Commons:Help desk/Archive/2009/10

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Can someone rename a file, please?

Accidentally uploaded a file with a duplicate "file" in the title: File:File-PAX 2009 Bungie panel 2.jpg. Could someone trim the redundant portion and rename the image? David Fuchs (talk) 19:19, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

You can upload the file again with the correct name (presumably File:PAX 2009 Bungie panel 2.jpg), then put the template: {{Bad name}} on the file with the bad name, with the correct file name in the template (without the File: prefix), like this:
{{Bad name|File-PAX 2009 Bungie panel 2.jpg}}
That will tell an administrator to delete your badly named file and leave the correctly named file. See COM:FAQ#How can I rename/move an image or other media file?. --Teratornis (talk) 07:38, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll do that, I just thought that they recently added a way to nondestructively rename a file. David Fuchs (talk) 19:11, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
Teratornis, File moving is activated at Commons, at the moment the FAQ is outdated. @David: You can place {{rename|newname.ext|reason}} on the file description and an admin will move the image to the correct name. However, it will take some time, Teratornis way is faster. --Martin H. (talk) 22:18, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the update about this feature. --Teratornis (talk) 00:13, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Category:80 cm K (E) railway gun“ umbenennen, da irreführend (erl.)

Auch wenn die en:WP diesen Geschütztyp unter „railway guns“ einordnet, stimmt das so nicht. Bekanntlich war dieser Geschütztyp kein Eisenbahngeschütz, sondern musste zerlegt transportiert und dann für den Einsatz auf einer doppelgleisigen Schiesskurve aufgebaut werden. Meiner Meinung nach sollte man die Kategorie deshalb umbenennen (Category:80 cm K gun) und die Kategorisierung in Category:World War II railway guns herausnehmen. -- Хрюша ?? 09:26, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Falls nicht hier, wo muss ich denn den Antrag zum Umbenennen einer Kategorie stellen? -- Хрюша ?? 12:42, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Resize .svg map

I've created an .svg map (File:Iraq.svg), just wondering if anyone knows how to enlarge the globe so it more fills the image box? Izzedine (talk) 20:07, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

You may get help on Commons:Graphics village pump if nobody answers here. See also COM:EIC#Inkscape. --Teratornis (talk) 20:59, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, I've sorted it. Izzedine (talk) 13:40, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

no update for svg-image in en:wiki

Hi,

I loaded a new version of a svg- file:

  1. 18:01, 23 September 2009 (hist) (diff) File:Wotp.en.svg ‎ (uploaded a new version of "File:Wotp.en.svg": Title wasn't necessary, Margin was too big) (top)

But in en:War of the Pacific is still shown the old thumb of the image. If I click the thumb I get the new version. Can you "reload" the new thumb?

Thanks, --Createaccount 15:29, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Hello Createaccount,
I see the new version when I look at the article, maybe the problem is in your cache, did you try to clean than one already or use this link
Please let us know if it worked.
Best regards,
Huib talk 15:54, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi, now is the new thumb updated in the article. I got it with Ctrl-R. Thank you. --Createaccount 16:07, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

.OGG

I have video file "xxxxxxxx.avi" and vant to convert to .ogg or .ogv. when I convert my file using "ffmpeg2theora-0.25.exe" voice is normal but video picture is scrumbled. please help me. tell me which programs I need to convert from avi to ogg theora. as I know first I must convert to mpeg4, an then use "ffmpeg2theora-0.25.exe". if I right, which converter use? please helpSurprizi (talk) 07:24, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

There are several free of charge online services for converting AVI towards OGG and w/o registration such as http://media-convert.com/convert/ . That one is really easy to use. --Mattes (talk) 10:43, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Also see Help:Converting video if you haven't already. --Teratornis (talk) 19:56, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Changes in Commons---- AAAAH!

I've edited at en.wikipedia for the past 3 years. I used the "Bryan" Flickr upload to upload a couple hundred needed biography photos, all which were used at least on en.wikipedia, and many have been used on up to ten other language wikipedias. Then that upload from Flickr stopped working. I'm not good with computers. I'm an editor, mostly. I was told by an Admin to manually upload the photos I needed. At first, it worked, but now I get messages that the Flickrbot had to recover the "real" image from Flickr and that I am in the wrong. Is there ANYBODY here that can teach someone like me who learns SLOWLY, but works doing this stuff 12 hours a day?! Not just a "hit and run" quick answer that might not really teach me, but someone I can turn to for each new question that arrives? I'd hate to stop adding photos- all SA-BY images that other people obviously need as well. --Leahtwosaints (talk) 21:34, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Was someone rude or something? You can probably just ask questions here and someone will answer. You're in the right place! As for "real" Flickr image, if you go to a typical Flickr image, like http://www.flickr.com/photos/divadivadina/3374002853/in/set-72157600312484431?edited=1, what you are looking at is the Medium resolution (I think). Above the photo, there is a link for "All Sizes". Click on that and you will go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/divadivadina/3374002853/sizes/o/in/set-72157600312484431/. There, you will see another link that says "Download the Original size". That is the one that will give you the largest resolution available, so that is what you want to use. Not the Medium image on the other page. Wknight94 talk 22:28, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
As Wknight says, quality matters. Btw: Bryans tool is working again, except the category selection (not working for me atm) --Martin H. (talk) 23:00, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
I had mixed results with Bryan's tool when I last looked at it, so I've been using Flominator's Flinfo tool instead. I made a {{Flinfo}} template that makes it easier. You can read about my adventures on User:Teratornis/Flickr examples. For example, when I eventually get motivated to upload Flickr photo 3552299903, I can say:
Type this To get this
{{Flinfo|3552299903|Wind turbine in {{w|Carthage, South Dakota}}|Miner County, South Dakota;Wind power in South Dakota|Wind turbine in Carthage SD 3552299903}} Run the Flinfo tool on Flickr ID: 3552299903, then upload with the "Open upload form" link from the Flinfo page
You can click that link on the right side of the above table to see the page that Flinfo generates. It has almost everything we need. The {{Flinfo}} template passes the input items I specified to the Flinfo tool, which generates a link to open the upload form with almost everything prefilled. The only manual steps remaining are to download the original (largest) image from Flickr to a local file, and copy and paste the filename into the Upload form. I haven't found a way to pre-fill the source file name in the upload form yet. --Teratornis (talk) 00:58, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Also you can use {{Flickr free}} to search for freely licensed photos on Flickr, with the advantage that you can save your search links on a user subpage where you keep notes about what you do. This can be helpful when you come back six months or a year later and forgot how to do things. --Teratornis (talk) 01:01, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Loosing Category on upload

I am uploading images (sourced from Hungarian Wikipedia) and the category selected in the upload process before upload, is lost after upload. The categories selected exist and this happened three times as the BotMultichillT notifies me. What am I doing wrong? Ineuw (talk) 12:37, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

What procedure are you using to do the upload? See Wikipedia:Moving images to the Commons. I have had good results with the CommonsHelper tool. A step in preparing for using CommonsHelper is to get a TUSC account like I did here. Your user talk page does not show your TUSC token, so presumably you did not set that up yet. If you use CommonsHelper then it will take care of several annoying details that are easy to get wrong by hand.
  • I have notes about my use of CommonsHelper in User:Teratornis/Notes#Move some images to Commons.
  • If you are moving many images to Commons, you may like to copy and adapt a user sandbox template such as I made in: User:Teratornis/Notes/CommonsHelper. This saves much copying and pasting when I am preparing my links to pre-filled CommonsHelper forms. Since I use the same CommonsHelper options every time, by using my sandbox template I only have to copy and paste the filename once. See for example my recent use here, toward the bottom of the section, with some documentation here.
  • If you use the Push-for-commons tool to find images suitable for moving to Commons, you will start with images that have the correct licensing and information present already, so CommonsHelper can move them (usually) with no problems. Occasionally an image results on Commons with a deprecated license template, but this is easy to fix by hand. (See the above question for examples.)
--Teratornis (talk) 16:47, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Teratornis, thanks. I was using the Commons upload form for Images from other Wikipedia projects, which required the image to be copied from the Hungarian Wikipedia to my drive, and then upload to the Commons. It's on that template that the selected Category is lost after upload.
I will try your clear and concise instructions to experiment with additional images using Move-to-commons assistant, and I now have a TUSC account. Thanks again. Ineuw (talk) 18:34, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

wikimedia commons free for blog use?

Hi, I was putting together a moodboard for a blog post and using an image from wikimedia commons - but then I realized that while I THOUGHT the site's intention was for people to have access to free and available stock photography that maybe I was misunderstanding it.

Must I contact each individual photographer, or is a link back sufficient?

Thanks so much!

Hello,
Its not needed to contact all authors before use, but you need to credit the author and name the license for the image on every use, a link to the Commons page isn't needed but it would support us in our mission when more people see us.
The credit line could look like : This file is made by person a and can be used under the ... License.
You could notify the authors on there talkpage with the note that you use the file, its not needed but many of our users would like a message about usage a lot but again its not needed.
Best regards,
Huib talk 16:05, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
And see COM:REUSE. --Teratornis (talk) 16:24, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Finding the right license

How can I prevent this image from being deleted? ----DanTD (talk) 02:07, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't have an answer, but for background this image was uploaded on en.wiki by User:893 (original description, for en.wiki admins). It was uploaded with the licence {{NoRightsReserved}} in 2005. Now moved to Commons by DanTD (a noble effort :-)), that licence is depreciated here, see Template:No rights reserved and despite DanTD adding a PD licence as suggested by Template:No rights reserved Nikbot tagged the image as no licence. Perhaps the bot made a mistake? {{No license}} does not explain what to do if it is disputed.--Commander Keane (talk) 05:57, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I just moved another file to Commons that had a similar problem: File:Trombe wall 4.jpg. I fixed it by making this change. I hope that's good enough. Ideally, the CommonsHelper tool should detect these problems of deprecated license templates and advise the user who is doing the move about what to change. --Teratornis (talk) 08:54, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
In similar cases, I believe the best solution is to use {{PD-author-w}}. Sv1xv (talk) 09:12, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Okay, I did that. In fact I did that before I got the warning. Maybe the bot did make a mistake in my case. ----DanTD (talk) 13:44, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Following the instruction in {{NoRightsReserved}}. The bot marked the file because it bears the depreciated license, so maybe yes, he not recognized the correct licenses. However, deletion is done by hand, so someone would have fixed it. --Martin H. (talk) 13:51, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I see that the image was saved. Thanks a lot. ----DanTD (talk) 19:56, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Can someone here list this image for deletion? The copyright belongs to Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images and not some Picasa user (see [1] and [2]). I'd do it myself, but I'm not familiar with the deletion process here. Thanks, Theleftorium (talk) 10:21, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Nevermind. The original uploaded has nominated it for speedy deletion now. Theleftorium (talk) 10:33, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Not sure what license to use

I am new to Wikimedia Commons (although I have edited on Wikipedia), and this is stuff I have a hard time understanding. I want to upload some images from out-of-copyright books that are on Internet Archive: [3] and [4]. What license do I use? Malcolm Schosha (talk) 17:53, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

See Help:Public domain and Commons:Copyright tags. You could probably use {{PD-old}} or {{PD-1923}}. Detailed information is at COM:EIC#Copyright. --Teratornis (talk) 18:19, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
The exact license tag depends on the exact circumstances that make a work fee of copyright. If it was published in the USA before 1923, the proper license tag is {{PD-US}}. See also COM:L and Commons:Copyright tags for guidance. Sv1xv (talk) 18:22, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I was going to ask if I had done it correctly after uploading one file, but due to the usual problem (lack of computer know-how)I was not able to upload....got a message that Files of this type cannot be uploaded. When I get that figured out, I will ask if it is ok for Wikimedia. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 20:22, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Commons:File types may help. Make sure you save your images to one of the allowed file types, and the file type matches the extension on the file name. Also choose descriptive file names rather than something like IMG3874738.jpg. Your next puzzle will be to figure out one or more categories for your images. --Teratornis (talk) 21:02, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

The file was (supposed to be) PNG. I used a Firefox add-on called 'Screengrab' to save the images onto my computer as PNG files, but who knows. Anyhow, I noticed in some discussion above that another user is using Flickr to upload to Wikimedia. So I moved two of the images to my Flckr account, and will try uploading from there tomorrow.

They do now have file names like Traditional methods of pattern designing; an in..._1254588441537 [5], and I have no idea how to get rid of the numbers, or otherwise change the name of the file. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 21:22, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Numbers are fine as long as the rest of the file name is meaningful to humans. When you upload a file to Commons with the standard upload form or one of its many variations, you specify both a source file name (on your local hard drive) and a destination file name (on Commons). Thus you can rename a file to anything you want when you upload it. Commons will reject any filename that violates the rules in MediaWiki:Titleblacklist and prompt you to try another name. --Teratornis (talk) 07:39, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I uploaded one image [6]. I would appreciate it if someone could take a look and see if the permission form is done correctly before I upload more. (I have to see if there is something I can do to get the image quality better.) Malcolm Schosha (talk) 18:43, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Hello,

i tried to convert these mov files to theora.

The first one with ffmpeg2theora but the preview image is broken.

The second one wit vlc (older version, but same with 1.0.2) but the aspect ratio is wrong.

Could somebody help me?

Best regards, --Fabian RRRR (talk) 22:15, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

What instructions did you follow? Something in Help:Converting video? Did you try the online solutions? I don't know anything about converting video, so I can only direct you to the instructions. It seems there are some other people reporting problems on Help talk:Converting video. --Teratornis (talk) 09:30, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the advices! It seems that either using V0.24 instead of V0.25 of ffmpeg2theora or the filename .ogv instead of .ogg does the trick (File:VLTMirrorCastG93 SD.ogv) Best regards, --Fabian RRRR (talk) 21:51, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Cannot transfer files from Project to Commons

The process of moving image files from a Wikipedia project to the Commons is a nightmare. It's unnecessarily time consuming, to the point that it seriously affects the desire to contribute.

This story began with my previous posting of the question on Oct 2: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Help_desk#Loosing_Category_on_upload

  1. Based on the wonderful info provided by Teratornis, I signed up for the TUSC token to try the 'commons helper' to transfer image files directly from the Hungarian Wikipedia to the Commons.
  2. I tried the template at http://toolserver.org/%7Emagnus/commonshelper.php. This process refused transfer because, it couldn't understand the Hungarian copyright permission and the categories. This is interesting because the 'source'=self made, is in English.
  3. Then, I tried its successor at http://toolserver.org/~commonshelper2/ which couldn't find the file in any character variations between Western ISO 8859-1 and UTF-8 (My browser is Western ISO 8859-1 and Windows XP SP3 OS).
  4. The image file on hu.wikipedia is at: http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A1jl:Kod%C3%A1ly_Zolt%C3%A1n_P%C3%A9cs.JPG#, or in Western ISO 8859-1: http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fájl:Kodály_Zoltán_Pécs.JPG#. I tried it with, and without the word 'File:', in English, and in Hungarian as in: Kodály_Zoltán_Pécs.JPG 'File:' in Hungarian is 'Fájl:'.
  5. Then, I tried uploading another file using the old method, and it was deleted because the 'source' is in Hungarian and not understood.

What can I do to get the ball rolling? Ineuw (talk) 00:15, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

w:hu:Fájl:Kodály Zoltán Pécs.JPG is actually a File from Commons. I will look for another image that is localy uploaded to hu.wikipedia (Something from the hu.wikipedia filelist) to see if it is working. With CommonsHelper (1) I did not have any problem yesterday to transfer ~200 files from de.wikipedia. --Martin H. (talk) 01:18, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Some three tests later I found: 1) I copied w:hu:File:Deák-téri Evangélikus gimnázim 006.jpg (use "Deák-téri Evangélikus gimnázim 006.jpg") without any proble as it uses a standard license. 2) The license of w:hu:File:Szechenyi dolgozoszobaja.jpg was not detected as it is not a standard license but it is similar to our Template:Attribution. So I can generate the file description with CommonsHelper, but I have to include the license by hand (or someone else must help me). 3) I first had an unknown error for File:Szabó Lőrinc általános iskola és gimnázium.jpg, the second time it works fine.
Can you give the filename of the file you have the problems? For CommonsHelper you must use the filename, in my third example this is "Szabó Lőrinc általános iskola és gimnázium.jpg" without the namespace. --Martin H. (talk) 01:31, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Martin. Here is the original file name on the Hu.wikipedia: Kodály_Zoltán_Pécs.JPG#. This name is accurate because even Google finds both the hu. and the commons copies. It's ironic, because prior to trying to transfer, I checked the commons images for every variation of Kodály. Perhaps you can try another image that was rejected for me by the upload: http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fájl:Bajcsy.jpg. Ineuw (talk) 02:40, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Transfering w:hu:File:Bajcsy.jpg would be a bad idea, the image is unsourced and taken from a random website such as http://www.tarpa.eu/home/fotok/linkhez/bajcsy_zsilinszky_endre.jpg - so copyright violation and please not transfer. But it would work with CommonsHelper entering "Bajcsy.jpg" as filename (without the #). --Martin H. (talk) 03:48, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Re: "to the point that it seriously affects the desire to contribute" - the software and the rules here can be trying at times, but I have never seen another system with a more helpful user community. --Teratornis (talk) 09:26, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Teratornis. I agree with your comments about user community support. As for the Bajcsi.jpg, I now understand the rejection. The image itself is not important for my translation. Like Martin H., I want to transfer images from the hu.wikipedia to the commons, and this episode contributed to my understanding of the copyright rules' application to various sources. Ineuw (talk) 13:20, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
While moving some images to Commons from the English Wikipedia, I have noticed a variety of ad hoc formatting schemes, license templates, etc. This stands to reason: if users are uploading images to the Wikipedias that should be on Commons, they probably do not know everything about images yet - otherwise they would have uploaded directly to Commons in the first place. Thus some of the Wikipedia images have irregular information on their pages. I've been using the push-for-commons tool to search for images to move, because it (supposedly) can identify the "good" images. But even some of those create problems when I move them with CommonsHelper. It's probably not so much a problem with the software as with the other users who were struggling to figure out what to do. Images are one of the more difficult aspects of the Wikipedias. I edited only the text of articles on the English Wikipedia for my first two years before I attempted to do anything with images. When I came to Commons last year, I started by writing the Editor's index to Commons as a way to figure out what is going on here. But the nice thing is we can almost always get answers to our questions from other users here. Maybe not the answer we want to hear, but at least we will know. --Teratornis (talk) 05:51, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Problem downstreaming large image

I'm having a problem downstreaming very large images from Wikimedia, such as file:Currier & Ives Brooklyn2.jpg; no matter what method I use (Saving to device, viewing in browser, using third party specialist application), the connection drops part-way through the file; this seems to be random, and often I can just reload a dozen times to finally complete the downstream, however not in the case of Currier & Ives Brooklyn2.jpg. My line's perfectly stable, and other downstreams running simultaneously don't cut off, so it's not dropping from my end; and there's more than enough memory to buffer the images. Little help? 92.12.108.110 13:06, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I want to write a biography but I don't understand the reference to unacceptable files. Can I use Microsoft word with a file extension of .doc to do this ?

Hi 92.12.108.110. - 58mb is not a large file to download, perhaps you should consider stopping the other downstreams and see if this works. A .doc file is not suitable for upload. However, you can use it to compose the biography, but for the final result plain 'vanilla' text format (.txt) is best. Also, I am not sure, since I am just another user, but I don't think that you are registered. Registering would allow you a greater latitude on Wikipedia. Ineuw (talk) 21:43, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply Ineuw; Reducing the net up/downstream was one of the first things I tried, to no avail; I'm fairly sure it's ISP/Server related. As for the second unsigned paragraph, that question was asked by a separate user, I assume a user not aware of the posting system here. 92.11.201.212 22:11, 5 October 2009 (UTC) (Formally 92.12.108.110, IP cycle)

Uploading an image

Your caption goes here

Hello

I want to upload an image (fbrc.jpg) to "Foreign Births Register" on Wikipedia. However all that I get in place of the image is the name of the file. Help!

Luke — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.13.47.182 (talk • contribs) 17:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

File:Fbrc.jpg is already uploaded to Commons. You do not have to upload it again to Wikipedia - Wikipedia can display images from Commons the same as images on Wikipedia. If you want to display the image in Foreign Births Register, follow the instructions in Wikipedia:Picture tutorial. See the example that I inserted at the top of this question. --Teratornis (talk) 08:00, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Appropriate Pictures of the Day

Good afternoon,

I am a big fan of the commons and I use it with elementary school students regularly. I am teaching them about copyright issues (I'm the media specialist) and they are learning to use photographs from the commons and cite the source rather than using google image search. I was very disappointed to log on this morning and discover a half-naked woman on the main page. As a result, I will be hesitant in the future to use the commons with my students, which is extremely sad since it is a wonderful site.

Jeanette Marin Candlewood Elementary School

We are sorry, but Commons is not censored, which means you might find sometimes unsuitable content for children (and content that might shock other people, them being children or not.) Esby (talk) 18:16, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
My wife is a second grade teacher so I understand your concerns. You can get a preview of the potential pictures of the day by looking here periodically, but you should understand as Esby said that Common is not censored. So you will want to preview the Main Page before showing it to students. But I would encourage you to continue to use Commons and to teach the importance of understanding copyrights to your students. --Captain-tucker (talk) 00:58, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
If you're interested in copyright, see the links under COM:EIC#Copyright. Also see Wikipedia:FAQ/Schools, WP:EIW#School, and 2008/2009 Wikipedia Selection for schools. As with providing any sort of online information for children, one has to check it first. The Commons picture of the day samples content from all of Commons. You can restrict your attention to pictures within certain categories, such as for example Category:Wind turbines or Category:Black cats. Nothing too exciting there usually although you never know. --Teratornis (talk) 03:16, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Trailer officiel d'un film

Question in english and french.

Peut-on mettre sur Commons un extrait de film qui est un trailer officiel, donc destiné à être diffusé partout ? Je voudrais mettre un des extraits officiels du film Le ruban blanc pour mettre en exergue le contexte psychologique du début du XXe siècle par rapport à la masturbation.

(visualiser l'extrait sur allociné)

Merci pour votre réponse. Cordialement. Yohan Castel


Can I upload on Commons an official trailer of a movie , wich purpose anyway is to be broadcast everywhere ? I would like to use an official trailer from the movie "the white ribbon" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1149362/) to highlight the psychological context about masturbation of the early twentieth century.

Thank you for your answer. Yohan Castel

The page you linked shows this at the bottom:
  • Copyright © 1993-2009 AlloCiné Tous droits réservés
I am not sure of the copyright status of the trailer. If the trailer is under copyright, you generally cannot upload it to Commons. The same applies to screen captures from the trailer or the film - they are all under the film's copyright. (See also Commons:Captures d'écran.) Commons is a repository of free content only (fr:Œuvre libre); see Commons:Project Scope (Commons:Critères d'inclusion). However, if you can persuade the copyright holder to release the trailer under a free license, you can follow the procedure in COM:OTRS (Commons:OTRS/fr) to document the copyright holder's written permission. --Teratornis (talk) 09:54, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
This is not the copyright status of the trailer. Allociné don't own any copyright by themselves, except for the site design or the content they really made by themselves. Anyway, 'broadcast anywhere' does not mean the media is free, meaning I'd assume you are probably not allowed to modify the movie or create another movie from it. Esby (talk) 13:04, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Vector version (.eps outlined) avaialable for the US Marine seal?

Vector version (.eps outlined) avaialable for the US Marine seal? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.95.43.84 (talk • contribs) 18:51, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

See Category:Emblems of the United States Marine Corps for example File:USMC logo.svg. Most vector files on Commons are SVG files. See the links under COM:EIC#Inkscape. --Teratornis (talk) 20:30, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Fox picture

I am not a computer person and most of your programs i do not understand. Sunsay Oct 4, 2009 i took a picture of an Island fox and i have serveral red fox and grey fox but from my research, the island fox is an endangered species and i wanted to put a picture of it on your web site. I live in a state and area where they should not be and i wanted to help you and others learn from my observation and pictures. I am an animal lover and i would like to help protect this beautiful fox and even give a person with a degree in studying this animal a place to stay and watch these fox. I will even furnish a free room in my house while doing this. i made an effort to upload a very good picture of it along with all the information (date, time, type of camera, etc) and i also have several other pictures of it but it keeps saying that the file number on my picture is already being used and it shows a picture of a house. Please help a 73 year old man that loves nature and all animals, give you my picture and information. i do not want any thing special except to protect this beautiful fox. Please tell me what to do. I also do not know any thing about a license and what i send will be free and for public use. I only want to do my part. Thank you, Johnny — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ibcnukid (talk • contribs) 22:15, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

We have a Category:Urocyon littoralis with some images of the Island fox. When you upload a photo, edit the name in the destination file name field so it is descriptive. Your camera may generate a default filename consisting of just some numbers, and Commons will not accept that. Commons is a do-it-yourself system; everything you need to know is in the instructions. See Commons:First steps. However, not everybody can figure out our instructions. If you can't figure out Commons, you could try uploading your images to Flickr. Flickr must be easier because it has billions of photos compared to "just" the several million on Commons. If you upload your photos to Flickr and choose the "CC-BY-SA" license, then someone else can upload them from Flickr to Commons (for example with the {{Flinfo}} tool). As far as helping with conservation efforts, on Commons we cannot help with that. However, if you read the Island fox article and look up the references it cites, you should find the local conservation agencies who may be able to use your help. Good luck. --Teratornis (talk) 23:46, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Commons assistant fails to find existing files

I selected three images from hu.wikipedia to be transferred to the commons with the commons assistant. I was impressed with the process, and was successful in the first transfer, but images no. 2 and 3 were reported not to exist. I tried both versions of the assistant with the same results.

These are are the images' urls:
http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A1jl:Bolyai_J%C3%A1nos-szobor.jpg
http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A1jl:Kolozsvar_Bathory_Istvan_liceum.JPG

What I am dong wrong?, Thanks. Ineuw (talk) 02:05, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

See http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A1jl:Kolozsvar_Bathory_Istvan_liceum.JPG?uselang=hu : This file is already on Commons, it not exists on the hu.wikipedia but here on Commons. A file on Commons can be accesed from every wiki (>700 projects), see the same image on the english Wikipedia: w:en:File:Kolozsvar_Bathory_Istvan_liceum.JPG, the german Wikipedia: w:de:File:Kolozsvar_Bathory_Istvan_liceum.JPG, the hungarian Wikipedia: w:hu:File:Kolozsvar_Bathory_Istvan_liceum.JPG and even the Wikipedia in Hindi: w:hi:File:Kolozsvar_Bathory_Istvan_liceum.JPG. --Martin H. (talk) 02:31, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
As always, thanks Martin H. Ineuw (talk) 02:57, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

What is COMMONS.

How do I upload a page to commons — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chandruarni wiki (talk • contribs) 07:12, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Start at Help:Contents - your questions have been answered already. J.smith (talk) 07:20, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Changing license from Copyrighted free use to non-free fair use

I mistakenly uploaded and labeled a book cover image as Copyrighted free use and need to change it to Copyrighted non-free / fair use. What's the proper and most efficient way to do this? Thanks.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeremygossett (talk • contribs)

Hi,
I deleted the file, feel free to upload it on the en:English Wikipedia.
Best regards,
Huib talk 17:42, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

How to find images on a Wikipedia not yet on Commons

Greetings to the Help dieties of the day;

My initial post was because, based on my previous experience with the images on hu.wikipedia, I searched for new images directly on hu.wikipedia, without giving a second thought to searching in the Commons.

Are the images mirrors, or copies? In either case, is there a way to tell on the visited wiki page that it's already exist on the commons? Perhaps a link? Thanks. Ineuw (talk) 18:25, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

When you want to move images to Commons, it is annoying that Wikipedia's image search results show images that are on the Wikipedia where you search, and on Commons. It would be nice if Wikipedia image search had a check box to exclude images that are already on Commons. The Push-for-commons tool (which I mentioned in my reply on Oct. 2 above) partly corrects this problem, by providing a search capability for images which are suitable candidates for moving to Commons. That is: images which are on a given Wikipedia, and have the correct free licensing. Push-for-commons has some drawbacks, namely that the search behavior is not the same as on Wikipedia. You can search "by category" which really seems to mean "Look for articles in a given category or within N subcategories, and examine the images that appear in those articles." This doesn't find all the same images that searching for a set of keywords on Wikipedia finds, because Wikipedia also searches on the image description text. Nonetheless, Push-for-commons is a good tool to start with, because it clearly shows the status of the photos it does finds, with respect to the chore of moving them to Commons. It also shows images on a Wikipedia which also "shadow" a duplicate copy on Commons. (For some reasons, some users want to maintain such duplicate copies on the Wikipedias, which would seem to imply they believe Commons is failing in its mission to be the pan-project repository.) That description was all abstract so here is a clickable example:
See my notes in:
For example, just now I am toiling on files that Push-for-commons finds in articles up to three categories under Category:Global warming on the English Wikipedia.
I've automated as much of the repetition as I can see how, but I still have too many repetitive manual steps remaining. I might look into what it takes to get my own account on the Toolserver so I could experiment with my own version of Push-for-commons that would give me some links I could click to open CommonsHelper with all the options I like and directly execute it without requiring me to mouse to the suboptimally-located "Get text" button. Push-for-commons does have a button for moving an image to Commons, but it runs CommonsHelper with the requirement that you manually download and upload the image, which is the awful way to run it in my opinion. I always run CommonsHelper with the bot upload option.
When you view an image on a Wikipedia, you can tell if you are viewing the image from Commons by looking for the Commons logo in the upper right. However, that does not tell you if you are viewing an image on the local Wikipedia which shadows another image by the same name on Commons. Such images should have a message template which tells you that, but you have to scroll down to look for it, and some user or a bot would have had to place it there. --Teratornis (talk) 19:25, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


Dyslexic dieting deities not withstanding, thanks for opening my eyes. Ineuw (talk) 00:43, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Help!

Could anyone please have a look at the problem, several users posted here? I already asked to solve this on several pages, but no-one seems to care. It is a bug and SOMEBODY just has to solve the problem. I don't know where I can contact people who are in charge of things like that. Maybe someone could help? Please? --Paulae (talk) 20:45, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Is there a Bugzilla: link to this yet? I never hit this particular bug, because I always use a basic upload form that lets me paste in raw wikitext. I would rather type my categories in a text editor than select them from a GUI. Although I'm starting to like HotCat for categorizing images already uploaded. --Teratornis (talk) 04:18, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
I have never had a problem with it, but I do not know if it has changed recently. I use Firefox. You need to click and make sure that there is a tick to the right where the cat has been typed in. It will not work by just writing in the cat, it needs to be clicked as well. Snowmanradio (talk) 11:42, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
Well, User:Kolossos is not a beginner, and neither am I. I have uploaded several hundred pictures to Commons and I always put categories to them. Using the upload form has never been a problem, but it seems that while there was this trouble on Commons in late September, something went wrong with the upload form as well. Now someone should know how to fix it. Two days ago it didn't work, so it would be a surprise to me if it worked now. --Paulae (talk) 14:16, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
Just tried it again – it's still the same problem. I tagged a picture, the cat shows up in the preview, but is missing after having uploaded the picture. I don't know if there is a bugzilla-link to this yet. And I don't know how to change it either. --Paulae (talk) 14:22, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps, it is something to do with the wikimedia software upgrade. The category does not work in the flickr upload helper either. I add the categories later in the upload process. Snowmanradio (talk) 16:15, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
The correct place to report bugs is on Bugzilla (actually called Mediazilla:). See Commons:Bugs for a list of some bugs that affect Commons. If your bug is not there yet, you could add it when you find it on Bugzilla or add it there. For instructions on reporting bugs see:
I think Bugzilla/Mediazilla is the only place developers look for bug reports. They are probably too busy to monitor the Help desk, which is for problems we can fix without changing the software. --Teratornis (talk) 19:47, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
I guess it has been reported here. At least the problem seems to be similar. Hopefully they can solve it. --Paulae (talk) 06:32, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

How is the new version brought into view

Re: File:Paradisaea apoda -Kuala Lumpur Bird Park-8a.jpg. Soon after uploading the original image, I uploaded a version without the wartermark over the original file. The old version is still in the main view. How is this fixed? Snowmanradio (talk) 11:35, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. Try refreshing your browser. Powers (talk) 13:16, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
On my screen I have still got the watermark under the branch. I think I have cleared the cache. These still show the old version as well; File:Cacatua moluccensis -Kuala Lumpur Bird Park -aviary-8a.jpg and File:Streptopelia chinensis -Kuala Lumpur Bird Park-8a.jpg. Snowmanradio (talk) 16:12, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
I see the new version of File:Paradisaea apoda -Kuala Lumpur Bird Park-8a.jpg. Make sure you have really cleared your browser's cache. See: Wikipedia:Bypass your cache. --Teratornis (talk) 20:48, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

can´t upload a file

When i have filled in the normal form and click submit i get a popup saying "files of the type apllication/zip cannot be uploaded". How do i get past this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kristianbengtsson (talk • contribs)

You can't; ZIP files can't be uploaded. Make sure you have an image, audio, or video file selected. Powers (talk) 13:16, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
See Commons:File types. --Teratornis (talk) 18:57, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
Then where should one upload the original data from which an image was generated, if not on Commons? I'm guessing that base64-encoding it and pasting it into an XML comment in an SVG would be rawther POINTish. --Damian Yerrick () 19:24, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
I don't know whether there is an "approved" way, but then I am not in a good position to know because I haven't worked much with these types of images yet. You could copy and paste the data into a <nowiki>...</nowiki> tag on an image's talk page. The problem you are seeing is that MediaWiki does not directly support collaboration on user-generated images the way it does with user-generated wikitext. Images to MediaWiki are just meaningless blobs of data. MediaWiki knows nothing about where the blobs come from, nor how to facilitate collaboration between multiple users for editing the blobs. Many images of course come from cameras rather than from data which a user could edit. See the links under COM:EIC#Graphic. Maybe some other users have figured out efficient methods for collaborating on images they generate from data in some primary text form. --Teratornis (talk) 19:34, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
I worded this sentence poorly:
  • Many images of course come from cameras rather than from data which a user could edit.
Users can edit photographs, but again the MediaWiki software has no direct provision for this. How about:
  • Many images of course come from cameras rather than from text data which a user could edit and store separately from the image data.
MediaWiki could support collaborative editing on SVG files, but it does not really do this currently. See COM:EIC#Inkscape for such documentation as I have been able to find about SVG files on Commons. --Teratornis (talk) 20:37, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Spanish WIkipedia

I have uploaded some images to the Commons and used them in the English Wikipedia. Are they available to articles in the Spanish Wikipedia, or do I have to put them somewhere else? Lou Sander (talk) 04:43, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

You can use these the same way, images on Commons are present on all Wikipedias. Esby (talk) 09:56, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I need help

Please somebody, help me for my file I really cannot put right category and how to remove description of history of file ? Thank in advance --Italiamoderna (talk) 17:39, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Judging from your contributions, I think you may refer to File:Gorgone ceramica.jpg. User:Fale recently moved it to Commons with the CommonsHelper program. Perhaps you have seen that Commons has different categories than the Italian Wikipedia where you originally uploaded the file. There is generally not a direct correspondence between categories on the various Wikipedias and categories on Commons. From what I have seen, by moving images from the English Wikipedia to Commons, the categories for images on Commons are much better and more comprehensive. The image description is not formatted very well just now. I will look at the image and try to format it better. Note that the image page as it appears on the Italian Wikipedia will no longer preserve the original categories that the image had there. Once the image is on Commons, it "lives" in the Commons categories. --Teratornis (talk) 18:44, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
I see the problem. User:Fale moved the image to Commons, but did not then clean up the image page to remove the {{BotMoveToCommons}} template, and add categories. This can for example result when a user moves many images to Commons quickly using a program, but does not then do the extra manual work to clean up the moved image pages. The other users who originally uploaded the images to their native language Wikipedia may then be very confused about what to do next. Accordingly, when I move images to Commons, I try to clean up their pages on Commons. It's easier for me to do this because I know the steps, whereas the original uploaders could be totally confused. For example see my adjustments to a file I moved recently. However, this reduces the number of images I can move, because it takes longer to clean up an image page than to simply move the image over. Ideally, we should have many experienced Commons users monitoring categories such as:
and cleaning up the backlog of moved images. Just now there are 2,010 images awaiting review from the Italian Wikipedia alone! --Teratornis (talk) 19:01, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
I think File:Gorgone ceramica.jpg looks right now. Tell me whether I edited the description to correctly reflect the changes I think you were trying to make. --Teratornis (talk) 19:09, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Another failed flickr upload

This image File:Las Cruces NM train station.jpg was supposed to habe been uploaded from flickr, but it didn't show up. Would anyone care to do the honors and fix this one? ----DanTD (talk) 22:47, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Fixed, uploaded it by hand. --Martin H. (talk) 23:29, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Page on Wikipedia

To whom it may concern

How do I create a page on wikipedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ramiromendes (talk • contribs) 01:23, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

A first step would be to visit the Wikipedia pages, this is Wikimedia Commons. You should read the basic instructions there, on the english language Wikipedia this is w:en:Wikipedia:Tutorial, other languages are linked on the left side of that page. --Martin H. (talk) 03:21, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Blurred faces

When uploading a street scene do we need to blur the faces of the passers-by?--Mycomp (talk) 07:28, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

No. See COM:IDENT for all the details.--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:37, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Can't find uploaded photo for File:Victor_Arbogast-Sculpture.jpg

I will add a category and author to the uploaded image. However, I cannot even see the image of the upload! What happened? What do I need to do? Shizuye (talk) 16:32, 11 October 2009 (UTC)Shizuye

You uploaded a .pcd file with a .jpg file extension. The Wikimedia software is not able to handle the file, .pcd is not a allowed file format, changing the extension from .pcd to .jpg does not make it a .jpg file. --Martin H. (talk) 17:37, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Categorization

How do I categorize photos I've uploaded? Cullen328 (talk) 03:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Cullen, after you posted your question here you already made some very good categorization work for your uploads, that's exactly how it works, perfect. You can take the categories in the en.wikipedia article as an orientation and add similar categories to the image of the subject. Many categories from en.wikipedia are not used here (and not useful in my opinion), also Commons has some more categories e.g. Category:Smile, other activities or colors that Wikipedia not has. So if you find something worth more than a subject category (location of the photo, color, activity, date) you may search and add them. --Martin H. (talk) 07:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

copyright rules for artists’ images

Hi there,

I am new to Wikimedia Commons. I uploaded an image last week. It is entitled Blue Love and it is a low res. picture by American artist and photographer Akim Monet. Here is the link to the image:

[[7]]

The image it is a photograph taken by Akim Monet at Khajuraho in India. It is a low res version of the large original (40 x 60”) Monet showed in 2002 in a New York gallery.

I am actually editing my article about this artist on Wikipedia and I would like to keep the picture on the article page. Could you please point me towards the copyright rules for artists’ images in order for me to properly incorporate this and other images by artist Akim Monet?

I need to improve the Source information (what should I add in this section)?

Monet makes low res. versions of his images available to the public for use on the web. But of course, I understand this has to be said somewhere. So again, I look forward to being pointed in the right direction. Also could you please tell me what I need to add on the Permission and Licensing section? I want to make sure the proper copyright symbol is attached to the Monet image.

Thank you. Regards Amigani (talk) 09:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The general procedure for documenting the copyright holder's permission is in COM:OTRS. It's not clear whether "available to the public for use on the web" by itself constitutes a statement of free content. "Free content" does not carry restrictions such as "on the web". See COM:L. If you give us a link to the artist's statement of permission (assuming there is one), then we can read it and see whether that statement is adequate. If not, then we would need written permission from the artist to release the image as free content. --Teratornis (talk) 09:19, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

no thumb

I have charged a .tif file but there is not the thumb image. So, when I put it into an article of it.Wikipedia there is no image. What happens? Patafisik (talk) 15:35, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

See Commons:File types, .tif is only allowed for archival and restoration purposes. Please convert your image to .jpg or anouther suitable file format and upload it again. --Martin H. (talk) 17:01, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

copyright rules for artists’ images

Dear teratornis,

thanks for your answer. I couldn’t find a link to the artist’s statement of permission online. Therefore I suggest writing to the artist directly in order to ask him if there is a statement of permission, and if not, to give us a written permission to release the images as free content.

Amigani (talk) 11:07, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, then follow the procedure in COM:OTRS. The uploader is responsible for insuring that the uploaded file is free content. If you cannot get permission from the artist, then perhaps you can upload the image to one of the Wikipedias instead which allows fair use (Commons does not allow fair use). Good luck. --Teratornis (talk) 21:10, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I made a mistake in category

I made the category "1954 in israel" instead of "1954 in Israel. How can I fix it? חובבשירה (talk) 19:33, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Commons:Rename a category. --Teratornis (talk) 20:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Unified or shared wiki resources

Where can I find out which features are shared through all the wikis, in addition to the unified login? Ineuw (talk) 00:30, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

If there were such features, I would expect WP:SUL to list them, perhaps in a "See also" section. However, it does not. You could try asking on Wikipedia talk:Unified login. Let us know if you find anything. I cannot recall hearing of any other features that work like the unified login. The only similar thing that comes to mind is the ability to display an image on any other Wikimedia Foundation wiki if the image is on Commons. But presumably you already knew about that (anybody who knows about SUL would know about Commons). Another feature that is in the MediaWiki software but disabled on Wikipedia is scary transclusion, which would be the ability to transclude templates cross-wiki. In the absence of that feature, we have a lot of templates with the same names but different behaviors on Commons and the English Wikipedia, such as {{Location}}. There could be other features I haven't heard of yet. I'm not sure how you would count the Toolserver, which provides several tools that work across the various wikis. Probably the most complete single listing of features is the Editor's index to Wikipedia. If cross-wiki tools exist, the index should list them (which doesn't mean it now lists everything it should list). --Teratornis (talk) 03:01, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Image not displaying on Wikipedia

Hi - The actual visual from two images I've uploaded do not appear on the Wikipedia entry I've used them in - the box where the jpg would appear shows up with the name of the file, but not the picture itself. You can see this happening on the Kennedy's All-American Barber Club entry in Wikipedia - the KennedyFdrs.jpg image near the bottom of the page. Does anyone know how I can correct this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joelcan (talk • contribs) 19:00, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

The correct jargon is "article" rather than "entry".
The article needs more work. See WP:LAYOUT, WP:CITE, WP:FOOT for starters. --Teratornis (talk) 19:49, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
You could add a Template:Infobox company to the top of the article and put the company logo in it. --Teratornis (talk) 19:56, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm having a similar issue with an image file: .

I'm using this over at Wikipedia (article: Race and crime in the United States). Earlier today it was working fine, and now it's simply not showing up. I thought perhaps there was an uploading error, and my browser was reading the cache, so I tried re-uploading, but that didn't help. Suggestions? Thanks, --Varoon Arya (talk) 19:29, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

OK. The problem appears to have resolved itself. (Server hiccup? Or if someone was flipping switches and pulling levers behind the scenes: thanks! :) --Varoon Arya (talk) 20:38, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Postprocessing soft images

I took a serises of images of a bird trying to eat a snake. I did not want to approach it to close in order not to disturb it so the quality of the images is not very good. I didnt evern have a tripod. Is there something I can to in post-processing that could turn at least one of the pictures to a QI status? -- Korall (talk) 10:16, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

See the links under COM:EIC#Graphic and if none of those help you could ask on Commons:Graphics village pump. --Teratornis (talk) 18:14, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Next time you might photograph from a hunter's blind, and lay a few dead snakes out in front of it to attract birds. Who knows, even a mighty teratorn might swoop down. Not likely as they've apparently been extinct for thousands of years but you never know. --Teratornis (talk) 18:17, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Yes, indeed it was a special moment and thats why im so sad my tamron zoom lens didnt deliver better quality. Thats the reason I ask for post-processing advice.--Korall (talk) 19:19, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Löschanträge

Die nachfolgenden Dateien habe ich mit Löschanträgen versehen. Es handelt sich um Werke eines lebenden Künstlers de:Gerold Miller, die sich nicht im öffentlichen Raum befinden. Eine Freigabe könnte nur vom Künstler erfolgen. Das Löschverfahren hier ist mir zu kompliziert, deswegen bitte ich um Hilfe. --Textkorrektur (talk) 09:21, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Hallo, die Löschdiskussion findet jetzt auf Commons:Deletion requests/Works of Gerold Miller statt; ich habe alles soweit angepasst. Grüße, -- ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 12:29, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Problem with image quality

I copied an image from a PDF file and got this [8]. I copied the image to the clipboard, pasted it into GIMP, saved it to my pictures folder, and then uploaded it? Why is it so bad? The original was black, not gray, and certainly had better resolution than that. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 14:36, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Im not so good with image editing, so I cant help you to find why the quality was reduced. Adobe allows me to save images as bmp or jpg, I do this as bmp and save it as png with another program. Adobe only saves the image, not the image caption - and thats ok, the image caption is hard to read and you should add this text in the Wikipedia image description. Ill upload a new file, if you not like it you can revert my upload. --Martin H. (talk) 17:37, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
Thank you. I just previously left a message on your talk page. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 17:48, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
I tried uploading another image [9], and am still having problems with the quality of the image. Is there a way to know what the quality will be before uploading? Malcolm Schosha (talk) 20:54, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Problem with license?

I need your help! What is the license for this file and can I send it? --Kamil9243 (talk) 19:12, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

The Terms of Use page says:
  • You may not use the Site: ... to create a database (electronic or otherwise) that includes material downloaded or otherwise obtained from the Site, without written permission from the NHM;
Therefore the safe approach would be to write to the NHM and follow the procedure in COM:OTRS. If you don't mind the possibility of getting sued, you could assume the image is out of copyright and in the public domain. But first, see what happened to User:Dcoetzee. --Teratornis (talk) 19:28, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Misleading email for watched page deletion

Recently I created two categories (let's call them foo and bar) which had the same parent catgories as each other; I placed some files into category:foo, some into category:bar.

Later I realised that all the files concerned really belonged in both categories, so that only one category was actually necessary. I then moved all the files and sub-categories from category:foo to category:bar, and then placed {{Bad name|bar}} on category:foo, and also "watched" category:foo so that I would know when it had gone. I then set "E-mail me when a page on my watchlist is changed" in my preferences, just in case the category was deleted when I was off Commons.

In time, Wknight94 deleted category:foo (correctly), and a mail duly arrived which read (irrelevant portions deleted):

from	WikiAdmin <wiki@wikimedia.org>
date	14 October 2009 15:26
subject	Wikimedia Commons page Category:foo has been created by Wknight94
	
Dear Redrose64,

The Wikimedia Commons page Category:foo has been
created on 14 October 2009 by Wknight94, see
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:foo for the
current revision.

This is a new page.

Editor's summary: (incorrectly named) duplicate of [[:Category:bar]]


            Your friendly Wikimedia Commons notification system

I think that it's misleading for the mail to state "created" and "this is a new page" when an existing page was in fact deleted. This being an automatic mail, who should be contacted to get it amended for the future? --Redrose64 (talk) 12:51, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

It would be nice if the e-mail message adhered to the general wiki principle of everything having a transparent history so anyone can easily determine who did what. The closest thing I found to a clue is mw:Extension:Email notification. --Teratornis (talk) 21:12, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Screenshot Upload

I want to upload an image for Gives Me Hope that I took using Grab (for iMac, it's a free screenshot taker). I took a picture of a logo... can I use it?


Count Duk (talk) 01:44, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

What is "Gives Me Hope"? I googled it and found all sorts of results, because it is a generic phrase. I can't guess which one you refer to. See COM:SCREENSHOT for the rules. You can only upload a screenshot of something to Commons if that something is free content. Most things aren't free. If it's not free, you can try asking the copyright holder for permission and follow the procedure in COM:OTRS. --Teratornis (talk) 02:36, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Is it possible to rename a image?

Hello, is it possible to rename a image ( aka move )? I see a mistake in the title of one of the images I uploaded. Any help? --Nvineeth (talk) 18:02, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the move feature has been activated recently for administrators. Place {{rename|newname.ext|reason}} on the description paage. --Martin H. (talk) 18:11, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Bitte Kanzlerklo drehen/ Please turn the WC of the Chancellor

Wer kann folgende 2 Bilder aus dem ehemaligen Kanzlerbungalow (Bonn) jeweils um 90° nach rechts(!) drehen? Sie sind als Breitformat (falsch) hochgeladen worden und müssten richtig ins Hochformat gedreht werden, damit die dort dargestellten Innenräume vernünftig betrachtet werden können:

Danke/Thanks, -- 87.123.141.113 18:13, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

User:Martin H. marked them with the {{Rotate}} template, so the bot should rotate them shortly. --Teratornis (talk) 18:49, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Detailansichten

Hallo! Nachdem ich beim Versuch einer Detailansicht einer bereits vorhandendenen Datei File:De_mislukte_aanslag_van_de_Engelsen_op_de_retourvloot_in_de_haven_van_Bergen_-_The_failed_attempt_of_the_English_on_the_Dutch_ships_returning_from_Bergen._August_12_1665_(Willem_van_de_Velde_I,_1669).jpg komplett gescheitert bin, suche ich nun Hilfe. Hier, bei Commons, habe ich mich völlig verrannt. 1. Wie kann man ein Detail/Teil eines solchen Werkes bei Commons einbinden? Es ist ja alles schon da, nur zu viel. Dieses Detail benötige ich als Abbildung in der dt. WP. und zukünftige Detailierungen 2. Wie kriege ich mein bisher verzapften Blödsinn wieder zurück gestellt? Besonders die Bearbeitungen vom 13.10.2009 bei [10] und [11]. Danke! --Sterntreter (talk) 10:46, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Ich glaube du hast es weitestgehend schon rausgefunden. Den Upload kannst du in der Versionsgeschichte zurücksetzen, was du bereits getan hast, Bildausschnitte bitte unter anderem Dateiname neu hochladen. --Martin H. (talk) 17:30, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Hallo! Danke für Hilfe! Das Hochladeformular war sehr hilfreich, aber leider etwas versteckt. Würde mich freuen, könnte noch mal jemand über Lecksegel.jpg rüberluken.--Sterntreter (talk) 15:29, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

using an image file

Hello, I'm a helpless newbie here. I'm not even sure I'm asking at the right place.

There is an image that I would like to use for the cover of a magazine that will be distributed to our church members. (I'm also new to magazine publications.)

Do I need to include the author of the image and the whole licensing information (below) from that page?

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

Also, I cannot figure out what "no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts" means.

Thank you so much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tzipporah (talk • contribs) 05:23, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

See COM:REUSE. --Teratornis (talk) 08:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
No, you not only need to include the author and the license information, you need to include the author and the whole license text (Commons:GNU Free Documentation License) and a version history with every copy to fulfill the license requirements. The terms you can't figure out are described in the license text. --Martin H. (talk) 15:45, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Multiple OTRS uploading

Hello, I have to upload 10 photos with OTRS permission.

Should he send me 10 e-mail for 10 different photos? Or should he send me only ONE e-mail and specify then all permitted photos?

For example, declaration says: I hereby assert that I am the creator and/or sole owner of the exclusive copyright of WORK [ insert link ].

Ok, can he specify 10 links in a whole e-mail? Thank you for support.

--El cestofilo (talk) 12:40, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

A single email will be fine. To make it ultra-clear, please change "WORK" to "TEN WORKS" (or whatever is the correct number), and then list the URLs with square brackets around each URL, for example;
I hereby assert that I am the creator and/or sole owner of the 
exclusive copyright of THREE WORKS [http://www.example.com/file.jpg] 
[http://www.example.com/file2.jpg] [http://www.example.com/file3.jpg].
Thank you for contributing to Commons.  Chzz  ►  16:08, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Item has always been free of copyright.

I have elections campaign leaflets for 1918 for UK minister William Lunn which came from a relative. This is a good source of information both about the election and the politician though probably not of interest outside theUK. There is no copyright, none was ever intended and people were asked to put in in their windows. Apologise if I'm missing the obvious, I've spent some time on this but still don't know what copyright template to use. Any advice? JRPG (talk) 20:24, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

See Help:Public domain. You can probably use {{PD-1923}}. For more information see COM:EIC#Copyright. --Teratornis (talk) 00:56, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Album artwork

Hi, just wondering if there is a specific site to take images of album artwork from to upload legally to wikimedia? Doesn't seem to be many on flickr. Thanks.. ScarTissueBloodBlister (talk) 00:04, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

See COM:CB#Album covers. Most album covers are copyrighted and thus are not allowable on Commons. You may be able to upload low-resolution images of album covers to some Wikipedias under a fair use criterion. See COM:FAIRUSE. For more on copyright see COM:EIC#Copyright. --Teratornis (talk) 00:58, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok, how do you know whether or not an image is copyrighted? ScarTissueBloodBlister (talk) 01:15, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Unless it says otherwise, it is copyrighted by the copyright holder. User:Zscout370 (Return fire) 03:16, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
Virtually all albums sold commercially are copyrighted. Rare exceptions would include the few artists who release works under free content licenses such as Creative Commons. I don't know of any well-known examples, but I don't keep up with the music industry. --Teratornis (talk) 04:01, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
There is a site called Jamendo with music licensed under Creative Commons. Note that Wikipedia itself is a free content project, so it would make more sense for Wikipedians to document other free content projects (subject to Wikipedia's rules for content) before documenting the copyrighted works. Writing about something on Wikipedia tends to promote it, after all. The traditional media industry impedes what we are trying to do here by imposing copyright restrictions. I think it makes sense to focus on the material which doesn't have those restrictions. We can build our own little free world, so to speak. Then the rest of the world will see how cool it is and want to join us. --Teratornis (talk) 04:09, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
Ok, thanks for your help :) ScarTissueBloodBlister (talk) 18:19, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Adding a category to several files simultaneously

Is there a way to add a category to several files at the same time? For instance, assume George.jpg, Paul.jpg, John,jpg, and Ringo.jpg exist, and I want to put all into Category:The Beatles. Is there a program or routine I can use to update all of these files at once? --Estillbham (talk) 16:32, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

A bot could probably do it. See COM:EIC#Bot. --Teratornis (talk) 18:40, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
The use of HotCat.js is an easy way. It is not several files at the same time, but is goes fast. Wouter (talk) 19:06, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Commons access problems

Trying Category:Dictionary_of_National_Biography produces an internet HTTP 500 Internal server error on IE 6. Firefox 3.5.3 shows only a blank page. Is that only me ? --Foroa (talk) 08:16, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I have the same problem. I can access the edit mode, but not preview; According to Google's cache, the category contains 62 djvu files. Pruneautalk 12:16, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Liceasne question

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_sculpture.jpg

need help here... KSLaVida (talk) 16:12, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

See COM:CB#3D art (sculptures etc.). Before someone could determine the copyright status of the sculpture in the (rather poorly-named) File:Old sculpture.jpg, they would have to identify its creator, and the location. There is not sufficient information in the image file page to do that. If you cannot provide that information, you could ask on the Wikipedia Reference desk to see if anyone there can identify the sculpture. You could also write to the proprietor of the Web site from where you copied the photo. --Teratornis (talk) 21:34, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Why is multi-license with CC-by-SA 3.0 and GFDL recommended?

This cartoon demonstrates the utility of multi-licensing one's own work. Click to view the full-size image.

I had been uploading images under the CC by Attribution license until I discovered this multi-license was recommended? What's the reasoning for this? I thought CC-BY 3.0 was less restrictive. I really don't have much preference but if it's better for Commons, I'll start uploading under the multi-license. I'd just like to know why. Thanks, mahanga (talk) 23:43, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

See COM:L#Multi-licensing. --Teratornis (talk) 00:34, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
The CC-BY-SA license and GFDL both make anyone who creates a derivative work from the licensed work release their derivative work under the same license. They are commonly called w:copyleft. Stifle (talk) 10:11, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
If you want to license your images under GFDL (I don't), you may do it at any time, even years after the first release them under CC-BY-SA. Sv1xv (talk) 10:42, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Image to Commons from non-English-language WP

I would like to find out about an image I saw on http://ta.wikipedia.org (Tamil Wikipedia), but I can't read the language, which looks like this: விக்கிப்பீடியாவிற்கு வருக, and their help desk may not be able to read my language. What's the best place to raise a request for someone reads Tamil to check the image, so as to get it copied to Commons if its licensing allows? PL290 (talk) 21:15, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

You may ask at the tamil Wikipedia page ta:விக்கிப்பீடியா:தமிழ்த் தூதரகம் (Tamil Embassy). Also most of the tamil Wikipedia license templates (ta:பகுப்பு:காப்புரிமை வார்ப்புருக்கள்) are named in latin, the template names are very similar to Commons. If it is not a "non-free fair use" image you can, I bet, copy it to Commons with Commons helper. --Martin H. (talk) 21:24, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
OK. You're right, there is some English there and it is a fair use one, which makes it a non-starter for Commons anyway, unfortunately. I wondered about placing it on en.Wikipedia instead, but I don't think the source is given so it's unlikely to be verifiable. Thanks for the info. PL290 (talk) 07:38, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
The Push-for-Commons tool can search for photos suitable for moving to Commons, on the various language Wikipedias. However, the search options do not always make it easy to find a particular photo. I've had good results with the category search mode. --Teratornis (talk) 08:29, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
Ah, thanks. Sounds very useful. I'll try that for this and other things now I know about it. PL290 (talk) 09:13, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
I have some notes about using the Push-for-Commons tool to move some images from the English Wikipedia to Commons. If you will use the corresponding CommonsHelper tool heavily you may wish to make a user subpage template that lets you compactly make links to the tool with the options you like. See:
I prefer to use CommonsHelper to move individual files that I find with Push-for-Commons, rather than move them directly from the links that Push-for-Commons displays, because the latter method requires more manual effort to download and upload the file. CommonsHelper uses a bot to move the file and is more efficient. Note that several things can go wrong in the process so you always have to check and sometimes edit the result. See WP:MITC if you haven't already. --Teratornis (talk) 16:50, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Logo for Festival of Jewish Culture in Warsaw

Hi, I recently created an article for the Festival of Jewish Culture in Warsaw and would like to include in it the image of the associated logo, which can be found at the relevant website: [12] (the fiddler-mermaid combo). From what I understand logos can be uploaded and used in articles, but I'm not sure what the proper license is. Any help much appreciated.Radeksz (talk) 13:29, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Logo is complex enough to be copyrighted. So it could not be uploaded on Commons without copyrights owner permission to release it under free license. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:41, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
You can follow the procedure in COM:OTRS if the copyright holder will give permission. Good luck. --Teratornis (talk) 16:52, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Image won't transfer to the Commons

I've been trying to add File:Kings Highway's HEET Entrance.jpg to the commons using Magnus's Commons Uploading tool, but for some stupid reason it cuts the file name in half and then telle me that the file doesn't exist. I even tried changing the name manually, and got the same results. ----DanTD (talk) 19:31, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I've had problems with the filenames of several files that I moved from the English Wikipedia to Commons using the CommonsHelper tool, I guess because the filenames from Wikipedia violated the rules in MediaWiki:Titleblacklist on Commons. The solution was to specify a different filename for the destination file on Commons. Usually this means removing punctuation characters from the filename and so on. For example you could try uploading to File:Kings Highway HEET Entrance.jpg. You can use "headline grammar" in a filename. Commons seems to be fussier about punctuation characters in filenames than the English Wikipedia is (or was, at the time when files were uploaded there). --Teratornis (talk) 21:51, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
You might also need to URL-encode the filename in the source file field on the CommonsHelper form, if that's the tool you are using. You can do that with a magic word:
  • Kings+Highway%27s+HEET+Entrance.jpg
but I'm just guessing here. I can try to move the file if you get stuck. See my notes in User:Teratornis/Notes#Improving the efficiency of using CommonsHelper. I made a subpage template that URL-encodes the filename and creates a link to CommonsHelper with the options I like. I still have to manually edit the destination filename for the small percentage of filenames that Commons rejects. When Commons rejects a filename, there is no coherent error message from CommonsHelper. CommonsHelper declares success, but when I look for the file on Commons it is not there. Since the workaround is straightforward, I hadn't thought to work up a bug report for the tool's author, but I can see how it could throw a user who hadn't seen the problem before. Since the visible indications of error are uninformative and misleading. --Teratornis (talk) 22:00, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Hmm,... maybe it's just my PC, but now the file isn't loading up. I guess I'm going to either have to ask for your help after all, or rename the file without the apostrophe and "s." ----DanTD (talk) 22:51, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
I moved the file to Commons as File:Kings Highway HEET Entrance.jpg and marked the original as NowCommons so a Wikipedia administrator will delete it within a few days there. You should edit the article(s) that use the image to use the new filename. --Teratornis (talk) 23:48, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Thanks. However, I just tried to upload another one(File:Avenue M's Closed Staircase.jpg) using the same techniques you suggested. The tool claimed that the image had no description, no copyright tag, no original author, and no categories, all of which are lies. The tool just decided on it's own to blank all these things out. ----DanTD (talk) 01:49, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

(undent) Here is the trick:

Then CommonsHelper works. You can also update references to this image to use the new name on Commons. --Teratornis (talk) 03:05, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The new name is File:Avenue M Closed Staircase.jpg. --Teratornis (talk) 03:07, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
You can put the image name on my talk page when you have this problem and I will try to move it for you. These tools seem to be kind of hit or miss, given all the random variations that users have uploaded. --Teratornis (talk) 17:09, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the offer. I'll do that. ----DanTD (talk) 13:50, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

2-€-Münze

Hallo,
welche Vorlage muss ich einfügen, wenn ich eine 2-€-Münze hochlade, die ich selbst fotografiert habe (mit weißem Hintergrund)? Vielleicht {{Euro coin common face}}?
Danke, final.countdown™ it's the final.countdown! 16:38, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

See Commons:Currency#Euro. It seems to matter whether you photographed the common face or the national face of the coin. You mentioned {{Euro coin common face}} so perhaps you photographed the common face. I also see a {{Money-EU}} template. Many examples are in Category:Euro coins (2 euros). --Teratornis (talk) 17:02, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
Wenn die Münze (für Deutschland) den Adler zeigt, darf ich dieses Bild hochladen, oder nicht? --final.countdown™ it's the final.countdown! 15:41, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Ja, {{Money-EU}} fürs Design der Münzrückseite und eine freie Lizenz deiner Wahl für deine eigene fotografische Arbeit verwenden. --Martin H. (talk) 16:13, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Interface upgrade

Hello everybody! I have a question: where should I ask for a modification in an user interface of Commons? When using italian interface, when I look to a file, in the bottom of the screen I can see if there are pages on commons that use it. But when using english interface, there is also a link to a tool (on Toolserver) that searches for pages using that image on other wikis... I find it an useful function, and I would like to have it also in italian interface (I think it should be in every language interface...). Is it possibile? Bye! --Gig (talk) 06:56, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Should I ask to Commons:Village pump? --Gig (talk) 06:59, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Commons:Help desk/Archives/2009Aug#File Links tells how the feature appeared in English. Maybe someone involved in adding the feature knows how to do it for other languages. --Teratornis (talk) 09:30, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

what licease would this go under? Seabanks (talk) 15:24, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

That depends on who created the painting and when. Powers (talk) 17:16, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Probably no need to upload it. Just use File:Amadeo_Modigliani_012.jpg. --dave pape (talk) 17:52, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

How to fit album artwork in an infobox

How do I get the album artwork to fit inside the infobox? Everytime I try to move it to the page it is way too big. Juri Koll (talk) 18:49, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I put your question into a separate section to call better attention to it. From your contributions on Commons and the English Wikipedia:
I cannot tell what problem you are having. For example, you edited the Royce Concerto article. The Template:Infobox Album looks correct there. Generally the infobox templates on Wikipedia should automatically size the image file you specify. If you are having a problem with a specific infobox template, you could ask on the template's talk page, and/or on the Wikipedia Help desk. You can test any infobox template by making your own "user sandbox" page, by clicking this and editing: User:Juri Koll/Sandbox. That is a good way to illustrate a problem so Help desk helpers can see what you are doing. --Teratornis (talk) 00:23, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Search engine defective again (for at least four days now)

Hello everybody, in case no one noticed: the search engine does take no update into account for several days now. Could someone please fix it? Thank you! --87.185.110.18 08:04, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't know whether anyone who can fix this problem reads this Help desk. You might read the Wikimedia Technical Blog and see if someone posted any status reports there. What are you trying to search for? --Teratornis (talk) 19:22, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
The Category:Saasenheim and Category:Bindernheim do still not appear in the search engine when making a search for Saasenheim or Bindernheim. This is effing frustrating!!!--87.185.122.103 10:00, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
It works for me. Have you checked "Category" in the search form? You can also enable or disable searches for categories in your user preferences. --rimshottalk 19:20, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Maritime Administration

please let me know the ADDRESS OF THE MARITIME ADMINISTRATION WHO ISSUES THE MARITIME CERTIFICATES FOR SEAFARERS ACCORDING TO STCW95 CONVENTION.THANK YOU. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.114.160.34 (talk • contribs) 08:08, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

This Help desk is for questions about using Wikimedia Commons. You could ask on the Wikipedia Reference desk. --Teratornis (talk) 20:12, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
Or you could also try using one of the many popular "search" engines out there. You know, to search. --J.smith (talk) 04:12, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

new user

Hi, I created an account, under Gianulias and spent about 2 hours creating a new Wikipedia page, not sure if under Commons or something else. I named it Final Final Band (a local band that is making a lot of progress here in our town). I uploaded 3 pics and went to go find it and I can't locate. It's not live yet. Can you help me find it and let me know the process to get it live and also attach pics. THANK YOU very much! Jon Gianulias (e-mail redacted to reduce spam) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gianulias (talk • contribs) 19:38, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

The images can be found in your upload log. –Juliancolton | Talk 19:55, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
If you edited while logged in, you can see what you have done by checking your contributions:
It appears that you wrote a draft of an article on your talk page on the English Wikipedia: User talk:Gianulias. That isn't exactly what talk pages are intended for; see Help:Talk page and Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. You should rather start your article as a user subpage, for example: User:Gianulias/Final Final Band. You can move your current Wikipedia talk page to that user subpage and continue editing your article draft. It's actually not the best idea to start a new article as your first attempt to edit on Wikipedia, because new articles by new users have a very high chance of being deleted, due to new users' unfamiliarity with Wikipedia's complex rules for content. This is especially true for articles about non-notable bands (see WP:UPANDCOMING). It's better to make small edits to existing articles and watch them to see what other editors do to your edits. You also need to read a lot of manuals. See WP:PICTURE, WP:BAND, WP:WWMPD, WP:LAYOUT, WP:YFA, WP:RS, and WP:FOOT. Questions about uploading photos to Commons belong here; questions about writing articles on Wikipedia belong on the Wikipedia Help desk. Editors there can advise you on how to write an article that may "stick" (i.e., avoid being deleted). There are also other wikis that specialize in music and accept more content than Wikipedia does; see wikiindex:Category:Music. You can edit on a specialist wiki with (usually) less worries about getting deleted than on Wikipedia with its more rigorous standards. --Teratornis (talk) 20:09, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Coat of arms

Wie kann ich ein fehlendes wappen ersetzten wie z.b. bei der stadt mürzzuschlag? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mürzzuschlager (talk • contribs) 10:26, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Google translation to English: "How do I replace a missing coat of arms, such as eg Mürzzuschlag in the city?"
It seems you refer to the infobox in the Mürzzuschlag article (on the English Wikipedia, at least) which has a missing coat of arms graphic. I looked at all the articles linked from the navigation box: Template:Mürzzuschlag, and none of them show a coat of arms either. The infobox in question is Template:Infobox Ort in Österreich which appears to be a port from possibly the German Wikipedia, with parameter names in German. One of the template parameters will be for the name of the coat of arms graphic. So, does one exist on Commons yet? Category:Bezirk Mürzzuschlag does not show one. There is a much larger Category:Coats of arms which you may browse through. If no suitable graphic is already on Commons, someone will have to upload one. If you have one to upload, see COM:CB#Coats of arms for the copyright rules. --Teratornis (talk) 19:19, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

How can I upload a new version of a file?

How can I change the jpg of an uploaded file with another jpg? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ag Andras (talk • contribs) 13:31, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

See:
--Teratornis (talk) 19:19, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

how to edit my images

hello,

I received messages about editing my images. I need to add the full source and one doesn't seem to have a license. I can't seem to figure out how to edit them. Can someone help?

ty. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Queenellie (talk • contribs) 18:59, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

It looks as if you are figuring it out. See COM:CB for guidelines about specific types of images. Also see COM:L. --Teratornis (talk) 19:40, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion question

File:Socal_counties.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

I marked this file for speedy deletion last night. Can someone tell me if I was mistaken and why? Thanks – Sswonk (talk) 19:10, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

COM:SCREENSHOT would seem to support your contention that this is a derivative work of Google Earth. It's too bad that Google Earth generates images that cry out to be shared freely, but Google does not let us. --Teratornis (talk) 19:44, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
Their terms of use are absolutely clear and incompatible with Commons:Project scope#Required licensing terms, it is a pitty that users not read the terms of websites or services they use - both, our project guidlines and the google terms. --Martin H. (talk) 20:42, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Odd French ranting moved from another section

Au secours, je fais de la claustrophobie, laissez-moi partir, DETRUISEZ MON COMPTE AVANT QUE JE ME FASSE EXPLOSER. L'incurie m'insupporte, aidez-moi s'il vous plaît,

détruisez mon compte, détruisez mon compte,détruisez mon compte,détruisez mon compte, — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.71.201.2 (talk • contribs)

We can't delete accounts. But you're not even logged in so we have no idea what account you mean anyway. Powers (talk) 01:12, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
A French version of the Help desk exists at: Commons:Service d'aide. Perhaps someone over there can understand this question. WP:VANISH might be relevant. If Commons is causing claustrophobia, the simplest solution is to leave and refrain from editing here, either forever or until the problem subsides. (I consider the question - or statement - more of a cri de coeur than a rant. Perhaps we have all felt something similar, or at least something similarly intense.) --Teratornis (talk) 04:34, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Category got lost on upload

Here is what I do:

  1. I start uploading my file to commons with the "Own work" upload form.
  2. I input all the details and the categories and press preview.
  3. Everything looks fine in the preview and the categories are still present in the input box.
  4. After I press save, the categories are not saved.

It works fine if I do not use preview first. Does anyone know anything about this? --Petteri Aimonen (talk) 12:00, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

The same thing happens to me. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:32, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
This may be the same bug reported here: mediazilla:18370. --Teratornis (talk) 19:07, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, look here or here or here or here. After a while I just gave up. It is a bug, but somehow no-one really seems to care. I don't re-cat my images anymore, because I a so fed up with this situation. --Paulae (talk) 21:43, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I thought I was the only having that issue. Firefox 3.5, Win7 RC1, also using Firefogg extension and have several gadgets installed. mahanga (talk) 23:31, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Didn't mention it above: I'm on Firefox 3.0, Win XP. Anyway, have mentioned this at Commons:Usability issues and ideas#Categories and file formats where it seems we're not alone. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:49, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Spanish copyright and government laws

I recently found a 1945 regulation related to the flags of the Spanish Republic. How does the Spanish copyright law relate to something like this? User:Zscout370 (Return fire) 06:19, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

  • There is a Commons:WikiProject Flags. Maybe someone there could help. See Commons talk:WikiProject Flags.
  • Is there some specific example you want to upload to Commons?
  • The bottom of the page you linked to has a link to a legal page. Does that address your question?
  • If there is some material from the site that you want to upload to Commons, and the copyright status is not clear, you could write to the site administrators and ask them if their material is Free content or whether they will agree to release it as such (in which case see COM:OTRS).
  • See COM:L#Spain.
This is probably not a good answer, but maybe something is better than nothing. --Teratornis (talk) 20:24, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
You could try asking on Commons talk:Licensing, but I suggest rewording the question into something specific. I can't guess what you are asking. Judging by the lack of other replies, perhaps no one else here can either. For example, do you think the regulation might contradict Spanish copyright law somewhere? Is the regulation more permissive than the law, or less? Does the regulation impact some specific file you want to upload? That is, does it make you think you are allowed to upload something, or does it make you think you are forbidden? --Teratornis (talk) 09:10, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

[[Media:]]

can you heip me i want to know where i could get imeges of the biosphere — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.156.72.106 (talk • contribs) 01:35, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Biosphere has several meanings - which do you want? --Teratornis (talk) 08:40, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
We have a Category:Biosphere for some of them. --Teratornis (talk) 08:41, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Cannot update SVG images

I maintain the following road map of Poland: File:DocelowyUkladDrog.svg. Recently, the Polish road authority changed their plans and hence I had to add a new road (S61 in the North Eastern corner). I have changed the map and uploaded the new version. Unfortunately, the PNG versions of the file are not updated and all Wikipedia articles referencing it (e.g.: en:Roads and expressways in Poland or de:Liste der Autobahnen und Schnellstraßen in Polen) show a preview with the old version:

Even if you click the thumbnail, you won't see the updated map. You have to open the SVG file in order to see the newest version. I had the same problem with the following map: File:LodzRingAutostradowy.svg. I have added the background to the city (like here: File:ZachodniaObwodnicaLodzi.svg), but you still cannot see it. I have tried uploading the file multiple times and even reverting the changes, but nothing helped.

Could somebody tell me, what is going on? Thanks! rzyjontko (talk) 18:08, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I can see road S61 at all the links you have listed. If you can still not see the updated version, try bypassing your cache. Pruneautalk 18:32, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you can. Being a developer, I imagined that the issue might be caused by some pseudo-optimization and I decided to slightly change the dimensions of the image. It helped! But it is not a solution, only a workaround. Check the other image, I posted - File:LodzRingAutostradowy.svg. I left it intact so that the responsible person can analyze the cause of the defect and fix it. rzyjontko (talk) 20:00, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Bypass your cache. If that not solves the problem you may purge the page or wait some time for the servers to update the thumbnails. --Martin H. (talk) 08:21, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Purging did the work, thanks! I still think this is pretty lame. Why isn't the purging part of the uploading? rzyjontko (talk) 17:32, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Purging is not normally necessary after most uploads. I don't know why sometimes an old image "sticks". You would have to ask the developers to explain how they decided to prioritize the conflicting demands put upon them. Purging after every upload might slow down the servers or something. Generally it is hard to ask developers these kinds of questions, since they are too busy fixing bugs and responding to feature requests. As users on a site we don't pay for, we have to be self-reliant and learn the various workarounds that we need. If we were paying for a certain level of service, then we could demand it. --Teratornis (talk) 19:41, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Licensing for the European Union

Hello,

I am currently creating an article on the Centre for European Studies, the official political foundation of the European People's Party. It is a new political organization legislated by European Parliament in the EU. It is a legally recognized organization within EU-statutes on political parties. Therefore, it is an EU-government institution.

I am employed at the Centre for European Studies, and I have been handed the task of posting a Wikipedia link on CES, creating a page on the role and legislative process of the creation of political foundations within the EU, as well as buffering up the pages of our President Wilfried Martens, and the page of the European People's Party (EPP).

I am trying to upload pages to wikipedia that are already existing on our official websites; however, I cannot figure out how to properly license an EU-government photo.

Please help me!

Thanks

Thinkingeurope

Thinkingeurope (talk) 10:20, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

A crash course on both, Commons:First steps/License selection and permission:
The copyright holder, presumably your organization or the individual author, must agree to a free license. We have a long list of allowable license templates at Commons:Copyright tags (Section 2-6) - to make it simple: The copyright holder should agree to a licensing under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0. This license allows for free reuse of the work, everyone may use the work for every purpose under the terms of the license. The license requires attribution and to share any new copy or derivative work under the same conditions (Copyleft). The copyright holder should agree in written form to this licenses.
Please upload your work using Commons:Upload > "It is from somewhere else" (as you are not the copyright holder yourself), please fill out all information (source: Organziation, name of publication if already published elswhere (a website is a publication); author: authors name, pseudonym, also organization name in case of work for hire might be applicable), select the license from the drop-down ist. Important: Copy the text {{OTRS pending|month=May|day=14|year=2024}} to the permission field. Now the file is online, please follow the instructions in COM:OTRS, forward the written permission from the copyright holder to the OTRS according to this instructions. You may find Commons:Email templates useful here. --Martin H. (talk) 11:15, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Also see WP:CORP, WP:BFAQ, WP:COPYVIO, WP:YFA, and WP:COI. You started an article as a user subpage:
which is a good idea, but your account shows few other edits:
Things you need to know:
  • New articles by new users are at high risk of being deleted, because Wikipedia has complex policies and guidelines that few new users could correctly guess. (Whoever told you to write this article probably knows nothing about editing on Wikipedia. If they did, they would not have sent a new user to start a new article on a topic the user has a potential conflict of interest in. You should let that person know, in case your article gets deleted. I wouldn't want you to be blamed for a problem not of your making. Most people are not aware that Wikipedia deletes thousands of articles, most of them by new users. Probably because Wikipedia makes this rather difficult for casual visitors to become aware of.) It's better to gain experience by making small edits to existing articles first, and watch what other users do to your edits. And read the friendly manuals.
  • Your user subpage does not follow the layout guidelines for articles; see WP:LAYOUT - in particular, do not use bold text in place of subsection headings.
  • If you are copying text verbatim from other Web sites, your text will appear to be a copyright violation on Wikipedia, since other Wikipedia editors have no way to tell you may be "authorized" to copy the text to Wikipedia. The source Web site should post a clear notice that the text is under a free content license there; without such notice, by default everything is under copyright and thus cannot be legally copied verbatim to Wikipedia. If the source sites will not agree to publish their material under a free license, then you will have to rewrite it for Wikipedia (see: Idea-expression divide).
  • You should disclose your conflict of interest on your user page. Voluntary disclosure will signal to other Wikipedia editors that you are trying to act in good faith.
  • The most common cause for articles being deleted is the failure to establish notability of the subject. You can do this by supplying reliable, third party sources for the article. Relying too heavily on source material belonging to the subject (i.e., an official Web site) can be a red flag for deletionists. You should have additional sources from reputable news media, scholarly journals, or the like. See WP:CITE and WP:FOOT.
  • The task you have been assigned is not impossible, but it is difficult. Thousands of other wikis exist, with some that may have looser rules more conducive to your goals. See: wikiindex:Category:Politics. Regardless of the outcome of your article on Wikipedia, you should simultaneously develop it on at least one alternative wiki in case Wikipedia's deletionists bite you. Good luck. --Teratornis (talk) 19:33, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Fotos von Musikinstrumenten

Hallo, darf ich selbstgemachte Fotos von Musikinstrumenten bei den commons hochladen oder fallen diese z.B. unter die Kategorie Kunstwerke?

Blubboy22 (talk) 07:25, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

COM:CB#Utility objects suggests that musical instruments will not be under copyright, so you can upload photos of them to Commons under a free content license. See COM:L and Commons:First steps. You can categorize your photos in appropriate subcategories of Category:Musical instruments. --Teratornis (talk) 17:43, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
Do the photographs of the instruments feature any copyrightable artworks on the instruments? --Teratornis (talk) 18:10, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
No, the instrument (my guitar) is only white. The other instruments haven't got any artwork, too. You can only see the name of the brand. Blubboy22 (talk) 20:36, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
There should be no copyright problems then. Presumably you are the photographer. You own the copyright to your photos and you may license them as you wish. Commons requires your uploads to have a free content license. You could for example specify {{Cc-by-sa-3.0}} when you upload photos. Have a try at Commons:Upload. Thank you for contributing. --Teratornis (talk) 03:21, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for your help, now I can start uploading ;) Blubboy22 (talk) 09:53, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

rights for photo from monument/exhibit

Hello editors: I'm sure you've heard this question a million times before, but I couldn't easily figure out an answer. I took photographs at a monument (historic landmark, governed by the Alabama Historical Commission): it's a building with a permanent exhibit, outside, of fifteen panels depicting events and people from a civil rights event in 1961. Can I upload those photos to Commons and use them in a WP article, and if so, under what license? Thanks for your help. Drmies (talk) 14:42, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

See COM:CB#3D art (sculptures etc.), Commons:Freedom of panorama (COM:FOP), and depending on how you photographed the building, Commons:De minimis (COM:DM). See COM:EIC#Copyright for more information. Your question would be clearer if you mentioned the name of the building. The first thing is to search Commons and the English Wikipedia for photos of it, if any, and see how they are licensed. A search of Wikipedia suggests you may be talking about the Greyhound Bus Station (Montgomery, Alabama). And you have uploaded a photo: File:Greyhound montgomery.jpg which features the panels in what looks to my non-lawyer eyes to be an acceptably de minimus kind of way - maybe. If you want to upload straight-on detail shots of the panels, then to be on the safe side you should get the artist's permission and document it properly by following the procedure in COM:OTRS. Since the panels must have gone up some years after 1961, that is recent enough for the works to still be under the artist's copyright. See COM:FOP#United States which excludes artworks on buildings from freedom of panorama. --Teratornis (talk) 18:07, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. Yes, that is what I was talking about. The panels in question are no older than a couple of years, and I have no idea who made them--yet. I'm sure you are right and they are under copyright. Thanks again for your answer; I may holler at you again, with your helpful non-lawyer eyes. Drmies (talk) 01:29, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
I asked the Google and it sent me to 1961 FREEDOM RIDES EXHIBIT ON EXTERIOR OF BUILDING which gives a contact number I suspect you will shortly be calling. --Teratornis (talk) 03:36, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
The page says the panels went up in 2008. --Teratornis (talk) 03:41, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

new category Firdosi's Königbuch (Schahname)

I would like to create a category:Firdosi's Königbuch (Schahname) as part of Friedrich Rückert (2 C, 1 P, 19 F) Parents:Writers from Germany --Wvk (talk) 15:24, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Interestingly, while I was browsing subcategories of Category:Friedrich Rückert, my browser crashed. Something odd might be going on there. Or maybe Firefox just decided to get weird on me. Anyway, do you have a question? --Teratornis (talk) 18:19, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
My question is, how categories are created? And what is the meaning of (2 C, 1 P, 19 F) as part of the Friedrich Rückert category. Can I create categories by myself? And if so, how? --Wvk (talk) 05:26, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
A category is created like every other page, add the category to one image, you will get a red link, click the red link and create the page. (2C, 1P, 19F) means, that this category contains 2 Categories, 1 Gallery and 19 Files. --Martin H. (talk) 07:13, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
More details about categories on Commons are in Commons:Categories, and more details about MediaWiki's category feature are in Help:Category. If you find the manuals too difficult, you can tell us the name of the file you want to put into the new category, and we can put it in the new category and show you how we did it. You can see User:Teratornis#Categories for a list of categories I have created. I recommend keeping such a list on your user page so you can remember how you did it, the next time you want to create another. If you are new to MediaWiki, the category feature can be difficult to grasp at first. The main confusing thing is that you put a page into a category not by editing the category page itself, but by editing the page you want to put into the category. Similarly, when you want to create a subcategory of an existing category, you edit a new page for the subcategory and add a link to the existing category. The manuals explain this. I had to read them several times when I was new. --Teratornis (talk) 21:51, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. I created category:Firdosis Königsbuch (Schahname) (Rückert). Works fine so far. --Wvk (talk) 14:44, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Das Bild File:Richard von Weizsäcker.jpg ist seitenverkehrt (Weizsäcker trägt den Scheitel immer auf der anderen Seite!) Wer kann das an diesem Bild korrigieren? -- H.Albatros 19:23, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Google translation to English: "The Image File: Richard of Weizsäcker.jpg is reversed (Weizsacker always bears the crest on the other side!) Who can fix this picture?"
We have templates to request that someone {{Rotate}} or {{Invert}} an image, but I do not see one for mirroring. See COM:TM#Maintenance and Category:Image cleanup templates. The general template to request a cleanup appears to be {{Cleanup image}} to which you add an explanation (in this case to reverse the image to its mirror image). You can invert a bitmap image yourself with the ImageMagick program or its command-line version, convert (use the -flop option). See: Commons:Software and Commons:Graphic Lab. --Teratornis (talk) 22:24, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
Mirrored. --Martin H. (talk) 12:55, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

How to use an image on Wikipedia

I have uploaded an image on wikimedia commons. Now I want to transfer it into a developing article on wikipedia. Please help me. The image is my own work only. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vijinfrugal (talk • contribs) 00:29, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Images on Commons are already usable on the Wikipedias. See Wikipedia:Picture tutorial. For example, I inserted a link to the image you uploaded, at the top of this question. It appears to the right. --Teratornis (talk) 02:34, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
Note that http://urbanfrugalchic.com/ which you list as the source of this photo has the line at the bottom:
  • ©Copyright 2009 Urban Frugal Chic. All Rights Reserved.
We need to document the copyright holder's permission to release this photo under a free license. That means you should follow the procedure in Commons:OTRS. --Teratornis (talk) 03:14, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
Also, if you are creating an article on the English Wikipedia about Urban Frugal Chic, please carefully read WP:BFAQ. You appear to have started it in a user subpage: User:Vijinfrugal/Urbanfrugalchic. See my reply to the question above in #Licensing for the European Union which covers some of the same issues about creating a Wikipedia article about a company or organization you are associated with. What you want to do is not impossible but it can be tricky. The single most important thing to understand is that everything on Wikipedia needs reliable sources that are independent of the subject of the article. That means we don't write anything original on Wikipedia, only what has been published in the news media, in scholarly articles, in non-vanity books, and so on. Thus you should collect all the press coverage you can find of Urban Frugal Chic. That will be the basis for an article on Wikipedia, not your personal knowledge of the company. --Teratornis (talk) 03:14, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

searches not showing all results

I'm a newbie, but last week, when I searched a word that had thousands of results, I could view 500 of the images per page by clicking on the number "500" at the bottom of the search results page.

Today, when I do a search and click "500" only 50 or so pictures appear, even though the search result says that over 1,000 images were turned up? Why are the search results no longer all being shown?

Thanks

I already asked at the german language Commons:Forum#Suchfunktion verweigert Dienst some days ago. The search results are limited to 50 at the moment, you can search for 50 results. If you search for >50 results (like 500) you will only get 50 and the "next 500" button is deactivated. Maybe a temporary problem, please restrict your search to 50 results. --Martin H. (talk) 12:35, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
Only a note: Found the reason in the server log. --Martin H. (talk) 13:17, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Licensing

Can you use a Google Earth image as an image file? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lgood99 (talk • contribs)

No. Google Earth's satellite images are copyrighted. Powers (talk) 16:10, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Need broken image replaced.

Image File:Gnome-dev-camera.svg has an XML error. I've uploaded a fixed version File:Gnome-dev-camera_(Fixed).svg. My account is "too new" to replace it. Can someone else do that for me?

Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emrikol (talk • contribs) 14:33, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

See Commons:Autoconfirmed users. In four days you can do it yourself. --Teratornis (talk) 20:09, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
Also see COM:FAQ#How can I upload a new version of a file?. --Teratornis (talk) 20:13, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
Done. --Martin H. (talk) 09:36, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Image not showing when uploaded!

my images aren't showing up when i upload them. I've tried a few times but then all show up as an empty box with a red "x" in it. so now i'm left trying to delete the unsuccessful uploads i've made to the common. can anyone tell me what i'm doing wrong?

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Final_Ashville_Picture.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hleetranspo (talk • contribs) 17:20, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Please tell us more about how you are creating these image files, or getting them from somewhere else. I cannot see your file either, which makes it hard for me to identify the problem. The direct URL to the File:Final Ashville Picture.jpg image only displays an error message:
If you are creating your images yourself (for example, with a camera), you might try uploading them to a site like Flickr and see if they work there. Commons thinks something is wrong with the image file, but the error message is uselessly uninformative (what are "errors" and how can a person fix them?). Are you able to display your image in your Web browser directly from your hard drive? In your browser, select the File -> Open File... menu option and make sure it displays in your browser. --Teratornis (talk) 20:24, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
Downloading the image and saving it again removes some xmp data, a reupload should fix the problem. Will do so. --Martin H. (talk) 09:28, 31 October 2009 (UTC)