Category talk:Southern Vectis

Proposed move

I'm not sure the move is entirely necessary. Most company cats in Category:Buses in the United Kingdom by operator have a "(bus company)" to avoid confusion. I suppose you could say Southern Vectis could be confused with the South of the Isle of Wight. I'm easy either way to be honest. Any other ideas...? Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 20:58, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Well it was moved regardless. I fail to see how me inviting further discussion is a "clear consensus on the talk page". Perhaps the people that make the actions need the learn what it is. Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 19:33, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Revamp proposal

Seeing as there are now more than 500 photos in the category, I think we need to sort the category out, before it gets ram packed. I'd rather sort it out now than when there are 1000 pictures! Also, I know Editor5807 has some more photos to add, and I have loads, so it will be easier than doing it later. I know we would loose having all the images in once place, but being spread over 3 pages isn't that much better!

I propose that we sort out buses by type. I was originally thinking we should sort them out by route as well (i.e. Southern Vectis buses on route 1), but I thought that the bus stops etc would be relevant to the subcategory too. Therefore I think we would be better off having categories for the actual routes themselves, where buses and bus stops etc can be put together.

I think we should have the following categories:

• Category:Southern Vectis bus stops - This would sort a large proportion of the images and could also be a sub cat of Category:Bus stops in England, to avoid flooding the latter cat with pictures from the IOW!

• Category:Southern Vectis buses by type - This would then have further sub cats like Category:Southern Vectis Dennis Darts etc. I'm not sure about the other SV vehicles, would "Southern Vectis ancillary vehicles" be a good category for the others? The trouble is, that won't then fit under the "Southern Vectis buses by type" cat. We could change it so "Southern Vectis vehicles", but I think the emphasis on buses is quite important.

• Category:Southern Vectis route 1 - and route 2, 3 etc... This would need to be done for every route, although it should be OK. I wouldn't bother distinguishing old and new. Perhaps each route category could go under a "Category:Southern Vectis bus routes" cat?

As well as this, I think we should continue the "Category:Buses in Cowes and Category:Buses in Newport, Isle of Wight theme, but only for the main towns. East Cowes, Ryde, Bembridge maybe, Sandown, Shanklin, Ventor eventually, Freshwater and Yarmouth. These are dependent on the amount of photos we have in a particular place, and are good to fit Wightbus pictures with SV ones, and avoiding having the actual image categories for towns an villages full of bus stop signs!

I will carry on the with "Special" sub cats too, like Category:Southern Vectis Bustival. I want to make a "Southern Vectis at Cowes Week 2009" cat, for images of buses not on the Pontoon, the Sailbus, loads of double deckers on route 1, and convoys of route 1s! I could do CW 2008 too, with the Yarmouth Shuttle...

An important final point is the standard of image description pages. Eventually, I aim for all of my image pages to be at a nice, tidy standard, for example File:Southern Vectis 318 SN03 ECD.JPG. Getting all the SV ones done would be nice! It includes having a description as follows:

English: Southern Vectis (fleet no) (name of bus) (registration no.), a (bus type chassis [linked])/(bus type body [linked]), in (road name), (town [linked]), Isle of Wight.

The date should be in the 2009-12-14 standard, either when the photo was taken or when it was uploaded (I do the former as I think it's more useful). Then licence etc to have the categories nice and tidy at the bottom. I realise that's quite a lot to ask, but I will end up doing most of the work - and it's something to aim for in the long term. Avoiding the mess created by transfers from Wikipedia would be nice too!

I think that's everything. Does anyone else have any ideas?? Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 19:46, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Good idea, the main Southern Vectis category is huge now! Spearate categories for bus stops, type, and route sounds like a much better way of organising things, plus now there are separate articles for routes on Wikipedia now, it's good to get all the photos in one place of buses on certain routes. As for the buses by type category, I would agree that buses by type looks better but again not sure where ancilliary vehciles would fit in, unless we had a separate category for each vehicle. However that would result in a lot of categories having a very few images in and could look even worse!

With the images I aim to tidy the captions for each image I have so far uploaded, I think most of them are ok now, but a few may need to be altered, so I will take a look through. (Thanks has to go to Arriva436 for help with this on some of the images I have uploaded). If any other editor is unsure about the correct categories, descriptions etc, as I often am, I now copy the description from other photos of the same or similar buses. These pages on Southern Vectis' website are also really useful to get the correct registration number, fleet number, name etc if any new editors are unsure.

So yes, all looks good to me, and definitely better to do it sooner than later when there are an unmanagable number of images. Editor5807^speak 19:07, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Progress

I have now created the bus stop category and most of the route categories, so I can start sorting the bus stop images.

All routes should have cats, except school routes. But stuff like the 27, 28 and 29 need them. Each individual tour will have one too, under "Category:Southern Vectis xxxx tour". The Island Coaster will probably end up with one.

Ok, all looks good from what I can see. Will the road trains have their own categories as well? Images such as this one of the road train in operation and this one of a bus stop could all be placed as well as others in a category named something like "Category:Ryde Road Train". Unless of course the route categories should be restricted to bus only routes... Editor5807^speak 18:53, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Probably "Category:Southern Vectis Road Trains". This would do for both the vehicles sub cat (though I've not started these yet), and the routes sub cat I think?? Otherwise we'd specifically have to make different titles. The bus stops could go in the road train category and the "Southern Vectis bus stops" category. There won't be many images of the Road Trains, so they will easily fit in one category. What do you think?

Also, on the vehicle category front, when the bus images get put into stuff like "Southern Vectis Dennis Darts", I am intending to just put the image in the bus sub cat and route sub cat. I think that if we start making the SV bus sub-categories, sub-categories of the things like "Category:Dennis Dart" and "Dennis buses in the United Kingdom", it will be very confusing and we would have to maintain lots of cross categories between the two systems. On the subject of Darts, I think they would be better off in one category, both low and high floor.

Thanks for sorting some of the cats though. You may have noticed I added some info, because I thought it would be good to specifically show why the image is so relevant. The links from the individual image pages to the SV route 4 Wiki article showing why its relevant it very long and tortuous. Your work did help though as I didn't have to keep checking I got the cats right! I also have been adding your user category to images without it.

Any further thoughts? Slightly amended plans, but I'm still intending coming over tomorrow, hopefully the snow and ice won't mess everything up. Fingers crossed... Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 19:19, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan. Agree with what you have said about the categories so all sounds good. Thanks for adding them to my user category, I have made a start at adding images to it but created it FAR too late in the day, after uploading around 800 images it's becoming a very long process to add them all! Editor5807^speak 22:13, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Progress II

Right, most of the bus stop images have been done now, thanks to Editor5807 for helping out with some of these. I just have some queries now as to the odd things, then it should be just buses left. There's quite a lot of things to discuss, so I'm going to try and do this in two parts.

• Bus stations. There is now a category for Category:Newport (Isle of Wight) bus station and Category:Yarmouth (Isle of Wight) bus station. Each one of those is in Category:Buses in Newport, Isle of Wight or Category:Buses in Yarmouth, Isle of Wight. There's enough for a cat for Ryde too. How do we go about putting these in the SV cat? I would suggest putting images with specifically show bus stops into Category:Southern Vectis bus stops, and relevant stands and signs etc into the route category at Category:Southern Vectis bus routes. Any images of buses can also be put into the category for that type of vehicle.

However, I am still unsure how to put the actual categories themselves in. Should we just leave them, or put the individual bus station categories into Category:Southern Vectis, or create a new sub-cat for bus stations, and then put that into the Southern Vectis category?

• Depots. 1, 2, 3 and 4. Should these be put in a new sub-category (bearing in mind more images may be taken) or can they just sit in the main category?

• Tickets. 1 and 2. Sub-cat or main cat?

• Cowes park and ride. Again, images showing the buses themselves and the stops can go in the relevant categories. Arguably, all of the images could go in Cat:SV route 1. Should we have a new sub category for the park and ride, and if so, where would those images go?

Any ideas?! After these decisions, there's only one more "big" one, then just the odds and sods left. Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 21:29, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Another thing before I move on, should they bus type categories be plural or not. I have moved the Presidents to Category:Southern Vectis Volvo B7TL. Would "Southern Vectis Volvo B7TLs" be better, or would it confuse things. Similarly Scania OmniCity or Scania OmniCitys etc? Thanks for any replies. Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 23:03, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I suppose if there was a separate category for all the bus stations it would keep it all together and would also provide a place to put any "extras" that might be able to be uploaded at some time in the future (for example I know there is still a sign in Shanklin pointing to the "bus station") but I don't know how well this would fit in with bus stations in other areas.

With the depots, not sure, maybe if other photos do get taken other categories could be created then? Same with tickets, I believe there could be room for many more ticket images, such as to areas SV don't operate services to anymore such as Gurnard, Havenstreet, Alverstone etc, i'll check to see if I have any tickets to these areas. In addition, i know I have a ticket travelling from Newport to Medina High School, costing £1.30, which would now work out as £2.50, so could show how fares have changed over time as well. Editor5807^speak 18:20, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Good idea about tickets. I have a day rover from 2005, which was when the rover tickets weren't just normal paper tickets. I've got a student rider priced at £0.50, a concessionary ticket printed out on Solent Blue Line paper from 2008 when SV had their shortage, and even better three tickets printed on Oxford Bus Company roll! I also have a ticket from Cowes - Gurnard. Not sure how they fare with the copyright on Commons though, although I would hardly call something which is printed out and given to millions of people that exclusive. I think I will created a new cat for bus stations on the Isle of Wight, and one for depots too. Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 19:11, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Progress III

Down to about 140 images now, which is good. A couple of questions:

• Should all coaches just go in a "Southern Vectis coaches" category, or coaches by manufacturer (ie. "Southern Vectis Volvo coaches"), or individual ones?
• File:Newport bus station stand F bus stop flag.JPG. Obviously can go in Newport bus station category, and the relevant routes, but shall I bother creating sub cats for the 36/7?
• And to confirm the tree cutter/fleet vans etc are going in "Southern Vectis ancillary vehicles"? Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 21:10, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I suppose if there was a separate category for each type of coach this could amount to large numbers of categories with only a few images of one bus in, so a "Southern Vectis coaches" category would probably be better, same with "Southern Vectis ancillary vehicles". With the stand F bus stop flag, it was something I was wondering about as well when I did a bit of sorting. I suppose route 36 was only a very limited service that has been operated by Wightbus for ages now, I certainly don't have any other photos of it, same with the 37, it was only a limited service to Sylvan Drive and the bus stop flag is probably the only image for it, so maybe it's not worth creating sub-cats for the 36/7. Although it wouldn't really matter if there was a category for them, it would just be limited for the number of photos that were in it. Editor5807^speak 18:17, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree, I won't bother then. The 37 ran to Camp Hill as well I think, but the "old" East Cowes 37 survived past April 2006. So I suppose that's the only route number so far that's been used twice post-April 2006. Unless the Binstead/Haylands Shuttle counts as a "12"! Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 23:06, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Progress IV

We are now under 100 images in the main SV category! As I was sorting through there were a few things that came up which I thought I should discuss here.

• After the photos taken at the Isle of Wight Bus Museum's running day in 2008 there are a lot of photos of preserved buses in Newport. Is it ok to add these to Category:Buses in Newport, Isle of Wight, or should this just be left for buses carrying out services today?
• Also, is there enough images of the event to create a category something like Category:Isle of Wight Bus Museum running day 2008? Obviously not to add to the main SV category, but this could be added to the existing Category:Isle of Wight Bus and Coach Museum category and would help to organise all the photos Arriva436 took of this event.
• Should there be a category for the Moss Tours run Haylands, Binstead, Ryde Town circular service? Currently there is only one photo of this but there could definitely be more added.

Anyway those were the main issues, I'll list any more if they come up. Thanks, Editor5807^speak 19:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I knew there was something I had forgotten, should this photo of the model of 643 be categorised fully as though it was a photo of a standard bus, or is it fine as it is, as it's just a model? Editor5807^speak 19:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

That's good news. Not long to go now! (Getting below 1,000 in the Buses in the UK cat will be amazing though!) You may have seen me tinkering with some of the re-catted images. That's mainly to add Geocoding to my own images, and add some more relevant details to some images, that I can think of off the top of my head. (i.e adding details about the extra bus on the 2008 Needles Tour).

• In terms of your queries. The "Buses in xxxx" cats are for current buses in service during their normal lifetime, so the preserved buses shouldn't go in there really. Of course, old photos of the buses when they were still in service could, however, go in there!

• I did actually intened creating a IOW bus running day cat once all the SV images were sorted. As you say, it could go in Category:Isle of Wight Bus and Coach Museum, but also with other similar categories at Category:Bus rallies and events in the United Kingdom. That would be useful. I would call it "Isle of Wight Bus Museum October running day 2008", to show it was the main annual event, in October.

• Yes, there should be. I do have a photo of the old regular coach doing the route (with its branding on). What would it be called though? "Cat:Southern Vectis Binstead and Haylands shuttle", "Cat:Southern Vectis Moss Motors Tour" (but that would get confused with just any old coach in Moss Motors Livery). The number the council have annoyingly given it is 12 of course, but as SV don't show this then putting them into the current route 12 category doesn't seem like a good idea.

• I'd say mini-643 is fine as it is. I have a chance shot of big 643 next to mini 643, so the model will end up being part of the main cat scheme eventually!

As an aside, Category:Southern Vectis buses by type is now no longer just buses... I think we should worry about getting this moved when everything else is finished? Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 22:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok thanks for that. Difficult to decide but I would probably agree with the first name for the Haylands route, 'Southern Vectis Binstead and Haylands shuttle', as Moss Tours would just get confused with any Moss Tours coach, and the current images of buses in the Moss Tours livery are labeled as 'Southern Vectis' in their titles anyway. Editor5807^speak 23:43, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Further splits

I know it was under a year ago since the first split of the main Southern Vectis category was discussed, but since then the number of Southern Vectis related images has exploded. I also have many more I would like to upload at some point as well, and I am constantly taking new ones. The main thing I have noticed perhaps get a bit overcrowded was some of the buses by type categories, namely Category:Southern Vectis Scania OmniCity (378 photos), Category:Southern Vectis Dennis Dart (322 photos) and Category:Southern Vectis Volvo B7TL (234 photos). Category:Southern Vectis Scania OmniDekka could also be split as well as 58 photos is a lot for only five buses. I thought if this proposal goes ahead the best way would be to sort it out by each bus so for example as subcategories for Category:Southern Vectis Scania OmniCity have something like Category:Southern Vectis 1101 HW08 AOP, Category:Southern Vectis 1102 HW08 AOR and so on. I'm sure there are advantages and disadvantages to this proposal which is why I wanted to get the feedback of others before anything was started. In addition to preventing the main bus type categories from getting too overcrowded it could also easily show details on the 'journeys' each bus goes through while with Southern Vectis (island thinker changes, advert changes, livery changes, damaged parts, attendance at special events etc etc).

Of course there are downsides, for example we only have one image of 318, which would create quite an empty category. This problem could also occur if we needed to split Category:Southern Vectis Volvo Olympian (I have loads of images of the new school bus fleet to upload). Then there's the question of what to do with the Wilts & Dorset images we have under the B7TL category. I was thinking just leaving those under the main category and creating just the 7 subcategories for the different Southern Vectis owned vehicles.

Anyway, that's just a suggestion. Perhaps it doesn't need splitting quite yet but as I say, I have loads more images to upload and I think it could be easier and less time consuming to split sooner rather than later. So it would be good to hear some other views. Thanks, Editor5807^speak 22:35, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, this is a tough topic to think about. To be honest, I think that having a separate category for each vehicle is a bit excessive, and as you say they'd be some issues. A major problem I would say it that it's just too much, I reckon it will be looked down upon by others, it might be viewed that we have too many images, and I don't want to end up having a load deleted. Technically the they are all in scope, but I don't want to push the boundaries. I would suggest that we create sub categories for different batches. Eg "Southern Vectis Scania OmniCity (2008 batch)", or "Southern Vectis 2008 batch Scania OmniCitys" or something. This might work.

I think that the problem should lessen soon. We've photographed every service bus in the fleet, most of them many times, so I think we can stop taking photos of them. We should start focusing on the routes I would say. Obviously the Citaros have left/are going, so that's not a problem, the OmniDekkas should be fine for ages. The handful of Darts left are only on the 1 nowadays really, and there's only a few points on that route without a photo (Northwood Garage, Horsebridge Hill, Parkhurst, St Mary's, Hunnyhill), so we won't have to take many more Dart photos besides repaints etc.

Once all the schools Volvo Olys are painted into Moss livery, they should settle down and not need too many photos, although photos of the school routes will create issues. Perhaps we could have "Volvo Olympian (schools)" and "Volvo Olympian (public)", though that would create an issue with those natives that were latterly in the coach fleet. Therefore it's only really the OmniCitys creating major issues. There's currently 378 photos, so if we separated them by reg year, 08, 58, 09 they'd be roughly 100 photos in each which should be fine, and obviously less in the 08 cat as they're only four of them. Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 18:13, 22 October 2010 (UTC)