Commons:Categories for discussion/2020/07/Category:Regions of Spain

Category:Regions of Spain

There may not be any reason for this to be distinct from Category:Subdivisions of Spain. If there is, then this is still a poor name for it. Jmabel ! talk 00:06, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

A decade ago, User:Jack ma, User:Foroa, User:Unai Fdz. de Betoño, User:Havang(nl) had a discussion that resulted in getting rid of this category; User:Verdy p recently unilaterally reinstated it and it is clear from the discussion at User talk:Verdy p#Regions of Spain that he and I are not going to come to any agreement about it with just the two of us. I invited him to set up a venue for discussion; he has edited several more times in that section of his talk page without responding to that, so I am setting this up as a venue for discussion. That discussion was at Category talk:Regions of Spain and has now been moved and redirected to Category talk:Comarcas of Spain.

I'll leave it to Verdy p to state the case for why this category should exist and, if so, why this is a good name for it. My case against it:

1. It is not clear what is the intended distinction between Category:Regions of Spain and Category:Subdivisions of Spain.
2. The word region has a particular historical meaning in Spain. This category bears no particular relation to that historical meaning, so the name can be misleading. Beginning in 1831, and extending to 1978, a región (always given the obvious translation into English as "region") was a grouping of provinces, similar (though not identical) to today's comunidades autónomas ("autonomous communities"). Some correspond geographically to present-day comunidades autónomas, others do not. Nowadays they are usually called regiones históricas ("historic regions") since they have no legal status in present-day Spain.

Anyone over about the age of 50 who grew up in Spain or aware of Spanish political geography has a firm meaning for región/"region", and this newly revived category goes against that. So if there is a meaningful distinction between a "subdivision" of Spain and the concept represented by this category, I believe we should still come up with a different term than "region". - Jmabel ! talk 00:22, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

The statement of Jmabel is false, I've responded correctly each time: he just posted his new response incorrectly above the response I had made before his own on my talk page (I've placed it back where it should be). given the placement, he can't ignore that he read my response on the same section where he inserted his new comment. verdy_p (talk) 00:30, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

and as I said, "region" is just used as a generic for various types of regions, not all of them subdivisions: including hitorical regions, cultural regions, natural regions, statistical regions like NUTS, european "ecoregions" (economic), military regions... There were unsorted files that could not go either into autonomous communities or into provinces. verdy_p (talk) 00:33, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

• @Verdy p: I would really rather stick to the substance of the matter, but are you actually claiming that I somehow faked a timestamp to make my post appear to have been 7 minutes before yours, rather than that you went past it without happening to notice it? Because if you are claiming that, let's take it up at AN/U instead of here. - Jmabel ! talk 01:54, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

No I posted my message long before yours (proof in the history); my message timestamp is 9 hours before yours. I was notified immediately when you posted it and my message was there since several hours at least.

But here again you are repeating the same thing: posting a new response about 1h30 after my own. I've moved it back where it should be. verdy_p (talk) 01:58, 16 July 2020 (UTC)