Commons:Village pump/Archive/2004/12

Village Pump archives

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Creating categories?

I've uploaded a couple of images, following the First steps guide, and it says to include information about the "category".

What is the process for creating a category, or searching for and linking to ones that already exist?

I couldn't find this information in the help files or elsewhere on the commons, so I just added some to one of my image pages (Elabana_Falls.jpg). Is this correct? Malcolmj 05:52, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

For finding Categories: I usually look for suggestions on the english wiki, and how the articles are categorized there. I then would create a category, e.g. Category:Isamu Noguchi for all things related to w:Isamu Noguchi, and add this to parent categories and so on. You can also add it to the catchall Category:Other, which hopefully will be sorted into proper categories eventually. Also, please note that the whole approach is still under discussion. Should images be added to a separate page about a topic (i.e. Michelangelo) or in a category (i.e. Category:Isamu Noguchi)? For the latter one, the upcoming version of MediaWiki will automatically display the images in categories as thumbnails. Some users prefer the "separate page" approach, some prefer the "Category" approach. -- Chris 73 10:47, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, Chris. I understand the concept of categories, but how do you actually create them? For Elabana_Falls.jpg I guessed what I thought might be appropriate categories and added them to the bottom of the image page - e.g. Category:World Heritage. Does this automatically create that category if it doesn't already exist, and/or automatically add it to an exisiting category? Malcolmj 20:21, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You add a suitable category to your image, i.e. type [[Category:World Heritage Europe]] on the image page. After saving you'll see a red link if the category does not yet exist. If you click on the red link, you will get to a category page that lists the contained images/articles, and an edit box for the category text. In this edit box you add one or more other categories, i.e. [[Category:World Heritage]]. Repeat for all red links. Blue links are existing categories and need no further editing. With the naming, you may also check if there is already a category name, i.e. use Category:Animals instead of Category:Animalia. I follow the english wiki system if possible. -- Chris 73 23:53, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Chris. Malcolmj 06:21, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Categories in Astronomy and Space Travel

I just tried to get an overview for these areas - categorization in astronomy is a total mess and for space travel not really existing. I have created an snapshot of the momentary situation and a quick proposal for a better systematic. If someone is interested in these areas, what do you think about it? -- Srbauer 20:28, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I created most of these categories, simply by copying the system on the english wiki. And yes, they need some cleanup. I also did not copy the complete system, only the categories needed to sort some images all the way up to Category:Fundamental. I am not sure how much discussion went into this system on the english wiki, but I can live with it either way. Three suggestions: (1) A category can exist even without articles/images as long as the cat has a subcat. (2) In case of doubt, keep a category or category link. (3) If possible have the same system on the english wiki as on the commons. Any work on the category system is very welcome. -- Chris 73 23:55, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

At first: in my opinion the categories are an instrument to help the user to find an image. In contrary to a wiki based on articles in an image-wiki the search facility is not very useful, but categorization is a chance. But by using a category scheme for searching it is necessary to keep it as simple as possible.

• at 1: full ack
• at 2: don't know, what you mean
• at 3: if the structure is useful for image categorization, why not - but I had no look at the en-scheme yet. But we should also keep in mind that there are more wikis than en, and most likely with different structures in each. If the scheme is to finegrained, the result will be lots of small or even empty cats - not very useful for searching. The main principle should be: what images will we get most likely, and offer a plausible scheme - as simple as possible. If we realize later, that more subcats are needed, it's no problem to create them when needed.

At last, the scheme should be available as a tree structure to get a quick overview - maybe located on the talk pages for the categories. -- Srbauer 09:37, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Srbauer here (and disagree with Chris), the function of a Category system is to have people who are looking for an image of something get to it as easy (and fast) as possible. This is much better done by his proposed scheme than by the one added already. I see no advantage in following the system on the English Wikipedia. The first and foremost goal should be to have a clear and simple system. - Andre Engels 23:21, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Dont get me wrong. I like Srbauer's categories better than the english wiki, and I was thinking if the english wiki needs some updating. Please go ahead and implement the system. -- Chris 73 01:58, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Copyright in 2D Reproduction of PD workd

Hi! As already discussed here, a photograph of a public domain painting (pre-1923, author died before 1934) shouldn't be eligible for copyright. However, after submitting one such photograph to Wikimedia Commons, I've discovered that the original web site doesn't permit reproductions which, of course, goes against the notion of the work not being copyrightable:

"The contents of this site, including all images and text, are for personal, educational, non-commercial use only. The contents of this site may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form without the written permission of the State Hermitage Museum. Images on this web site have been invisibly watermarked; any attempt to remove the watermarks from these images is expressly forbidden."

Does anybody know what merit such claims have?

As far as i know: none. If the material is PD, they can claim and watermark whatever they want, the conditions do not apply because they don't have any rights to the material. But IMNAL -- Duesentrieb 16:28, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks - I just wanted to make sure. Lots more Bouguereau paintings to come then :-)

The photograph itself is a copyrighted work, even if the content within isn't; correct me if I'm wrong but I think that's right. -- Sarcasticninja 08:58, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

from what i have read i think if the photo is in any way creative it is seperately copyrightable if its an uncreative reproduction it is not.

Did we just switch to Mediawiki 1.4?

See also: Commons talk:MediaWiki 1.4 upgrade

Did we just switch to Mediawiki 1.4? Categories with images now show up as thumbnails (see: Category:Japanese knives). Also, the image displayed have a small bug that they do not show the image, but only a link to the higher resolution image. Well, I definitely like the thumbed categories! -- Chris 73 03:10, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes! See Commons:MediaWiki 1.4 upgrade. The images look ok to me though. Can you link to one that's showing the problem? (We're sorting out an intermittent database permissions bug in the meantime...) --Brion VIBBER 03:11, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

e.g. Image:DebaBocho.Cleaver.Japan.jpg -- Chris 73 03:37, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes!!!! Yippee!!! And with this I immediately get converted to the group wanting the images on categories rather than normal pages. - Andre Engels 10:31, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Image Preview

Ok, I think with this feature working its time for a general agreement about categorization of images - create articles or just use the category system? In my opinion the main advantage of articles is, that it is possible to group related images for a topic and keep the category scheme lean and simple. What do you think? -- Srbauer 11:22, 6 Dez 2004 (UTC)

I'm not really sure yet how the "categories" work, but it seems strange to me to have to create articles in Wikimedia Commons for images. The images I have donated are to uploaded to illustrate articles that already exist in Wikipedia, and I see the Commons as a simple storage place for that image. To create another article in the Commons seems like a duplication of the information that's already in Wikipedia.
If I was searching for a piece of media for an article, I'd like to be able to search the Commons by keyword. Which of the options would be closest to that feature? Malcolmj 11:55, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I am all for category schemes. They are much easier to handle. However, to be perfect three things are missing: (1) Piped category links, i.e. to include an image Image:Kaastekoop.jpg as [[Category:Cheese|Cheese in the supermarket]], showing the text instead of the image name. (2) Working category redirects (3) Category watchlist, showing images added to the cat. -- Chris 73 12:25, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I may add, that it would also be necessary to have a way to assign special captions to the displayed thumbnails. Now there is only the filename which is neither very descriptive nor every time in english. Though there can be a lot of information stored in the category tree, not everything is sensible to be stored there. There has to be some "atomic" information for each image preview. If these criteria are met, I am all for abandoning articles and gallery pages.
I am not so sure about piped categories - those pages could become HUGE. -- Petwoe 13:53, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

@Chris: (1) changing the displayed names may be useful here in commons, but in other wikipedias I prefer seeing the correct title (and pipe only used as a sorting criterium); (2) I don't see an advantage for category redirects - in my opinion things would get more complicated; (3) yes, that's definitly a must have - and I'm missing it since cats are possible.

As Petwoe mentioned already there are some information useful for searching that aren't implemented so far - and may be implement never. Should we cross fingers and hope for the next software version - or should we try to make the best of the existing features?

In my opinion the best would be using the possiblities of categorization to get an overview of the topics - and using the gallery feature (in gallery articles) for grouping images and providing essential information.

At last don't forget people with low bandwidth internet access - they may want a feature to disable image preview in categories to get an faster overview. -- Srbauer 18:00, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Redirects to categories are useful, as if we categorize all images instead of adding them to articles, It'd be useful, for example (especially for searches) to make Cat (and other language equivalents) redirect to Category:Cat. Ausir 23:34, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Upload log and deletion log

Hi! I've uploaded some images to commons and linked to them from various wikipedias, but now I can't find all of them; Image:Norway flag large.png to be more specific. Is there an upload log and a deletion log here, or can I find the history of the image some other way? --Eddi 00:17, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You could look at your contributions, or Special:Log. -- Chris 73 00:21, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for the link. Unfortunately the logs I found aren't old enough, and deleted files are not mentioned in contributions. --Eddi 00:56, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Speaking as a sysop: The image seems to have been deleted with the argument that it's redundant with Image:Flag of Norway.png. It's not clear who did the deletion, but Duesentrieb was the one who nominated it to be deleted. - Andre Engels 00:35, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll try not to shoot you since you're just the messenger, but here is what I think.
Obviously I should visit commons more often and not just when images disappear from wikipedia articles. However, isn't there any guideline on replacing image links in wikipedia articles before deleting the linked images? The image may or may not have been redundant (and I think not), but at least as long as it was linked from articles it served a purpose. Commons is not an independent being, it is a humble servant. --Eddi 00:56, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Come to think of it, it was me who deleted it because of its redundancy. The problem is, currently I don't know of any way to check which wikipedia projects use an image, except for checking all 30+ wikipedia projects individually. This is still a major problem here when a file is supposed to be deleted. Anybody has a solution or ideas? -- Chris 73 02:34, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Leaving a message on the user's talk page (in this case it points to en) would be a good start. Anthony 05:48, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You are right: you should have been notified. On the other hand, as with deletion requests in the 'pedias, one usually expects the author to have the image/article on the watchlist and note the request for deletion. Redundant images are a real problem, especially on the commons where people put images from different projects, named in different languages. As you can see in National insignia, the image you want is still here, just under a different name. It would make no sense to keep several copies of the same flag...

I would however greatly appreciate if the software could tell me on which wikis the image is used - that way, one could change the approriate links before deletion. So I see your point, but i'm affraid it can't really be mended. I'll however try to notify the uploading user in future. -- Duesentrieb 23:52, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't think I should have been notified, because I would have got the message via my watchlist – if I had just been here more often. But it would probably be helpful if there was an easy way for admins to check links. Could this be a case for wikitech-l? --Eddi 00:09, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Is Wikimedia the right place for open collaborative projects, or just for media to support other wikis (wikipedia, wiktionary, etc)

I'm working on a collaborative cc-by-sa childrens book. After learning about Wikimedia, I have set up a page here to facilitate work on the project and collaboration between members. Uploading pieces of the project was easy and worked well, but I don't see many other projects like this on the commons. Do I have the right idea in using WikiMedia for the purpose of growing this open project, or is the commons strictly a place for open images relating to existing things (people, places, etc)? *Ardvark the Aardvark -- Eric Skiff 22:00, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

As i understand it, the commons is the free image and file archive for the wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia, Wikibooks, etc. I don't think the commons is for such projects itself, or for other creative commons projects. My worry is that we end up as free webhosting for other projects. Maybe you could move your project to Wikibooks? Nice graphics by the way. -- Chris 73 23:47, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wikibooks would be the right place, i think. But the images should still got to the commons, and cou can also have a galery (page or category) here. But for everything else, like project coordination, chapers, descriptions, story, etc, Wikibooks would be the right place. -- Duesentrieb 23:58, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Though Commons serves other Wikimedia projects - it is also an independent media archive. The suitability of you work depends largely upon it's usability by anything beyond your specific project. --Oldak Quill 00:11, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well first of all, thanks for the heads up about wikibooks - I was unaware of anything beyond wikipedia up until a week ago, so I'm still getting up to speed. As for whether the project is suitable for wikimedia, all of the work (story, design, art) is cc-by-sa, and so is free to be used in anything from logos to derivative books. Would I be most correct to leave the art here and move the story and central pages to wikibooks? Will I still be able to use the image and thumb tags as I do here? -- Eric Skiff 3:57, 8 Dec 2004 UTC

On Wikipedia, the link to a commons image is the same as the link to a Wiki image, [[Image:NAME.jpg]]. If the image is on the Wiki itself, the image is accessed directly, if the image is not on the wiki, the wiki tries to retrieve the commons image. I believe this should be the same for Wikibooks. Give it a try. -- Chris 73 05:55, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

paintings

User 'Thebrid' is uploading images of paintings, with (lots of) public domain messages. However, I found that very hard to believe. Dub 21:39, 9 dec 2004 (UTC)

Looks to me like all the images are from before 1920, so they would be PD in the US because of expired copyright. The images are tagged both as PD and PD-US. I think the copyright is OK. Also, you may have asked User:Thebrid on his talk page. I just left him a note about this discussion. -- Chris 73 00:20, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In Europe, the copyright expires 70 years after the death of the author, so most of those images are not PD in Europe! Thus, i would say they are PD-US, but not PD(-Worldwide) and the respective Templates should be rremoved from the images. This should also be brought to Thebirds attention.

The real question ist now: are images that are free in part of the world, but unfree in others, allowed on the commons? I am inclined to say no, because that would brake the policy at least of the german wikipedia to make sure that all images in the wikipedia can be reused by anyone, for any purpose. -- Duesentrieb 10:54, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I would say yes and let each wikipedia choose whether to include an image or not according to its own policy. Imagine if something this free for the majority of wikipedias except a handful. It would be a shame not use the commons because of that handful. -- Kowey 12:15, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi all! Thanks for posting about my images. I _have_ read the copyright-related pages and am only uploading images which fall under one/both of two categories: a) pre-1923 (should be U.S. public domain) and/or b) painter(s) died before 1934 (should be E.U. public domain).

I am tagging images PD where they are in the public domain _somewhere_, PD-US where they are in the U.S. public domain (pre-1923), and PD-Art and PD-Old where they are in the E.U. public domain (i.e. where the author / all authors died before the start of the 70th year before this).

I am checking the year of creation and artist(s) death date(s) before I post and adding the PD templates I believe are appropriate. If what I am doing is incorrect, please let me know because I currently believe it to be correct. -- Thebrid 19:18, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It sounds like you know what you are doing, but I would suggest a change in the tagging PD where they are public domain _everywhere_ (or don't use it because the more specific PD tags will be better), PD-US when the image has been published in U.S. pre-1923 but the artist died later, PD-Old when the artist died pre-1934, and PD-Art when the artist died pre-1934 but the photograph of the work is more recent and that photographer might try to claim copyright. -- Solipsist 11:04, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Furthermore there is sometimes more subtilities : In France, the years of war (during which the right could not been enforced) shall be postponed (eg heirs of someone dead in 1933 have rights until 1933 + 70 + 6 (WWII) = 2009) though it's maybe more complex : IANL. And as Solipsist said, there is some rights for the photographer either is or is not the subject of the snapshot in PD. FoeNyx 13:52, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

My opinion is to go with the location of origin - if the work is American, go with American copyright, if it is European, with European, etcetera. - Andre Engels 20:22, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Andre Engels that the PD status should be determined according to the laws of the origin of the image. IMNAL, but i belive this also the way it is handeled by the courts. This would mean that most of the many Images of european artists that Thebird uploaded are copyright violations.

Furthermore, the simple PD tag is misleading, as it is usually interpretet to mean the the image is in the public domain everywhere - if that is not the case, a more specific PD-Tag should be used by itself, as Solipsist suggested. Alternatively, there could be regional tags like "Nonfree in Europe" or something, but i fear that we would need a great many of those.

It may indeed make sense to allow images here that are unfree in some place, but free in most places, as Kowey said. But I can agree to that only if two things are kept in mind: a) this fact must be made very clear my both the copyright policy page and the individual copyright tags, and b) please remember that the US ist not "most places". If we just count wikis, disregarding the number of pages in each, i would guess (i have not checked this) that most wikipedias are in Europe. But that's hard to tell, as the wikipedias are not structured by nations, but by language - which poses more problems with "free in some places"-images (for the english wikipedia, the smallest common denominator of US and UK law would have to be applied, etc - i have no idea how this is currently handeled, as for instance AFAIK a "fair use right" does simply not exist in the UK).

I'm afraid we have to think about those issues some more... -- Duesentrieb 14:22, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

We definitely do. For now, I have changed the {{PD-US}} tag and added "and may not be in the public domain in other jurisdictions." rather than "and possibly other jursidictions", which is very misleading. notafish }<';> 18:47, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Template:Languages for local wikipedia articles

I'm thinking about a template to be uses in the local wikipedia articles stored on commons to replace the language lists like: {{commons:Template:Language_Ukraine}}. This template link would be stored in the local wikipedia. The template on commons would store all language versions so you only need to update this if anything has to be added or if a link changes. Is this possible? --Steschke 13:11, 10 Dez 2004 (UTC)

v1.4

1.4 looks great! Thanks, all. Quadell (talk) 18:57, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

How to modify interface language options

Just for your information.

One of the new features introduced with Mediawiki 1.4 is to override the interface language using user prerecence. I checked how Japanese interface works, and noticed it contains a fair amount of errors, invalid links, etc. I guess that is for other languages, too. Problems include:

• Navigation and announcement using Commons:Recentchanges, for example, is not visible when some language is selected.
• Legal texts such as Mediawiki:copyrightwarning, which asks contributors to agree to certain terms, is now replaced with that of Japanese Wikipedia. (And this has legal consequences, as I understand).

If you want to fix those things, I think you can go to the page meta:Locales for the Wikimedia projectsLocales for the Wikimedia projects, and submit a fixed version for use.

Tomos 11:57, 11 12月 2004 (UTC)

Screenshot of a movie

For illustration purposes I'd like to upload an image that contains a screenshot from a quite recent movie. The image is downscaled to a ninth of the normal size and a little distorted.

1. Is it allowed to use a one frame screenshot from a movie changed only in size? I'd see this as the equivalent of citing a small portion of text from a book.

2. Is it allowed to modify that screenshot a little (scaling unproportional or mirroring)?

3. Does it make a difference whether the screenshot was taken with the snapshot feature of a software DVD-Player or with a camera from the TV screen?

--Jailbird 20:29, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

IANAL - but I am rather sure that a shot from a movie can only be fair use (of course except the movie is PD due of age already, or was released as a free movie), and thus not acceptable here. andy 20:46, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

progressive JPEG

In the Commens context, whit the MediaWiki software that does the resampling resampling. Is it good to use progressive JPEG's? --Walter 23:47, 11 dec 2004 (UTC)

• What is progressive JPEG?
• demo

I'm (almost) certain, that the software reads a complete jpeg file before converting, so it doesn't matter. Dub

If, as I see it, Commons is not only for wikimedia projects, but also destined to be a free media files repository for anyone needing such files, I believe progressive jpgs should not be recommended, as they require specific software to be transformed into baseline jpgs and therefore suited for all kinds of printing jobs. notafish }<';> 01:42, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There's a difference between something that's only a problem for ten year old software, and something that's an unsupported feature in the most popular browser of the day (like PNG alpha channels). If we're to take your proposal seriously, we'd have to turn off 'Optimize' when we saved JPGs, thus blowing up the file size significantly. Web browsers support progressive JPGs, and the software to make them baseline is free for anyone who needs specialized use. Grendelkhan 15:22, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

To commons itself baseline vs progressive for uploaded images makes no difference whatsoever since the resized images which are used on pages will be baseline regarless of the status of the source image. Making the scaled images progressive might be an idea but that is something to be discussed between modem users and mediawiki developers not an issue for uploaders. DO NOT introduce another layer of generation loss by using normal software (rather than lossless conversion tools) to convert from baseline<-->progressive for no other reason.

btw Grendelkhan do you know of any pc software for lossless baseline<-->progressive conversion in my searches i only uncovered a peice of software for the mac that could do it. Plugwash 17:25, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Categories or 'normal' pages: A new proposal

Regarding the discussion whether images should go to 'normal' pages or categories, I would like to bring in the following idea:

Category pages have the possibility to have content on them just like normal pages. Can't we use that to get a compromise between the two - we move the existing pages to the Category namespace, and build up our galleries there. It will have the advantage of showing images in articles and categorized images in the same place, improving the interusability of the two systems greatly. - Andre Engels 11:16, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Do you mean an image would be listed twice, once in the category body and once in the category text? I personally favor abandoning the image pages in favor of the categories. The cats should have a brief descriptive text (english?), but the images should be linked only through the category. If there is the need for two or more subsections, then just make two categories instead. In any case, my vote goes for the categiories. -- Chris 73 11:53, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

No, the idea would be to have the images on one of the two places, not both. But it could be the case that some images are in the text, others in the body. The disadvantage of your method is, in my opinion, that there can be no further description of the images. - Andre Engels 12:02, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It does'n cost anything to have the photo's twice, it's only confusing. However, an item like London is typically a normal page I would say. On the other hand, if there is something common between the type of picture (not the contents of the picture) a category seems to me the more likely choice. Like Category:Stereo card, Category:Photochrom pictures. Can the wikimedia software be changed, so there is no more difference between the two? (That's wat Andre suggested, right?) Dub 00:31, 13 dec 2004 (UTC)

No, I was not talking about software changes, that's Duesentrieb's idea. It would be a good way to implement this, but software changes take quite a bit of time usually. Trying to restate my ideas:

Some people will create a page London and put their images there. Others will put [[Category:London]] in the description and use the automated gallery-making possibilities that have been added in 1.4. My proposal was to move the first page to Category:London as well, so that, even though two methods have been used, people can see both at the same time. - Andre Engels 13:36, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think what Andre is saying is that all text in a page (but not the gallery) be copied over to a category page (which will have the gallery automatically). For instance, why not use Category:Tibet instead of Tibet? I think it's a great idea. (Though it would be better if the software were altered to make this less clumsy, in my opinion. This could be done by placing the lists of subcategories and articles below the images, and making all Tibet links go to Category:Tibet, etc.) Quadell (talk) 23:36, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, also in my opinion Commons would get a better structure based on pictures galleries in categories. (And sometimes additional text pages) Michiel1972 00:10, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Why not take this one step further? I would suggest to simply treat every page as a category - or, to put the same thing differently, to drop the categories from the "Category:" to the main namespace. Think about it this way: if you but [[category:Foo]] in the article "Bar", "Bar" would be shown at the Bottom of page "Foo". Structured content would be at the top as needed, an unstructured list would be at the bottom. One could use those pages just as "normal" pages now, or as categories, or as a combination, as seems fit in a particular case. Also, finding the gallery would be much easier for people from the wikis, because the "normal" page would not obstruct the view at the category when doing a simple search. What do you think? -- Duesentrieb 01:02, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• That sounds great! I'm not sure how hard it would be for the developers, though. Quadell (talk) 02:14, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Image credits

I saw that, when images on commons are included in a national wikipedia, the corresponding page will copyright/credit/source/etc information is not displayed, instead a local page is searched. 99% of the times this page is of course empty. It seems that each wikipedia should copy the information in a local page, and of course it will not happen except for a small subset of the most popular images. Are there any ideas on how to solve this problem? Or is this the intended behaviour? Alfio 16:32, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

See "interwiki links" below. Quadell (talk) 23:15, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

One thing that could be done to at least improve this, is changing MediaWiki:Sharedupload on the local Wikipedias. It is the text that is shown on an image description page with no text. On the English Wikipedia it has a link to the corresponding image description page on Commons. Unfortunately, this is not the case on most other languages. I have asked to make it standard, but that was refused by development because it would be wrong when used on a non-Wikimedia Wiki. Please change this text on your local Wikipedias if it has not been done already, copying or translating the text on the English Wikipedia. - Andre Engels 10:17, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I did, thank for the suggestion. It's still not ideal, but definately better than before. Alfio 13:43, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Fatal error

When trying to create the page Szeged I get the error

Fatal error [host=<diderot.wikimedia.org>]: Call to a member function on a non-object
 in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.4/includes/Image.php on line 124

anybody know how to fix that? --Lennert B 18:14, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

figured it out. For future reference: if you use the <gallery></gallery> - tags, you can't put the link-brackets around the Image-Link. Else the above error shows up. Just in case anybody else in the future is as unable as I to rtfm ;) --Lennert B 21:23, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Also, if you accidently use a <gallery> tag to close a gallery (instead of a </gallery> tag), you get the same error. Quadell (talk) 23:15, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This feature is absolutely useful because it prevents damaged edits. But perhaps the error notice could be formulated clearer. --:Bdk: 06:10, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

THIS IS NOT A FEATURE. It is a a php error message. In other words its a lack of proper error checking and it is not impossible that it may also be a security hole. I don't have my mediazilla password with me right now but when i do then a bug report is going in Plugwash 16:05, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Inter-wiki links

As an experiment I put a picture I took for an article on Wikipedia here, to link it in there. It was easier than I expected to include the image in the article, but now that image seems to have been copied to Wikipedia, minus the description I gave it. So I readded the description (and copyright tag) there. This seems less than ideal. Now there are two places for description, with separate histories, etc. Also the commons image says that it isn't used anywhere, when in fact it is.

image:Three-pens-six-nibs.jpg used in W:dip pen

--Eli the Bearded 21:03, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• For now, that's what it looks like, yes. Hopefully there will at some point be an integrated system. I imagine something like this: No matter what wiki you're on (English Wikipedia, German Wikiquote, etc.), if you click an image, you go straight to the Commons page. That page would have to have a working and expanded "What Links Here" section to include all wikis and languages. The Wikicode would also know that since you are using English, the text for the GFDL tag would be in English. But this would all take some work, so for now it looks kinda make-shift. Quadell (talk) 23:13, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Interwiki links

I notice that w:Adam Smith works but Wikipedia:Adam Smith doesn't. Shouldn't it? Quadell (talk) 00:03, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You should not use "w" to link to the English Wikipedia. That is a legacy solution like using wikipedia.com or www.wikipedia.org for the English. Use w:en:Adam Smith w = wikipedia, en = language

I have noticed it also about [[wikipedia: ... I am told that I should use "w". I have done some tests

Wikipedia:Adam Smith points on a non-wikipedia to w:en:Adam Smith On a Wikipedia it does not work.

w:Adam Smith points to w:en:Adam Smith on all Wikipedia's. w = the Engelish wikipedia But if you use it on a non-wikipedia in a other language then English it points to the wikipedia in that language

• w:Adam Smith on the Dutch WikiQuote points to [[w:nl:Adam Smith

Bottom line; always use w:xx:name of article to point to a article in a Wikipedia. Walter 17:51, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

---

Side note; I see some users create links like [[w:wikipedia:image description page|wikipedia:image description page]]. Please do not do this. All Wiki's look the same. Use <nowki>w:en:wikipedia:image description page </nowiki> so it is clear that it is a link to the English Wikipedia and that you are leaving commons. For commons it is more important to be clear instead of making nice hyperlinks. Walter 17:51, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

SVG images

When I try to upload an SVG file, I get the error message:

".svg" is not a recommended image file format.

Shouldn't this work? Even if there's not much in the way of SVG support in the MediaWiki Software (though I've read that 1.4 supports rudimentary rasterization), it would be swell if one could at least link to SVG sources for PNG images. -- Sebastian Koppehel 03:36, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Problems with Thomas7 - general question

Alternative title: User Bdk and User paddy trying to delete a picture as soon as possible (wanted by Thomas7)

de:Benutzer:Thomas7 or here: User:Thomas7 is an user who´s involved in different conflicts in german wikipedia. In the last days he has uploaded some (already and repeatedly deleted) images that were only used to illustrate a current and dreadful discussion between different users in talk pages on de.wikipedia. The content of these screenshots (of article versions) can also and better be displayed by using the normal versions feature. Thomas7 seems to hope that such an upload will not be found and deleted on commons as fast as on de.wikipedia. IMO commons are not a place to store such personal images in principle and the user should be warned with emphasis. --:Bdk: 06:04, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Bdk is devastating articles and this picture shows a screenshot-diff of another user paddy, trying to manipulate an article about Rudolf Slansky. Please do not delete this picture until 14th Januare 2005. Thanks a lot, Thomas7 06:37, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

As I said before, such things could easily and proper be shown by using diff-links. And I´m not devastating any articles (I wonder if you could prove this statement with a link). It´s quite the contrary: I even supported Thomas7 in the named article by importing his bibliographical reference which was removed by paddy before. If we start to tolerate such special and personal images in commons, the international quality and usability of "the free repository of good media" will become doubtful IMO ... please compare Image talk:Paddy.jpg. --:Bdk: 07:11, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thomas7 removed my above statement which he apparently dislikes [1] ... --:Bdk: 07:25, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

And he also multiple reverted the title of this thread example which originally was Problems with Thomas7 - general question ... a stupid edit-war because he doesn´t like to be named as a problem.

Also he has changed the deletion-tag in the screenshot to a disspelled delite [2]. --:Bdk: 07:53, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Speedy deleted the screenshot. The contained info can be shown much easier in a "diff", and is also only of interest to the german wiki. Whatever differences there are between users on the german wiki do not need to be dragged onto the commons. -- Chris 73 08:27, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Speedy deleted the screenshot ... again. -- Chris 73 02:36, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

and now for the third time. Please stop uploading this diff screenshot, and keep the german edit war on the german wiki. -- Chris 73 00:25, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

No doubt, that's our Thomas7 with his usual behaviour ;-) -- Srbauer 11:10, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

, when thomas7 is trying to prevent and document abusing and devasting of different articles by users Bdk and Paddy. Thomas7 11:50, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

More on categories

This may be the wrong place to post this "request", but seeing as Commons has a vocation to be used by all wikipedias, and further by anyone from anywhere, has anything been thought out to "translate" categories? As a matter of fact, I find it terribly restraining to have to use English for categories. *I* can do it, since I speak English, but I see Commons as a repository not only for those of us who speak many languages but for anyone looking for a media file on a particular subject. Does it sound crazy to think that maybe the software would be developped so as to accept "interwikis" categories. I do not mind English being the "main language" (or default language) for categories, but redirects do not work for categories, and I feel it'd be grand if we could imagine something such as the interwikis in articles for categories.

ie. in the [[:Category:Animals]] page, we could add interlanguages links in every language and those would appear on the left hand side just as interwikis appear for articles. Those categories would be named [[Category_fr:Animaux]], [[Category_de:Tiere]] etc. and would appear to those having chosen a specific language for the main interface. Default language could be English if the interwiki link does not exist in one specific language.

I have no technical competences whatsoever, so I have no clue if this could be implemented, but maybe it's a thought ? notafish }<';> 11:01, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The most simple thing (from a users point of view, not necessary from a developers point of view) would be to have working article -> category redirects. We should wait for those. -- Peter_Aut 11:52, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I am not sure I get your point here. Do you mean the possibility of redirecting articles to categories? If that is so, yes, that would be great, but I believe the cohabitation (or not) of articles and categories has not been finalized yet (or has it ?), hence the problem is not addressed. The use of categories in Commons is definitely a great thing, and should be conveninent for all users. notafish }<';> 12:33, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes that is exactly what I mean. We could have Category:Felinae and articles Cats, Katzen etc redirected to this category. It already works to some extent - the category-ARTICLE is displayed after the redirect but not the categorie's content. --Peter_Aut 06:05, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I would suggest to do away with the difference between pages and categories all together. See my proposal in the discussion above: #Categories or 'normal' pages: A new proposal -- Duesentrieb 17:20, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have seen that, but I do not see how this actually helps with the multilingualism. Could you explain further ? notafish }<';> 08:30, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What I said was directed at the proposed redirect from pages to categories, etc. About this, have a look at bugzilla:710, and vote.

About multi-language categories, i would preffer a different approach: It was much discussed that it would be good to show the link-title with is placed after the "|" in the category link in the category listing/as the thumbnail label. Also, as of 1.4 people can choose their preferred interface languag. We could combine those two features with the concept of named parameters (...|foo=bar|...) as used with templates:

Allow a category-link to look like this: [[category:something|Something|de=Irgendwas|jp=....]], giving a default label and labels for specific languages. Then, when building the category listing, use the label corresponding to the users interface language, if it is given. If not, use the default label. The label should be used for sorting, and should be shown as the link text/thumbnail label respectively.

what do you think? -- Duesentrieb 20:55, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I find this an excellent compromise for the use of multilingual categories indeed ! notafish }<';> 07:55, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

How to upload existing article in HTML

I have two articles allready complete in HTML and on my web site. Can I transfer them to Wilinews and keep them updated there? No information seems to be given on how to upload existing articles. Edwardhfd@aol.com

whilst wikicode borrows hevily freom html it is not a superset of html and has its own ways of doing things.

you will have to copy the main body of your html (stuff inside the body tags only not anything from the head section) into the edit box then preview it to find out what the wiki doesn't like. Plugwash 19:14, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Normally it´s requested that you use html in articles on all wikimedia-projects as little as possible. Better use copied plain text and work it out afterwards with wiki-syntax ... and by the way the present code is xhtml ... :-) --:Bdk: 05:59, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Suggestion for Special:Upload

One thing I've noticed is that the filename the user has for an image (eg) is retained when the image is uploaded. For my own files I use descriptive names in either the file or the directory. If it is the latter, I don't want wiki to use my file name, because the interesting bit is in the directory.

If the upload page had a text box to specify a file name to save as, then I wouldn't have to rename my file before uploading it, and then rename it back (for my own archival purposes). It also might prompt some people who upload files named DSC12345.jpg to specify a better name at upload time.

--Eli the Bearded 20:07, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Great idea. Quadell (talk) 02:19, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've submitted a Bugzilla entry for this suggestion.--Eloquence 04:24, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I would say it may be better to give ALL files generic numerical names - to which you could attach an "English title", a "German title" etc. So, 00000001.png is the generic name, Dog.png is the English assigned name (during or after upload), "Hund.png" is the German name, "Canis.png" is the latin name, etc.

Wikipedia Dumps - Problems with the GFDL

I just had a lengthy discussion with some of the developers on IRC. This brought some problems to my attention, concerning the current practice of providing wikipedia-dumps for downloading. Please keep in mind that each project offers two files, a database-dump and an image-bundle, separately. So here goes:

• The image-bundles of the wikipedias do not contain images from the commons. Thus, one has to download the image-bundle from the commons too, to have all images. That would include a lot of images that are not even used by the wikipedia. So it would be good to include the commons-images used be a specific wikipedia in the image-bundle of that wikipedia.
• But: the copyright-information for the images from the commons is (usually) not in the wikipedia, but on the description page here on the commons. Thus, providing those images without the respective dump from the commons violates the GFDL.
• Also: the image-bundle is available for download as a separate file. The copyright-information for each image is not included in that file. This violates the GNU-FDL, no matter if the images are from the commons or not.

But we can argue that the same problem applies to the cur database dump as it doesn't contain the list of authors. Greatpatton 11:05, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The only workaround to this would be to put a copy of the image on every wikipedia that uses it. That ist a lot of useless work, makes it hard to delete and replace images, etc. It basically contradicts the very reason the commons have been created in the first place.

So, what do you think? What can and should be done about this? -- Duesentrieb 01:35, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I already wrote a script for extracting those Commons images used by a particular wiki; dumps are currently available for English and French, and more can be created on request. To build further on that, we could extract the associated image description pages from the commons and bundle them, too; that should be sufficient.--Eloquence 04:13, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Moin Eloquence, it would be great if you could create such a dump for de soon (unhasty) :-) We already wondered how to resolve the problem of still missing possibility to compare the stored images on de and commons (to get a number and a list of used commons-images on de) ... Thanx a lot for your work --:Bdk: 05:30, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This sounds excelent already! It would be perfect if you could extend the script some more and advertise its use on the different projects - maybe post to the wikitech mailing list? Please forgive me when i shamelessly list a few features i'd like to have in that script:

• allow to just create a list of commons-images used by a specific wiki. Even more importantly, allow it to create a list of images present on a specific wiki and the commons, so redundant images can be found and, in time, removed.
• extract the image description pages for all images, local and from commons, to be included in the image-bundle. To offer the image-bundles without the description pages is IMHO a violation of the GFDL, and always has been. If you script could fix that, that would be excelent.
• Please publish your script prominently and advertise its use. Please talk to the folks that create the dumps of the individual projects (i have no idea who does this). It would IMHO be a good idea to make this the standard way to create dumps. A good place to start would be wikitech-l, as i said; also, writing something about this on meta: would probably be a good idea.

many thanks, no matter if you implement the stuff i want or not. You did a great job already;) -- Duesentrieb 21:13, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Everything you're saying makes sense, it's just a matter of time at the moment. The script is currently at /home/erik/extractdb.pl, perhaps you can find another developer who can work with it right away. Otherwise I'll be hacking on it a bit more after Christmas to at least get the image pages included and make the process of generating these dumps somewhat automated.--Eloquence

Moving images to the commons under a different name - description page redirects?

It was just pointed out to me that when moving images to the commons under a different name, and subsequently deleting the image from the local wiki, this breaks all external and interwiki-links that may point to that page. It also causes the image to not be accessible via google, until the index is updated.

As a solution it was suggested to create a redirect from the old description page (no containing no image) to the new description page (now showing the image from the commons). But there are some issues with this:

• redirectes to images-pages are broken at the moment, see bugzilla:1103. The redirect works, but no image is shown on the resulting page.
• most of those redirects are bound to be useless, as there are not many interwiki-links to images, or external link to image description pages (I think)
• image description pages that have no image associated are generally considered a bad thing (or so I belived until today)

So waht do you think? Should we encourage the different projects to keep redirects from the old description pages when "renaming" an image by uploading it under a different name, to the commons or otherwise? -- Duesentrieb 01:47, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

IMHO it is not necessary for those redirects. We should change the imagename at every page the image is used. Normally a few pages only. --Raymond de 07:26, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I, too, do not think that this is a major problem, but some people seem to think otherwise. Also, it's not as simple as you say, because we can only correct internal links imidiately. But other wikis may link to the description page by an interwiki link - which is broken when the image is deleted. Worse, other wikis may even use the deleted page as a source link. So, for heavily used images, it may make sense to keep a redirect (I did that fpr the GNU-Head in the german WP, which was moved to the commons under a different name). -- Duesentrieb 20:41, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Proposed city naming standards

I'd like to propose the following standards:

• Articles and categories of cities should be in the form of "city, country", except in countries (like the US and Canada) where "city, state" or "city, province" is more customary. But the city alone should not be the name of the article or category. This avoids ambiguities (Paris, Kentucky or Paris, France?) and improves consistency.
• Category names should refer to cities, towns, villages, etc. as simply "cities". This is just a lot simpler that categories like "cities and villages in Germany" or "Cities and towns by continent".

Comments? Quadell (talk) 02:14, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I am and I remain opposed to preemptive disambiguation. This was voted down on Wikipedia, and I'll oppose it here as well. - Andre Engels 13:29, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Okay, but people will search for "Paris" by entering "Paris, France" as well as "Paris". One will have to direct to the other. And there will frequently be duplicate categories of this sort, that will have to be merged to one name or the other. I'm just trying to create a standard, so we'll all know what to name new categories. Quadell (talk) 16:27, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Maybe Americans will do that as they are used to have the "city, state" construction. But in Europe that style isn't popular, so Europeans will simply search for "Paris". Thus we should do it same as in the english wikipedia - have the "city, state" for US/Canada, simply city name elsewhere, and only if necessary disambiguation. Maybe we need something like redirects and disambiguations for categories as well? andy 18:53, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

While we're at it, I'd like to say I've seen a lot of inconsistency for naming of neighborhoods in New York City in Wikipedia. Some are Area, New York (where New York could mean the state or city) and some are Area, Borough, and I think a couple are Area, Borough, State. I'm a believer in Borough, State and Area, Borough, but is the a general enough problem to need a universal policy? I know other places have boroughs, but do they then get subdivided? --Eli the Bearded 22:34, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

A policy on that point might be useful on the English Wikipedia, I don't think it is on Commons. I think it will be extremely rare to have a subdivision of a city get its own article - most cities will remain on the city level, and where this is not the case, it is usual to immediately go to the individual building level. - Andre Engels 23:16, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Henri Matisse

All of the Henri Matisse collection is not in the public domain in France, and probably a great number of countries (some of it may be public domain in the United States). The images were incorrectly tagged, and we inadvertently used a copyrighted image as the image of the day! David.Monniaux 18:37, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hello, I would stress your attention on taking care when tagging image as Public Domain world wide : the picture of the day ( Image:Henri Matisse (1869-1954) - Woman with the Hat (1905).jpg ) as other Matisse pictures reproductions are not in Public Domain in France until at least 2024 (1954 +70 years after death of Matisse) (maybe longer as French law grant some rights on snapshots too). I will remove the {{PD}} and only the {{PD-US}} will remain on this images. FoeNyx 18:46, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC) (PS: I posted in same time as David sorry)

We still have to discuss policy on this, however, as I have stated above (see #paintings), my own opinion is that works by Matisse simply should not be at Commons. - Andre Engels 23:18, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I very much agree with you Andre, works by any painters of the XXth century should definitely be handled with extreme care. Picasso's work falls under the same restrictions, and tell you what... Picasso's heirs are not funny to deal with ;-) notafish }<';> 18:40, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wiki-Syntax in Galleries

Hi, I was just wondering if it was possible to make the wiki-syntax working in Galleries, like it already does in thumbnails, that would be useful for description of images --Lennert B 00:17, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This is one of the most-wanted features i guess, but i have no idea if anyone is working on it. Ther's a feature request for this on Bugzilla: have a look at bugzilla:1015 and vote! -- Duesentrieb 16:49, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Image:CardinalMarks.png

With my image description page Image:CardinalMarks.png I get the following PHP errors (and you will get probably get the same):

Warning: stat(): Stat failed for /usr/local/apache/common/docroot/commons/upload/thumb/e/e2/597px-CardinalMarks.png 
(errno=2 - No such file or directory) in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.4/includes/Image.php on line 530

Warning: unlink(/usr/local/apache/common/docroot/commons/upload/thumb/e/e2/597px-CardinalMarks.png):
No such file or directory in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.4/includes/Image.php on line 533

It seems to me as if PNG files have a problem with the on-the-fly generation of images in different resolution. However, PNG is the recommended format for drawings, isn't it? Or should I rather upload the drawing as JPG file!? --Reinhard 20:53, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Should work now. The File was corrupt. -guety 21:08, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks/Danke --Reinhard 00:32, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

How many categories should an article/image have?

I just noticed in Andy Garcia (and several other "articles") that there are the following cats added:

• Category:Actors
• Category:People from the United States of America
• Category:US people
• Category:People

Why do we need hierarchies, when every article/image would be added in every possible category - and if I don't see one I want, I create a duplicate one? -- Srbauer 04:11, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

My opinion is that an article/image can be in more than one category, if the categories are not on the same branch of the category tree. Parent categories should never be added, if the item is already in a subcategory. It makes navigating the ctegories awkward. In your example Category:People from the United States of America and Category:US people are clearly duplicates (there is no question that this is not sensible) furthermore those are subcategories of Category:People (so this parent directory should be deleted from the article, Category:Actors is a subcategory of Category:People as are Category:US people, but it is on another branch (local categorization and profession categories) - so it can be used together with Category:US people. To answer your two other questions: We would not need hierarchies, if every article is added to every possible category and no, you should not create new categories if there is already another one that fits. -- Peter_Aut 07:50, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There are also very strange categories. I noticed Category:Camera type This category shall only contain sub-categories for classifying the type of camera on which a photograph was taken.. I do not see the point of this --Walter 19:05, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Upper limit of 100

I do not know, if this is a side-effect of the implementation of MediaWiki 1.4: Now there seems to be an upper limit of 100 articles or 100 subcategories in a category - see Category:Asteraceae (e.g. Tanacetum parthenium is not shown) or Category:Plantae by family (e.g. Category:Lamiaceae is not shown). Who is able to fix this? --Franz Xaver 16:22, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Please compare Commons talk:MediaWiki 1.4 upgrade#Number of Images in Category limited? --:Bdk: 19:05, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)</nowiki>

Vote on the place to put images

I have started up a vote on whether to put images on category pages or normal page on Commons:Images on normal pages or categories:Vote. If you would like to change the voting options or make other changes to the voting procedure, please do so within the next few days.

The vote runs until the 31st, but I will take the liberty to declare an outcome policy pending discussion if it is clearly ahead before that date. - Andre Engels 10:14, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

We still don't know how on earth a non english speaker chinese wikipedian/commoner has a chance to: 1° find the picture he needs 2°name the picture he uploads 3° categorize this very picture. I think we have to find something very soon, before the whole thing becomes completely useless for non english speakers and get to the status of a huge unsearchable mess. Not that your poll is not appropriate, but speaking of priority I'd say : something has to be done to comply multilinguism or let's just say Commons is only for one language. The basic minimum : ask developers for category redirects. The ideal : have commons show categories depending on the browser language. What do you think ? villy 23:32, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I very much agree with villy here. There are many unanswered questions that need to be answered to ground such a vote. None of the propositions you list address specifically the question of languages. Is that to say that articles/contributions such as 唐朝 for example, are not welcome on Commons because *I* can't understand them? I say let us have a (desperately needed) discussion and vote on Commons:Language policy and agree on something suitable for everyone first, ask for redirects for categories to be able to do with categories as we do for articles (ie. redirect from one language to the other) in the meantime and then try and make a constructed proposal as to what we need for developments (with, for example, the possibility of "tagging" categories in as many languages as we see fit -- as proposed above by Duesentrieb). notafish }<';> 23:45, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What are category redirects? What would they do? How would they work? What problem do they solve? How would they be implemented? --Brion VIBBER 03:41, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

A article to category redirect does not work properly. For example Category Redirect Test states #REDIRECT [[Category:Magdeburg, Germany]], and redirects to Category:Magdeburg, Germany. The category, however, is treated as a normal page, and does not show the categorized articles, images, and categories. (Compare Category Redirect Test with Category:Magdeburg, Germany). A category to category redirect works (see Category:Redirect Test redirecting to Category:Magdeburg, Germany). However, while images in the category redirect (Image:Grave of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor.jpg) show up on the non-redirected Category:Redirect Test, they do not show on Category:Magdeburg, Germany. (The last point may not necessarily be a desired feature) -- Chris 73 05:11, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

See bugzilla:710 - but i don't think that category-redirects are a good option, aliases would be much better as i suggested in some comment above and on the mailing list. -- Duesentrieb 11:31, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree that category aliases would be ideal. Quadell (talk) 15:23, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I too agree that [[category:something|Something|de=Irgendwas|jp=....]] suggested by Duesentrieb would be perfect. Is really bugzilla:710 asking for that ? I'm not familiar with the bugzilla system but I have the feeling that bugzilla:710 is about redirection. Would it be necessary to open a new bug case to get category aliases ? villy 16:18, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

but 710 is about redirection, it was a response to the post above mine and is unrelated to the labels-in-categories issue. There is not yet a bugzilla-entry for that, but a post on the mailing list. -- Duesentrieb 01:41, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I am of the opinion that a fully working redirection would be much better than category aliasing as shown here. With a redirect, a German can use [[Category:Schiff]] and a French speaker [[Category:Bateau]], and they would both end up in [[Category:Ship]]. With aliases, if the German would not know the French word, or not be bothered to add it, the Frenchman looking for 'Bateau' will never find it. - Andre Engels 09:33, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

With redirects, you must use the one real name of the category in articles in order to show up in the category - if the french version is the redirect, and you use the french link in an article, the article will not end up in the readl category - it would end up in the cat that redirects, and would thus be hidden. Oh, you mean the redirect should also collect all articles in one category, no matter what language was used to add them to the category? But that is exactly what is meant be the ALIAS proposal.

Also, with redirects the explanatory text at top of the category, and its title, are going to be in one language only. Furthermore, to create category redirects, you have to know the words in both languages, too, just as you would with alises. I can not see any advantage to redirects. -- Duesentrieb 17:14, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, what I meant was that I would like that if Category:A redirects to Category:B, pages with [[Category:A]] on them will be shown on [[Category:B]]. If that is what is meant by the proposal, then what does [[category:something|Something|de=Irgendwas|jp=....]] mean?

The explanatory text can be translated if so wanted, leaving only the title to be single-language. And if you use category redirects one person needs to know both languages. If you use aliases, every person who puts an image in the category has to do so. - Andre Engels 08:30, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

We have two separate problems here, and have two seperate proposals to solve them:

a) translating the name of a category. The solution is to uses aliases (elaborate redirects), as I described above. Only the person that creates the alias needs to know the translation for the category name. So, placing Category:Schiff and Category:Bateau in a category would have the smae effect. Looking at the Category:Schiff and Category:Bateau would show the same entries, but the category would have a different title and different herader-text.

b) translate the labels for the individual items that show in the category. The solution is to allow localized labels in the links that place an item in a category. As by suggestion a), the person placing the link need to know only one of the aliases of the category, but can optionally give multiple translations for the name of the page that it places in the category. So, the make a page show under a localized name in categories, translations would have to be added to the category-links on that page. This is similar to the ability to place redirects in (not to) a category, as is sometimes used to get a similar effect, but this does not work very well.

I hope this makes it a little clearer. -- Duesentrieb 09:54, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Language policy

And, to start a discussion, I have tried to summarize and organize the page Commons:Language policy with what has been proposed/done until now. Please, do voice your opinion on the talk page on these issues, so as to reach a clear policy that can be used by all Commons contributors. notafish }<';> 01:05, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

General disclaimer & Commons:About

Hi, today I just put the slightly adapted text from en:Wikipedia:General disclaimer to Commons:General disclaimer, this page was fairly empty before [3]. The disclaimer is linked at the bottom of each page in the main namespace. Could someone please be so kind to read and correct it if nessecary? And I linked Commons:About which is also included in the mediawiki bottom line to Commons:Project plan, but there should be an own text soon imho. Who can write an appropriate text? Thanx a lot --:Bdk: 06:01, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the disclaimer. That was needed -- Chris 73 00:07, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Commons:Translation coordination core

I have created Commons:Translation coordination core in order to improve the multilingual side of Commons. Please contribute and start or go on translating what is needed! Thanks :) villy 13:29, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Special:Uncategorizedpages

What happened to this feature. Although there still are many uncategorized pages, these are not shown any more since today. I started to categorize such pages on Sunday and there still is a lot of work to do. --Franz Xaver 21:57, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Images from National Marine Sanctuary's Photo Gallery

User:Lucero_del_Alba has uploaded lots of images, which he tags as {{PD-USGov-NOAA}}. Unfortunatly the site states something different: http://www.sanctuaries.nos.noaa.gov/pgallery/pgallery.html#hints . I do not think that this tag is appropriate, furthermore that those images are not suited for inclusion in commons. Peter_Aut 10:38, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If that's the page, then I agree. Apparently those are images that belong to the photographer rather than NOAA. You can put the whole list on deletion request and give Lucero del Alba a notification on their user discussion page. - Andre Engels 23:48, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have contacted Lucero del Alba through his discussion page. He was not aware of the problem but pointed out that some of the images are labeled NOAA (without stating an author); in my opinion at least these can stay. Concerning the others he will try to contact the sites spokesperson and find out, if we can keep those photographs. He asks not to take any further action for a few days till he gets an answer. Peter_Aut 11:56, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

update

Hello everyone, I have a little update about the National Marine Sanctuary (NMS) images. As Peter said, I tried to contact Mr. Michael Murphy -the NMS spokesperson- and according to his voice mail he's currently on vacation until the 1st ~ 2nd week of January (you can check this by giving him a call, see his contact page for more details).

I am willing of trying to contact him once again shortly, when he's back. Since I've uploaded many hi-res images and it would be a lot of work to re-upload them and tag them once again in case the NMS administration allows us to use these images under a Commons-compatible license... would it be possible to re-mark the images that are stating an author with the Template:Unknown to prevent someone else of using them and at the same time keeping those images on the Commons server for a short and reasonable time (about 2 more weeks), until I get an answer from Mr. Murphy? --Lucero del Alba 00:50, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Proposal to organize Commons images for different languages

Why not organize images in the wikipedias instead organize in Commons. Could be created a new namespace in wikipedia like Gallery or Album to organize images in categories or articles. Each wikipedia could choice the way that the images will be organized. Well, if my suggestion is a big mistake, please forgive me, I'm "half-newbie" in wikimedia. Gbiten 12:09, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This is actually a good idea...to the extent that Commons is not *only* a source for the Wikipedias, but also a source for anyone who needs free media files for any purpose. Organizing images in a language Wikipedia is a good thing, but it cannot replace organization here. notafish }<';> 17:21, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hello and look at what I have suggested here.Jared 10:59, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Proposal for a new structure main page/portal

Hello all, in the last days I worked out a new structure for the german interface. Please compare Hauptseite (main page) and Commons:Gemeinschaftsportal (portal). Its aim is to divert the basic contents into welcome text and navigation (main page) and user help (portal) as it is common in most wikipedias. If you like it, you can c&p it to your language. Comments are welcome on Commons talk:Gemeinschaftsportal. Thanx --:Bdk: 22:00, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It's great. I adapted it in en: and fr: Thanx ! notafish }<';> 17:14, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Copyright in a Russian site

Hello, I'm Dav 59, I don't speak russian but I would know the license of the photos in this site http://www.knights.ru/history.shtml. To me, it's the acrobats of the russian army and the photo are in the Public Domain but I'm not sure, help me, thanks.--Dav 59 11:48, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Dear Dav 59, i do not think that the photos are in the public domain. You may switch to the englisch version of the site and send the acrobats a e-mail requesting permission for using the fotos under GFDL. -- Stahlkocher 12:14, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ok, I attempt by e-mail.--Dav 59 13:05, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Do we want inclusion of external images here?

Hello, today I found just by chance the page Image:Earthquake_20041226_96_3_globe.jpg - please look at the second picture there. It´s simply included just by putting its URL in the page! Normally this function is disabled by default for all wikipedias (but not for the Commons). So do we really want this to be enabled? If nobody disagrees, I will request the deactivation in about a week, because the possibility of misuse is definitely given and I see no reasonable need for that. --:Bdk: 17:17, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm against external pictures. The URV-Problem is toohigh and the pictures can move on it's sourcepages, so that one day, the picture is away and nobody noticed it. --DaB. 18:09, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Concur. Can't see what we could use that for. villy 18:52, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The external image was only the link to the source image, which was displayed as image automatically. I changed the link slightly, so it is now shown as a text link. In this form, I don't see any problems -- Chris 73 01:18, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It is disabled now. Thanx to brion :-) --:Bdk: 01:44, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Commons exploit

So, I added some images I was editing for w:Clitoris and I thought of a simple exploit in the new commons system that I'm sure some vandal will think of eventually. So, when you add an image to an article that you have uploaded to the commons, it first looks locally before checking the commons. SO, if a vandal wanted to piss a lot of people off, all they'd have to do is go through articles at random adding images local that are being pulled from them commons. I think this is a pretty huge whole. Are there any solutions to this problem? maybe protecting the local empty page before someone can change it? Mbecker 04:47, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the problem is. If the image is local, they could also upload another image on top of it. Also, protecting the page will not stop them from uploading another image, it will only stop them from changing the image description. Finally, there is no 'empty page' to protect, since there is _no page_ rather than an empty one. Thus, one would have to create the page first, add the information by hand that is now added automatically, before one could protect. In other words:

• The exploit has existed ever since we had images
• Your proposal does not stop it
• Your proposal is more work than you think it is.

- Andre Engels 08:13, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Alright, maybe I was unclear or two general. The way the commons mechanism for adding media to a wikipedia works is as follows:

1. You upload the media here.
2. You link to the media on your wikipedia like it existed locally.
3. The local wikipedia first looks for an image locally, then if it doesn't exist it looks on the commons.

It is the third part here that worries me. For instance. I uploaded some images that I want to be used on w:Clitoris. If someone wanted to be nasty, they could simply upload a file locally, which would bypass the commons image. I guess you are right, someone could have uploaded OVER a local image even before, so this is not a new security hole. Mbecker 16:25, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

read meatball:SoftSecurity. The way a wiki works is that we fight issues of vandalism etc AS THEY BECOME A PROBLEM and we keep history for easy reversion. IIRC if a page in the image namespace is protected you can't upload a new image with that name (i may be wrong though). For normal images this sort of thing is no more of a problem than article vandalism and isn't really anything new.

If someone does use the techinque of local uploading to vandalise an image i would reccomend doing a local upload on the wiki in question as a temporary fix and then listing it on that wikis images for deletion page with a message like "copy from commons uploaded over vandalism image please delete". Plugwash 00:28, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Really unused

On Commons:Really unused, I have made a list of files that are on Special:Unusedimages and have do not have a category other than the licensing ones. The list has been made using the bot, which checks only the page source of the image, so there can be some errors - files which have other categories through templates are included, files which have licensing categories or such by hand, are not. Still, I think the list will be useful in helping us to get all our images 'used' somewhere. - Andre Engels 08:13, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yay! Thank you very much! -- Duesentrieb 14:10, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

stock.xchng?

moved to Commons talk:Stock.xchng images

What is the expected life of an image in the commons?

So far I have not seen any clear statements about how long images might be available in the commons after being uploaded. Should there be two options offered?

Namely, (1) uploading without any request for archival status, thus allowing anyone to remove the image for any reason, no questions asked, and (2) uploading with a request for archival status (i.e. permanence as long as wiki exists), but with the understanding that the Wiki Foundation can accept or refuse according to its perceived moral or legal responsibilities.

This might also offer a way to deal with the censorship issue.

(Query from the Research Cooperative)

The commons aims to be a repositry of free images primerally for wikimedia projects but to a lesser extent for everyone. There wouldn't be much point in a repositry if it wasn't permanent. Images can be replaced by anyone but the old versions remain availible unless specifically removed by an admin. Images which don't follow the rules (which of course may be subject to change) will almost certianly be deleted sooner or later. The commons is NOT a free image host service for your website. If direct inclusion of files becomes a bandwidth problem it may be nessacery to start applying refferer restrictions. The commons is also NOT safe storage for your files if you wan't that then you should use an appropriate service. Plugwash 14:27, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)