Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/09/Category:Towers in Iran

Category:Towers in Iran

This category is a child category of "buildings in Iran by shape", which seems clearly wrong to me because "tower" isn't a shape, obviously. Although when I tried to deal with that by removing the category a user @Orijentolog: reverted me because supposedly towers are narrow buildings and the word "narrow" somehow relates to a shape or some nonsense. Honestly I'm not really clear what they meant, but apparently they think it's fine to have categories as children of other ones as long as they are loosely related to each other somehow and their opinion is only that one matters in regards to anything having to do with Iran. So the question is should categories for towers be in for ones for "buildings by shape" or not? It seems pretty clear me that they shouldn't be, but maybe I just missed "towers" on the list of shapes when I was learning about them in kindergarten or something. Adamant1 (talk) 19:32, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

It's your opinion that it's "clearly wrong" or "nonsense", but I see this discussion as an utter nonsense, not worth discussing. Thousands are categories and meta categories treat towers under buildings by shape, and you will not ruin it just because of subjective opinion. Shape is a broad term and includes vertical forms, such as examples where the height is greater than the width, which is the case with towers. FYI I studied architecture and organized all of these towers based on strong scholarly sources (evidenced by references in Wikidata), and then you come and change things around, saying I'm doing and speaking "nonsense". --Orijentolog (talk) 04:43, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Thousands are categories and meta categories treat towers under buildings by shape I looked through the categories and you seem to be the only one who is doing that way. And just like every other conversation having to do with how you categorized things your whole argument for keeping it just boils down to saying it's valid because you did it. That's not an argument. Nor is it how this works. So what actual evidence do you have that "towers" are shapes outside of just going off about how the categories valid because you organized them that way? --Adamant1 (talk) 04:52, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

False claims, bordering on harassment. Towers in Iran, Italy, Germany, France and so on are categorized as buildings by shape for many years. You have no arguments other than false accusations and personal opinion? --Orijentolog (talk) 05:42, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I was talking purely about "towers in Iran" because that's what this CfD is about and your the one claiming that you looked into it and there's sources saying "towers" are shapes. Although Category:Towers in Italy seem to have the same issues as this category. So it should probably be dealt with to. But that's not the point. Your the one claiming you read sources saying towers are shapes. So what sources say that and what evidence do you have that they are shapes? it's a simple question. So why not answer it instead of acting like me asking you for evidence of something your saying is harassment? It's not harassment to ask someone what sources or evidence they are basing their opinion on. Nice try though. --Adamant1 (talk) 05:48, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

You spoke as if this particular categorization was "my idea", and it exists in numerous countries and general categories. Towers in these countries don't have issues, nor has anyone ever questioned it. It is not my duty to prove that the Earth is spherical, but yours to prove that it is flat. What is a tower defined by? Material? Height? Function? Only by shape. With a height greater than any width of the base. Finally asking, do you have any valid argument? --Orijentolog (talk) 06:58, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

You spoke as if this particular categorization was "my idea" Yes, this particular categorization was your idea because you created the categories in Category:Towers in Iran. If I create categories for dogs by location then it was my idea to create those categories. That's just how it works. Apparently there was a gun to your head or you were in a coma or something when you created the categories though.

It is not my duty to prove that the Earth is spherical, but yours to prove that it is flat. I know you can't seem to do anything else except delfect from answer questions for some reason, but this conversation isn't about the shape of the earth. Why not stick to the topic instead of deflecting? Otherwise you clearly have no argument.

What is a tower defined by? Material? Height? Function? Only by shape I'd say a tower is defined by all of those depending on the tower. That's not really the point though. I'm not asking how towers are defined. I'm asking if "towers" themselves are shapes, not if they have shapes since your the who put a category like Category:Towers in Abarkuh in Category:Buildings in Abarkuh by shape. My contention here isn't that towers don't have shapes, it's that Category:Towers in Abarkuh doesn't belong in a category like Category:Buildings in Abarkuh by shape because "towers in Abarkuh" has absolutely nothing to do with the shape of towers. I'm sure you get the difference. If the category were called "Category:Square towers in Abarkuh" then cool. It would make sense because "square" is an actual shape. A generic category for "towers" that has nothing what-so-ever to do with the shape of the towers in Abarkuh doesn't belong in a category for objects by shape. It's simply wrong. Apparently basic concepts like that are beyond your ability to understand for some reason though. --Adamant1 (talk) 07:17, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

In other words, you don't have valid arguments. Only continuing with accusations, even insults. Therefore discussion is closed. --Orijentolog (talk) 08:05, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I think that was a totally reasonable and valid example of the issue. We'll have to agree to disagree though. Your taking this whole thing way to personally. --Adamant1 (talk) 23:25, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Discussion was opened on irrational objections and the user has only accusations and insults. No reason for anything else but  Keep. --Orijentolog (talk) 08:05, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

If this is intended as a general non-deletion discussion of whether towers are shapes, Category:Towers has been a subcategory of Category:Buildings by shape since 2006.

It seems like a reasonable subcategory to me. Wikipedia's first sentence definition of a tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor, which is defining it by its shape. There are also subcategories like Category:Symmetrical buildings‎ and Category:Buildings with flat roofs‎ which don't fit Adamant1's literal kindergarten reading of "is it the name of a shape", but which describe key aspects of a building's shape. --Belbury (talk) 14:21, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

There are also subcategories like..which don't fit Adamant1's literal kindergarten reading of "is it the name of a shape" @Belbury: Yet somehow at the same time there's Category:Towers in Iran by shape, which contains subcategories like Category:Round towers in Iran, Category:Square towers in Iran Etc. Etc. What I don't see there as a sub-category is Category:Towers in Iran. Gee I wonder why that might be? My guess is that's because it would be overcategorization. Aside from also just being idiotic circular nonsense. Regardless, you'd have to admit if "towers" were a shape themselves there'd be zero point in Category:Towers in Iran by shape.

Oh wait, it looks like the category was created by Orijentolog to. weird, I can't image why they would have done that instead of just using Category:Towers in Iran if "towers" were a shape to begin with. Obviously there's a difference there. Otherwise say I induldge you, then what's your solution to categorizing things here since your apparently smarter then me? Put both categories in Category:Buildings in Iran by shape causing overcategorization, get rid of Category:Towers in Iran by shape, or maybe just do it my way by removing Category:Buildings in Iran by shape from Category:Towers in Iran and add it to the actual category for towers "by shape" instead? --Adamant1 (talk) 16:57, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

"literal kindergarten reading" is a response to your opening comment about how you just missed "towers" on the list of shapes when I was learning about them in kindergarten or something, I am not making a judgement on your intelligence. Belbury (talk) 17:12, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Cool. You didn't answer my question though. Should Category:Buildings in Iran by shape be a parent of Category:Towers in Iran or Category:Buildings in Iran by shape? There's a simple answer here that has absolutely nothing to do with what grade I'm reading this at or anything else aside from which category should be a child of Category:Buildings in Iran by shape. Just pick one. It's not that difficult. --Adamant1 (talk) 17:17, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it seemed like quite a strange and aggressive tangent, so I decided to ignore it. Belbury (talk) 17:28, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

You clearly ignored it because you have no answer. At least not one that wouldn't involve admitting I'm right. Category:Buildings in Iran by shape obviously wouldn't exist if "towers" were a shape instead of them having different shapes. --Adamant1 (talk) 17:33, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

@Belbury: thanks for your comments. To repeat some arguments from discussion with A.Savin:

1) Regarding definitions:

• "a tall narrow building or part of a building" (Oxford Dictionary),
• "a very tall, narrow building, or part of a building" (Cambridge Dictionary),
• "a tall, narrow building or structure" (Britannica Dictionary),
• "a tower is a tall, narrow building" (Collins Dictionary), etc.

The English Wikipedia condenses these definitions to structures, since buildings themselves are structures, but categorizes towers under buildings and structures by shape. The definitions from these dictionaries above, which decidedly mention buildings, are based on the traditional interpretation of towers, because they were built for millennia from elementary materials (brick, stone), so they almost always represent buildings (with walls and a roof). Truss towers and similar modern examples came relatively recently and are just structures, not buildings. Since we don't have a category like Tower buildings here on Commons, it makes sense to categorize Towers under both structures and buildings.

2) Regarding content: From Towers in Iran by function it's obvious that virtually all individual towers are indeed buildings. Mostly historical buildings with walls and roofs. Non-building towers like electricity pylons and wind turbines have no individual example. Therefore subcategories by city are correct, and they have no alternative. Adamant1 started to remove everything over night, without any prior proposal or discussion, because he holds an opinion that it's "wrong". It is not.

3) Regarding shapes: Buildings by shape here have a wide range of meanings: 2D shapes, both planar and vertical, 3D forms like pyramids, even buildings with flat roofs‎ and domes. In the future, buildings by shape can be more precisely divided into buildings by planar shape, buildings by vertical shape, buildings by roof shape, buildings by 3D form, etc. Towers would fall under vertical shapes, because they are defined by a height greater than the greatest width of the base. Adamant1 believes that shapes are simple geometric figures and nothing else. That's wrong.

4) Regarding alleged "overcategorization": If Towers in Iran fall under Buildings in Iran by shape, and are further subcategorized to Towers in Iran by shape, it doesn't mean there's COM:OVERCAT. That's nonsense. Buildings with a particular vertical shape, such as towers, can have other shapes, such as planar, 3D, roof shape, etc. Shebeli Tower has three different categories (mausoleum towers, domed mausoleums, octagonal mausoleums) that fall under Mausoleums in Iran by shape. The first refers to the vertical shape, the second to the roof, and the third to the floor plan. Furthermore, there are cases when other categories are further divided on the same criteria. Windcatchers fall under Towers by function, but they are further subcategorized to Windcatchers by building function. Also Industry buildings fall under Buildings by function, and again are further subcategorized to Industry buildings by function. Moreover Beam bridges fall under Bridges by type, and are subcategorized to Beam bridges by type.

5) Regarding reverts: I have no issue with discussing about this subject if relevant arguments are provided, not repeated false accusations and insults. I only have an issue with the subjective destruction of categorization consistency in Iran and major European countries. In the former country, 122 subcategories of towers by city and province are categorized as buildings, by shape. And here (Towers in Iran) such category was removed. In the latter countries, a lot of time has been spent on categorizing their historic towers by style and date, it has also been done under buildings and shape, and there too the main categories have recently been damaged by subjective edits. Users who do this are not aware of the categorization depth and thus destroy the entire categorization tree, and ignore warnings about it. Because of such behavior, I am on the verge of leaving the project forever, as well as some other users like DenghiùComm. --Orijentolog (talk) 01:52, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

A few things in response. I didn't start this because of (and it has nothing to do with) the whole thing about if towers or buildings or structures. This is purely about if towers are shapes themselves or not versus having shapes. So I'd appreciate it you stuck to that instead of trying to make this about something it has nothing to do with. To the degree that there's a need to discuss if towers are buildings or structures that's purely on you and A.Savin. I don't appreciate you trying to write walls of text about something that has nothing to do me or this discussion though.

Regarding if towers are or shapes not themselves specifically, you say "Towers would fall under vertical shapes, because they are defined by a height greater than the greatest width of the base." Cool. I don't disagree that towers would fall under vertical shapes because they are sometimes defined by a hight greater then their width or whatever. But "vertical" itself isn't a shape. It's purely "two angles formed when two lines intersect, where the angles are directly opposite each other and are always congruent." Your free to create a "vertical towers by shape" or "square vertical towers" or whatever category, but it's simply wrong to say all towers are shapes simply because they have two intersecting, congruent lines that are at angles with each other. That's not a shape.

it doesn't mean there's COM:OVERCAT. That's nonsense. Buildings with a particular vertical shape, such as towers, can have other shapes, such as planar, 3D, roof shape, etc. No one is disputing that towers can have shapes. The issue here is that you put the main category for towers along with the one for "tower by shape" in the same parent category. Which is clearly COM:OVERCAT. Acting like that's fine because towers have shapes is deflecting from the issue. Even with something like houses, which are also defined by their shape and width Category:Houses isn't in one for "buildings by shape." Category:Houses by shape is. "Towers" is the only place where that's being done and you seem to be the main person doing it. Regardless, there's no reason to have a special exception to COM:OVERCAT for towers just because you want to act like there's no difference between the shape of an object and the object itself.

I only have an issue with the subjective destruction of categorization consistency It's only "subjective destruction" because you claim it is. There's absolutely zero evidence that's what it is though. Again, look at Category:Houses and similar categories for buildings. Most (if not) all of them aren't categorized this way. I don't think your appeal to consistency is valid either. A mistake is still mistake regardless of how many people do it. Like if I created Category:Towerererereererererererererers that would be an issue but suddenly wouldn't be if someone else made the same mistake. Get real. No offense, but you should leave the project if your going to be that obstinate and unreasonable about things. Otherwise your just being a time suck. These long winded rants about things that having to do with me or the CfD certainly aren't helpful. --Adamant1 (talk) 02:30, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

BTW, if you want another example of what I was talking about in my last point, we have Category:Animal shapes because some objects are shapped like animals. But what we don't do is make Category:Animals a child category of for objects by shape. The same goes for everything in Category:Objects by shape from what I can tell. All the sub-categories are either called "X-shaped objects" or "by shape" there is no main categories for objects anywhere in there. So again, this seems to be a thing purely with towers for some reason. It certainly doesn't follow the general practice of how we categorize things by shape. --Adamant1 (talk) 02:48, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

I did not address you in the first point, it is for general discussion and may be useful even for you in the future.

You misunderstood my explanation, I did not claim that verticality is a shape at all. Furthermore, you're giving a definition of vertical angles, which is completely irrelevant to the discussion, or towers. That's a terrible unfamiliarity with the basics. I wrote that the towers are defined by the proportions in the vertical cross section (or orthographic projection). It is usually an upright rectangle. Another 2D shape (by which it is not defined) is a horizontal section (or floor plan), which varies.

There's no OVERCAT or any issue at all, only your misunderstanding. If a certain category is also keyed under the parent category, it is because an adequate meta category has not yet been created. Similarly, the category Bridges in Iran by type has three such cases, keyed under a star (*). An alternative would be to open a category titled as Bridges in Iran by type by subtype for those three cases. The category Buildings in Iran by shape has one such case, keyed under a cross (+), namely Towers in Iran by shape, while three others keyed are function-related. The solution in future would be opening the meta category Buildings in Iran by shape by vertical shape, but at present there is no such division.

It is not my "claim" that this is about destroying the categorization tree, but a fact, since I have personally edited or checked tons of subcategories. And there are no "mistakes", except your claims. Houses are a completely irrelevant analogy.

And a final note: I did not write this for you, but for others, because I know you will continue to repeat invalid remarks. --Orijentolog (talk) 21:14, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Houses are a completely irrelevant analogy. Your the one that said towers are shapes because they are defined by their height and width. Are houses not defined exactly the same way? I know I live in a house instead of a skyscrapper because of both their height and width. It also shows that other main categories for buildings aren't sub-categories of ones for "building by shape." So it's totally relevant IMO. Your just saying it isn't because it disproves your whole claim that this isn't just a niche practice purely for towers.

There's no OVERCAT or any issue at all It's clearly overcategorization both practically and definitionally. To quote the guideline "Over-categorization is placing a file, category or other page in several levels of the same branch in the category tree. The general rule is always place an image in the most specific categories, and not in the levels above those." That's literally what's happening here. Your placing a category in several levels of the same branch in the category tree. You might think that's totally fine in this particular instance, but it's still overcategorization. At least going by the definition of overcategorization in the guideline.

Although it's debatable how much the overcategorization actually matters in this case. But it does matter some or we wouldn't be having this conversation to start with. Regardless, if you wanted to make an actual argument the better way to go about it instead of gaslighting about the what makes something overcategorizing or not you could just say it is overcategorization but it's acceptable in this particular case for whatever reason you think it's not an issue. Then I think we could have an actual conversation. I'm more then willing to discuss if and to what degree it's a problem. I'm not going to be gaslit about how it's not overcategorization to begin with when it clearly fits the definition though. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:36, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Houses are defined by function, not by shape. Towers are defined with a height greater than any width of the base, while houses can have any proportion. Even skyscrapers and high-rises don't have particular shape or proportion, their greatest width is not necessarily less than the height. The Line may be extra tall (500 m), but still smaller than its (greater) width that stretches for kilometers. The same is with long high-rises.

Categories under the key (*, +, !) are most often in a state of waiting for the adequate meta category, and in that case there is no overcategorization. If a category is placed under the alphabetical letters of two categories, where one is the parent of the other, then there's overcategorization. That is not the case here, all "towers [...] by shape" are carefully keyed under "buildings [...] by shape". In other words, there is no overcategorization, and therefore no need to repeat nonsense.

It's no problem if you have insufficient knowledge of complicated metacategorization. Among the five categorist users that I consider to be the best and most useful on Commons, I find occasional metacategorization errors with at least three. --Orijentolog (talk) 22:08, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Houses are defined by function, not by shape. Function and shape. I'd say mainly shape though. Say me, my girlfriend, and our dog live in a garage that's been converted into a studio apartment. I say it's a garage or a studio apartment. We move into a house, I then say we live in a house. What exactly has changed about the "function" there? Both places are being used to "house" people. Absolutely nothing has changed except for the shape and proportions of the building. I'd never say the garage is a house or that the house is a garage even though they serve the exact same purpose in both cases.

Categories under the key (*, +, !) are most often in a state of waiting for the adequate meta category, and in that case there is no overcategorization. That's a baseless assumption on your part and not how the guideline defines overcategorization. There is no exception from the guideline for categories that are under the key (*, +, !) or whatever. Your purely speculating after the fact to suit your own opinion and way of doing things.

Therefore no need to repeat nonsense. You need to stop calling my side of this discussion nonsense or treating me like I'm just ignorant about how things work. You clearly have your own way of doing things based on your own personal opinion about how categorization works. That's fine, but treating everyone else like they are just ignorant of how categorization works and calling what they say nonsense isn't helpful. I'm perfectly fine with just ignoring you going forward and making the changes anyway. I took the time to open this and discuss it with you so we could find a solution that we would both be satisfied with though. So at least show a basic level of respect and engage with what I'm saying instead of wasting my time with petty insults. Otherwise I'll just continue with what I was doing before you decided to throw a tantrum about it and we can resolve this on ANU if you decide to act the same way again. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:05, 10 September 2024 (UTC)