File talk:StateLibQld 1 141019 Holmburn (ship).jpg

@Clindberg: Please may we talk through your reason for deleting these categories. Thanks, Eddaido (talk) 19:40, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

@Eddaido: COM:OVERCAT. The category Category:Holmburn (ship, 1957) (or its parent category, Category:IMO 5153618) is now a member of all the categories I removed here, so this image is still in those categories by virtue of being in the ship category. Typically, these types of categories are only on the per-ship category, if there is one. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:17, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I made a fuss because it seems a New Zealand collector of shipping memorabilia retired to Queensland and the State Library has his collection.

They have all been categorised category:Ships in Queensland which is a complete nonsense, the photos only were or are in Queensland. I became aware of this after I put these categories on this particular image. Whole fleets have been stolen by Australia ! ! (yes, it could be worse).

What should be done about this? Thanks, Eddaido (talk) 21:25, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Changing categories, I guess. I did change "Ships of Australia" to "Ships registered in Wellington" (subcat of "Ships of New Zealand") on the ship category for this one. "Ships in Queensland" could be fine -- that is for ships photographed while in Queensland. It's the "ships of" categories which should not be Australia, other than ships actually registered there. But if these photos were taken in New Zealand, then the photo-location category should be changed too (or removed if the location is unknown). Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:34, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

I've less than no interest in ships, I had a brief passing curiosity about ships of the Holm line. I just got irritable and fixed a whole lot of well-known ships which suffered from this same mistake. Having learnt how to make new categories I made them for these ships (including this one Category:Holmburn (ship, 1957)). I've done my bit for the ship enthusiasts.

I have pointed out this enormous error of attributing New Zealand ships to Australia or Queensland to various parties (like here and now) and to whoever represents the State Library of Queensland without any luck at all. We all throw up our hands at how difficult the job is. SLQ's cataloguing system may be aware of its mistake — right from the beginning and its all in its / their too hard basket too.

So, what do we do about it? Its only national pride takes me this far! Eddaido (talk) 21:58, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

With the big image repository image uploads, they try to funnel them into some categories, then ideally it's the project's job to gradually categorize them better -- that is the idea behind the collaborative site :-). Some jobs are just really big though, and people do beg off if it's too much time for them. I'm fixing them one by one as I come across them, mainly. If there is any way to identify that particular contributor's photos, maybe they could be siphoned out of "Ships in Australia" by a mass job, and put into another maintenance category which identifies the uncertainty, but doesn't leave them uncategorized. I'm sure that library uploaded many images of ships that were validly taken in Australia, though many ships of that era were actually registered in London or elsewhere, and just travelled to Australia, so they were not "ships of Australia" either. As you said, you created the ship category, which is great, and then others can improve it later (like I just added the IMO parent cat). I see you commented years ago on the Queensland Library upload project page, without a reply. If there is a specific mechanism to identify the New Zealand related files, maybe someone at Commons talk:Batch uploading could figure out a way to change all their categories. Otherwise... it will just have to happen gradually, over time, I guess. It's more important to have the images in the first place, with as much info as can be supplied, as other stuff can be fixed. But it's a volunteer project so it's hard to have fixed schedules for stuff ;-) Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:04, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm starting to feel better about it. I think they are identifiable in some way. I will have to go back and look. Talk to you later.

I think what I did was try to cover the major new Zealand based shipping lines because I was trying to give them some coverage in Wikipedia. People today will say New Zealand Shipping line - what a ridiculous idea but we did have Union Steam Ship the largest in the southern hemisphere - and others. Anyway they were easy to identify by their limited range of ship's names and that will be how the Holm line first came to my attention. I'll go and hunt for that source, when the enthusiasm has built up a little bit. Eddaido (talk) 23:10, 4 April 2020 (UTC)