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Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/09/Category:Unusual

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Category:Unusual

[edit]

Category - and its similarly-named children - seems vague and subjective. And is - for example - "Unusual railway switches" really a grandchild of "Humor"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:26, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think “unusual” is actually pretty clear and subjective— it means “uncommon or atypical”. However examples of “weird” things should not be included— for example, “rare animals” are definitely unusual organisms, but there’s no reason this perfectly ordinary tree should be listed as “unusual” just because it’s slightly odd-looking. Dronebogus (talk) 21:26, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
 Delete What is "Unusual"? What for one person, or in one culture, is unusual (or eccentric), might for another be completely normal or just fun. What is now unusual architecture, may be within twenty year absolutely normal. It is better to categorize files according to what you really see (or hear) on an image (or other medium). Architecture usually is part of an art movement or style, then categorize it accordingly. JopkeB (talk) 03:04, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
 Keep and rename to “rare” or “uncommon”, if necessary. I don’t see any other category for objectively unusual things like Category:Rare animals. Or things like this Dronebogus (talk) 04:42, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Rare animals is problematic itself - three of its member categories are related to rare breeds of otherwise common animals; Category:Exceptionally fluffy animals isn't rare at all. Which leads back to the inherent problem with "unusual" categories - they tend to become indiscriminate collections of things that people found interesting or surprising. Omphalographer (talk) 03:55, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A rare breed is still rare. Dronebogus (talk) 18:57, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've re-opened the non-admin closure of this stalled decision. I see no 'consensus' here when there are so few comments and of the only three people who expressed an opinion, one of them indicated to keep it. I will ignore "no need to keep around [with [sic]] this fussy category tree" because that surely wouldn't be someone expressing a delete !vote, then immediately closing the CfD, would it? Andy Dingley (talk)
 Keep The nomination cites "vague and subjective" as the issue here. I would agree, except that would apply to the child categories of this. 'Unusual' itself is a perfectly common and familiar word. Entirely appropriate for a category and parent to other categories. Child categories of this may well be vague and subjective, with all those problems, but we'd have to discuss those per instance, we can't just blanket 'unusual' out of existence, without knowing the context. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:24, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think anyone is arguing that the word itself isn't useful broadly speaking, but it's problematic to use it as a way to categorize media, as it's a subjective term with ill-defined inclusion criteria. ReneeWrites (talk) 08:18, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Andy - this makes no sense. “Unusual” is highly subjective. And the parent category makes no sense. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 01:25, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Delete in the current state. Also see what JopkeB said. Hypothetically, the category could make sense but it would need to include many large subcategories and be clearly delineated so if it's recreated in such a way it should be discussed again. Unusual can be a certain hair color in a certain region or an nonrare animal in a region where it's not usual or super granular unusualities combined with very broad unusualities etc. However, there aren't categories for such and it probably also doesn't make sense to categorize by such in many (not all) cases. In any case, keep-votes I think are arguing by hypotheticals without looking at the actual category at hand (before its subcats were removed of course). Being vague and subjective is not in itself a reason for deletion – e.g. some vagueness may be needed/best and subjectivity can be reduced via some info in the category description – but this category is problematic: e.g. it does not contain and will not contain for the foreseeable future even just a tiny percentage of unusualities of any degree in files on Commons and thus is misleading, not useful and problematic. I think it needs a parent category for cats like Category:Unusually shaped eggplants, Category:Unusually shaped strawberries and unusual Category:Shaped trees but these are better more specific (e.g. Category:Organisms with unusual shapes for their species). Again, it could be worth considering recreating this cat or an equivalent one in the future, I'm not saying such would necessarily would be good – probably "unusual" needs to get qualified in some way in regards to which kind or degree of "unusual" is being referred to.
Prototyperspective (talk) 11:22, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
 Comment The unusually shaped eggplants, strawberries etc. could be renamed to "Mutations in eggplants/strawberries". The parent category for that could be "Mutations in fruit" (to be consistent with Category:Mutations in animals and Category:Mutations in plants). ReneeWrites (talk) 10:15, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Don't know which points this is supposed to address but there also are countless other mutations other than those affecting shapes. Not all files about mutations are about "unusual". It would be quite difficult to develop this in a meaningful sense. Is a concert unusual because that's not the typical use of that building? Or not a usual event in many people's lives? Is a slightly personally modified vehicle unusual and is an autonomous vehicle still unusual everywhere? etc etc Prototyperspective (talk) 11:42, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
 Delete We don't have Category:Weird or Category:Creepy either; these words describe a subjective, emotional response. These terms definitionally will not have clearly defined boundaries, unlike things like genre or style. In the case of organisms, an unusual shape can be caused by a mutation or disease, if this shape was not created intentionally via mutation breeding. Keeping categories like this around and populating them with more content and subcategories is just going to cause more problems in the long term. ReneeWrites (talk) 21:49, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment There are lists of things considered unusual on Wikipedia. Perhaps we could define what is acceptable as "unusual" on Commons? I find useful a category "Unusual ligatures" for example, or unusual road signs. Things that are expected to be in a way (by convention, norm, or else), and rarely seen differently. -- Basile Morin (talk) 02:39, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment user:Sbb1413 unilaterally went through and destroyed as many “unusual” categories as he could find; while there are still some surviving categories like the aforementioned “unusually shaped eggplants” I’m not sure the gutted category really serves any purpose anymore. Dronebogus (talk) 04:27, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that in a process of tidying up and classifying, it would have been more judicious to rename these many particular categories, because a large number of files were initially placed in a suitable category, but simply misnamed. Now that everything has been deleted, it requires more work to re-sort correctly. For example, the files that were in the category "Unusual letterforms" have all been moved to the parent category Typographical shapes when they could have been suitable for Category:Reversed letters, Category:Spelling mistakes or simply redirect to another name like "Unidentified letters". -- Basile Morin (talk) 05:40, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Túrelio: Please undelete:
Very disappointed. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 17:36, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's not like Category:Cute dogs, because this CfD is trying to delete 'Cute' and thus all of its potential children in one. We can argue whether dogs can ever be cute and thus whether we need Category:Cute dogs. We can argue whether we need Category:Cute chinchillas or Category:Cute alpacas or if all chinchillas and alpacas are essentially cute and the subcat would be tautological. We're unlikely to need Category:Cute monitor lizards. But each of these subcats would have to be looked at individually in their context. 'Cute' and 'unusual' are perfectly everyday words. We can't simply decide as a one-off that they'd never be needed. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:08, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We can't simply decide as a one-off that they'd never be needed. I don't know about GMG but a cat deletion doesn't mean a cat will never be needed and explained I don't object to this cat in principle, but in the current and near-future state of it / the concrete instantiation. Category:Cuteness has mostly files about cuteness itself such as subcat "Cute (text)" instead of arbitrarily including subcats like "People that look cute" or similar (btw it's not a well-maintained good example). Btw, the wording of "other cultures" is in no way problematic and the point there is that it's highly subjective. As explained, something being subjective or very subjective and heavily varying doesn't mean there can't be a cat about it but this cat is problematic. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:44, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment I wouldn't mind losing this particular category, but some of its subcats are perfectly reasonable, and at most need renaming (e.g. "non-standard", "malformed", etc. instead of "unusual"). - Jmabel ! talk 19:50, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
     Comment I have offered to use Chuckbot For the cleanup, I'm ready to go but to avoid having to run the bot more than needed, I'm mentioning it here, before I spend a few hours massrollbacking the contribs. All the Best -- Chuck Talk 21:02, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Useful, in my opinion. -- Basile Morin (talk) 03:29, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Túrelio: , why are you still doing this, Category:Unusual house numbers, in the middle of a CfD ? Andy Dingley (talk) 11:04, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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