User talk:Andy Dingley/Archive 2008 October

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It's got a single image... what exactly is the point of this category? -mattbuck (Talk) 11:27, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's a category about Italianate buildings in Bristol, in much the same way as for Bristol Byzantine. Notable style (W:Osborne House is a classic example), the large number of them to be found in Bristol means that the combination is notable in particular. There needs to be a wikipedia article on the topic too. Obviously it's a shame that we only have one at present but that's no reason to kill a category. I'm actually surprised that's the only one we've got so far, but I've not even had time to search far for them yet. What would be rather more helpful would be to take a camera around Clifton. Of course that, and writing the relevant articles, depends on the supply of free time. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:28, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, a cat holding a single image isn't "empty", as you wrote in the deletion log message. In particular, the problem is with cats that are going to stay empty because they're inappropriate cats, not cats that we simply haven't yet collected content for. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:57, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First off, for fishponds, I was the person who created the category to begin with, then decided it seemed like a bad idea and deleted it again. Frankly, I'm open to discussion about how to organise them, and for the most part the council wards works, it's just a few areas where you get difficulties. What's nice is that they have well-defined boundaries - which ward an image is in is rarely ambiguous. I suppose a way to do it would be to rename the categories into ".... (ward)" so that they're categorised that way, but then to have some other categorisation system which, I assume, relies on the murkiness of where one district ends and another begins. -mattbuck (Talk) 11:58, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to propose a compromise - I'll rename all the ward cats to .... (Bristol ward), and districts of bristol to wards of bristol, and then we can have a parallel naming scheme that deals with the common-use name for where they are. I feel that categorisation by ward is helpful, but I can understand that it's not the best way to do things. The thing is that it's relatively easy as, like I said, the boundaries are clearly defined. I'm currently starting on the geocoding work - I'll go through those already categorised by ward first (over 1000 - I'll be a while. We have too many people taking photos of trains) but I would like to categorise the rest into ward as I geocode them as otherwise it's going to be hard to work out which aren't categorised properly. As for parent categorisations, I find that it's usually best to depopulate the parents if possible, but leave any which fall into the parent cat for reasons other than whatever child cat they're in. I trust that people are capable of looking through categories. -mattbuck (Talk) 12:53, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
For the ward-based naming, I'd see that as an improvement. Especially for areas like Cabot or Ashley that aren't meaningful otherwise, or Clifton where the ward boundary is so different from the recognised area (no doubt these aren't the only ones).
Additionally, I'd actually like to re-introduce the areas (so Cumberland Basin gets Hotwells and Spike Island). Those are names that people understand, not the ward names.
The use-case for this is people browsing the categories (i.e. going from category to image), rather than seeing categorization as purely attributional on images. Where there's a category (Bristol Harbourside would seem an obvious example) that users might go to directly as a clear concept in their search goals (i.e. I'm a tourist going for a walk alongisde the Harbour, what might I see?), then we ought to have this populated by some images directly. Rather than requiring our hypothetical user to know what Cumberland Basin is, whether it's interesting and whether they ought to navigate away into that category during their browse, then we ought to offer them at least one key image from it in their first category. This is a case when the absolutely rigid pruning of transitive categories should be avoided. Andy Dingley (talk) 08:52, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly create a gallery for it - one that gives a virtual walk along the harbourside or something. I did that with Ffestiniog Railway Virtual Ride. -mattbuck (Talk) 12:17, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Different use-case. That's a set of images pre-assembled to tell a narrative (and using only images available at the time). Categories are dynamic: they list what's there and relevant _now_, even when it was added after the display, "list" or other access method was set up. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:37, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No problem[edit]

It just needed a few cats. If you consume a little bit of your time searching for categories, you're bound to find the right ones. Cheers.--24.255.106.123 18:17, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Portainers[edit]

Hi Andy - please do not categorise images which are already in "Portainers" as "Container cranes". Instead, the portainers cat should be a subcat of the "container cranes" cat (which it is now). Could you make sure that any edits you may have made in this regard are reverted (as otherwise, the images will be in two categories, one of which is a subcat - i.e. against Commons sorting rules). Cheers Ingolfson (talk) 11:21, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No. "Portainer" is a registered trademark for one very narrow form of container crane, and strictly just the products of one manufacturer. Few of the container cranes illustrated here are Portainers. It's not a good choice of category name anyway, as "container crane" is a broadly recognisable term, "Portainer" isn't. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:42, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Magnetos[edit]

I looked in my dictionaries and Websters now (not only at the drawing) and found that you'r right. My only problem: where does it fit in the category system? Magnetos are not a category. Is it useful to make a Category:Magnetos, that resides under Category:Automobile parts and Category:Aircraft engines ? --Stunteltje (talk) 17:37, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

en|wiki -> The first field telephones had a wind-up generator, used to power the telephone's ringer & batteries to send the call, and call the manually-operated telephone central. This technology was used from the 1910s to the 1960s.
OP ->I think that with en:Magneto (electrical), they mean a special class of dynamo's (electrical high voltage generators) with which they seem to overlap (used in engines but equally in old (field-, army-) telephone equipment). Don't know if a new name needs be invented. --Foroa (talk) 09:33, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Magnetos are dynamos, but only in the sense of physics rather than as a useful categorisation. The category for them should be restricted to the ignition systems of petrol and other spark-ignition engines. A useful supercategory for that would be "engine ignition system components". A supercategory as dynamos is correct, but it's not actually that useful - few people would wish to browse the collections on that basis.
It would be a mistake to include telephone ringers in the same category of magnetos. They're different mechanisms, used differently, although they do share the same word "magneto". Many of the telephone ones were described as dynamos anyway (this also varies between countries). We certainly need to distinguish quite clearly between magnetos (ignition components), magnetos (telephone components) and other dynamos. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:35, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No problem, I understand. But in that case, I assume it will be better to leave out the category:magneto at your image and add your usefull information to the English Wikipedia. I tried to categorise it because the image asked for it and I was recategorising a lot of images in the electrical fields as asked in the headers. --80.100.124.71 11:52, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"excess categorization"[edit]

Excess categorization is not a problem. Overlapping categories are. -- carol (talk) 11:36, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! Overlapping categories (at least on here, where the categorization facilities are so limited) certainly aren't. Many, many resources here will imply an overlap between their categories. What are you thinking of as an example? (I'm guessing it's "cranes by type", which isn't even an overlap). Andy Dingley (talk) 11:42, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(Edit conflict) Excess categorization is not a problem. Overlapping categories are. This is the reason that I reverted your edits to my photograph of the Grease pencils. They have an image that explains what is considered to be "over categorization" here, if that will help I can show it to you. -- carol 11:43, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I ended up pasting the time of my last preview before the edit conflict, heh. -- carol (talk) 11:46, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The grease pencil image is currently in Category:Pencils and Category:Tools. It shouldn't be in Category:Tools, as that's an implied super-category of Category:Pencils, via several other layers of writing instruments. None of this is about overlap (a shared area between siblings), it's about wholly implied supercats. Why do you think something that's in Category:Pencils also needs to be in Category:Tools? Andy Dingley (talk) 12:23, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"bought in a hardware store which sells tools." isn't a good reason. My local garage sells loaves and condoms as well as petrol. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:24, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
They are found in the United States first in Hardware Stores, second in Art Stores, third (and rarely) in Office Supply stores. I actually purchased them and took the photograph because I had to spend so much time removing marks made from a tool like this from a photograph (digitally remove, I have no idea how to get that stuff off of photographs in real life). My dad had plenty of these marking tools around when I was growing up. He had tools first and office supplies second. When he was no longer around, neither were these marking tools as most of the tools went with him. If there is ever the need of marking a hard and shiny surface for the purpose of cutting, routing, drilling or scoring the occurance of one of these marking tools in the tool box will be at the very least helpful.
If you prefer that the photograph does not live in an upper level category, which is a good reason to change the category, how about Category:Marking tools? I almost bought one or two of those flat carpenter pencils which to my knowledge can only be sharpened with a blade (a design that quite possibly was inspired by keeping the spouse and children from using them) for the purpose of photographing them as no images existed of them here when I was doing all of that. Other marking tools might include tailors chalk, and those cool plumb line makers and probably a plethora of other such nifty tools which are dedicated to marking things.... -- carol (talk) 14:30, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My time stamps seem to be much cooler than yours. That last one was completely an accident. -- carol (talk) 14:33, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
from en:Pencil sharpener
How about the category:Pencils and that alone? It's a pencil. If we have some relevant subcategory of category:Pencils like category:Grease pencils or category:Blue pencils, then by all means add it to that too. However there are categories that all Pencils will automatically be implied members of, through the memberships and transitive memberships of their category. There's no need to add an explicit statement of this, otherwise that category gets bloated by thousands of entries and becomes unworkable. All pencils will be "writing instruments" and in the fullness of ther tree even "tools". We don't need to tag up every pointy rock since the stone age as a "tool". Andy Dingley (talk) 14:59, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's other name is "china marker". I opted not to use this name since China is one of those shared words and (for instance) a person who thinks that a dedicated pencil should not be considered a tool might also be confused between the differences between the "Made in" and "Your grandmothers good" uses of the word China and china. It is actually called "china marker" because it is a tool which might be used to mark glazed and kilned ceramics with. It is not a marker though, not a hollow tube filled with dye saturated felt -- it is a mark maker like a marking tool would be; making marks on specific types of surfaces. I believe it was adopted as a photograph tool due to its abilities for marking glossy surfaces. China markers are made from trees, I cannot deny this, but not like writing pencils are. They are more like crayons wrapped with paper, except they are marking tools which are shaped like pencils. And, if I had used these tools as crayons my dad would have killed me if he ever needed one and could not find one. Not the dead kind of killed but that other kind of killed where for a certain length of time, the dad makes the child sorry to be alive and in his life and using his stuff. Please keep them categorized or subcategorized into tools -- for the sake of the children!! -- carol (talk) 16:13, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Hi Andy,

I like your picture of the model of a Corliss steam engine. Could you please provide further information as to were the model is located and were you took the photo?

Thanks for your help. -- DrJunge (talk) 09:27, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The model? It's in a glass display case at the the cylinder end of the large Corliss engine in the London Science Musuem, the same bright red engine that's seen in so many of the other photos.
I'm sorry about the poor quality. I just happened to find myself near the museum with some time one day, but only a poor camera. If I were closer to London, I'd try and re-do many of these.
I must have overlooked the engine during my visit last weekend. Thanks for giving me a reason to return to the Science Museum! -- DrJunge (talk) 06:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
P.S.: A not so perfect picture is still better than none at all!