Commons talk:Categories/Works of art
New proposal
[edit]This proposal page has been created based on discussion results at Commons talk:WikiProject Arts/Manual of Style/Categories.
Pinging participants in the preceding discussion, @JopkeB and Oursana: .
This is an initial draft and subject to further discussion before adoption by consensus. Please discuss any desired changes to the proposal here. Josh (talk) 02:28, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
About the work name
[edit]@Joshbaumgartner and Oursana: On the Project page, there is stated that "The work name is the full officially-given name of the work in its original language". Always? Can I for instance rename the most iconic painting of the Netherlands, Category:The Night Watch by Rembrandt to Category:Nachtwacht by Rembrandt? Or are there any conditions, like it should be the "most commonly used name in the English language"? --JopkeB (talk) 13:12, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
- Category names
- Category names should generally be in English (see Commons:Language policy). However, there are exceptions such as some proper names, biological taxa and names for which the non-English name is most commonly used in the English language (or there is no evidence of usage of an English-language version).
- Commons:Categories#Category names
- Can you please give your reference.
- De Nachtwacht is an interesting example, it is translated see d:Q219831, like d:Q311243 which has a German Categoy name Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer (Caspar David Friedrich).
- French paintings' categories often have a French name.
- User:ThieryCaro is constantly creating 1 image categories naming the category in French without artist's name Contributions/Thierry_Caro. So for the majority of the users the categories are enigmatic and useless. De did not react to my edits on his talk page nor to my many changes. This is against commons policies and perhaps it is neccessary that an Admin reminds him.
- --Oursana (talk) 14:41, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
- @JopkeB, @Oursana, as for the title being in its native language, if it is broadly accepted in a given field to use translated names for works, I think that would be fine. I'm not a fine arts major, so I'll defer to others on the practice of naming paintings and sculptures. When it comes to something like books, I would definitely stick with the original language for the main category for the book, and files specific to a translated edition can be in sub-categories with the translated name. I'm not sure what we currently do for movies. Songs and such I would also definitely stick with original language titles. For items which are not titled by their creator, but do have a commonly used exonyms or are named in series such as Mozart's symphonies, English names are fine. So I suppose the answer is 'depends'.
- I'm not sure what the whole thing with ThieryCaro is, but I think that is another reason why we should adopt at least a basic guideline here. If a user is creating categories, it is difficult to come down to hard on them if there is no guideline or policy really out there. With this in place, you can point them to this policy, and if they continue to go against it, that can be elevated as appropriate to solicit an admin remedy.
- I have updated the work name description to read (new text in italic): "The work name is the full officially-given name of the work in its original language, or an appropriate commonly-recognized English translation as appropriate for the work." Josh (talk) 18:45, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
- That is a good addition. But now I understand that it is up to the creator of a category to decide what the name is? Can we make it more compelling, the other way around: that the work name is an appropriate commonly-recognized English translation as appropriate for the work and only if there isn't, then the work name is the full officially-given name of the work in its original language? JopkeB (talk) 05:21, 28 May 2024 (UTC)