Category talk:Regions of Chile

organisation issue
Hi. This is copied from Commons, and I would appreciate your suggestions.

On Wikimedia Commons, I would like to clean up the Category:Regions of Chile a bit. Before starting, I am seeking some advice, especially from Chileans or at least Spanish speaking South Americans familiar with Chile and also from Commons participants who work on categories a lot.

First a little background information. Chile has 15 administrative divisions, or regións, that are comparable to states or provinces in other countries. All but one of the regións are numbered with a roman numeral that indicates (at least through number XII) it's relative north to south position within the country (originally I being the most northern región and XII being the most southern). The Metropolitan Region of Santiago (Región Metropolitana de Santiago) is abbreviated RM but takes the place of number XIII. RM is similar to the U.S. District of Columbia, in that it is not a regular state, but a special administrative region that is the home of the nation's capital (Santiago de Chile in the case of Chile). Two new regións were carved out of existing regións, and they became regións XIV and XV (breaking the north to south numerical order). Several of Chile's regións share the name of large comunas (similar to counties and/or large city areas), like Antofagasta which is within the Antofagasta Región.

Currently, Commons has a terrible mixture of names in use for the various regións. They combine English and Spanish in a very inconsistent manner. Photos of regións are stuck in categories covering the comunas. Many of the regións don't even have categories setup, and their photos are just dumped in Category:Regions of Chile or some other Chile-related category. It makes it very difficult to locate media or organize the media that is there.

The official Spanish name of each región is quite long, and I do not think it would make a very useful category name. The regions each have a shorthand name (e.g., "O'Higgins" instead of "VI Región del Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins") that could be used instead of the full name. I think using the abbreviated name would be very acceptable to native speakers and locals, while also keeping the names simple to type.

In Spanish, the proper order for a category name would be "Región de O'Higgins" (as you can see in use at w:es:Categoría:Regiones de Chile), but each category must be manually ordered, otherwise they would all be alphabetically sorted under "R" for "Región". It is customary in English names to reverse the order ("O'Higgins Region"), which also helps with the automatic alphabetizing of the category names.

'Therefore, I suggest using the Spanish spelling of each región's abbreviated name (Biobío instead of the English Bio-Bio''), followed by the English word "Region" on Commons and en.wiki. On es.wiki, keep the categories in the "Región de ___" format currently in use.' I think'' that would be clear and non-offensive to native speakers and locals, while also making it easy for Commons contributors to find things. I do not know whether it would be better to name RM in Spanish ("Región Metropolitana de Santiago") or in English ("Santiago Metropolitan Region"); Spanish would be more consistent with the other names. Where regións and comunas share a name, the región will be easily identifiable as the región, though someone will still have to move miscategorized media occasionally from the comuna category into the región.

I was also going to suggest that the English Wikipedia's (en.wiki) categories be organized in the same way, but I discovered that they already are that way. I seem to be duplicating the efforts of other people. The main variation from en.wiki that I would recommend on Commons is to use the Spanish name for RM ("Región Metropolitana de Santiago") instead of the English name, since all the other regions are (mostly) in Spanish.

I am also curious if it would be proper to shorten "Magallanes y Antártica Chilena Region" to "Magallanes y Antártica Region" as it is currently on Commons? I like short category names, but only if they are proper and would not be offensive or misleading. Another common short name I see is just "Magallanes Region", though that really short name might have political overtones and be more popular with people who do not feel Chile has legitimate claims to land in Antartica. If either "Magallanes y Antártica Region" or "Magallanes Region" are acceptable, then en.wiki's category should be renamed, too.

Below is my complete recommendation. I do not speak much Spanish, so all spellings came from the w:es:Categoría:Regiones de Chile and its related articles.

Please leave your comments on Commons:Category talk:Regions of Chile. Thanks! -- Will scrlt  ( Talk ) 03:28, 8 September 2008 (UTC)