Commons:Categories for discussion/2020/10/Category:Royal Canal (1st lock)

Category:Royal Canal (1st lock) and all others in Category:Royal Canal by lock number

There are 46 locks on the Royal Canal, and it gets quite messy adding the ordinal. Can we agree on a different naming system for these locks, and I'll take on changing them? Suggestions:

NB: I like the way it is linked from one lock to the next, is there a template we can use to do that?

Thanks. -- Deadstar (msg) 10:33, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so opened up a can of worms here... what to do with things like Callaghan Bridge which is related to the Category:Royal Canal (13th lock). There may be a few more that have names in addition to the number? (and it looks like that category has a number of different bridges in it... I don't know it well enough to sort it out.) -- Deadstar (msg) 08:28, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Question Does anyone have a good reference as to how these locks are officially named or designated? I agree that using parenthesis for the lock number is not appropriate, but we likewise should not simply be making up our own naming scheme for these structures. A nice sequential linking is great and we can definitely set it up to match with whatever the correct naming scheme for these is (see Category:Pier 1 (San Francisco) for a series of numbered structures linked by a navbox. Josh (talk) 20:19, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Joshbaumgartner and Deadstar So I've been looking at these using the Irish National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH), and it looks like these are numbered wrong. The 1st lock is actually at Newcomen Bridge (but isn't listed by the NIAH), they DO start at what they call the 2nd Lock is the one at Binns Bridge which is currently categorised here as Lock 3. I had started making Wikidata items for each of these, as they are listed and thus eligible for Wiki Loves Monuments, but this is very messy at the moment - I had started creating categories from the much later locks with a different form of category name (Category:Lock 46, Royal Canal) so it does need to be sorted. There is a dataset downloadable from the NIAH, but for reasons I haven't been able to get an answer for, it is missing much of the inner city of Dublin, so looking at the blue dots along the canal on the interactive map is more instructive. In short, the category which is currently called the 1st lock on the Royal Canal is actually called the Sea Lock on the map, which is why the numbering seems to kick in at Newcomen. Does that make sense? Smirkybec (talk) 17:19, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I just checked with the Irish Waterways website as well, which is the body who cares for the canals in Ireland, and they start numbering from the lock at Newcomen Bridge as well which you can see from their interactive map showing the Royal Canal navigation here. So I think it is safe to say that the current categorising is at odds with the numbering convention. Smirkybec (talk) 12:59, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Smirkybec: Good research! It does seems some are named (e.g. 'Blanchardtown Lock', 'Jackson's Lock', etc.) while others are given ordinals (e.g. '2nd Lock' through '11th Lock'). I don't think we should mess with this by forcing ordinals on the named locks. A custom navbox can be created that has the numbers in order if someone deems it worth the trouble, but the category names should be based on the real nomenclature, with '(Royal Canal)' or ', Royal Canal' appended for dab purposes (i.e. Category:Blanchardtown Lock (Royal Canal)/Category:Blanchardtown Lock, Royal Canal and Category:2nd Lock (Royal Canal)/Category:2nd Lock, Royal Canal). Josh (talk) 04:20, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Joshbaumgartner: I agree, that forcing numeric names onto the locks that are known by names is not the way to go! As you've seen from the categories I've made, that my preference is for something like Category:2nd Lock, Royal Canal, and I'm happy to rename/move the later categories I made to add the post nominals to those. All of these will have Wikidata infoboxes, so the "alternative" (numerical or variations) names can be included there as well. Delighted to get this sorted - as it seemed like such a Gordian knot on first glance :) Plus, the completionist in me will be very happy when we have a full run of the locks and canals with categories Smirkybec (talk) 10:30, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]