Commons talk:Rename a category

Categorizing of cats with Template:Category redirect

hallo, what should we recommend for cats marked with the template, before it is cleared and redirected?

• should it be only sorted into the target? maybe we could mark it with «-», which will outline its "deprecated"-status (I tried that at Category:Frieze -> Category:Friezes)
• should it be well categorized like the target - if it is sorted beside the target everywhere, maybe more authors will find the problem and join in resolving it

--W!B: 04:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

My feeling is it should be well-categorised, but it's not very important either way. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:35, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Another Commons page

How does this page relate to Commons:Categories for discussion? /Lokal_Profil 18:11, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think they're related. This page is just info about how the actual process of renaming a category can be done. It doesn't offer guidelines as to WHEN or WHY it should be done (well, maybe it kinda does, but that's not the main point). pfctdayelise (说什么?) 03:44, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, just wondering. /Lokal_Profil 13:46, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Category redirect

What with

{{Category redirect|Name}}

 ? Shuld not by mentioned on that page ?--Pmgpmg 14:12, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

#REDIRECT for categories?

The page states that #REDIRECT [[:Category:Newcategoryname]] should be used if it likely that a new user might ever try to use this category by accident. I think is is an exceptionally bad idea! Consider what happens if a new user tries to use Category:Foo, which is a redirect to Category:Bar: The categorization will look good (blue), but when you click on the link, you go to another category, that does not list the article in question! Instead, the article is listed in a hard-to-reach orphan page. This is very confising! I suggest to {{Category redirect|Name}} permanently for such categories, and clean them up by bot regularly. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 09:10, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree, #REDIRECT for categories is a bad idea. We should use {{Category redirect}}s instead. --Kjetil r 09:40, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the redirect is a bad idea. I see no real difference using {{Category redirect}}s: the first one I checked Category:Asclepiadaceae contains already a forgotten image. Why not simply use {{Badname|newname}} when the category is empty, so it gets deleted asap ? --Foroa 10:09, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Like Foroa, I think that both kinds of redirects are a Bad Thing® unless we have a bot that actively fixes this stuff. Samulili 10:35, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

#Redirects mainly help one group of users: those who search for images. I think redirects to gallery pages serve that purpose well enough. That alone removes the main reason for having #redirects of categories in the first place.

On the other hand, I think that a category like Category:Car will be recreated over and over, unless it is a {{Category redirect}}. A category redirect is a convenient way of guiding users to the correct category when they have applied the wrong one. Finally, I don't see the point of keeping a category like, say Category:Huoses, because it will be immediately obvious to the user why the category link doesn't work. Like User:Samulili, I think that we need a technical solution, maybe in two directions:

1. A bot should patrol category redirect pages and move incorrectly categorized images. There must be some way, however, to make sure that the category redirect was not put there in error.
2. Category redirects as well as #Redirects should be visible when looking at the category link. Some color close to red would alert the user that there is something wrong with this category - and hopefully keep them from applying it. --rimshot^talk 11:27, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I am not fussed if we use #REDIRECT or a template redirect, just as long as people don't delete the damned things. We can use a bot to clean up either type, right...? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:40, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Also note bugzilla:5346: "make category redirects appear as different coloured links". pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:41, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

BTW note this is "help" not "policy", so you could just be w:WP:BOLD. :) pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:50, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Redirects are very helpful for non-Anglophone users. Until such time as categories are properly functional multilingually, redirects from various languages increase usability. Man vyi 21:52, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think multilinguals redirect categories are an issue here. This is more about singular/plural (Category:Car instead of Category:Cars), formulation (Category:Chinese history instead of Category:History of China)), redundant categories and so on. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 07:18, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Internationalization for categories would be good, but it doesn't exist. Using redirect for the purpose hurts more than it helps: consider someone makes Category:Bücher a redirect do Category:Books - so a German speaker comes along, and uses Category:Bücher on images he uploads - the category looks blue, so it seems to be ok. But in fact, his images can't be found in the category structure, and he won't even see them if he click the link to Category:Bücher, because he gets forwarded to Category:Books, where the images are not.

So, basically: redirects for categories don't work as expected. What would be needed for categories is aliases. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 09:09, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, thank you all for the input. I'll change the page, if no one has done it yet. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 09:09, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Template:bad cat name

I'm planning to make a {{Bad cat name}}, because {{Bad name}} is not really meant for categories. See Template talk:Category redirect. Superm401 - Talk 08:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Template:bad name

Is this page no longer in use ? and could someone more experienced control my added template bad name. I think it should be {{Bad name}} instead of reason, but i did not dare to change it.Oursana (talk) 15:21, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Looks OK. The template is used hundreds times per week but only for categories, but it is self destructing, so it disappears... --Foroa (talk) 15:57, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

{{move cat}} and {{move}}

When using {{move cat}} (as suggested here), I'm told to use {{move}}. I suspect one of the suggestions is a bit outdated... but obviously don't know the topic well or I wouldn't have had to look the template up... ;->. Best wishes, Anna reg (talk) 09:44, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Merging categories

I could not find a 'Commons:' page about merging categories, so I ask it here.

What I want to propose is that Category:Females with flowers and Category:Women with flowers should be merged, because I don't see a proper women vs. females difference in the pictures in these categories. Sander.v.Ginkel (talk) 13:14, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Category:Females with flowers is the super cat which contains women, girls etc.Oursana (talk) 22:25, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Sugalt is untranslatable

I was translating this document into my language and came across an example that reads "Category:Sugalt (doesn't match an existing subject)". Terrible example! Commons is meant to be a multilingual project. How can you expect that to be when the documents are as untranslatable as Alice in Wonderland? ... So, any better ideas? How about "Category:Siberian language" ? 朝彦 | asahiko (talk) 00:56, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

It's a neologism created from sugar and salt. This means the word does not exist. Aren't there Japanese words for sugar and salt and you can drop some glyphs/ code points from them and join these two words in a ways that they make a new, not already existing word? I've no clue about Japanese so please don't get upset if I said something that is just naive or stupid. I am willing to learn. -- Rillke^(q?) 01:57, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Sugar = satō and salt = shio, but merging them into sao would make it mean a "rod" and shitō = "a fight to the death", so, umm... Head-scratching of translators aside, I'd add that for an example of a non-existing subject, a single non-existing concept is better than a non-existing merger of existing concepts. Makes it stand out as another bad example, independent of example #2 in that list. 朝彦 | asahiko (talk) 19:58, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Bot

{{move|<destination category>|<reason>|<date>}}

should now be used instead. Right? --Neitram (talk) 22:11, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

"Category:Operatic sopranos" vs. "Category:Soprano opera vocalists"

I just received a notice on my Watchlist that a bot changed the name of one of the categories I used for a public domain image I'd posted this weekend. (I had used the existing category, "Category:Operatic sopranos", because the woman in the image was an operatic soprano, and because the phrase "operatic soprano" has been a standard title for this type of performer for a very long time. On June 25, the aforementioned bot, RussBot, changed the category I had chosen to "Category:Soprano opera vocalists" - which is not only incorrect terminology, but is a much wordier category name than is really necessary.) When I investigated, I discovered that this wordier category name was changed on 30 January 2017 and a redirect page was also created for "Category:Operatic soprano." The user making this change stated that the original name "Category:Operatic sopranos" was a "bad name" (despite the fact that the terminology has been in common use by music critics for a very long time); the user then termed new category as the "correct name." Since that time, RussBot and other users have moved existing articles to the revised, much wordier category name.

In my humble opinion, this change seems to be an incorrect one, and also appears to have been made without any discussion by Commons members. I'm therefore posting this thread to solicit guidance/discussion from my fellow Commons members. Which category is the correct one? If it should be "Category:Operatic sopranos", how can this situation be reverted/fixed? (My apologies in advance if there was an earlier discussion; I was unable to find any evidence that a discussion occurred.) Thank you in advance for your responses. 47thPennVols (talk) 00:20, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Should the old category be deleted? aka Commons:REDCAT

The wording in this section is a little confusing. The section title is a question, and the text below states a different question:

"This can be answered by answering this question: Is it likely that a new user might ever try to use this category by accident? With translations or just simple synonymy, the answer is yes."

The answer is "yes" to the second question (will it be used again) but therefore "no" to the question posed in the section title. So I'd like to rephrase all of this to the following:

Deleting the old category

In cases where it's likely that a new user might try to use the old category by accident, it's best to retain the old category as a redirect. This might include alternatives that are equally valid or synonyms; older and outdated terms; translations; or some other correct expectable name for the category. In such cases, the old category should be marked permanently with a {{Category redirect}} template.

Thoughts? - Themightyquill (talk) 11:54, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Just to be clear, the second paragraph that is:

If the old category name is a correct old or synonymic or alternative name of the subject or a correct expectable name for such a category, it should be marked with a {{Category redirect}} template permanently.

Will also be replaced by this, right? pandakekok9 02:10, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

 Support.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 05:17, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@Pandakekok9: Yes, that sounds right. Do you know what the hidden comments in between each paragraph are for? -- Themightyquill (talk) 18:49, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@Themightyquill: Those are for translation.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 02:18, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

@Jeff G.: So we just delete one when making the change? - Themightyquill (talk) 15:34, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

@Themightyquill: Yes.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 15:38, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Merger?

Hi, I saw Category:Viking Age Ukraine and Category:Viking Age Russia were created last October, but they have essentially the same contents. I think the parent category is Category:Kievan Rus and it makes sense to merge them both under the name Category:Viking Age Kievan Rus, but how do I do that? I can only find procedures for deleting or renaming categories, but a merger is neither. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 12:27, 20 May 2023 (UTC)