Commons:Categories for discussion/2019/09/Category:Historical images

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This discussion of one or several categories is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive.

Category:Historical images

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See also: Commons:Categories for discussion/2019/09/Category:Historical speeches.

Delete. We sort images by year and event so those looking for images within a temporal context already have a better tool than this arbitrary category. Josh (talk) 20:45, 19 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Roy17 and Themightyquill: Per the historical speeches discussion, you may be interested in this one as well. Josh (talk) 20:47, 19 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
 Delete the whole tree. Move contents to the ones without the subjective adjectives on every corresponding level. Notable subcats: Category:Historical photographs. In a way this is similar to Category:Old maps, old books, etc., but historical photos are even less useful, since the oldest photos date back to only mid 19th century, less than 200 years ago. Categorise according to the highest precision of time taken, be it date/month/year/decade/century.--Roy17 (talk) 20:58, 19 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm in favour of recategorizing these by century (or narrower) and then deleting, but I don't feel a simple deletion is the way to go. And recaegorization is an enormous task. - Themightyquill (talk) 05:28, 21 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
that was just a suggestion for ppl who want to keep categorising files under cats like historical/old xx. if cat is deleted we'll just merge stuff with the parallel level. diffusion is not our job.
if deleting historical images, which includes not only photos but also maps charts etc., is too overwhelming, historical photos could be done away first.
if these cats are not deleted merely because no one assumes the job of recating, then they might never be deleted, because many ppl add files to cats because the cats exist. (i have an old photo, and there's a cat historical photos of xx, aha!) addition is always faster than diffusion.--Roy17 (talk) 21:44, 21 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Roy17: If you want to delete a category tree this large, I would suggest you tag a lot more than the top level category. It should probably be taken to the village pump to ensure input. -- Themightyquill (talk) 18:36, 28 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Themightyquill and Roy17: It was I who nominated this category, so I will add the tag a little deeper. I realize that some form of 'historical' category for various topics will be a first go to for people to sort images of 'old stuff' that they don't know a more precise time line for, or who do not understand the 'by year/decade/century' scheme. I do agree that just deleting the categories without re-categorizing the existing contents would not be a good idea, and I also agree that re-categorization is a huge task. It is probably never complete as people will be adding new material as you go. Is there a way that we can make this category a form of maintenance category? This would be understanding that people may only know something is 'historical' or 'old' but not be able to sort it more accurately than that, but at the same time indicate that files really should be sorted by period, not just 'historical', and offer a guideline on how to do this. Josh (talk) 08:22, 11 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That's not a bad idea. A move from Category:Historical images to Category:Images requiring sorting by date or something like that? - Themightyquill (talk) 10:40, 11 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Roy17: Any objections to the suggestion by Themightyquill (talk · contribs)? I think that will help avoid people thinking this is a tree to be built up, but still a place for those people know are old but are not sure themselves how exactly to sort. Josh (talk) 19:25, 10 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Let's transform them into maintenance cats, but I think it might be better to be by year than by date. Images to be sorted by year? Or even more general as by time?--Roy17 (talk) 02:53, 11 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
it is hard topic. I think the title like "To be categorised by year/time" is not good idea. See hints here: Category:Media needing categories. Maybe we can just use category:Images? --Estopedist1 (talk) 14:12, 11 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever we decide, we should definitely tag many of the sub-categories for additional input before moving the whole tree. - Themightyquill (talk) 15:47, 11 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
However, because we have categories like category:Photographs by year, category:Photographs by century, category:Photographs by decade, category:Videos by year etc, the problem is quite easily resolvable--Estopedist1 (talk) 06:54, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'll just go ahead sorting photos I can tell into XX by year/date straight.--Roy17 (talk) 22:11, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 Disagree I cannot understand the problem. And I  Strong oppose to the proposal to delete this category. Historical images are representations of places, situations, events, people of a past time. It can be photographs, paintings, drawings, maps, etc. For these categories, categorizations by year, decade, century makes sense. I find no sense in these categorizations by date applied to images of current times or today. Mega categories with all kinds of images taken in 2019, or 2018, can you explain to me what sense they make? What are they for? --DenghiùComm (talk) 06:49, 15 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@DenghiùComm: photos of today will be photos of the past 100 years later. Every second that went by has become historical.--Roy17 (talk) 03:43, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Please let's talk about concrete things. This is philosophy! I know very well that every second that passes is already history and past. But here we have a concrete problem of categorization, because we have to distinguish the current photos from those of a historically interesting past. Recent photos that are to be considered historical are those of natural events (volcanic eruptions, floods, earthquakes, etc.), or those relating to terrorist attacks, wars, etc. That is, events that can be placed very precisely at a very precise time or date. All other recent images should not be considered historical ! --DenghiùComm (talk) 06:32, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is if you think this image is historical and I don't, there's no concrete criteria to differentiate and we could in theory just edit war with each other until it's solved. In contract, 1958 images is a clear structure to organize things. If you think that it's a good image of something, it doesn't matter the age but to categorize some old images which are good (historical) images is ultimately a never-ending exercise in arguing. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:13, 24 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Delete Completely subjective and untenable category. Is a color photo from the 1980s "historical"? Some would say yes, others would say no. Category:Historical images attempts to give objective criteria (objects that no longer exist in the same form, if at all), but I don't think that's very useful. For example, if a modern building is demolished, technical compliance with that criteria would require us to recategorize all pictures of that building into "Historical photographs". I'm not sure someone who visits Category:Historical photographs of Paris intends to see a bunch of 19th-century photos next to digital photos of random demolished buildings. Categorization by century/decade/year is the way to go. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:57, 24 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Delete (phase out) per King of Hearts. The approach discussed above by Estopedist1 and Themightyquill seems like a good solution. Category:Old maps is another one to think about … --El Grafo (talk) 08:00, 24 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and phase out. I have the same issue with Category:Old maps having a very strange 1949/70 years ago criteria. It's much easier to organize things by actual dates than vague terms. See Commons:Categories for discussion/2016/10/Category:Old maps which remarked that "old" was actually more clear than "historical" ironically. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:13, 24 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Delete and phase out. Material can be sorted by date, year, decade, century, whichever is most precise for the given product with the available knowledge, all of which clearly denotes its historical value better than we can with an arbitrary category tree. — Huntster (t @ c) 10:53, 26 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Delete Impossibly vague and subkective and will change over time. Stick to eras/centuries/dates, whatever can be reliably sourced. Rodhullandemu (talk) 22:44, 19 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Delete or at least deprecate and start moving away from this. An almost useless term. - Jmabel ! talk 23:33, 19 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Categorisation by year tends to be really unhelpful. If we look at a category like Category:Historical images of Pont Neuf, it's actually quite useful to have all of the images together (ideally sorted by date depicted), so one can see how the bridge and the area around it and depictions of it have developed with time. This is very hard if the group of images get fragmented by date. However in most cases, moving the images to "X in art" may be a better way to achieve this, at least for painted and engraved images. IMO it would be worth coming up with a structure that would allow older photographs to be kept together, without fragmentation, but also segregated from current photographs. Grouping by century might achieve this. It's helpful to categorise images with a narrow subject and a broad date, in parallel with by a broad subject and a narrow date. Categories of a well-defined subject by century IMO should not be further broken down to decades or years, unless they become very big (eg over 300 images). Jheald (talk) 20:13, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Jheald: It seems to me a gallery would be more effective at the purpose you discuss than, potentially, a mass of old unsorted pictures of a bridge that stop at some arbitrary date in the past. But I agree, like with everything, content should be broken up first by century and only further if there is a sufficient volume to justify it. - Themightyquill (talk) 21:05, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  •  deprecate its use. When there is a Wikipedia topic such as "History of Something" (usually a place) the Commons categories "History of..." do the same job here, as "generic containers of "old" images", until media (images or not) is subcategorised with concrete dates (centuries or even more precise). When not, I guess directly categorising subject media by century is the step to take. "Something in art" is indeed another alternative receptacle, but photographs should be excluded from there. Strakhov (talk) 14:56, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's getting worse. When did we start including 21st century photographs in the "historical photographs" categories? Those are called "photographs", no metaphysics needed. Take Category:Historical photographs of India, for example. What are we supposed to do with that. I think there are some bad templates somewhere? Ruff tuff cream puff (talk) 10:37, 24 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep Useful for smaller categories where subject by date is not useful. I don't want to use .. by date for every building, that's ridiculous. --P170 (talk) 10:32, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In Category:Historical photographs of India there is a mistake in the template that categorize photographs of the 2000s to the category "Historical photographs of India". Who is able to correct it ? DenghiùComm (talk) 17:27, 24 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  •  Comment The question is... is that "really" a mistake? From the current discussion I may deduce that there is certain consensus on the fact that "historical" is a subjective term, and that there's no really a valid "point in time" (not 1950, not 2001 and not 1970) that separates historical images from non historical images. The solution is, obviously, getting rid of these categories and templates, not "fixing" them for not including images past 1999. Why 1999? Strakhov (talk) 18:06, 24 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep in accordance with Jheald and P170. Regards, --Bohème21 (talk) 04:36, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
{{Vote keep}} DenghiùComm (talk) 21:25, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Your repetitive comment is now struck because you already wrote it before special:diff/387453859.--Roy17 (talk) 15:04, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment The name "Historical images" is so ambiguous that a lot of people use it incorrectly. This usually occurs in people who did not speak or understand English. They get mad whenever I correct them and these editing disputes happen day in and day out. So what I got from this is that more people to hate me. These years I take it for granted that I very hate this category. If you guys want to keep it, please consider my situation, how will such disputes be resolved in the future?--Kai3952 (talk) 21:11, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=intitle%3A%2F%5BHh%5Distorical+%5Ba-z%5D%2F&ns14=1
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?sort=create_timestamp_desc&search=intitle%3A%2F%5BHh%5Distorical+%5Ba-z%5D%2F&ns14=1
Roughly 23.9k cats exist now. Roy17 (talk) 05:50, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Phase out and eventually delete: The overall consensus is that for most purposes, "historical" is not a useful means of sorting for several reasons. It is imprecise and subjective, and any precise definition (like XX years before present) will require a significant amount of maintenance. There is also consensus that these categories should not simply be deleted without a structure to ensure proper sorting. To that end, I have created Category:Images requiring sorting by time period (thanks @Themightyquill: for the suggestion) and will move all files in Category:Historical images and Category:Historical photographs plus some subcategories there.

Per this CfD, most categories of the form Historical images of ... and Historical photographs of ... should be depreciated. In most cases, their contents can be moved to History of ... (since the vast majority of Commons files are photographs), and subcategorized there by topic and/or time period as needed. Once the depreciated category is empty, it can be deleted or redirected. There may be a few small-scale exceptions for individual topics, but those can be discussed individually as needed. I would appreciate any assistance possible in tagging these categories as depreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pi.1415926535 (talk • contribs) 20:41, 11 April 2023 (UTC) (UTC)[reply]

Request for adjusting templates

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@Joshbaumgartner, Roy17, Themightyquill, Estopedist1, DenghiùComm, King of Hearts, Ricky81682, El Grafo, Huntster, Rodhullandemu, Jmabel, Jheald, Strakhov, Ruff tuff cream puff, P170, Bohème21, Kai3952, and Pi.1415926535: Because of the outcome of this discussion, I moved all files and subcategories of Category:Historical images of the Netherlands to proper categories, or made new ones for this purpose. This job has almost been done, except for subcategories with templates I cannot adjust (because I do not have enough knowledge about them), see Category:Historical photographs of the Netherlands (click to see the subcategories involved). For the categories starting with "Photographs by" I have asked for an adjustments on Template talk:ANEFO photographer location. For the other subcategories Template:Countryphotocentury and similar ones should be adjusted.
My question is: who can and will adjust these templates, so that they do not add parent categories with "Historical images/photographs" (anymore) if they do not exist? This request involves not only categories of the Netherlands, but all countries.
(By the way: the Netherlands is the only category branche of the former Category:Historical images I adjusted, the other ones I leave to others.) --JopkeB (talk) 08:52, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

i fixed Template:Countryphotocentury and Template:Countryphotomonthyear. i leave ANEFO to others. RZuo (talk) 09:53, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
also, i would suggest "Category:Historical abc of xyz" should be kept as a redirect to "Category:History of xyz" (if it exists) for locations that have large amounts of files. users might tend to keep trying to categorise files this way. redirects will send them to the better category trees. RZuo (talk) 10:01, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, RZuo! It works what you did: after a hard purge these categories have been gone from Category:Historical photographs of the Netherlands. Now only Template:countryphotodecade is to be fixed. JopkeB (talk) 10:03, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The last template has been changed also. Thank RZuo! Case closed. JopkeB (talk) 12:08, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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