I decided to assemble the maps per decade, just like with other regions. The original intent seemed to have been to collect just one specific map title of a specific English-language publisher (McNally), but maps were also included from other publishers. So instead of only maps that randomly share an English publication title, the category can now include all old maps with the same regional focus. (like "Old maps of Scandinavia", "Old maps of the Mediterranean" etc.) --Enyavar (talk) 13:03, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for elaboration. Recently, I was reading a book of geopolitics that was talking about slight differences between versions of the McNally's map in different years. Searching for them on Commons, I found out that there is no coherent categorization. Due to the fact that many files of the map in various years were available, I judged that it would be useful to be able to find them with categories. Such categorization can also help if you want to, for example, find a map of Iran in a specific year. I think there are a few issues with the new categorization:

1. The region in question is not in Central Asia. It is in partly Southern Asia, and partly in West Asia.
2. 'Map of Persia, Afghanistan and Baluchistan' is a proper name, used by McNally (as it was referenced in the book I read). Other sources have named their maps with other names such as 'Iran and Turan' or 'Iran and Turkestan'. Some have included Arabia or Turkey as well, or have otherwise referred to Afghanistan as 'Cabool'. As a result, I don't find McNally's naming to be generic and widely-used. This situation is probably be misleading, as someone may look for this specific map by McNally.

Based on these points, my suggestion is that:

1. We turn '[Decade] maps of Persia, Afghanistan and Baluchistan‎' into '[Decade] maps of West Asia' and '[Decade] maps of South Asia' (as the terms 'West Asia' and 'South Asia' are widely-used). Other maps would also be included in this category.
2. We revive the category format "Persia, Afghanistan and Baluchistan (Year)" and reserve it for McNally, so that maps of every year are linked to a Wikidata entry and can be found easily. Derivatives such as this (which I found used the same a book) are included too. Other series such as 'Iran and Turan' would also have their own category too.

Please let me know your opinion. Best regards, HeminKurdistan (talk) 18:22, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for explaining your motivation in turn, and now I feel sorry for having disrupted your category.

If you wish to make a special category for comparing the various McNally-editions, I suggest you could mention McNally in the category name. For example, "<year> maps by McNally of Persia, Afghanistan and Baluchistan" or "Maps of „Persia, Afghanistan and Baluchistan“ by Rand McNally" - similar to some book title categories. With a name clearly invoking a titular work and author, I'd have left these maps alone in the first place. Instead, I believed they were just maps sharing the same common title, and that's like grouping together any books sharing the title "Advanced Physics" regardless of authors/year.

I also had time to rethink the decade-category in question (P+A+B) and now think this categorization might be slightly problematic: In the work title, compared to the modern spelling, "Balochistan" is misspelled. (back then it was also sometimes called Beloochistan etc.) The name "Persia" is also not optimal for neutral purposes. On the other hand, I already find the title variant "Persien, Afghanistan, Biludschistan" in German 1830s maps, and it reappears for example in the titles here and even in Russian as Персия, Афганистан.... So it was definitely a common grouping, as these three countries fit neatly into a bounding for a while.

On the topic of "West Asia" and "South Asia": Um, the maps show too little of either. West Asia stretches from Turkey to Iran; South Asia from Sri Lanka to Afghanistan. But see also the next paragraph.

On the topic of "Central Asia": I'm subscribing to the definition of "expanded" Central Asia like here. Before looking it up, I'd have defined that region by roughly stretching a rubberband around the Caspian Sea, Afghanistan, Tibet, Mongolia and Kazakhstan and anything inside is classical Central Asia. The expanded definition above would remove Tibet from that. But the region of P+A+B here is at least largely represented. But: I think we should maybe bring several map-people together here on Commons and decide on naming schemes for large-scale regional definitions for maps that don't conform to modern borders. In my opinion, we shouldn't place Maps in multiple "Maps of <country>"-Categories (Yemen, Saudi, Jordan, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE...) when a simple "Maps of Arabia" is sufficient.

--Enyavar (talk) 09:45, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree that more users, including map-people, should be involved in this (I am personally not much knowledgeable in this field). I also support (P+A+B) naming, do you have any suggestions? HeminKurdistan (talk) 15:31, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Photos in Category:Vlas Mikhailovich Doroshevich - East and War. Text

I rolled back all rotation request in this category. Files in this category are representing book layout. Cropped and rotated photos are already in Category:Vlas Mikhailovich Doroshevich - East and War. Images. EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:32, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Re:Removing person-categories

Hi, I removed the category, for this and other characters, because they are minor and unknown politicians in Italy. He and others are placed in the dedicated category

[[Category:Unidentified politicians of Italy]]

--Caulfield (talk) 14:30, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

You tagged a duplicate that is not an exact duplicate.

Enyavar, this file nominated for speedy deletion as a duplicate File:Tripolitza.png is not an "exact duplicate" of the other file. This file contains the full map (as an inset map), plus an additional related map that is different than the other file. So, not a "duplicate" per COM:duplicate.

Separately, this file's original upload is better quality. So, the overwrite could be reverted to show the larger original.

Please, keep this file. Thank you, --Ooligan (talk) 23:40, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Um. There are three versions here: A full greyscale/color version, a greyscale version just showing the inset map, and a b/w version the shows the inset map and some random stuff from the full because it is cropped in a bad way. The DR is only onthe last one. Yes, the b/w version and the greyscale versions come from different scans... of the same book. Also, even the original b/w upload has still a lower res than the grayscale version. But ultimately, that is the decision of the admin who will handle this. --Enyavar (talk) 04:55, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Old maps categories

I don't think recreating Category:Old maps of Boston is a good idea. "Old" and "historical" are vague and subjective terms, which isn't useful for an archive that strives for accuracy. The consensus at Commons:Categories for discussion/2019/09/Category:Historical images was clearly in favor of depreciating "historical" in category names, and I've begun doing so with "old" as well. If there is a need to sort city maps in Massachusetts by date, Category:Maps of Boston by century would be a more appropriate category tree. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:53, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

"Old maps" is currently a well-defined term on commons: Maps that are 70+ years old. "Historical" is not a good word to describe maps, as it can be interpreted as both "of the history of" and "old". That is why I regularly rename "historical maps" into "old maps". This is current best practice in maps all over the category tree, and has been decided long before my participation in map-sorting. I never saw your CfD there before, and I will read it next, but I assume off the bat, that the terms discussed there are "images" and "historical", not "maps" and "old". So far my first thoughts, probably more to come. Enyavar (talk) 20:38, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

@Pi.1415926535: As suspected. There were seemingly three ignorant voices clamoring for deletion of the whole old maps category tree, which has millions of maps sorted into hundreds of thousands of subcategories. I don't think those three people have categorized any larger amounts of old maps. Worse: "Old maps" was not even the focus of the debate there, it was "Historical images", as the CfD's title suggests. I don't see that there was any resolution to axe away at the Old maps tree - a tree about which we have mostly consense since roughly 2006.

I'm not even sure that enough people attending that CfD debate were even aware of some difficulties in sorting historical (=old) material. I have mostly been active in the categories "maps" and "old maps" over the past three years, but I also often peeked into "historical <stuff> of <places>". I never encountered this debate because it was so well hidden, or I would have strongly opposed some ideas presented there (while agreeing on other well-made points in favor of getting rid of "historical <stuff> of <place>". Basically any larger city in the world has a "History of <place>" category, and in that there are quite often some "historical <stuff> of <city>" subcategories, which are then (sometimes) subdivided by century, decade, year and date. But, WHAT IF there are a few photographs/postcards/paintings that can be dated only as exact as "between 1890 and 1910". Which is the by-date-category you place that material in? "Category:2nd-millenium photographs of Krakow"? Yes, "historical" was probably a misnomer for the whole category tree, but then it should have been replaced with a better term, not deleted entirely. But as much as I disagree with this not fully-thought-through decision, I won't interfere with you reshuffling millions of images into new categories: "historical images" are not my hobby. Y'all do you; tell me next millenium how the decision worked out.

"Old maps" are my hobby, and Old maps were kept by CfD, for good reasons. Because "old maps" are the preferred super-category of maps by century, we don't even need an extra "Maps of London by century" as long as we have "Old maps of London" with century-wise subcategories. "Old maps" are also much better defined than the wiggle-word "historical". I can assure you that there are a lot of maps without a clear publication date (Gallica places a lot of them as "16th or 17th century", just for example), and for those the best categorization applicable is "old". Just for example File:BostonNeck.jpg at first glance is either undated or was created in 2006 (it depends on your judgment, I'd say undated (=old) for the basemap, but the whole file definitely needs to be labeled as "2000s map showing history of Boston"): so why was it placed as a 17th century map?

Another issue I have with too-precise categories: many places have just a few old maps. For a village with just ten old maps from five different centuries. We don't need five century categuries, each with just two decade-categories, each with a single year-category, each with a single image. In that example, you use 26 categories to sort 10 images. That is madness, when a single category ("Old maps of village") is fully sufficient. For more on that topic, please refer to my FAQ about "Old maps by decade" vs "Old maps by year". --Enyavar (talk) 21:36, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Commons:Categories for discussion/2023/12/Category:Sylvester Sound, the Somnambulist

No idea whether you care, but you were involved so you might know something. There's a bit of a tangle of categories here. - Jmabel ! talk 03:36, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Books from London by year

Hi, just wondering whether the CfD you mentioned in the comments in {{Books from London by year}} has been resolved, and whether it might be time to clean up the template. --R'n'B (talk) 15:42, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Those are very recent CfDs, give them some time. But your input is welcome any time, in Commons:Categories for discussion/2023/04/Category:Books published in London by year and the related CfDs linked there. --Enyavar (talk) 16:20, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Mass-deletion of my uploads

Hi Enyavar, I have no objection to the mass deletion request (re: Volar) going through. ItsABlackHole (talk) 19:44, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Helpful hint

If you notice the name of someone's political party, that's usually helpful for figuring out what country they're from. DS (talk) 16:56, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Sadly, there was no political party mentioned, neither in description, nor file name nor visible in the file itself, and the image was also unused. But thanks for helping with categorization! --Enyavar (talk) 17:14, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

You included the category tag "Otrocamino". Which, I thought you realized, is the name of her political party. That's why it's on her shirt. DS (talk) 17:18, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Hardly. Most parties have a category on Commons, or are recognizable in their name as such (Forza Belgia, PRLO, Partido Revvolucionisti pour le Liberté of the Otrocamimo nation - that kind). I just tagged something that was visible, but that got no hit, so I input unidentified next. The O-word could have been the name of her Peruvian province, her Filipino neighborhood or even an Australian clothing brand without any political message. Good that you could make a sense of the picture, maybe thanks to that clue. --Enyavar (talk) 17:38, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

I should also point out that "Abogado Costarricense" means "Costa Rican lawyer". DS (talk) 18:21, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

1629 maps of Denmark

Hi Enyavar. You have removed the category "1629 maps of Denmark" from a file (and another user later deleted the category). You then moved it to another category. Was the date wrong, or was there something else wrong? Cheers Rsteen (talk) 04:05, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Rsteen: it was this one here, a single file in a specific year category. There are multiple reasons why this is not a good idea, please expand "Old maps by decade" vs "Old maps by year" in my User-page's FAQ, to see why I am a big advocate of using decade-categories for old maps predating the 20th century.

I didn't look into it too close yesterday, but my assumptions (that the big nams in 16th and 17th century cartography were brilliant copycats) were almost instantly validated: a map of the exact same design is attributed to John Speed from England, the linked scan appears to be sheet 29 from a reprint of his 1627 "Prospect". That doesn't mean however, that we can date the map to 1627, either. --Enyavar (talk) 09:24, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi again. I do not do much uploading of maps, but the one in question seemed to be of good quality. I checked that there are "1629 maps of France" and "of Europe", so the categorization seemed appropriate. However, the logic in your FAQ is reasonable, and you seem to possess much knowledge of and enthusiasm for the subject, so I understand the recategorization. Cheers Rsteen (talk) 10:00, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Oh yes, the quality cannot be questioned! A very fine map, and a crisp scan. Commons would be poorer without it. Also yes, there are still many maps sitting in single-file categories, still much work for me (and others) to do. Working on it. :-) Enyavar (talk) 12:00, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Mass move of maps by year categories

You moved many content from by year categories to broader categories. Was this mass change discussed somewhere? GPSLeo (talk) 16:15, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi, yes I am doing this for about two years by now; I have brought up the topic(s) in several discussions (by-year-categorization for example here, but also a few other times to general consent, so it's now even in my user-page-FAQ). Each deliberate recategorization is in my experience uncontroversial. Here, I just did a lot of them in a short period, but this is not a "mass move". Examples:

A lot of stuff was entirely mis-categorized. For example this map was created in 2020, not in 1972. After recategorization, the Category:1972 maps of Alabama was empty, so I put it up for deletion. (Also, there are quite a few cases where maps from a period (1941-1946) are simply placed in either of the years of the bracket, or where 1905 maps get misplaced as 1902, or where "1880?" is placed as "1880".)

Then there are the Sanborn maps, and again, this has been discussed a lot already. These are cadastral plans, and should just not be sorted directly into year-maps-of-state. This is arguably not really a "1902 map of Colorado" - but it's currently not categorized as "map of Hinsdale County, Colorado", which it should be. After the moves, the files are less specific in time (where most Sanborn-files are currently miscategorized anyway) but more specific in location. After moving Sanborn maps out of year-specific categories, there is usually not that much left.

If there are just 1-5 files in a by-year category (like so), I find it preferable to move them up to the decade-level for easier browsing: organize 20 similar maps in 1 category, not in 11 categories. For another reason:

Decade-vs-year: Why don't we categorize maps by the month and day they were created? It could add even more false precision! The difference between "1636 maps of Hesse" and "1637 maps of Hesse" is minimal, and the more you go back in time, the more of a problem you have with timestamp-assigning as well. Much more than the exact date, the location is of interest: If these maps can be moved into "17th-century maps of Kassel" and "17th-century maps of Darmstadt" instead, that is much better.

This is just what I practically applied to Colorado maps: Instead of "all maps of Denver" vs. "by-year-maps-of-Colorado", these maps fit much better into "by-decade-maps-of-Denver" vs. "by-decade-maps-of-Colorado". (let's say you want to find an old map of an entire state: This structure makes stuff more accessible than this one).

Where there are enough maps justifiably in by-year-categories, I leave them be, of course. --Enyavar (talk) 19:19, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

But there is no WikiProject or village pump discussion on this? Such a mass change needs some kind of broader community approval. I especially question this because the moves you are doing are removing information from the file and in many cases we will have many more maps in the near future and then we have to undo the move to the broader category and restore the deleted one. You should definitely ask the people who created the by year categories before requesting them for deletion. GPSLeo (talk) 20:35, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Now this made me think hard. There may be village-pump discs that I forgot about or missed entirely, and I will gladly place this on the pump if you want me to. As I wrote before, I saw my map-sorting as rather uncontroversial maintenance movements, given how I got almost no feedback about it before.

I'd love to learn if there was a "WikiProject Maps". Is there? It can't be overly active, or I think I would have stumbled across its actors by now. Village pump discussions? Yes, I went, and there I learned: "Maps of <location> by <year> categories should be burned with fire." - "everything finer than "by century" should go" - "Let's not make more narrow category trees that aren't necessary". Those were the essences of the three major opinions back then. That was what made me consider the (non?)sense of too narrow categories in the first place. There were a few more CfDs, where I mostly got the feedback that map-cats by year are too specific. The Montreal-CfD was an exception in which I only suggested how the by-year structure could be dissolved, but did not act myself. See it as my testing, how quick the matter gets solved by community consensus. By late 2022 I just started to clean out single-file categories like so, and my speedy-nominations (e.g. there: "Category:1683 maps of Georgia") were simply deleted, which I understood as another tacit community approval. Yes, I was questioned about the practice before, twice, but each time on a much narrower subject and not asking whether or not a broad community approval has ever been given. On the other hand: was there a broad community approval FOR the first by-year map categories, back in 2016? Was approval given for the mass-creations in 2018/19?

Also where did you see me removing information? Either, I am removing a category that was falsely placed on the files, or I am moving them one node higher in the temporal-sorting tree. A "1785 maps of Abkhazia" retains all its information when I move it (with a key!) to "1780s maps of Abkhazia|1785 maps". If the by-year-category really has to be recreatedat a later point, it's a matter of a few clicks with Sir Catalot to move the files back. I don't delete descriptions either, instead I tend to enhance them (if needed and if I have the time). I'm not some vandal who deletes the "|date = 1785" in the desc.

Finally, "but we need the granular categories for the potential influx of future files!" I'm not seeing that, so far - not even with Erin Laor, Polona and Gallica blasting their map archives into Commons (another topic entirely). Anyway, so there is this one possible influx: A bulk of (map) files appears that doesn't quite fit in any existing category, so new ones have to be created. Let's assume uploads of whopping 1200 maps of "The 1953 Ultimate Atlas of Colorado". These maps should not each be placed directly under "1953 maps of Colorado", but rather inside a new cat, which then can be placed under "1950s maps of C."), and also be subcategorized by location and so on. The other likely influx is that of of one map here and three maps there, which each can still be placed under "1950s maps of C.". For now. They accumulate much slower, and also not in the same amount for each century/decade. At some point, there are really SO MANY maps that more granularity is needed, and you need to go from "Old maps of..." to "maps-by-century" and eventually "maps-by-decade". But. Even with "Maps of London" and "Maps of Paris" (two of the most-mapped places of Earth), we have not yet reached that kind of density, that we had had to go by-year (instead we went by-work for one map with 300 files; and any other single-file maps from the same year can still sit in the decade-cat). I also checked New York City's 1890 and 1910 categories: Yes, there is a lot of content, but after weeding out Sanborn maps and whole work-compilations (like the District maps of '16) that sit directly in the by-year-categories... yeah. As it stand now, even NYC doesn't really require a by-year-categorizing. Yes, we do so for NYC, but we also do so for the metropolis of Werbach, which devalues the argument imho.

Of course, all this is specifically about "old maps", and usually from before 1900. Non-map topics may require entirely different approaches. --Enyavar (talk) 00:43, 22 March 2024 (UTC)