Category talk:Vehicles by country

Renaming of sub categories

 Support renaming of sub categories — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.100.195.198 (talk • contribs) 01:08, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

 Comment We should differentiate three aspects

• where was the vehicle manufactured (by brand)
• where is the vehicle registered (by owner, by registration)
• where was the photo taken (where the vehicle momentarily occured).

What about a French car operated by a German owner and taken in Italy? All these aspects have their own relevancy. --ŠJů (talk) 11:47, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

 Support ŠJů: I'm also thinking about a vehicle from abroad (let's say Cyprus) which transfers through Germany (the country in Europe/world with the most international borders) and gets captured. "Vehicles in <country>" is a really bad choice. --Mattes (talk) 11:04, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

 Comment We are making things too complicated and unmanageable. The origin of a car is eventually popping up in the manufacturers category. Owner and registration is next to impossible to find out. So personally, I don't care how the categories are named, but if one creates two parallel in and from categories, then we will end up with a big mess. --Foroa (talk) 19:41, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

 Support Support for the original rename request to "in country", and also agree with Foroa's comment - the location is about the only thing that is generall known for a vehicle in a file, and we should not overcategorise when correct placement in multiple optional/competing categories will remain ambigious for most files. Ingolfson (talk) 10:30, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

ok, I'm taking care now; it's work in progress, and should be done later today :-) --:bdk: 14:44, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 Done --:bdk: 17:26, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I've only just noticed this one - it wasn't flagged on any of the obviously affected sub categories. We now seem to have moved manufacturer categories like Itala vehicles and Minerva vehicles from "vehicles of" (where they belong) to "vehicles in", no matter where the actual vehicle is present. Although there's some sense to the "the location is about the only thing that is generally known" comment above when applied to images, this doesn't apply to categories like this. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:53, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your note, Andy. Of course, categorization appears a bit inconsistent now. This was the same before – but the other way around. I guess the problem is mainly caused by the ambiguousness of "of" in contrast to "in", and in contrast to a more clear categorization following brand/company/manufacturer origins on a higher category level, see e.g. Category:Manufacturing companies by country.

Due to the mass of affected images/categories/galleries there are definitely some cases left that need further re-sorting, especially in cases where there's only a <brand name vehicles> category and no <company name> category above it yet. Ideally all company categories should be sorted by "home country" (where a company's headquarters is located). And, as a side note, there are several cases, where e.g. a big US company (aka "XYZ vehicles") produces its vehicles not only in the USA, but in many plants in different countries on different continents. Categorization by country is pretty complicated then, if it's meant in a "manufactured in <country>" way and if it should actually be correct. It's only possible on a per model basis often. --:bdk: 19:41, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Looking at my watchlist, I can see five images that have been moved from "of" to "in" where it's either no difference, or a correction (an MG car in Venezuela). However the majority are eighteen categories, all of which are categories by maker and strongly related to being "of" a country. This change doesn't seem to be an improvement when applied to the category namespace, as those are pretty much all country-related by prior definition (and thus "of") rather than based on the happenstance of particular photographs and thus "in". Andy Dingley (talk) 21:01, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

"In" vs. "of"

I would like to reopen this discussion.

Here's my proposal that I posted recently in the Village Pump and the initial response to it:

Here's my proposal: Let's use the "Vehicles of country" categories for vehicles designed and/or produced in said country and use the "Vehicles in country" categories for vehicles photographed within the borders of said country regardless of where they were designed or produced.

Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 13:45, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

That would make sense on paper. In practice, it's more complicated today, as many vehicles are made in multiple factories around the world. Best to just stick to the "in" category, as that's often all we could know for sure. – Adrignola talk 16:13, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

But why put categories for specific manufacturers in the "Vehicles in country" categories (like in Category:Vehicles in France)? Also even though its true that a single car model can be produced by several manufacturers it does not change the fact that putting categories of manufacturers from specific countries in categories "Vehicles of country" makes a lot more sense than putting in the "in" categories since just because a car was designed and/or produced in a country doesn't mean it was in said country wen a photo of it was being taken. Also most of the time when a car is produced by several diff rent manufacturers it's usually produced and sold under their brands and names. All that has to be done is to create a category for each such "variantion" as a subcategory of the manufacturer's category and the category of the original car (like in the case of Category:Nasr 125 which is a subcategory of Category:Nasr vehicles and Category:Polski Fiat 125p). In case a car is produced under its original name we can always make a separate category for it (like it was done in the case of Category:Daewoo Lanos (Poland))

By using separate categories for vehicles designed/produced in a country and photographed in a country we can allow people to look for more specific content while making it easier to tell which cars were actually designed and/or produced in a country and which were just in a country when a picture of them was being taken.

Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 16:44, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes "produced in" is straightforward. More often, one needs VIN code to answer "where". Without it, "where" will be subject to local stereotypes ("All Renaults are built in Turkey", "All Toyotas are built in Derbyshire" etc.). NVO (talk) 09:41, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Please note that I'm NOT suggesting we categories vehicles by the place where they were registered but by the location where it was photographed and the manufacturer.

Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 17:04, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Seems to me two of these kinds can be good. "In" obviously says where it is. Category:Trucks built in Austria says where it was made. Notice that this particular one is a very small category, because this information is less often known or thought to be important. In some cases the resulting category will not exist because nobody knew or cared, but the absence of a theoretically existent category is not problem. "Of" is vague and to be avoided. "Registered in" will rarely be interesting but if someone cares, why not?

All I'm trying to say is that we should have different categories for vehicles designed and or produced in a given country and vehicles photographed in a given country. It doesn't really matter to me in this case if the categories will be called "Vehicles of" and "Vehicles in" respectively or "Vehicles produced in" and "Vehicles photographed in".

Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 19:27, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

• I would support SuperTank17's proposal here. Possibly clarify it so that "Hondas" are "of Japan", no matter where they're made. We might possibly choose (if it makes sense in each case) categorise a UK-built Honda model as being of that country, but that would be per-model, and Honda pretty obviously stays Japanese.

I also note that user:Multichill converted a bunch of these today (raised here), so as to cat-redirect "of" to "in". This is a really bad idea - it's worse than just deleting the cat, because most of the sub-cats are maker categories and so are clearly "of". If they'd stayed that way for long enough for the 'bots to pick them up, it would have made a ghastly mess to sort out manually. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:54, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Hondas, indeed, are of Japan. And Renaults are of Turkey. Crappy Turkish Renaults. The French may have a different opinion, but if all Renaults on the road are made in Turkey, they are Turkish. Except for Mexican-built Nissans which are actually rebadged Renaults. Bottomline: it's all mixed up; companies that once were solidly "of England" or "of Sweden" are now Chinese-owned. Stick with "in country were it was captured", least controversial.NVO (talk) 09:33, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

"of" is vague, as others have said. Retire "of" and replace it with something specific, presumably "produced in". Existing "of" categories should redirect to "produced in", since that's the intended meaning most of the time. Possibly have "designed in" as a separate category. There is a mess here. For example, the briefest of skims of Category:Renault vehicles turns up a Renault photographed in the UK, but the category is a subcategory of Category:Vehicles in France. (Category:Vehicles of France is a category redirect to Category:Vehicles in France.) Rd232 (talk) 01:08, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

We can rename "vehicles of", I just don't care. We can even delete it entirely, although we should still retain something that categorises "Renault" under "Manufacturers in France". What we mustn't do, and which was done in March and then done again yesterday is to apply category redirects from "of" to "in". This is very harmful - not because it's a trivial cat change in one place, but because it then triggers 'bots to recategorise the sub cats (i.e. Renault) in the largely incorrect change from "of" to "in". This is also a difficult change to correct, because it must be done manually, in a great many places. I did a load myself in March (UK & US), I think user:Theodulf has been clearing up a lot lately (Thanks for that). We must not make this cat redirect change - it's just wrong. You note Renault as being incorrectly "in" rather than "of". That happened in March here, where a 'bot auto-broke it, after this change to Category:Vehicles of France in March. This is the change we have to avoid. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:28, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

We should reflect that the main category of vehicles by country have to cover all three location criteria. Some subcategories prefer the country of registration (owner), some subcategories the country of origin (production), some subcategories the country of operation or occurrence and many subcategories will mix these criteria. Thus, we should presume three subcategory branches which should be thoroughly interconnected mutually. Every type of transport requires its specific priorities (sea ships, local public buses or trams, railway coaches, aircraft...) and this main umbrella category should integrate them. The category structure can look maybe so:

• Vehicles by country
  • Vehicles by country of production
    • Automobiles by country of production
    • Vehicles built in Somewhereland
  • Vehicles by country of registration
    • Aircraft by country of registration
    • Vehicles registered in Somewhereland
  • Vehicles of Somewhereland
    • Vehicles in Somewhereland
      • Automobiles in Somewhereland
      • Trolleybuses in Somewhereland
    • Vehicles built in Somewhereland
      • Automobiles built in Somewhereland
    • Automobiles of Somewhereland
      • Automobiles built in Somewhereland
      • Automobiles in Somewhereland
    • Aircraft of Somewhereland
    • Watercraft of Somewhereland

I think, the prepositon "of" is not "vague" but "of wide meaning". It can be used for the most wide meaning which covers all specific meanings. The categories with prepositions "in" or "built in" or "registered in" are more specific. This allows that some type of vehicles can be categorized only by "in" (= "photographed in", "occured in", "operated in"), different type of vehicle by "of", and other type paralelly by several criteria. Thus, "of" should be the main, universal category and "in" or "built in" can be its special subcategory. --ŠJů (talk) 02:36, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Personally I think that the ambiguousness of "of" makes it very useful in this case. I mean we can use it without going into where a given vehicle was produced. We can just state that a given brand is "of country" regardless of where the vehicles are actually manufactured and if we know that a given vehicle was produced by a manufacturer in a different country under the same name we can just create categories like Category:Daewoo Lanos (Poland).

Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 08:34, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Long time ago, we harmonised towards "vehicles in country" for the simple reason that this was the most universal default and got the widest coverage for mainstream contributors. Mixing in and of will unavoidably lead to a mess as it is in many countries. Using "xxx built in", "yyy manufactured in ...", it is quite simple to add more specialists category without confusing all the other categories nor making complex category trees. Moreover, many "from categories" can be slipped in by the brand/model names. --Foroa (talk) 09:19, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

"Long time ago, we harmonised towards "vehicles in country" "

When? There is no evidence for any such change. Before March we had both. By all means, use "vehicles in" for photos of vehicles in countries. However "vehicles of" still exists and has a different meaning. This is a meaning (Renault is broadly speaking French) that should be preserved by some means. Merging the two categories, as is being done silently, is simply incorrect. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:11, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

See NVO and my comments above. Saying Renault is French is like saying Ford is American. Factories are all over and parts are sourced from all over. And you don't know that a particular vehicle in a photo was manufactured in wherever the company is headquartered. – Adrignola talk 15:37, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Other examples:

• Belgium used to be the nation with most assembled cars/capita, but without a car manufacturer.
• Simularly, the UK produces about 2 % of all cars worldwide, but has almost no main motor company left
• There are more countries without car manufactureres than with car manufacturers.
• EN:NedCar produces 4 to 5 different brands of cars. Are they Dutch ?

I agree that we need an equivalent to vehicles of, but using in AND of will unavoidably lead to a mix-up. --Foroa (talk) 16:32, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Saying Renault is French is like saying Ford is American

Yes, and both of these things are worth saying. We might also say that some particular Ford models were British or German, but that's no reason to stop saying Ford overall is American. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:53, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

@Foroa: "Vehicles in" is sufficient for local transport by vehicles of local origin. However, for aircraft or sea watercraft is very unsuitable, as well as for categorization of brands by country of origin (production). "Vehicles of" is more universal. (A car of a Belgian owner falls under "Automobiles of Belgium" even though it isn't of Belgian brand.)

Long time ago, there was an effort to unify localisation prepositions - however, this effort resulted in fiasco - we are forced to distinguish "ponds in"/"lakes of" or "forests of"/"parks in" (or even, natural forest should be "of" and artificial forest should be "in"). Contrary to this pointless disunity, the distinction between "vehicles in" and "vehicles of" is real and cannot be omitted. --ŠJů (talk) 16:39, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

"Vehicles in" is indeed sufficient for vehicles spotted or seen in a specific country/state/province/rayons/districts/cities which is the biggest and deepest category structure that should be as simple as possible and in line with the most frequent categorisation scheme.

For the others, we should avoid structures as Category:Art of Italy that contains "art in Italy" and "Art from Italy" as this is just too complex and next to impossible to maintain. I would simply propose a rather side tree, such as "vehicle manufacturers of country" and "vehicle brands/models of country" for the others.

I disagree that the unification effort was a fiasco. It was probably not completely to your liking but it had to remain "English". Overall, we don't spend much time in harmonisation any more, despite the fact that there are 50000 new categories per month (more than one per minute). Most of the problems today come from the people categories and on Islands (that are often states/provinces/districts and that require in English other propositions). We could have replaced the in/from/of by one symbol, such as <> or Ø or ∈, but I doubt that would have been accepted as it would exclude constructs like Category:Art of Italy ;(. This would have been a good step into the direction of auto translation too) --Foroa (talk) 17:24, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

No need to argue with 50000 new categories per month – most of them are categories of individual specific object and themes, only small part of new categories are upper systematic categories. I'm not sure about the preferred or admissible use of English prepositions but I'm sure that the discussion at Commons at that time headed towards different solutions than is the current one and gave no convincing arguments for the current distinction. Are you really sure that natural meadows are "of" England and artifical meadows are "in" England? I repeatedly requested (also you) for proves of such claim and never get sources or proves. Fortunately, vehicles have a different problem.

Art of Italy with subcategories "Art in Italy" and "Art from Italy" is a good example of a quite good solution (a bit imperfect but surely better than to mix both together). Thank you for it – I'm really pleased that my proposal have a functional and tried pattern. Yes, vehicle brands should have their own category tree by country - however its being doesn't mean that French vehicles should't be categorized under Vehicles of France and distinguished from non-French vehicles in France, as well as non-French vehicles in France shouldn't be mixed with French vehicles outside France. That's why we create subcategories and distinguish. When some Austrian-origin locomotive of a German operator appears in Prague, all three countries are enough relevant to be reflected in categorization of it photo - through appropriate categories. We have discuss what of intermediate categories are useful and what aren't. I think, categories like Diesel multiple units of Vogtlandbahn in the Czech Republic can be useful but the upper category of "Rolling stock of Vogtlandbahn" should be categorized under "Rolling stock of Germany", not "Rolling stock in Germany". As I mentioned above, categories of aircraft or sea watercraft by country are most suitable by country of registration and shouldn't be categorized under "Vehicles in country". --ŠJů (talk) 20:21, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

We are not discussing meadows, but vehicles. A meaningless consistency between vehicles and fields would have no more value than Category:Vehicles by type of grassland. Vehicles have manufacturers with a country of origin and they have a country in which they are photographed. These are the issues we actually need to address. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:45, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, as said above, there exist 3 main country criteria: 1) where the vehicle was produced (country of seat of the manufacturer), 2) where the vehicle have its home (country of registration, owner, operator, operation, depot), 3) where the vehicle was when it was photographed (often identic with 2, sometime identic with 1). These criteria shouldn't be confused mutually. The most universal preposition covering all 3 criteria is "of". That's the main distinction compared to meadows etc. For some types of vehicles some two of the three or all three criteria can fall together, for some types of vehicles, some of the three criteria can be unimportant, but the main country category of vehicles should be "vehicles of..." --ŠJů (talk) 21:41, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Examples that "in" categories are not useful:

• Austrian Bus in Germany File:ÖBB Postbus am Hinterssee (Ramsau) Linie 847.JPG
• French bus in Switzerland File:Basel 2012-10-06 Batch Part 1 (10).JPG
• Swiss bus in France File:BVB 50 EuroAirport.JPG
• German van in Switzerland File:Basel 2012-08 Mattes 1 (298).JPG
• Russian rolling stock in Switzerland File:2013-09-15 12-46-47 RZD WLABmee 622071 im Bw Basel.jpg

Any tourist vehicles or rolling stock etc. can be found almost anywhere on earth. Typical or not, in a minute after exposure, a vehicle can leave the country etc. --Mattes (talk) 18:55, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Undiscussed mass renaming

Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/User_problems#User_talk:Orrling_and_mass_renaming_of_vehicle_categories

This has kicked off again. I suggest discussing it here as the best and most central place. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:57, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Related discussions

See Category talk:Vehicles of Germany and Category talk:Vehicles of the United States for subsequent partial discussions. --ŠJů (talk) 00:02, 7 January 2014 (UTC)