Hi, here's a proposal for Geographic Regional Category Structure for the Netherlands; what do you think? [closed]

Question

Hi, 

Last year (June 2019) we have been discussing and based on the things members added made a proposal for the Geographic Regional Category Structure for the Netherlands.

While we figured it was ok this way, apparently it wasn't and the proposal never made it to the categorization page. So to correct the mistake (sorry everyone) here's our (official) proposal for the Dutch Geographic Regional Category. Please just let us know what you think, all help is appreciated ! 

To make sure you all know what was said/discussed and why the proposal was made this way, here's the previous G2G  . 

Comments

hi Bea,

I don't read Dutch, so some of what you have on there is Greek to me.    

I do have a question about how this interacts with what is now Belgium and historic location names for the whole area.  Lots of ping-pong between Spain, France and the Holy Roman Empire for the whole area from what I can gather.

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According to this proposal, it's about locations that are currently in the Netherlands. Except for the Province of Limburg and some small border areas, this has been the same country since 1648.

We will use current geographical location names, not historical names for categories, because the province and country names are only to avoid ambiguity between location with the same name, not to put a location in a historical perspective.

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ah, ok, are you planning on further refining it later for historical locations?  There are a few migrants from what is now the Netherlands that came to New France if my memory serves me well on profiles I have worked on.

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You can use the existing categories for those profiles. For example the category Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Nederland is about the city that has been called Amsterdam since medieval times and is currently located in the province of Noord-Holland in the Netherlands.

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ok, Amsterdam not was among them, the localities were mostly pretty small ones.

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You can easily search on Google Maps or Wikipedia for the current province and request or make the desired category.

A former geographic subdivision is often much harder to find. For me the first step to find it includes finding the current province.

Answer 1

Good proposal and satisfactory for the Dutch geographical conditions.  Place, Province, Country.  

Beek, Limburg, the Netherlands and Beek, Limburg, Belgium are no longer a problem.

Thanks for the proposal Bea!

Comments

You're welcome Joop I figured after the first G2G with everyone, it would be ok already, but apparently it takes a few steps more eeh 

Answer 2

Since this discussion in 2019, the migrants categorization has been redone. It uses the English form of province name to keep the entire category in English - example for North Holland. Do these policies properly mesh? 

Comments

In fact the category North-Holland is not proper. It should be "Category:Nort-Holland, the Netherlands" if you prefer write it in English contrary to the recommendation to write the location names as they are written locally.

In the Netherlands it's " Category:Noord-Holland, Nederland" in the "Category:Nederland"

A city for example : "Category:Middelburg, Zeeland, Nederland" in the "Category:Zeeland, Nederland"

Why this construction? Because there are places with the same name in different locations and countries.

Best example for this: there are two villages Beek, in the provinces Limburg in the Netherlands and Limburg in Belgium.

If you make the category Limburg is not sufficient because there are two provinces with that name.

Also "Category:Beek, Limburg" is not sufficient because.. which village Beek do you mean?  those in Limburg Belgium or those in Limburg Netherlands. If you only use the name Limburg and, for example, link it to the parent categories of the Nederland and België, it is not clear in the profiles in which this category is applied which of the two provinces is involved.  A category is unique and can only be used for one location.

So the categories voor those two places should be: "Category: Beek, Limburg, Nederland" and "Category:Beek, Limburg, België"

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I initially set this up using Noord-Holland but was then corrected to use English as the categorization project wished. Because our proposal was still in discussion, this made complete sense to me. The migration categories use a controlled vocabulary; categories do not follow "use their conventions not ours" so it seemed that categorization has chosen to use English for this. I am simply checking on North Holland, South Holland, and North Brabant - https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:The_Netherlands%2C_Emigrants.  I don't care which way it is done -- I just want to be doing it correctly.

• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:South_Holland%2C_Emigrants
• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:North_Brabant%2C_Emigrants
• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:North_Holland%2C_Emigrants

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The project categories is going their own way and deviate from the general rule "use their conventions not ours". That is confusing in itself but has apparently been accepted by the management.  This is in fact off topic for this proposal.  

This proposal concerns the construction of location categories and proposes for the Netherlands: Place, Province, Country.

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Ok, so the places in the migration categories are not connected to this proposal? I was confused. I apologize that I have brought up an unrelated point.

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It concerns the structure of the geographical categories that are managed by the Dutch Roots project.  No reason to apologize, it makes sense that there is confusion due to different guidelines from WikiTree and different projects. The general guidelines of the Categorization project are not workable for our local circumstances.  That is why we are forced to submit a proposal that the country also be included in the location. 

Thanks for your comment! 

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Just a note, the Migration structure does not have to exist only in English. I am not sure where that came from, but hopefully that helps with this proposal.

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So we can make a parallel structure in Dutch for the immigrants to and emigrants from the Netherlands?

For example:

- Category:Zuid-Holland, Emigranten

- Category:Zuid-Holland, Emigranten naar de Verenigde Staten

- Category:Migranten van Zuid-Holland naar Iowa

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If you follow the guidelines of the proposal, you must add the country.  For example:

• Category Limburg, Nederland, Emigranten 
• Category Limburg, België, Emigranten.
• Category Zuid-Holland, Nederland, Emigranten

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Koen, that is correct! You would also use the Aka Template to link the categories to each other so that profiles in Dutch would mirror to the English version and vice versa.

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Looking at all these answers, does this mean adding the category "Category:Migrants from South Holland to Iowa" can be set up to automatically add the profile to the category results for "Migranten van Zuid-Holland naar Iowa" (through AKA) (and adding Migranten... would add to the Migrants... category)?

Also, this page https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Migrants_from_Limburg_to_Iowa makes it clear that "Migrants from Limburg to Iowa" is nested under the Netherlands - but we are again back to the question os what about Limburg, Belgium? 

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Limburg%2C_Emigrants_to_United_States exists, as does https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:The_Netherlands%2C_Emigrants

but https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Belgium%2C_Emigrants_to_United_States does not exist (and so no provinces in Belgium exist yet either)

It looks like there are currently only 7 profiles that potentially would use this category (Migrants from Limburg, Belgium to the United States), but it is still an issue.

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that's the reason of this proposal, you have to add the country to it.  So there are then two categories with the province of Limburg, each under its own country. In this case the categories:

• Migrants from Limburg, the Netherlands to ....
• Migrants from Limburg, Belgium to ...

both categories then under their own parent category, Immigrants from the Netherlands and Immigrants from Belgium? 

Limburg is only an example, there are more regions and places with common names in different countries in the world so this structure should be general.

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OK, so what the proposal is, regardless of whether you write the Noord-Holland, Nederland OR North Holland, the Netherlands (since categories in both languages can exist simultaneously), we never want AdminEntity on its own, but always with Country (using terminology from the Migration Category Structure page)

This matches this structure of the CategoryInfoBox Migration template

{{CategoryInfoBox Migration

|fromCountry= England

|fromEntity= Kent

|toCountry= United States

|toEntity= New York

}}

But these categories themselves drop the country.
[[Category:Migrants from AdminEntity to AdminEntity]]
[[Category:Migrants from Limburg to Iowa]]

So our proposal would impact the migration category structure by including a country in the actual categories and not only in the category information template / structure.

Is this correct? Or am I still confused?

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Just to chime in here once more, this proposal should not be pitched against the Migration categories. The Migration categories (and the CategoryInfoBox Migration) can handle the structure as proposed.

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Indeed, let's stay with the topic, the basic structure for the location categories associated with Project Netherlands.

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The problem with Belgium is that Belgium is a very young country: 

België ontstond na de Belgische Revolutie in 1830 toen het zich afscheidde van het Verenigd Koninkrijk der Nederlanden, waar het sinds 1815 toe behoorde. 

Belgium became a country after 1830, before this most if not all of what's now Belgium, was part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands or France. 

So Belgium is a bit a hard nut to crack (if we also try to prevent projects are going to 'clash') , because something else (of topic)  that might cause problems is that the (modern) Belgium naming convention is a bit the same as the one from the United States (USA) ..so the last names written with capitalized prepositions, or prepositions + last name pasted together as one..so all kinds of versions of last names that before Belgium officially became a country would be considered incorrect for profiles when those areas were part of the Netherlands.. 

Answer 3

Do realize that this structure is only valid from the early 1800 onwards (formation of the Netherlands as we know it today). What to do with earlier information? Split location in 'now' and 'historic'?

Comments

For Dutch profiles, to keep things easy for everyone, it's ok to use the modern place and location (the location fields), this way the location pin works and will direct people that would like to view the exact place/location to the correct place. If the (now modern) place is filled in correctly, they are directed to the, also historically correct ,but now modern, location.

Because things changed so often in the past, and sometimes even within a year or a few months, we have decided not to create a thon of different categories (so for every place, province, graafschap, heerlijkheid, kerspel and so on) but instead, to add something to the bio of a person about the history of the place (province/graafschap/buurschap/kerspel) with perhaps an image of a map etc.

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The proposal is about building up a geographical Category, with regard to the Netherlands, to do this in three parts.  Place, Province, Country.  So it is not about whether you use the current location name or the location name when an ancestor lived.  

The proposal uses the structure of the current location names as an example. The tree structure categories for Dutch modern location names already exists. If you want to use old location names, you should in principle set up a tree structure for each separate political period.  For example "Delft, Graafschap Holland, Rooms-Duitse Rijk" or "Middelburg, Zeeland, Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden". If someone would like to create a category for example: Delft, Graafschap Holland, Rooms-Duitse Rijk", you should in principle also create the parent categories "Graafschap Holland, Rooms-Duitse Rijk" and "Rooms-Duitse Rijk" etc.

Over the past two thousand years there have been countless of these political structures in these parts of europe, making it almost impossible to design categories and associated structures here.  If someone wants to do this anyway .... use City, Region and ... Country, Kingdom, Empire etc.  

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I think you can see the province and country names just as a way to make a distinction between different places with the same name. Then it doesn't matter from what time these provinces and countries are, you just want to say that it the city Delft in the Netherlands, not the one in South Africa.

Personally I think the location fields are a better place to say exactly in which historical entity a location used to be at a certain time. Categories are for grouping profiles, so the name should especially be unambiguous and not change every year the geographical hierarchy above the city is changed.

Just an idea: we may, in the future, try to build historical trees, where we group the place categories in historical entities. So then Delft, Zuid-Holland, Nederland would also be in the categories Graafschap Holland and Departement Delf, Departement Maasland, etc. We don't need to make three extra categories for Delft to do this, because it were the 'gewesten', departements and provinces that changed names, not the city.

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Greetings, i am surprised by the reactions for which i thank everybody. All very true. My starting point was that  i realized that wikitree is a living organism which will still be alive long after we are all gone. The people in 2320 will then have to understand what was meant by our descriptions of from 2020 :)

But i assume that wikitree has sufficient options to enter geografic comments for clarification purpose only. As a newcomer i have however not yet found them, but i am learning.

How much it changed over the last 200 years in 'Holland' can be seen at www.topotijdreis.nl, which overlays 200 years of geographical maps

Answer 4

At this time, there are not readily available comprehensive sources for the necessary geographic information in English below the country level, so all category levels below the country level will be in Dutch, including any descriptive qualifiers. 

I have read this proposal a few times now, and while I initially did not see any major issues, I am starting to question the quote above.

Is this meant to say that you will mix the English and Dutch categories (wherein a Dutch place name [because there is no English variation] will be linked to the English category tree)? If so, this will not work sine language streams should not be mixed - and I will have to vote No to this proposal.

In the case of Wijk bij Duurstede, located in the province of Utrecht, this can be overcome through the upper level language streams, so the naming should be something like:

English Structure:
The Netherlands
   Utrecht, The Netherlands
      Wijk bij Duurstede, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Dutch Structure:
Nederland
   Utrecht, Nederland
      Wijk bij Duurstede, Utrecht, Nederland

Between the structures, you can then use the Aka Template in order to identify the language streams and mirror the categories so no matter which version is used, all pages and profiles will be displayed in each category.

Please let me know if I am not understanding the intent of this proposal.

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Edited to add:

After clarification from Bea that the above examples for the English and Dutch structures are correct - I am now in favor of this proposal.

The intent of the wording I quoted above was meant to indicate that there is no English equivalent (translation) of "Wijk bij Duurstede" and that is what the location would be called in both the English and Dutch language streams.

Comments

I think it wouldn't make sense to put every profile from Wijk bij Duurstede in two categories (Wijk bij Duurstede, Utrecht, The Netherlands and Wijk bij Duurstede, Utrecht, Nederland). It makes much more sense when the town has only one category for profiles and the structure above can be bilingual to accommodate English speakers.

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The profiles do not have to be placed into two categories. They only need to be placed in one and the categorization system takes care of the rest.

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O, I think I get it.

So let's say there are two categories:

- Wijk bij Duurstede, Utrecht, The Netherlands

- Wijk bij Duurstede, Utrecht, Nederland

The Aka-template is used on both categories to link them.

Now all profiles in Wijk bij Duurstede, Utrecht, The Netherlands appear in the category Wijk bij Duurstede, Utrecht, Nederland and vice versa.

Is that correct?

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To clarify, with a bilingual system using Aka, only one category is used on the profile, and this makes the profile show up in both categories. As an example if you look at Category:South Holland, Netherlands and its mirror Category:Zuid-Holland, Nederland you can see that they contain the same profiles. (I'm not talking of sub-categories which are a different issue). 

If you click on a profile (random example) from the English language category, you will see that the profile in fact only has the Dutch version of the category on it; but, it is visible from both.

So, for the user who adds the categories on profiles, it makes no difference. It is indeed more work to create and organize the category structure, but that can be done over time. I hope you will leave open the possibility of having English-language geographic categories to mirror the Dutch ones.

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Yes Koen, that is correct. Sorry I took a long time writing & Steve had already competently answered.

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Koen, that is correct!

So instead of trying to figure out place names in other languages you may not be familiar with, you would use the category you are more comfortable with (for me, that is English) and the Aka template automatically puts them in the Dutch stream as well.

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No worries, Isabelle! It helps to hear it multiple ways - sometimes I am not very clear in my wording!

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Categories often are created by members from all over the world, so I understand what you mean Koen, but there are not so many members creating them, but some will create them in English and others in the native language.

The proposal is to make things a bit more clear and to hopefully prevent members are going to create categories for for example just a town, or just a town + province. (because there are so many places and provinces with the same name all over the world)

So instead of creating a category:

[[Category:Amsterdam]] or [[Category:Amsterdam, Noord-Holland]] or [[Category:Amsterdam, North Holland]]

So we are asking members that are creating categories for places to also include the country, and to use the modern place and province names, so:

 [[Category:Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Nederland]]

or in English..

[[Category:Amsterdam, North Holland, The Netherlands]]

I don't expect that all profiles will have two categories, so one in Dutch and one in English, because there are just a very few members using or creating them and I'm not sure, but I don't think there are profiles with 'duplicate' categories (same category but in different languages). Members using them probably will pick just the one in their own language.

The purpose of the proposal is so everyone can see how these categories should look like/be created and all wrong ones can be deleted and replaced by correct ones.  

So ones the proposal is officially accepted, the Categorization project team/members / we all, now can refer to the proposal if perhaps someone is creating wrong categories again.

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Oh my it looks like we all were typing an answer at the same time eeh ..lol

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Yes that's correct Koen 

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Yes that's correct Steven, if it's ok with you I will add how you explained it to the proposal, it makes it more clear for everyone I think eeh ?

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Sure Bea, not a problem!

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In fact, it doesn't matter in which language the place name is put, as long as it consists of three parts.  In French, for example Amsterdam, Hollande septentrionale, Pays-Bas or German: Amsterdam, Nordholland, Niederlande.

There must then be corresponding category structures for these languages ​​and the Aka template to ensure that they run smoothly.

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I support this well thought out proposal. May I ask, though, if it is necessary to state the country at city/town/village level:

- Wijk bij Duurstede, Utrecht, The Netherlands

- Wijk bij Duurstede, Utrecht, Nederland ?

I realise there is a concern about say Middleburg in different countries - there are also a couple in South Africa.  With the SA model, we limited the category to simply town/province combinations, even where countries in their own right became provinces.

The principle should be keep it simple - minimalism is best.  Often difficult as I have experienced.  So use of the country name should be the exception rather than the rule?

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Yes this is necessary. In the first instance to be complete and to avoid confusion. There are many places in the world with the same names and regions. In our case, for example, both Belgium and the Netherlands know the province of Limburg, with the places Beek in each province.

Since a category name is unique, you can only create one category "Beek, Limburg".  In which tree do you hang it?  That of Belgium or that of the Netherlands?  So you create two categories "Beek, Limburg, Netherlands" and "Beek, Limburg, Belgium".

The countries Luxembourg and Belgium also have a region / province of Luxembourg.  Worldwide you also see many regions with names where, for example, a wind direction is included, such as Nothren province. It is also possible here that these regions have places with the same name (for example of colonial origin). Cities and places like George Town, Willemstad, Holland etc. can be found worldwide.

So our proposal should not only apply to the Netherlands, but a general rule.  By the way, the automatic city names in the Location fields consist of at least three parts and the country is also mentioned.

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Yes, I have no argument with the place names you have used as an example.   However, we would be catering for the exception rather than the rule.  Categorisation needs to be absolutely minimal, in my opinion, and simple town/province combinations are unique in about 99% of cases.  So the rule should be, where the exception is found, such as in the case you have stated, then by all means succeed it with the country name.   I doubt this should become a general rule though.  Steve Harris, your comment please?
Andrew

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Unfortunately, this is no exception and occurs with some regularity worldwide.  "Beek, Limburg" is just one example to show that this simple structure can cause problems. I know Steve's position and he agrees with you as far as I know, I think he designed this structure or is involved in it. That does not mean that you are right.  WikiTree is a worldwide family tree and you have to take into account circumstances worldwide. For the United States, I can imagine that you mention the state and not the country. The States themselves could be seen as separate countries and therefore have unique names compared to the countries in the world.  Even then it is advisable to use three parts.  "city, county, state" since a state may contain places with the same name.

Simplicity is beautiful, but should not come at the expense of accuracy,

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@Andrew,

Please note that this thread was closed. Please see the finalized plan: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1100786/heres-the-finalized-plan-dutch-regional-category-structure

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Thanks Jan, I hadn't realized this yet.  I propose to continue this discussion in the final proposal. 

Answer 5

Hoi! Op zich een prima en duidelijke indeling voor Nederland - ik vraag me wel af welke grenzen we aanhouden. Ieder jaar zijn er toch weer gemeentelijke herindelingen, die er voor zorgen dat gemeenten samen worden gevoegd en plaatsen soms verschuiven van provincie. Betekent dit dat dit elk jaar even gechecked wordt?

Dan nu natuurlijk het allerspannendste... Ik zou een parallelle categorie voor het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden voorstellen, Kingdom of the Netherlands. Ik neem aan dat Curaçao of Aruba bijvoorbeeld in die hoofdcategorie valt als apart land, maar hoe zit dat met de drie Caribische openbare lichamen, die niet binnen een provincie vallen, maar wel binnen Nederland?

Tevens denk ik dat het goed is om als het om het Caribische deel van Nederland gaat rekening te houden met andere voertalen - ook in categoriebenaming (zeker nu ik weet dat parallelle categorien een ding zijn!). Voor de Caribische Nederlanden zou je dan kunnen denken aan Papiaments, en voor plaatsen binnen Friesland categoriebenamingen in het Nederlands naast het Fries (want Fries lijkt me daar toch echt correcter).

Comments

Als we de provincie- en landsnaam alleen gebruiken om onderscheid te maken tussen verschillende plaatsen met dezelfde naam, lijkt het me het meest correct om de huidige grenzen aan te houden.

Dat betekent wel dat we soms categorieën moeten hernoemen. Het veranderen van provinciegrenzen gebeurt namelijk nog steeds. Zo is Vijfheerenlanden, met o.a. Leerdam in 2019 van Zuid-Holland naar Utrecht gegaan.

De parallelle Engelstalige categoriestructuur voor Nederland lijkt me gemakkelijk door te trekken via Koninkrijk der Nederlanden naar de Caribische delen.

Om ook nop parallelle structuren te maken in het Fries en Papiaments, en misschien Limburgs en Nedersaksisch wat ook door de EU erkende talen zijn, lijkt me wat overdreven. Het is mogelijk, maar wel veel werk met relatief weinig nut.

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Om het probleem met gemeentelijke herindeling te vermijden kun je het beste de plaatsnaam gebruiken en niet de naam van de gemeente. In mijn geval "Huijbergen, Noord-Brabant, Nederland" in plaats van "Gemeente Woensdrecht, Noord-Brabant, Nederland". Trouwens wij inwoners van de gemeente Woensdrecht zeggen zelden dat we in de gemeente Woensdrecht wonen maar in Ossendrecht, Hoogerheide, Putte, Woensdrecht of Huijbergen. 

Je kunt parallelle categorieën vermijden door de oude algemene WikiTree regel te gebruiken: 

Our guiding principle is the same as the one for Name Fields: "use their conventions instead of ours."

Applied to locations, this means using place names in native languages and using the names that people at the time used, even if they now no longer exist. Zie: Location Field Style Guide

Maar dit alles is "Of topic" natuurlijk, want het gaat om de opbouw van de  Categorieën voor Nederlandse en verwante plaatsnamen.

Voor het Caraïbische gebied bijvoorbeeld: Willemstad, Curaçao, Koningkrijk der Nederlanden. (Deze categorieën bestaan al) 

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Ik wilde het balletje voor Fries en Papiaments even opgooien, omdat het in ieder geval wel het noemen waard leek.

@Joop: Het probleem is dat veel dingen nu eenmaal op gemeenteniveau geregistreerd zijn. Mijn overgrootmoeder werd geboren in De Steeg, Gemeente Rheden (in de jaren 1880), maar haar geboorteakte is dus in de gemeente rheden geregistreerd. Dat kan dus best zorgen voor wat "verkeerde" categorisatie!

Het probleem wat optreedt is dat sommige dorpen niet alleen van gemeente veranderen, maar soms ook van provincie. Het is dan dus even opletten geblazen met de subcategorieen.

Top dat Curaçao e.d. al zijn meegenomen!

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Hi Willem,

Persoonlijk ben ik geen voorstander van categorieën behalve als ze gebruikt worden voor een specifiek doel als bijvoorbeeld Unsourced etc. Maar dit terzijde, ze zijn er nu eenmaal, mensen maken er gebruik van, dus om een puinhoop te vermijden is enige organisatie raadzaam en dat is wat de beide projecten dan ook nastreven.

Wat locatie gegevens betreft hebben we al de velden Birth Place en Death Place...met geopin. In principe zou dat voldoende moeten zijn, gekoppeld aan een systeem dat een lijst kan genereren per plaats o.i.d. Daarnaast kun je in de biografie gedetailleerde gegevens zetten over een locatie. Met de categorieën erbij heb je dus drie mogelijkheden om locaties te duiden. De eerste twee mogelijkheden kun je in feite zelf invullen naar eigen goeddunken, terwijl bij categorieën je in een bestaand systeem gaat werken en als je er een categorie aan wilt toevoegen dat via een formulier van het Categorization Project moet aanvragen.

Vandaar dat er een redelijk simpel systeem is bedacht wat iedereen kan gebruiken in drie delen zonder bijvoorbeeld de gemeente erbij. Dat kan in de officiële locatie velden dan wel in de Bio.

Dit is een voorstel om de locatie aanduiding in drie delen te doen: Plaats, Provincie Land. Er zijn provincies met meerder plaatsen met dezelfde naam dus denk ik dat bij uitzondering dit in vier delen moet kunnen. Ga dit in een apart Answer ff aan de orde stellen...

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Ik denk dat gemeentes nodig/noodzakelijk zijn in de plaatsnaamconventie. Veel plaatsnamen komen dubbel voor (Serooskerke 2 x in Zeeland; Oudega 3 x in Fryslân, zelfs 2 x in één gemeente sinds de herindeling naar Sudwest-Fryslân). Bovendien zijn gemeenten leidend in de registratie van de Burgerlijkse Stand, en wordt tegenwoordig de plaatsnaam al niet meer opgenomen in de akte (geboren in Midlum, Wijnaldum en Harlingen (stad) = geboren te Harlingen (gemeente)). We komen dus op een punt dat alleen de herinnering ons vertelt waar iemand exact is geboren.

Voor categoriën onthoud ik me van commentaar.

Answer 6

Does this proposal mean that we use The Netherlands instead of Netherlands in the English language location categories?

It seems that the Dutch government has never officially said whether the article 'the' should be treated like in 'the United States' (not part of the name) or in 'The Gambia' (part of the name). Their opinion seems to be "The country is called 'Nederland' and other languages are free to translate it."

But English is an official minority language in Saba and Sint-Eustatius, both part of the Netherlands (not just the kingdom). So shouldn't their at least be some official guidelines about the article 'the' in English?

Comments

The proposal concerns the construction of the category name.  Not about what, in what language, etc.  you fill in.

Netherlands or the Netherlands, using place names in native languages etc. is another discussion that has been conducted before and unfortunately we have lost. 

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What I mean is whether you'd use The Netherlands or Netherlands in the English category structure. I think that is part of the proposal, because it concerns all English categories.

I seems that the proposal says to use 'Amsterdam, North Holland, The Netherlands' and not 'Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands'.

As far as I know, the Dutch government has made one of these official.

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What you see is in the proposal is an example but you are right Koen, there is no consistent policy in this.  Our project is called: "Project Netherlands" instead of the "Project the Netherlands". The location fields in English also indicate Netherlands. This has the WikiTree leadership decided in its wisdom, despite objection from us Dutch. So we have deal with it.

The official name for Nederland in English is "the Netherlands".  The categories concerning our own country have been created by Dutch members and they have created the category "The Netherlands" (should be "the Netherlands" (kniesoor die daar op let )). The Netherlands is already an existing category and if anyone wants to change it, I think there should be a separate proposal for that.

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I mean, as we are already going to change category names (like Amsterdam, The Netherlands to Amsterdam, North Holland, The Netherlands), are we also going to change North Holland, Netherlands to North Holland, The Netherlands?

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I see what you mean. the parent category is The Netherlands but the provincie categories are: xxxxx, Netherlands.

Everything will remain as it is for the time being. After all the proposal is about the basic structure. Wrong or questionable names can be later normalized later in consultation. Technical is that quite easy with the editbot but you have to be very careful with that. In fact this is up to the Categorization Project and should consulted with them.

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Just to give a relevant example, see: Category:United_States_of_America. Even though the main category was decided to be the full name, the subcategories only use "United States".

So the main category in English may be "The Netherlands", but subcategories could use "Netherlands" very easily.

Answer 7

I would like to add an exception to the principle of the three parts: Place, Province, Country in the proposal.  On the rare occasion that there are two or more places with the same name in a province.  For example Serooskerke, Walcheren, Zeeland, the Netherlands and Serooskerke, Schouwen-Duiveland, Zeeland, the Netherlands.  So with this exception you can also use four parts.

Answer 8

Isabelle said:

"It is indeed more work to create and organize the category structure, but that can be done over time. I hope you will leave open the possibility of having English-language geographic categories to mirror the Dutch ones."

It is not only extra work to create and organize the category structure, but also a great deal more work to maintain the multilingual structure as it increases the number of categories that must be watched to make sure that the extra categories are created and organized correctly.  This is no small burden, especially for smaller projects and projects which are already struggling with an insufficient number of bilingual people to do all of the other work requiring bilingual fluency.

Spreading the extra work over time is often no answer at all.  For smaller projects or those with a limited number of members willing and able to work on creating categories, all the extra time we have is already needed just to create single language categories for all the places we need to categorize all our profiles properly.

Projects need the option of deciding what work is most important for meeting their goals. Limiting locations categories below a specified level to the native language to improve consistency and conserve people resources so more effort can be put into putting profiles in landing level location categories often makes a great deal of sense for regional projects.

Making the aka template available and setting guidelines for how to handle multiple language category streams for projects which find it worth the effort and want to do it is one thing.  Pushing projects toward establishing guidelines which support multi-lingual language strings in all or most levels of location categories is an entirely different matter.  There are valid reasons for restricting location categories below a specified level to a single native language.  Having an authoritative resource to consult for place names in only the native language which can be used to improve consistency in category names is one such valid reason.  

Leave it to the regional projects to decide whether limiting categories to a single language below a certain level is beneficial or not in their geographic area.

Comments

It is clear that a multilingual structure is more work and difficult to maintain. This was born out of necessity because there was a sprawl of location names in different languages. WikiTree members could create categories uncontrollably. As a result, categories appeared such as "the Netherlands" (correct), Netherlands and Holland. These categories arose alongside the Dutch location names. 

So the Categorization project started organizing this, applying structure and setting rules.  We of the former Dutch Roots project were also working on this and we have started working together. The result is this proposal. For clarity, this proposal does not address the question of whether multilingual categories are desirable.  This proposal concerns the structure, in whatever language, for a category with regard to a geographical location in the Netherlands. 

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I don't want to go too much off topic, but current Germany locations are only bilingual down to State level. Below that (Kreis and Gemeinde), the categories are only in German. This is an old structure however. I've always seen it on WikiTree and I don't know what process was followed when it was designed (at least 5 years ago).

Answer 9

Bea, ik mis in jou overzicht, de Bataafse Republiek, onder en na Frans bewind.

Answer 10

I support this proposal. The structure is simple and the system used for category names (Place, Province, Country) makes sense.

Comments

As long as we can keep this in the categorization rules I don't mind, but please don't make the mistake of adding province or place as mandatory field in the templates.(Yes, I know it's off topic, but very annoying :-))

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If it's correct that problem is solved by Ales already Margreet. (so all the new suggestions concerning the jaar/province in DR sticker or projectbox now should be removed, if not, so if you still see that suggestion, please just let me know and Ales will make sure they are going to vanish )