Categorization by tiny background objects

A number of users insist on categorizing photos by tiny objects in the background. One user categorized the photo on the right by the two little cars lurking on the right, which to me is not what categories are for. No one who navigated to Category:Honda Freed (1st generation) would be in any way helped by this photo. Incidentally, I see thirteen other photos in that category that should not be there, for the same reason. See this one, for instance. Could we include a sentence or two about what is the subject and what merits inclusion in a category? mr.choppers (talk)^-en- 03:32, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Generally agree, though if there was (for example) an equally small Ferrari in the background, I might feel differently. - Jmabel ! talk 04:18, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Also generally agree, though for more rare subjects where there aren't many other good choices, it can make some sense. For some other cases, if a crop could be made which could serve as an effective illustration of that subject, I might also see it (high-resolution photos can have this aspect sometimes). For a category of say a particular individual plane, I could maybe see it -- it can show what the livery etc. was on a particular date. But if obscured or out of focus, probably not. If on the other hand it was our only photo of that particular plane, then maybe it could be of more interest. A photo like File:JFK and Marilyn Monroe 1962.jpg is not a particularly good photo of JFK or his brother, but is apparently the only (or one of few not confiscated) photo which has both them and Marilyn Monroe in it, so is pretty well-known and thus widely-used -- and as a result, people have identified people in the background and added their categories too. So particular famous photos may have background details scrutinized and be of interest. Not sure what the best wording should be on a guideline like that. I do see the other side though -- Category:Unidentified ships is overpopulated with many photos which only show the smudge of a ship in the background on the horizon and could never serve as a suitable illustration for it, yet people insist on adding that category. I do tend to agree that in many/most cases, the categories should be for the primary elements which the photo itself could be used as an illustration, but I can see exceptions for rarer subjects, or some other particular situations mentioned above or ones I haven't thought of. Another approach is making a subcategory such as Category:Corvus frugilegus (incidental), which is specifically for that type of image, taking them out of the main category. I do see a fair number of categories using that pattern out there. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:10, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Agree. This is also relevant to videos – see my proposal for time segment qualifiers for videos where something is only shown for some duration. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:45, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I think that if something is rare enough and the quality is good enough to extract it, we would do so, and categorize that image. I did that here, and that remains the only freely licensed image of a Hino Briska.

But the question is what are categories for? Are they simply for identifying everything in a photo, or are they there to help users find images of stuff? To me it's decisively the latter (I also don't like it when people try to add every conceivable category there is for their photos; feels pushy and pointless), and for mere identification we can add notes instead. I, too, pride myself on being able to identify cars based on a blurry glimpse, and notes serve my purposes just fine! mr.choppers (talk)^-en- 02:27, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

• Agree nip this in the bud now before it destroys the usability of categories altogether.

Laurel Lodged (talk) 08:24, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I think that if something is rare enough and the quality is good enough to extract it, we would do so, and categorize that image – sure, that’s the best solution. However, not everyone and every time can do that (lack of experience / time / suitable software, they’re editing from a smartphone, for example while travelling, etc.). Should they not tag the file as potentially useful for illustrating the topic? Maybe there could be a template to flag the file as suitable only after cropping, but I think the category should be added in addition to that, so that people looking for illustration can find it through the category tree (and of course both the template and the category removed once the crop is uploaded). —Tacsipacsi (talk) 19:46, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Maybe there could be a template to flag the file as suitable only after cropping I like that idea, it's similar to what I proposed for videos linked above and the same method could be used which is something that is set like a setkey but instead of catname|sortkey it could be catname/minor for which the HotCat gadget could get a checkbox. This could for example be used to make these show up further down in the search results (which need improvements) as well as on the category page. Prototyperspective (talk) 00:12, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

I think categories are to show any photo of interest to the topic in question. There may be some topics which don't have better images, or maybe it's of interest for a subject to appear incidentally in a famous photo, or some other circumstances. Or if the photo is high-resolution enough that a good crop could be made, maybe. But for the most part, I'd say the categories are for what the image itself could be used to illustrate. You don't want to see a category cluttered with images of marginal relevance. It's certainly possible to add an image note for incidental details so identification effort is not lost, without adding the category. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:30, 14 February 2025 (UTC)