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Catagories at hipstamp

edited February 2021 in Questions 0 LikesVote Down
I've just noticed that Tahiti is listed under "French Colonies," but French Polynesia is under "Australia & Ocenia." I'm sure there are other similar anomalies, but just this example is enough to make me cross eyed...

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  • And Brunei is listed in the Middle East. Maybe that will counter-cross your eyes and keep 'em straight. :smile:
  • It's so clear to me....

    download
  • This topic always triggers me.

    There are too many inconsistencies to list completely.

    Some entities are not listed (Bangkok and Griqualand West) - one has to resort to listing in "Other" for those listings. At least they do come up when you do a site-wide search.

    Some areas are listed in the wrong location. Brunei is a good example. Bermuda is listed in the Caribbean. There are many former colonies that are listed in their geographic location rather than under the colonial country, so most colony listings under individual countries are incomplete. French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa are listed under Africa and not under "France & Colonies" , German East Africa is listed under Africa and not under "Germany & Colonies".

    And then there are the double listings. I have listed a lot of West Berlin stamps and when I started listing them I went to the "Germany & Colonies" heading and saw the heading of "Berlin" near the top of the list. So I started listing my stamps there. Later I noticed that under "Germany & Colonies" at the bottom of the headings is West Berlin. So I checked and the stamps listed under Berlin do not show up under West Berlin. So if you are listing, which category do you pick? There are other examples, such as Central African Empire and Central African Republic listed right next to each other - why not just one heading? The St Thomas and Prince Islands are listed under Caribbean but they are also listed as Sao Tome and Principe under Africa - this is the same country located off the west coast of Africa (not the Caribbean) - one is an English spelling and the other is the Portuguese spelling - it is not, however, listed under "Portugal and Colonies".

    When listing one can't see all the categories that ones sees when browsing. So when listing a former colony that is now an independent county and the names are different, you have to list under the independent country name and assume that it will be listed under the subcategory under that country. An example is Barbuda. You can find Antigua on the list of available countries to list under in the Caribbean category, but Barbuda does not show up when you pick Antigua to list an item under. It does get placed in the Barbuda subcategory, however, once you go to into the Browse mode.

    Another example would be Basutoland, a British colony. It was never part of South Africa, but you have to list it under South Africa because that is the only place you will find it when you do a browse of the categories. Basutoland should show up under Lesotho because Basutoland became Lesotho upon independence, but instead it is listed under South Africa.

    And the list goes on. I would have to assume that whoever put the category listings together never collected stamps because most of this would be very apparent to a world-wide stamp collector.

    I contacted the management of this site a couple years ago and brought this issue up. I was told that this was on their list of things to do the next year. That next year was either 2019 or 2020. Obviously nothing has been fixed. And based upon the lack of action and refusal to comment when these questions come up here in the Forums, I assume that it will never be fixed.
  • And then with plate tectonics, the continents move and really mess up those political lines
  • There are lots of errors in the category listings, like mentioned above. I had a problem with Lombardy-Venetia, old Austrian provinces now part of Italy. You can't list them under Austria; if you want to find stamps from Lombardy-Venetia, you cannot search under Austria, you have to search under Lombardy-Venetia and list it as the country. Ridiculous!

    https://www.hipstamp.com/store/wilton-philatelics

  • Lombardy-Venetia is actually listed as a subcategory under Italy. Since this subcategory does not show up when listing items for sale, you would have to list it under Italy but use the title "Lombardy-Venetia" in the exact manner in which it is presented under the Browse function. Then check under the Browse function and make sure it shows up there.

    Also under Austria in Browse, a subcategory of "Austrian Offices in the Turkish Empire" shows up but there is no subcategory for Austrian Offices in Crete.

    The more one looks, the more problems one finds.
  • Don't you know it, and the "Keyword Search" is the worst feature. You enter something in that box and you can't get rid of it. I have to close the program and open it again. I try not to use that feature, but sometimes forget, then I'm cussing myself for having used it.

    They should put the subcategories under the country where they belong, like Scott does.
  • Like Scott does.
    Wow, now there's a simple solution........
  • Austria Offices in Crete is not really an entity. It is French Currency which could be used anywhere in the Ottoman Empire which uses this currency. This is why you find these stamps used in other areas. In this case two wrongs do make a right, also known as Accidental Correctness.

    https://www.hipstamp.com/store/harry-patsalos-philatelics
  • Ron, as slowly as it takes to see changes implemented here, by the time these changes are made, those countries WILL be in different locations.
  • Astute observation as always, Ted.
  • I am getting to the half senile stage of life, but my feeble memory thinks there have been grumblings about categories going back to the Stampwants days.

    https://www.hipstamp.com/store/fatdanes-stamp-store
  • I'm not unacquainted with categorization. They have been trying to fit me into a niche for some time , be it deranged Polish/Russian, nerve gas affected German, wacko Californian (well, ok, little controversy there), or just some poor soul whose ingested too much watermark fluid and stamp dander through the years. Thanks to the tolerance of Hipstamp forums, you're kinda stuck with me and my unpredictable, often ill-conceived posts.
  • Just like all the other times that this subject has been bought up in the forums, it will be ignored
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