Last modified: 2013-04-16 06:50:53 UTC
It would be more convenient to new users if a "category" field was added on the upload form, at least on Commons where categories are essential for files. This field could be similar to the one found in the tool Commonist (http://djini.de/software/commonist/), where category names are entered, separated with a vertical bar. The categories would simply be added to the wikitext, like the license dropdown selector does for the license bit.
Why not to the new page form too? Or for that matter every edit page?
(In reply to comment #1) > Why not to the new page form too? Or for that matter every edit page? Because we already have a perfectly good mechanism for doing it in one step in those cases?
while it would be convenient, i'm pretty sure it would lead to many images ending up in non-existing, misspelled or very high-level categories. In theory, CategoryTree could be hacked to create an Ajax-Based category selector. But that wouldn't help people without JS.
(In reply to comment #2) > Because we already have a perfectly good mechanism for doing it in one step in > those cases? How is that different from upload? Can't you add categories manually to the upload summary? (In reply to comment #3) > while it would be convenient, i'm pretty sure it would lead to many images > ending up in non-existing, misspelled or very high-level categories. Better than none at all, especially with category redirects. > In theory, > CategoryTree could be hacked to create an Ajax-Based category selector. But that > wouldn't help people without JS. Well, of course, but 95% of readers probably are using JS, so that would be much better than nothing.
(In reply to comment #4) > How is that different from upload? Can't you add categories manually to the > upload summary? I'm of the opinion that it should be possible to upload with different summaries and initial description page content; the current behaviour is confusing and has been discussed in other bugs before this.
> Better than none at all, especially with category redirects. wrong - uncategorized images are easy to detect. miscategorized images are not. > Well, of course, but 95% of readers probably are using JS, so that would be much > better than nothing. You are forgetting that many companies, schools, libraries, etc hav JS disabled per default, for security reasons. But anyway - as long as the selector is only used to fill in a field that can also be edited manually, there's no problem. > I'm of the opinion that it should be possible to upload with different summaries > and initial description page content; Oh yes PLEASE. On a related note: the fact that the license selector is ignored, and the page content not changed, when an image is overwritten, is also a frequent cause for confusion. But this is the wrong place to discuss that I guess.
(In reply to comment #6) > > Better than none at all, especially with category redirects. > > wrong - uncategorized images are easy to detect. miscategorized images are not. Touché.
> wrong - uncategorized images are easy to detect. miscategorized images are not. I disagree: [[Special:Uncategorizedimages]] is useless on Commons as images with a license and no other categories are not included in. One has thne to rely on a tool like OrphanImages (http://tools.wikimedia.de/~daniel/WikiSense/OrphanImages.php) which is not 100% accurate. The "category field" could actually contain a default category (e.g. "Unknown") which would allow to easily spot "uncategorized" images.
Can't a mechanism be added to check if a category exists when one is entered in the field and if it doesn't either notify the uploader or tag it accordingly?
I bring to your attention a user JavaScript which does the job, but every user has to activate it so far : http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:HotCat.js. It does auto-completion as well, which is quite handy to avoid misspelt categories.
Another user JavaScript is http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Tgr/catinsert.js It adds a "select category" button to the edit toolbar, and you browse the category tree to select a category. (I actually prefer HotCat, but for a small wiki maybe Catinsert is better.)
Thank you Brianna for pointing out that https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UploadWizard offers users an option to categorize images when uploading them. For what is worth the Commons mobile apps for iOS and Android are also including this feature as we speak.
