Commons:Categories for discussion/2012/09/Category:High-rises

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Category:High-rises

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See also: Commons:Categories for discussion/2012/12/Category:Towers by height.

This category isn't well defined. Its description says its scope is limited to buildings of 50-150 meters, so why is it full of subcategories like Category:220-meter high-rises? This gives a massive overlap with Category:Skyscrapers. But then it works the other way too with categories like Category:Skyscrapers in Auckland which are full of buildings less than 150 meters. But perhaps both category trees are unnecessary and all that's wanted is Category:Buildings by height, with subcategores like Category:220 meter buildings or Category:50-100 meter buildings in Auckland? ghouston (talk) 02:55, 10 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ghouston. I made some of the categories (Category:Supertalls, Category:High-rises) some years ago. I used the known terms so people could find them easily.
I got the (loose) definition from en:Skyscraper#Definition Quote: "...Also lacking an official definition, the term 'supertall' has arisen for the current generation of exceptionally tall buildings. High-rise buildings are considered shorter than skyscrapers...A loose convention of some in the United States and Europe draws the lower limit of a skyscraper at 150 m or 490 ft.[17]...The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) defines "supertall" as a building over 300 m (980 ft) in height..."
If you can make a better taxonomy, then please do. --Glenn (talk) 16:06, 10 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, your original scheme was OK, you had three categories which were well-defined, although it doesn't seem like it has been followed very well. But if people are going to subcategorize as far a one-meter intervals, dividing it into two different names at the 150m boundary seems arbitrary. The supertalls category is basically unused, it's just a pointer to high-rises/skyscraper categories. I suppose it's also a problem that there is more than one method of measuring the height of a building, depending for example on whether pointy bits on the top are included, and the categories don't suggest which should be used. ghouston (talk) 23:00, 10 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is also a big overlap with Category:Towers by height. The towers category includes non-building structures also. ghouston (talk) 06:17, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As someone who takes photographs of buildings and categorizes them before uploading, I have a personal interest in this discussion. Let's think about why people would want these pictures. I think the most common reason is that a person wants pictures of buildings in a particular place. They would go first to "Buildings in (location name)"; the height of the building is irrelevant. Another reason is a person wants a particular building- the building name or address can often be found with a text search. Another reason is architects/engineers looking for buildings that have particular technical challenges. That is a good reason to separate buildings by height, but in much fewer categories than exist at present. Another reason is 'low rise' (walkable, or up to 7 stories) versus 'high rise' (requires elevators). The low-rise buildings are often older and more historically interesting. A graphic artist might find this distinction useful.
I think the current system of categorization is a great waste of time. Just because the height details can be found and can be specified doesn't mean they are useful. I propose three categories only: skyscrapers (over x feet), high-rise (over 7 stories or x feet), low-rise (7 stories or under). There could be other specialized categories like "office buildings with other former functions", etc.
Whatever the final result, however, in my opinion EVERY category page that specifies building height (e.g., "High-rises in Singapore") should include a definition of "high-rise", "low-rise", etc., and a statement that these are somewhat arbitrary. If appropriate, a redirect to the main "high-rise" page with an expanded definition could be included. Downtowngal (talk) 03:11, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you: the categories of buildings by height when taken to single metre intervals are a waste of time. Secondly, the height categories desired depends on location. I don't think that we should be making up our own definitions for terms like "high-rise", however. Height intervals in metres would be fine at the lowest geographical level. However then there is a problem trying to define a tree based category system. Also the number of categories desired may vary in different locations. At a global level, perhaps the only height category that would be interesting is buildings over a few hundred metres, since there aren't many of them. ghouston (talk) 21:01, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, since this is an open-edited site, I or you can't prescribe at the top of the category "please consolidate all 1-meter-different categories back into 50-meter units", and there are categorizers who will feel that makes their work unnecessary. If I could, I would prescribe an attitude of benign neglect toward excess categorization of these images: the most important categories being location, function, and the three height categories mentioned above.
How would the number of categories desired vary in different locations? Except for perhaps Hong Kong, but there, even if there is a real-life distinction between 'small' and 'large' skyscrapers, what value is that distinction to the image user? I can imagine that what is a 'skyscraper' in, say, the Carribbean would be shorter than a 'skyscraper' in Dubai, but I think that fixed height limits on these definitions tell the user 'if you don't find it in skyscraper, look in high-rise'. So to sum up, I would consolidate everything into three hard-defined height categories. Otherwise the categories just proliferate and become obstacles to finding good images. Downtowngal (talk) 05:50, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Surely there is an even more important concern here. Category:High-rises is a subcategory of only Category:Towers, which is part of the Category:Structures category tree. A high-rise, however, is surely a Building, and should be a subcategory of Category:Buildings. Skinsmoke (talk) 21:46, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've added both High rises and Skyscrapers to buildings. I had added High rises previously, but for some reason that I don't remember, reverted the change. --ghouston (talk) 04:27, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Which got reverted, I suppose because Skyscrapers is a subcategory of High-rises (which it shouldn't be, according to the original 150m category scheme) which I also added to Buildings. --ghouston (talk) 21:43, 25 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Just a thought - might it make sense to change the "High-rises by height" category tree to just "buildings by height" ? This could be sub-divided by characteristics, so as to include the pre-existing Category:Lighthouses by height and other category trees like Category:High-rise apartment buildings and Category:High-rise hospitals. The basic definition of highrise is "tall building" and we generally characterize things on commons with precise terms, not ambiguous ones like "big" or "small", or, in the case of skyscrapers, "very tall." Thoughts? - Themightyquill (talk) 18:47, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That was actually my original suggestion, although I'd also like a parent categegory "Structures by height". I'd also suggest that the height be measured according to "height to structural or architectural top", but there are other options. --ghouston (talk) 01:37, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
However "buildings by height" is easy to propose, but what categories should be inside it? Considering that it will be subdivided by height, location and building type, and maybe all at once. --ghouston (talk) 01:48, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Ghouston. I'd say sub-dividing by height, by location and height, and by function/type and height should be acceptable, just so long that "types" of buildings are not types characterized by height (high-rises, skyscrapers, etc). The first of these can go to extreme subdivision (by metre?) whereas the others could be sub-divided first into broader categories (e.g., Category:50-100m tall buildings in France, Category:100-150m tall hospitals, etc.), and only sub-divided further as the number of files demands. It would be the same as we (generally) do with dates of buildings: Category:Built in Year X but Category:Built in Country Y in the Xth century unless further sub-division is required. - Themightyquill (talk) 07:58, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, we already have Category:Towers by height and Category:Lighthouses by height, which are also using different height intervals. I think I'll create Category:Structures by height and also add Category:Buildings by height. However converting from "highrises" to specific height ranges would be a massive job, considering how many highrise subcategories there are and that you'd need to look up the height of each building. --ghouston (talk) 08:18, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we've got all those categories like Category:220-meter high-rises which could just be renamed. --ghouston (talk) 08:21, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, the height-specified high-rise categories can be renamed to "X-meter buildings" (or X-meter tall buildings?). If we can agree to delete the Category:High-rises category tree, I can slowly sort the sub-cats and files, but I think we need "consensus" of more than two. =) - Themightyquill (talk) 13:58, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think they'd need some reference to height, to distinguish from buildings of width or length X. So X-meter tall buildings, or Buildings of height X, etc. I guess our consensus is good if nobody objects in the next few weeks :) --ghouston (talk) 21:12, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds reasonable, except I don't understand why you'd remove the hyphens. These are compound adjectives requiring hyphens. - Themightyquill (talk) 09:03, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I figured it would be easier to type, and grammar is sometimes a mystery to me. But after looking up compound adjectives, I'll put them back: Category:15-meter-tall buildings etc? --ghouston (talk) 09:31, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'll start submitting renaming requests to User:CommonsDelinker, but I'll do it in batches and leave this discussion open for now in case of problems or in case there are any further details to consider. --ghouston (talk) 03:26, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Categories like Category:High-rises less than 50 meters in Alabama bother me a bit. I could rename it to Category:0-49-meter-buildings in Alabama, but that changes the scope and invites anyone to add single-storey buildings. That's the same for Category:0-49-meter-tall buildings. There'd be nothing wrong with adding Category:3-meter-tall buildings as a subcategory, but it's messy when you have a lot of buildings where you don't know the exact height. Maybe buildings where the height isn't known simply shouldn't be categorised by height. --ghouston (talk) 23:29, 16 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Ghouston: To what end? If we sort things by height (when we know the height) that's clear. Since the definition of high-rise seems to vary dramatically, I don't see the point of trying to use it as a metric. But if we're going to use "high-rise" as a metric, why not just use Category:High rises (without specific height)? - Themightyquill (talk) 07:23, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think basically a lot of categories are "tall buildings in place", with high-rises, skyscrapers and even Tall buildings used interchangeably and sometimes in combination. But then the main complaint about these categories is that they don't have well-defined definitions, so there's no way to know what belongs in them. These renamed categories would be an alternative. However, I'm not proposing to rename every "high-rise" etc., category in Commons; it would take way too long, just trying out alternatives here and there. --ghouston (talk) 08:27, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Main goal is to replace Category:High-rises by height and Category:Skyscrapers by height with Category:Buildings by height. --ghouston (talk) 09:43, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You're doing a great job with this, Ghouston. I think your plan has worked out very well. - Themightyquill (talk) 06:57, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. If I'd realised how many of these height categories there were, I probably would have avoided it. There are still some to go in USA and Japan. Even once those are done, there will still be a mix of high-rise and skyscraper categories (without explicit heights) remaining, but I suppose it will have to stay that way. --ghouston (talk) 07:00, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've renamed all the categories I could find with specific heights to be subcategories of Category:Buildings by height. Many high-rise and skyscraper categories still exist, and are used inconsistently, but at least there's a scheme for buildings by specific heights that can be used instead as desired. --ghouston (talk) 22:36, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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