Commons:Categories for discussion/2022/02/University and college yearbooks

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University and college yearbooks

I'd like to propose a new naming scheme for subcategories of Category:University and college yearbooks. Currently, most of the yearbooks there are listed by their actual title, which is often something mysterious like Reveille or Kaleidoscope or Liber brunensis. These titles are a bit unhelpful because generally, people aren't interested in a yearbook by its title, they're interested in it on the basis of which school it's from. No one really is seeking out, say, Yackety Yack; they're looking for University of North Carolina yearbooks. Thus, I'd like to propose that we rename these categories to be of the form "Category:UNIVERSITYNAME yearbooks". Within each of these categories, however, if there exists a subcategory for a specific year's edition of the yearbook, then I think that should retain the yearbook's title. So for example, the parent category should be Mississippi State University yearbooks, but the subcategory can be Reveille (1963). In addition to making relevant yearbooks easier to find, this also simplifies organization for schools whose yearbook has changed its name over the years. We can group The Ramikin and Techmila under Rochester Institute of Technology yearbooks instead of having two separate categories for no great reason. --IagoQnsi (talk) 04:17, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Weak support: I like the idea of the "[university name] yearbooks" category, but I think that the actual names of the yearbooks should be used as as subcategories of this. This will maintain the provenance of individual publications, but at the same time reduce ambiguity by categorizing them by college/university up one level. Michael Barera (talk) 04:51, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I completely agree with that; I think it could get very confusing if we don't keep the actual names for subcategories (e.g. if a school has multiple yearbooks, if a school is the merger of multiple previous schools that each had their own yearbook, etc). IagoQnsi (talk) 04:57, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the names of the categories for the yearbooks should be maintained since each college/university probably doesn't have the same for their yearbooks every year. There shouldn't really need to be a proposal like this to create something like Oxford College (North Carolina) yearbooks category on it's own either if the original categories aren't being modified. Aside from that, probably a naming scheme like Yearbooks of Oxford College (North Carolina) or yearbooks by Oxford College (North Carolina) would probably be better. My guess, and I do a lot of work in similar areas, is that someone will look for "yearbooks" first and then the name of the institution that it comes from. Not the other way around. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:49, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It is indeed the case that a university might have different yearbook names over the years, but that's why I'm proposing we not rename the subcategories. I want to move Alcalá (yearbook) to University of San Diego yearbooks, for example, but I think Alcalá 1969 should stay the same. That way we respect the name of each yearbook, while also making them easier to find.

I think people could end up looking for yearbooks either by "yearbooks first, then name of institution" or by "name of institution first, then yearbooks". But in either case, the current naming scheme is confusing. If I'm looking at Category:University of California, Los Angeles, I'm not necessarily going to know that Southern Campus is a yearbook. And if I'm looking at Category:University and college yearbooks, I'm certainly not going to be able to pick out Southern Campus from the list if I'm looking for UCLA. –IagoQnsi (talk) 23:25, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, I don't really disagree with that. I guess I just don't see why there needs to be a proposal for it. I don't think anyone would have a problem with you creating yearbook categories for the specific colleges while keeping the categories with the names of the specific yearbooks intact. I think you could argue that someone who went to University of California, Los Angeles or a person who was doing research on a graduate of there would be using "Southern Campus" as a search term though. So I don't see the problem with keeping the names of the yearbooks intact. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:26, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. All of these should already be a subcategory of the university category, so they should be discoverable by university name that way. For the cases you've identified where multiple yearbook names are associated with the same university, I think it would be best to keep the separate categories and place them in either a "[University name] yearbooks" or "[University name] publications" category. Antony-22 (talk) 00:01, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Agree with Antony-22, higher subcat per university is the way to go, and do not merge differently named yearbooks. -- Deadstar (msg) 09:20, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't Amazon - we don't put every single possible SEO term in the title. The category page should have a good description of what you would expect to find there and hopefully that includes the word "yearbook" so if I search for "Schoolname yearbook", it should return that page. If it doesn't, the answer is to fix the text, not to rename the category to something less correct. --B (talk) 17:15, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'd support making all the redlinked categories above and putting the existing categories inside. It's an easier argument rather than renaming the existing ones. -- Themightyquill (talk) 08:07, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Themightyquill: Wouldn't we just make the redlinked categories redirect to the bluelinked categories? For colleges that only have a single yearbook, it seems like overkill to have a category named "Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University yearbooks" or whatever. (There shouldn't be an extra set of navigation from School -> School yearbooks -> Yearbook Name if "Yearbook Name" is the only yearbook for that school. --B (talk) 19:43, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@B: I suppose it might look like overkill inside Catgory:Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University but it would make Category:University and college yearbooks a lot more functional than a list of yearbook names without reference to the university. I think it's worth it. -- Themightyquill (talk) 11:55, 16 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. --Ooligan (talk) 21:03, 7 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@IagoQnsi: Do you have more to say on this -- Themightyquill (talk) 11:11, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose move as proposed, although I can see some of the benefits. I note many of the categories currently lack descriptive text and/or infoboxes (e.g. Category:Iris(yearbook). An infobox, and/or simple note stating "X is/was the yearbook of Y University" should be adequate, and of course the top yearbook category should be categorized under their respective institutions (or publications of Y university, etc. ). Wikidata infoboxes, love 'em or hate 'em, are ubiquitous, and work best with a 1 to 1 correlation: The Wellesley Legenda has a discrete and unambiguous title, catalog number, and publication history, while Wellesley College yearbooks does not. --Animalparty (talk) 22:28, 9 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am not opposed to creating the now redlinks using the generic names as category redirects.

Notes

↑ ^a ^b It appears that Bones, molars, and briefs was the yearbook of the Schools of Law, Medicine, and Dentistry at University of Maryland, Baltimore, and Terra Mariae was the yearbook primarily of the whole of University of Maryland, Baltimore, at least for the years that we have. I'm proposing we merge these under University of Maryland, Baltimore yearbooks.
↑ ^a ^b The Poly was the yearbook of Billings Polytechnic Institute and The Prickly Pear was the yearbook of Montana Wesleyan and Intermountain Union College. All these universities have since merged to form the modern day Rocky Mountain College, so I'm proposing we merge these categories as well.
↑ ^a ^b The Exponent was the yearbook of the California State Normal School branch in Los Angeles (now known as the University of California, Los Angeles) from 1899 to 1917, and Southern Campus was the yearbook of the University of California, Los Angeles from 1920 to 1981. I'm proposing we merge these categories.
↑ X-ray was the yearbook of the Medical College of Virginia, which is now known as VCU Medical Center, part of Virginia Commonwealth University.

Oppose. I agree that moving the titles do not help that much and I do think redirects from the redlinked 'incorrect' name to the proper name is a easier way to resolve this issue. Otherwise, we could create a gallery that lists the institutions and links to a specific version of each yearbook. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:59, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Closed, no action. There seems to be a pretty strong consensus against the proposal. The category names naming the colleges and universities might be acceptable soft redirects (e.g. {{See cat}}), but I personally think a better idea would be parent categories Category:Publications of North Carolina State University, Category:Publications of the University of San Diego, etc. - Jmabel ! talk 04:41, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

[UMB-1] It appears that Bones, molars, and briefs was the yearbook of the Schools of Law, Medicine, and Dentistry at University of Maryland, Baltimore, and Terra Mariae was the yearbook primarily of the whole of University of Maryland, Baltimore, at least for the years that we have. I'm proposing we merge these under University of Maryland, Baltimore yearbooks.

[RockyMountainCollege-2] The Poly was the yearbook of Billings Polytechnic Institute and The Prickly Pear was the yearbook of Montana Wesleyan and Intermountain Union College. All these universities have since merged to form the modern day Rocky Mountain College, so I'm proposing we merge these categories as well.

[UCLA-3] The Exponent was the yearbook of the California State Normal School branch in Los Angeles (now known as the University of California, Los Angeles) from 1899 to 1917, and Southern Campus was the yearbook of the University of California, Los Angeles from 1920 to 1981. I'm proposing we merge these categories.

[VCU-4] X-ray was the yearbook of the Medical College of Virginia, which is now known as VCU Medical Center, part of Virginia Commonwealth University.

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Commons:Categories for discussion/2022/02/University and college yearbooks

University and college yearbooks

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