Commons talk:Galleries

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to Commons:Galleries.

• This is not a forum for general discussion of the page’s subject.
• Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
• Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~).
• New to Commons? Check out the project scope. Ask questions, get answers.

Archives: 1

Related discussion: Commons talk:First steps/Sorting

Proposal to add always a Gallery category to a gallery page

Proposal: change 4. Categories

Current text: "Every gallery should be categorized. Add the gallery to the category with the same name, or if there is none, to relevant categories (see Commons:Categories)."

Change to: "Every gallery should be categorized. Add the gallery to at least two categories:

1. with the same name, or if there is none, to relevant categories (see Commons:Categories)

2. at least one subcategory of Category:Gallery pages."

Reason/problem: There are a lot of gallery pages without such a gallery category, it would not surprise me when there are more than a thousand. That makes it hard to find them if you do not know the exact name or when you just want to browse gallery pages. JopkeB (talk) 15:24, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

 Support — I also face problems finding gallery pages related to India due to the lack of dedicated gallery categories. I always try to categorize existing gallery pages to dedicated categories. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 16:48, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

 Support - Jmabel ! talk 18:10, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

 Support as a general guideline of a desirable target,  Oppose if that means that all gallery pages must be reviewed by someone, or that some galleries could be deleted because of lacking a subcategory of "Gallery pages". MGeog2022 (talk) 18:11, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Clearly the remedy for lacking an appropriate parent category is not deletion, it is adding the parent category. - Jmabel ! talk 19:07, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

OK, this makes sense. As it is only a guideline (should),  Support. MGeog2022 (talk) 12:16, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

 Support This is a guideline. There usually aren't consequences for not following guidelines. Except that someone will hopefully fix the issue based on the guidance in it. --Adamant1 (talk) 02:57, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Add "criteria for creation of galleries" section to guideline

Per the Village Pump discussion it's pretty clear that a lot of galleries either shouldn't have been created in the first place or are otherwise lacking in quality. Although it's not really clear what makes a good quality gallery, but there are some things that I think clearly make bad ones. So there should be some kind of guidance in the guideline about when it's worth creating a gallery or not and what makes a gallery "good." These are just a few of the things I can think of off the top of my head. People are free to modify, add to, and or change the criteria as the discussion about it evolves.

1. Gallery pages should not be created for a topic where there are either to little images to justify it due to copyright or similar issues.

2. Gallery pages should not be created in cases where they merely serve to duplicate the main category for the topic, unless some additional information, such as translations or showing a large number of images in a structured way, is provided.

3. Any galleries that contain only a few images without realistically being expendable and/or ones that merely serve to recreate the main category for the topic can be nominated speedy deletion.

Obviously that's not much, but it's just a start and I expect other people to contribute their ideas to the list. Adamant1 (talk) 03:07, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

That last one is actually trickier than you might think. The fact that (unlike a category) a gallery allows for description of each image, a rather small gallery could, at least in principle, be pretty useful. I don't have a great example, but I'm thinking of things just a little more complicated than the matter we handle with a description at the top of Category:International Fountain, Seattle Center, where we show two subtly different fountains that have existed at the same location. - Jmabel ! talk 03:40, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Uhhhh, maybe? It's tangential, but I've never been totally sure where the line is between an informational gallery and something that's starting to slow creep into being a glorified Wikipedia article with images. Not to say the later is a bad thing or shouldn't exist. But I do think it's something worth considering and maybe noting down purely for documentational purposes if nothing else. I'd be interested to check out an example of what your talking about if you can find one though. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:46, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I would add to point 2: Gallery pages should not be created in cases where they merely serve to duplicate the main category for the topic, unless some additional information, such as translations or showing a large number of images in a structured way, is provided. MGeog2022 (talk) 12:19, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Already added by Adamant1 now. MGeog2022 (talk) 19:11, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah. Sorry, I should have mentioned I added it. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:44, 29 August 2024 (UTC)