It seems some people don't like this category. It was meant as a solution to find a compromise between those who agreed there should be a flat category listing all ships by name, but weren't sure how to square that with Category:Ships by name by type. Some wanted the latter deleted completely. Some wanted it as a parallel category to Category:Ships by name. Some, apparently, wanted to ignore COM:OVERCAT and include ships both in the flat list and in the sub-categories. I think Category:Ships by name (flat list) solves this whole debate nicely, and allows the categories to nest naturally. I'd be happy to hear of other potential solutions. Themightyquill (talk) 10:43, 1 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think a category containing each named ship individually is needed. If you know a ship's name but nothing else about it, this category lets you look for it by name. If you want an image of a ship with a certain name, but it doesn't matter which one, you can find one in this category. Well, at least it would if the sorting were worked out better. I don't really care what the name of the category is, if that's the issue, but I think a category should exist with this content. --Auntof6 (talk) 11:05, 1 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I acknowledge that it might be the only "by name (flat list)" category, but there also aren't a lot of "by name" categories which are actually flat. (Yes, there are some and they require ongoing maintenance to keep them flat, and/or weird workarounds like Category:People categories by name). Category:Ships by name invites sub-categorization, whether you want it or not. In most all other category trees Category:X by Y by Z is a subcategory of Category:X by Y and usually by Category:X by Z. The first few examples that came up in a search, just looking at those involving "name" - it's even more common in other intersections:
Conversely, there's no indication that most or all sub-categories that end with "by name" are flat-categories. From my perspective, if you want a flat category to remain flat without having to fight for consensus whenever anyone wants to sub-categorize, add "(flat list)" to the category name. No more need for debate and maintenance, and no harm done. - Themightyquill (talk) 13:21, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I note we're still active at the Village Pump on this question: discussion September 18.
Hopefully we can keep this simple. In essence I agree with Stunteltje on this topic.
I think we may all agree that the simplest most direct method is the best way. The directory tree should be as flat as possible. Ideally all main cats should lie directly under Ships. A main cat should be as short and as simple a name as possible, that why I prefer "Ships by name" to "Ships by name ((flat list)". "Ships by type" should be directly under "Ships", as a parallel category to Category:Ships by name. "Ships by name has instructions at the top of it telling you that it is a place for ship name categories only. Calling it "Ships by name ((flat list)" does not resolve dumping other stuff in there. Adding "(flat list)" to the category name, doesn't take the place of the instructions. All cats invite sub-categorization, especially for people who don't read instructions. Your right every cat needs to be curated, because part timers continually dump stuff where it shouldn't be, either through ignorance, laziness or more likely confusion; and confusion come about through over nesting, and over long cat names.
When Commons was born a directory tree was created by people interested in "filing" as a subject and by people interested in "boats and barges" as opposed to ships. That greatly influenced subsequent development. The "ship" community" has a very different view on a whole raft of detail. I.E. ships are launched, barges and boats are built, is just one example. At the start it was not envisaged, how big the project would become, even shipping as a subject is larger than we ever dreamt. The cat structure was designed accordingly, and designed for people that did not know how to interrogate a database using sophisticated search queries.
Consequently we have choked many branches within commons with over nesting of cats and over diffusion of images. The latter has been discussed recently elsewhere and over diffusion by date was found to be not popular by consensus. Simply, because, even when looking at 200 files in once place it's obvious what dates belong to what image, and filing by year tends to hide files away, and make them inaccessible. Over-catting leads to an unacceptable maintenance overhead.
What is clear to me, is that if you want to find a ship, people use Wikipedia as a map. It's in Wikipedia that ship types and ship names are identified, that means in effect that all our type cats are effectively redundant. An enquirer then come to commons and looks for ships by name, that is if you don't know how to use deepcat or Petscan. Even if you want images tied to a certain year (and your eye is not enough) then it's best to use petscan or type in a specific year as a search keyword to narrow the results. However date finding is not too clever in Commons, as the largest number of errors here are the dates attached to images, far greater than spelling errors.
Commons doesn't lend itself to disambiguation as efficiently and clearly as Wikipedia. We should be geared towards not filing as an end in itself, but as a repository of images for our major client, exemplified by Wikipedia. COM:OVERCAT has nothing to do with putting ships in both the flat list and in sub-categories (I'm presuming you meant ships by type) that's perfectly acceptable, though a waste of time IMO.
Autofun6 has a point, but of course we're not supposed to raise a cat for a single image, but what we can do, is put an image in cats like "Ships named Neptune" or similar. All this work just for people who cant do basic search! It's not all wasted effort though as many images have insufficient text descriptions that on occasion don't include the name of the ship, and / or miss out on the term ship, and call the vessel what it is, yacht, barge, steamer. But that of course takes me back to the inherent flaws that still exist, through creation of the tree by bargemen as opposed to ship boys.
Don't get me wrong, this is a living organism that will perpetually change (and more importantly is not broken), I just pray that we keep it simple and solve it by taking out unnecessary levels and cats, rather than adding new ones. Remember those four cats doing the same job: "Categories by ship name", "Ships by type"; "Ships by function"! and "Ships by name by type" as an example. "Ships by name (flat list)" is just another needless, and a log on the fire. Respectfully. Broichmore (talk) 20:18, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Ships of the United Kingdom does that already, and there are already several sub-cats covering that too. Despite all that you've said, and not read, you still have no good reason for your modifications to "Ships by name", please change it back to how it was. Dump those cats you didn't like (that were in it, polluting it, to your annoyance) into Category:Ship names. Again, our problem is over nesting and adding cats and levels to that is not helping that. Not happy with one cat and an extra level you now want to double it, with another. Regards - Broichmore (talk) 13:47, 4 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This an important issue, and deserves much thought. I'm going to be doing intensive travelling over the next two weeks, so I beg you to put this on hold. I will think about it over the period and come back with a way forward, that hopefully you will find agreeable. Key points have to be minimal nesting of categories, and preserving ships from the the over categorisation and diffusion that is such a blight on other projects. While there are unlimited numbers of ship images there are relatively few as a rule per ship. You may have already solved the issue, notice that in Category:Ships by name you have already put in the "header", a set of "instructions required" to keep it a "flat list", perhaps we just need to point out in there, that images that have no home I.E. "unidentified ships" or are single ship images should be in "Ships named after Foo" or better still "ships named Foo"? In the end we may all have to put up with a certain amount of image dumping into and consequent curation of major cats such as this. -Broichmore (talk) 21:39, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As of today things look OK to me. First we have Category:Ships, inside it "Ship Names" and "Ships by name", then inside "Ship names" are various name titles and again "Ships by name". There is no need for adding another tier of "Ships by name (flat list)". the current contents of which should be returned to "Ships by name". "Ships by name" is the only category in "Ships" of any real importance. As such it deserves its name to be as short as possible. It is the only mandatory category where a ship folder should reside. There are many other categories in "Ships" that an individual ship can belong to. These other categories are problematic. They will never be complete. Are difficult to maintain (curate). Some are poorly defined. They are redundant in large part by Wikipedia being effectively an index of shipping titles (a map of Commons ship content) and Commons being an extended library shelf (databank). Please return the contents of "Ships by name (flat list)" to where it belongs "Ships by name". Thank you --Broichmore (talk) 04:47, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Themightyquill: When "Ships" was first conceived, a category for names was made, called "Ships names". It was later felt that a flat list was required and so "Ships by name" was created. The latters only fault was a lack of prescriptive instruction for its content in its header, which you and others finally fixed. Hence there is no need for lengthening its name into "Ships by name (flat list)". Lengthening its title only creates problems with slow internet connections. Tell me, afresh, at this moment in time, given the amendments and improvements (you and others sponsored) to the page "Ships by name" header (which made it into a so called flat list), why it should it be changed to "Ships by name (flat list)". How is that an improvement. What does it solve? Seeing as "Ship names" now holds the sub cats YOU did not want there. I'm not the only person not to see the point in this change. Stunteltje, Huntster, Rmhermen, have all agreed at some point that there is no need for it. Again please reinstall its contents. Broichmore (talk) 01:47, 2 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Just so we're clear, please correct me if this is not an accurate comparison of the two systems that are being proposed.
The old system stopped working once "Ships by name" and the subcategories of "Ships by name by type" had the same content, so a textbook case of overcategorisation ensued. In terms of naming there is may not be need an apparent need to have the new "(flat list)" disambiguation, but it makes it clear that "Ships by name" should no longer be used for individual ship categories. Category:Ships by name by type, however, is a valid subcategory for "Ships by name" and should not have been removed from its parent at all. TMQ's system as listed above provides a well-structured category tree that goes along with the requirements of our category guideline, and also follows a logical taxonomy. De728631 (talk) 15:21, 2 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Its not a case of over over-categorisation. This category solves the continual problem of ship identification, where names are re-used multiple times, even in the same year, its necessary to have an (overview) register of ALL ships names.
"Ships by name by type" is completely different, it is not an overview cat of all ships names.
Ships very often change their identity / type over time. Example sidewheel steamers were often converted into barges in their late working life. Liners into troop transports or hospital ships. Sailing Ships converted into into paddle steamers. Fishing boats into gunboats. Gunboats into yachts and launches. Four masts to three masts. There are also many grey areas in ship types, where a ship can fall into two or more types. Example Sailing Yachts and steam yachts. Ships can crossover into several descriptions barques, schooners, as can Clippers.
Trust this explains the need for "Ships by name". If anything this is the only mandatory cat for a ship. Wikipedia content acts as an index that makes many shipping cats redundant; including "Ships by name by type".
Aircraft are a completely different life form, and are not directly comparable. They are made in batches or in series, by type and are largely therefore anonymous. They are very often not bespoke made, or unique, or Launched. They are seldom reported on or written about as individuals. Therefore "by type" is a valid form of categorisation. Anyway I'm not an expert on Aircraft and would not presume to weigh into that area and would leave it, to its own experts.Broichmore (talk) 12:40, 4 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing wrong with the cataloging of the Edisa at the moment. Except that it could go into even more cats, for example different ship owner names. If it were converted at anytime then it wouldn't change its category it would have an additional one added for it new role. Ships lives are like your CV, everytime your job changes so does your role, your job title, your salary, your employer. If you were a miner in 1959, and a broker in 1969. you would appear in those two cats. I don't care how many cats a ship appears in, its virtually unlimited. The more cats are created the more curational overhead exists. The only essential cat is "Ships by name". Broichmore (talk) 07:28, 8 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
From COM:OVERCAT: Don't place an item into a category and its parent. For example, a black and white photo of the Eiffel Tower should be placed in Black and white photographs of the Eiffel Tower. It should not be placed in both that category and the Paris category at the same time.
Overcategorisation occurs whenever a category and its subcategory are placed in the same parent category (see the example scheme for overcategorised files). This was the case for "Ships by name by type" which is why these discussions where started in the first place. This has nothing to do with identifying ship names or a possible reuse of names, but it is about the structure and hierarchy of the category tree. The Commons community has approved the principle of "Don't place an item into a category and its parent", so this was in fact a problem. De728631 (talk) 19:56, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ships by name and "Ships by name by type" are and should be at the same level. It's inevitable that every ship will appear in multiple categories, there's no way to avoid it. Example a Royal Navy tanker and depot ship, could appear in more than four cats, especially if at some stage sold to (and converted by) a commonwealth navy. None of these "sub categories" will ever be truly complete, the curation overhead is immense. However "Ships by name" is the only mandatory cat for a ship to be in, regardless of its type. Ships differs from other areas in Commons in that it is highly bespoke. Cat-a-lot is almost useless here. Every file has to be opened before it can be individually categorized. Ships are by their nature as unique as human beings. I have actually said before now that categories outside of "Ships by name", are largely if not totally redundant. Wikipedia acts as an index for ships and their classes whether we like it or not.
Themightyquill, you picked an odd example (Category:Edisa (ship, 1959)) as that ship only sailed as Edisa from 1972-1974 and sank in 1978. It was called Disa for 13 years and Calypso Trader for 4 years. Even stranger that category is sorting under the number 5 instead of alphabetically in the General cargo ships and ships (flat list) categories and I can't see why. Rmhermen (talk) 21:44, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I just now added an image to the Edisa cat, that was lost in the ether. The order of appearance is number 5 because the database has been told to file and sort under IMO number. That's obviously wrong. This is a good example where either a mistake has been made or someone with insufficient experience of "Ships" has meddled. This is not a place to make decisions about, without extensive hands on experience. -Broichmore (talk) 07:28, 8 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
We're drifting here. We seem to have started talking about the whole structure of "ships", example Category:Ships by name by type is the same thing as Category:Categories by ship name one of these is pointless. I would delete the second. I alluded to similar flaws before now, and there are many here. What we are defending right now is the sanctity of the this particular category. At this moment in time, given the amendments and improvements to the page header of "Ships by name" (which made it into a so called flat list), I see no reason why it should it be changed to "Ships by name (flat list)". The new name is too long for comprehension and or useability where the internet is slow, and needs to be reverted. Its change for the sake of change; and unwanted by the ship community. The longer the title here, the more niche, the subject. We don't really want to be saddled with a long title for a basal and popular cat such as this. -Broichmore (talk) 07:47, 8 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That's besides the point, a peripheral issue. The main issue here, which you doggedly refuse to address is 51,619 instances of folders being moved to a place no-one in the shipping community wants. You obviously want to repeat this in Category:Categories by name (flat list), where you can do the same to another 96 categories. Your "original" invention of "Flat List", presumably derived from the term "Flat-file databases" is un-wanted. I'm sorry Quill, but you have given no clear explanation of why this change is required, and it needs to be reverted. As you so aptly put it "this is not how Commons works". Regards. -Broichmore (talk) 16:43, 10 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Broichmore: Even if I believed your incredibly strong feelings on this issue represent the entire "shipping community" (unless it's a pretty small community), Commons categorization does not exist exclusively for people "in the shipping community". It follows a set of standard logically organized structures so that everyone can find the image they are looking for and properly categorize the image they upload. The side-by-side table above demonstrates exactly why this is needed. - Themightyquill (talk) 19:21, 10 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Themightyquill: Quill, you have been told by active members of the shipping community (all of whom are established creative editors), and who have been here in these discussions, to desist and revert. Commons categorization procedures are completely intact in both "Ships", and this matter and will continue to be so provided you revert. Shipping already adhered to the established procedures, before you happened upon it. It is your initial action, and subsequent prevarications that are the deviation/s to the Commons categorization procedures. Everyone "else" who has visited, has professed no specific agreement to the move, they have only asked for simplistic clarifications demanding monosyllabic answers, and had no further comment to make; something unheard of in the shipping community, I might add. This change, which you did not propose but yet, have unilaterally actioned, is a deviation to the Commons categorization procedures. Please revert it. -Broichmore (talk) 07:33, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not ignoring you, I just disagree. I've made my case, and I don't feel you've responded to my argument. I recognize that you don't like my proposed change so you can stop telling me that over and over, but I don't feel you've presented a valid reason to oppose it, or a valid reason to keep the illogical old system. - Themightyquill (talk) 09:10, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I can see you disagree, with so many on this issue. I have given full responses to your arguments; both specific and non-sequitur. I even described to you the failings within "Ships". The changes to the illogical system have not been opposed, indeed I suggested further improvements. The valid reason for not changing the name of this category was given in detail several times. Its' longer than it needs to be. The extended term "flat line" is both your own invention, it's needed, and unwanted. The deficiencies within the cat were resolved by putting directions into the header, some of which you put there yourself. All that's opposed here is the renaming of the category, and your moving away of its content. -Broichmore (talk) 11:02, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Themightyquill: See previous post. Quill, Its about time that you changed back this category to its original state. Again you have studiedly ignored what I and others have said to you. You've failed to justify your actions here. Ignoring consensus in such an obvious way and with such artifice is not good form. Broichmore (talk) 05:15, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not ignoring you, and I again request that you stop accusing me of acting in bad faith. I created this discussion specifically in response to your concerns. I don't believe consensus has been reached. - Themightyquill (talk) 09:14, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Themightyquill: What you are ignoring is what has been said to you, time and again by self and others (who are established "ship editors". The consensus is that this change is unnecessary. I implore you to read afresh this and the other relevant strings and you will see that is the case. -Broichmore (talk) 14:41, 4 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I'm not ignoring you - I simply disagree with you. I disagree with your argument. I disagree that you've acknowledged any of the flaws in your design. I disagree with your conclusion that consensus has been reached. I disagree with the idea that your self-created designation as "established ship editors" has any special weight here, since the discussion is not about some technical detail of ship building, but about commons categorization structure. Since you're not adding anything new to this discussion, however, I'm considering ignoring you in the future. - Themightyquill (talk) 08:05, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Themightyquill: Yes the designation "established ship editors" is irrelevant here. I have designed nothing. You persist in twisting whats been said. However you can disagree, but when you fail as an Administrator to be objective in your judgements, and consistently ignore what been said to you, and fail in turn to justify your actions, and resort to gamesmanship to further your aims, then you show yourself to be unworthy of the status of Adminship. You should resign and surrender your powers, that you may have acquired with a free bag of skittles at the start of the project. Now that's a new topic. When an admin ignores the policy they are supposed to be using and defending; thats a problem. Please revert what you have done to the Category, which, again, has been requested of you by consensus of other editors. I sincerely hope you come to your senses here. Regards -Broichmore (talk) 09:00, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Ships by name (flat list) is the correct way to name this category. It is an index category of all ship categories which specify the ship's name. Category:Ships by name can be subcategorized, and items in it thus need to be removed from Category:Ships by name to be added to sub-categories. Adding them to Category:Ships by name (flat list) removes OVERCAT problems. The system listed by Themightyquill (talk·contribs) under TMQ System is the best of the proposals yet put forward. Category:Categories by ship name is a mess, it contains wholly seperate types of content that deserve their own properly named categories (probably warrants its own CfD in the future). The TMQ system is simple, straight-forward, compliant with Commons guidelines, and consistent with naming and structure for other category trees. Josh (talk) 19:30, 3 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I have come across this discussion several times and am really struggling to understand it, just as I am struggling to understand what the heck to do with individual ship images. But I can't see why we need a category called "ships by name" and a category called "ships by name (flat list)", I don't even know what a flat list is or how it is supposed to differ from the "ships by name" category, and when I look at either of these categories they look the same. Ship categorization on Commons just seems like a horrible mess and it seems to me that we need to go back to basics and work out a structure for the categories that is logical, consistent and intuitive. Gatoclass (talk) 13:51, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Gatoclass: No individual ship images should go in any of these categories. "by name" categories are for categories only. I think we can all agree that category structure is a mess, and the discussion about best how to solve it. - Themightyquill (talk) 07:23, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I had a think about this after posting about it last night, and it looks to me as though there is nothing of importance in the "Ships by name" category anyhow, it appears to only exist now as a parent category of "Ships by name by type" - and I'm not sure why we even need a "Ships by name by type" category. So it seems to me that the most logical thing to do would be to either eliminate the "Ships by name by type" category altogether, or else move it to a category on the same level as "Ships by name". Either way, we could then get rid of the "Ships by name (flat list)" category that I and I'm sure many others find confusing, and put everything back in the "Ships by name" category where they originally were. It also bothers me that the "Ships by name (flat list)" category is anomalous to all the other "x by name" categories, because that too is bound to create confusion. So they are my first thoughts on the issue. Gatoclass (talk) 14:53, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the response TMQ, it has helped clarify your position for me. Unfortunately I'm a little busy right now and may not be able to return to this discussion for a few days, but will do so as soon as I can. Regards, Gatoclass (talk) 04:55, 17 May 2019 (UTC).[reply]
When are we going to change back this category to an unhidden one of Ships by name, with this flat list bs dropped. A change made against consensus, from an individual that needs to be censured. Broichmore (talk) 13:02, 15 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I notice this is still outstanding, consensus is still ignored, this whole plan needs be reversed by a different Administrator other than the one who has abused his powers here. --Broichmore (talk) 20:41, 4 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We also have the Category:Ships with the same name to consider, which I would split into 'Common ship names' and 'Uncommon ship names' saving a layer for the latter. A flat category then seems superfluous. My idea would be:
Guido den Broeder Please, please don't make life complicated by bringing Category:Ships with the same name into this conversation. Ships with the same name was specifically created as a maintenance category, it's where images are very often parked before proper categorisation. The names of ships in it, may not match exactly; as it often features just the dominant word in a ship's title (I.E. City of Glasgow) or contains ships that have at some point carried the name.
It was created because of the confusion caused by, and maintenance problems associated with, the many trophy categories such as Category:Ships named after places etc. and their subs like Ships named after the Mersey etc. Too many similar categories muddy the waters.
Category:Ships with the same name is not meant for public use, as such, it's a sieve tool, meant to catch images of unidentified ships and present them in a basket for easy comparison against known others.
By its very nature it's not a candidate for being made hidden either. Just the same as Ships by name should not be a hidden category. Reason being, both depend on being universally up to date and used, to be effective, or available to be used when systematically searching against a particular word.
"Category:Ships by name" is critical to the project for search purposes. An ongoing problem on this project is that we insist on ignoring how Wikipedia names ships (or as how several museums do and that includes possibly the biggest and most influential; the NMM, in Greenwich London). No, we persist in not including the launch date in a name but a build date. A ship is only launched once; but build can be any one of multiple choices.
Lastly you say It contains quite a few ship names that occur only once, and this is bound to grow if those names are left without a parent category. Yes. exactly, that's the exact reason, why it was created, to contain every ship name we have, without hiding them away in parent categories. Meanwhile an army of befuddled contributors are busily hiding all our images away from use in places like Category:1912 in Wellington. We do not wish to hide away files in ships! --Broichmore (talk) 19:53, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Guido den Broeder, okay, that makes a bit more sense, but the solution should be to very clearly warn against creation of single-entity subcategories in Category:Ships with the same name, rather than splitting everything into two completely arbitrary and highly subjective categories. That simply won't work. Who is to decide what is common and what isn't? — Huntster (t@c)13:30, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I still don't see how that solves any of our issues here. Rather, it simply adds confusion, obscuration, creates two new problems. — Huntster (t@c)16:24, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Which would only exacerbate the current problem, and I can only see us right back where we are now if that split were to occur. — Huntster (t@c)13:30, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
HuntsterShips with the same name consists of ships that have been categorised (no ship's files are categorized where there is only one image), and single images lying loose in the basket for identification. That's the whole point of having them in a basket where they can be compared "like for like".
Single images of ships can be loose under Ships by name who cares? Not doing any harm. Why is it an issue? It's easier to put a blind eye to them. We will always have single solo images and we will always have more images than we have manpower to deal with. In reality single images wash around in places like Merchant ships of the United States or Sailing ships or Kayaks waiting for someone to find them and organize them via Ships with the same name. I's just something we have to come to terms with and accept.
In a perfect world, they shouldn't be "in ships by name" I agree, they could go into their individual Ships with the same name folders which would be useful.
If someone took the trouble in the first place to put them in Ships by name then they should have put them in at the level of steamships or Sailing ships etc. or better any appropriate or obvious Ships with the same name folder.
by the way Images of ships is a redirect to Ships, and the better General views of watercraft is also a redirect?
No action taken: This discussion has been around for over two years, and I don't see any consensus to change the system TMQ implemented. At the end of the day, this is an organizational category for a folksomony, and vitriol about the specifics is not going to further Commons. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:11, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
