(Apologies is the following suggestion has been made before.)
There has been much said about the duplication of effort by maintaining a gallery and a category for a single topic. It was said to abolish the one or the other, to no avail, as both have their use: * Categories are good for organizing things in a hierarchical order, which can be done on the image page, and not on some remote place (gallery page) * Galleries are good for structuring files of a topic while maintaining that these files "belong together" on a single page
Suggestions towards replacing both with some tagging system have been rather vague and far-in-the-futurish (at least, implementation-wise).
As an intermediate measure, I propose something like this: When viewing a gallery page, MediaWiki checks if there is a category of the same name. If this is the case, it adds a new section to the gallery page (dynamically for viewing, not altering the source text!), showing all the images in the category that are /not/ already shown in the gallery. The section could be called "Other", "Misc", "Additional" or the like. That way, the user would always see all images on the topic when visiting the gallery page; it would also allow editors to see what new images to the topic should be included into the gallery.
This should be relatively easy to implement (maybe including a new magic word to prevent this mechanism on certain gallery pages). I could throw some JavaScript at it, but I'd prefer an internal solution, if this feature would be wanted.
The reverse mechanism (display all images from the gallery page in the category) might be more problematic, as images from navigational elements could show up in the category. However, it might become a toolserver toy ("what images in a gallery are not in the matching category?").
Thought? Comments? Bullets? ;-)
Magnus
We need to use both.
Puting images to categories is problematic in many ways:
- We would have to watch every image description page for vandalism rather than just galleries - It doesn't really offer a description per image so it is not very helpful in explaining why image is significant.
Idealy all images should be in galleries and all galleries be in categories. People tend to dump images to categories which is fine but those images should be "moved" to galleries.
- White Cat
On 6/10/07, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
(Apologies is the following suggestion has been made before.)
There has been much said about the duplication of effort by maintaining a gallery and a category for a single topic. It was said to abolish the one or the other, to no avail, as both have their use:
- Categories are good for organizing things in a hierarchical order,
which can be done on the image page, and not on some remote place (gallery page)
- Galleries are good for structuring files of a topic while
maintaining that these files "belong together" on a single page
Suggestions towards replacing both with some tagging system have been rather vague and far-in-the-futurish (at least, implementation-wise).
As an intermediate measure, I propose something like this: When viewing a gallery page, MediaWiki checks if there is a category of the same name. If this is the case, it adds a new section to the gallery page (dynamically for viewing, not altering the source text!), showing all the images in the category that are /not/ already shown in the gallery. The section could be called "Other", "Misc", "Additional" or the like. That way, the user would always see all images on the topic when visiting the gallery page; it would also allow editors to see what new images to the topic should be included into the gallery.
This should be relatively easy to implement (maybe including a new magic word to prevent this mechanism on certain gallery pages). I could throw some JavaScript at it, but I'd prefer an internal solution, if this feature would be wanted.
The reverse mechanism (display all images from the gallery page in the category) might be more problematic, as images from navigational elements could show up in the category. However, it might become a toolserver toy ("what images in a gallery are not in the matching category?").
Thought? Comments? Bullets? ;-)
Magnus
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
Some bullets and points comparing categories and galleries:
- Categories are easier to add to an image, as you merely add the [[Category:foo]] while adding other info anyway - Gallery pages are more a pain to keep updated in terms of "let's gather every single image here" as each name has to be found, copied, and added to a separate page as well as having to add info to the image page anyway - Categories are for a more general dump/gathering of images - Gallery pages are a better gathering/compilation of useful images on a subject, or images that best portray it
They are for separate purposes, something people don't often realise. Not every image should be in a gallery as that would make pages rediculously long and take far too long to load for some people. Categories are a dump you can add all images relating to a subject into, and it only shows a certain number of images at a time. Every image should be categorised and the best should be added to a gallery.
-- Ayelie ~Editor at Large
On 6/10/07, White Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com wrote:
We need to use both.
Puting images to categories is problematic in many ways:
- We would have to watch every image description page for vandalism
rather than just galleries
- It doesn't really offer a description per image so it is not very
helpful in explaining why image is significant.
Idealy all images should be in galleries and all galleries be in categories. People tend to dump images to categories which is fine but those images should be "moved" to galleries.
- White CatOn 6/10/07, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
(Apologies is the following suggestion has been made before.)
There has been much said about the duplication of effort by maintaining a gallery and a category for a single topic. It was said to abolish the one or the other, to no avail, as both have their use:
- Categories are good for organizing things in a hierarchical order,
which can be done on the image page, and not on some remote place (gallery page)
- Galleries are good for structuring files of a topic while
maintaining that these files "belong together" on a single page
Suggestions towards replacing both with some tagging system have been rather vague and far-in-the-futurish (at least, implementation-wise).
As an intermediate measure, I propose something like this: When viewing a gallery page, MediaWiki checks if there is a category of the same name. If this is the case, it adds a new section to the gallery page (dynamically for viewing, not altering the source text!), showing all the images in the category that are /not/ already shown in the gallery. The section could be called "Other", "Misc", "Additional" or the like. That way, the user would always see all images on the topic when visiting the gallery page; it would also allow editors to see what new images to the topic should be included into the gallery.
This should be relatively easy to implement (maybe including a new magic word to prevent this mechanism on certain gallery pages). I could throw some JavaScript at it, but I'd prefer an internal solution, if this feature would be wanted.
The reverse mechanism (display all images from the gallery page in the category) might be more problematic, as images from navigational elements could show up in the category. However, it might become a toolserver toy ("what images in a gallery are not in the matching category?").
Thought? Comments? Bullets? ;-)
Magnus
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
On 6/10/07, Ayelie ayelie.at.large@gmail.com wrote:
Some bullets and points comparing categories and galleries:
Categories are easier to add to an image, as you merely add the [[Category:foo]] while adding other info anyway
Yes.
Gallery pages are more a pain to keep updated in terms of "let's gather every single image here" as each name has to be found, copied, and added to a separate page as well as having to add info to the image page anyway
Yes.
Categories are for a more general dump/gathering of images
Yes.
Gallery pages are a better gathering/compilation of useful images on a subject, or images that best portray it
Yes.
They are for separate purposes, something people don't often realise.
I realize that. I just think that a combined view of both might have advantages.
Not every image should be in a gallery as that would make pages rediculously long and take far too long to load for some people. Categories are a dump you can add all images relating to a subject into, and it only shows a certain number of images at a time. Every image should be categorised and the best should be added to a gallery.
There are currently >17000 category/gallery pairs on commons. I was thinking especially of low-volume category/gallery pairs. Large volume categories could be automatically ignored (e.g., don't show the "merged view" if the category or the gallery have >200 images), or through a magic word, as suggested.
Well, 'twas just an idea.
Magnus
On 6/11/07, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, Ayelie ayelie.at.large@gmail.com wrote:
They are for separate purposes, something people don't often realise.
I realize that. I just think that a combined view of both might have advantages.
Not every image should be in a gallery as that would make pages rediculously long and take far too long to load
for
some people. Categories are a dump you can add all images relating to a subject into, and it only shows a certain number of images at a time.
Every
image should be categorised and the best should be added to a gallery.
There are currently >17000 category/gallery pairs on commons. I was thinking especially of low-volume category/gallery pairs. Large volume categories could be automatically ignored (e.g., don't show the "merged view" if the category or the gallery have >200 images), or through a magic word, as suggested.
Well, 'twas just an idea.
Magnus
Oh, don't get me wrong, Magnus - I think your idea is a good one, and very interesting. I was more replying to White Cat ... and stating "truths not always universally acknowledged". We do get people from time to time who *remove* categories from images saying "but it's in a gallery!" - I'm not sure if we have a policy on galleries/categories or just a guideline, or perhaps nothing official at all. I shall have to look into that.
The only problems I see with your idea is that we will have the "too long to load" issue again; you would have to have some kind of limit (say, 100 images compared to the category limit of 200 - since there will be gallery images as well) and a "next 100" link. Now, something that would be interesting is if you had some way of sorting the images according to how often they are used wikimedia-wide, or how often they are linked to/viewed/etc. and had those images at the top of the cat section on galleries.
Another point is that category/gallery pairings are for the most part both rather small; it would make more sense to have a magic word to *add* the category section to a gallery page than it would to have a word to *remove* it. We have (unfortunately) a lot of galleries with one or two images, and the category may only have one or two more. These are often created by newbies or anons who come from wikipedias where they are used to very specific, small cats. There are also the species galleries, which are created very frequently by people I assume coming from wikispecies or who create pages for all species under a certain class. These "galleries" more often than not have quite a bit of information and then maybe one or two images. The opposite is also true: There are some categories with more than 100 images that have no galleries. They aren't always needed, but it is nice to have a page you can go to see the "best images" at a glance. For these, galleries will probably be created eventually - my initial thought of "why not have a gallery in the category" would cause more problems than anything else, with people doing that everywhere. IMO categories should stay the same and Magnus's idea for having a "category preview" on some gallery pages could be interesting.
I'd love to see a test version if this gets written; it would certainly be helpful for some gallery/category pairings :)
Galleries can be numbered like categories. Idealy no Gallery should have 200 images. A [[Cats]] isn't really useful. [[Type cat species here]] would be more useful. [[Cat]] would have links to individual cat species (preferably in a tree-like manner) much like how categories are now. Categories are nice but very useless when it comes to looking for something you need specifically. Problem with categories is their unsorted nature.
- White Cat
On 6/12/07, Ayelie ayelie.at.large@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/11/07, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, Ayelie ayelie.at.large@gmail.com wrote:
They are for separate purposes, something people don't often realise.
I realize that. I just think that a combined view of both might have advantages.
Not every image should be in a gallery as that would make pages rediculously long and take far too long to
load for
some people. Categories are a dump you can add all images relating to
a
subject into, and it only shows a certain number of images at a time.
Every
image should be categorised and the best should be added to a gallery.
There are currently >17000 category/gallery pairs on commons. I was thinking especially of low-volume category/gallery pairs. Large volume categories could be automatically ignored (e.g., don't show the "merged view" if the category or the gallery have >200 images), or through a magic word, as suggested.
Well, 'twas just an idea.
Magnus
Oh, don't get me wrong, Magnus - I think your idea is a good one, and very interesting. I was more replying to White Cat ... and stating "truths not always universally acknowledged". We do get people from time to time who *remove* categories from images saying "but it's in a gallery!" - I'm not sure if we have a policy on galleries/categories or just a guideline, or perhaps nothing official at all. I shall have to look into that.
The only problems I see with your idea is that we will have the "too long to load" issue again; you would have to have some kind of limit (say, 100 images compared to the category limit of 200 - since there will be gallery images as well) and a "next 100" link. Now, something that would be interesting is if you had some way of sorting the images according to how often they are used wikimedia-wide, or how often they are linked to/viewed/etc. and had those images at the top of the cat section on galleries.
Another point is that category/gallery pairings are for the most part both rather small; it would make more sense to have a magic word to *add* the category section to a gallery page than it would to have a word to *remove* it. We have (unfortunately) a lot of galleries with one or two images, and the category may only have one or two more. These are often created by newbies or anons who come from wikipedias where they are used to very specific, small cats. There are also the species galleries, which are created very frequently by people I assume coming from wikispecies or who create pages for all species under a certain class. These "galleries" more often than not have quite a bit of information and then maybe one or two images. The opposite is also true: There are some categories with more than 100 images that have no galleries. They aren't always needed, but it is nice to have a page you can go to see the "best images" at a glance. For these, galleries will probably be created eventually - my initial thought of "why not have a gallery in the category" would cause more problems than anything else, with people doing that everywhere. IMO categories should stay the same and Magnus's idea for having a "category preview" on some gallery pages could be interesting.
I'd love to see a test version if this gets written; it would certainly be helpful for some gallery/category pairings :) -- Ayelie ~Editor at Large
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
"Magnus Manske" worte on Monday, June 11, 2007 6:17 PM
There are currently >17000 category/gallery pairs on commons. I was thinking especially of low-volume category/gallery pairs. Large volume categories could be automatically ignored (e.g., don't show the "merged view" if the category or the gallery have >200 images), or through a magic word, as suggested.
Well, 'twas just an idea.
One that I liked. What about at least a banner on galleries saying that there is a category with more images available?
Regards,
Flo
Le 6/10/07 3:22 PM, White Cat a écrit :
* We would have to watch every image description page for vandalism rather than just galleries
I don't understand this point. Image description pages must be watched anyway, be they embedded in a gallery or in a category.
* It doesn't really offer a description per image so it is not very helpful in explaining why image is significant.
The present gallery display doesn't offer much space for image description. Image captions get cluttered pretty quick.
As for the rest, I agree with Ayelie.