Category talk:Unidentified subjects

 

Related category discussions

Expand to view current and archived category discussions related to this category

This discussion of one or several categories is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive. Category:Unidentified subjects See also: Commons:Categories for discussion/2020/01/Category:To be categorised by country. This category and it's sub-categories are nonsensical and just leading to files being put in proper categories. Just to give one example, the second row contains File:Jorge Srur - Foto de perfil.jpg. Which is in the sub category "unidentified people" when we know the person in the picture is Jorge Srur. The sub categories are replete similar issues, like "Unidentified maps" is filled with maps that clearly what they are maps of either in their file names or descriptions. My suggestion is that this whole ridiculous thing be scrapped so files can just be put in the proper categories from the get-go. The main category for whatever the thing is works fine anyway. Like whatever is in "unidentified fossilizes" can just go in the main fossilizes category until someone can figure out a better place. Having main categories and "unidentified" categories is super obtuse and redundant though. Adamant1 (talk) 11:03, 22 March 2022 (UTC)  Keep. The whole point is for knowledgeable people to keep identifying depicted items and move the files to the right categories, and for the rest of us to keep adding files that depict things we can't identify. I was very happy to see MPF identify my upload File:Turkey Vulture on suburban sidewalk, Elmwood Park, NJ 2017-08-10 132509.jpg in this edit and the preceding rename.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 23:12, 22 March 2022 (UTC) Cool you have a personal experience where this category structure worked out. That doesn't address the broader issues with it I brought up. Also, it's not like the same exact thing couldn't have happened if the file was in the main category for vultures or whatever. There was literally nothing keeping MPF from identifying the vulture if it was in the main bird/vulture category. I do it all the time and so do other people. No one is like "well shit, I guess I can't categorize images of birds because there's no Category:Images of unidentified birds for me to look through" or whatever. If anything your example just goes to show how much of a pointless oxymoron this whole thing is. Every image on here is unidentifiable to someone. I don't know the locations of 100% of the images in the main category for Ghana, but so what? By your logic I should create a special "unidentified locations of Ghana" category to put everything in just because I don't know jack about the country and no one who does is ever going to organize the files unless I do. Which is just nonsensical. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:18, 23 March 2022 (UTC) This category is used for administration or maintenance of Wikimedia Commons, and has been so for 12+ years.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 12:41, 23 March 2022 (UTC)  Keep - very useful. Granted it's somewhat annoying when files clearly identified by a named item is placed in 'Unidentified items', but equally, sometimes the named identification is incorrect, and the Unidentified categories are useful holders for a review of their identifications. As to including these files in the headline category - this in many cases risks making the headline categories unusable as they steadily become cluttered up with low quality files that no-one can identify; look at e.g. Category:Unidentified fungi to see the effect of having this many files in the header category - MPF (talk) 23:32, 23 March 2022 (UTC) @MPF: Your example of the fungus brings up an interesting question/example of why I think this is an issue, Category:Unidentified fungi contains the category Category:Unidentified Basidiomycota, which then contains three files named "Baumpilz." We know those those three files are of Basidiomycota and more specifically Baumpilz. So what exactly makes those files or for that matter any other of the files in the Basidiomycota category unidentified? While I'm glad you agree with me that it's somewhat annoying when files clearly identified by a named item is placed in 'Unidentified items', it's by no means a rare occurrence and there should really be a solution to it beyond just sticking to the status queue. Cool that neither of you want the categories deleted, but at least propose an alternative to deletion that deals with the issue then. In the meantime if most or all of the files in this and it's sub categories are being wrongly categorized then I don't know what alternative there is outside of deletion to stop it from happening. --Adamant1 (talk) 05:40, 26 March 2022 (UTC) hi Jeff G I'm Danny Ray Grantham if you would contact me at 9123818806 I think we need to talk. thank you 2A01:B747:22:344:7419:E42D:8758:65BC 20:17, 15 June 2022 (UTC) Why?   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 21:18, 15 June 2022 (UTC)  Keep. Seems useful as a way to improve the project. Perhaps we should have a talk page template that could be added to articles formerly categorized as unidentified to indicate they should not be relisted.—agr (talk) 11:21, 5 April 2022 (UTC)  Keep. I somewhat agree that random people without chance of identification or persons named in the file itself maybe shouldn't be so hastily added to 'Unidentified people', the most dubious of all categories here. But the hatnotes in the categories within Unidentified subjects have the section "Look at the file name and description. Many files marked as unidentified are actually identified and just need appropriate categories." So this is expected behavior, we need a place to keep uncategorized files until someone comes along and tags them inside proper categories, and these categories have served that purpose well. Every now and then I remove a file from here because it's impossible to identify and likely added by mistake (an example that comes to mind is a 50x50 icon of meat added into "unidentified cuts of meat"). But these edge cases don't justify removing the whole thing, though I would agree with the suggestion above (a talk template to explain the rationale in removals from Unidentified categories without categorisation, for cases such as files impossible to identify). YuriNikolai (talk) 04:41, 20 April 2022 (UTC) "We need a place to keep uncategorized files until someone comes along and tags them inside proper categories." I don't have a problem with a template as a compromise, but isn't what your saying exactly why there's parent categories? Like someone puts an image of a stamp into Category:Stamps until someone can tag them in a more "proper" category. I'm really at a lose for how that's any different then Category:Unidentified stamps. Except the "unidentified" category just creates a second, redundant bucket that someone can put files in and look through. From what I can tell the only purpose it serves is to make the parent category look clean, but shouldn't be the purpose of categories. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:06, 16 June 2022 (UTC)  Keep This is a maintenance/admin category and so its justification is whether or not it serves a valid maintenance/admin purpose. As far as I am aware, proper identification of subjects in files is a core maintenance task, so a category to hold files which require said task would seem a perfectly valid category to me. Obviously it is subdivided into greater levels of identification so people can hone in on their area of expertise to assist with identification. I see no reason to remove this category. Josh (talk) 22:28, 11 December 2022 (UTC) This category discussion has been closed. Consensus  No consensus Actions none Participants Adamant1 (talk · contribs) YuriNikolai (talk · contribs) MPF (talk · contribs) Jeff G. (talk · contribs) ArnoldReinhold (talk · contribs) Closed by Josh (talk) 05:39, 22 December 2022 (UTC) Pinging @YuriNikolai, MPF properly to compensate for the previous two edits.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 12:43, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Rename category

Category names should be written with plural. Here "unidentified subjects". See category naming guidelines. Teofilo (talk) 20:40, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

While the individual categories and subcategories can be written in plural, the main heading is singular and should not be changed. IE: the subject of (say) Category:Unidentified maps is plural because it contains many maps, it is one singular subject. I vote for Keep the original format of the title. WayneRay (talk) 16:02, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I say keep it how it is. It sounds better since it's more of a description than a noun (it's a category of "images with an unidentified subject" not a category of subjects that are unidentified). It's more of a maintenance category anyway. Rocket000 (talk) 17:40, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Removing Items

How are items removed from the cagegory? I made topic on the talk page and added a category to the image, but it is still there. Mr. C.C. (talk) 23:57, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

You have to remove the "Unidentified subjects" category from the file after you categorize it. Rocket000 (talk) 01:11, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorting character

Does we discuss and chose once and never again a Sorting character for Category:unidentified...... like ? in the string [[Category:Unidentified insects|?]] in category:insects. Because there are two kinds of users. Who wants the ? and who wants ~ o  · or any other character that put maintenance categories at the end of the list. It's almost a decade that there is a silent war with thousands of wasted futile edits.--Pierpao.lo (listening) 10:46, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't think that is necessary or important to standardize such a thing. When we have picture whose subject is not identified, the main interest is that someone will recognize it. For this reason I prefer to use the "?" so this subcategory becomes very visible and is placed before all others, what does not happen when the sort key is another character that is very little and positioning the sub-category at the end of all. These are my reasons and my opinion. --DenghiùComm (talk) 14:10, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

In ASCIIbetical sorting order, "?" will sort after numbers and before letters, while "~" will sort after both numbers and letters... AnonMoos (talk) 15:29, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Exactly this is the problem many people does not like ? beacause want the maintenance categories at the end--Pierpao.lo (listening) 15:45, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

This is the order of sort keys:

at the top ! " $  % & # * + - . / = ?

at the bottom ~ £ § °

--DenghiùComm (talk) 19:48, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Most of meta-categories are put at the beginning on Commons. Regards, Yann (talk) 21:52, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Removals by Cwbm (commons)

@Cwbm (commons): Why is "[[Category:Topics|?]]" wrong? Why is {{ImageCategoryTOC}} unnecessary?   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 12:27, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Why is Category:Topics correct? Why is TOC necessary? --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 13:44, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

@Cwbm (commons): This category has been one of the Topics (in Category:Topics) for over three years, since this edit. If an editor wants to identify the subject of a file (usually a photo), this is the one cat they should see for that purpose.

You added {{ImageCategoryTOC}} in this edit nearly five years ago, why? Why remove it after all this time? It is useful for navigation when there are over 200 files in this category. @Pierpao: What do you think?   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 14:16, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

That this way is ok. The purpose of this category is only maintenance, so must be very friendly--Pierpao.lo (listening) 14:36, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

 Agree with Jeff G. and with Pierpao. DenghiùComm (talk) 16:33, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

non-topical index

Category:Unidentified churches and Category:Unidentified buildings must be presented among Category:Unidentified subjects. Otherwise "users" who have detected a wrongly categorized church photo (In the category of an identified church, you find a photo that obviously shows another church., which you don't know.) or a wrongly categorized photo of another building, cannot know, how to categorize them, until they are identified.--Ulamm (talk) 22:48, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Correction category

When an item is given a wrong location (misinterpretation of two similar places) Lemein (talk) 12:40, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

@Lemein: I put your photo in Category:Personal files for speedy deletion for you.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 13:08, 17 July 2022 (UTC)