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I saw that you blocked some socks of Russavia, which is globally banned by the WMF. Well, I recommend you to stop blocking those socks, as it is a waste of time. I believe admins don't have the duty to implement such office actions. We all are volunteers here, so we don't need to help the WMF's global bans (except if they have abused Commons). I think Russavia haven't used his "sockpuppets" for abuse, so I won't consider that as real "sockpuppets". He even files valid DRs, mostly copyright issues. So there is no reason to block those socks. I also invite you to join my discussion with Rodhullandemu at User talk:Rodhullandemu#Russavia socks. Thanks! ★Poké9501:09, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Replied there. Note I believe the blocks valid as the actions of these accounts are in violation of Commons policy, irrespective of the WMF ban (evading his Commons block, and running an unauthorised bot). I've also suggested we try and do something to break this cycle instead of just waiting for the next sock.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:44, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Not questioning the block itself, but... it's been contentious in the recent past for non-CU's to block for 'abusing multiple accounts' without actually explaining why. A blanket claim of 'this is a sock of some random person I'm not bothering to name' is not transparent, you should at least tag the account. Revent (talk)
@Pokéfan95: I know. To people familiar it's obvious. For the sake of transparency, the identity (at least) should be noted. If nothing else, useful to expand the "Sockpuppets of Russavia" category for future reference. A block that might appear to be arbitrary and unexplained to someone not 'in the know' should be avoided.... not the block itself, specifically, but the end result of it not being clear 'why' Revent (talk) 01:51, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, that's a bit different though, as the WMF blocks are being done as 'office actions', and the policy they are using to do it pretty much states that they won't disclose the rationale behind those blocks. I think everyone is assuming those blocks, or least the vast majority, are indeed Russavia, but WMF Office lives in it's own world.. (while most likely are him, there are by this point quite likely random trolls making 'fake Russavia socks' as well). Whatever they are using, it's either behavioral or technical information beyond what the CU tool gives.... Russavia obviously knows exactly how the tool works, quite a while back he used the non-public information returned by the CU tool (over on enwiki) to specifically troll the Checkuser that was working his SPI. (He sent Alison the message "Hi Alley-Cat", and a link to a photo of a cat wearing lipstick, which she apparently thought was hilarious). Point being, from everything I understand about the whole situation, and the justification given for WMF bans, it's fairly likely that being as vague as possible about those blocks is based on legal advice. Revent (talk) 22:49, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Towns and villages in Merseyside
Hi. Can I ask why you are changing this page from Towns and villages to towns? They're not all "towns".
What you're doing is making "work" for yourself when it isn't needed it was fine as it was. What is the reason you are renaming this category? Babydoll9799 (talk) 14:12, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Its not a rename, its a split:
All the items listed at Category:Towns in Merseyside are towns - I double checked against the relevant WP articles in each case. If I made a mistake in certain cases, please correct. It is useful to distinguish towns from villages
"Towns and villages" is a daft combination in any case - as strictly speaking it doesn't include cities and it doesn't include hamlets.
I am splitting the Commons categories, to be in line with Wikipedia categories (with Towns in X and Villages in X in separate categories).--Nilfanion (talk) 15:33, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
"Towns and villages" should not be moved or redirected to "Villages". The villages should be split out, in the same way as the towns have been. After the towns have gone, the remainder should be villages but there are items in these categories that are not towns or villages - eg neighbourhoods of large towns/cities, as well as cities themselves (which are not towns).
The Towns and village categories are only really used for the UK, the equivalent categories for other countries (and for the UK on Wikipedia) are "populated places". That is a valid catch-all.--Nilfanion (talk) 16:08, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Oh I know that! :) Which is one reason to do it incrementally (I started on the towns, simply because they are the easy bit).--Nilfanion (talk) 16:22, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
“File:Arnold and Colton unparished area UK locator map.svg”
Hello Nilfanion,
Would it be alright if you could rename ‘File:Arnold and Colton unparished area UK locator map.svg’ to ‘File:Arnold and Carlton unparished area UK locator map.svg’?
The place to which you referred as “Colton” is actually called ‘Carlton’.
As I stated in the deletion reason, the image was not taken by the Flickr user. It was uploaded to Flickr by Graham Richardson, but is clearly marked (c) Richard Smith. I have seen several images in Graham's stream that are not his own work. The good thing is he says when they aren't his.--Nilfanion (talk) 18:07, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
Hi Nilfanion, I know this is probably confusing but when you put " c Richard Smith - not flickr uploader" I somehow assumed you meant the "flickr uploader" as in me as I did upload it here if you see what I mean ?, Anyway thanks for clearing that up - Could you also delete this too please,
I had absolutely no idea they were copied otherwise I would've speedied them years ago (I've only just this minute spotted the description!),
Anyway thanks for spotting them and for explaining :)
From your comment at w:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography#Disambiguation for villages in "town districts" I don't have a strong opinion on them but IMO they work as is and adding more would make them more messy (even though I agree that it would clarify more), Hayton, City of Carlisle sounds awful (Hayton, borough of Carlisle or Hayton, Carlisle (district) are much better)as the title could very well imply that it is a suburb. As far as I can see "Ash, Dover" and "Ash, Sevenoakes" do work well anyway as using a comma is common (as pointed out) when saying a place is near a larger place. If there was to be a place which is also in Deal as well as Dover parish then the towns could still be disambiguated like "X, Deal" and "X, Dover". A problem may arise where a place is a suburb of Deal and the only place in Dover district so using "X, Dover" may not sound right. With the naming of districts we could ask "what are we disambiguating from" eg. with "City of Salford" we are distinguishing from the settlement which people would think of as a city instead. IMO "Metropolitan Borough of Salford" soulds much more natural and better, to the majority of people who don't understand our naming conventions. People write "is located 5 miles from the city of Salford" or "is a suburb of Salford" and the link is then disambiguated to the district article (when moving the dab has probably added more confusion and incorrect directions for links and readers as the place should be at the main title as it is about 100 times more populated than the other settlements combined and was important in the industrial revolution and in the Domesday Book) even though I can understand the logic in moving it. I think that "City of London" is probably OK as that appears to be a more widely accepted name. We probably need a central discussion though to decide what to do with them all. Another thing that I have already done (which I think you would agree with from your RM at Windermere, Cumbria) is use "village" where the district is named for a small settlement and isn't the primary topic like Tendring and Tandridge as they are the only settlements with those names (as far as I am aware from Wikipedia) unlike Knowsley where there is also 1 in Australia. Because the district and hundred are also in Surrey then ", Surrey" is ambiguous. I agree that there is probably little point in opening a discussion here as you pointed out since only us and Skinsmoke would probably be involved. Crouch, Swale (talk) 14:06, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Noted. Bear in mind Commons will generally follow Wikipedia, so any conclusions there will generally flow through to Commons. At the moment, that discussion feels like "no consensus, continue with status quo", which I will respect even though I think that is the wrong call.
The "City" districts cause no end of problems, but fixing it needs to start on Wikipedia and the articles themselves. Using "City of Carlisle" and "Carlisle, Cumbria" is obviously a bizarre convention, as either terms could mean either place. Whatever is done with this, brackets should be used with extreme care. "Hayton, Carlisle (district)" is utterly unsuitable as it implies Hayton is the district, not Carlisle. (village) should be used when the village is not primary, Category:Corfe Castle springs to mind there.
One situation where Commons differs from Wikipedia is w:WP:PRIMARYTOPIC selection: Perth was moved to Perth, but the Commons category should not be renamed. The bar for deciding something is primary on Commons should normally be a lot higher.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:41, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
That seems sensible to me, something I will one day look at on Wikipedia, maybe we should just let it go here until then. The idea of UKPLACE is that where there are multiple places in England the county is used e.g. Fordham, Essex and Fordham, Norfolk but where we are disambiguating from something else like Freston, maybe Freston (village) instead of Freston, Suffolk could be used. Where the only thing we are distinguishing from like Corfe Castle or Tendring then ", County" probably shouldn't ever be used (as long as there are no other places with that name) even though when you use commas you are probably looking for a settlement. It probably still depends, I changed Salford, Greater Manchester back to primary (which had been done with a cut and paste move before) because that appears to be a very clear case of primary as it is about 100 times more populated than the other settlements combined, was important in the industrial revolution and was also the Domesday Book. In the case of Perth the Australian city is the modern most common usage being much more populated than Scotland but Scotland has long-term significance being a former capital of Scotland and giving its name to Perth, WA (I read through the discussions a few weeks ago) that discussion could probably just go on and on without a clear agreement being reached. Perth being a dab should work on here. IMO Salford is a very clear case of primary (and easily satisfies all the criteria) and what we have now should work. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:57, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
Former districts
Do you think we should have cats on the districts abolished in 2009 like South Shropshire, I know you said that they shouldn't contain the parishes but they could contain the maps like File:ShropshireSouth.png. I have now finished all the civil parishes so other than the Suffolk images needing categorization I probably won't be making many contributions here in future. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:56, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
There is no harm in having categories for defunct units - whether its a district abolished in 2009, 1974 or 1892. The problems come from attempting to categorise modern photography into those areas. Look at how other defunct units are categorised nationally, there's probably categories for Urban Districts in some areas (maybe Greater Manc)--Nilfanion (talk) 23:59, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
I was just making sure as you had said not to make and more splits and you had mentioned that the parishes should go in the current administrative units. I have only added things (like mainly maps) that are specifically related to the former units. Crouch, Swale (talk) 14:47, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
Mass patrol please
Hello, after you block the socks of R, can you please mass patrol their edits, instead of leaving it to us patrollers to waste our time mass patrolling 20000+ edits? Because if you don't have plans to mass patrol R's edits, then don't block, as it doesn't make sense. Thank you. ★Poké9509:23, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
No - a mass patrol is inappropriate and the edits should be reviewed properly. I will not mark as patrolled any edit which is not productive. Some of his edits are fine ([1]). Some are not fine ([2]).
The fact a large number of his edits are non-productive is just one part of the ongoing disruption this user causes; mass-rollback may be a better solution.
Oh, the edit you said that was not fine is wrong, as Russavia said that he wants his category to be vanished. So you cannot said that "not fine". Russavia's only interest for now Commons is to cleanup his files. Mass rollback will just make the situation worse either, as he will just continue to edit, edit, and edit until he is now satisfied with his files he uploaded.
I agree removing his category is "not bad", but really Commons ought to be doing that for him.
However, that particular edit is wrong as it adds the {{Check categories}} template to a file that does not need a category check - and there is already a hideous backlog associated with that template. When he is just replacing his user-category with cat check needed, he is making that backlog worse - the example I linked doesn't need a category check, nor do the dozen or so which appeared on my watchlist which is how I cottoned on to the sock.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:59, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
Its bad to mark as needing a check when it doesn't - it just adds to a colossal backlog, many of which are really badly in need of proper categorisation. Instead of marking the edit as patrolled, you should remove the cat-check template.--Nilfanion (talk) 12:10, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for heads-up. That was certainly an error and I've fixed it. I'm not even sure how it happened, maybe I edited from the old version in error?--Nilfanion (talk) 10:52, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
Appeal
I am currently discussing about an unblock with Opabinia regalis (talk·contribs) via email. As far as I can see I have generally done well here, I have discussed things and we have generally reached an agreement (usually because I am unsure/neutral and you're sure). As you can see on Wikipedia there are still articles on missing civil parishes (see w:Template:Devon parishes that need to be created. I did however suggest that maybe we could use a bot to create "missing" articles. Do you also think that we could use the bot User:GeographBot to add civil parish categories rather than having to do it manually, the Geograph images specify the location and photographa location. The rest could go in the unparished area categories (which may still need to be created). Crouch, Swale (talk) 13:43, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
Both bot suggestions you make above are bad ideas - both tasks are best done manually. Specifically:
WP articles should be created as more than a bland bot-generated stub - w:user:Rambot is infamous on WP for that. Articles are clearly needed for many CPs but at minimum I would want to see a decent paragraph of prose about the places. Not an infobox and one sentence.
Locating images is not bot-friendly. GeographBot did try to locate the photos, and had an error rate that was sometimes as high as 30%. Even if the bot does the lookup perfectly there are still problems. The location is sometimes vague (only to the 1km grid square), the geograph user may have gotten it wrong, and most seriously, the data is for camera location not subject location. Files should be categorised on what they show, not where they were taken.
With regards to unblock on WP, that is up to the - and the standard offer may be appropriate. If you are unblocked, I'd strongly recommend you creating articles about minor locations (as in anything that is not a Civil Parish) - and instead focus on trying to write higher quality articles about the more important places. Minor locations do not always qualify as hamlets - if its not a hamlet, its almost certainly not notable, and if it is a hamlet it may not be.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:08, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
Thank you
Hi,
Thank you for your advice about the 2011 Welsh Assembly election results map, I have acted on your advice accordingly.
I was also wondering if you would consider creating blank electoral ward maps for Scotland in accordance with the 2017 Scottish Local Boundary Commission's Fifth Review, which was published earlier today and is available here: http://www.lgbc-scotland.gov.uk/reviews/5th_electoral/ (if so could you do South Ayrshire?). Thank you for all of the work you have done on wiki (and all of the Scottish maps in particular!) :)
@Brythones: I will get around to these in due course, basically as soon as Ordnance Survey have processed them. Ordnance Survey's workflow can be a little frustrating on that as they won't be in the full release until October 2017. However OS know this sort of thing is an issue, and will make them available much sooner than that. One thing to say is Boundary Commission recommendations are not "final", and need to be signed off by (the Scottish?) government first.--Nilfanion (talk) 14:48, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
Hi Nilfanion - Sussex is a single recording area for ornithological recording:
10/11. Sussex
10. West Sussex: VC 13 & fragment of 17 (Surrey). 11. East Sussex: VC14. Generally recorded simply as Sussex, these two political divisions (introduced in 1865 and not exactly equivalent to the VCs) have sometimes been treated separately, but that is not current practice
@MPF: Yes, I realise that. However, if a bird is in West Sussex we should place it in a West Sussex specific-category. Both West and East Sussex are natural sub-cats of Sussex - we can handle both without difficulties. That is why I have made no attempt to deprecate Category:Birds of Sussex itself.
You could have Birds of East Sussex & Birds of West Sussex as subcats of Birds of Sussex (comparable to other local subdivisions in other recording areas), but I don't think they should be rooted directly in Birds of England, as that compromises the official recording areas. Would that be OK? - MPF (talk) 22:46, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
Yes, that's reasonable (England -> Sussex -> West Sussex). This is just one of many situations where the poor identity of English counties causes grief.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:50, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
Thanks! As an aside, captive birds shouldn't really be in Birds of Sussex or subcategories of it; Arundel is better put through any Zoos in Sussex category. Also all the birds therein should go in their respective Species (captive) subcategory; I've just been doing some of them ;-) - MPF (talk) 22:52, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
I agree there entirely. However WWT Arundel is very open - the birds I added to the location category are wild birds that just happen to be at the site. :)--Nilfanion (talk) 22:55, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
Yep, some are certainly wild (the Little Grebes and Common Terns would be), but Common Scoter, etc., aren't :-) The Redshank is tricky; it could be either, but the ring on its leg looks to me more like a close ring than a BTO-style ring. - MPF (talk) 23:14, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
Bus Pics
Hello, yes, I didn't accept the copyright shortly after upload - I'd be greatful if they could be deleted! Thanks for your help and understanding! :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by LawrenceAbel (talk • contribs) 22:45, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
Hi.. So what's the situation/progress regarding the removal? :) In the time being, if you could alter the name to "Lawrence Abel" as oppose to my whole name (Olon...) as that is my middle name, and all work etc is logged under as "Lawrence Abel"
Thanks for the tip on making .svg files - I had no idea I could edit them in a text editor! I can see the improvement straight away.
(Archiving Nilfanion (talk) 14:12, 23 October 2016 (UTC))
Some DWs of your maps
Hi Nilfanion, I hope you are well! I wanted to let you know that I have used two of your maps (one of which was based on a map by NNW) as the basis for creating some Anki study decks of counties of England and the Island of Ireland. I have not yet published these, but I do plan to. I wanted to get your input on the credit line that each card will carry. How does "Map credit: Wikimedia Commons user Nilfanion. Licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0" look to you? The decks themselves will also be published under cc-by-sa-3.0... Would you prefer a different link or credit? I will of course send you a link when I publish them. The two maps I used are File:Wiltshire_UK_locator_map_2010.svg for England and File:Island_of_Ireland_location_map.svg (where I will credit NNW as well). Cheers, and thanks for your amazing map work! Storkk (talk) 14:20, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
Hi, would it be possible to get a copy of this map without the administrative boundaries? I'm looking to create a map showing the extent of the Furness region, and they would get in the way. The only other geographical map of Cumbria I've found is this one, which would be perfect if it weren't for the fact that it doesn't seem to show the lakes. Zacwill (talk) 16:11, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
Do you think it would be better without showing the districts? I was worried they would clutter the map, but I think it turned out okay. Re Walney - I think you may be right, I'll have to change that. Zacwill (talk) 14:38, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Its probably a good idea to remove the districts as they don't really add value, although they don't have any real negative impact either. Having looked at the article, I think the real issue is showing the "wrong" boundaries - it may make more sense to show the historical Lancashire boundary instead.--Nilfanion (talk)
Thanks for your comment, where do you get the data from? I checked the parished this Summer from https://mapit.mysociety.org/ which is how I found many more newly created parishes and found some anyway from the bulletin pages. I expect that the chances are there will be at least 1 new parish created since I checked and it would be much easier to just go through the list of new CPs than check the whole lot manually again, thanks. I can't think of any outdated CP maps but File:North Yorkshire UK location map.svg is outdated as the A1 has been upgraded to motorway. Crouch, Swale (talk) 15:20, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
The data files I use for my maps (OS OpenData) contain spreadsheet-type datefiles in addition to the shapes for the maps. There do not seem to be any new parishes registered with OS between June and October of this year, however Moulton in South Holland has been renamed to The Moultons.
I imagine several county-level CP maps (eg File:Suffolk UK parish map (blank).svg) will need a refresh as any parish creation/merger/deletion will not be shown. If the county has only seen some realignments it probably isn't worth re-doing the map.
Thanks for heads-up regarding the North Yorks roads. It would be helpful if you could let me know of any problems relating to parish or road changes in these maps - it saves me having to check all of them!--Nilfanion (talk) 14:12, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, I have done Moulton, please let me know if you find more. We now have an image and category of every CP in England except Lands common to the parishes of Brancepeth and Brandon and Byshottles.
I don't really understand the need for being so precious about image file names which are to become dormant, but as you insist I'll upload the files again.
The current maps on the EU referendum results page are not acceptable as they fail to take into account the relative campaign strengths of vote in each respective voting area. As an example, how can you justify categorising the result in Moray (the closest result in the country) to the result in Gibraltar? If you are so concerned with these changes then please improve them: the majority consensus is that the UK-wide map scale is adequate, if you wish to overturn this consensus then please consult the relevant talk page. --Brythones (talk) 15:04, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
Primary topics
In terms of being primary Plymouth compare this Plymouth, Devon pop (261,546) views (24,000), Plymouth, Massachusetts pop (58,271) views (18,615), Plymouth, Minnesota pop (70,576) views (2,047) and Plymouth (automobile) views (11,841). Even though Plymouth, Devon is the original and has long term significance and the others might often be referred to by including the state (and Massachusetts getting more views around Thanksgiving) it appears to get much less views and has a lower population than the others combined so even if the "long term significance" it met on Wikipedia, I question it on here. Compare this to Stockport, pop (136,081, town and 286,755, district) views (8,761, town and 1,140, district) v Stockport, Iowa pop (296) views (148), Stockport, Indiana, pop not mentioned but likely very small since it is an unincorporated community, views (18), Stockport, New York pop (2,815) views (102), Stockport, Ohio pop (503) views (131), Stockport, South Australia pop (234) views (104) so the others have 3848 or maybe a bit more if Indiana or any others that don't currently have articles were included so as well as Stockport, Cheshire the town has over 35 times the population and the district has over 74 times (excluding Indiana or any others that don't currently have articles). Stockport, Cheshire the town has over 17 times the views (excluding Indiana or any others that don't currently have articles) and the town and district have over 19 times the views (excluding Indiana or any others that don't currently have articles). So in terms of usage Stockport in England clearly is primary by usage, even before you take into account that US Places are often searched by including the state anyway, therefore widening the gap further as primary topic is only about this term, se this comment for example, while people probably wouldn't look for Stockport, Greater Manchester as it was in Cheshire. A primary example of this is Lincoln where even though Abraham Lincoln is much more important the city is not usually referred to anything other than "Lincoln". Obviously population and page views aren't the only way to establish primary topics (Winchester the settlement gets about twice as many hits as Stockport even though it has about a third of the population) what links here can show a bit of both criteria (although it was on the tools list before the long term significance criteria was added). Google can be biast when looking for things of geographical scope (however even though as pointed out as w:Talk:Raleigh (disambiguation) Raleigh from a UK Google search doesn't return many hits for the NC city, Google Images is a different story unlike Brampton), notice that w:WP:NWFCTM only mentions things that depend on geographical scope as Mercury probably won't vary greatly from place to place. Maybe primary topics should only be used in situations where nobody disputes that the primary topic is overwhelmingly more likely to be sought and more significant. However that might well lead to many primary topics being removed so as you pointed out at the Plymouth discussion we might think about it on a case by case basis. Interestingly look at Somerton (Somerton, Arizona has about 3 times the population and there are other locations in the UK which have long histories (although the Somerset one could probably be presumed to be meant in the UK as also Somerton, Somerset is unnatural) or Mansfield where there are many other places (although many appear to derive from Nottinghamshire, from surnames although some from Scotland). Worcester might be correct as the UK one is not likely to be disambiguated and is a cathedral city (city not having the same meaning/importance in the US) while the others usually are. Primary topics that I do think are incorrect on Wikipedia for example are Ford as the crossing has more long term significance as a term that has always existed unlike a company which is popular today and Lewis which the given name is quite obviously primary even in Britain!, to me in England (and being part Scottish) I find it astonishing that "Lewis" takes me there, I think I had only heard of it as "Isle of Lewis", if it is not the primary meaning in Britain, how an earth can it be in a global encyclopaedia. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:29, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
tl;dr. Please use paragraph breaks, and is there any point to this? If this is about the Plymouth case, you should make your case on the CFD not here. I'm sure there are lot of problems on Wikipedia with Primary Topic application, likewise I'm sure there are a bunch of similar problems on Commons. I have no real interest in chasing any of this up. What I do care about is not breaking something that works, and causing more harm than good.
As an example, the purpose of the long-term significance clause is to stop recent things such as recently released movies or internet memes from overturning long-standing concepts. For example, the article Avatar is not about the film of that title, even though utterly dominated pageview count after its release, because its unlikely to have truly lasting significance. That clause is not designed as an argument Ford should mean the water crossing and not the motor company, just because they have existed for longer. The motor company has been continuously highly significant for over 100 years, so scores very highly as "long-term significant" - and it probably rates higher than the water crossing.--Nilfanion (talk) 23:03, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
I was providing some analysis on primary topics (although more relevant for Wikipedia) it still has some relevance here (some is off topic to Plymouth) as, as you have pointed primary topics should be held higher (for categories).
I'm not convinced while Fords aren't used as much in modern society as Apples for example, w:Jaguar and w:Jaguar Cars are located as such. Instead of the way Ford is set up. I wasn't saying replacing "Ford" with w:Ford (crossing) rather the DAB page moved might be better (this primary topic has been disputed by many). Because Commons categories (as do Wikipedia categories) use plurals, there is less conflict here but Category:Ford is still a DAB here.
Another point is when the administrative unit and settlement (or feature) have different names but are clearly alternative names should w:WP:DABCONCEPT also apply (as administrative unit are generally subtopics not competing titles for Primary topics), for example "Stratford-upon-Avon" is the name of the settlement (and CP) but the name of the district is "Stratford-on-Avon" but even so "Stratford-on-Avon" redirects to the main article "Stratford-upon-Avon". Category:Llangyniew redirects to "Category:Llangynyw but the community cat is at "Category:Llangyniew (community). This would be inline with for example w:Scarborough, North Yorkshire which isn't at "Scarborough (settlement), North Yorkshire" (or similar) even though w:Borough of Scarborough is also in North Yorkshire. If you look at this for example the links appear to be at the settlement not parish even though the settlement is called "Newark-on-Trent". I would say we should move Category:Newark, Nottinghamshire to Category:Newark (parish) per this comment (or possibly merge them as there doesn't seen to be that much difference between the settlement and parish. Crouch, Swale (talk) 15:07, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Analysis on primary topics - especially how primary topics work on Wikipedia - is really not helpful. Debates about Primary Topic there are pointless and waste time better spent on other areas (like improving the articles!). I have no real interest in them on Commons beyond ensuring they are understood to exist, I certainly have no interest in wasting more time on this.
In Wikipedia terms, Ford is a solid primary topic and is not a helpful one to look at for guidance. A case could be made for looking at categories like Category:Fords in the United Kingdom. This could be reasonably understood to mean "Ford vehicles in the UK" not "Ford (water crossings) in the UK"; so could do with a better title. However, I have no interest in that discussion.
Stratford is fine at currently is on Commons. As for Newark, the best solution is to merge to Newark-on-Trent. There is zero point in making a distinction between the settlement and parish - they are the same thing.--Nilfanion (talk) 15:39, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Yes agreed, although some users are interested in this (I am to some extent) although improving the articles is generally better (for most people anyway). Some users have special knowledge/interests in this, see w:WP:GENERICSTUB.
Agreed this is different for Commons because of plurals but the same could be said about Jaguar and Apple (for Wikipedia, although we don't need to have it here!)
A question concerning two photos in particular which I nominated for deletion, and which the originator merely reverted my request making them valid. They are File:08-2015-04-17 محمية جبل النبي متى.jpg and File:12-2015-04-18 محمية جبل النبي متى.jpg ? The site is littered by similar from this particular user. All or most of his work is not realistically useful for an educational purpose, or are redundant because there are better images, all are defaced with a date and time stamp, all are of poor quality where there are many better available, Many suffer from nothing to distinguish them as to where or what they are about, mainly consisting of visually anonymous subject matters; incoherently named, and non descriptive, even in his own language. Few "if any" are categorized, or used or linked elsewhere; these particular photos since 2015 as an example. He has even listed himself as a category within Syria. See [[3]]. What can you do about this? Educate him presumably. Over to you? Regards --BeckenhamBear (talk) 15:28, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Location of files
I know you suggested that its a bad idea to use a bot to categorize images but I can't see how it is much less accurate than doing it manually. The problem with GeographBot (talk·contribs) was that it often categorized by nearest settlement (while I'm suggesting doing it by parish, or unparished). The point that Geograph contributes often aren't accurate with location probably wouldn't be noticed easily by checking them manually either (I don't often find that). But the main problem is that Geograph has 19 images for every grid square so it is clearly not practical to sift through them manually. Geograph also gets thousands more images every week. In the next few weeks I can categorize all the CPs into their district and civil parishes in ??? cat if you think that its a good idea. One problem we might have sometimes it that the cats don't always match the parishes due to alternative names (like Newark for example) I sometimes use the {{geogroup|uk=y}} tag and previewing to locate incorrect images (I found many for Wickham) which the bot could also do. Has there been any more parishes registered with OS? Crouch, Swale (talk) 15:21, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
Doing things by hand will always have certain advantages over bot. One issue is geocoding is done to the location of the camera, not the subject. As an extreme example this image would correctly be geocoded to France, but correctly categorised as showing the White Cliffs. A human can also pick up and correct errors.
GeographBot was an exceptionally dumb bot as nearest settlement is a very poor algorithm for British geography (it often got counties wrong, never mind villages). The best available tool for localising is MaPit, which shows all areas that contain a point. As an example, if you click the co-ordinates on File:Adit, Devon United Mine (geograph 5120624).jpg you get to this Geohack page, and the MaPit link correctly identifies the parish. That will also be the most recent parish recorded with OS - addressing your last point. As for the rapid uploads to Geograph - we can ignore them until they are uploaded here; hopefully anyone transferring a new file will do so more intelligently than the bulk upload several years ago.
In theory bots could handle this task, but I don't have the ability to set that up, and in their absence its best to make a start by hand.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:36, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
Dear Nilfanion, I am writing to inform you that you are in danger of losing your adminship on Commons because of inactivity.
If you want to keep your adminship, you need both to sign at Commons:Administrators/Inactivity section/Feb-Mar 2017 within 30 days of today's date, and also to make at least five further admin actions in the following six months. Anyone who does not do so will automatically lose administrator rights.
Hi here is the list of files you asked for, not sure what they should be called but they are all from a similar location to File:Macclesfield Road, Islington.jpg (and probably taken from the same hotel window)
Oxyman (talk) 03:17, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
@Oxyman: I've moved these now (to names based on either "Macclesfield Road, London" or "250 City Road, London, under construction") Clearly the construction site is most interesting thing in these images.--Nilfanion (talk) 16:58, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
Could you modify your map File:Dartford UK parish map 2011 (blank).svg to show the airfield?
Location Joyce Green, near Dartford, Kent, England
coord|51.4773|0.2197|
The airfield in particular occupied a 121 acres (49 ha) site 1200 x 1000 yards of low-lying marshland bordered by the River Darent to the west, the Thames to the north, its access road Joyce Green Lane to the east (running north to south).
Many thanks --BeckenhamBear (talk) 14:49, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
@BeckenhamBear: I'm intrigued, but I'm not really clear what you want. Could you point to a comparable map for a different airport (or whatever), to make it clearer what you'd like? For location purposes, the equivalent of the map in the infobox of w:Lydd Airport will be fine, but if you want real detail visible it will need a larger scale.
I don't think the Dartford map is suitable: The boundaries of both the borough and the parishes reflect the modern geography and don't reflect what was there at the time of the RFC.--Nilfanion (talk) 19:59, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
Hi, Thanks for your quick reply, shortly after I posted you I discovered another similar map from 1918, unfortunately though it's interesting, it's too fuzzy. Royal Flying Corp Aerodrome at Joyce Green, near Dartford, England, site plan autumn 1918. I already have a Lydd style map. However the nerdish RFC community want to see the scale and shape of the site. It does not appear on Ordnance Survey, ad is actually totally forgotten about the site forgotten and all traces cleared away. The maps are more than 1/2 the story. I've put together a raft of materiel for this including "snipping tool" map samples from www.oldmapsonline.org/ and amassed several very interesting photos, I could give you access to.
The site hasn't changed much if you look at the satellite photos on Google and Bing. Ideally two maps would be nice a digitized labelled version of the first map I showed you and a map similar to File:Fort McMurray—Athabasca.png showing it relative to the area; that's why I thought of the parish map. At the end of the day its down to what's possible to be achieved by the cartographer. What do you think? All the best, Jim. --BeckenhamBear (talk) 21:33, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
OK, got an idea of way forward - the ideal role for a map would be to illustrate the dubious location, showing the various other things nearby like the hospital (see this 1921 map). The lack on the actual layout of the site itself is unfortunate - I'd assume actual take-offs and landings would be in a restricted area. I'm surprised was zero impact on the field layout, and I'd have expected at least some of the ditches to be re-aligned/removed to ease aircraft movement; not for exactly the same field system to persist from the 1860s to the 1960s. To the point that I wonder if this is the wrong site...--Nilfanion (talk) 10:59, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
Hi, Nilfanion, I just uploaded a photo EN:File:RFC Joyce Green ditch boards and Vimy.jpg. I uploaded a number of explanatory photos into the wiki at Category: Joyce Green airfield, where you can see the boards the RFC covered over the ditches with. The clearer of the two maps show the ditches on the site as seen on the Google satellite EARTH view. The 1918 map didn't bother showing the ditches. Of course the RFC had no landing strips as we know them they just used a flat field turning the plane to suit the wind as needed. Amazing really! The whole area was restricted the hospital was purpose built to hide away smallpox victims from London. We definitely have the right site, Jim --BeckenhamBear (talk) 12:15, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
Ah that makes sense now, I guess I'm forgetting how lightweight WW1-era aircraft were, so boards over ditches would be sufficient to handle the stress!--Nilfanion (talk) 13:58, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
I've been given a recent digital representation of the airfield. It's an odd orientation and could be generally made better. I'll probably go to National archives in an attempt to get better of what I have already... --BeckenhamBear (talk) 10:50, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
file is not the original one?
Hello Nilfanion,
I think these files you uploaded are not the original ones,
since their size is very much smaller (500 × 332 pixels instead of 3 008 × 2 000 pixels)
and they have lost their EXIF data :
@Djampa: The files originally uploaded to Commons were the same resolution as these files. I'm not sure why the first two are that small, but that's what was provided. As for the other two, the reduced resolution is probably the result of cropping. The original would have had a poorer composition, so even if it was available I wouldn't upload it over these files.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:07, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
The problem that I have found is that you have grown more and more vague with your decisions (although your recent explanations have helped me understand, like how many people will be interested in one topic specifically to Commons, like the river over the state), I often don't move topics that I'm not sure of or where they are fine either way like Borough Fen for example, I would have moved it but I found there is also something in Norfolk (but if it was at the base name I wouldn't have disambiguated it) but I tent to move things when they probably should be (or at least if the move was being made the other way it would likely be controversial). Your highly inconsistent thinking of things has confused me particularly as you criticized me for moving categories that didn't appear ambiguous but you also criticized me for moving clearly ambiguous topics. Until you explained why you often prefer to keep things as is, I found it confusing. The 10x rule was something you stated but I thought it should still be higher (like 95%). The problem with keeping things as is, it leads to highly inconsistent outcomes you should most of the time base things on how they should be now how they are. I wandered why you hadn't tried to get Plymouth disambiguated until the discussion and was surprised you opposed to it. If we were to use the 90% rule as a guideline then we could say if we have less than 85% it should generally be moved away and more than 95% should be moved to but anything within should be left alone. As I expect that most people access Commons from Wikipedia, the links can simply and easily be updated without causing harm. Crouch, Swale (talk) 15:36, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
Yes, of course maintaining the status quo makes the inconsistencies more apparent (and can lead to apparently contradictory opinions). However, I stand by my assessment that in general the benefits of moving to a more consistent layout are outweighed by the costs in many cases. Part of the reason my opinion is getting firmer is I'm questioning if there is any benefit whatsoever to caring about this stuff (beyond making life easier for bots). Choosing primary topics and selecting a category title only really matters to those people using Commons internal search, which I'm convinced is basically nobody (well except for terms like "Cats"). In contrast, stability of category titles matters to a group of Commons users that definitely exists - those people following direct links from other websites, including WP. Those getting here via search engines don't care either way.
If I was to build this site from scratch I'd probably insist on a very heavily disambiguated structure - I might even have things like Category:France (country) - but that's not an option.
To look at Plymouth, its clearly an ambiguous term and probably should be disambiguated on WP. I even mentioned Category:Plymouth as a possible term to disambiguate myself several years ago. But more recently, in addition to the standard cost/benefit equation I mention above, I'm also aware that particular category would have a very real one-time cost associated with moving hundreds of sub-categories. If it was moved, I'd want it to be done correctly. That's the reason for the "surprising" oppose there.
I'd point out that my opinion isn't the only one that matters, and it's natural for two people to disagree on point from time-to-time. If you feel my opinions are too inconsistent to follow, then don't follow them. I will try to give more detailed rationales, but one of my difficulties I find with you is the pace you work at. There's no urgency to any of this, but you open carry out a dozen contentious things in one go - which makes giving detailed discussions case by case unworkable.--Nilfanion (talk) 16:22, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
I'd suggest that most of the traffic comes from Wikipedia. I doubt that many people link to categories from outside, but for this reason renamed categories generally shouldn't be deleted like they used to be on Wikipedia but i'd be skeptical about is causing many problems (it only takes a few seconds to change the links).
I wouldn't go that far, France is clearly by far the primary meaning. My point is that more should be disambiguated than WP articles by not everything, we need a happy medium. Something that people have struggled with (for example the ability for newpage reviewers was drastically changed in October).
I'm not sure if the article should be on Wikipedia but the category is! However the very fact that it has been questioned numerous times (like Boston, MA being primary) is evidence (not proof) that the category here should be disambiguated although for some reason Kenton hasn't been questioned on WP.
Completely agree your and my opinion aren't the only ones that matter, however others have also suggested that categories should be disambigauted more that articles, Auntof6 for example. While others think the category should always match the WP article. Foroa wanted just about everything done which is generally agreed is too much. I was also not suggesting that we have firm rules but rather guidelines, which is why I have tried to start one. I wasn't basing my reasoning solely on traffic but how people get there and what is natural titles. We know that "Cambridge, Massachusetts" is a natural and normal title for readers to search for and editors to upload to while "Cambridge, Cambridgeshire" is obviously not, so that one might be OK even if the MA city gets nearly as many hits (would you argue that the Cambridge RM closure was based too much on the letter of the guideline). I'll try to slow down the pace that I change things, waiting for the Mississippi and Cleveland discussions to end before starting others would be a good idea.
Because you have suggested that primary topic debates are a waste of time and overly precise categories are harmless unlike ambiguous ones. Untill you explained to me your reasoning (which has helped me to understand) I would reasonably have expected that you would have suggested Gosforth should have been disambiguated due to your arguments about harm and precision and that debating it would be a waste of time.
I have tried to avoid repeating the problems on WP, when you have criticized something I have tried to put it right or change/explain) what I am doing (and so have you when people have questioned you), indeed I haven't been blocked here, nor even been close to it. The thing I have a problem with on WP is that I wasn't given chance to defend myself or explain my side of it when I was banned on WP (in "real life" a person can't be jailed for life without being given change to defend themselves). Crouch, Swale (talk) 15:48, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
Swindon
Hi Nilfanion. Thanks for that on Swindon. I hadn't realised that Swindon Borough Council had implemented their hare-brained parishing scheme (Ordnance Survey Election Maps hasn't caught up either, but it is only four days since the parishes came into formal existence). If ever there was an example of how not to carry out a community governance review, Swindon has to be it! I do wonder how long some of these parishes will survive when it appears that the borough council has managed to unite almost all the town's population in complete opposition to them. Skinsmoke (talk) 02:09, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
I picked this up in the OS pre-release, so I imagine it will get through into their main products in May. As for how long they last, they might go next year if there is a strong electoral campaign to that effect. They certainly don't seem natural CPs - "Central Swindon North" isn't an identifiable community to anyone!--Nilfanion (talk) 09:46, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
I am very surprised at your nomination on Wikipedia, did you do this to see if there is consensus to have Plymouth on Wikipedia disambiguated to determine if the category should be disambiguated. If this was why then I don't really see why as we have established Commons categories should have a higher threshold than WP articles, IMO the WP articles is probably OK at the base name but the Commons category should probably be disambiguated. When I was patrolling through W:WP:RM and noticed it I thought I was dreaming. Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:15, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
I have hinted at my belief that Plymouth probably should be disambiguated on WP in my comments on Commons, and my reasoning over there should say why in great detail. There's a few things I hope the RM will generate, one of which is people actually joining in on the Commons discussion.
As for the Commons discussion, my opposition is weak and is because actual cause for the move hasn't been demonstrated, I've been trying to get the case for the move demonstrated. On WP there is demonstrated harm (loading a big article wrongly = bad, and affects 50 readers per day). On Commons there is demonstrated risk (people may grab a Plymouth, Devon, file thinking its for Plymouth, MA), but has any evidence been presented of an actual problem? Beyond bots making mistakes, which means fixing bots not cats?
Because there is so little traffic on discussions, I'm not sure what the Commons community as a whole actually feels, which is why I haven't done anything with your essay on disambiguation. "If it isn't broke, don't fix it" is one I've seen a few times, but that approach will always lead to contradictory outcomes when looked at against an objective standard. The Georgia one is an attempt to garner discussion (and I believe the risk of error is higher there than on Plymouth).--Nilfanion (talk) 10:30, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
As we have already discussed the bar for primary topics is higher on Commons so even if it isn't disambiguated on Wikipedia it probably should be on Commons.
That is a point that I have been trying to get at before, indeed like Bury where there are many unrelated meanings. But at least it appears that all other meanings derive from the English city unlike Bury, Bolton, Georgia, Gosforth etc (even though they can't be described in 1 article like Carlisle and City of Carlisle due to being separate meanings). The inconvenience was something I wanted to address, it is far less of an inconvenience to just click through a DAB page than to load a large page, realise you are on the wrong page and then click on the DAB notice and then the page you want. An interesting thing that I might bring up on Wikipedia is suggesting ignoring the PRIMARYTOPIC guidelines when you have less than 4 small pages as the users seeking the other 2 topics won't be drastically affected. By the way look at these views. Kenton and Ashfield only get around 10x the views that the DAB page while Colchester gets over 100x. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:44, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes I agree "If it isn't broke, don't fix it" is good sometimes but other times the page should still be moved as users will still end up in the right place when the links are updated. In the case of Georgia that one should probably still be disambiguated but so should Bury, Bolton, Georgia and Gosforth. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:35, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
My point about primary topic is that's your opinion as a rule-of-thumb (which I share). That's different from saying its a guideline that should actually be enforced rigidly, you need to actually try and get some consensus from the broader community to get a guideline remotely comparable to that on WP. Ask for comment on the VP, don't ask me. I'm not going to re-hash those discussions again here, but some things to consider:
Almost NO-ONE arrives at Commons categories, except via a link - in contrast to WP where people do use the internal search feature. So the group WP's PRIMARYTOPIC is designed to protected is the empty set here.
We cannot fix links from locations outside Wikimedia project. That is mostly a problem for files, but may affect categories too.
Originality is an extremely minor consideration, at best it is a tie-breaker. It only really matters for subsidiary meanings (think the city of Liverpool vs Liverpool FC).--Nilfanion (talk) 12:52, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
I am not trying to say that guidelines need to be enforced rigidly but that there needs to be some guideline so that we aren't walking in the dark. For example most places in England are disambiguated by the county (or a lower diversion if not possible) but only a few aren't (like Bures, Lincoln and Corfe Castle). If there was no guideline imagine how unstable the titles would be as we would probably be some places as Foo, County, some at Foo, England and Some at Foo (village) etc. While with the guideline we can by default places them as such and deal with problematic cases (like Bures, Lincoln and Corfe Castle) on a case by case basis. My point is that we should set a guideline of how much is required and generally follow that and deal with exceptions on a case by case basis. I will try to bet some input at the VP.
I doubt many people link to categories from outside indeed as you point out this mainly applies to files.
I agree it shouldn't be the determining factor, w:Mars is more well know today than w:Mars (mythology) but as has been pointed out the MT town is more commonly referred to as "Plymouth, Massachusetts" than plain "Plymouth" (usage) and the car is defunct (long-term significance)[4]. Note that the original beaning isn't always the primary concept article see w:Harlow and w:Old Harlow and w:Swanley and w:Swanley Village. Crouch, Swale (talk) 13:18, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
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