User talk:Andy Dingley

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Some changes this week

Hello Andy Dingley, you make some changes this week to vehicles in the Musée National de l'Automobile.

1. Deletion request to Category:Lotus 33 (Musée National de l'Automobile) in the Musée National de l'Automobile (for pictures made in the museum) and changes in Category:Lotus 33 (Musée National de l'Automobile).
   Please note that in the last category there are also pictures made at the Paris Motor show, definitely outside of the museum. According to the main categories which you added all pictures must show: 1960s Lotus automobiles in the Musée National de l'Automobile, 1960s automobiles in the Musée National de l'Automobile, 1963 automobiles in museums, Formula One cars in the Musée National de l'Automobile. It was a hard fight for me in the last years to correct all such mistakes made by User:Finoskov in these categories.
2. You created Category:1960s Lotus automobiles in the Musée National de l'Automobile without Category:Lotus automobiles in the Musée National de l'Automobile. Regards --Buch-t (talk) 16:36, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for starting this discussion. I'm receptive to any ideas you have for how best to do this.

• I see no point in having Category:Lotus automobiles in the Musée National de l'Automobile. All of their Lotuses are from the 1960s (AFAIK). I created one 1960 Lotus category for the museum, which is also in Category:Automobiles in the Musée National de l'Automobile and sorted as L for Lotus. In which case, creating the category for all Lotuses in all decades there would have no point, other than to add additional layers of navigation overhead.

The only drawback to this is a truly trivial aesthetic one, of the wording used for the link from the all-cars page including the prefix '1960'. This is just one of the limitations that we have to work around with Mediawiki. It's a lot less of a drawback than the extra baggage of additional navigation layers which are adding nothing.

There is a similar issue with Category:Violet-Bogey type A torpedo (M.N.A.) and Category:O.M. type 665 SS MM roadster (M.N.A.1322) 1931, where these are the only cars of that marque in the museum, thus I did not create the intermediate categories for them.

I would like to see Category:Automobiles in the Musée National de l'Automobile expand so as to become an all-marques listing for the museum. Groups where there are multiples; single pages for single cars where there are not. That would have value to our readers. I found the structure very hard to follow before my recent visit because there was no complete list of marques. It is not useful to our readers to hide all the Audis from them (a marque with a long history under that name) and expect our readers to guess the decade they might be under! It's not too hard to guess that Lotuses were in the 1960s, but for Audi this would be guessing that a 1913 model was filed under 1924, for a maker far better known in the 1930s or 1980s. That's an unreasonable requirement.

• As to the Lotus 33 (and any general principles involved in that category) then it is (in the broad sense) the regular problem that we have to manage content which doesn't perfectly fit the structure we've built. In this case, the example of a museum exhibit that travels to other exhibitions.

I see no point to concerning ourselves with this. The issue is simply trivial. Mediawiki categorisation is also (as always) navigational, not defining. It just doesn't have the capabilities to cover such situations in a useful manner. Attempts to do so (not unusual here) just make navigation unduly complex. If we had content of this car racing in the 1960s, then that would be different. Even if it came out to events like Goodwood and was photographed in action there, it would be worthwhile to separate them. But for two images of the car in Paris, looking identical to how it looks when also at rest in a different museum, there is no point in splitting.

The category names are tautological anyway. If the content is so fluid that it can't simply be grouped under one, then why have the name of that venue in the category, implying that's where they are anyway? Are you advocating a training course being necessary for our readers before starting, lesson one being "The category with MNA in the name is the one that doesn't involve the MNA. You need to look instead at the one labelled twice as 'MNA in the MNA'." If we can't explain to our readers on sight that the category labelled 'MNA' is the one for images not in the MNA, then we've failed.

This is particularly bad if, like here, Category:Lotus 33 (Musée National de l'Automobile) becomes inconsistent with Category:Lotus 18 in the Musée National de l'Automobile in that the category with the simple name [<marque> <MNA>] transforms into being the one that isn't at the MNA. That is a broken and ridiculous naming system. The only thing worse is the one where trivial and overlooked syntax such as '(...)' means the opposite of 'in the'. There is no way that that system would be any sense to anyone other than you, completely ignoring our customer here, the readership.

As usual, our guiding principle should be that of defaults and refinement. For a museum collection, the default assumption will be that exhibits are in that museum. We make that the basic behaviour for the parent category (the top level for any Lotus 33 content within this collection). The exceptions to this then become the exceptions. If we have coverage of a museum collection car in its racing heyday, then we put those in a subcategory beneath. Likewise if one makes a loan trip elsewhere. But the starting point of this tree, for all exhibits equally, should be that its content of this car in this museum. If we distinguish anything within that, we make those the exception and leave the default in place.

I am open to any discussion of these issues, but I am unconvinced by your points here. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:59, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

You created Category:1960s Lotus automobiles in the Musée National de l'Automobile with the main Category:Lotus automobiles in the Musée National de l'Automobile, but this category does not exist. It is a red category. Where is the sense to use red categories? You can remove the red category and this problem is solved for me.

When I look at your last edits then I find more examples where you use red categories without creating them: Category:Tower blocks in Somerset, Category:Telephone exchanges in Gloucestershire, Category:Methodist Chapels in Devon, Category:Lock-up garages in England. I am wondering. But this categories are not of interest for me.

Please look at Category talk:Musée National de l'Automobile. Last year, when there was the disput with User:Finoskov, I started to write my thinkings about the category system for this museum. He did not answer. Nobody answered. I did some changes but I did not change the wholly system. Now, 14 months later, it would be necessary for me to think from the beginning again.

Now to the bigger problem: pictures in museum and pictures made elsewhere.

To categorize images in categories where they are not right according to the category name or category structure, is deceptive. (In German de:Täuschung, I hope that en:Deception/deceptive is the right translation.)

When we have a category which is in main categories like „in the Musee Automobile“ or „in museums“ then I cannot accept pictures made elsewhere. We have to find a way to prevent incorrect category assignments.

I will be back next weekend. --Buch-t (talk) 17:00, 29 March 2026 (UTC)

There was no answer in the last weeks. --Buch-t (talk) 10:04, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

Again no answer in the last weeks. Not here and not at Questions to the museum in Mulhouse. I will try to visit the museum next month. At the website there is a notice of QR codes. Was it already introduced in March? --Buch-t (talk) 16:25, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, but I can't see what you want from me here? Andy Dingley (talk) 18:39, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

LLM comment policy proposal

Hello, I'm notifying you because you weighed in on a proposal at Commons:Village pump/Archive/2026/05#LLM use in discussion. The language of the proposed guideline has been drafted and a final proposal has been submitted at Commons:Village Pump/Proposals#LLM use in discussion. This is an invitation for you to voice your opinion for a final time before the language is adopted or rejected. Thanks, Phillipedison1891 (talk) 22:16, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

Gerard Drukker photographs

Hello Andy, please stop dating pictures from 1963 to 1972, like you did here. Thanks in advance, Jeff5102 (talk) 15:01, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, a regex must have gone astray somewhere. They're all fixed now. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:46, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Great! Have a nice weekend, Jeff5102 (talk) 16:54, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

About your changes in Category:Artists' studios

It is not correct to change a category while there is an onging discussion about it. Exactly your changes are under discussion. So please reverse your changes. JopkeB (talk) 11:29, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

You cannot credibly claim that studio apartments are a form of artist's studio! Andy Dingley (talk) 22:10, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Still, please wait until the discussion will be closed. Or join the discussion. JopkeB (talk) 04:46, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

I was in that discussion from the start. You seem very rude. Do you think this encourages people to wish to work with you? Andy Dingley (talk) 22:24, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

You are right. I overlooked it. My apologies. JopkeB (talk) 03:41, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion for privacy

Hi. Privacy is not listed as one of the criteria at COM:CSD. Please stop pretending it is like in Special:Diff/1257572373.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 21:24, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

User request is a valid CSD. We are also regularly somewhat elastic over the time limits for this. Why did you then leave this file in such a mess, with an incomplete DR on it?

If you have to do something, do something useful Andy Dingley (talk) 21:29, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Please revert your edits to mine of this morning!

You reversed my edit of this morning. That does not make me happy. The problem is: in Category:Association football in the Netherlands is Category:Football photography in the Netherlands a subcategory, AND there are 16(!) subcategories for Football photography by [name photographer], which should be in Category:Football photography in the Netherlands as well. I solved that problem. AND for Erich Koch and Jan Voets are subcategories by years (so overcategorisation), which I solved as well. So please revert your edits to mine of this morning again. Now it is a mess. JopkeB (talk) 15:20, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

• Exactly the same problem in Category:Cycling photography by Henk Lindeboom.
• And how can Category:Sports in the Netherlands as a parent of Category:Sports photography by Henk Lindeboom be redundant? I do not see it as a parent of Category:Photographs by Henk Lindeboom.

--JopkeB (talk) 15:26, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

You made a bunch of random edits (not even consistent) and broke a bunch of stuff. Now you're (yet again) playing Mr Angry and blaming other people for it.

• Swapped link targets from soccer to football (i.e. American football, and all the other sportball variants in the broad sense)
• Swapped title texts to "Football photography photography"
• Swapped link targets to en:WP to an article on "football photography" that doesn't exist, and is unlikely to ever exist.
• Some of them had subcategories by year. This is because some of those had hundreds of images in each year, too many to throw into one pile. As sport is so strongly seasonal, subcategorizing by year is entirely reasonable. Do not remove it.
• Some time back you demanded that cycling links here point to 'cycling (sport)' rather than recreational 'cycling'. I did this for you. You now reverted it.

You made this mess, then walked away. I do not support OWN over content areas, but if you're going to make big blanket changes, then either get it right, or expect to be reverted.

This is a collaborative project. You seem to have some problem working under such a system. Maybe it's unfair to expect you to continue doing so.

These categories have been largely stable and sorted for some years. There are a great many of them, there are thousands of images under them. Because there are so many of them, there's a template to assist with this. I know you don't like templates and want rid of them, but you're not the one having to deal with the categorization of this huge number of images. It's not going to happen (certainly not cleanly or consistently) otherwise.

Since these were first set up you've introduced a new category Category:Football photography in the Netherlands. Which is fine. If you'd mentioned this, it could already have been integrated cleanly and without needing to make any changes to the categories - the benefit of using a centralised template. But instead you'd prefer to hack it around, make a mess, and then act all hurt when someone cleans up after you? Andy Dingley (talk) 19:36, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

Please, assume good faith. I made the changes with good intentions. Thanks for adjusting the template. But there are still some problems:

1. The subcategories for Erich Koch and Jan Voets by year still have been overcategorized. For Erich Koch they show up in Football photography by Eric Koch, which has Category:Football photography in the Netherlands as a parent as well as in Category:Football photography in the Netherlands itself. Same vor Jan Voets. Can you solve that as well?
2. The problem has not been solved for Category:Cycling photography by Henk Lindeboom. This subcategory should be in Cycling photography in the Netherlands by photographer, but is in Category:Cycling (sport) in the Netherlands. Can that be solved as well?
3. I still miss a second parent category for Category:Sports photography by Henk Lindeboom. It should at least have something like Category:Sports photography for the sports part in the category name.

JopkeB (talk) 06:27, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

Arc discharge

Most of these lamps are based on arc discharge. Fluorescent lamps are low-pressure arc lamps, as opposed to neon lamps that are glow-discharge lamps. Mercury-vapor light bulbs, metal halide lamps and sodium lamps are high-pressure arc lamps. Tucvbif (talk) 18:58, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

Not in English language electrical engineering they're not. Maybe in Russian. There are several forms of discharge, arcs are one but there's still a big difference between a xenon or carbon arc and a fluorescent tube. Even between a xenon and a sodium lamp. We could make some pedantic case that 'sodium lamps make use of an arc' (for high pressure they even use a xenon arc) and we'd be right on some descriptive level of physics, but this doesn't change the name that's used for them. Misapplying a name 'because the name everyone uses is wrong' isn't helpful.

Two issues in particular.

• Common usage does not call fluorescent lamps 'arc lamps'. We call them 'discharge lamps' for a reason.
• Placing Category:Fluorescent lamps as a subcategory of Category:Arc lamps isn't just unhelpful like this, it's wrong. There is a disjoint between the category meanings and the subtle semantic arguments we might make above. What's in Category:Arc lamps aren't just 'any type of lamp using an arc, that we might possibly stretch the case for them involving an arc at some extent', it's more specific and narrow than that: it's for the lamps (and only the lamps) that we regard as {arc, ~discharge} lamps. That group excludes those here, even if they are still discharge lamps.

Andy Dingley (talk) 19:56, 1 September 2026 (UTC)