Commons:Categories for discussion/2020/01/Category:Interwar tanks in museums

Category:Interwar tanks in museums

Andy Dingley (talk · contribs) has indicated the results of the CfD at Commons:Categories for discussion/2019/10/Category:Military vehicles of the interwar period should be reversed in regard to this category and subs. However, such a change requires further discussion and the previous CfD is closed, so I am opening this one to discuss this category and its subs. Josh (talk) 17:05, 9 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You've twice now emptied these categories, despite no CfD to discuss them.

See Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/User_problems#CfD_scope?_(Military_vehicles_of_the_interwar_period) Andy Dingley (talk) 17:09, 9 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

- @Andy Dingley: I realize that you quite understandably missed participating in the aforementioned CfD during the months it was open. We can discuss your anger at the process and I guess at me personally in the more appropriate forum you cite. Here we should discuss the particulars of the category at hand and whether it should remain a redirect, be returned to a full-fledged category, or merely be deleted. The reasons why 'interwar' is an inapproprate term for this are several:
  1. 'Interwar' itself is ill-defined. Even if we presume that this means the period between the two world wars, a very Euro-centric position, the dates are not agreed upon for those events. Yes, the average European or American student of history may hear 'interwar' and think of generally the period of 1919-1939, but that is not globally true, and even if it were, that is just a general concept as in 'yeah, okay I get what you most likely generally mean'.
  2. Even if we were to arbitrarily assign specific dates to this period (a Commons definition for 'interwar'), then that still doesn't make it a useful category. What makes a tank an 'interwar tank'? Does it have to exist within those dates but not outside of them, does it just have to exist within them at all, or is the reality is that it is any tank that we kind of 'feel like' it is 'interwar'?
  3. The only point of even trying to define the period is to have a place for things that neither fit in 'WWI' or 'WWII' and thus it is just a meaningless title for a period of time only defined by it not being 'WWI' or 'WWII'. 'Interwar' wasn't a thing, it was the absence of a thing (namely a war). On this point, that makes a category like this akin to something like 'Miscellaneous tanks' or 'tanks not used by major powers' or other nonsense category that should not exist.
- All of these are just as valid for Category:Interwar tanks in museums as they are for Category:Interwar tanks. Thus I see no reason why the former should remain. I'm fine with it being a redirect, but it certainly should not be a category. Josh (talk) 17:49, 9 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The interwar period is a crucial period for tank and vehicle development. It is clearly defined, and it is internationally defined. A pair of "world wars" will tend to have that effect. Even in Africa, the continent perhaps least affected by the precise timings, tank development was significant and was following the advances from Europe, driven by the end of WWI and then the re-arming period of the mid-1930s (Italian armoured car development within their colonisation of Abyssinia and Libya would be particularly relevant here). The relevant source material reflects this: tank and vehicle histories will typically be a four volume split: WWI, Interwar, WWII, Cold War. Bovington museum (where you've just removed our specific category) keeps a specific gallery building for their interwar collection: [1]

This is a key grouping, and we should keep it. Nor did you even replace it by an arbitrary decade, you simply threw all into one. And then did it again, just to make sure. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:11, 9 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Museums (and popular histories) use all sorts of arbitrary divisions to showcase content. If a museum has a specific gallery titled "interwar period" then a category could be kept to reflect that gallery. But I don't think alone that makes it a valid basis for general commons categorization. Why exactly does a tank produced in 1920 have more in common with one produced 18 years later than a tank produced in 1938 has in common with one produced one year later? Does a Chinese tank produced in 1937 count as interwar or WWII? - Themightyquill (talk) 21:07, 9 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Museums use all sorts of arbitrary divisions to showcase content." No, they don't. A museum is WP:RS (if it isn't RS, it's not a museum, it's just a shed). So their divisions are those of an RS, not simply arbitrary. The way museums divide their content is our first guide for how we should structure our content.

Wikimedia doesn't (a priori) care what a tank of 1920 has in common with one of 1938: WP is constituted such that it simply follows what RS say, it doesn't perform its own WP:OR to make such decisions. It would in such cases look at a book like Fletcher, David (1991) Mechanised Force: British tanks between the wars ISBN: 0-11-290487-4. and follow that. In a more analytical sense though, a tank of 1920 may well be the tank of 1938. Plenty of Renault FT were built during WWI but saw their first service in 1939. The Vickers six-ton tank was one of the best-known of the interwar tanks, which appeared in 1926 or 1928 (depending on if you include the precursors) and served through to the start of WWII, up to the Japanese invasions. This would also be both the tank which China used in 1937, and the originator of the Japanese-developed tank opposing it. A significant number of German tanks of 1938 and earlier were the Panzer 35(t), which were obsolete in 1939 - the development of tank design was so rapid in that year. The Phony War period of WWII was substantially a period of German re-arming, whilst its 1939 tanks used in the invasion of Poland had to be upgraded and up-armoured before they could fight the more advanced French tanks in 1940. Almost anything (except the latest and most advanced) pre-war designs became near-useless overnight from the start of WWII, there was a complete shift (at least on the Western and Desert fronts) from the interwar designs. So yes, the interwar period was pretty crucial and distinct for armoured vehicle design, which is why there are not only books on it specifically, but they even use the term in their titles. We need to preserve these categories. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:01, 9 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Andy Dingley: We don't even categorize our images based on how museums organize their collections privately, let alone the way they display them in galleries. Whether it's en:WP:RS has nothing to do with it. All museum galleries don't follow a single globally uniform structure, but we do. -- Themightyquill (talk) 12:51, 10 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Nominating for deletion seems pretty absurd for me, interwar (as well as Post-WWII) groupings are used by all kinds of military history researchers (e. g. writing monographs and articles) as well as museums (e. g. structuring their exhibits). Ain92 (talk) 12:41, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- @Ain92: Commons categories do not exist to mimic the chapter layouts chosen by authors or the order collections are displayed at a museum. Themightyquill (talk · contribs) is completely correct that en:WP:RS is irrelevant to this matter. That said, if a museum has a specific named collection (e.g. if Bovington had something they called "Interwar Tank Collection"), then a category specific to it such as Category:Interwar Tank Collection at Bovington Tank Museum would be fine, but it would be specific to artifacts officially noted as being part of that specific collection. Josh (talk) 19:57, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - What about historians' article and monographs? Even a simple Google Scholar search shows over 25 thousands of results. Ain92 (talk) 20:40, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    - @Ain92: Which one of those 25,000 should we use as the prescribed blueprint to dictate our categorization scheme? Josh (talk) 21:37, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      - What exactly do you want by requesting a "prescribed blueprint"? Ain92 (talk) 22:07, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Andy Dingley (talk · contribs) has kindly presented several examples of why 'interwar' is an inappropriate way to categorize tank categories on Commons. Their first example, Category:Renault FT, could well by Andy's description be considered rightly a WWI tank, an Interwar tank, and/or a WWII tank, proving the inadequacy of such definition. Category:Panzer 35(t) likewise could be interwar or WWII depending on one's approach. Perhaps they could enlighten us as to which category a user should place an FT built during WWI but which first fought in WWII in, and by what logic a user would come to this conclusion? Or perhaps answer the question posed by Themightyquill (talk · contribs) regarding a Chinese tank built in 1937? Josh (talk) 19:57, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, being introduced into service in new countries during the Interbellum should be a reasonable cause and a sufficient condition for including in the Interwar categories a serial vehicle. There is no reason not to consider Renault FT both WWI tank and WWII as well (just as it's categorized right now). Ain92 (talk) 20:40, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- @Ain92: A fine opinion, but definitely contrived, and would lead to horrible results. Category:Renault FT in the National World War I Museum is most definitely not an interwar tank (by any useful description) nor a WWII tank (by any stretch of the imagination), but by your description it would be found under Category:Interwar tanks in museums (and WWII tanks too). Josh (talk) 21:37, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - No, I don't suppose categorizing individual tanks separately, otherwise placing e. g. Renault FT in the El Goloso Armour Museum in the WWI category would be quite strange (it was procured after the WWI and we don't know whether it actually did take combat in the war). Rather, we place Renault FT tanks in museums in the interwar category, that doesn't mean that all the particular tanks in the subcategories are interwar ones, just as not excluding Shermans and T-34-85s produced after the end of the WWII from the relevant WWI categories (indirectly, through intermediaries) or including Avia CS-199 at Prague Aviation Museum (TBH that actual example was easier to find than a postwar-produced tank described above) through Messerschmitt Bf 109 museum aircraft in Military aircraft of World War II in museums doesn't make the CS-199 – produced exclusively after 1946 – a WWII aircraft. Ain92 (talk) 22:08, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, I would be fine with Category:Galleries of interwar tanks in museums or Category:Exhibitions of interwar tanks (perhaps in Category:Exhibitions of tanks by theme?) if there are significant numbers of museums galleries that explicitly organize their exihibitions that way. But "Interwar tanks in museums" means something else. - Themightyquill (talk) 11:41, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]