Commons:Categories for discussion/2018/07/Category:Automobiles

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This discussion of one or several categories is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive.

Category:Automobiles[edit]

Shouldn't this be moved to Category:Cars like w:Car, see w:Talk:Car/Naming. Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:49, 25 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Crouch, Swale: should we move the DAB to Category:Car (disambiguation) in line with w:Car (disambiguation) or just link this DAB to w:Car (disambiguation)? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 11:42, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Just link it...the singular makes more sense on Wikipedia than it does here. RGloucester (talk) 14:50, 12 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
d:Q224743 d:Q405692. No link I guess. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 20:45, 12 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A DAB at Category:Car (disambiguation) could also be created for uses such as Category:Car (surname) and them both linked to each other. Or a local language link could be added to the EN DAB page. Crouch, Swale (talk) 13:06, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That discussion closed as 'move'. RGloucester (talk) 00:31, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I have no real preference on this one but given that it's going to affect a great many categories beyond Category:Automobiles (which surely, only a few people follow), I would encourage you to note this to on the Commons:Village pump before closing. - Themightyquill (talk) 19:15, 2 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I agree, although this is now at CFD again on WP. Crouch, Swale (talk) 11:53, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Luckily they didn't reverse it back to automobiles. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 14:28, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
We'll introduce a lot of ambiguity by replacing automobiles with cars. We also have the big categories like rail cars; then there are street cars, trolleys, cable cars, elevator cars, those thingamabobs in a Ferris wheel are called cars as well. Does anyone think that this can be a considerable problem for our non-EN speaking customers? In general I'm all for the move, tho. As long as we don't use motorcar. ;-) --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 15:00, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Hedwig in Washington: I don't believe those things will lead to any notable confusion. The current state of things, however, is very confusing for non-American speakers because "automobile" is an American thing. I got back to this discussion because today I was looking for a category like "dogs in cars". But I couldn't find it. Tried everything. How does a category for "dogs in cars" not exist yet? Well, it does, but it's called Category:Dogs in automobiles, so it's virtually impossible to find because nobody in their right mind would assume we would use the word "automobiles" instead of "cars" for this. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 16:53, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Well, auto-mobile works for me as a native German speaker perfectly. ;-) Right, not everybody would think of automobile but most of auto. Tada, there is the category. Anyway IF we decide to move, we should divide up the work so we don't collide. --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 17:07, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Hedwig in Washington: I speak Dutch. Dutch even has automobiel (but auto is much, much more common). I understand the words when I see them, but when searching for something the current state is hopelessly confusing. Search Google Books for "police automobile": 6070 results. Search for "police car": 1.480.000 results. 243 times more. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 18:11, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, it is extremely annoying. I have nothing against the word "automobile" itself, but I'm quite sure we're supposed to call things by the way people actually call them...and we all know that, in English, we call this thing a "car". It is so confusing to have sift through awkward constructions with the strange term "automobile" when "car" would be used in any normal discourse. This discussion seems to have been open for ages. I admit to not being familiar with Commons processes, but what is required to move this forward? RGloucester (talk) 19:09, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@RGloucester: Consensus, plus one administrator to confirm we actually have a consensus. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 00:19, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
How do we get an administrator look at a discussion that has been open for half a year's time? RGloucester (talk) 20:39, 6 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Alexis Jazz and RGloucester: You'll need to bring this to the village pump and/or tag a lot of the subcategories (linking to this discussion) before I'm personally going to move this whole category tree. - Themightyquill (talk) 22:07, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Themightyquill: Again? Oh well, fine.. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 22:18, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
 Oppose I see no gain here, much shuffling, and more confusion for people who speak Indo-European languages other than English. - Jmabel ! talk 23:55, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel: You are from Seattle. I actually am from Europe. "automobile" is used only in the US and Canada according to Wiktionary, and it confuses me. I don't understand how you don't see the gain: I pointed out above I searched my ass off for "dogs in cars", unable to find it. And if I have trouble finding it, I'm absolutely certain many inexperienced users have the same problem. Perhaps less so for people from the US and Canada who might be more likely to think of "automobiles", but Commons is a global project and "car" is a global word. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 16:42, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This is really nothing more than an anecdote, there should be no reason to disrupt everyone else because you found something annoying Oxyman (talk) 20:45, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
 Oppose Categories are frequently at more formal names, and wikt:en:car is more polysemous than wikt:en:automobile. As above, it also seems more universal, which is not definitive, but it is nice.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:21, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Prosfilaes: what do you mean by "more universal"? If we stick with automobiles because it's less polysemous, we should create redirects for absolutely all of the subcategories, like we redirect Category:Bears to Category:Ursidae. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 16:42, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
More formal according to what? "Automobile" is hardly ever used in the UK, the only place I've seen is here on the other hand it seems that even in the US "car" isn't uncommon even if automobile is more common. Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:11, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
As above, it and cognate forms seem more common in other languages. I don't really care about redirects, but they seem like a noisy solution to handling alternate names, especially when it's just being done for English.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:54, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Prosfilaes: More common? Where? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 17:26, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
 Support Cars. Oxford says automobile is North American a car. Cambridge says the same--automobile is US a car. People use car in East Asia too.--Roy17 (talk) 17:39, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
 Support Per Roy17 Veracious (talk) 07:33, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Tuvalkin: What previous discussions? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 19:31, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Previous discussion that supported the choice of "automobile" over "car" for our categories, against superficial suitabilty of the latter. I’m sure you’ll be able to find them, if you want to have your opinion against it challenged. I amd not likely to change mine. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 21:59, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Multichill: How is Category:Police automobiles better than Category:Police cars? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 19:31, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Automobile is used so sparingly even in English-speaking countries like Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore. Any opposition voter actually thought about how user-unfriendly this is for not just non-Americans but non-native speakers as well.--Roy17 (talk) 22:12, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • This discussion might as well be closed as "no consensus to rename". But mark my words: this discussion has already been decided. The use of the word "automobile", even in the US, has been steadily declining for decades. If we were wise, we'd rename now instead of giving the future Commons community an even bigger renaming job. It is only a matter of time before automobile becomes a word so archaic, even more than it already is, it'll be downright ridiculous to maintain it. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 06:21, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

✓ Done: No consenus to rename. --MB-one (talk) 11:10, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Categories_for_discussion/2018/07/Category:Automobiles&oldid=402475789"