Commons:Categories vs Galleries

Purpose

This discussion was reopened in response to the view of the WikiProject Tree of Life (TOL) that when a media is added to a gallery, it must no longer have the respective category. This stance differs from the rest of commons, which holds that all images must be categorised; and galleries should be used to provide a sampling of media.

Case review

A vote was initiated in 2004 and garnered most of the responses between 2004 and 2005. No clear consensus appears to have been reached. It should be noted that the technology and capabilities of Commons has changed significantly since this vote was initiated.

Past dicussions

• Commons talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Categorizing Pages
• Commons talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Categories/Articles
• Commons talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#articles why?
• Commons talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Again, delete all categories
• Commons talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#species cats again
• Commons talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Categories and/or galleries
• User:WayneRay/Archives01#What on earth are you doing?
• User talk:Tony Wills/Archive003#User:Dysmorodrepanis
• User talk:Dysmorodrepanis#Please stop removing categorries
• User talk:Tony Wills/Archive003#Categories
• User talk:Dysmorodrepanis#Categories - working towards a solution

Concerns from TOL

• Species names can change frequently, and it is easier to move a gallery than it is to move a category.

Possible responses:

• Add a bot request to move images in a category to the new category.
• Operate the existing bot which enforces {{categoryredirect}} templates.
• Improve capabilities of moving categories to be more similar to moving galleries.

• Images in categories do not show in search results.

Possible responses:

• Improve search capabilities.

Poll

These responses were compiled based on the input on the discussion page. Any names with a ‡ symbol indicate that I have interpolated their stance. Users should remove the ‡ if they concur with this interpolation; or they should otherwise regroup themselves accordingly. --Thisisbossi

All media must have categories, may be in galleries

• ‡Ahonc
• Bossi
• Dschwen
• Finavon
• Foroa
• ‡Geni
• ‡Giggy
• Gmaxwell
• Herby
• ‡Hesperian
• Jarekt
• Lar
• Lokal_Profil
• ‡LX
• ‡Mattbuck
• MichaelMaggs
• ‡Mike.lifeguard
• Multichill
• Para
• Powers
• Rocket000
• SB_Johnny
• Kjetil_r
• Spellcast (talk) 06:17, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
• Guérin Nicolas ^(messages)
• AFBorchert
• guillom
• Sémhur
• --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 22:14, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Any media may be removed from category, if in appropriate gallery

• ‡Ies
• WayneRay (with the same species name)
• BotBln (for all species)
• Carstor
• Hsuepfle (for all species)

Galleries and Categories are different but equal

• carol

All media must be organized in a category and/or a gallery

• Slaunger New images shall be categorized to the most specific identifiable taxon. Galleries for categorized species associate with the species category. Existing gallery only species accepted until new images of the same species is added.
• WayneRay

Resolution

On 5 July 2008, User:Gmaxwell posted on the Administrator's Noticeboard that TOL would now be required to operate similar to the rest of Commons, in that all media must be categorised; and galleries are only to provide a sampling of media. This resolution was initiated based on this discussion and subsequently obtained consensus from other administrators. The TOL policy was changed accordingly.