Commons:Bureaucrats' noticeboard/Archive 4

Rights query

I genuinely don't mind what answer I get to this and I am more than happy if this stays for a period before any decision is made. I wonder whether it would be seen as appropriate to return my admin rights without an RfA?

As far as I know I left Commons while maintaining a fairly good standard, in part for personal reasons and with substantial admin actions performed (at one stage at least I was among the top 10 or some in terms of actions). I am now back on Commons and while I would not expect to be anything like as active as I was I'm finding myself tagging quite a bit for deletion for example which simply makes work for others here (my deleted edits will show that). In addition I would have placed blocks on at least two open proxies.

I'll be happy to answer any queries the community/'crats may have however I don't think all that much has changed about either the job or the interface in the time I've been away. Thanks for you time --Herby ^{talk thyme} 10:59, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• There has been significant time passed since retiring with the note "The inclination to edit went a while back and it's time I went too." (Jun 12 2013)[1]. There is also the issue of questions with serious governance concerns raised by Russavia, including an assertion that Herbythyme failed to answer questions put to him by the Ombudsman Commission, immediately before Russavia was banned with neither explanation nor a possible process of appeal.[2] Rather than finding a way around RFA, it would seem appropriate to choose to demonstrate confidence of the community and have an opportunity for questions to be raised openly and have frank responses about these circumstances before having sysop rights returned.

P.S. I do hope that by raising certain issues here, this is not a reason to disappear me. --Fæ (talk) 11:37, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

The answer regarding the Ombudsman Commission is here and hopefully addresses the issue fully. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:47, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I guess I should add that as soon as I received an email from the OC I answered it in something less than an hour I think. Having been an OC member in the past I have the greatest of respect for the OC and the privacy of CU work. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:53, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, you did give an answer, 11 days after the question was raised. Russavia's assertion was that "The OC tried contacting you but you didn't respond", which you have not said was untrue. Although you have now clarified that you replied to the OC, you have not said when this was. This would at least give an indication if there was a communication problem at the OC end. --Fæ (talk) 11:59, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

The email I had from the OC was dated 7 January and I had nothing at all before that (although I had email from other users disallowed after I started my break from editing), my reply to the mail was also on the 7 January. CU information is something that must be handled with great regard to privacy (as with oversight). --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:05, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

(ec) Thanks for the reply. I read your statement "I had email from other users disallowed" as an assertion that you have had no correspondence of any kind about this matter with the OC or anyone else before this year. I find this surprising, considering that I have your direct email address, as it is hardly a secret, so I would imagine that members of the OC had access to it as well. I believe there is enough concern, such as chatter on IRC about this, that RFA is necessary to assure the community that there is nothing to be concerned about when it comes to transparency of your actions and exactly how CU data was passed on in compliance with our community's understanding of the governance of this key system. I do not think having a Q&A about it on this noticeboard is a better way of ensuring the community is informed compared to having a RFA. --Fæ (talk) 12:23, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

There are some aspects about the way Commons has changed over the years that I had forgotten about. Let's call this closed please rather than inviting further dramas and diverting folk from the real work that needs doing doing here - I was simply thinking I might make life a little easier for the many hardworking admins that I have considerable respect for.

I'll simply close with the fact that if folk would like to know more about the CU/OC dramas they will get very little from me as these are by their nature private and rightly so. Suffice it to say that, when I had queries on this subject I answered them as fast as I could and with full respect for privacy. This can be discussed somewhere else if folk so wish. Thanks for the time --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:22, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

It's funny that when you try to do some minimal defense of democracy within the community this is called drama. Obviously this was another abuse of WMF. Of course yes, there must be a good flatterer foundation for this type of support. --The_Photographer (talk) 12:31, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I wonder what that minimal defense of democracy is that you assume Herby is calling drama. I'd love to see it. --Dschwen (talk) 16:57, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Just as every sex worker has a price that varies depending on your age and physical condition. Some very good users have decided to sell their souls to WMF by some indirect economic benefits. They have forgotten that were once community and have placed their own interests above it, becoming mere decorative objects. This type of mechanism is well known in dictatorial governments, they corrupt the community to take advantage of it. What these users forget is that the damage they are causing to the community disappear along with them too. Ever Wikimedia and its projects was a fun place with a good philosophy to contribute, however, this is no longer the case and is evidenced by the latest statistics of editions and new users who have remained after 100 editions. --The_Photographer (talk) 17:15, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I find your choice of words more than curious. Are you insinuating that anyone who accepts any form of foundation support is somehow tainted? This is taking the us vs. them trope to a whole new (disheartening) level. You might want to carefully rethink if using a sex worker analogy is really appropriate here. Maybe reflect how people in your immediate social circle would react if they were labeled in such a way... --Dschwen (talk) 22:37, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I did't see anything inappropriate in your works before your long break. But it is always appreciated to face a new RfA after some new stable participation/contributions from your side, say one moth month, at least. Jee 13:06, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Herbythyme: Jee can have a moth, I want pertty flutterbies, and half a dozen. <laugh>  — billinghurst sDrewth 13:16, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

As a joke, this does not sit well here. --Fæ (talk) 19:02, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

It was a typo; but I enjoyed it. :) Jee 16:22, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Resignation Jusjih

Just an FYI, User:Jusjih recently resigned as a bureaucrat on Wikimedia Commons. Trijnstel_talk 11:05, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes. Back in 2006, I accepted Bastique's nomination, but unlike administrators and stewards, linguistic diversity does not seem very important for bureaucrats who may no longer rename users, so I would quit. This is not total farewell as I am still an administrator here. Thanks for past supports.--Jusjih (talk) 03:17, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks; and best wishes for your future works here. Jee 03:28, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your service User:Jusjih. --99of9 (talk) 06:14, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Jusjih for your work. Regards, Yann (talk) 09:34, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! --EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:07, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, and good luck with your new endeavors. --Dschwen (talk) 16:09, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks and best wishes. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 03:58, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your work as a bureaucrat. Green Giant (talk) 08:20, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Concerns regarding unapproved bots

There is a discussion about the concerns regarding the working of unapproved bots at Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard#User:Lucia_Bot. There people stated that operator is not responsible for the consequences as s/he only process requests from other users. I'm bringing it to the attention of the crats as who approve the bots. Jee 04:07, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Obviously the bot should not be used for something controversial that was not included in the scope of its bot request. --99of9 (talk) 04:40, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

GW Toolset access for myself

I would like to request GLAM-Wiki Toolset access for myself, as I will be working on a few mass upload projects involving public domain media. I would also like toolset access on "Commons Beta" for testing purposes. Harej (talk) 21:13, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Given your experience here as a long time user and former administrator, I will grant the GWToolset flag now, but we usually want to see demonstrable testing on commons beta first, so please practice there and be very careful when you try it on the live server. (I don't have rights there, so you'll have to make a request over there.) --99of9 (talk) 03:09, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for giving me access here. As for getting access on the beta site, where exactly do I go? There does not seem to be much of a community over there... Harej (talk) 03:50, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure of the correct procedure, but I got it by asking here. --99of9 (talk) 03:55, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

@Harej: , you are in the right group on Beta. At the moment the GWT page does not seem to be running there though. I have no idea if this is some test or change, but that's the risk of Beta. --Fæ (talk) 23:19, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

GWT Grant application draft

Hi all,
As you're probably aware, on behalf of Europeana I've been working on building a major grant application to the WMF for further development of the GWT - several Bureaucrats have been involved (in some form) in its development. This document is almost ready to submitted officially now. As a critical part of the smooth functioning of the GWT's processes, I'd really appreciate if you could have a look at the draft and tell me if there's anything you think needs fixing/changing: m:Grants:PEG/Europeana/GLAMwiki Toolset. Sincerely, Wittylama (talk) 15:24, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

GWT rights on accounts

Dear bureaucrats. I need the permissions for the GWToolset for the User:Baugeschichtliches Archiv. Please give it for further test reasons also to my account User:Micha L. Rieser. - For your Information: I have already the knowlege about this tool and uploaded Category:Durheim portraits contributed by CH-BAR with the account of the Swiss Federal Archives. Thank you very much. --Micha (talk) 10:55, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Support. Micha is a trusted user. --Steinsplitter (talk) 11:05, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

 Done --MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:10, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Move my admin rights

Hi,

I have two series of unified account (Pyb and ~Pyb). That's why I cannot merge my accounts. Could you just remove my admin rigts from ~Pyb and put it on Pyb ? Pyb (talk) 20:25, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I certify that I'm the owner of these accounts. ~Pyb (talk) 20:26, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

As Commons bureaucrats do not have the technical ability to remove one's administrator privileges, this will require help from the stewards. I'll ask them to remove the admin bit from ~Pyb and then will assign them to Pyb myself; I'll post a note here once that's done. odder (talk) 11:30, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

This is now  Done. @Pyb: You might still want to move your global OTRS-member user permission to your new admin account, but this is again something that needs to be done through Meta. odder (talk) 11:46, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

@Pyb: Soon it will be able to merge accounts, see mw.org. You might wish to request account merge on m:SRUC then. Trijnstel_talk 15:47, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Thx everyone Pyb (talk) 14:54, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Botflags

Please remove the botflag of the following accounts:

• User:Svenbot (de-flag)
• User:DcoetzeeBot (de-flag)

Indef blocked. Thanks --Steinsplitter (talk) 19:06, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

•  Done. odder (talk) 05:30, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Request from Public Domain Project

Good afternoon, We are a GLAM in Switzerland and have a contract with Wikimedia CH and Wikimedia Deutschland to upload high quality FLAC files (public domain music recordings) to Wikimedia Commons. We need the rights to use GWToolset in Commons. Thank you for your great help. Pdproject (talk) 17:04, 7 March 2015 (CET)

I would be much more comfortable with granting access to GWT here if there is proven previous experience with using the tool on the testing version of the project. Pinging @Steinsplitter who has bureaucrat access on that wiki; please let us know here as soon as the test uploads are done (a few files are enough). Thanks in advance, odder (talk) 19:04, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

I tutor the PDP project for this, there is no problem here. Kelson (talk) 19:06, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Support. Kelson is experienced with this tool - Patch for the domain-whitelist: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/195090/ . Best --Steinsplitter (talk) 15:45, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

May Pdproject finally have this permission please? I'm currently visiting them to bring my help and was surprised to discover that the permission was only given on beta. Thank you in advance. Kelson (talk) 14:53, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

@Odder: @MichaelMaggs: @Dschwen: , ^^ --Steinsplitter (talk) 15:01, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

 Done --MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:04, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! Do you love Brahms? Kelson (talk) 19:57, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Translation admins, inactivity

The following users don't have performed a TA action for one year:

• @80686:
• @Reedy:
• User:Nikerabbit (exepted, TA dev)
• @Praveenp:
• @Sjoerddebruin:

Please remove the right. Policy: Commons:Translation administrators/Policy

--Steinsplitter (talk) 11:17, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Pinging active crats: @Odder: @MichaelMaggs: @Dschwen: @EugeneZelenko: --Steinsplitter (talk) 11:19, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Were these user notified via user talk age and e-mail? --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:15, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@EugeneZelenko: The policy does not require that. --Steinsplitter (talk) 14:22, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I think this will be polite step. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:24, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

True. I changed the list to {{Ping}}. See also my last request here --Steinsplitter (talk) 14:27, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Ok, let's give them a few days. --Dschwen (talk) 15:23, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Please remove the right from my account. I don't use it at the moment and I didn't knew I still had it. Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 15:30, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

This is now done, @Sjoerddebruin. Thank you for your service. odder (talk) 20:35, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Pls remove my translation admin right if not already removed. I hope it is okay to reapply once I have enough confidence to use it :-)--Praveen:talk 03:33, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

@Praveen: Done, thank you for your service, and indeed do feel free to re-apply in the future. odder (talk) 05:18, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

You can remove my TA right as well, I don't use it and I don't need it. JurgenNL (talk) 19:51, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

This is done, too. odder (talk) 20:45, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

---

• I have now removed @80686 and @Reedy from the translation administrator user group, so this section can now be marked as  resolved. Thanks for your cooperation, everyone. odder (talk) 21:17, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

GWToolset user rights

hi, I (User:Ambrosiani) would like user rights for GWToolset. I'm a Digital Media Producer at Nordiska museet in Stockholm, Sweden and we have prepared a batch upload of approximately a thousand 19th century fashion plates to help expand wikipedia articles on fashion and fashion history.

• A whitelist for our domain nordiskamuseet.se is under preparation: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T93104
• A test batch (to figure out metadata mapping etc) has been made at the Commons beta: http://commons.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/File:Konst_och_Nyhetsmagasin_för_medborgare_af_alla_klasser_1818,_illustration_nr_12.jpg

We're running an edit-a-thon this Thursday, March 26th so if possible I would like GWToolset privilegies as soon as possible so I can upload the files :)

best regards, Ambrosiani (talk) 09:17, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

 Done. Thank you for your work, and good luck with the edit-a-thon! odder (talk) 20:08, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/198242/ has been merged. Happy uploading! :-) --Steinsplitter (talk) 17:02, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

You've a mail!

I sent you a mail with an attachment, yesterday. Please acknowledge whether or not you got it. Jee 01:57, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I got it. This makes me rather angry and disillusioned. No matter what stunts this guy pulls there there will always be a bunch users who hate the foundation more and make a play defending him to prove a point. --Dschwen (talk) 02:26, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I got the e-mail as well, and I have to admit it makes me just as angry and disillusioned as @Dschwen. No matter what Commons policies say (or don't), there will always be a bunch of users who love the Foundation more and make a play defending them to prove a point. odder (talk) 05:01, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Haha. I hope both of you are not feeling "angry and disillusioned" on me. I'm just a poor volunteer trying to edit honestly without afraid of being humiliated in "public media" for my humble edits. I hope elected higher authorities can make sure of it instead of giving preference to drama and politics. ;) Jee 05:53, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

@Odder: This is no secret to anyone and there is interest in this to continue. Many users simply love feeling possessed by the foundation, perhaps some memory in childhood is now transmuted into pure pleasure. They will do unimaginable things to follow the game, a game that will end with the project and with a corrupt foundation that defends the negative values of censorship and imposition on their interests.Some are blind and others simply do not want to see it, they prefer to simply close their eyes to feel stronger pleasure. --The_Photographer (talk) 11:41, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Either publish or respect confidentiality, you cannot do both

Hello 'crats. If you are going to give crude hints like "No matter what stunts this guy pulls..." in public so that the entire Wikimedia Commons community starts jumping to conclusions, please publish whatever evidence you are discussing. In effect you are now using private correspondence to make potentially defamatory claims as if it had already been accepted as verified. It is also worth noting that neither you, as 'crats, nor the WMF have any authority over IRC discussions. This was settled a couple of years ago when a WMF employee used IRC to make abusive statements and no action was taken as it was clarified as being effectively nothing to do with the WMF or WMF projects. I am sure you are fully aware of the case I reference.

It is hard not to conclude that this allegation about an IRC discussion with Russavia published on meta just an hour after this thread was started, is related to to whatever is in the email being referenced here. I find it wholly repugnant to use this project to defame someone who can not respond on the project, where evidence is being kept secret and at the same time bureaucrats are being publicly drawn into an off-wiki dispute, giving it credibility and thereby gaming the system. --Fæ (talk) 13:57, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I've no idea where you see the word "IRC" in above comments. Could you explain? Jee 14:52, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

(Just for background) I'm a channel operator for #wikimedia-commons and Jee has not filed any complaint about behaviour. I'm unsure if this is an IRC matter or not, but if it is, I expect to hear about it in a timely fashion. Nick (talk) 15:01, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi Nick, what I shared to the crats is a personal message, somewhat similar to one that I saw earlier some one posted at Trijnstel's talk page. I don't like public posting even though it may legally OK. My ethical POV prevents it. Jee 15:12, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

@Nick: , you may find it informative that Jee's own words on the link above were "I can't believe how he decided to use the same IRC channel to insult me later." Yet, here he is denying any understanding of where "IRC" comes from. If Russavia has done something terrible, I have no idea why Jee cannot stick to the facts rather than playing silly games. --Fæ (talk) 15:35, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Please note that you're not the ED of WM projects (even though an ex chair of some chapter). Stay away. Jee 15:41, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps you could try steering clear of Russavia now he is banned? I'm just a poor volunteer trying to contribute honestly. I have made no claim to be in charge of anything, so this is yet another attempted tangent. --Fæ (talk) 15:47, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Then why not strike off your bad faith allegations and useless preach about IRC first as I already clarified your doubts? This is the second time I'm asking you do not advise people on areas where you have little knowledge. I think the first case was in your 5th RfA. Jee 15:53, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, you are mistaken, there are no allegations made by me here, just assertions based clearly on facts which are provided. However your bringing in my past as a chapter trustee and past RFAs, definitely is a deliberate attempt to take this thread on a tangent by making unpleasant personal jibes. The issue that needs addressing is the use of this project to make unnecessary public allegations about Russavia, using the privilege of email confidentiality as an excuse to not present public evidence to support the allegations.

To reiterate the title "either publish or respect confidentiality, you cannot do both". --Fæ (talk) 16:07, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

You forgot the "Hello 'crats" parts as your command/advice is not to me. Jee 16:10, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I really don't think we need any more "evidence" for russavia's behaviour. Your blue eyed comments make it sound like this guy has done nothing wrong, and this is just an evil conspiracy by the foundation and its minions. EquadorPutas is just the latest stunt in a long chain. It speaks volumes that the russavia-defense-league is now cooking up pseudo-psychological nonsense about potential childhood trauma of anyone who dares to complain about this theater. --Dschwen (talk) 17:33, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Your conspiracy theory of a "russavia-defense-league" is a sarcastic fiction to put down anyone that disagrees with you. Nobody has said anything about "pseudo-psychological" "potential childhood trauma".

Rather than writing offensive nonsense to inflame drama, behave like a bureaucrat and address the issue. If you want to keep on referring to Jee's email then publish it, if you do not then simply stop waiving it around in public and behave yourself. --Fæ (talk) 17:55, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Fae, when will stop crying like a child who didn't get an icecream? You are just making a fool of yourself in public. *sigh* Yann (talk) 20:50, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually, Ironholds was desysopped. "IRC shall be ignored" isn't listed as one of the case's principles, and "off-wiki on the various IRC channels, where he has often used violent and sexual language (evidence for this has been submitted and discussed in private)" is specifically mentioned in ArbCom's findings. This is the case involving "a WMF employee [who] used IRC to make abusive statements" that you were referring to, no? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 16:21, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Dschwen's behaviour

I would like all bureaucrats to be aware that I have invited Dschwen to support his unproven allegation of bullying against me[3] by using the correct AN/U process.

Pointless inflammatory personal attacks are not how I expect a Bureaucrat to show leadership for this project in line with the Bureaucrat policy. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 14:59, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

As Dschwen has now asked me to stay off his talk page:

@Dschwen: Present evidence for your defamatory allegation, or resign your Bureaucrat's hat as you have failed to meet the policy that you clearly agreed to when you were elected, by deliberately misusing this project as a platform for personal attacks and hounding. --Fæ (talk) 15:13, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

How about let's live to fight another day? Natuur12 (talk) 15:28, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

The negative and imflammatory rhetoric here is of no use to solving any interpersonal situation. Calm down and the world will calm down around you. Ellin Beltz (talk) 15:59, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

The issue is not an "interpersonal situation", please do not paint this as an argument.

I was not in discussion of any sort with Dschwen in advance of his personal attack against me on another user's talk page, so this is not a dispute between two people, this is Dschwen alone and unprovoked. The issue here is whether a bureaucrat should resign if they are not prepared to cease making unfounded defamatory allegations about project contributors in good standing, or take evidence to AN/U to support their allegations. --Fæ (talk) 16:19, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Fae, the problem here is you, no one else. You need to read (again?) en:The Mote and the Beam. Yann (talk) 16:23, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Tangent. I have asked Dschwen to provide evidence for his unprovoked defamatory allegation on ANU, or resign if he is unable to meet our most basic policies. As I was not in a dialogue with Dschwen, nor provoked his personal attack, by definition history cannot be rewritten to make Dschwen's unacceptable behaviour my fault. P.S. Please do not quote religious texts at me to prove some sort of point. I have experienced enough hatred from religious groups to last a lifetime, so I am uninterested in encouraging its propagation. --Fæ (talk) 17:26, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

• (edit conflict with above.) I agree with Ellin Beltz and Natuur12. However the real problem here shows up as users calling other users "the problem." The real problem is lack of civility policy and thus spotty and biased enforcement. Even mild incivility should not be tolerated. Fæ is demonstrating high sensitivity combined with high confrontation. That's more uncivil than a general comment about bullying, and, in fact, it could be itself described as "bullying," and we have recently seen the same kind of behavior in another direction, on User talk:Odder. I am not agreeing that Fæ is a "bully." However, he has become tendentious, on a matter where there is no apparent Commons consensus. And others have become the same: hence the real problem is not Fæ or Russavia, nor is it Dschwen or Jkadavoor. It is something missing: consensus. It should be obvious by now that these reports to this noticeboard and others are not going to resolve the issues.
• Fæ brought this issue here, within a very short time, with no attempt or even necessity to seek consensus. (So the user was called a "bully." I've been called a "troll". So what? Yes. Uncivil. Beyond that, it only affects me if I allow it to.) Yes, Dschwen asked that Fæ not post to his talk. However, going to a noticeboard for a personal offense like that is not the next step, if we expect Fæ to be a sophisticated user. As one suggestion, find a user likely to be accepted by both sides of a dispute, to mediate it. But behind this dispute is another. Was Fæ "bullying"? Was this calling a spade a spade? On either side? Reducing real issues to one-word sound bites expands and reinforces incivility. Properly, there would have been intervention long ago. But there wasn't. What I've seen is that wikis are often unprepared for administrative violations of policies, and particularly civility policy. Where there is high incivility that's become routine, it is also difficult to find consensus on civility policy, because some believe it will be used against them or their friends.
• However, a sane civility policy cannot be "used against" anything but incivility. The problem is an entrenched insanity, that believes in "bad users," i.e., that uncivil users should be banned. Wikipedia fell into this trope log ago. The result has been continual disruption, still going on. No, nobody would be banned for incivility. Ordinary human beings get upset and are uncivil. U.S. Congressional Representatives become uncivil on occasion. The Sergeant-at-Arms, as ordered by the Speaker, picks up and displays an ancient symbol, the w:Mace of the United States House of Representatives. The Representative sits down and shuts up. That's it. Nobody is banned.
• We have a tool for asking a user to shut up. It can have levels of application.

1. Warning by a user (warnings must be on user talk page, not elsewhere)
2. Warning by an administrator.
3. Short block, symbolic, perhaps two hours.
4. Escalating blocks. *Not the same administrator, beyond 24 hrs.*

Unblock would be routine from any level upon agreement to remain civil, and preferably the unblocking admin monitors and may always re-block to restore the original duration. Basic principle: what one does on a wiki, one has the right to undo.

• Combined with a sane recusal policy, this is quite safe. Because of Ignore all rules, I used to write "If you have never been blocked, you are not trying hard enough to improve the project." A short block for "incivility" should never be used against a user, and that would be a part of any sane policy. If a user is commonly and persistently uncivil, that could be grounds for a ban discussion, but -- this is missed -- if there is an uncivil environment, incivility should not be grounds for ban; rather it should simply not be tolerated, it should be guided and corrected (and balanced).
• If the environment becomes civil, as it will if this is done, then egregious, gratuitous, and common incivility from a user may become recognizable, but that is down the road. If a user responds to warnings, with little fuss, done. (There is a lot of disruption over user who are warned or short-blocked arguing that they were "right." And others arguing that, no, they were wrong, or others attacking each other over their opinions on something that should be moot, if nobody is still blocked!)
• "Bullying" is uncivil. So where is the warning of Fæ? It should not take a Noticeboard filing to warn a user. So Dschwen complained about bullying, but apparently did nothing about it.
• Looking over Fæ's talk page archive, I find this:

• Cease immediately. A March 3 warning from an admin, who has commented here, about "stalking" which isn't necessarily an offense. The admin was involved, so this was not an admin action. I don't find any recent incivility warnings.
• However, earlier today, I warned Fæ with [4]. That was deliberately not section-titled, because this was a preliminary warning, even before the level 1 I have mentioned above. Just a note that the behavior was beyond the pale. The user blanked it and other material with "(off-wiki)", which wasn't accurate. I had referred to on-wiki behavior. That sequence shows that the user is locked into a old battle, and is not responding to efforts to calm the issues. My wish and goal is to support him, not to blame him or anyone else. Fæ is an extremely valuable user.

• Recommendation. A neutral administrator reviews the behavior of all involved in what was reported here, and, if appropriate, issues civility warnings. I see nothing that would yet be blockworthy, and certainly not worthy of de-crat. If there is no neutral administrator, which can happen when major users are involved, then any admin may take this on who is seeking to restore site civility, preferably not prominent on one side or the other of the Recent Big Problem. This is not about Russavia, nor Fæ, nor Dschwen. This is about the future of Commons. Please consider that carefully.

With warnings, this report should be closed. --Abd (talk) 18:14, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

• The lack of support for Fae's complaint is telling on two parts. First, we all know Fae has taken a special interest in finding fault in certain admins or users and escalating any perceived error into a gross misuse of tools / breach of terms-of-use. Whether one regards that as "bullying someone till they resign" or "holding those in power to account" is probably over-influenced by which side one takes over the WMF-ban thing. Really, I think most people would consider relations here to be fractious at present and thus name-calling/insults/hot-headed comments are to be expected, though not encouraged/condoned. Reacting in a thermonuclear manner like above doesn't help.

But the second part is more serious. Commons has really no mechanism for dealing with inter-user behaviour problems short of preventative blocks. Commons policy/guidelines would be rated "start class" if they were a set of Wikipedia articles. Good luck Abd in finding a "neutral admin". There's no team that offers a mediation service, dispute resolution, no arbcom. Unlike Wikipedia, which absolutely requires collaborative editing, it is possible to function on Commons (sub-optimally, but function nevertheless) largely in isolation and thus fail to develop any sense of teamwork or the need to mend/repair relations in order to continue one's job. Uploading files requires no human interaction. We have admins who are promoted (and request adminship) simply on the basis that they've uploaded lots of files and claim to know one or two things about copyright/licences. We don't seem to have admins who know much about dealing with human beings. -- Colin (talk) 07:48, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

• A couple of facts to put some later opinions in context.

Dschwen has been sniping at me for at least 10 months, I doubt he would deny this fact or his tendency to deliberate sarcasm. Were he to proceed with a case against me at AN/U to demonstrate that I am the "bully" he has alleged, then I would invest the time in putting this timeline together to demonstrate he has a long term behavioural problem, making this a hostile environment by persistent sniping rather than confronting me with a case (in the same way as I have raised a direct complaint here, rather than just sniping elsewhere). I would expect any 'crat to have the emotional maturity to be the one showing leadership to rise above the temptation to behave this way. Indeed Dschwen's main argument to get rid of Russavia as a 'crat was along precisely these lines.

Abd above has presented a thesis that gradual escalation is needed. I have done this by clearly confronting Dschwen about his inappropriate behaviour on several past occasions, yet his behaviour has not changed. By raising the issue on his talk page and now here (as he has failed to present evidence for his allegation), this is following what is most likely best practice for Commons as far as I am aware. I doubt there is sufficient for a de-sysop vote, nor for an AN/U request against Dschwen, and I am uninterested in spending time going down these paths, but keep in mind that it is Dschwen that is making allegations and should bear the responsibility for providing evidence for his allegations. My objective by complaining here is to ensure Dschwen starts behaving like everyone would expect a Bureaucrat to, stop defaming me or propagating myths that I am a bully or a meatpuppet of Russavia.

Being required to present evidence for allegations is a norm for our projects, often summarized as "put up or shut up". --Fæ (talk) 13:30, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Fæ, the current "Requested move" on the Village Pump is chock full of allegations made by you about "clear misuse of rights", "not the first time that INeverCry has used their admin rights to act unilaterally and disrupt consensus building", "suppression of legitimate concerns", "closed clique of Super Friends", "a conservative minority", "user who was banned from Wikipedia for working with others to use Encyclopaedia Dramatica to make disgusting homophobic attacks and cyberbully Wikimedians", "malicious shit", "your banned cyberbullying pal", "his attack website", "maliciously disrupting our projects", "just for the lolz", "deservedly banned", "malicious cyberbullying of Wikimedians", "promoting racist and homophobic material", "likely to be illegal", "legally high risk pornographic material". Mostly presented with zero evidence. Is the "Village Pump" the place to make these serious allegations, or were you (like Dschwen) letting off some steam with bold language in the venue you found yourself writing? I don't think any of us (you, Dschwen, Jee, myself, etc) can claim to have behaved in a saintly manner at all times. But your attack on INeverCry at the village pump over a file rename that need not have concerned you and is no big deal, is pretty transparent, and provokes a reaction. How would any admin think: "I can't even rename a file without someone waiting to jump on me with some spurious allegation of misuse of tools". I don't think many volunteers would enjoy operating under such an environment. If you want to go around poking people, Fae, then you have to expect sometimes they or their friends will push back. That's why you aren't getting any sympathy. The language I quote above is far harsher than Dschwen. Perhaps some is justified. But if you act like that, don't expect your "Mummy! He said a bad word" complaints to get a sympathetic audience. -- Colin (talk) 15:04, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Colin, you do understand that I avoided you online for 18 months right? I have been attempting to avoid you again, but here you are pointedly getting me to respond.

You have conflated text that completely and absolutely clearly was nothing to do with INeverCry, that's really extremely unhelpful and misleads the reader. I have replied about INeverCry before, we have a positive history of working together, building a case that I am some sort of evil enemy of theirs is pointless and untrue.

I followed advice from WMF legal and other authorities, and avoided making any mention of certain persons online publicly anywhere for 3 years after their part in off-wiki harassment. Yet they were keeping up their sport attacking me off-wiki throughout that entire period. I don't want to get into justifying my letting off steam in a weak moment on the Village Pump, of course that was stupid and is far more likely to damage a case I might make in the future. I understand perfectly what cyberbullying is, and my experience of upsetting attempts at blackmail and death threats I would not wish on anyone. --Fæ (talk) 15:31, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Wrt your avoidance, it isn't my intention to make you break some self-imposed restriction. You can ignore me if you like. But we've just had a valued admin resign and part of that is the community failing to speak out and defend each other. You can therefore easily avoid my comment by refraining from this sort of drama fuelling and poking admins on the village pump. There are plenty things you do on Commons that I appreciate and admire. Stick to what you do best. But I need to say: your comments here on religion have no place on Commons. Do I really need to remind you that tolerance requires respecting beliefs of other people you don't understand or disagree with, and not dismissing an entire group of people on the basis of their religion, sexuality, race, culture, etc. -- Colin (talk) 18:16, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Sorry no sympathy on the bad behavior and the threats - we've all had them. The way to reduce drama and hassle is to stop hassling and being excessively dramatic over every perceived slight or wrong. The Old Testament thing of "an eye for an eye" - in the following millennia some of us have learned that "eye for eye" only leaves everyone blind.(source Martin Luther King, Jr. [5]). Try replying in less than six (6) sentences instead of writing books of negative replies. If you have so much time on your hands, how about being polite and productive with that time instead of cranky and counterproductive? Ellin Beltz (talk) 16:34, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, I hope Dschwen can take your advice on board. I agree that we should avoid quoting the bible.

With regard to your comment about being productive, I don't know how you would assess quality, but you might be interested to compare Dschwen's 3 files uploaded to Commons this year against my 78,000, of which 3,800 were since this thread started. --Fæ (talk) 17:17, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Fae, do read meatball:DefendEachOther if you haven't. You are sticking your foot more and more deeply in your mouth. Above, with no necessity at all, as to what was under discussion here, you dismissed the Bible and what it represents, the common heritage of a large chunk of humanity, and then presented your contributions as if they made you an Owner of Commons. The work is appreciated. The Ownership is not. If your behavior drives away other users, there is a hidden cost that won't show in your contributions, and that cost may be greater in ultimate impact than your impressive corpus of 2.2 million edits.

DefendEachOther means the opposite of DefendYourself, and highly recommends allowing others to defend you, instead of jumping in and mixing it up when someone "insults" you. This is routine: to "defend" we must perceive "attack." So we counterattack, believing this to be justified. However, if we see ourselves as under attack, what is normal is to lose perspective, we react, and this can carry us far outside of sanity. Hence the advice to do what is counterintuitive for most of us: stop defending when there is no real attack, but only a few words on a wiki. Not real, as to how our defensive responses evolved. It's all, here, impression and interpretation and allegation and fluff. Yet we waste real time with such.

Consider the common response of a blocked user, have you studied this? Very common and totally dysfunctional response: Blame the blocking administrator. It only works if you have friends who will then wheel-war. There are simple, non-blaming responses that are far more likely to work in general, and that don't make enemies, or make enmity worse.

The situation becomes dire when factions align around a shared interpretation and begin wide reaction. Commons was ripe for massive disruption, because deep rifts had been forming and nobody was truly addressing them, instead, we would just attempt to sweep each incident under the carpet, which gets lumpy, and people start to trip over it.

This is a wiki. That requires community. No community, the wiki becomes unreliable and unmanageable. The WMF was formed to empower the community. [6] Nonprofit corporations, however, routinely extend their remit, increase themselves in power, it's normal. If you have a tool, you use it. Is the Commons community "empowered"? If not, why not? That is the goal of the WMF, right? Or is it? Is it our goal? Losing sight of the goals, we stop trusting each other and start fighting. Every problem I've seen has possible solutions, but they will not happen by themselves. It will take effort, and probably patience and courage.

Recommendation: I still recommend that all admins start warning for incivility, when they see it. Such warnings should not attack the possibly uncivil user. They should not threaten. They should simply insist upon civility, and where warnings are ignored, action should be taken, and this is standard: blocks. Incivility blocks should slowly escalate, if they escalate at all.

Commons also needs decent and enforced recusal policy. I see what would suggest recusal on en.wiki and elsewhere, routinely ignored here. A warning from an admin who is seen as involved is less effective, usually, than a warning from one seen as uninvolved. Blocks by a possibly involved admin should never be intended as defacto bans, and should always be brought to the community's attention, promptly.

It can happen that an uncivil user is widely known and, from past activity, no admin is truly uninvolved. However, one of the corollaries of DefendEachOther is PoliceYourOwn. That is, the most effective warning, by far, is from someone seen as a friend or ally. Nevertheless, this is a wiki. There is a right of action, even when involved. If nobody else will warn a user, then someone involved may do it. It is just a warning! If it's wrong, the community can fix this, and that is also true for short blocks.

All this would be covered by recusal and civility guidelines. This should not be difficult. --Abd (talk) 15:45, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

That's hardly a fair argument and you know it. Why not staying below the radar if people bother you so much? Works great and if you decide to fight battles in they open you most be willing to deal with the consequences. (there are limits of course but you get my point) If you can't stand the heat... Natuur12 (talk) 17:24, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Commons:Administrators/Requests/Wdwd

Hi, can a crat please close this? If the end ime I mentioned is correct Wdwd is now elected as an administrator. Natuur12 (talk) 11:02, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Has been done now by EugeneZelenko. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 19:45, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Need help

Something very odd is going on at here and here which are related to this. As Commons has no dispute resolution board, hope you can manage it. Jee 02:19, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

If we really have lost Magog the Ogre, that is really unfortunate. I can think of few other users who have done more good for the project, I have used his tools too often to count. Kelly (talk) 03:22, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Although the actual problem has partly settled after initative of User:AFBorchert (Thank you!!) we again see the bureaucrats' presence is far from what could be considered acceptable. Does anybody agree that we need should try to add some crats that are generally more active and more involved in daily issues, and remove those who are not doing crat actions at all? --Krd 07:18, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

If you want to nominate a good candidate, I don't think anyone would argue that there is no work for them to do! --99of9 (talk) 07:21, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

PS I'm closing the reconfirmation now btw. --99of9 (talk) 07:30, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

+1 to Krd. What happened now is only a "quick and dirty fix" as we lost one hard working admin forever and another for two months. We need a better solution so that active crats or a new Arbcom can handle such issues without that much disruption and edit war. (And if crats are only supposed to archive discussions, there is no need of more active crats.) Jee 07:55, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

+1 to what Krd said. As suggested below by Yann, it is time for a sustained campaign of admin recruitment together but I think we also need some more bureaucrats, checkusers and oversighters. A project of this size needs more than a handful of each, preferably double digits, and preferably people that are going to be active at a wider range of times. Green Giant (talk) 10:55, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

+1. We have a very good candidate for bureaucrat if he will agree to accept the nomination...-- Geagea (talk) 10:59, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

+2. Agree with the people above, especially Geagea. :D Jianhui67 ^{talk★contribs} 11:02, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

+3 to Geagea's suggestion. Green Giant (talk) 11:03, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

AFBorchert has only 3.016 admin actions (trusted here on commons and dewik admin), but i prefer someone with moor admin actions (my personal view) :-) --Steinsplitter (talk) 14:07, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Apart from that, this crat Special:Log/Kanonkas is making every 6 months his ~5 sysop actions for non loosing flags since 2011... --Steinsplitter (talk) 14:23, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Steinsplitter There are more users that qualify as crat. You are certainly among them. AFBorchert acts actually as a bureaucrat without being bureaucrat. Not only in this case. I do not agree that the amount of admin actions is the most important issue (according to your list the most qualify person is Fastily...).-- Geagea (talk) 01:13, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

I can see a lot of good candidates while checking last years activities; Steinsplitter, JuTa, Taivo, Ellin Beltz... to name a few. I avoided people involved some recent issues and people alredy have some extra rights. As crats need to disclose their identity to WMF, I don't know how many of are willing. It will me nice we have 2-3 new crats as we have a few sleepy crats. Two crats recently resigned. Jee 03:25, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

No, crats do not need to disclose their identity to the WMF. I personally prefer to support candidates who are open about their identity, but it is not a requirement anywhere. --99of9 (talk) 03:54, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting me. Jee 04:19, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, I would also welcome good 'crat candidates. However, I would caution that this is unlikely to prevent issues similar to the recent blow up. It is worth remembering that the entire thing can be traced back to a disagreement over whether "symbols" should be a subcategory or sibling category of "culture". A valid, reasonable, and good faith disagreement. At every stage users (including admins etc) magnified, wikilawyered and/or personalized the issues. Anyone who did this should accept some degree of responsibility. Some were intending to take the heat out, but by unilaterally (sometimes as a perceived involved party) restoring/reverting/unblocking/reversing other decisions, they opened new avenues for conflict. IMO the solution is not new levels of authority ("arbcom"), more heavy handedness from those with existing user rights ("deal with the trolls" / "more active crats"). It's an individual and cultural issue of respect, tolerance, helpfulness, humility, maturity, calmness, carefulness... None of these things can be bossed into us by authorities or policy. They must be nurtured and modelled by all. In the difficult cases where rights (editing/rollback/admin/crat) of long term editors should be removed, "decisiveness" is not a positive - we need to thoroughly follow policy and wait for consensus, and if we are the person losing rights we need the humility to respect others wishes and step back. --99of9 (talk) 04:44, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Having said all that, I think the general workload pressure on deleting admins is so high that it was a contributing factor, so recruiting more admins would probably help, although only indirectly. --99of9 (talk) 04:46, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Well said 99of9, I think you hit the nail on the head (if I can use such a violence-laden idiom!). Arbcoms are useful on Wikipedias where article content can be immensely contentious. Disputes on Commons are of a different nature e.g. authorship, source, licensing of images, partially because we don't like to decide which files should be used elsewhere. We need a Commons-specific method of advice, mediation and conflict resolution, i.e. less formal than an arbcom, which some users perceive as being a tribunal rather than a mediator. There is a small ray of sunshine which could have avoided a lot of the tension of the last few days. It is important that all users try their best to calmly discuss all disputes between themselves and request neutral third-party mediation where necessary. Personally I think this would be best done by burocrats, which is why we need active crats but equally I think we have far fewer crats than we actually need. English Wikipedia is a project of similar complexity to Commons, yet they have 30+ crats, 40+ checkusers, 50+oversighters, although obviously some will have multiple permissions and doubtless there will be inactive users amongst them. In comparison Commons has a total of 18 users with these permissions, which is why I think we need at least 15-20 people in each group. Green Giant (talk) 09:35, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

I contacted some of the here mentioned users, and it seems we have some good candidates. I'm going to prepare nominations around next Tuesday. --Krd 20:35, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Jee 01:24, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

What are Bureaucrats for? A call to arms.

Commons:Bureaucrats explains that 'crats on Commons have two roles, one technical (changing user rights and approving bots) and the other community-based ('leading and guiding'). Of these the latter is - or should be - by far the most important, and is the distinguishing feature of what Bureaucrats do on Commons. (Bureaucrats on most Wikipedias have roles which are focussed almost entirely on the narrow technical aspects).

The 'leading and guiding' or 'community' role was historically by far the most important part of the Bureaucrats' purpose on Commons, but over the last couple of years 'crats have not been hugely successful in fulfilling the role. A large part of the reason for 'crats backing away, to be frank, has been that until quite recently it has been impossible for the 'crats to act as a cohesive group or to 'lead and guide' in any practical way without massive on-wiki arguments and drama.

As the group of 'crats has gradually become less engaged, it has become more difficult for the few active members to do much in the way of effective nudging of the community away from anger, drama and arguments and towards working more productively on our common Open Content aims. Jee has asked for help in calming things down several times in the last few months, most recently above. There has also been concern on the OTRS list that OTRS agents are being put off volunteering their services as they feel subject to unreasonable levels of public attack on Commons whenever they make a mistake. We are losing good people.

Unfortunately, not enough 'crats are currently active enough to want to think about such things. There has been some small amount of discussion on the 'crats mailing list, but without any definite conclusions. Juliancolton and Jusjih who have been inactive for some time have recently stepped down and there is a real need now for new active members.

It sometimes seems that the trolls have irrevocably taken over, and many people seem to think that is the case, but my experience has been that Commons actually has a lot of good editors and contributors who are truly anguished but who are too fearful to speak out without support. I would like to see the 'crats once again become an engaged group that makes a real difference to community dynamics by bringing the crucial 'leading and guiding' role back to the centre of what it is that 'crats do. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 08:29, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Being in a leading roll is hard, especially when it comes to leading a community so diverse as the Commons Community. Cultural differences, language problems, long standing debates that find their origin elsewhere etc. In order to show true leadership (and I believe Michael has showed that more than once) you need to know precisely what is going on and that takes a lot of time. Perhaps we should make crats less of a leadership role and start thinking about an Arbcom-light so that it is not one person that takes the heat in times of turmoil but an institute. In my experience that kinda helps when there are several parties fighting over the same bone.

Is electing more crats going to solve the problem? I rather doubt it, it seems more like postponing the inevitable. People come and go, people tend to become crats after they earned their stripes and sometimes when their end date as community member is very much in sight. This doesn't mean that I don't welcome more crats of course. I doubt that this is the perfect recipe for creating a group of people who are in a leadership position.

Yes, we are losing good people and there are many reasons. One is simply that people are being attacked and harassed in ways that should never be tolerated. And what do we? Well, we kinda protect the perpetrator and not the victim. Secondly we allow people to split hairs when it comes to the work done by our OTRS-agents so we can be quite sure that they will leave the Commons tickets alone. And yes, trolls seem to be taking over. Is it irrevocable? No. Should we block for repeated trolling? Definitely. Should we start blocking for repeatedly attacking OTRS-agents, admins and users? Most definitely. There is just no excuse for showing the kind of behaviour that makes people quit their hobby like doing OTRS-work. That kind of behaviour, excessive attacks (not to be confused with reasonable criticism) doesn’t belong at Wikimedia projects, it is against the spirit of the projects. We all make mistakes and that is what makes Wikimedia projects so beautiful. We may make them as long as we deal with them correctly when they are brought to our attention.

Crats could play a vital role by coordinating the creation of a "be civil policy" and they could step in when an admin takes a lot of heat when he/she is trying to deal with the more messy situations like the once we often see at thee "user problems" noticeboard. Perhaps we can persuade more admins to deal with the complicated cases this way, knowingly that someone will step in who tries to lower the hostile atmosphere when the attempt goes the wrong way. Natuur12 (talk) 11:48, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree that we need to have a more proactive approach to blocking users who act in ill-will and attack other users. Having had comments from a private wiki posted onto this site by another user in the past in order to advance their agenda, I understand why users are leaving this site. Granted, many users have reached the end of the amount of time which they can put into the project through new things in the real world or just getting bored with working here, but there is also no excuse for the users who personally attack other users and drive them away through repeated trolling. I would be supportive of a kind of Arbcom lite, or another venue where we could have discussions heard, because it appears as though the mechanisms that we have in place right now do not seem to be working. It does not need to be as in-depth as the group on the English Wikipedia, but it has become clear that unless we start blocking users who are causing great stress for people who have been here for years in good faith, we're going to continue driving people away. Remember, just because a user contributes thousands of images to the project does not mean that they can be given a free pass if they're continuing to harass and troll other editors, both on-site and on other venues on the internet. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 12:02, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

@Kevin Rutherford: It appears to be clear from this comment of yours that you have learnt nothing from your actions over the Russavia-OTRS case and their consequences. But you are right: I made public your misguided comments made about Commons in a closed environment to advance my agenda: to enable the Commons community to make its own decisions and decide about the direction that Commons is taking on their own. If you experience great stress about this, feel free to head for the door. odder (talk) 14:01, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Or as other editors have often seen your actions, you, Odder, took confidential information from OTRS and re-published it. This is just one of several recent actions that raise serious questions as to which side of that door you belong on. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:26, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

It is apparent that while your knowledge of the details of this situation is non-existent, you are quite happy to use it to pursue your continued campaign of harassment towards me. However, it has proven to be inefficient, reflects very poorly on you, and is actually pretty boring, so for your own sake, just drop it and jog on, pal. odder (talk) 16:48, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

OK guys, this is an area where we are trying to work towards solutions not continue with old arguments. Let's say no more on that. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:40, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm glad to see there are five and possibly more candidates because this widens the experience pool of the crats and improves the capability to provide the "leadership" and "guidance" we expect. Hopefully there will also be more admin candidates soon. As far as ArbComs are concerns, I would support it but in tandem with a mediation committee as part of an adapted dispute resolution system i.e. Arbcom as a last resort. Green Giant (talk) 12:40, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

What is needed is a recognition that drama is fuelled when the community is polarised, especially where those trusted with access and tools entrench their views on closed lists and closed wikis. Commons affairs should not be predetermined on closed wikis such as the OTRS wiki. Similarly decisions over the past 18 months to kick out highly productive Commonists from OTRS was done for reasons which have been kept pointlessly secret and has damaged the value or trust that an OTRS service can offer Commons.

If we are to consider improving processes that maintain Commons as a mellow environment for all contributors, then the improvement must move towards better governance. This means increasing transparency, increasing community buy-in for policy improvement and increasing the accountability for those in trusted roles who should not fear an expectation to explain their actions in public. This is the foundation of an open project.

Alienating those that have an opinion and seek to improve this project by pushing for change as "trolls" is unhelpful and divisive. It is possible to drive all dissenters off this project, not just by office bans, however what remains would be a boys club which fails to be a project that delivers on our shared mission, and fails to be a project that could ethically pride itself for being "open". --Fæ (talk) 12:46, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Michael for this post, stating willingness to take the challenge. Hope the new crats will empower the existing team. (Setting up an Arbcom (as Natuur12 suggested) may give you more power; but it needs a lot of homework and efforts. We can think about it later, if necessary?) Jee 14:31, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Let's get some new 'crats on board first, then see where they and the community want to go from there. Some sort of panel or Arbcom (through not like the one on the English Wikipedia) might possibly help, or maybe just some improvements in our working practices, guidelines and policies. But any proposal for change would need careful thought before anyone launches into an RFC. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:54, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't think we are preventing the inevitable. Yes, good people leave, but in my years on commons I have seen plenty of good people come as well! I don't really like the fatalistic doomsday thinking here. It is easy to fall into this out of frustration, but I'm pretty convinced that we have enough of an influx of motivated people that we'll be in good shape for the time being. I think it is a bit of a circle of life. We cannot really expect people to stick around forever. Sometimes the circumstances change, off-line life or jobs take over a larger portion of their lives, some people lose interest (and shift their interest to other causes), and yes, often times interpersonal friction can be the trigger or last straw that causes a departure to happen. We have to manage expectations here. We should be grateful for the time our contributors invest in commons. We should focus on the new talent and (wo)man power we get, and we should lament less about people departing. I really appreciate the nomination surge and hope that the new candidate will bring new life to the crats. It is rather surprising that we haven't had a new crat elected in quite a while! --Dschwen (talk) 01:05, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps my scenario is a bit pessimistic but not unrealistic. As long as we allow people to bully away volunteers and not change the projects course drastically the bubble will splat. Yes, we should be grateful for the time people invest in the project. Yes we should focus on attracting new editors but we should also do something about the toxic atmosphere. The silly war games that are being played for example have to stop. Is this something the crats could/should be helping with? I honestly don't know. Natuur12 (talk) 11:17, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Requesting GWToolset user right

Hi, I'm working with Chandres on the Neuchatel Herbarium Project, and have been doing some testing on Commons Beta with Chandres account. We are almost ready to upload some 30k files. Could I get user right here for GWToolset here? Thanks, --Olivierk14 (talk) 13:48, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

I just want to confirm what Olivier is writing :-) --Chandres (talk) 18:24, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

With the right granted to the WMCH account (see section below), we do not need anymore that Olivierk14 get the GWToolset rights, thanks a lot --Chandres (talk) 11:55, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

GWToolset user request

In line with the previous section, I am requesting the GWToolset user rights for this account used to do mass upload for Digitization project of Wikimedia CH, so far user:Chandres is the only user of this account, new user with access to this account will be always listed on its "user" page. Thanks --Neuchâtel Herbarium (talk) 09:07, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

This is now  Done; do you still require GWToolset access for @Olivierk14 now that it's been granted to the main account? Let us know :-) odder (talk) 09:57, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! --Chandres (talk) 11:55, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Commons:GlobalReplace

I have few concerns with this tool.
I'm raising this thread in COM:BN as I believe that this tool received approval by a bureaucrat (at least in Commons).

First, according to this link Fastily was closing DR's with this tool (and please correct me if I am wrong). The fact, that this part was hidden in the bot's script, alone disqualifies the tool (The false closers of DR's will be issue that we probably will deal with).

The second problem is the fact that that toll have no records of replacements. the only page we have is Commons:GlobalReplace/Sign-in (this page not including sings in of Fastily himself and we don't know who else). For example: Stemoc in 14:07, 28 May 2015. From this page (search for "GlobalReplace v0.3" in the same page) I can tell that he made 67 replacements. But we have no records for this replacements in Commons. Everybody can replace every page with every page. No Admin check them. No supervision.

As a matter of a fact GlobalReplace and CommonsDelinker doing the same task but CommonsDelinker is protected only for admins and every replacement listed and we have clear rules.

The only conclusion from all the above is that this tool have to be locked. Every replacement should made only through CommonsDelinker. -- Geagea (talk) 23:09, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

"Every replacement should made only through CommonsDelinker", last i checked, CommonsDelinker DOES NOT replace images (unless its a renamed image), which is the problem, for the last 2 years I have been trying to get people who run the CD bots to make the bots "replace" the image they are removing with one which was previously there (if any), all it does is "remove" the copyright infringement image and thats it. Its quite irritating for someone like me who has added over 2000 images on enwiki and since i cannot check all pages, all the time, I won't know when a "free" image i had added was replaced by some vandal who added a copyvio one which gets deleted on commons and along comes this bot and removes the now deleted image only for the article to remain without an image just because the bot is "incapable" of restoring the previous free image...and also, this tool is nothing like CCLeaner.java. I like the fact that its an external tool thus not leaching RAM on my browser and working independently. If it has a poor logging system, lets fix that, lets not try to get rid of a good tool because someone has a problem with the creator and not the tool itself, I think the logging issue could be fixed. Its sad that i was only made aware of this tool which could have come in handy to me months ago only after fastily retired..I'll ping Steinsplitter for his input as he was the one who restored this very useful tool..not every tool needs to be "admin-only" ..--Stemoc 01:32, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

If you are replacing same files from PNG to SVG. that might be o.k but replacement of one file with another from unknown reason without any record in commons is bad. If you replace file as a user it is your responsibility but if you do it by using commons tool it is commons responsibility and commons should supervising it. We must have record to the replacement and the reason to the replacement. There is also the question if it is appropriate that commons replace files just because they are better. It interfere the independent of the other projects. We should know the reason and agree to them. -- Geagea (talk) 02:27, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

GlobalReplace has the potential to be a great tool however in it's current shape it is not. I used this tool in the past a couple of times to replace a highly used file before hitting the delete button. Without a log and without and a option to select the namespaces in which you want to replace the file the tool is a risk. A risk for it's users because not every project is keen of people using automated tools, especially when there are replacements in other namespaces than the main namespace and secondly we have no way to track abuse. I have seen people using this tool to push their own version of a file for example. Subsequently, there is no "trusted users only" option so your every day vandal can do a lot of damage this way. While I agree with Stemoc that not every tool has to be admin only I do believe that only authorised people should be allowed to use tools as powerful as this one. I read that Perhelion has an alternative script somewhere if I'm not mistaking? Perhaps he has a more safe alternative. Unless the safety risk is mitigated we should simply not offer this tool. And yes, that's a pity because the tool is useful. Natuur12 (talk) 10:33, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

AWB is admin+authorized_users only too for same reason (possible abuse). I think this should be same. — regards, Revi 14:41, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Is there somebody who would be willing to work on the code to introduce the logs and various checks that are missing? --MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:56, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

To make this job easier, please file issues and feature requests (one for each!) at https://github.com/Rillke/GlobalReplace/issues -- thanks in advance. I am going to categorize and prioritize them and are willing to code-review and merge changes. Of course anybody is free to fork or ask me to be added as collaborator to the repo. -- Rillke^(q?) 21:36, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

@Replacement, Natuur12: I'm using importScript('User:Sreejithk2000/JustReplace.js'); But it's also not perfect (but good!) as you can see on the talk page. ↔ User: Perhelion (Commons: = crap?)  12:44, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip! Natuur12 (talk) 15:39, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Perhelion thanks for JustReplace.js. It is working with CommonsDelinker. the tool adding replace request at CommonsDelinker list and the replacment done by CommonsDelinker. It also have option of not to use CommonsDelinker but it dos'nt work for me.
More I think about it, I get more the impression that GlobalReplace is not needed tool. I checked Commons:Bots/Requests for the request but couldn't find it as it is a script and not a bot. I believe that this tool have to be down in Commons. CommonsDelinker (also JustReplace.js) can do any replacment (not only for renamed image, I have checked it). If somebody use this script it should be on his own responsibility. Not as Commons tool. As we no records to the replacements and have no control on it. -- Geagea (talk) 09:01, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Extended discussion period for the latest bureaucrat nominations

I'm pleased to see many candidates nominated to be bureaucrats last week, but I'm concerned that that would give us only one day per candidate for scrutiny and discussion. Would discretionary extension be considered for some or all nominations? Another week or so to ensure enough scrutiny and discussion wouldn't hurt, in my opinion. whym (talk) 14:26, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Not bad; but I failed to see much activity on that pages nowadays. It may be good to add notification on other language VPs too (if not done already) if the voting period is extended. Jee 14:53, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

+1 --Steinsplitter (talk) 14:57, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Either MichaelMaggs didn't notice this discussion or he decided to ignore it. All candidacies are now closed. -- Rillke^(q?) 19:33, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't see this thread. In any event I think it's right that we stuck this time to the standard precedent of 7 days. As we currently have no voting rules written down for bureaucrats, in contrast to admins, I'm planning to open a discussion shortly with a view to settling the rules for the future. If we get general approval, it would make sense to increase the standard crat voting period to 14 days. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 19:44, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

 Support for discussion and 14 days. Would you create a notice when you have the discussion up? --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 03:52, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

 Support for future cases. Jee 04:20, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

 Support per Hedwig and Jee. Green Giant (talk) 11:23, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Commons:Bots/Requests/ArchiverBot

Hi, Please speedy approve. Huge backlog. --Steinsplitter (talk) 11:42, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

 Done by MichaelMaggs. --Krd 17:38, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Request GWToolset user rights

Hiya. I'm a Digital Curator at the British Library and would like to request GWToolset user rights so that I can begin bulk upload of a lot of our public domain collections. In the first instance I'll be starting with Prints from the Sino-Japanese War in the British Library from our Asian and African Collections. I've done a test run in the commons beta site. There are some copies of similar images from other users already on Wikimedia Commons but this batch represents a higher quality, uncropped, complete set of the materials with more metadata. Best, Ndalyrose (talk) 13:41, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

  Looks OK. --Steinsplitter (talk) 14:50, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, also after I publish I'm going to do a screencast of how I used OpenRefine to create my XML file for the batch uploader. It's for a blog post about the upload but also obviously happy to share here if it's useful to others. Ndalyrose (talk) 15:33, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

 Done --Krd 17:51, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks a million! Ndalyrose (talk) 19:28, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Glam Wiki Toolset USER RIGHTS

Hello. I am the Wikipedian in residence at the National Library of Wales. We have been testing the toolset via Commons Beta and are nearly ready to upload live to Commons. Therefore could I please have user rights for the toolset on Commons? Thanks! Jason.nlw (talk) 09:05, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

 Support test uploads on beta looking fine. --Steinsplitter (talk) 10:38, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

 Done --Krd 10:58, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Writing down some rules for bureaucrat elections

We have gone for many years without actually writing down any voting rules for bureaucrat elections, and something is long overdue. It only needs to be simple, and could be based on the RFA voting rules: Admin elections run for 7 days and success needs at least 75% in favour, with a minimum of 8 support votes. Bureaucrat elections should be open for a longer period and should have a higher bar, particularly as crats are expected to "guide and lead" which requires a high level of community trust. I suggest the following:

• Elections to run for 14 days. Success requires at least 80% in favour, with a minimum of 20 support votes.

All the recently appointed crats would pass that test.

To ensure full community agreement, we should put a proposal up on COM:VP/P, but I'm making a quiet suggestion here first just to check that there would be general crat agreement to something along those lines. Comments from anyone who reads this page are of course more than welcome. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 19:00, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Support. Is there any reason to apply this to crat elections only, or should it probably apply to all higher roles, i.e. CU and OS, too? --Krd 19:25, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

CU and OS already have higher requirements of min 25 support vote and 80% approval, with requests staying open for two weeks. Should the 'crat standards for appointment just be brought in line with that? ColonialGrid (talk) 19:51, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

 Support 14 days, minimum 25 support !votes, 80% support, rest based on RfA. Green Giant (talk) 20:41, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

 Comment This looks OK. Could you please create a RFC for that? Yann (talk) 20:46, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds good to me. Will publicise shortly. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 21:07, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

 Oppose.14 days, 80% support and 20 votes are overkill IMHO. Is there any specific problem the current system presents so a change of rules is needed? I do not think so. Making bureaucrat more difficult to get ain't going to give more respect to the user holding the flag, nor will give the user the ability to guide and lead. -- M\A 20:49, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

I would say 14 days and, minimum 80% support and 15 support votes. Jianhui67 ^{talk★contribs} 01:25, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

• Why not keep requests open until 20 support and/or 5 oppose votes have been cast (with a minimum of 14 days and the suggested 80% support threshold)?    FDMS  4    02:02, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

That would be wide open to gaming unfortunately. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 07:15, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

@MichaelMaggs: Why do you think so?    FDMS  4    19:45, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Because if the voting looks close it would be easy for an editor to bring 5 friends along to rapidly tip the balance and force an immediate closure. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:12, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

@MichaelMaggs: No, not immediately, only after 14 days and if there are fewer than 20 support votes. (Unless I'm missing something) the only difference between your suggestion and mine is that <20/<20%/0 wouldn't have to result in not promoted.    FDMS  4    21:47, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

That means that 'crat elections could possibly remain open in perpetuity, waiting for more than 20 to approve or more than 20% to disapprove; is that really what you want? And, what advantage would that have over having a a voting time, with results tallied after the period of voting and discussion elapses? ColonialGrid (talk) 13:37, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

• Looks reasonable for me. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 13:59, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
•  Support Agree 14 days and 80%, 20 minimum votes; that's about 1.5 Support votes per day. Ellin Beltz (talk) 18:54, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
•  Support I am not a 'crat, but I had the exact same threshold in mind. -- Slaunger (talk) 19:09, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
•  Comment. I think that that the only change needed is a small addition to our rules for the cases when we have mass nominations for bureaucrat, admin or CU. In those cases the we have to extend the nomination period. Let's say 3 or more than 3 candidates extend to 10 days and 5 or more than 5 candidates the nomination will run for 14 days. Maybe it is also a good idea to limit the amount of candidates per same periods. Regarding to the other changes I do not have opinion.-- Geagea (talk) 21:12, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Requirements for new GlamWikiToolset users/uploaders?

Dear all,

With the success of GLAM-wiki projects - these months i work with Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden as a Wikipedian in residence - now the question crops up whether museum (etc.) personnel can be allowed to do mass uploads from their GLAM to Wikimedia Commons, while not being fervent Wikipedians of long standing?

• What do you think or require?

Thanks, kind regards, Hansmuller (talk) 09:03, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

This already happens. GLAM specialists have run projects in the past. If anyone can show they know the basics by experimenting on the Beta servers, then that is probably a sufficient test. For someone who has not engaged with the Community for previous batch uploads, they need informal advice and support on good categorization, best practice for licensing information, and how to best use information or artwork templates. However... if their project is large (say, more than 10,000 or 100,000 images) then it is probably asking for trouble if they are not running the upload with a project page on Commons outlining their approach, and without some serious community review and engagement. Post-upload fixing of categorization problems or similar if the uploader is then busy with other work, would not be good for the future reputation of the batch-uploading community, the institution they work for, or other GWT users. --Fæ (talk) 10:17, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Commons:Administrators/Requests/Emha

Just wondering why this is still going after 9 days? This was at 76.1% support at the 1 week mark, and that's the tally which the closure should depend on. It's a borderline number, but that's what 'crat discretion is for. INeverCry 09:08, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

-sigh- Pingins some of the new carts @JuTa: @AFBorchert: --Steinsplitter (talk) 09:10, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I granted now the admin rights. My first crat action. I hope I didn't missed something or did sth. wrong. regards --JuTa 09:45, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I added to the lists, that you might have overlooked. Revent (talk) 10:11, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Next time I'll know. Thx Revent :) --JuTa 10:42, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Request permission for the GWToolset

I've been testing on the beta environment and think it's ready to give it a go on the production environment. Can I get rights for the GWToolset? I would like to start with the Public Domain images from the Dutch Rijkswaterstaat (app. 650 images) --Timmietovenaar (talk) 11:57, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Taking File:Spijkerglooiing_van_Quenastplaten.jpg as example, how do author-unknown, date-1909 and PD-old-100 fit together? --Krd 14:51, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

The photo's were part of a Dutch government organisation; Rijkswaterstaat. The images were shot commissioned by Rijkswaterstaat. They transferred the archive, including the images with their rights to the Nationaal Archief. See http://www.gahetna.nl/collectie/archief/ead/index/eadid/2.24.11 >> "Beschrijving van het archief" --Timmietovenaar (talk) 09:12, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Anyway PD-old-100 cannot be correct in this case, we cannot say about an unknown author that he died more that 100 year ago, can we? --Krd 09:25, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Ok. suggestion than to change this into CC0 the outcome is the same for re-use --Timmietovenaar (talk) 09:45, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

My understanding would be that CC0 would be less correct as the copyright holder artist is not releasing their rights by choosing CC0 even if the modern photographer may be. This is a slightly hypothetical/academic discussion, as in most cases we would leave PD-old-100 as a reasonable representation of the copyright status, it certainly would not be a rationale to delete a file; a slightly more technically accurate template to apply would be {{PD-anon-1923}} (on the presumption that this work was published before 1923) if you want to swap the license. --Fæ (talk) 10:29, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

That sounds like a good solution, filtering out the "photographer unknown" shouldn't cause such a problem --Timmietovenaar (talk) 11:13, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

We do have a real lot of PD license tags and other licenses and do care of the exact reason why each file is PD or otherwise free. Randomly choosing a license that does or does not fit but may or may not have the same outcome does not sound reasonable or acceptable to me. --Krd 10:51, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Krd, as you are a bureaucrat, perhaps you would like to demonstrate leadership by improving our workflow and template organization so that choosing a PD tag becomes a process that is an asset to batch uploaders, rather than a minefield? I am in the unusual position of having uploaded several hundred thousand public domain files to Commons, yet I cannot claim properly to understand which PD template is the "right" one for my own projects. This remains a fundamental flaw in the way we have set up this project. --Fæ (talk) 11:00, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Sadly there is some language barrier for me regarding the files' source website, but I already asked one or another native speaker to help. To be honest, I don't know the workflow regarding GWToolset, but I'd consider it as good approach to think about licensing before mass uploads instead of having to correct a lot later. If I'm mistaken, please advise. --Krd 11:29, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

{{Anonymous-EU}} should be a good match for the Dutch status, for the US status {{Pd-1923}} should be a match. Those files are from the Netherlands and they are either anonymous of pseudo-anonymous. Let's take this file for example. As you can read at Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Netherlands the definition of a anonymous work under Dutch law is quite broad. It is either a anonymous or a corporate work and this template can be used in both cased. The Dutch National Archive - who has a good track record of doing their homework properly - has investigated the file and concluded that they are in the public domain under Dutch law.

When you start being really academic you can argue there is no prove that those works have been published before until the National Archive put them on their website. This is really far stretched but it doesn't matter because the copyright expires 70 years after creation if a file isn't published within 70 years. The file I mentioned should have became PD in 1980. If they have been published they would have done so shortly after creation and given they are anonymous works their copyright expires 70 years after being published. But I do believe that those files are being published. The Dutch term for published would be "openbaarmaking" and according to the legal specialist Engelfriet a work is "published when the following applies: "In het algemeen wordt een werk openbaar gemaakt als het ter beschikking komt van het publiek. This denifition is quite broad and it varies per type of work. For a painting a openbaarmaking would be bringing it to a exposition for example. I read the document Inventaris van het fotoarchief Rijkswaterstaat, 1865-1910 (1918) and this documents states the following:

Doorgaans werden de foto's in een oplage van 25 of 40 afgedrukt. De foto's werden geleverd aan de ingenieurs van Waterstaat, die ze vervolgens verdeelden onder hun collega’s en onder andere belangstellenden en belanghebbenden (gemeentebesturen). Zo zijn er vele exemplaren in andere collecties - Koninklijk Huisarchief, Rijksmuseum, Rijksdienst voor de Monumentenzorg, diverse gemeente- en rijksarchieven - terecht gekomen. De Rijkswaterstaat-collectie van het Nationaal Archief is niet geheel compleet/ In de collecties elders zullen dus foto's aanwezig zijn die hier ontbreken.

In my opinion this proves that the files have been published before. So I reject any claim that we are dealing with unpublished works ;). Copies of the photographs of "waterstaatswerken" where also send to the "Polytechnische School" (Now know as the Delft University of Technology) and that also counts as being published in my opinion. This happened shortly after the creation of those works.

The odds (I know about PCP) that Rijkswaterstaat will try to enforce some copyright in the United States is zero given the fact that you are allowed to use files of the Dutch GOV according to article 15b of the Dutch "auteurswet" (this icludes making derivative works). Rijkswaterstaat is an agency of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment after all. We had a template for the once but that was brutally deleted by people who misunderstood the word "verveelvoudiging". Natuur12 (talk) 11:50, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Thx Natuur12. @Timmietovenaar: I assigned the GWToolset now. Can you do a few test uploads and report back here for a short review? Thank you. --Krd 12:00, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I've run a test upload with 4 10 images https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Timmietovenaar --Timmietovenaar (talk) 19:31, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanx Krd I will do that. And thanx Natuur12 for the comprehensive explanation --Timmietovenaar (talk) 12:59, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I see that some photographs have know photographers. Some are created by Oosterhuis, Pieter who died in 1885. The date is unknown but please add the date whe the photographer died to the file discription. Please avoid uploading file with unknown authors and dates like File:Balmoral, stoomraderboot.jpg and the licensing is wrong. I'll look into that tomorrow. Natuur12 (talk) 21:03, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

At File:Aansluiting duinglooiing met strandhoofd van gewapend beton.jpg the given source is a broken link. Can you please check this?

Additionally, I'm still uncomfortable with tagging images as PD-old-100 (i.e. the author died more than hundred years ago) when the image is created in the 20th century and the author is unknown, i.e. we don't know when he died. --Krd 15:39, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I fixed a anonyous file File:Duinglooiing van gewapend beton. Een gedeelte van de glooiing geheel afgewerkt.jpg and a file with know author: File:Schutsluis Willem I.jpg. Natuur12 (talk) 16:08, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanx for checking and the comment, Krd & Natuur12 I fixed the broken link, probably took a wrong handle in the xml is the {Anonymous-EU} a proper solution for the author unknown issue? In that case it isn't really difficult to change this in the xml file --Timmietovenaar (talk) 19:30, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes it is in my opinion. And for the US-copyright pd-1923 would be okay. You could also use the template Fae suggested but that one contains less info. Files with known authors should use pd-old-70 of course unless the author really died more than 100 years ago. Not all did. I checked a couple photographers. Natuur12 (talk) 19:36, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Question

Is this user authorized to run this bot? Lazlo 14:55, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

It follows from the discussion here that this "bot" was not doing anything you would consider real bot actions. Therefore, I did not ask for authorization. --Alexander (talk) 15:07, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I cannot follow the conclusion in that discussion. The edits made today obviously are bot style edits. And it they were not, why would a separate "...bot" user be required for doing them? --Krd 15:28, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

The operator stated the edits were done using a script, on Commons it's completely fine to use a specialised bot account for that sort of work so long as the recent changes log does not rapidly fill up (in which case it should have a bot flag) and where there is no intent to use the bot in any misleading way. I frequently use Faebot for edits that require my manual review on a terminal for each change, it's still a specialized script making mass changes and within the scope laid out on Faebot's user page.

Let's not presume any hard rules around this, there is scope on Commons for users to play around with bot accounts, and for users to do similar or exactly the same stuff using ad-hoc scripts or tools from their main non-bot account; so long as they are being helpful. --Fæ (talk) 15:41, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

The bot did 1000+ edits per hour at 4 June, without autopatrol. Does that classify as "recent changes log does not rapidly fill up"? --Krd 15:50, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

No, that's a problem for recent change patrollers. If the operator would like to use the account that way, then it's time to ask for a bot flag at Commons:Bots/Requests. If it's good stuff happening then being able to refer to the successful past changes is useful and might speed up the process, so no harm done. --Fæ (talk) 16:18, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Fæ. I am not planning any further activity of this kind. However, if I change my mind, I will follow your advice and apply for the bot permission. --Alexander (talk) 17:01, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Friction between WMF and Admins

It seems Russavia issue is still making some disturbance in Commons. See Commons:Village_pump#Request_by_Russavia, User_talk:Denniss#Undoing_actions_by_User:WMFOffice and m:User_talk:WMFOffice#Some_baklava_for_you.21. A WMF staff warned an admin and s/he and his/her fellow admin angrily responded to it, refusing to accept that action is a mistake.

The problem here is reverting a WMF Office action is not allowed if we have COM:AGF. The question is whether we believe WMF or not. Some people think that ban is purely political without any legal ground. But WMF says it is based on TOU violation. It seems ToU prohibits WMF from disclosing actual reasons.

So what is the solution? Does we need to know actual reason. I don't know whether they can reveal it to crats. Other option is to ask community elected BoTs to review that case. Now we have new three BoTs who are noway involved in initial ban.

Anyway it is not good to neglect this issue as it will affect our unity.

(I'm not neutral in this matter; so my opinion is irrelevant.) Jee 04:14, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

A solution would be a clear and unambiguous declaration by the only suitable entity for this kind of stuff, the stewards. The WMF may have the de facto rights to do this, but no legitimate, they are just bureaucrats with no real legitimation for such things. If the stewards, who are community elected and thus legitimated to do such stuff agree, it's fine, if it's just the bureaucrats in their ivory tower it's worth nothing at all. --Sänger (talk) 08:01, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

But we already saw a fight between some admins here with stewards earlier. I don't want to interfere much. But note that respect has two sides. If admins are not respecting higher authorities like stewards/staff, they have no right to expect respect from us. Jee 08:13, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Staff and stewards are not even remotely comparable in regard of such actions. Staff are just paid workers, that have no special rights in regard of community actions like bans or such. Stewards are elected by the communities and thus have this legitimacy. Staff has absolutely no authority in regard of community actions, full stop. --Sänger (talk) 08:30, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

As far as I know Stewards are technical people having not much community support. Staff are WMF appointed; but not acting unilaterally. They are consulting Legal, OC, Board etc before taking any actions. The people having most community trust and support are community elected BoTs. If community is interested, I can ask the help of Doc James. Jee 08:53, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Stewards are elected by the communities, staff are just hired hands, no community vetting process involved thus less legitimate for actions in community matters like bans, locks or such. Legal may have more say in pure legalistic matters, but anything else is no concern of the WMF but the communities. --Sänger (talk) 09:07, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes; a ToU violation is a serous legal concern; not something the community can ignore. Jee 09:17, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Not every small ToU] violation requests secretive action by less legitimate people like staff, usually everything should be handled by the real supreme, the communities. There are probably very little ToU violations that require action by staff, and even less, probably boarding on null, without proper community vetting process. Where is the course of action in the last few bans by the WMF in regard of getting it legitimated by the proper superior, the communities, may it be via stewards, or, even better, by an RfC or such? Without community involvement no action by the WMF is real legitimate by a mere dictatorial power usurpation. It's like the declaration of war against the deWP by Eric in regard of his pet-project MV and putsching via superprotect. They could do it, because they have the de facto power, but it was in no way whatsoever legitimate. --Sänger (talk) 09:29, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

I didn't see "the community" as mentioned as "supreme power" at wmf:Bylaws. I can accept your argument that Stewards are better to handle this case. But do you have any idea with this user's relation with active Stewards here? If they have power, they should have banned him years ago. Jee 09:43, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't have any idea about this special user, and it's absolutely irrelevant in regard of procedure. The WMF is just a service organisation for the communities, all it's power is derived from the communities, they are some kind of trustees of the communities and, as paid workers (contrary to the unpaid editors, who do all the content work, that's the base of everything here) should keep the servers up (not like just happened with the tool server), program tools and stuff wished for by the communities, organize meetings within the communities, give professional advice to the communities etc., in short: do what paid workers in a volunteer community are supposed to do, never ever start to reign. Every policy decision, and bans are a policy decision, are only valid with community vetting. How this vetting process should be for certain cases may be discussed, and I think in regard of privacy stewards involvement may be enough in certain cases. But just "office action", without community involvement, is pure and simple dictatorial and completely incompatible with the wikiverse. --Sänger (talk) 10:07, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Not sure what tiggered legals global ban of Russavia.[7] The picture issue was a couple of years ago so hard to beleive it is just related to that. And I do not officially start until July.James Heilman, MD (talk) 11:43, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

 Comment The current situation is really less than optimal. Even if some of Russavia's edits would be OK (which is not agreed by all), it creates tension within the community. It would be great if it could be solved through mediators (stewards, BoT, etc.), but 1. the parties (the WMF, Russavia, the community) should accept a mediation, 2. the mediators need to accept to mediate, 3. the parties should consent to the result of the mediation. All issues seem far to be solved. Regards, Yann (talk) 08:48, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

modus operandi for Russavia edit-requests needed

The latest friction between WMF and a fellow admin, highlights that we urgently need to find a modus operandi how to deal with the edit-requests by Russavia, which AFAIK concern only file-pages and consist in fine-tuning and corrections within the file's description section. As far as I've seen, the content of these edit-requests was legitimate and constituted an improvement, meaning we would likely perform it if any unknown IP had requested it. The process to-be-found needs to be workable (not producing unnecessary additional workload) and, eventually after discussing, be acceptable for the WMF. (In a not too different situation :de has developed such a process for dealing with edit-requests by User:Messina.) --Túrelio (talk) 08:21, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Did somebody ask WMF for their opinion/suggestion already? If not, why not to start that way to get an idea of possible solutions? --Krd 08:27, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

IMO, the first priority is that the process should be workable for us (or those who are willing to take care of), as all the edits would be performed here on Commons. --Túrelio (talk) 08:33, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

James already stated on Denniss' talk page that "Obviously I left the request he made intact so that it could be addressed by the commons community if they felt it legitimate...". So it seems there is no objections from WMF side to process such requests. An admin (Mattbuck I think) already commented earlier that Russavia can make request to him through IRC. So IMHO, these requests on Commons is just POINTY. May be his 99% contributions are very useful. But if he violated the ToU, he has no right to edit here, and it is admin's responsibility to make it sure. So what Denniss did is apparently wrong. Jee 08:48, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

You people realize, he's just trolling, right? It's passive-aggressive behavior. The sole purpose in making "non-controversial" edits like this is to continue to be the center of attention — it's not to actually try to help. Revert his edits, block his socks, ignore him. It's very simple. I don't know (and honestly don't care) what the straw that broke the camel's back was that led to him getting banned, but just ignore him and let everyone involved move on with life. --B (talk) 16:41, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

+1. There is never any reason for Russavia to edit here, nor for anyone to authorise some formal "modus operandi". I don't need any policy document to phone my mum at the weekend, nor does Russavia need any Commons ruling for figuring out how to email or IRC a friend or the WMF. Move along folks, this is just Russavia mooning the WMF. -- Colin (talk) 20:55, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Whenever Russavia uses a new sockpuppet, he evades a ban issued by the WMF for undisclosed reasons. However, Russavia was never blocked at Commons and thereby he is not evading a block issued by us. In consequence, there is no ground for admins to act against his sockpuppets as long as these sockpuppets are not violating our policies. As elaborated by Túrelio, the sockpuppets appear to be mostly curating old uploads. There is no reason to undo this. From my viewpoint the modus operandi would be as follows:

• As long as edits by Russavia's sockpuppets conform to policy, we will not block them or undo their edits.
• Sockpuppets or IPs blocked by WMFOffice are not unblocked per Commons:Office actions.

And finally we should not speculate about his personality. This project is about creating an archive of free educational media where Russavia uploaded more than half a million files and was an admin in good standing until he was out of sudden banned by the WMF. --AFBorchert (talk) 21:29, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

I can somewhat understand that some admins refuse to be the "enforcers" of WMF office action blocks. But I suggest that those admins just recuse themselves rather than wheel war with WMF. --Dschwen (talk) 22:26, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

"As long as edits by Russavia's sockpuppets conform to policy, we will not block them or undo their edits." <-- agree! --Steinsplitter (talk) 05:44, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

@AFBorchert: "was never blocked at Commons and thereby he is not evading a block issued by us". If the WMF checkuser results are identifying Russavia's accounts correctly, then Russavia has been blocked on Commons under other names (e.g. User:Alissa Edwards) for vandalism. If it was anything more than symbolic, we could discuss blocking the main account now, but it's pointless to argue about blocking a banned user. I see no problems according to our blocking policy if any admin judges that a sockpuppet should be blocked, no matter how neutral/good his contributions are. --99of9 (talk) 04:41, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I was not aware of the vandalism by User:Alissa Edwards. However, I would not be sure that this is one of Russavia's sockpuppets. Do we have public CU results that links this sockpuppet (or any other vandalism-only account) to Russavia? Whenever we would have such a case, I am open to discuss this. This would not be pointless as this could change our relationship to Russavia. --AFBorchert (talk) 05:20, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

@AFBorchert: I haven't monitored it closely - I only know of this one because I was a target. Since the account was already blocked I didn't take it further. It was then linked by the WMF to a "WMF Banned User", I presume based on their own checkuser, which I have no information about but no reason to doubt. As to which Banned User it was, I think it's reasonable to suppose that it was the active one, Russavia, but if you think it non-pointless we could ask the local checkusers - it is still within the 3 month window. --99of9 (talk) 06:05, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Do to the editpattern this is likely a sock of Category:Sockpuppets of Playtime is over (the troll who is pamming around russavias realname) --Steinsplitter (talk) 06:10, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Indeed that appears not unlikely and these accounts are usually locked by WMF as well. --AFBorchert (talk) 06:17, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Before I saw these replies, I filed Commons:Requests for checkuser/Case/Alissa Edwards, so I guess we shall see. I had not come across Category:Sockpuppets of Playtime is over - are they listed under a different name at m:WMF Global Ban Policy? It is confusing to identify them as "WMF Banned User" otherwise. --99of9 (talk) 06:30, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

+1. There were a repeated attack from that account and related socks on many accounts, including me. But it reveals the necessity to identify real socks which is beneficial to R. too. Jee 06:24, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

AFBorchert, Commons:Blocking policy on the "Evasion of blocks" doesn't distinguish which kind of blocks. Admins are permitted but not required (in as much as any volunteer is not required) to block russavia socks. Russavia is not permitted to participate on Commons. Full stop. This recent farce is clearly not something that required Russavia to post to the village pump about -- other forms of communication exist. The terms of his block by WMF do not permit the community to decide if his edits here are "ok with us". For the test you propose (edits conform to policy) is the same test that is applied to any of us here. Are our edits in line with policy or not? If I edit war, I will be blocked and may be reverted. If I harass another user I may be blocked and my text removed. If I bully users I may be blocked. But if I upload free educational images, edit descriptions, categorise images, discuss deletions, nominate pictures at QI, FP, vote for pictures at QI, FP, comment at the Village Pump, ... these are all things that "conform to policy" yet are now denied to Russavia. You suggest we should accept all these edits? You are therefore merely proposing that we treat Russavia and his socks like any other editor here. You are proposing we ignore the terms of use of his site, which we all agree to every time we press the save button.

And Russavia was not "an admin in good standing". Please, don't kid us with some hagiographic revision of history. Sure Russavia uploaded lots of files and made good efforts to get freely licensed images. But let's not pretend that the number of uploads somehow makes one immune from prosecution should one do a very bad thing. This project is not just about creating an archive of images, but about a community that functions together in a healthy way to build and curate that repository, where fellow users are respected and not harassed, bullied, followed, libelled or any other behavioural failing. You are really suggesting we concentrate only on the images and forget the person. If that is your view of what commons is, a repository with no humans involved, then we have made a mistake in electing you.

Your proposal is unacceptable. WMF have already said that admins who wish to block russavia socks should not be interfered with or harassed, which would be the outcome of your proposal. In short, no Russavia is not welcome back as a normal member of the community provided he keeps his nose clean. It is not permitted to ever edit here again. The sooner he and others accept this and move on, the better for us all.

Let us remember what a WMF Global Ban is applied for:

Wikimedia Foundation global bans are applied:

• when users engage in significant harassment of users on multiple projects;
• when users engage in significant harassment off of the Wikimedia sites so as to genuinely threaten (emotionally or physically) users; or
• when the trust or safety of our users or employees is otherwise in danger or has been significantly compromised or threatened.

I do not care one jot how many thousands of images a user has uploaded if they engage in significant harassment of users on multiple projects. I do not care how many friends a user had and has if they engage in significant harassment off of the Wikimedia sites so as to genuinely threaten (emotionally or physically) users. I do not care if there is bad feeling over WMF decisions when the trust or safety of users or employees is otherwise in danger or has been significantly compromised or threatened. The proposal above suggests I should put these concerns aside and let Russavia continue to edit as with any other user who must obey policy. No. Absolutely no. -- Colin (talk) 22:48, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Personally I don't think this is, nor should we treat it as, a black and white situation. There is some gray here. As was stated above and as I have stated elsewhere this was a valid complaint backed up with proof and explanation about a problem. We should address it regardless of who brought it here. Regardless of WMF bans we are not doing the project a service by preventing these types of valid complaints and problems from being identified and fixed. Personally I think the ban by the WMF was personal because of his interactions with Jimbo and some members of other communities and don't like how the commons community was undercut and I do, very much, think that it is costing and will continue to cost this project in the future. Also, as I stated before, no one is forced to block him. If the WMF wants to ban him let them deal with it. We have better things to work on and if he is doing positive contributions I really don't care. Because to be honest I would rather work with the devil I know so to speak than have them wait a few weeks and sneak back in with a new account. Because at this point I just don't think anyone believes he is going to stop editing and as long as they are positive contributions then there is no harm. As someone else said above, is Russavia trolling? Sure, probably so a little depending on how you define it but what does he have to lose. He's globally banned through a WMF block on all WMF wiki's. Nearly anyone who spent that much time and effort on the project would either come back as a vandal or come back and troll a little bit. But again, he is providing positive attention to problems we need to fix, so it doesn't bother me. I am here to contribute to a project and to make that project better so if his guidance and input helps that, trolling or otherwise, I'll take it and as I said before if the WMF doesn't like it then they can play wack a mole. Reguyla (talk) 23:57, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

@Colin: We do not know why Russavia was banned by the WMF. The global ban could be based on serious concerns with well-founded reasons not to disclose them. Such cases are best handled by WMF staff who are familiar with the case and who, where necessary, act per office action. We shall not interfere with this. Nor shall we encourage Russavia to continue working at Commons. But there is absolutely no necessity to start hunting ourselves. As admins we act on base of the policies of our project and on informations accessible to us. We are not proxies of the WMF nor did the WMF ask us to act on their behalf. As we are not familiar with the background of the ban it is best to abstain. --AFBorchert (talk) 05:37, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

This is an area where your logic fails. As R. is not community sanctioned, our admins/CUs refused to check the sock accounts and link to master accounts. So nobody knows which are from R. and not. So there is no possibility to complain if any inappropriate edits from those accounts. We alredy know there are 100+ accounts per INC's analysis including many inappropriate names. It will increase to 1000s and more soon and ended up an anarchy. You still enjoy the stand R. was clean before he get banned by WMF. So either you should enforce WMF ban or do your own homework to identify and link all socks to the parent accounts including IPs. Jee 05:56, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Whenever you notice accounts that are abusive and possibly related to each other, please open a CU request. This can be handled independently from any WMF bans. But let WMF bans be handled by WMF staff. --AFBorchert (talk) 06:22, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I've no disagreement on letting WMF bans be handled by WMF staff. But what happened now is an admin overturned a WMF ban and threaten to repeat it again and was supported by a few other admins mostly from his home wiki. It seems you too from same home wiki and taking it very lite. I didn't see any crat warned him/them so far. Sigh. Jee 07:28, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

@Jkadavoor: You obviously missed this comment by Dschwen. And please do not exaggerate things as this is not helpful. Nobody overturned a WMF ban here as we cannot do this. Just a global block of an IP address was locally lifted which was in conflict with Commons:Office actions. --AFBorchert (talk) 08:16, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I noticed Dschwen's comment which only an opinion without any warning tone. His stand is already very clear that he expressed many times, earlier. I see you last reply to Colin too. Yes; R.'s actions in other project may irrelevant here. But the same is applicable for some people's frustaion against "super protect" that happened in another wiki. Here it is a user problem; particularly a user who turned out as a big disturbance to many WM projects, using Commons as a safe harbor. It has nothing to do with other political issues like "super protect", "transparency", "decentralization of power", "project autonomy", etc. as many user commented earlier here. Jee 08:36, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

AFBorchert: "was an admin in good standing until he was out of sudden banned by the WMF." Is it our problem if no admin has the guts to block him? And what about if other WMF banned users start editing here. Please make a policy and apply it uniformly instead of what you try to do in your previous comment. "As elaborated by Túrelio, the sockpuppets appear to be mostly curating old uploads." Are you not aware that an ex checkuser stated that he saw a lot of insulting user names, edit notes and many similar things to defame other users here while doing his job? Do you ever discussed with check users about what you can't see here? And finally I'm disappointed to see you mentioned Túrelio as a model admin. He is highly one sided. See his comment at B's talk. Jee 02:41, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

AFBorchert, we don't know the exact reason russavia was banned by WMF, but the list I posted above give the various reasons why a WMF global ban would be applied. So it is one of those. Some of them, such as threats against their staff, legally require WMF to take action because they have a duty of care towards their employees. If you don't believe WMF banned russavia for one of those reasons, then you should engage in strong discussion with them rather than be complicit in this great crime by continuing to support WMF by editing here. You seem to think the community here has some power to de facto overturn a WMF global ban we don't like. The proposal you make would permit Russavia to operate like any other user, provided he turns over a new account each day. Indeed, his edits would be protected at a level higher that most of us enjoy, who may see our edits reverted merely because some admin doesn't like the tone, or because it cast a friend of theirs in a bad light. You say "Nor shall we encourage Russavia to continue working at Commons" but your proposal does this. He simply needs to sign on with User:UpYoursWMF123 and say "Hi, Scott here...." and all his edits are protected. -- Colin (talk) 07:11, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

We need to remember Russavia was banned from all Wikimedia projects. AFBorchert suggests he was an admin in good standing and the ban came as a surprise. Examine his Global Account

• als.wikipedia.org - Blocked indefinitely. (account creation disabled, email disabled) Reason: cross-wiki spamming
• bar.wikipedia.org - Blocked indefinitely. (account creation disabled, email disabled) Reason: cross-wiki spamming of "polandball", see http://bar.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nutza_Dischkrian:Russavia&oldid=349581#Explain_your_block
• en.wikipedia.org - Blocked indefinitely. (account creation disabled, cannot edit own talk page) Reason: Socked, de facto banned, but only wants talk page to discuss edits, not the block or socking and so on...
• nl.wikipedia.org - Blocked indefinitely. (account creation disabled, email disabled, cannot edit own talk page) Reason: Ingelogde vandaal: Turning this wiki into an battleground and using drama for his personal agenda
• pfl.wikipedia.org - Blocked indefinitely. (account creation disabled, email disabled) Reason: cross-wiki spamming

Blocked indefinitely from five wikipedias and you suggest it comes as a surprise that he is eventually banned from Wikimedia entirely? Commons has no special provision to permit WMF global banned users from participating here, nor is it ever going to get one. If you have a problem with how WMF runs the site it owns, I suggest you leave and fork the project, which is the only option available in an open source project should you not like the owners. -- Colin (talk) 07:11, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Please read my comments carefully, Colin, and do not jump to conclusions. I have nowhere challenged the ban issued by the WMF. It is not helpful to speculate at this board or anywhere else in this project why he has been banned. The important point is that we do not interfere with office actions taken by WMF staff to enforce this ban. In regard to "we need to remember" etc: This is COM:BN, the 'crat's noticeboard at Commons, this is not a venue to reopen a discussion about all the conflicts Russavia had on other projects in the past. Please keep this in mind. --AFBorchert (talk) 07:54, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Ok, I'll repeat what you proposed here:

• "As long as edits by Russavia's sockpuppets conform to policy, we will not block them or undo their edits."
• "Sockpuppets or IPs blocked by WMFOffice are not unblocked per Commons:Office actions."'

Perhaps you haven't considered fully the consequence of your proposal.

1. By saying "we will not block them" and you are saying that an admin is not permitted to block them (much stronger than "we can choose not to bother blocking him"). Therefore any admin who chooses to block a russavia sock could be subject to blocking him or herself. Additionally, by permitting such blocks to be retained only if carried out by WMFOffice, you are saying that other admins are able to unblock russavia sockpuppets if blocked by a Commoner. Neither of these things is currently permitted and WMF have already said that this is unacceptable. Have you forgotten that sockpuppeting is itself an offence?
2. By saying "we will not undo their edits" you are giving Russavia's edits much more durability than is afforded to any of the rest of us. The rest of us can have our edits made on user talk pages removed if the person wishes to dismiss them without comment. The rest of us can have our edits removed from a noticeboard if felt to be unhelpful. And so on. You are making a huge problem in that russavia socks become an unblockable superuser. A revert that would happen without discussion for the rest of us, would thus require a huge community debate over how much of policy it infringed. Just pour petrol on the fire?

I do not wish to reopen discussion on Russavia's conflicts on other projects, but it is relevant to this issue that we appreciate this is a WikiMedia-Projects-wide ban, and do so for rather unsurprising reasons if one takes one's Commons blinkers off. You express surprise about his ban because you think he kept his nose clean on Commons. It wouldn't matter if Russavia is an angel on Commons, if he engaged in cross-project disruption then WMF can globally ban him, and we should respect that.

You are de facto "challenging the ban" because your proposal completely permits Russavia to continue to edit here at will as an unbannable unrevertable super user.

AFBorchert, can I ask what justification you have for extending this exemption to the WMF global ban to Russavia only and not to the other globally banned users? Are you prepared to write to the others, and extend the hand of friendship to them? If not, why not? -- Colin (talk) 09:14, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Your misleading comments are in no way helpful. I have no doubt that global bans are justified. I trust DerHexer in this regard who is one of the most senior stewards and who recently stated to be familiar with some of the backgrounds of these bans (albeit not that of Russavia). The point is that the decision to globally ban per office action is based on non-public information. Any interaction with people who were banned due to undisclosed serious concerns can be a risk. Consequently, it is best not to interact with banned users, not to encourage their participation, not to operate as their proxy, and surely not to interfere with any office action imposed by the WMF. Hence, I would recommend not to undo edits by banned users and not to block them as long as they are not in conflict with our local policies at Commons. If sockpuppets are observed which possibly belong to one of the WMF banned users it appears best in my opinion to forward that information in private to WMF, giving them the opportunity to act. The WMF staff knows best how to handle these cases as they are in possession of the full information. Admins should act on base of our local policies and on base of what they know. Admins are not proxies of the WMF. This is not an expression of distrust but a principle of accountability and separated responsibilities. --AFBorchert (talk) 06:51, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Ok, it seems you aren't "getting it" wrt the consequences of "I would recommend not to undo edits by banned users and not to block them as long as they are not in conflict with our local policies at Commons" being largely equivalent to "they may continue to edit here as a super user". So how is the "best not to interact with banned users" going to work then when Russavia posts at the village pump, or opens a deletion discussion or nominates a featured picture. Do you really' think the community is going to completely ignore him and "not interact"? I'm glad the other 'crats on this page are not so naive. I suggest this ridiculous proposal be closed. -- Colin (talk) 07:10, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

It seems there is no easy solution. Hope admins will not wheel-war with WM Office or Stewards in future and WMF will find a better solution to handle this. And thanks for collapsing that off-topic thread. As the opener of this discussion and lost interest/faith in Boards, I too endorse closing this request. (It is better for my health to chase the bugs.) Jee 07:23, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Requests by proxy

Russavia is not permitted to edit here. Period. And there is nothing we can do about that. I believe User:Mattbuck has suggested that he would be happy to take messages from Russavia and forward them to the relevant noticeboard here. I assume there are other users who would offer to do that also. Therefore, if Russavia, for example, discovers some flaw in the Author field of his uploads, or a photographer contacts him over some issue with one of the photos he's uploaded, then this can be handled by proxy through another editor in good standing with the community. I would not encourage that editor to simply quote verbatim as that would reduce them to a meat puppet. This facility should not be abused to permit, for example, russavia to offering his opinions on FoP in the EU, or the latest WMF elections, or make remarks about other users, as that also makes the proxy a meat puppet. I'd expect the proxy to filter out comments which are not directly focused on issues concerning his uploads. But this seems to me a reasonable solution that fits with the terms of the WMF global ban. -- Colin (talk) 07:29, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Discussion which is off-topic at this board.

Disruptive campaign I am concerned by the disruptive and highly unpleasant bullying behaviour shown in the related discussion User_talk:Revent/Archive_1#Ignorant_threats. Nobody should be allowed to turn Commons into a hostile environment for others, nor should anyone be allowed to use Wikimedia projects for repeatedly making serious defamatory allegations outside of raising an evidence based complaint and following our procedures for reporting user problems. This forum shopping campaign has run on the Village Pump, several user talk pages and this noticeboard. Commons is not 4Chan where angry rants are part of the landscape. Serious allegations require serious evidence and should be limited to complaint processes where specific administrator action can be considered. Can we have some positive action by bureaucrats or administrators to warn and block anyone who continues to disrupt collegiate discussion by the community? Thank you. --Fæ (talk) 10:10, 22 June 2015 (UTC) Oh for crying out loud. I see this section was originally called "Disruptive campaign by Jkadavoor and Colin". I would appreciate any reasonable, non-involved admin, to investigate the root cause of my stern rebuke of Revent. A junior admin throwing their weight around, while ignorant of the law and of the scope of policy, is most undesirable. I and Jee have requested input from people with more knowledge than either of us, and I am quite prepared to apologise should my interpretation of the situation be completely false. I think instead Fae is the one needing the block. -- Colin (talk) 10:21, 22 June 2015 (UTC) (Edit conflict) I just prefer to leave it to Revent to answer as I alredy told him he can use my mail if he wish. I only responded to his friendly pings; I didn't add a single comment there or in Colin's talk without receiving a friendly ping. If Revent has any complaint about my comment; I will wholeheartedly reconsider them. (But never want to reply to Fae as he is a big troll to me everywhere.) Jee 10:23, 22 June 2015 (UTC) Fæ, why are you posting this to the Bureaucrats' noticeboard? This is nothing to do with 'crats. Since you are so keen on "following our procedures for reporting user problems" would you please go to the Admin noticeboard and request my immediate block. But beware that such request may boomerang if instead you get blocked and Revent loses his shiny new admin bit. -- Colin (talk) 10:26, 22 June 2015 (UTC) With respect to this change, I ask that the title of this thread be left as I raised it. Please avoid entering into disruptive edit warring as happened on the Village Pump yesterday. This is gaming the system and trolling by changing thread titles after they are established. This thread title is a level 3 header with the text Disruptive campaign. --Fæ (talk) 10:45, 22 June 2015 (UTC) Oops; Revent already answered to it: "For what it is worth, I don't particularly appreciate the way Fae immediately tried to use my pointing out that you shouldn't post IRC logs as 'ammunition' in an argument, and if the conversation hadn't moved on before I saw it would have rather pointedly told him so (and I intend to mention it the next time I talk to him)." Jee 11:08, 22 June 2015 (UTC) Fæ, can you explain why you are once again edit warring over section headers. Why is this a sub-heading of "Friction between WMF and Admins"? Are you determined to always reduce serious issues to petty fights over trivia? I can only repeat that the only 'crat action needed here is a serious review of Revent's admin bit. Plus a block and strong rebuke of Fae for wasting everyone's time by telling completely inaccurate tales. -- Colin (talk) 11:14, 22 June 2015 (UTC) That's why I said he is a super troll, chasing me everywhere. Recently he ruined a discussion started by Jmabel at Village pump by making nonsense allegation against me and I strike off all my comments to save his request. He chased my OTRS entries to find faults and kicked me out. This is en:WP:HOUNDING. His only intention here is to fuel drama in all discussions and destroy this project as his friend is already kicked out. Jee 11:25, 22 June 2015 (UTC) Fae is a higly talented editor here knows a lot of scripting and use of automated tools. But it seems he using them to chase my contributions in multiple places, not limited to this project; which is discouraged by en:WP:HOUNDING. So I request the crat collegium to review his activities and advise or impose restrictions as applicable. Otherwise I'm forced to refrain from all of my volunteer activities (as I recently resigned from OTRS) except uploading my own works. Thanks all, and goodbye. Jee 03:06, 23 June 2015 (UTC) The bottom line here is, depending on which camp you fall into, Russavia is still winning. If you think he is a troll just trying to mess with editors then discussion like this are feeding that agenda. If you feel like Russavia got the shaft and feel compelled to listen when he offers useful ideas or brings attention to problems, then Russavia still wins. The question here is which "win" helps the project, which should be our goal I would hope. Keeping discussions like these going forever just wastes time and its generally agreed that the problem he brought up is useful and needs to be addressed. So my recommendation would be that we all close this thread down and move on. Enough time has been spent in my opinion keeping the flames of this little fire fueled and hot. Russavia is not going to stop editing so we don't need to argue about what to do about it. If an admin wants to address it or not, let them. If the WMF wants to block him that's fine too. Personally I think there are a lot bigger problems that need to be fixed than fighting amongst ourselves about what to do with one editor who has been banned (right or wrong) by the WMF who doesn't really care what we think or do anyway. Reguyla (talk) 17:41, 22 June 2015 (UTC) The point, which nobody has successfully argued, is the strange suggestion that russavia needed to log in with a sock account and post to the village pump, in order to supply the "useful ideas" or "bring attention to problems". It would greatly help reduce the drama on this project if he used a proxy, as has been suggested previously. That way the project wins, when he has something useful to offer, and there is no need to stir up unrest over the block once again. That's by far the lowest-drama solution and would expect the 'crats to endorse it rather than suggest we turn russavia into a super-user who can never be blocked or reverted. -- Colin (talk) 17:55, 22 June 2015 (UTC) Actually I don't agree. By using a "proxy" he then runs the very real risk of getting that proxy into serious trouble by editing on his behalf which is a very serious infraction and could lead to that person being blocked or banned or at least desysopped if that's applicable. By logging in himself and posting it he doesn't drag anyone else down with him. So IMO I would much rather he post it himself. I am also not saying he should never be blocked or reverted. As I stated before, if someone is a vandal or is causing harm to the project then they should be reverted and blocked. If that person is improving the project though, especially when they are simply posting on a highly trafficked and watched page where they can be monitored, I am less concerned. Again though, I would much rather witness the devil I know that to wonder if every IP that brings an idea is Russavia or some other banned editor. I would much rather be able to know who it is even if they are restricted to one page. Reguyla (talk) 18:10, 22 June 2015 (UTC) How the proxy handles it is up to them and I'm sure Mattbuck would be careful not to end up merely a meat puppet. "By logging in himself and posting" he breaks his WMF global ban and we cannot entertain that. Sorry, if you want a site where Russavia is permitted to edit, go set one up with a different owner. It isn't hard to understand. Really, this is ridiculous. It's like a wife asking for her husband to be let out of jail (where he is serving a sentence for murder or fraud or whatever) because he's really such a good father/husband and she needs someone to look after the children and take them on picnics. How could the judge be so cruel to deny my family their daddy, sob, sob. It doesn't work like this. You don't get to edit after a WMF global ban provided you behave yourself. You don't get to edit at all. I would much prefer if you and others stopped playing games over this and just accept the ban and its consequences. -- Colin (talk) 18:20, 22 June 2015 (UTC) Actually its more an issue of you and a couple of others being blindly obedient to the WMF without questioning why. I am not his wife nor am I advocating he even be unblocked and your hyperbolic statements about real world criminal activity really have zero merit and only serve to make YOU look like an ass. This community didn't ban him and as far as I can tell the "community" doesn't agree. Even you aren't arguing he deserves it or not just that you are blindly following a ban from the WMF that this community had no say in. That's fine, you can be a sheep its your decision. I am not, never have been and never will be. I make my own decisions based on the facts as I perceive them. Sometimes right and sometimes wrong, but I don't blindly follow the WMF or anyone else and particularly when I don't even think the WMF cares about this community, this project or what we think. Especially not when time and time again they have proven that they have no respect for the communities decisions. As far as I am concerned if they want him banned they can police the ban themselves. And that's not applicable solely to Russavia that's true of any other ban that "they" implement. They didn't ask this community for its input, they made the decision and they get to sleep in the bed they made. I will again repeat what I said again. There is absolutely zero point in continuing to argue this because we (you and I at least) are not going to change each others minds nor the situation at hand. Reguyla (talk) 18:31, 22 June 2015 (UTC) "Even you aren't arguing he deserves it". No I'm absolutely convinced he deserves it and believed that long before WMF stepped in. It to Commons shame that our community is so dysfunctional that bullies like Russavia are permitted to edit. All the other WMF globally banned users aren't being offered this chance to edit-while-still-banned. Why is that? WMF banned them also with no community input. Who is being played like a puppet? You or me? -- Colin (talk) 20:06, 22 June 2015 (UTC) Umm, actually I believe at least one of those others are editing or will be soon under a different name. I have seen some editing on ENWP that very closely resembles their editing and I would be surprised if it turns out to be someone else. Its just a matter of waiting a little while until the history falls off the checkuser tool. If you think the WMF has a magic lamp that they can rub that tells them if an editor is a returned banned editor your incorrect. The check user is a piece of garbage and its mostly intuition based on edit patterns and those have proven to be wrong and frequently its just another editor editing the same articles and we drive off an innocent with witch hunting and accusations of socking. Of course that problem is far more common on the English Wikipedia where the negative culture and toxic editing environment erode the editor base on a daily basis, but its also very true here and the other projects. The fact that Russavia isn't attempting to hide is a matter of credit IMO. He could just as easily hide, make countless useful edits and no one would be the wiser, not even the WMF. If he were vandalizing articles I would feel differently, but he's not. If you feel that strongly I suggest you apply for a job at the WMF of Russavia Watch officer and then you can take up the mantle of protector of commons. Reguyla (talk) 20:29, 22 June 2015 (UTC) Ah that explains things. Funny how so many russavia supporters find themselves banned on the very wikimedia project that most requires collaborative editing. Commons, the Wikimedia cesspit. -- Colin (talk) 21:24, 22 June 2015 (UTC) If you think commons is a cesspit then don't edit here. Personally I feel that ENWP has become the cesspit. It used to be that people wanted to create articles and write an encyclopedia but now its all about protecting their POV's, pet projects and making sure that the admins keep the low standards they have granted themselves and the exemptions from policy that apply to them. Its Ironic that you bring up my ban on ENWP in an attempt to discredit me when the whole reason I was banned was criticizing admins abusiveness and the failures of Arbcom. Its also worth noting that the community reviewed my ban, overturned it and its only because of a couple abusive admins standing guard over my account, a few of their supporters and again the failures of Arbcom that its still blocked. The Arbcom and some of the admins have no respect for the community decisions. They didn't agree with the result and so they just ignore it and insult and threaten anyone who asks about it. Policy and process has become an absolutely mockery on ENWP so if you think that project is better than this one then you really don't know what the F your talking about. I did more for the project than everyone on the Arbcom combined but I was a threat to their abusiveness so I was banned. So quite frankly, if the policies don't mean shit there, then the same ought apply here when it benefits the project as a whole. Now I don't have time to continue to listen to your bitching about this. Don't like the situation, run for admin, don't edit, wash your hands of the whole affair or continue to go and whine to the WMF folks at meta. It really doesn't matter to me, because I have improvements to make that aren't getting done arguing with you. Reguyla (talk) 23:45, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Request for translation admin rights

Hi, I hereby request translation admin rights for myself (XenonX3 (talk · contribs)). I would like to participate in translating help pages into German. I already have the translation admin rights at the OTRS wiki, so I know how to use them. Thanks in advance, XenonX3 (talk) 15:20, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

 Done --Krd 12:59, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Permissions on GLAMWikiToolset

Dear Bureaucrats. I need for user:Basel University Library the rights for the GLAMWikitoolset. Thank you very much in advance. ^Micha L. Rieser --Basel University Library (talk) 10:18, 29 June 2015 (UTC) --Micha (talk) 10:19, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

•  Support --Steinsplitter (talk) 10:23, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

 Done --Krd 10:33, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Proposed change to de-adminship policy

Please see Commons talk:Administrators/De-adminship#Proposed change to the minimum activity requirement because it would affect Burocrats too. Green Giant (talk) 20:01, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Bureaucrats removing admin rights

Please look at, and participate in, the "Bureaucrats removing admin rights" section of Commons:Village pump/Proposals. Nyttend (talk) 03:00, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Commons_talk:Username_policy#Making_official

This is running for more than two six weeks and seems stagnant/stable now, without any new developments. Time to close? Jee 02:27, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

FWIW COM:RFC#Ending_a_Request_for_Comment says 30 days, but you could invent some "snow-close" if you think it's needed. –Be..anyone (talk) 12:57, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. No; I don't need any "snow". :) BTW, I think that "paid editing" policy closed after two weeks. But my memory is very bad nowadays. Jee 13:11, 15 July 2015 (UTC) Prevent archiving. Jee 08:39, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

It looks as if it was supported; what is the mechanism for changing "guideline" to "policy"? Ellin Beltz (talk) 14:57, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Ellin Beltz, changing {{Proposed}} to {{Policy}} and closing that RfC may enough. Jee 15:37, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

 Done. Awaiting fireworks or cookies. Ellin Beltz (talk) 16:26, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Requesting Rights for GWToolSet - Tekla

Hello my name is Tekla, I am working at Naturalis Biodiversity Center and coöperate with our WIkipedian in Residence Hans Muller. I would like to have permission to use the GWT and GWT-testsite. So in the future I can continue the upload-work when Hans has left. TeklaLilith (talk) 15:57, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

@TeklaLilith: Please make a test upload to the Beta cluster first, and report back to us once that's finished successfully. @Steinsplitter can assign the GWToolset user right to you on that site, and I'll gladly assign them to you here once you've got some experience. Thanks :-) odder (talk) 20:24, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi TeklaLilith! Please create a account on beta commons. --Steinsplitter (talk) 10:57, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Promotion account

Hi, Don't you think that this account should be renamed? Regards, Yann (talk) 12:38, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that the global rename policy is allowing such a rename (except if the user is requesting it). If the username is violating COM:UPOLICY then the account should be soft-blocked. Best --Steinsplitter (talk) 10:59, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Account should be hidden/locked really - it is inappropriate and promotional. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:12, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Account has been locked and hidden from public lists by steward. --Steinsplitter (talk) 11:18, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes - very well aware of that and only my 0.02 --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:27, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Requesting Rights for GWToolSet - DimitraCharalampidou

My name is Dimitra Charalampidou, I am doing a dissertation in the British Library which consists of uploading a collection on Wikimedia Commons. After having prepared the collection, I would like to request rights to upload it on Wikimedia Commons in order to complete my dissertation. Thank you.

Hello Dimitra, check https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:GWToolset#Asking_for_user_rights for the next steps. Plese obtain the rights on beta first and do a test upload there. Then we can proceed here on commons. --Dschwen (talk) 00:27, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Hello, I would like to request rights to upload for the GWToolset on Wikimedia Commons. I am a student placement at the British Library, UK and I am working on uploading a collection of bookbindings on Wikimedia Commons. This work is also my dissertation which will be submitted in the middle of September in order to finish my library science and information systems course at university. Please grand me the rights to upload on the normal Wikimedia Commons as I have already made a successful upload using the GWToolset on the Beta version. (username: DimitraCharalampidou)

Thank you, Dimitra Charalampidou — Preceding unsigned comment added by DimitraCharalampidou (talk • contribs)

Please provide a link to an image which was successfully uploaded at beta. Thank you. --Krd 17:24, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

I've pulled the first request and my answer out of the archives. --Dschwen (talk) 00:48, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Hello, here is a link to an image which has been uploaded. http://commons.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/File:Biblia_Sacra_(c65e9).jpg Thank you!— Preceding unsigned comment added by DimitraCharalampidou (talk • contribs)

@DimitraCharalampidou: Why is there null in some fields? Why has the file been uploaded six times? And please sign your comments. --Steinsplitter (talk) 11:00, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

There is null in some fields because the information is Unknown. This will be replaced with the word 'Unknown' on the actual uploads on Wikimedia Commons. The file has been uploaded six times because I was making changes to it based on my boss's comments on it. One of those changes will be the null being replaced by unknown as I mentioned.DimitraCharalampidou (talk) 11:03, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Go ahead and upload it with the revised description template on beta. --Dschwen (talk) 05:04, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Please see an updated version of an uploaded record here: http://commons.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/File:Biblia_Sacra_(c65e9).jpg DimitraCharalampidou (talk) 09:39, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Ok, I'll activate the toolset for you on commons. Please upload a small batch of 10 images first and then let's review this one last time. --Dschwen (talk) 13:59, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I am guessing you mean a sample of 10 on Wikimedia Commons right? Not on Beta again... Thank you very much! You have been very helpful!!! DimitraCharalampidou (talk) 14:21, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, on commons. --Dschwen (talk) 15:18, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Hello, I have made a sample upload of 10 records. Please see an example here:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pri%C3%A8res_de_Guillaume_III_(c68a14).jpg DimitraCharalampidou (talk) 09:35, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Error in template * unknown parameter name (Template:Artwork): '1; 3; 2; 5; 4' | is for param. If | is not a param use {{|}}. --Steinsplitter (talk) 10:00, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

You mean edit the XML right? and use {{|}} instead of just |? DimitraCharalampidou (talk) 10:15, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• Can we please lose "unknown" for unknown values in the data model. If we want to present that as "unknown", then map that in the presentation layer, not by storing it in the article metadata. This sort of bad data is cheap to generate, very expensive to clean up afterwards. Also the text can't easily be localised if it's already fixed. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:26, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley: If the author is unknown then the unknown template should be used. @DimitraCharalampidou: Yes, just for the description itself :) --Steinsplitter (talk) 10:30, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Tuvalkin's edit here shows how to use the {{Unknown}} template. Looks like there are still quite a few things to iron out. Also, a redlink for a userpage is not inspiring confidence. I suggest you put some basic info there about yourself (i.e. Your work at BL, languages you speak etc.) --Dschwen (talk) 02:08, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I can change the | problem, sadly though I didn't understand what you mean about the Unknown value... some records have information on that field, it's just that in some records, that specific information is Unknown... hence the value.DimitraCharalampidou (talk) 10:34, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry I am having a problem with the | symbol... it's not being replaced properly... can you please help me with that? Thanks DimitraCharalampidou (talk) 11:03, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I escaped the pipe character at File:Prières de Guillaume III (c68a14).jpg by means of its NCR, "|", as the "{{|}}" trick doesn’t seem to work (transclusion?). DimitraCharalampidou, you’re up to a very steep learning curve, if you run into trouble with something as basic as this. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 22:43, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Also, I have two different images which belong to the same book and hence have the same name. I noticed that the first record is being replaced by the second record if they have the same name, what can I do about that? DimitraCharalampidou (talk) 11:03, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

(I split your post into its two unrelated subjects, to allow proper threading of their replies.) -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 22:43, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Well I'm a librarianship student, not an IT... Can you please tell me with what exactly I need to replace | so that there won't be a problem for neither of us? And what about the names? Is there anything you can do about that or do I have to rename all my files? They are close to 10.000... DimitraCharalampidou (talk) 07:21, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, I’m a biologist, not an IT either. As librarianship student I’d expect you to value correctly threaded discussions, but seems you do not: Lets reply everything in a blundle to make it harder for all us to follow it, then. As for your question «Can you please tell me with what exactly I need to replace | so that there won't be a problem for neither of us?», it is answered above — just use "|" to cause a litteral "|" to show up. I hope a librarianship student, and especially one who is not an English-only monoglot, knows a thing or two about internationalization and localization of written documents and Unicode, yes? As for image description which would result in a lot of identical filenames, I would suppose there are GLAM guidelines for it, but lacking those I think appending something like "_(p.1)", "_(p.2)", …"_(p.9999)", to every image would be good idea. (Such appending can be automated by image editing tools such as XnView — at least that’s what I use: I’d expect the British Library has at its disposal way better tools and know-how.) -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 17:57, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Instead of offending people you could be more polite in order to receive more polite answers then, I wasn't going to just stand being offended because I do not understand something which is out of my area of expertise! I have been offended while asking for the whitelisting of my domain and here again, this is unacceptable... and just because I am putting two questions together you talk impolitely to me? Nobody provided me with any guidelines on how to use any of this website's features and I had to figure everything out on my own... I do have some knowledge on the subject but I am no expert, you guys should be more understanding... Thank you anyway for answering my questions. Have a good day and I will make sure not to bother you again.DimitraCharalampidou (talk) 09:30, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Sorry that you feel offended. All I can say is that I tried hard to be only helpful in the matter of the difficulties you reported in this thread, even though it could have been used instead for lengthy digressions which, valid as they may have been, would have helped you even less. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 11:21, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Apologies from my side as well... nevertheless, thank you for all your answers, I think I have solved both issues reported above. DimitraCharalampidou (talk) 12:43, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Ok, great, go ahead and try uploading another set. Your last attempt still overwrote images with identical names. I'll go ahead then and delete all your previous uploads now. --Dschwen (talk) 14:21, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Ι have uploaded another batch of 4 images. I have solved the problem by renaming the images automatically. Please see an example of an updated upload here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eikon_Basilike_-_Upper_cover_(c72e7).jpgDimitraCharalampidou (talk) 15:09, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

@DimitraCharalampidou: please go over you uploads and look at the page history of each one. User:Ellin Beltz has made edits to some of them. Please check if you can adjust your template to inset appropriate line breaks (to avoid having multiple template parameters on the same line). And maybe you can improve the metadata a bit further (publication dates, wiki links to authors etc.). --Dschwen (talk) 13:52, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi, if I understood what you are saying correctly, you are talking about the description field which has multiple values in it right? What coding can I use in order to break the lines? Also, I can try and put links on the authors, bookbinders and books. As soon as I fix those two things, I would like to upload the collection if that would be ok. DimitraCharalampidou (talk) 16:04, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

@Dschwen I agree that the meta data needs to be filled out, also the categories need to be more specific. We already have 276 images waiting subcategorization in Category:Bookbinding, we don't need 10,000 more in the same situation. The uploader here has all the information, but is not manifesting the care and attention to detail one would expect from a student of library sciences. The descriptions are terse as if the uploader is in way too much of a hurry to get to the end of the project for some personal reason - rather than uploading images with the quality of the Commons project foremost. Until that changes, I can't support Toolset rights for the main project. Ellin Beltz (talk) 14:51, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I concur. I really don't want to have to work on another 10k files for reasons that could should have been avoided in the first place. --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 03:43, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

@Dschwen @Hedwig in Washington @Ellin Beltz I am sorry but I am not the one in charge of the metadata, I cannot fill up metadata which not even the curator of the collection could figure out based on the bookbindings. Where the metadata says Unspecified, it means that 4 experts of bookbindings could not figure out the information. Other than the Unspecified information, what else do you want me to fix on the metadata? Can you please be more specific? It is not that I am not collaborating with you, it is that you are not being specific with what you want me to do. I can of course work on the categories, the fact that there is only one category is only because it is a test upload. Also, you still didn't reply to my questions of how to break the lines on the metadata... Is there anything else you want me to fix? Thank you. DimitraCharalampidou (talk) 07:45, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, the linebreaks... I cannot seem to figure out where those come from (or the lack of linebreaks). At this point we have to make a decision how to go forward. I'm inclined to give Dimitra the greenlight as I don't think the data quality will get any better. If we just reject Dimitra's effort now I fear that we will simply lose the image donation and close a door to further colaborations with the BL. --Dschwen (talk) 22:55, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. Ellin Beltz (talk) 00:37, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you.DimitraCharalampidou (talk) 13:03, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Hello, I have uploaded the collection, see an example here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Veilles_po%C3%A9tiques_...._2e_%C3%A9dition_-_Upper_cover_(c152h1).jpg and my boss has one question, since I added the BL's template on the metadata, why is the Category:Images from the British Library a hidden category? ThanksDimitraCharalampidou (talk) 09:21, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Because it is a maintenance category. It does not describe the images themselves. --Dschwen (talk) 23:26, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Speaking of categorization User:DimitraCharalampidou. The example image (and quite a few more I presume) are categorized using non-existing categories such as 19th-century bookbinding. The image is also categorized under Bookbinding. 19th-century bookbinding should be a subcategory of this and Bookbinding should be removed from the category list. --Dschwen (talk) 23:29, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi, yes I know that the subcategory doesn't exist, I didn't create it by myself because I didn't know the procedure of creating subcategories (I did read your manual on how to do it) and I didn't want to do anything wrong.

And in order to remove the category 'Bookbinding' I would need to edit or reupload the whole collection wouldn't I?

Lastly, I asked about the British Library Collection category because my boss noticed that the collection isn't visible under the British Library institute like the other collections uploaded by the BL. DimitraCharalampidou (talk) 06:52, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

(3 replies, sorted:)

• Just click on the red link Category:19th-century bookbinding and create it with:

[[Category:Bookbinding|19th century]]

[[Category:19th century|Bookbinding]]

(Yes, it is that easy.)

• No, not reupload (no, never!). The gadget Cat-a-lot allows you to easily move items from a category to another up to 200 in one go (turn it on in your preferences).
• There seems to be no category joining all these images in a single collection. I suppose it should be, and adding it through a template is a simple job: Just copy and adapt whatever is in use for other collections. Can you point to a few of these BL collections here in Commons?

-- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 07:23, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

• I created then categories.
• Here is an example of another collection belonging to the British Library, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_the_Canadian_Copyright_Collection_at_the_British_Library, I will use the categories provided on this one.DimitraCharalampidou (talk) 12:50, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Looks like it is necessary to create for all these bookbindings photos something akin to {{Picturing Canada image}} and to Category:Images from the Canadian Copyright Collection at the British Library. The category is easy, the template needs tome techy work. Who is, on the side of Commons, working on this with Dimitra? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 16:44, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Request rights to batch upload

Hello. My name is Lizzy Jongma. I am datamanager at the Rijksmuseum. We are currently preparing an edith-a-thon about Birds depicted on Art and I created a set of (images of) objects with birds from the Rijksmuseum collection. I tested our upload on the beta site and I am happy with the results. I would like to upload our set to the commons environment.

Also: we made a specific WM Commons format in our API and hope to send out more sets from the Rijksmuseum collection to WM Commons.

Best wishes Lizzy

Lizzy has taken time to test the process and raised questions on the Glamtools list. I recommend expediting this GWT rights request for what will be a valuable Commons project. --Fæ (talk) 20:03, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'll set the bit and request that you perform a small batch test upload here on commons. --Dschwen (talk) 23:22, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

@LizzyJongma: bit is set. Also, please sign your posts with for tildes ~ in the future. We'll have a final look over your test uploads here, so please pop back in when you are done with that. There might be additional suggestion that can be offered by commons contributors here. --Dschwen (talk) 23:25, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

LizzyJongma (talk) 12:47, 15 September 2015 (UTC) @Dschwen: Sorry to bother you, but I don't understand your remark? Do you want me to do another test upload or are you evaluating the test upload on the beta site?

LizzyJongma, sigs usually go at the end of a post, not at the beggining. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 16:58, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

@Tuvalkin: Sorry! First time trying to communicate here... — Preceding unsigned comment added by LizzyJongma (talk • contribs)

@LizzyJongma: uploads on beta are one thing, but I'd like to see a test upload on commons as well. The reason being that beta does not have a lot of the important commons templates and categories (so everything looks broken there anyways). A test upload in commons will detect redlinks for categories and broken templates that might have been missed on beta. Fæ, you checked the uploads on beta? --Dschwen (talk) 14:59, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

I see some maintenance cats on the beta uploads like "Pages with duplicate template arguments" on File:De_slak_en_de_raaf.jpeg but I don't see why this shows up. Is it the weird date field? --Dschwen (talk) 15:02, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

I see some errors on beta. Some were fixed with the upload to WM Commons. When doing so I made a new error: I checked the boxes to put brackets aroud creator and Institution. The XML already contained brackets so now I have to sets of brackets. Is there an automatic way to delete them? I also noticed that someone placed the images in the right category yesterday for which I am very grateful! --LizzyJongma

If you have some glitches which you have fixed for later batch uploads, it's good to find ways of fixing them yourself . I suggest having a look at COM:VFC where you can fairly simply fix something like turning all occurrences of "{{{{" into "{{" for a selected set of files in a category (this is a good tool to fix hundreds of files, but is less useful to fix thousands). The same visual tool can run sophisticated changes to file text pages through the use of regular expression syntax which you can see what the effect will be in advance. If you get stuck, and the number files or volume of changes needed are unrealistic to do "by hand", then a good place to ask for some quick automated fixes and alternative suggestions is Commons:Bots/Work requests. The same noticeboard is a good place to ask a few questions if you are new to running automated tasks for your own housekeeping. --Fæ (talk) 12:19, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Unflagged bot

I just noticed User:TohaomgBot, which has no bot flag but has 13k edits. It's filling up recent changes. Jeff 00:53, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

• Magog has temporarily blocked the bot. Its owner, Tohaomg, may need assistance with a flag request. Jeff 01:18, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Request to use GWToolset

I would like to get permission to use the GWToolset to do bulk-uploading for Naturalis Biodiversity Center. I already did testing on the beta Toolset: http://commons.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Special:ListFiles/TeklaLilith. See also my request to Steinsplitter: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Steinsplitter#GWToolset. TeklaLilith (talk) 10:39, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

@TeklaLilith: your uploads on beta are not looking bad. I would like to see the license template outside of the Information template though, and - if possible - have the date parameter on its own line. --Dschwen (talk) 18:45, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

GWToolset rights request by TeklaLilith

Hello Bureaucrats, I did a request already (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard/Archive_4) and got the following answer from Dschwen:

@TeklaLilith: your uploads on beta are not looking bad. I would like to see the license template outside of the Information template though, and - if possible - have the date parameter on its own line. --Dschwen (talk) 18:45, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

I put an answer on his User talk but did not get an answer yet. I would like to continue the upload process, so maybe somebody else can help me? Sorry Dschwen for my impatience... "Hello Dschwen, My request on the Bureaucrats Noticeboard is already archived (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard/Archive_4#Request_to_use_GWToolset) so I put my reaction on your remark (your uploads on beta are not looking bad. I would like to see the license template outside of the Information template though, and - if possible - have the date parameter on its own line) here. I put the licence template in the section License template/ Global license now, but that doesn't change anything. I don't know how to do it the way you suggest. Date is in fact "Collection date", sometimes empty because not known. In the "real" upload I use our Biohist-template to make sure Date will be Collection date. Also: when I choose "Re-upload media from URL" this doesn't seem to work. The existing files are not overwritten with the ones with the updated metadata. TeklaLilith (talk) 13:17, 2 November 2015 (UTC)" TeklaLilith (talk) 12:43, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

@TeklaLilith: GWToolset flag set, please do some test edits first here at Commons and leave a note when done. Thank you. --Krd 06:50, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

HI Krd, thank you. I don't know exactly what you mean by test edits, but I did an upload of 151 WebM files. This is running now. The first 20 are uploaded, the rest is in process: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Media+donated+by+Naturalis+Biodiversity+Center+zma.aves&title=Special%3ASearch&go=Go TeklaLilith (talk) 15:33, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

@TeklaLilith: As far as I can read, the OTRS ticket used in the current uploads either does not cover these files, or you are using a wrong license. Please advise. --Krd 15:41, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

@Krd: Thanks for your input. It thought it should be ok this way, I use the same as our "Wikipedian in Residence" Hansmuller. He is ill at the moment, but I will send him an email right now to check this. See one of his uploads also: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Naturalis_Biodiversity_Center_-_RMNH.AVES.110001_-_Troglodytes_aedon_martinicensis_Sclater,_1866_-_Martinique_Wren_-_specimen_-_ventral_view.jpeg TeklaLilith (talk) 16:16, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Maybe it's wrong there, too, because, as said, the ticket contains other licenses, as far as I can read it. --Krd 17:06, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Dear Krd, Last May Naturalis Biodiversity Center settled with OTRS that their media generally can be uploaded under CC0 (as they state on their websites as well) OR in some special cases under CC-BY-SA-3.0, to be specified in the metadata of the individual image. The dead bird movies are such a case because some creative work was done in making the movies. I was the broker and used this license for previous uploads in Category:Threatened_and_extinct_bird_videos_and_photos_at_Naturalis_Biodiversity_Center and generally in Category:Media_donated_by_Naturalis_Biodiversity_Center. Best regards, Hansmuller (talk) 10:55, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable to me, thank you for clearification. --Krd 11:00, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

GWToolset rights request for User:Swiss Federal Archives

For GWToolset training and further uploads we need GWToolset rights for User:Swiss Federal Archives. --Micha (talk) 09:52, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

@Micha: The user is yet in the GWT group here on commons. --Steinsplitter (talk) 10:40, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you very much! --Micha (talk) 13:08, 16 November 2015 (UTC)